August 11th, 2009
These are the days I know will fly by like the landscape passing by a speeding minivan. I am making many mistakes. I raise my voice too often, I am too quick to get irritated, I say no more than yes and I am often filled with mommy guilt at the end of the day.
But then we have moments when it all feels right.
Moments when my heart feels so full it might burst out of my chest.
Moments when no one is snatching a toy out of someone’s hands and no one is screaming because their world is coming to an end.
Well maybe the no screaming thing was taking it a little far. Let’s be real. Someone.is.always. screaming.
I guess that just comes with the territory.
And we do have peaceful moments occasionally.
A very special thank you to Elmo, Barney, Nemo and naptime for all the quiet moments.
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August 10th, 2009
We married young. And we did things a little backwards.
Our history is a very complicated story. A story that is no where NEAR finished. I know I need to continue to write the “The Truth Is” series. I left off on Part 5 and there is much more to write. But our story is an ongoing saga and it continues to be written every day.
We were married 7 years ago today. It was STEAMY outside. August in Tennessee is rarely anything but hot and humid. And I remember that day being happy. Surreal and anxious and HOT but happy.
I am married to my best friend. We haven’t made it easy on ourselves and we have certainly had many obstacles.
We have hurt each other and neither one of us have been perfect spouses. But we always know that we love each other. We always know that we love each other. I meant to repeat that.
Things I love about Mr.007:
When I hear him refer to me as “my wife” it makes my stomach flutter.
I love how passionate he is about music. It is a part of his soul and it makes him who he is.
His hair is turning gray. To me he gets more handsome every year.
He wants to be our daughters’ hero. His love for those girls makes my love for him run even deeper.
He is the grill MASTER. I have acquired an appreciation for good BBQ and all sorts of “man food” since he has come into my life. I now understand why he ordered ribs on our first date.
He keeps ALL cards and letters. He has cards from his mom from before I even met him stashed in a box in the closet.
He sees his family as my family and vice versa.
He doesn’t mind driving the minivan. He has never said a negative thing about our van “Magic”.
He never makes fun of me for naming our van “Magic”
He unloads the dishwasher. Enough said.
He has excellent taste in beer.
Over the years he has endured countless hours of House Hunters with very few complaints.
He knows how much I love being pregnant and nursing babies and he hasn’t cut me off…yet. I think he needs a son!
He is an awesome provider and an extremely hard worker.
And it might be cliche but I love him because he makes me laugh.
Dear Mr.007 ,
I love you “very much a lot” and I feel blessed to share my life with you. Our family is enriched because of you.
Love,
Mrs.007
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July 23rd, 2009
When someone is gone forever it is a shock to the system. Reality is warped. Surrealism sets in almost immediately. Then it starts to become normal. But you feel guilty about that. At least I do.
I want something tangible to remember. Something I can see everyday. A subtle reminder. Not something that will send me to the floor sobbing. Just something I can touch with my fingertips and admire. And it should make me smile….not cry. Well maybe it should make me cry sometimes. Because once in a while I want to cry. It makes me feel alive. But mostly I just want it to help me remember the good things. The beautiful things.
Butterflies make me think of freedom. Freedom from fear and anguish. Freedom from pain and from the unknown. Freedom to be carefree and happy. Blissful even.
And Dogwood trees. My Aunt Missy loved them.
**”There is a Christian legend of unknown origin that proclaims that the cross used to crucify Jesus was constructed of dogwood. As the story goes, during the time of Jesus, the dogwood was larger and stronger than it is today and was the largest tree in the area of Jerusalem. After his crucifixion, Jesus changed the plant to its current form: he shortened it and twisted its branches to assure an end to its use for the construction of crosses. He also transformed its inflorescence into a representation of the crucifixion itself, with the four white bracts cross-shaped, which represent the four corners of the cross, each bearing a rusty indentation as of a nail and the red stamens of the flower, represents Jesus’ crown of thorns, and the clustered red fruit represent his blood.
Even though His body was taken from this earth, His spirit remains and every spring we are blessed with a reminder of the events that occurred on that fateful weekend.
I still want to get a tattoo of a dogwood branch and a butterfly in honor and memory of my beautiful Aunt Missy. But in the meantime the painting above that a very close family friend painted for me will always bring me joy as well. I feel so blessed to have it hanging in my home.
It makes me happy…joyful…sad…hopeful…wonderful…and most of all it helps to remember her.
Thank you Delores. Thank you Grandma.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogwood
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July 8th, 2009
Trying to keep the house showroom ready is a task. When I wake up in the morning I immediately make up the beds. I walk around the house and make sure every toy is in it’s basket, that there are no stray crumbs on the counter or floor and I dry all the water droplets out of the sinks. When the phone rings my heart speeds up a little. If the voice on the other line wants to schedule a showing I immediately go into a state of hurried frenzy.
I vacuum the floors, make sure everything is perfect and pack up the kids and the dog. When we’ve been gone long enough I breath a sigh of relief and I am so happy to come home.
