Why blend in when you were created to stand out?

I am tired of looking at my mug everytime I come to my blog.  I don’t have a lot to write about.  Same old stuff….blah, blah, blah.   For some reason or another, I cannot sleep at night.  I was up till after 3:00 this morning.  Had to get up at 6:45 to get the kids off to school, so when I came back, I went back to sleep till 11:30.  This has gone on and on for several weeks in a row now.  It’s very frustrating!  I have tried taking Melatonin and an herb called Calms Forte, but nope….nothin’s workin’.  Today is the first day I’ve gone back to bed and taken a nap, and that did wonders on how I’m feeling, but now I’ve lost that 3 hrs of which I could’ve been doing something else.  I have put myself under a lot of stress worrying about the things that need to get done in order to put the house up for sale.  I’m kind of at a place where I shouldn’t worry about it, because the last 2 things that need to be done, has to be done by a professional, and I’m just waiting to hear back from someone on those.  I feel the pressure of getting the stuff done and a sense of urgency because we’ll be leaving for KS on June 14th and I would like to at least have shown the house a few times to those who are already interested before we end up turning it over to a realtor.  We wanted to do a For Sale by Owner, but I don’t know. 

Thank you for putting up with my whining. 

On a happy note, my mom is flying out here next Tuesday to see my oldest daughter graduate from highschool on Wed.  It’ll be good to see her.  She’s leaving on Friday…a quick trip.  I was hoping she’d stay till Sunday so she could go to Madison’s dance recital on Saturday, but she’s not like that.  She thinks she has to be home 3 whole days before she has to go back to work on Monday.  She has to “prepare”….whatever that means.  She’s just a real stickler w/her time.  Oh well, I should feel privileged that she’s even coming for the graduation.

We will be moving Steph to Kansas when we leave here on June 14. She is going to go to Coffeyville Community College.  She originally was going there on a Drama/Theatre scholarship, but has since changed her mind and is going on a Native American Scholarship.  She is going to live with one of my sisters.  When we are moved to Indiana, we will only be 8 hrs from C’ville; which is great.  While we’re in KS, we’ll go to church camp, where 2 of my sisters and I are counselors and all our kids/nieces/nephews/cousins, etc…. (along w/lots of other kids we arent’ related to…LOL) are campers.  We’ve been doing this since Steph was 5 years old….so 13 years now.  Wow. That’s a long time.  I am in charge of the little ones; meaning ages 10 and under.  I get a college student as my helper so I need to get busy coming up with things to do with them relating to the topic of the week for the older ones, so they’ll kind of coincide. 

All right, I do believe I wrote more than I had intended.  At least my face isn’t the first thing I see now when I open my page. That was getting a little annoying.  However, my mouth is feeling better and I’m learning how to talk with my new teeth now.  Oh yes, what little sleep I did get last night, I had a dream that the glue/cement holding these temporary crowns on, CAME OFF and the teeth kept falling down everytime I would open my mouth.  It was not a pretty site and I was so glad it was a dream!!!! 

That’s all…….

Now that I can move my upper lip, I can smile better with my new front teeth. LOL  There’s still a little bit of bruising but it’s not too noticable.  I think I am going to love my new teeth as soon as I get used to ‘em.  I feel like one of those cartoon dogs that gets it’s owners false teeth in it’s mouth and when it smiles all you notice are the teeth.   Anyway, here’s 3 new pictures:

And then, just for fun………

Just think if I got pulled over by a cop till I get my new drivers license in Indiana! LOL  New weight, no glasses and no gap!  That would totally crack me up!    

Today was the day I had anticipated for years and years and years.  I would be getting rid of the gap in my 2 front teeth.  I also had a little, bitty tooth on the right side of the front tooth and the one on the left side was too big.  They were all getting fixed today.  Oh my gosh, I was so nervous.  I am still shaking (really!)  Who knew in under 2 hours you could go in and get a whole new look! I felt like I was on Extreme Makeover; which I kinda AM, since I’ve lost 50lbs, gotten contacts and now a new smile.  It feels SO WEIRD!!! The top part of my mouth is still numb from the shots and also my nose.  I can’t feel a thing and it feels like it has swelled into a rubbery blob.  OF course it’s not swollen, but it sure feels like it. 

For those of you who don’t know, the dentist put crowns on my 4 front teeth.  Right now I just have the temporary ones and my permanent ones will be here in about 2 weeks.  I am so happy with the results and when I look in the mirror, it doesn’t look like me. 

