Plumbing Fun

I woke up this morning already thinking it was going to be a busy Friday. I had Thanks Giving dinner shopping to do, errands to run, kids to get off to school. I was enjoying my lovely hot shower when I noticed the water was backing up in the drain. I made a mental note to tell Gary to see about having the septic tank drained, turned my shower off and stepped out into...WATER! I yelled for Em to bring me a towel, thinking that my toilet just overflowed, then noticed there was water out in the bedroom. As I ventured dripping wet, out into my bedroom, I realized that it looked more like a wading pool. The water was a couple inches deep and Sara was stranded on the bed like a marooned sailor. I grabbed my nightgown and yelled for more towels, blankets ANYTHING!! that would get the water up. Apparently Abraham got his little tootsies wet in the hallway and went to run under my bed, his little safe place. He came rushing back out a second later, completely soaked from the tummy down. I was laughing so hard at him! Poor little kitty. Wayne and I spent an hour using every absorbent item in the house, sheets, comforters, towels, wash clothes, blankets. Then we filled two big yellow mop buckets up with water we mopped up. Gary would later inform me that we had a wet/dry vac out in our garrage that would have made the job much easier!! Fortunately we own a flooring company, and happen to have a few nifty little high powered floor fans, specifically designed to dry out wet hardwood flooring. Currently we have every available surface in our backyard covered with drying towels (which are slowly being washed load by load) every window and door open, fans going, the works. Unfortunately my house smells. The septic tank guy is on his way, Gary pulled the lid off and it was full to the top. There is no odor like that of an full septic tank!

Kitty Wars

As anybody who knows me would tell you, I am the crazy cat lady. I love my kitties! I tell my husband that if he was not around I would have a million cats. Unfortunately, he is NOT a cat person. Four years ago I finally convinced him to let me get one cat. I had to specify that it would be a declawed, potty trained cat and it was on a one month probation, if said kitty did anything to offend Gary I promised to take him/her back to the shelter, as long as Gary had given it his best effort. So, Sarah came home that lovely September afternoon, and is now an indispensable part of the family. Gary has grown quite fond of Sarah, even if she will only snuggle with me. Last year at Christmas he saw a lady selling kittens while we were in California and said he almost stopped to buy me one, but decided to wait until we got home. Now, we had just gotten rid of Max, our second cat, a few months before. Unfortunatly Max was old and stopped going potty in the kitty box, which is the most serious kitty offense in Gary's opnion. So Gary mentioning another cat was very suprising to me. But in mid Januaray we went to the shelter and I watched my hubby closely. He picked up a beautiful beige kitten, that immediatly curled up on his chest and looked right at home. I told the lady "That one!" she told me that the kitten was part of a brother/sister pair and they didn't want to seperate them. My heart sank, I was sure Gary would not go for both, but to my suprise he said it was fine!! Abigail and Abraham came home to meet Sarah and we all lived happily ever after....until Patches. When Jacob's mom moved to Utah in August, we not only got to keep him full time, we got to keep the cat he had at his mom's house. At first I thought Patches was going to fit in okay, until she started chasing Sarah. Sarah being the "oldest" cat in the house, she has a special place, you do not mess with Sarah without incuring the rath of Gary. After two months of Patches trying to dominate all the other cats, she got taken to the shelter...but just a little to late. She peed on my bed. Well, Abraham being a male kitty, decided to pee in the same spot....twice! After changing my sheets four times in three days I had finally had enough, I handed Abraham to Gary and told him to get him out of my sight. Which lasted about an hour. I left to run errands and came home to Abraham curled against the front wall of my yard scared to death. He has now spent the last week in my back yard under our deck, Gary refused to allow him back in the house. Yesterday I caved and asked Gary to let him back in. Patches is gone, the house has been throughally cleaned, so no Patches scent anywhere, and we can keep the bedroom doors closed to make sure Abraham remembers where the kitty box is. Gary was adamat about not letting him back in. But this evening, he called the kids into the living room and put it to a vote. Why he would think the kids would vote to keep Abraham exiled is beyond me, and needless to say, he lost 4 to 1. He was a gracious looser, but seemed to take a little to much pleasure in giving Abraham a bath :-)