It’s very satisfying that the house is clean. Everything is in it’s place and everything is done. At that point I am actually kind of bored. That is the one nice thing about all of this. Until the next phone call.
When we go to bed at night I lie there awake. I try and think about other things but my mind is anxious. I think about the houses we have looked at, I wonder how long ours will be on the market. I wonder what school Addie will start 3rd grade. Chances are she will start one place and have to change schools after we move.
I know people do this all the time but it’s our first experience with selling and buying at the same time. The timing has to be perfect. I don’t want to get too excited about any particular house until someone makes an offer on ours. So we will have to be patient and wait.
Oh and have I mentioned I am not very good at being patient and waiting?
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July 1st, 2009
Hey there stranger!… Looking GOOD!
Yeah Hi remember me? I am Ashley and I used to post here once in a while…ya’ll remember that right? I used to write here ALL the time.
Then the 007’s got this great idea…we’ll call it let’s do a thousand home improvement projects and put our house on the market. So I haven’t had much time for the internet OR my Tivo. Which means I have a bunch of episodes of Kathy Griffin to watch, I haven’t written in forever, my inbox is overwhelming, and my Google reader is FULL of blogs to read. Blogs by actual bloggers who actually post content on their actual blog.
Wow what a concept.
It makes me feel a little out of sorts when I don’t write often. But with all of our projects and cleaning and packing it’s been hard to find the time.
Soon I hope to be able to write more often. Our house has a for sale sign in the front yard and tomorrow we will be officially on the market.
Now all I have to do is try to keep everything clean with an 8 yr old, a 21 month old, a 95 lb dog and 2 indoor/outdoor cats (one of which has kitty dreadlocks and likes to pull them out all over the house).
Ya’ll wish me luck on that.
We did pack up a TON of stuff and we rented a storage unit. Everything looks so nice and feels like everything has a place.
Why in the SAM HILL WORLD do I need all of that stuff? If I can pack it up and live without it for 6 months or so then why do we keep it around?
It’s made me realize that during this move I want to simplify. I have always been pretty good about cleaning out and getting rid of stuff but I still have needless crap in storage. So when we move I am going to be really careful about getting rid of things we are holding onto for no good reason.
So that’s what’s going on here…and I am doing a pretty good job of staying sane. Staying up too late and drinking a quart of coffee every morning. It’s all worth it.
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June 16th, 2009
This July it will be 4 years since we bought our house. We moved in as a family of 3 and now we are a foursome. Although I will always feel attached to this house because of the history I have here and the memories we have created here we are ready to move on.
Mainly because we want more than one bathroom and we would LURVE to have a garage. Usually we aren’t fighting for the bathroom but there are times when one of us is taking a shower and somebody needs to go poo. And no matter how much we love each other here in the 007 house we just don’t poo in front of each other. No offense to the open door poo-ers out there.
It’s just too personal. Plus we don’t have a fart fan. See now there is another reason to move. No fart fan to suck the unpleasant odors out.
Was that too much? Sorry if that was too much.
Anyway we are getting ready to put the crooked blue house up for sale. I will miss a lot of things about it. It has a great amount of charm and warmth and I feel very cozy living here. It has good light and it has all of these little built-in shelves and cabinets that I will miss. But 2 1/2 bathrooms are calling my name!!
My dad (a fabulous real estate agent if you live in Middle TN) came over and gave us a list of things we might want to do before we list the house. We have pressure washed and stained the deck, washed the windows inside and out, painted the front porch, planted landscaping in several different areas, pressure washed a bunch of other stuff and touched up some paint inside the house. The deck looks so nice without our patio furniture that I don’t want to put it back up there!
And we still have A LOT to do. There will be lots more painting and a few more things to do outside. We are also thinking about renting a storage unit to make the house look less like a toy store threw up in here. I was thinking about storing the treadmill and packing up various odds and ends to declutter and simplify moving. Plus I was thinking that it will make it easier to keep the house clean for showings. There are these two small people I live with who like to take out every toy they own at the same time.
Does anyone have any tips for selling your house with small children? Because I am pretty sure potential home buyers won’t find our Fisher Price toy selection a selling point.
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June 12th, 2009
So apparently it has been 2 weeks since I have posted anything. I got an email from BlogHer (my ad company) that it had been a while since I posted. OOPS! I have never gone that long without writing and actually not writing came a little too easy for me.
What’s up with that?
Well for one of those weeks the Double Oh Seven family went on vacation. We traveled down in our trusty Odyssey “Magic” to THE Redneck Riviera. Yes we vacationed in trusty ol’ Panama City, FL. We somehow managed to NOT get a picture of the 4 of us together.
Mr.007’s parents and sister met us down there and his parents generously paid for the condo we all stayed in.
In all fairness it is not as redneck as people make it out to be. I mean there ARE rednecks everywhere but there are also just regular people spending some quality time with each other at the beach. And plus I live in TN so frankly I am used to rednecks and I have become slightly desensitized.
