Snow

Over the last few years, I've had to up my game and do snow removal. I learned the hard way that it requires vigilance. It turns out, if you don't shovel well for months on end, your driveway will get very narrow and you will acquire the dreaded "hump". You will get stuck when your husband is out of town and you have sick babies. There will be no one to call and you will be totally screwed. Not that that happened to me. Oh wait, it did. Soooo..... ever since then, I've had sort of a mania taking place. The mania involves a need for the driveway to be at a state of cement, NO ICE, at all times. It is sick. I know. It is also exhausting.

Moving on to now. It snowed a lot in December. A LOT. I shoveled a lot. Jeff shoveled a lot. The 12 year old neighbor across the street helped me shovel a lot. Then, one day, a miracle occurred. Meet our new baby.



Jeff brought her home and I am smitten. Completely and totally in love with all you see pictured.

Voles--post not for the weak of heart or stomach

I wanted to title this post a swear word. Pick any one you can think of, it will fit the situation. Horrible little voles made my yard their personal playground under the snow this winter. They have destroyed the lawn that took hours of hard labor and thousands of dollars to install last summer. I have been trying to be reasonable about the situation. We live by a field. I love that field, so I'm trying to be calm. That calmness is over now. The creatures presented me with a gross out, want to throw up dilemma today. I kicked one of their piles of dead grass and guess what flew out? Little pink babies. I thought they were dead. I called my dad. He informed me they were alive. AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! What to do? I don't want them out there, but somehow killing a baby, even if it is a destructive, horrible swear word creature baby, seems more than I can do. I'm leaving them for Jeff.

P.S. I tried to make a learning situation of this awful mess and took Carter out to show him the babies. I pulled the dead grass back with a shovel and told him they were the babies of the voles that had ruined our lawn...our beautiful lawn. He said, "cool..mom, maybe you should stab them with the shovel."

P.S.S. I swear he doesn't have emotional disorders. He is just very much a problem solver. Some day his wife will endure his endless logic.

Gratitude-renters

Last year at this time, I thought for sure our house in Heber would be sold by now. I was sure the market would have improved or that, somehow, we would have been immune to its crash. I was wrong. Our hopes of selling with a large profit quickly turned to desperation to get the house rented...FAST. Two payments, heat bills, and driveways to shovel quickly became overwhelming. Our renters are not everything that the neighbors would like. Okay, let's be honest, the neighbors hate them and call me regularly to tell me so. Still, so many people have lost their homes, and our renters allow us to make the payment every month. They shovel the snow and mow the lawn and apparently have really loud parties at night. Every month the girl brings me the rent more or less around the day that it is due. So today, when I deposited the money from our renters (that was only 2 days late!), I was reminded how grateful I am to have the house rented.

Gratitude-Trash Day!

Last week we had a Halloween party. In preparation, I had a mania which resulted in frenzied cleaning, (i.e throwing crap away). Like any fun party, there was certain amount of trash. I remember making some comment in which I joked about not recycling.... the recycling center has had the last laugh. I'm not laughing any more. I'm not laughing because since Monday, the trash can has been full. It has been pushed down, crap is stacked in the garage, and I've considered driving around at night in search of construction dumpsters. Praise be to the garbage man who came this afternoon!

Princess Gloves

I used to be a princess. As in, I was the kind of girl I pray my boys don't marry. I did nothing. I didn't shovel snow. I didn't work in the yard. I didn't do a whole lot around the house. I know I didn't help with the sprinklers or fill trenches at the last house. I would remember that kind of torture. I'm not sure when it happened, but my gig is up. It happened slowly, over several years. So slowly, in fact,that I was unaware what I was giving up. I asked Jeff why it ended and his simple reply was, "well, you actually started helping." hmmmmmm..... Usually I'm grateful to have traded my princess gloves for work gloves, but after a week of working in the yard every day, I find myself wishing for my princess days. Here are I few things I've learned this week:

1. Don't pick a rock pit as the spot for your gardens
2. Rocks will torture us for the rest of our lives.
3. Wheelbarrows (especially cheap plastic ones) are really hard to drive when they are full.
4. It REALLY sucks when you tip over your wheelbarrow of rocks.
5. Ash and Mike are lifesavers!
6. Spike at Grandma's = MUCH more work accomplished.
7. After your 4th trip to the nursery in 3 days, with two wild kids, they start giving you free things....just so you will leave.
8. Double what you think a project will cost...you might be close.
9. No matter how much RAID you spray, the damn ants will still steal your seeds after you plant them.
10. If you work outside long enough, you WILL see HUGE spiders and have to be brave. I've killed the biggest spiders I've ever seen this week.
11. Having the fence installed to contain Spike is money well spent.
12. Backing a 4 wheeler trailer is harder than it looks. (I know, I suck)
13. Having Carter bring me a drink of water, all by himself, because "mommy, you look firsty" makes the water taste extra sweet.
14. Watching little boys play diggers in the piles of dirt, makes all the work seem worthwhile!