Death of the Blue Dress

I love my friends. They can be supportive, caring...make me laugh when I would rather cry.....and be brutaly honest! Expecially when it comes to clothing. Over the last year I have managed to rid my closet of all my unflattering clothing (mostly due to the nagging of said friends) all except my one, comfy, cotton, very unflattering blue dress. I love this dress, I wear it when I need to run out to Wal Mart or I'm to tired to actually put real clothes on. Its my handy, go to, quick emergency outfit. Well, on July 25, 2009 it died....painfully. The night started out well enough....I wore my comfy dress to Kris's house to get ready for my birthday festivities. The group of us, Beth, Jenny, Kindra, Kris and Anna, were going to dinner and to see Le Reve to celebrate my 31st birthday. I thought I was doing good, had an nice flattering dressy outfit, complete with actual makeup and jewerly! By 11:30 that night, when we got back to Kris's, I was done with pants. I hate pants, they make my back hurt and dang it, I wanted to be comfy....so I changed back into the blue dress and flopped on the couch. At which point Jenny went "Oh hell no! Burn that thing!" there was a debate on weather to use the kitchen sink or fire place to burn it, when suddenly I was being pounced on!! Jenny, Beth and Anna were doing their best to actually rip my dress!!! oh the horror :-) it was kinda funny at first, they couldn't get it to rip! I mean, seriously, the thing was 4 years old and very worn, but no major damage, I knew it was a nice sturdy piece of clothing. But then Jenny cried "There is a hole, get it!!" and that was the end of the dress. I kinda felt like Cinderella with three evil step sisters....after a few moments of manic ripping, Kris was kind enough to stop taking pictures long enough to toss me a blanket for modesty...then went back to taking pictures of the whole thing! They did give me more clothes to actually put on, so I wasn't left in my bra and undies. But then they started taking the ripped pieces and tying the on their heads like bandanas! My crazy pirate/gangster friends were reveling in the death of the blue dress! and the next morning when I told Gary about it, he was rejoicing right along with them....

A day of Pooky Firsts

We went to the Lake today on a spur of the moment trip. Gary's customer flaked on him, so he ended up with the day off. This was our second trip out on the boat this year. In the past Pooky refuses to get into the water, even if I get in first and promise to hold on to her. On Father's Day she chilled in the boat with Daddy. But today she JUMPED in, swam all around and kept "chasing" the boat. It was the cutest thing. After our first swim stop, we got back into the boat and headed over toward the dam. Gary slowed the boat to no-wake speed and instead of staying on my lap, Pooky crawled into the front of the boat and did her best Titanic impression. She kept telling daddy that it was okay to go faster than "mommy and Pooky speed". On Father's Day we determined that mommy and Pooky are comfortable at a speed far slower than Daddy likes to go. After we ate a very late lunch by the dam we tooled back out to tow the raft. Now, Emily didn't go on the raft until she was 6 or 7, Jacob was 6 or so also. Pooky said she wanted to go on it, so we put her on and Gary was going to ride with her, but him getting on the raft kept freaking her out, so it ended up being a daddy solo ride. Now, I expected her to not want to try the raft again until next year at the earliest, she was very upset by the time I got her off the raft the first time. But I had the bright idea to get on the raft first, then have Gary put Pooky on and she was all happy! Daddy was given strict instructions to go at no-wake speed, no faster...and Pooky had a ball! We rode around for a short time, then I told her when I count to three we're going to let go....1-2-3 Let Go! and we giggled our way into the water. Em and I rode next and Gary said we looked hilarious cause we were laughing the entire time. By the end of the day, Pooky had not only swum in the lake, she had jumped in enthusiastically, rode on the raft and for the entire ride back to the dock, all three of us girls sat in the front of the boat and didn't freak out when daddy started going faster than "mommy/Pooky speed"

When we got home I decided to go to the grocery store, I got back from that at 8:30 pm, walked into the house to find Pooky asleep in my chair, Gary snoring in his chair and Emily asleep on the couch....I carried the girls to bed...Gary got kicked and told to go to bed :-)

Huh, maybe he does know me...

