Monday was smashing.  I TORE up my house (and when I say “tore” I actually mean “tidied up”).  It looked so good, and I was so proud of myself, and it lasted all of a few minutes while my son finished his nap and my daughter and I sat at the table and colored.  Then I busted out some gloves, cut up more jalapenos and made a boat load of poppers to take up to mom’s last night.

You know the poppers I’m talking about…

Everyone gobbled them up and we passed around butternut squash, pulled pork, and a few of the candied jalapenos I made last week.
It was nice. Then I came home to a house I’d spent the entire day cleaning, ignored the mess, and went to bed. I thought -and even quickly sent a facebook status update from my moe-bile -WHY is it that when I see clean kitchen counters, I don’t think ‘wow, what an accomplishment!’… I see ‘WHEEE! A BLANK CANVAS!’ and I proceed to figuratively paint all over it? I think the right side of my brain is uncharacteristically controlling.

Really, though, the big stuff is done. It makes my week go by smoothly when my floors are mopped and my furniture is dusted -even though my counters get cluttered with stuff, it helps that when I clear the clutter (daily) there’s a clean counter underneath.
Today is cooking day. I’m hoping it will be just as successful. I didn’t really get one solitary cooking day last week on account of the jalapenos taking up the better part of a day and ALL of Saturday spent canning and freezing.

Let me tell you something:
There’s precious things only women know -some of them come instinctively, some we have to learn the hard way.
After the birth of my first baby, I learned how to tell if my Dear One was running a fever or not. NO ONE taught me how, I just KNEW how. All it took was one kiss on that itty-bitty forehead, and I knew with every fiber in my being that my child was running a low/fighting/high fever.
My husband stood by, wishing he were privy to the super-secret fever kiss.
OTHER things, we learned the hard way: by opening our mouths.
For example: If you are the sort that can not stand being “one-upped” you should NEVER, as a woman, bring up your own experiences in childbirth OR canning.
I don’t mind being one-upped, actually, so I bring it up all the time. In bringing it up, however, I have learned that Suzy So-and-So had a much harder time in labor and delivery than I did AND that she canned 100 quarts of peaches while standing on one leg.
It’s true. Don’t believe me? Just ask her.

My prize for Canner of the Century goes my Grandma Hansen who actually used to can 100 quarts of peaches every year, and who made the absolute best and most beautiful canned peaches I’ve ever seen. She never blanches her peaches to get the skins off -she’s mastered the art of perfectly peeling. She knows canning secrets like the back of her hand, and I often slink over to her house with my kids in tow and pick her brain. Did you know that she had two kitchens put in her house? One upstairs for regular cooking and one downstairs -just for canning. The woman beats all. No really. Have you met her?

My prize for Queen of Labor and Delivery goes to Charlsye, my friend who lives across town. She recently found out she was pregnant with TWINS, and after having labor stopped several times over and being admitted to the hospital several times over and discharged completely hopped up on labor-stopping meds several times over, she was finally scheduled to be induced (WHAT?!). However, she happened to make it to the hospital and give birth to one baby 10 minutes later (I know that feeling!), and then HAD TO HAVE A C-SECTION for the other baby.
My dear friend is lying in bed, healing up from a natural birth AND a c-section. But here’s the part you really want to see:

Awwwwww.

One baby boy and one baby girl are going home to their two older brothers (who, by the way, are ridiculously adorable as well).

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to clean my kitchen again. An artist can not work with this kind of canvas on cooking day. It must be cleaned first!

Can you believe how cold it is outside?!  Summer is by far my favorite season, and it seemed like it took forever to get here and seconds to pass.  We were all in long sleeves and coats yesterday, and we all talked about how cold it was.

It was all very My Fair Lady.

“Hasn’t it turned unseasonably cold?”

After a day of cold temps, we decided on pizza for dinner.  We all trucked up to mom’s and ate our hearts out.  Have you ever tried Mr. G’s jalapeno cheesy sticks?  Well, if you don’t like HOT then don’t bother.  But if you do?  They’re a must-have!  After dinner, I held my little nephew and got him to sleep and then snapped this picture:

Grandpa is the party.
See how his boots are off? He used to pay me a quarter to take off his boots and socks. Last night, he promised Lacy and Elly ONE DOLLAR EACH if they would each take a boot and sock off. Inflation!
They did their job, and then they scampered off to play. About thirty minutes later, they remembered the dollar grandpa had promised them. They ran to his side, found him sleeping, and woke him up this this alarm:
“GRANPDA! GRANDPA! YOU NEED TO GIVE US OUR DOLLAR!”

