What a Disaster! Wait....It's Just My Life!

Maybe I do need to become one of those survivalist types. My house is quickly becoming a disaster area that I cannot recover from.

Kiddos come and go. I switch sleeping areas. Attrition comes and goes every weekend. Sometimes I go with him to his home for psychological time out. I work full time. When kids are here, I mommy full time and work full time while they sleep.

Everything eventually gets done, just not at a consistent pace. It's more like fits and starts and lobs and lurches.

Tonight I have a meeting for a new not-for-profit organization and we're in the early stages of incorporation so this afternoon I'll be consumed by work on the company's bylaws and other parts of the articles of incorporation. I'm super excited about the company and will devote an entry to it eventually, but for now it is one of many things that stands between me and the tidiness of my home.

The thing about my life is that it is full of things I love doing. I love hanging out with Squib and watching the Rescuers six times while we build killer train routes, create disastrous ten-car pile-ups, and roll anything and everything down our home-made ramp. I love it when he says, "I want to sit in YOU lap!." I hate it when he gets in trouble 'cause I'm now the adult, but that's usually dealt with shortly and we move on through our day. I love to see him during his nap when it looks like he's been dropped from space into his bed. A napping little boy always looks so much younger and more innocent...hard not to sneak in and smother them with kisses.

I love my writing. Blogs, diaries, memoirs...all of it. I love to put down the stories of my life and the questions I have in writing. I like documenting my family's goings on. I like writing letters and keeping them for posterity. I like writing about important personal occurrences and how I felt and how they change me. All of it. I even enjoy editing these writings so that I become a better writer!

I love singing. Singing truly is a passion that comes from my heart because I just open my mouth and let 'er rip. When it's with the praise team at church, there's lots of rehearsal and attention to lyrics, proper breathing, pitch, breathing, and things like actually using those stomach muscles I work on so hard at the gym. And, in the end, it's about praise. I'm a Christian. So, praising the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are important to me. They are essential to me.

And there is much more....my work (the actual work for money), hiking, family, friends, and reading.

So, I ask you...how do YOU do it? How do you do life and keep the disaster at bay? I seem to always be on the losing end of that battle...hmmmm.....

Scat

In Which We Do Not Walk On the Floor

We have the most awesome housekeeper in the world. She goes to great lengths to work around everyone so that their normal everyday lives aren't interrupted (when we have a "normal, everday life" I'll be the first to know, right??!?).

I know, you laugh. Go ahead!

It's laughable.

Mostly the "normal" part. Then the fact that any normal activity might be repeated. Even more laughable.

Actually, whats laughable is that after 25 years of working with my grandparents and now here, she doesn't consider that SHE might be the most normal part of our normal routine!! She gives me a wealth of advice about the boys and about my life. She loves me and I hope that she knows I love her. What I love most about her is her laughter. And there is much to laugh about here.

My now 4-yr-old lives in absolute terror of the vacuum cleaner. Which, when Beulah comes, leads to an absolute terror of the floor.

All of it.

So, go into your living room, get comfy for the afternoon with your young kiddos. Gloat in your momentary freedom from daft seismic projects and enjoy one recliner while SqB bounces all over the other. Then, in comes Beaulah and the 4-yr-old levitates. In the chair, but levitates as you can see his brain working over the ENTIRE next four hours and all the problems presented by the running of the vacuum and the consequential off-limits nature of the floor.

His current solution is death by Thomas the Tank Engine. This could last another hour-and-a-half. Does this require my conscience (in any form...the hamster wheel one mostly, not the moral one)? When are they going to make flesh-toned iPod earphones for the masses...I have new downloads I could be listening to! I can tell by looking at him when he needs me. Don't even get me started on how this affects our toilet training adventures.

Is it just me or is it coincident that ALL the remaining adults (including one who is on oxygen and lives largely as an invalid) have vacated the premises? Is the floor truly THAT scary?

This again does not speak so highly of me and the tete-e-tete that exists at times between Squash Blossom and I.

5:00 pm.

Four hours since our little conference began here in the living room. The worst is yet to come...the attack on the living room floor itself in which we do not walk on the floor, but we definitely exit.

The exit strategy is never planned, but always, ALWAYS, executed with Scat STYLE!

Livin' Large

Scat...

Mommy? Come Here for a Minute...

Spoken in that soft like toddler voice that is the one statement you just almost can't ignore....notice I said almost. He started off the day calling me "stupid head" and he doesn't know it now, but he's very thankful for this stomach flu he's suddenly developed or I'd have...well, you know...warmed his tail a bit.

But, truly, the stomach part of him started being VERY uncute and I have spent the afternoon drugging, cleaning up, and swabbing my pukey 4 year old pet. And yes, we use Motrin and sometimes alternate with Tylenol for all my super-green organic friends who prefer suffering and more natural treatments to my stone aged methods of medicine (tomato, tomato uh potato, potato--wow, they look the same there, wow...) and every once-in-a-while I got in a serious cuddle!!!

It was glorious. Especially when he said "Momma I onwy wunna way in YOU wap!" We'll repair his grammar/syntax/Squibesian dialect later. He's welcome in ME lap any time.

He said no to pictures while he was "wookeen wike dis!" Then he rolled his eyes at me like I should already know.......duh! That's my little Prince. Love that kid so....

Grrr....Seismic v. Sinusitus

Good grief! Can my head put on one heck of a horror show! Last night was a real doozy. I made it until 12:30 until I woke with the pounding...pounding...pounding blowing my lid off. I was in a comfy bed...the one in the office, so I wasn't in the mood to relinquish my nest, but it got so bad and soon I felt I was hanging upside down what with all the pounding and fluids rushing toward my head (I would say blood, but quite frankly, well, it wasn't primordial ooze).

In any case, I took something for my aching skull and drug my down comforter in to the recliner and spent the remainder of the night there. And on into the morning.

Finished up marking the seismic that we were looking at. Gave it a good once-over. Then, exported all the data for mapping. Came back in to the recliner in question and inhabited it once again.

The thing I hate most about taking these insane ASCII files and turning them into maps is that it takes forever and a coon's age to process them!!! Sometimes size isn't everything.

This portion of our "procedure" generally falls under my father's domain. Today (of all days), rather than looking at a single map at a time, he decides to drag all the data through the same steps together. This is unprecedented. So, no maps yet. Just a lot of waiting and maybe (maybe!!!?) we'll have them sometime tomorrow or the next morning.

Breaking news!!!! We have incoming map!!!!! Just as expected. Minor tweaks on one, but, alas, flatter than a flitter (industry term).

So, back to drugs for my headache and another comfy night in the recliner with my down comforter. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.....................