This past weekend was my annual women's retreat through my church. It was an absolutely awesome weekend. When I got home on Sunday and got to tell my husband all about everything that went on, he actually sat quietly, teared up at one point and very uncharacteristically let me finish my story before responding. When he did, on Sunday evening, and again during a discussion last night, what he had to say has completely floored me....in a good way. Gary is not the most compassionate man, not that men really ever know what to do with a woman and her ever changing emotions. He is a great husband, a wonderful provider, father ect. But I never thought he really saw me. Uh, yeah, I was wrong. He told me things that I didn't realize he even noticed about me, but most surprising of all was he told me that a few times over the years, especially right as we started dating, God told him that I was broken and He needed Gary to take care of me. Now, if he had told me this even last week, I think I would have gotten angry at the very least, I am an independent woman, I need no man to care for me, and broken? pfft! I'm not broken, I'm the most together person ever! NOT! But after the events this past weekend, and how God has been working in my heart for the last year or so, I feel profoundly grateful that not only did God know exactly what I needed but that he sent me a man who would listen to His desire for me and do his best to be what God needed him to be for me. My husband rocks!

Fit for Life....or at least this week

I've been on and off, then back on and back off the South Beach diet since November. I've gotten okay results, but seem to be loosing and gaining back the same darn five pounds! The SB recipes are delicious and quite a few have been added to my box of favorites. But if I have to eat one more egg for breakfast I'm going to go postal on somebody! You know the feeling, the one where you have eaten the same food so often that just the smell of it can make you nauseous. So, I will glean some of the healthy eating tips from SB and move on to new horizons. Or I should say old, since I followed the Fit for Life book last year at about this time. For anybody who has not heard of it, the book was published back in the 80's and is still one of the most bought diet books on Amazon. I got turned on to it by a friend....a healthy friend (not skinny, but healthy, which is what I want) I could go into details, but its basically eating nothing but fruit all morning, then after noon you can eat whatever you want, just got to be specific about what foods you eat together and stop eating at 8pm. The book details how your body digests foods, the cycles your body goes through on a daily basis and other rather interesting stuff like that. Like all diets it promotes eating fresh fruit and veggies, stay away from fried fatty foods ect. What I like about it though it that nothing is off limits, in moderation. When I followed the guidelines last year I lost almost 20lbs (which I have since gained back, dang it!) and I felt wonderful. I actually stayed with the program for over six months, until the holidays rolled around and my supply of summer fruit had dwindled. So spring is upon us, the grocery stores overflowing with sweet yummy fruits and delicious looking veggies and I have a good six months to plot how to push through the holiday season without tossing my good eating habits out the window.

Redemption

Last night at bible study I attempted to convey what I got out of a certain topic that was brought up during the study. Oddly enough, I was actually to choked up to even speak, let alone make coherent sense. I'm sure nobody else has spent all day thinking about the blubbering mess I was last night, but I did! I even had to pull over in my car to scribble down in my journal what it was I actually did want to say because at least to me, it was important. Here's what got scribbled....


Okay, I have to clarify my point about redemption from last night because what I said made no sense to me and I couldn't manage to get out what I was trying to say and its been bugging me all day. I'm not usually at a loss for words or to over come to even talk. I was hit by Beth Moore's point about FULL redemption, not partial, not God will duct tape me back together but I won't ever really be whole again. He wants to restore me to my ORIGINAL self, full and complete, not a mere shadow of the girl I once was. God isn't going to forgive me, put me back together, but leave that unbearable hurt behind. He wants to take that away too. Now, I've known for 16 years that I was forgiven. In this situation nobody else here on earth was hurt except me, so I have no one to ask forgiveness of, no tangable result of my actions that I can set about fixing. Obviously life has gone on, God has blessed me and I've been through other struggles. But every year I'm an emotional mess as April 5th approaches. After a while I just began to think that the hurt I feel every day, but more acutely at this time of year was just the consiquences of my actions 16 years ago and I was just going to have to live with it. But Beth M's points about God not keeping a storage unit full of our past sins and wants to FULLY ransom me from that captivity made me realize that I don't have to keep holding on to that hurt, He wants to heal that part of me too. Now I have no clue how that is actually supposed to happen (any suggestions would be greatly helpful) it took me 16 darn years just to get the point. But the hope that it brought me was almost like cool water to my soul, and it obviously moved me.


See, I put together a coherent thought while crying!