He thought it was the cutest thing, dug into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and paid his blondies.
This, readers, is not the man who raised me.
Good thing too. With payouts like that, I would have amounted to absolutely nothing.

Happy Saturday, all. Hope your day is filled with warmth and love and cocoa and hearths and home and everything else that makes your soul go “mmmmmmmmmm.”

The weather report yesterday told us there was a chance it might freeze during the night. I haven’t been able to see much of my husband lately, and when we finally were able to get together and pick our garden produce, it was after 9 pm. We bundled the kids up, took a few flashlights, and headed outside. We raided Dad’s muddy garden and picked corn.
Dad’s corn is the BEST in the world. The sweetest, best, and most wonderful in the world. I wasn’t about to chance losing any to a silly early freeze, and I’ve got the muddy shoes to prove it.
My husband cheered on from the sidelines. The goose only brought along his expensive, nice shoes. He made up for it by giving me a piggyback ride from his truck to my porch on account of my muddy shoes being in the BACK of his truck (this is all very Shania Twain… “you make me take off my shoes before you let me get in”).

Once we got home and I had new shoes on, we picked all of the pumpkins out of our garden save ONE -I picked one last week and baked it.
The kids had a blast in the garden late at night, but I have to say: there is nothing more creepy than a cornfield in the dead of night.

My kitchen table is currently loaded with the fruits of autumn, and I’m so GRATEFUL for our garden this year. I’m sure you’ve all noticed the increased food prices, and while I’m not one to sing doom and gloom, I will say this: our garden saved our tail this year. I’m not able to put aside as much as we usually do for winter, but I know we’re going to be just fine. Today is a day of laundry and freezing produce -something so simple but SO necessary. In a few months, I know I’ll be extremely relieved that I spent a day in fall like a squirrel, storing the nuts of life.

The best part isn’t the storing away.
It isn’t the planting.
It most DEFINITELY isn’t the weeding.
OR the watering.
It’s watching the kids pick.

There was nothing sweeter that caking my shoes in mud and watching my little boy wearing his big, fat winter coat with his shorts and cowboy boots, walking in the bright lights of the truck headlights, carrying an ear of corn in each hand…
There really is something absolutely magical about little ones -the way you almost believe when you look in their eyes that life is easy, simple, and that all you need to be happy is a pumpkin planted and grown by a good daddy all ready for the picking.

I never thought I’d be a routine person.  I’ve always been the “mix it up” type -the “throw caution to the wind” type. But as it turns out, the most mixing up I’ve ever done is in the kitchen and my idea of throwing caution to the wind is abandoning laundry for a television marathon.

I’ve always lived for lists, so I shouldn’t be surprised that when I figured out a routine that worked for me, my life became infinitely more simple. A few months ago, I started dedicating a day to cooking. I spent the entire day in the kitchen: baking, mixing, and freezing foods. It was a super success, and it was so nice to be able to reach in my freezer on any given Thursday and find breakfast. But what was even nicer was knowing that everything else could go to heck. I didn’t feel any guilt over the mounting pile of laundry or the specks of paper on the floor… I knew that on cooking day, I would cook my buns off and take care of everything else on another day.
Eventually, I created a laundry day. This isn’t to say that I don’t do laundry on any other day, but I can’t tell you how much easier my life has gotten since I labeled Wednesdays as laundry day. ALL DAY LONG, I wash, dry, and fold. It’s my favorite day because I get to watch as many movies as I’d like (hey!  a TV marathon AND laundry!) and at the end of the day, I can pull dinner out of the freezer and feel like a champ of champs.
These two days worked so well for me that I assigned away my week! I never thought I’d be so happy to live with a routine -honestly!
Monday has become cleaning day because we ALL know how awful the house looks after Sunday (thanks to Aunt Cat for this tip, and the entire idea of getting a routine that works for me!). Seriously -this has been life-changing. I do a sweep over the entire house: vacuum, dust, mop, wipe, wipe, wipe… and then I pick one big project (like “clean out the fridge”) to conquer. This is SO nice because it alleviates about 2000 pounds of guilt and stress. I don’t worry about my fridge anymore because I know that I’m cleaning it out Monday. I don’t feel like a terrible mother for having a stack of clothes near the closet because I KNOW when it will work for me to handle it. I don’t spend the rest of the week thinking “I should be doing this” or “I should be doing that” because I know now I’m NOT ALLOWED to clean on cooking or laundry day. It’s so nice! I mean, really: Mr. Bluebird’s on my shoulder.

