Dirt Roads

Now that we have our house on the market and the ball is (or rather should be) rolling on to a different home, I find myself wondering what it will all be like. The house, the surroundings, the roads. I have no idea what lies in store for us with a new home. But the dream I have is simple.

Dirt roads.

I love dirt roads. There are few things as satisfying to me as that crunching sound of the dirt roads beneath my feet. Sure. I know the woes of country roads. They are a murky mud pit in the rain. During the dry heat waves of summer, the dust can rival that of the deserts. Snow and ice become death traps on those lightly traveled paths. And a bicycle crash meant picking hundreds of tiny bits of gravel out of your knees and a bottle of peroxide. Ouch. Nevertheless, dirt roads hold far too many fond memories for me. It reminds me of simpler times. Walking sheep with my brothers down the road as we trained them for 4-H. Racing bikes and jumping clods of dirt that pile up on the side from the ever-faithful road grader. Walking with my mom just to talk about the ways of the world. Delivering phone books all day in the blistering heat, then stopping for a coke at the 7-11. It was when hopping on a horse and riding for miles on end was just a normal weekend. I can still hear the clop-clop of hooves on the gravel, echoing between the miles of trees on both sides as I swatted away the horse flies. I remember all the good times we had as a family. No matter the trials life seemed to throw at us, it seemed like it would all be okay out there in the country. You could find us packing up our backpacks and walking or riding bikes to the nearest gas station to spend our meager change on candy (which of course was infinitely cheaper back then). Bug hunting, biking, walking, racing, running, wagon rides, learning to drive, and so much more. The memories flood my mind like a wave joy.

Yep. Something about those dirt roads just makes me smile. Sometimes, when I visit my parents' house, I just enjoy walking down those beautiful dusty roads. I take a deep breathe and close my eyes and remember growing up there. I picture my kids growing up there too and it's what I want most for them. To me, dirt roads remind me of a time when you take joy in the little things like walking your sheep or riding a horse. A time when you could fight to the death with your siblings but it didn't matter because you'd make up five minutes later on a bike ride to catch dragonflies by the creek. They may just be rock and gravel and possibly the bane of your car's perfection to you. But to me, they mean peace. And that, my friends, is what I dream of.

Thumb vs. Hamster

Abby's new pet hamster, Strawberry, has become quite the entertaining little creature. She's the first thing that Abby wants to see in the morning and the last thing she wants to say goodnight to before she goes to bed. I'm still currently working with Strawberry and trying to train her so she can be handled without nipping or biting...or freaking out and leaping to her ultimate death. So far, she's coming along nicely. She stopped nipping through the cage bars for the most part and I can semi-hold her when I transfer her from one place to another. Each night Strawberry comes out before the kids go to bed and she rolls merrily along in her clear plastic hamster ball around the living room floor. Abby then helps me put her back in her cage and we feed her a few cheerios, carrots, or apples through the cage bars as we say goodnight to her.

Well, this all seems all well and fine until something goes terribly wrong. Oh, don't fret. The hamster is fine. No leaps to her doom yet. However, Abby was not so lucky to come away unscathed tonight. When slipping her cheerios through the bars, Strawberry takes them and hoards them in her cheeks one at a time. Unfortunately, Abby had her thumb through the cage at the same time that the cheerio slipped and fell out of her fingers. Strawberry latched on to the first thing she could find. That was when all heck broke loose. Abby, that caring sweetheart that she is, got bit quite good on her thumb. Despite the pain, she picked up the cheerio that fell, continued to feed it to her dear little pet, and then proceeded to break down into an unstoppable strain of tears. Usually a bandaid and some mama kisses later, Abby would be fine. The problem? Her constant comfort when something hurts or goes wrong is to suck her thumb. Can you guess which thumb got bit? Yeah...that thumb. Every time she went to suck it, it bled like mad so we had to bandage it and hope it would stop. One hour later, she finally stopped sobbing enough to try looking at her thumb to see if it was well enough that she could suck it again. It was. Thank the good Lord above. She plopped that thumb in her mouth faster than lightning and finally began to drift to sleep between those annoying little left over sobs.

