I love a clean room

My bedroom is CLEAN! My room gets messy as a result of a lot of things. The laundry ends up in there if it gets backed up in the laundry room, the kids leave toys in there, Darin and I leave our clothes laying around...it just piles up. Every time it gets cleaned I resolve to keep it that way, but it always ends up collecting junk again. It is now on day two of being clean and so far so good. I think I should set up a reward system for myself in order to keep it clean. I want a new bedspread, so maybe if I can keep up with my room for 2 months I will buy a new one. I'll have to try really hard...some online shopping about what I want to buy should help to entice me. Right now I need to get up and work on the rest of my house!

I have an empty fish aquarium

Some time ago we bought 3 goldfish for our fish tank. Two proved to be weaker and they died soon after we got them. That left one lonely fish who mostly hid behind a shell and didnt swim too much. This fall, after the kids were really good while Darin was out of town for a week, we got 4 new fish. One by one they died. We took good care of them too. I dont know what the problem was but they did not survive. The last one died just before Christmas, when we were busy being sick and getting ready for the holidays.

The fish tank is still in the living room with water in it. I dont know how long it will stay there, but lets just say it is pretty far down on the list of things I plan to take care of. It is quiet, doesnt stink and isnt causing any problems. It is a bit of a safety issue when Vanessa climbs on the stand, but she doesnt do that often. I will probably empty my kitchen cabinets, clean my fridge, purge my clothing collection, and paint a few rooms before I make an effort to take care of it.

It is a good thing my kids are vocal about their needs because apparently the squeaky wheel gets the grease in this house.

I am lazy

I dont know why I wish for slow and quiet days thinking that I can get more done at the house. When they are quiet, I sit. Today I got my facebook profile back up and running and have been enjoying that. I have all these things to do that arent getting done, and I dont know when they will. I keep waiting for the right time to start big projects...

I should make a list of things that need to be done so I can be reminded of all of them when I feel like doing nothing. But then again, my partner in crime also has a list of things that need to be done and he spends long period of time not getting to them.

Here is a list of things I would like to spend time on...when all my other work is done.
1. spiritual development
2. photography and photo editing
3. scrapbooking

there must be more...but I am too lazy to think about it (see title)

Welcome to facebook...or not

I came home from church and sunday school this afternoon to find that the house was a wreck...not that it was any better when I left home, but Darin had been here all morning with 2 kids, and nothing had been done. He was pleased to announce that 6 people had added him as friends on facebook. He is Mr. Popular. So I got lunch for myself and a couple kids and sat down with the laptop to check my facebook account. I had a hard time signing in, but I checked the caps lock key and double checked that I was typing my password correctly. Then I tried Darin's password for his facebook account (yes, I know his password) and lo and behold, I get logged into HIS facebook account. No way! I ask him what he has done and he starts to realize that he may have messed things up for me. He changed his contact information in his profile including his e-mail address. He changed it to the e-mail address that we share, and the address that I happen to use to log onto facebook. SO as a result, I no longer exist in the world of facebook. I am not on his friends list, I am not on Kate's friends list, and I don't exist if you do a search for me. GREAT. We have sent an e-mail to facebook to ask for help, but I don't know enough about computers and the internet to know if they can find my profile and restore what I had as a profile.

So as I began to ponder a world without facebook I started to think I could use this blog to share information and photos with people that I care about. Yes, I can do that, but it does not serve the same purpose as facebook. There is no networking, no stalking, no status updates. I do know this though, I am going to get a lot more done in a world without facebook. Maybe by spending more time blogging and less time stalking I will be more introspective and self-aware. Or maybe I will be more neurotic and wonder about what my friends are doing without me in cyber space. Will they miss me? I better find a way to tell them about this blog. I will make Darin advertise it on HIS facebook account....if I let him use it before they fix mine. Right now he is banned.

A New Year

I dont make resolutions on a regular basis. I dont know if it is because I am afraid to fail myself or if I am just lazy, or maybe I am content with the way things are, so why resolve to change anything? This year I am actually thinking about resolutions and I may actually make some...or one. I wouldnt want to be too ambitious. The thing that seems to escape me the most is time. I can always find a reason not to do something based upon time. If something isnt on the calendar, then it is basically not going to happen. Darin and I have been trying to get away together for more than a year and it hasnt happened...never made it to the calendar. We have also been wanting to get to CT to see friends and family, and again, it hasnt happened.