Tuesday is cooking day -and BOY do I love it. I say that in all seriousness. I LOVE it. I crank out homemade goodies and gain a tremendous amount of self-confidence because I can SEE what I’ve done and it stays done! (unless my kids tear into it which has happened to a poor loaf of zucchini bread.) Also: the rest of my week is much more laid back because I have goodies in the freezer/fridge/pantry. I can pull a meal together much faster, everyone is happier, and we’re saving money.

Wednesday is laundry day.
Thursday is special. Every other Thursday is shopping day. The off Thursdays are catch-up days. For example: I had to shift days this week because I’m teaching preschool. I had to nab Wednesday as my cooking day and I spent the ENTIRE day just cutting and canning jalapenos -no lie. SO today should be laundry day, but I wasn’t able to get much cooking in, so I’m going to half/half it. Some cooking, some laundry… catch up!

Friday is my day off. It’s the day I do whatever I want to do. Crochet, write, play with the kids, devil may care.

But I have to tell you: while my routine may sound hellish to a career woman, it is JUST what I want to do with my life. And I should also tell you that my life has been something of a ride lately. Sitting and chopping jalapenos was the biggest blessing in the world. I didn’t have to think about anything! I just sat and chopped, sat and chopped… it was bliss. It took me four hours to chop them all up, and in the end, I only had 4 pint jars of candied jalapenos to show for it, but I really could care less.
I’ll tell you something else: I’d give anything for a pile of jalapenos to sit and chop today. Of course I can’t do that. I’ve got other things to handle, but those four hours were some of the best of my life.

There’s a line in the movie “Return to Me” where Gracie’s grandpa is outside of his restaurant cleaning up. She’s looking down on him from a balcony and she calls out, asking if he needs help. His reply? “I’m blessed with work.”

I’m blessed with work.

We JUST finished Family Home Evening because we’re the awesome sort that do those kinds of things at nearly 10 o’clock in the PM.

Here’s the thing: we went up to Mom’s to have a little meet n’ greet with my brother, Steve, who is here to visit. We got home late and I was ready to CANCEL Family Home Evening. The girl was in tears. The boy’s voice was growing louder and louder as he attempted to get anyone’s attention over his sister’s wailing…
And I was ready for bed.
The grouchier we ALL got, the more I realized that I needed to force Family Home Evening to happen. Within ten minutes, we were all sitting on the couch, singing “I am a Child of God” through our teeth (or not at all in Lacy’s case. She just sobbed through it).
After the prayer, I started to tell the kids a story about a family.
A Dad, a mom, and 4 kids.
The dad was named Lehi.
The mom was named Sariah.
The boys were named Laman, Lemmuel, Nephi, and Sam.

I told the kids Lehi was a prophet a LOOOOOONNNNGGG time ago. I told them he lived in Jerusalem.
“One night, the Lord told Lehi that he needed to pack up some of his stuff, get his family together and leave their home in Jerusalem. So he said, ‘Laman! Lemmuel! Wake up! I have something to tell you! Sariah! Nephi! Sam! Get up!! We need to leave Jerusalem!'”
We talked about them walking all day long, stopping to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. But then… it got dark! What could they do? They couldn’t walk in the dark, so they had to put up a tent.

I told my husband his name was now Lehi. I was Sariah. Trent was assigned to be Nephi, and Lacy resigned herself to the couch where she could continue to cry.
“That’s fine,” I said, plopping her down, “You just can’t help us with the tent or play in it. No biggie.”
Then Lehi and I applauded Nephi as he carried a chair from the table to the living room.
“You’re SO STRONG!” We cheered, “Nephi, we are SO PROUD of you!”
As it started coming together, the girl hopped off the couch, assumed the role of Sam and helped us finish the tent.
And now, as I log on to finish a few things online before hopping into bed, I can hear my kids in the tent.
They begged to sleep in it, and who am I to deny it?

From the tent, I’m hearing Trenton say, “Hif (if) you take Nephi’s spot then Nephi will hafta get mad at you!”
And I hear Sam reply, “Nephi, get in here!”
And Nephi says, “Nephi needs his spot!”

Ahhhh, Sariah is leaving them to it. But if they don’t stop fighting soon, I’m sending them straight back to Jerusalem.

Saturday night, the kids weren’t on their best behavior. We were going the rounds, I was counting down the minutes until I could snuggle up with my pillow and sleep, and then my phone rang.
It was my mom.
She wanted to know if grandma and grandpa could take the kids with them to Wal-Mart.