Enough words, here’s some before and after pictures

BEFORE: (this pic was taken on Sunday)

AFTER:

What do you think???  I’m so nervous of how people will react. My family has NO IDEA I was even thinking of getting this done and Robert thinks I’m getting it done at a later date.  He will be home tomorrow night so it’ll be a big surprise.  I’ll probably blog about it on my xanga site for my family to see so they’ll recognize me when I go home in a few weeks. LOL 

Well, I’m just now getting around to writing about our past weekend.  It was a busy one!  On Friday, our town hosted the Relay for Life, so Madison and I went out there for a little while.  We only stayed for about 45 mins, because we were going on a “date”.  We went out to eat (KFC, ugh) and then went to play mini-golf, go-carts and Ice Cream!  Here’s a few pics from that night:

Saturday I had a lot of stuff planned.  I had to run to Walmart, take Madison to the dance studio for ballet/tap/jazz pictures to be taken and then get ready for Jeffrey’s b’day party, which was starting at 4:00.  We invited about 10 people, but only 5 showed up.  That’s OK.  It was a very easy party.  They all swam, ate pizza, ate cake, played the boardgame RISK (one of his presents), played on his RipStik (another present) and threw a huge frisby (another gift).  The guests left at 9:00 and then we cleaned up.  Here’s some pics from the party:

On Sunday night, the highschool was having the Baccularette (I know I didn’t spell that right) service for all the graduating students, so we went to that for Steph:

That about sums up our weekend.  It was a good one. 

Ok, so first I’ll start with Mother’s Day. It was a great day! We went to church and then we went out to eat. While eating, we talked and laughed about old times when the kids were littler.  It was fun just being all together.  They gave me my gifts at the restaurant.  Robert had went to Friedmans when he was in Indiana and since they are going out of business, he got me 2 things. The first is a diamond tennis bracelet set in white gold:

The 2nd present was a necklace, also in white gold:

Aren’t they both gorgeous?  I love them! 

Next, was a present from Madison. It’s handmade, which is just wonderful.  It’s little pop-out hearts!

Stephanie painted me the cutest little treasure box:

Lindsay is still working on something for me and Jeff just said the presents dad got would also be from him. LOL  He’s just not creative like that.

Over at our DY Refugees board, some of the ladies have posted pictures of their kid’s bedrooms.  I am going to totally embarrass my children (and myself, too I guess) by posting some pics of their bedrooms.  Which, I might add, WILL all be cleaned this week, if I have to lock them in their rooms to get ‘em done!  First I’ll start with the oldest, which is Stephanie: this first pic if looking left right inside her door:

 

Next is taken from me standing on the other side of the bed, looking at the opposite side of the room. 

 

Next a room that belongs to my son, Jeff.  He has recently gone through his room and bagged up either stuff to keep, throw away or sell at the rummage sale….that’s why he has trashbags all in his room.  He also doesn’t like a bottom sheet on his bed because he says it always comes off anyway:

 

 

And last, but not least, is Lindsay and Madison’s room.  Linz has every.stitch.of.clothes she owns out of her closet and is “organizing”. (Whatever!) 

 

 

So, there you have it….the dreaded rooms of doom. 

When I went upstairs to take the pictures, I heard lots and lots of chirping coming from up in the attic. I remembered Jeff told me this morning that he could hear baby birds up there, so I went up to investigate.  What I found was 5 baby birds in their nest wedged between a screen and louvers on the window:

 

I can’t get over how big their mouths are!  You can only see three in at above pic, but there are 5 babies in there.  While up there, the mama bird came to give them some food, and I was able to get a quick pic of her before she flew away. This pic isn’t very clear, but thought I’d share it anyway:

 

 

And so, now you know why I titled this post the way I did.  It’s just kind of all over the place. LOL  I will show AFTER pics as soon as the kid’s rooms are cleaned. I have a question for you though.  If you were looking at a house to buy, would you be turned off by the way Linz and Madi’s walls are painted?  Would you buy a house with the walls painted that way or would you prefer to have them a neutral color, as in Steph’s room?  You can be honest, it won’t hurt my feelings in the least.  I’m just trying to cut down on all my labor. LOL  I told the handyman this morning that we would be painting that room, and he said, “Why?”  I told him that I didn’t think anyone would buy the house with the room painted that way, and he respectively disagreed….SO, I would value your opinion.  THANKS!!!!!!!! 

Things have been so busy around here that sometimes the days go by and I don’t even realize it.  I got our pool all cleaned out and it has now been filling up since Monday night. It will probably be Thursday before it is full.  Thankfully the water dept doesn’t charge us for sewage when we fill our pool.  We just call them and they take care of it. 

I got the brakes fixed on my van yesterday. They had been squeaking and grinding for several months now, so I decided it was time before they totally give out on me. Didn’t want that to happen! 

Yesterday I had officially lost 50 lbs!  Yeah!  I was excited, so I treated myself to some toast with peanut butter/jelly. It was wonderful!!!  My kids didn’t understand my “treat”. They thought I should go for some pizza or ice cream, but nope….I chose toast. LOL  Today it’s back to the grind of healthy eating.  