Josh and I were heart-broken for her as she fought the urge to suck that tiny thumb for comfort. Why, oh why did it have to be that thumb? But just so you know, all is forgiven. She went out after the bandaid finally came off to tell Strawberry goodnight. I suppose I better start working harder with the training. Bleeding thumbs suck. But when the bleeding thumb is the thumb you suck to make the world all right again...it really sucks.

Leap of Faith

As of tonight, there is a new piece of yard art gracing my front yard. And I wasn't even the one who put it there. If you drive past my house, you will see something I actually never really believed would be there - a home for sale sign. Yep. It's official. After tonight (and after many initials and signatures) our house is officially on the market for sale. *gulp* And naturally, I'm as cool as a cucumber about all of it.

Yeah. Right. Actually I was on the verge of losing my dinner from nerves. I spent the entire day (and several days before this) preparing the house for the day we might agree to put it on the market. But as the nice realtor that we found started whipping out papers and writing down information about the place, I suddenly found myself swept up in a massive tornado of chaos. Before I could blink, there she was. staking down a sign in my front yard for all the world to see. I was perfectly calm through the two hour process. But then, as she drove off and I turned to Josh, a wave of doubt washed over me as a steady strain of "I'm not ready for this...I'm not ready for this..." spilled from my mouth.

Josh, ever faithful and confident, was grinning ear to ear. What was this strange new look I was seeing on his face? Delusion perhaps? Gas? No. It couldn't be! He was actually excited! Huh?? He pat me on the back and said, "Don't worry. It's time we did this. We'll find a house soon. I know it." Now, if you can just picture my bottom jaw about even with my belly button, then you will have a fairly accurate picture of what I looked like as he said all of this. The theory, my dear friends, is that we will quickly sell this place (according to our super excited realtor) and then promptly move in with my ever-gracious parents for a very (God willing) short time as we finish buying our new home (that we haven't even found yet). As you can see from my excessive use of parenthesis, there are a whole lot of questions on the sanity of this suddenly psychotic decision we've found ourselves making. So many questions and so many question marks in their place. Will eight indoor cats survive happily under one roof while living with my parents? Will my parents dog-dander-permeated house cause more health issues for my allergic family than we can handle? Will we really find a home that is better than this mold-infested, spider-inhabited, possibly quasi-possessed house? Well...surely the latter of those questions is yes, but still, I'm nervous. God be with us as we step out of our six-year comfort zone to a potentially better home. For now, I'll just go back to biting my nails and eating my Tums. Leap of faith, Stage 1: Complete.

Happy Birthday Abby!

My big girl!

My baby girl just turned four years old today! I can't believe she's already four! *sniff* In August she'll be off to preschool and I'll be carrying my box of Kleenexes in tow. We had a great birthday party for her this past Saturday. Josh's Family came up for the day and we had a hot dog and hamburger cookout despite the gloomy weather. Luckily, the rain took a hike right after lunch and we had a merry ol' Easter egg hunt in the murky backyard. And yes, the kids were quite wet by the hunt's end. But it was worth it as it was very fun indeed. Abby got some great new stuff to draw and color. But most importantly, thanks to her gracious Aunt Mandy, Abby has a new furry friend.

Here she is opening up her gifts and that cage contains our new hamster.

She got her wish and we now have a tiny hamster sitting in our living room. She mocks the cats from the safety of those cage bars. But so far, no deaths or bloody cat noses to report. Abby named her Strawberry. She is a calico hamster and absolutely adorable. The only problem? She bites. It's going to take some pretty major training on my part to get her to tame down enough for the kids, but I shall be ever vigilant in my attempts to train the wee thing. We have one bitten finger to report. I said, "Josh, don't stick your finger in the bars or she'll bite you." So what does Josh do? He sticks his finger in the bars. One nasty little nip, a chunk of missing flesh from his finger, and quite a lot of bleeding later, Josh...my 36 year old husband...learned his lesson. I rolled my eyes and said, "I told you so, genius."