Our kids are not involved in lots of activities, so I dont know how the time gets booked. Maybe we dont actually do anything, but I feel busy.

It seems like a smart resolution would be to set aside time for specific things, but should I try to balance the time between family things and ME time? I would love a little more ME time. But then again, this isnt supposed to be about me. I know I lose my sense of self with this mothering job, but I think that is normal. I think I would be a better mom if I felt more like myself. My kids deserve to know me, the real me, the person I was when I fell in love with their dad. But is it reasonable to say that I have to leave them in order to rediscover that person? Why can't I just remember all the things I liked about myself when I am around my kids and let my strengths shine through? Why doesnt Darin feel like he needs to leave for the same reasons? Should I be trying to find time for Darin to be alone?

All this resolution stuff is just leading to more and more questions. I should just resolve to do something that may improve my life and then hope for the best. In the meantime, since ME time isnt going to happen today, I should make the most of the time I have at home and get some things done around here.

Me? A mother? No way.

This is from a long time ago, but I heard a song today that made me remember all of the events and strange happenings that took place that helped me change my mind about having children. If you knew me before I got married, you probably knew I was never having kids. I was not fond of them , didn't enjoy being around them and never knew what to say to them when they spontaneously started talking to me. Darin and I agreed that children were not a necessary part of our future together. In fact, I had actually told him at one point that I would still be his friend if he wanted to marry someone else, but I would not be having any children. He told me that his life would be fulfilled just by being my husband, and that being a father would just be a bonus if it ever happened.

We got married in 1999 and about a year later strange things began happening that I could not explain to anyone else. I kept it to myself for a while, but when it didn't seem to be getting any better I had to mention it to Darin. It all started one Sunday morning when I was at church all by myself. I had always had trouble concentrating in church when kids were being rowdy and I was one of those people who preferred that people not bring their children with them to worship. This particular morning was no different really. There were a bunch of children there and during the readings a newborn behind me began to cry. The baby didn't settle down easily and for the first time in my life, instead of silently wishing that the mother would take her baby to the back of the church, I wondered what that mother must be feeling as her baby cried and disturbed the quiet in the building. Weird. But even more strange was what happened during the rest of mass...I was able to pay attention to the readings and the priest's homily all the while entertaining thoughts of what it would be like to be a mother. These were not thoughts I had entertained EVER, so I could not just blow them off. I left mass feeling refreshed spiritually as was usual for me, but also a little perplexed and even disturbed by the thoughts that had taken over while I was there.

These thoughts kept creeping up in my mind over the next several weeks. I almost felt like I was keeping a secret from Darin because I hadn't mentioned any of this to him. One night, after about 3 weeks of random thoughts of motherhood, I broke down and confided in him that I was loosing my mind. He was supposed to say something reassuring, like, "Sarah, you have known for most of your life that you don't want children. Don't let 3 short weeks bother you." Instead he said, "Three weeks, huh?" Then he paused a moment and added, "About 3 weeks ago I started randomly thinking about what I would name a child if I were going to have one." This is not good, I thought. I asked him what we should do. Neither of us was ready to accept the idea that I was going to change my mind. We decided to pray about it. Seperately. We agreed that we would pray that these thoughts be taken from our minds and it is was still a problem in 3 months, then we would have to seriously consider the option of following God's plan and have a child.

Well over the next few months, I don't really know what happened in Darin's world, but mine became wierd. I was doing well not thinking about being a mother, until I drove by a church. Sometimes I would have a thought, and then look around and find the church that was nearby. The point is, that I was always in the proximity of a church when motherhood crossed my mind, and believe me I tried to blow this coincidence off. Another strange thing that happened had to do with music. I was working a job that required I drive at various times during the day from one facility to another. I probably started my car 4-5 times each day during the week. And I always had the radio on. One of the most popular songs at the time was by a band named Creed and it was called "With arms wide open." It was written by the lead singer when he learned that he was going to be a father. The song was overplayed to some degree, but it was on every time I started my car. Not kidding. I even got to the point that I would turn my radio off when I got out of my car, so that it wouldn't be on when I started the car. Inevitably I would get amile or two down the road, and turn on the radio, and there it was. It seemed that as much as I was asking this to go away, it was only getting stronger.

