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.
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.
Today is our beautiful Addison’s birthday. We have an 8 year old!
It just seems like 5 minutes ago that she looked like this
And then she looked like this…
she keeps growing…
growing…
and growing…
I know it’s a cliche but I honestly can’t believe how fast the years have passed. Adam and I started out as parents at such a young age. We have practically become grown ups while trying to learn how to be parents. I think we are doing a pretty good job. We are raising an amazing and dynamic girl.
She doesn’t like us to call her a little girl anymore. She wants to be older than she is but she doesn’t realize how short her childhood will be. I want her to stay as young and innocent as possible.
She surprises me all the time. She knows more than I think she knows. She is beginning to understand things better when I explain them to her.
Adam and I read Bible stories to her at bedtime. One particular night Adam was out of town so she wanted to read to me. She blew me away. She read smoothly and added dramatic inflection at all the right parts.
She is goofy and silly and she loves to sing.
Addison is a genuinely caring person. She loves animals so much she sees them as our equals.
Addison was an only child and grandchild for 6 1/2 years. When Alivia was born I worried she would be jealous. Although Addie still requires a lot of attention she has been an awesome big sister. She tells me how much she loves Alivia all the time. I can’t even tell you how full that makes my heart feel.
Addison has a heart for the Lord and I pray as she grows her faith will grow along with her.
Her favorite bible verse :
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding
Addie is a good Samaritan. At 8 yrs old her spirit is sweet, her heart is kind and she has her whole life ahead of her. I can only imagine who she will become. Until then…she is ours to love and ours to guide. I thank God for blessing us with her life. It has changed us forever and for the better.
Happy Birthday Addison Makenze. Mommy and Daddy love you!
I sat down to write my Wordless Wednesday post. Then I realized I have stuff to say. And stuff to say means words to type and well that’s not really cohesive with the whole Wordless Wednesday vibe.
The oo7’s have been busy lately. In the past couple of months we have gone to GA twice, survived a tornado, watched Charlie Daniels play ‘The Devil Went Down to GA” at our church’s Easter celebration, had an argument about pizza on the hippie bus at Mellow Mushroom and Alivia turned 18 months old. Whew!
I have several half written blog posts in my draft folder and I have been trying to figure out why I haven’t been posting very many blogs. Then BAM it all made sense to me.
Did I mention Alivia is 18 months old?
Yeah 18 months is the best age ever. I seriously LOVE it! Addison hasn’t been that age in oh let’s see 6 1/2 years so I kind of forgot how time consuming babies are at this age. Wonderful and hilarious and enchanting and adorable but time consuming none-the-less.
She naps really well for me but to be perfectly candid while she is sleeping I am usually sleeping, showering, twittering, cleaning, folding laundry or shuffling around the house trying to decide where to start.
So that is my story…Livie is a busybody and I am too busy trying to keep up with life that I haven’t had too much time to write about it.
Last weekend we went to the American Girl Store and Bistro in GA to celebrate Addison’s birthday a little early. Like a good mommy blogger I took lots of pictures and I have even started writing a post about it.
BUT…I also bought myself something a couple weeks ago and I am just about to start it. Like as in as soon as I finish writing this post.
I am nervous about sharing it because then I will actually feel like I have to follow through. UGH Accountability can SUCK IT!
So yeah I am a big fat fatty and I need to lose weight in the worst way. It’s time for me to do something serious and I think this is a good start. I will let ya’ll know how it’s going.
Ok so now I think you are all caught up…did I forget anything?
If I wasn’t married to Mr.007 already…I would totally MARRY my refrigerator. The one we had to use in our rental house was OLD OLD OLD…it only had one big drawer at the bottom. It had wire shelves…I loathed that fridge! So when we bought our current house we purchased the lovely fridge in the pictures.
We bought it almost 4yrs ago and it has been very good to us. Of course now they have a bigger better model with better features. Now you can get water and ice in the door. The indispensable features for me are the freezer being on the bottom, the large deli drawer and the sheer size of the thing. We can fit a ridiculous amount of food and beverages inside. You can put TWO pizza boxes in the deli drawer! TWO PIZZA BOXES!
Now that I think about it our fridge may just be the reason I am so chubby.
Maybe if we had a smaller refrigerator we wouldn’t have so much food to eat.
OH woe to me! I can’t get rid of it I LURVE IT too much. I guess I could just develop some actual self control.
Good Friday wasn’t very good in the city of Murfreesboro, TN.
The first picture was taken literally less than a block from our house. I had the girls in the basement 15 minutes before this tornado touched the ground. That is all thanks to the early warning from our news channels and the weather radio. And let me just tell you how fun it is to be stuck in a dirt basement with an 18 month old baby. Addison just curled up and covered her ears. Alivia just didn’t understand why she had to stay on my lap.