Houses and Homes

Sometimes you have a moment, and while it is happening, you realize you'll remember it forever. I had that moment yesterday. It wasn't anything dramatic, but I was sweeping out the basement of our new house and Jeff was outside cleaning up the construction mess. Spike was at my mom's and Carter was at primary practice. It reminded me of six years ago when Jeff and I were cleaning up the construction on the house we live in now. What struck me was how different it felt.

When we built our first house, we'd been married two years and had no kids, just Zoiee. Building the house was so exciting. We were grown ups! When I looked at the house I thought about where I'd put pieces of furniture. I wanted everything to look perfect. We were going to have a house, but I don't know if I really thought of it as a home for my family.

Building a home for a family is entirely different. It is fulfilling a primal need that every parent throughout time has worried about, it is providing shelter for your family. I know that the paint on the walls will get nicked and worn. I know the floor will have scratches. But I guess that is okay. Because this time, I care about our home protecting us. I caught myself looking at the heating ducts and praying they'd keep my babies warm on cold nights. I saw the electrical work and hoped it was done correctly so that there was never a fire in our home. I looked at the roof and decided it would keep us dry no matter what nature gave us. I prayed this house would give our family shelter from the storms of life.

When I was a baby, my mom and dad built their home from a kit that came on a semi. They did it all themselves with a one year old in tow. As the years went on and they talked of a new house, my dad was always adamant that he wasn't moving. He had built this house and wasn't leaving. I, of course, thought he was crazy. Then today, I understood. He knew the house. He knew every part of it. He'd built it as a a labor of love to keep his family safe. The house had served him well. How could he abandon it because it showed signs of wear?

I don't know how long we'll be in our Midway home, but I do know this, it will be a home and not just a house.

Help from my Peeps?

I've been on the internet all afternoon, trying to decide what type of washer to buy. I've read reviews, looked at specifications, second guessed everything. When it comes down to it, I guess I don't trust reviews from people I don't know. However, I know my blog friends will never lie and have (unfortunately) LOTS of combined laundry experience. So, I'm throwing it out to you. If you have experience with a front load washer, please send me your advice. I'm looking at the Whirlpool Duet, Bosch 500, and LG. D o you love one of these or hate one? Is there something better? What about steam? Do you have it? Do you need it?

Confessions of a Slacker

Well, I'm coming clean. My house is a wreck. Yep, I said it. It's a wreck today and it was yesterday and probably will be tomorrow and most likely will be in a year and 6 days from now. I hear that the first step to any problem is acceptance. Here it is, I hate cleaning. I really, really hate it. Some may say that you hate cleaning but hate a dirty house more. Not me. I hate cleaning. I hate laundry. Rarely is my house clean and my laundry done. Crap falls out of my cupboards when I open them. My laundry is in a giant pile. Sometimes the pile is so bad I can't open(or close, depending on the location of the pile) my closet door. We save money on paper by drawing in the dust on the piano instead. I've lived in my house 6 years and the high windows have not been cleaned on the outside. I think I last washed the walls just to clean them and not to clean off a spill in 2004.

This isn't a new phenomenon. Think of what part of my life you knew me and and you'll find an example of my mess.
Grade School: Mine was the desk that the lid didn't really close because it was loaded with crap.
High School: Giant backpack filled with everything you might need...if you could find it.
College: Dorm room from hell...clothes everywhere but in the dresser.
Work: Doesn't a messy desk mean that you are good at multi-tasking? Thank goodness Randall had a messy desk to. He's forever endeared in my heart.(messys have to stick together)
Mom: Well...come on over, but don't call first.

The real problem is that I have intentions of being all organized and clutter free. I just have so many other things I'd like to do more. Before you call social services though, my counters are wiped off, dishes are always done and the bathrooms are clean. The rest just gets away from me. I learned in college that there is a big difference in effort required between an A and an B+. Pretend that my house is a B+ ...even though it's probably close to a C or D. So, if you come over and see my house in it's natural state, know that while you'll have crumbs between your toes, you won't get a disease. If you come over and it's clean, know that I tried, but don't look too close. Close your eyes and ignore the details. Focus on the fact that I'm so happy you're my friend and love me in spite of my slacker tendencies.