And speaking of the beaches they are really beautiful and the water was absolutely crystal clear blueish green while we were there. We had GREAT weather and where we stayed we were pretty separated from the Senior tripping, booby flashing, girls gone wild, beer funneling Whoooers.
What is a Whoooer you might ask?
People who are riding around just for the heck of it yelling as loud as they can out of their car or truck window. They tend to make a WHOOOO! sound and this prompts other people from other cars and trucks to WHOOO! back at them in response to the aforementioned WHOOOING sound. I even saw a minvan FULL of teenage girls driving down the road with both sliding doors open. Of course someone honked loudly at the girls in the van and the only response to honking in Panama City is to WHOOOOO! as loud as you can.
If you hear a honking sound you don’t even look to see where it’s coming from. You just immediately WHOOOO! and move on to the next shot of Jose’ Quervo.
In fact once upon a time I may or may not have been a Senior tripping Whoooer. I may or may not have peirced my bellybutton in a store that sold airbrushed t-shirts and pool noodles. I have always maintained a high level of class and decorum. Yeah right.
I can freely admit that at one time I might have been somewhat of a hoodlum. I drank Zima and smoked Marlboro Lights and gasp! WHOOOED out of car windows. But now here I am at the old age of 28 and I have two small children and hoodlum’s get on my nerves. They cuss too much, they are loud and they can lay on the beach without worrying that their 8 yr old and 19 month old daughters need more sunscreen.
Oh to be 18 again…I wouldn’t go back if you paid me. Nope. I like being 28 and I like that I don’t WHOO on a regular basis. But I do smile and laugh because life is pretty darn good right now. Crazy and messy and loud and inconvenient but still really good.
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May 27th, 2009
I want to enter Alivia in our local newspaper’s baby photo contest. I happen to think she is the cutest baby EVER. I know, I know I am biased but whatever…so the only problem is that I can’t choose a picture. I have narrowed it down to a few and I need your help!
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I have a few favorites in this bunch but I would love to hear what you guys think. I am not indecisive at all…nope. I just value your opinions that much.
In other news we are leaving for the beach tomorrow and I have about eleventy hundred things to accomplish before tonight. I maybe probably should be productive today instead of playing on the computer.
In other other news our fabulous real estate agent (also known as my dad) is coming over tonight to discuss putting our house on the market. Last night he sent us some listings to look at online and although the idea of moving into a new house is exciting I am getting really anxious for many reasons. I am just a fretter and I fret about things and make 35 lists and call my mom and consult her about every little detail.
I am however really looking forward to going to look at bunches of houses. I mean HELLO it will be like House Hunters in my own real life! Now how fun is THAT?
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May 12th, 2009
OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME! I am crazy. I must be.
I have taken on a task that is absolutely crazy. I would much rather be in front of my Tivo watching last night’s Medium episodes. But no…I am in the process of cleaning out our attic. I started at the top ya’ll. And I knew it was going to get much much worse before it could get better.
I am way too far in to turn back now.
I am sweating, swearing and wondering why the crap I kept some of this junk. I always brag about how I like to get rid of things. How I don’t like to keep things around for ever and ever.
Yeah I guess I just forgot about some of the stuff I stashed in the attic. When I was pregnant with Alivia I went through everything in the attic and I converted it all into plastic bins. Now I ask you….WHY DID I NOT BUY CLEAR BINS!?
I labeled the bins with masking tape and a Sharpie. Well since my last nesting urge I have randomly switched things out and changed bins around and the labels are just about as INACCURATE as they can get.
Let’s just say that I am currently in attic/bin/stuffed animal/VHS hell.
Ok I have been sitting down for long enough.
Please pray for me….and my sanity during this time of intense upheaval.
Thank you in advance for your help with this.
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May 4th, 2009
Man is like a breath ; his days are like a fleeting shadow.
Psalm 144:4
That sort of puts things in perspective for me. It’s sort of like how fast 10:00 comes on Sunday night. Wasn’t it just Friday?
Wasn’t I just 17 years old checking my pager while I shifted the gears of my little gray Accord?
Didn’t I just meet Adam?
Nope…it wasn’t yesterday. It was 9 years ago this month that we started dating. By August we were pregnant with Addison. How did get she so grown up?
We got married 2 years later, pushed through life, changing jobs and houses. Addie wasn’t a baby anymore and then we added Alivia. A family of four!
Now I look around and I know we are young but I feel so old sometimes. Tired and impatient. Happiness and restlessness dance around each other. Time keeps racing by while we talk and plan and dream.
It’s all been done before but to us it’s just life.
Saturday mornings are loud. The kids are in our bed and everyone wants pancakes, the cats want to go outside and the dog is annoying. Sleep is a luxury.
I love the chaos…I hate the chaos. We are blessed and we are happy and we are irritated.
The seasons change like days and I don’t want to waste a minute. But I wish it away. Daydreaming about our next house…always wanting more. Something newer with an uncomfortable mortgage.
Then I stop. I like it here…it’s nice here…I am happy here. In this season, in this house, with this family.
And what’s not to love?
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