Fifteen minutes later, I was alone with my husband. The night was dark and stormy. Thunder rumbled in the distance. And what did we do?
We chased a giant dragon fly around the house that had flown in while we’d moved the kids’ car seats from our car to Mom’s.
Once we had it trapped, we sat close together and watched it throw itself against the walls of the plastic small animal carrier we’d put it in. Then my husband turned on my computer and googled “what do dragonflies eat?”
After a bit of studying, he caught a few moths and put them in with the dragonfly.
Again, we sat close together.
We fixated on the dragonfly. We watched it open and close it’s mouth, clean it’s face, flap it’s wings, land on it’s back and flail it’s teensy little legs…
We even named our giant dragonfly Kamakazi on account of it’s DIVE BOMBING in our kitchen just seconds prior to our catching it.
And before we knew it, the kids were home.

You have to understand that from head to end, this thing was about 7 to 8 inches long. HUGE.

We let him go the next morning. He didn’t eat any of the moths, and one of his wings had broken from trying so hard to get out.

We had a great time, and the kids loved seeing the dragonfly when they got home. The girl toted him around like a prize. The boy yelled at him.
“You hafta STOP flying else I HAFTA get MAD at you!” He said, pointing a little finger at Kamakazi.

I hope you’re spending your stormy evenings accordingly.

A friends of mine is hosting a fashion challenge, and I thought it would be good for me to join up given my utter lack of fashion skillz. In high school, my entire wardrobe was furnished by Thrift and NONE of it matched, but I was prodigious proud of it.
When I met my husband, he remarked that my clothing was something he loved about me… my insane ability to wear pretty much whatever and pull it off. Once we were married, however, I became something of his pet. My husband -now this is his secret, so keep it. Won’tcha? -is remarkably good at dressing people. He can pick out a stellar outfit. He’s great with sizing and coloring and he’s all mine. I needed him desperately as a 20-year old. Thrift clothes that don’t match are fine and dandy for a teenager with a quirky sense of humor, but once that teenager marries (yes, I married as a 9TEEN year old) she needs to sort of mature out of the stage where she wears shirts that say “I dig boys in bands.”

My husband worked at a retail store, and using his discount he dressed me. By the time he left that job (2 1/2 years and one child later), I had a new wardrobe. It molded my style. While I still insist on wearing crazy clothes now and then, I’ve more or less tamed that unruly side of me that wore wrap-around red skirts with worn out cowboy hats.
Wow.
Just typing that made me REALLY miss high school.
Oh, look at that. Two seconds later: I’m over it.

Anyway, I figured the fashion challenge would be good for me. It’s ten days long. Rachelle -The Woman in Charge -has listed a bunch of cue cards. We pick a card a day and using some of the cues on it, dress accordingly. Today is the first day I’ve dressed naturally. I mean: something I’d actually wear out. The last two days have been rife with grown-up dress-up time. My daughter was my photographer the past two days. My husband was suckered into it today.
I paid my daughter a quarter for each shoot, and she hated every second of it. Poor little trooper.
I didn’t pay my husband.
He’s a slave for me.

Here’s the first three days.
Day one: Bohemian, titled “BOHO” for short. It makes me sound unnecessarily loose.

I’m wearing a peasant blouse with a flowy skirt and my turquoise necklace was my mom’s. She wore it to her 8th grade graduation. It’s one of my greatest treasures. AND it was one of my best fashion accessories in high school. I made it go with everything.

Day two: Man inspired. This day was definitely the most dressy-upped. I would never dress like this for realsies, so it was fun putting it together. Also: please pretend my head isn’t there. It’s the worst part of the picture. I should have taken my glasses off, but they kind of matched the tie a little too well.

Day three: Romance. Today isn’t dressy-upped at all. Today I’m going to leave the house like this and conquer the world. Or get the shopping done. Whichever.
Ruffled blouse, ballet flats, huge flower ring, and a free skirt (couldn’t leave that out. AND the skirt has pockets. Wonder of wonders! I’m just like a woman from the 40’s!).

If you haven’t guessed already, my jewelry is made by my aunt Cat. I’m really not big into jewelry (that isn’t from my mom’s teen years), but everything Cat makes… I HAVE to have. There’s an inherent need in me to OWN it.
Here’s some more of her creations. Look to the sidebar for her etsy shop. (If you scroll down, there a “love” necklace which I now own and wear and love.)

To browse through the other ladies’ outfits, click HERE.