We got several pictures back recently of the girl’s prom, Jeff’s track and Steph’s pic of her in her cap/gown.  I will attach them to this post. I don’t have any new recent pics of Madison yet, but her dance recital is coming up and I’ll have some then.  So, enjoy these pics. :-)  (as always click on smaller pic to see a bigger one).

 

 

 

The photos seem to have come out fuzzy and I apologize for the quality. 

This morning after dropping Madison off at the elementary school, I head to the middle school to drop off Jeff. It is 7:55 and Jeff needs to be there at 8:00.  We were running late (as always) and Jeff needed to get there because he had to turn in his windsuit outfit that the school had given him to wear for track meets.  We saw a mother and a son walking real fast toward the middle school and Jeff says, “That’s Jamari; we’re in band together”. I made a comment like, “they’re gonna be late” but kept on driving because I knew Jeff was also close to being late.  We get half-way to the school, and Jeff looked at me and said, “we should’ve picked them up…I feel so guilty, but I have to turn in this suit before school starts”.  I told him after I dropped him off, I would go back and pick him up and take him to school.  He got this huge relieved look on his face and said that makes him feel so much better.  I am so proud of my son for worrying about his friend.  Sometimes boys who are almost 14 years old don’t think about things like that, and I was so happy that Jeff cared about the other boy. He said, “Thanks Mom!”  So, he got out and I went back to the mother/son. I told them who I was and who Jeff is and the mom got this huge relieved look on her face and said to tell Jeff “thank you so much!”  Jamari got in the van and I got him to school at 8:01.  He was so appreciative because had they finished walking, they still had a half a mile to go and he would’ve been really late.  The mom just said she would continue her walk and go on home.  I guess their car was broken down this morning because the son told me they don’t normally walk.  I guess the moral of the story is, if you see someone in need of help, please stop and help if you are able to.  This lesson I learned from my son today and it humbled me.  Here’s my boy:

HELLO!  Just thought you’d all like to see how I look with reddish hair and blonde highlights. (Click on the pic to make it bigger) 

And the top view:

What’dya all think?  My son has been calling me “Reba”. LOL 

Jeff had to write a Sonnet for school and he looked at a doll on the shelf in my room and came up with this: (I was really impressed for a 13  year old boy). :) 

THAT OLD DOLL

 

A Sonnet by Jeff

Her smile is like the morning sun

So bright and glimmering through all the day

Her hair is like a gold mine

So golden as carries many astray.

Her eyes are like the ocean

So big and blue

That the sharks don’t attack

Cause they’re all driven askew.

Her presence is amazing

It’s like being with an elf

So kind and well-mannered

She can take care of herself.

And that’s all I can tell you

About that old doll on the shelf.

For the last 14 months, I have been diligently trying to lose weight. In February of ‘07, I had to go to the doctor for a check-up and found out my weight was at 212!  I was so embarrassed and ashamed of myself! (I am 5′4″)  That was enough to spur me on to try and lose weight.  It’s been a very LONG and SLOW process, but I’m trying to do it the healthy way so I won’t end up with saggy skin everywhere.  My husband jumped onboard and we just started with baby steps by walking every evening at the track at the highschool.  Let me tell you, we were both so out of shape, that we could barely walk around the thing 2x’s.  Just pitiful.  Slowly though, it got easier and easier and we worked up to a full hour of walking every night.  However, we were still eating out a lot though and I was still drinking soda.  The first few months, I ended up losing 25lbs.  I was very proud of myself.  For the next few months after that, we were eating out less and less, but I still had the carb craving and sugar craving.  It’s just awful trying to get your body adjusted enough to let go of those cravings!  I can honestly say it has been the hardest part of this whole process.  Eventually we added resistance training PLUS walking every evening AND I was able to give up soda. Totally.  I haven’t had a full soda for myself in several months and I find I’m not craving them as bad as I used to.  So now, my addiction is water w/lemon.  As embarrassed as I am to show this picture to everyone who reads this blog, I want to encourage you that it can be done.  I weighed this morning and I am down to 169.  I am nowhere near where I want to be but I’m at about my half-way point towards my goal.  The first picture was taken in Nov. ‘06 and I had my daughter take the 2nd one today.  I just needed a comparison for myself and to keep fighting the good fight.  I still get the carb cravings (terribly) but when that happens, I eat some cottage cheese or tuna or scrambled eggs instead of toast, or cereal.  Anyway, on with the pictures:

Like I said, I’m still not where my goal is, but it’s a start.  I’ve lost 43lbs!!  My husband has lost about 45 or so.  We’re so proud of ourselves (but not to the point where we’re bragging or anything).  It’s just been a hard road, but I’m glad we’re taking it together. Also, the biggest benefit, in my mind, is that we are so much healthier, and that’s been the biggest driving point behind this.