It was traumatic to say the least but we are truly blessed to have no damage to our house. I just kept repeating in my head “God please protect us”.
I was watching the weather all morning and I knew it was going to be bad. I just didn’t expect our city to experience this much devastation.
I got all of these pictures from our county newspaper’s website.
This is a very interesting video from that day. I have never heard our news anchors sound so frantic and scared.
We were very blessed because our house has no damage and we walked away from the ordeal with nothing more than anxious minds and exhausted bodies.
My mom’s sister Karen’s house was hit badly (with her teenage son inside!)
He got into a closet downstairs and when he came out the house was torn apart.
My mom’s good friend Judy is having a 6-8 hour surgery on her spine today because of injuries from the tornado.
Here is a picture of Judy’s house…or where Judy’s house used to be. From what I hear she and her family are in good spirits. Losing the house is devastating but the fact that everyone inside survived is a miracle. Judy was inside her house with her teenage daughter and 2 other teenage girls. She threw herself on top of them! What a brave woman!
Not very far from Judy’s house a 30 yr old mom and her 9 week old baby didn’t make it. I am not sure of the details but the woman’s husband is still in critical condition. Their house is gone. I just can’t wrap my mind around it.
We are under a tornado watch in our area as I type this so please say a prayer that we don’t get any more severe weather. Our community has had enough I think!
Ok now onto a serious matter…I may be mistaken but isn’t the Easter Bunny a freaking vegetarian? Actually isn’t he technically a vegan? All he eats are salads right? He absolutely adores carrots, celery, beets and lettuces.
Now I ask you….why oh WHY do we feel like it’s not Easter without a basket full of chocolate? I don’t keep chocolate in the house and my kids don’t get to eat it very often. But I went merrily into the Target near our house and filled a shopping cart with Reese cups wrapped in pastel tin foil and m&m’s that look like birds eggs ( it’s ok I got the dark chocolate kind so they’re “healthy” m&m’s)
I also bought Addison a solid chocolate bunny to put in her Easter bucket. It’s not huge but it’s nothing but a brick of chocolate molded to look like a rabbit. Because my almost 8 yr old daughter neeeeds more of a reason to act like a spaz.
Yeah she needs a solid brick of chocolate about as much as my waistline needs all of the chocolatey treats that I will be snarfing this week. Hey I only bought them in the name of tradition.
You know what would be funny? If I just decided to forgo the candy and just buy a veggie tray.
What do you think Addison would say if she came out Sunday morning only to find a veggie tray in the middle of the living room floor? Something tells me that wouldn’t go over very well.
Happy Easter! Have a beet!
I think there would be an uprising of titanic proportions.
While I was out buying Easter goodies in the form of chocolate I stopped at Lifeway and bought a couple of books, some ressurrection eggs and a lamb Webkinz. I also went to Target and got the girls some new spring pj’s and Madagascar 2.
I blame Target. With all of their cheerful spring displays and trendy items. I still maintain my theory that there is a Target conspiracy. They are taking over the world with their trendy affordable products and brilliant marketing techniques. I mean who doesn’t love a montage of household products? Target…just know this…I am onto you.
Feeling a bit better today. The weather is awesome and the house isn’t a total disaster. I opened the windows and it just finally feels like Spring! Since it’s Wordless Wednesday here are some pics I have taken the past couple weeks.
I am all caught up in my own head lately. I have been trying to talk myself out of being in this perpetual bad mood.
I cleaned the entire house and washed every stitch of laundry. And that helped for about as long as it lasted with the dog and kids plotting against me.
The weather has been nice and that helped too. But then it rained yesterday….all day long. I want to blame someone else. I want to dodge responsibility. But it’s me. And no one can help me but me.
The bottom line is I am unhappy with myself right now. I have a plan on how to fix it but digging out of the hole I am in is harder than I thought. Especially since I have been the one throwing the dirt in on top of myself.
Don’t get me wrong I haven’t been staying in bed all day or moping around. I have good moments and I am taking care of my family. I even showered on Monday.
Kidding kidding…I have bathed every single day.
I think the weight and responsibility of life just become overwhelming sometimes. Does anyone else feel like you could use a vacation? It’s been too long since my toes were in the sand. What I wouldn’t give to have a week alone with Adam, plentiful sunshine, beach chairs and frozen margaritas. I would miss my kids but we would comeback refreshed and sporting a reddish brown freckly glow.
Ahhh bask in the fantasy….bask in it. Ok stop basking…this is my fantasy! Hey stop looking at Adam’s butt! You too Grandma!
By the way if you left me a comment or emailed me and I haven’t responded I am really sorry….I am WAY behind in my inbox!
I will get out of this funk eventually. In the meantime I am getting back to my beach fantasy. Can’t you just hear Jimmy Buffett in the background?