Darin and I re-convened the anti-parent committee and after much discussion decided that God had made it pretty clear what HE wanted from us. We just needed to trust Him and follow.

A few months later I was preparing to go to the youth ministry convention in Portland, and there was a definite chance I was pregnant, but it was too soon to take a home test. I got to Portland on Friday afternoon and as we pulled up to the hotel, there were youth outside greeting the others as they arrived. They had finger puppets with their arms spread wide, and their t-shirts showed the theme for the weekend. "With arms wide open" I knew in the instant I saw them that I was pregnant. How could I not be? Later that night I got the chance to call home and I told Darin the theme. Before I could say anything else he said, "You're pregnant."

I was. But I had to wait until I got home on Sunday to confirm it with a test. Seeing the positive result is a moment I will never forget. God had a hard battle to fight to get me to consider becoming a mother. He won. I was scared, confused and still not convinced that this was a good idea, but I had to trust.

The next nine months were a whirlwind of change and growth and learning, but I'll go into that more later.

A broken bone

Today is Sunday and it has taken me since Friday to really be ready to put this in writing. Jordan broke her arm on Friday afternoon, at home, in our backyard, doing kid stuff. I was mowing the lawn and needed the kids to move the Powerwheel Jeep out of the way. Dawson ran over and jumped into the driver's seat. Jordan knew the battery was dead so she ran over to give him a push. She was running pretty fast and it looked like she rolled her ankle and she just collapsed in a heap and started crying. I watched it happen and she was running toward me to I got a pretty good view. She can be a little wimpy sometimes, so I continues on the row I was mowing and turned at the end to head back in their direction. I could see that she was crying still, but the mower was loud so I couldn't really judge how much she was freaking out. I motioned to her to move and I watched as she got off the ground and into the Jeep. I stopped the mower and tried to move the Jeep with both kids in it, but was too heavy. I had to have them get out. Again, I watched Jordan closely to see if she was walking funny because I still thought she rolled her ankle. She walked slowly and kept crying. She went all the way to the stairs and was limping a little. I became concerned when she tried to use her arms to help climb the stairs. She couldn't do it. I turned off the lawn tractor and went over to confort and assess her. I did a pretty thorough exam of her arm since that is what she said was bothering her. I am a PT so I had an idea that this was more than a sprain. Anyway, I checked out her legs too just to make sure she was okay and then I asked her to go sit still on my swing for a while to see if her arm felt any better. I let her sit there for about 10 minutes and she kept crying and wiggling. This was abnormal even for the drama queen so I went to see her again. Her right arm was beginning to look different than her left and she was still really uncomfortable. I told her we were going to have to go to the doctor.

Darin was working so I called him to tell him about the injury. He said he would meet us at the hospital. So now I take a minute to assess the situation and I realize that even though the hospital is only 11 miles away, it os going to take about an hour for me to get there. Here is why...I discovered that morning that the kids had filled their carseats with gravel from the driveway the day before, so when we got back from dropping Rebekah off at school, we removed the seats from the van, completely took them apart and washed everything. The fabric covers were drying on the line and the plastic bases were drying in the sun. Jordan was wearing only underwear because she had gotten soaked when washing her carseat. Dawson was wearing a t-shirt and nothing else because he is potty training. Vanessa has gotten up from a nap and had a meal (which was all over her) and she was outside crawling around in the grass...dirty! It took me a while to get everyone ready to leave the yard and then I had to get the carseats back together. All the while, Jordan is really hurting, but she has calmed down and stopped crying. She didn't tolerate the splint I tried to make out of the 1x4 and tape, but she wanted the frozen peas on her.

On the way to the hospital I realized that I probably wouldn't be back in time to get Rebekah off the bus, so I called my cousin to ask if she could be there for Rebekah. She offered to pick up the other two also, so Darin and I would be able to pay attention to Jordan.

Jordan was really good at the hospital. She wasn't afraid of anything or anyone there. She was told by her parents that she could have a pink band-aid, but they said they would just splint it today...with white plaster. She was not impressed, and then they made her even more angry when they dressed her in a johnny.

Two days later, she is running around like she always does. There are a few things that she needs help with that she could do before. She needs help in the bathroom again, but she is doing really well doing things one handed. She doesn't complain about pain or anything. Tomorrow I call the ortho to see about that pink cast.