Here's Strawberry. Not a great picture but she won't stand still very often.

So it was an eventful weekend and it was great having the cousins to play with the kids for the day. I made a fun dolphin cake for miss Abby. I experimented with Marshmallow fondant for the first time so I could sculpt the dolphins.

It was fun to try, but I'm not sure I enjoy that form of decorating. It was tasty, but way too much sugar. The kids fought over who would eat what dolphin so I had to do a little morbid dolphin chopping to keep the peace. Poor sugary Flipper. Didn't even know what hit him. I will post pictures later to this post. Tomorrow at the latest. I've had my camera battery plugged in all day to prepare for blogging but for some reason (who will remain unnamed), the battery only looked as if it was plugged in. So it's charging as of five minutes ago.

So a super happy birthday to my sweet baby girl! I'm so proud of you and all the things you learn and all the ways I am blessed to watch you grow daily. Happy Birthday Abby!

Two Shades of Crazy

Something freakishly abnormal occurred recently that has caused my whole frame of mind to shift into a new gear. For a few years now, the hope of getting a bigger home has been naught but a wisp of a possibility. Actually, we've been told, due to circumstances beyond our control, that it's not even a remote possibility to get approved for a new home loan. Long story short, the dreaded Union that Josh is unfortunately a part of, has made Josh's job history sporadic at best. About a year ago, we decided to go house shopping as he'd finally been able to hold a job for a whopping two months. Keep in mind, the work is "there" but the sporadic looking history turns all lenders away like stink on skunk. Well, after talking to a loan officer (or two) they all but laughed in our faces when we said, "Hey, will ya pre-approve us for a loan?" They said that he needed at least six months of steady work to even think about it. So we patiently awaited the six month mark. It came. It went. Then the year mark came. And guess what? The stupid lender said, "Oh. Did we say six months? We meant two years. Sorry." I grumbled my way through the day and gave up all hope of my children not sharing a bedroom into their teens. We then got recommended to a well-known lender and I had a lovely little chat with a nice guy that was more than helpful. When I told him what the previous lenders has said, he was shocked. He said that there was no reason why we couldn't get pre-approved for a loan.

*insert my jaw dropping to the floor*

So I smiled ear to ear and a whirlwind of life's possibilities began to flood my future vision. Visions of a world where black widows don't creep into my bed had me floating on cloud nine. (or maybe the visions were induced from the many chemicals sprayed in my house to prevent said scenario. Who knows.) So what have I been doing this past half month of not blogging? I've been fixing up the house in a desperate attempt to get it on the market. We are still in the process of checking all our p's and q's to make sure that somewhere in fine print it doesn't say, "this is a complete waste of energy as it won't happen. oh...and you'll probably sell your house and the loan won't work. So prepare a room with your parents." It's all happened so fast that I'm not sure what to think at times. The house is getting to a point where we could probably list it sooner than later and I have a nice realtor that's willing to work with us through the madness. No offense to our house, but I'm sort of done. It's kept us dry (mostly), warm (in half the rooms), and safe (except from horrifically deadly spiders and mold). No matter the disastrous things that have occurred, we've fixed them and moved on. But I'm ready to start over in a bigger house. And by bigger I mean one more room and one more bathroom. The move up isn't going to be massive by any means, but two toilets is a must. One toilet for me and the kids...and one ultimate throne room that I plan to never touch or come anywhere near for Josh. As for the kids, they're way too excited about the potential move. I've tried not to gear them up, but it's hard not to when we go look at potential homes. As anti-optimistic as I am, it's hard not to get your hopes up. Even if it's just for a little while. Wish us luck. This could be a bumpy ride. And because it's been awhile since I posted pictures of my monkeys, here they are. Crazy kids.