Attitude and gratitude

My last post was all in jest but since I have been trying to count my blessings more I had a hard time keeping myself from talking about how much I love living here at the end of that post because I wanted to keep it light and silly. Do I wish I had a dishwasher...UMM, YEAH!!!  Do I miss having a garbage disposal...absolutely! Do I cringe every time I have to vacuum because I know that there will be less of the green carpet by the time I'm finished because no matter how careful I am a string of it ALWAYS gets sucked up in my vacuum and stuck on the roller thingy...DUH!  Could I go on and on about the little things that bug me about this house...FOR HOURS!!!

BUT I LoVe...

Having our own place to live.

             Our ward for about a gazillion reasons.

                          Our yard.

                                      That our kids are in the same school as they were last year.

That the bus picks them up at our house.

            The cute little bunnies that hop through our yard all the time.

                       That our kids see beauty in the things we find fault in. See previous post-orange carpet comment :)   

    That there were already holes in the walls and carpets and scribbles on the walls when we moved in so I am not SO worried that the kids will cause damage to the place.      

         That the atrocious green carpet makes me think of my Grandma Hazel every time I see it. She had ugly green carpet too. It was in perfect condition and very clean, unlike our green carpet but still, it makes me think of her so I still kind of like it.  

                     That sometimes when I walk into the back part of the house near the bathroom it smells like my Grandma Irvine's house did and makes me think of her. I LOVE that!!!

            That I am grateful every day to have a roof over our heads so that our family is protected from the elements and from harm. 

     That I have realized that it doesn't take a lot of fluff to make a person happy. You can be happy or miserable anywhere you live. It is all in your attitude. We are choosing to be happy and boy are we ever happy! We have our fair share of trials that's for sure but ultimately we are happy. We love each other. We love our greatest gifts..our children. As long as we are together we don't care where we are. I feel such a lovely peaceful spirit in this house. I KNOW we are supposed to be living here right now. I think that the reason that we couldn't find a place to live, even though we were desperately praying, driving up and down every street in several towns all the time, diligently, desperately searching for our own place to live, that Heavenly Father knew that we needed to live HERE. The people that lived here had bought this house as a fixer upper only about a year and a half before we rented it. The husband lost his job and they ended up having to move to Montana. They didn't have any money to fix it up and so it's in the same condition it was when they bought it. Heavenly Father has a plan. He is in charge. We appreciate all He gives us every day. We are truly  blessed people!!! We might not have as much as others. We have more than some. We have sufficient for our needs. We NEED the gospel, our family, food, shelter, clothing. We have those bases covered so IT'S ALL GOOD!!! It seems the
less we have the more we feel blessed. The more we appreciate what we DO have. The more we are able to have our priorities where they need to be. 

One last thought...think of all the crazy celebrities you see in the news. Fame and fortune do not make you happy! You can live in a mansion and be a MISERABLE person or you can live in the gutter and be the happiest person on earth! It is all in your attitude and your gratitude! It's a very conscious choice. "Men are that they might have joy". Our bishop reminded us of that Sunday in his talk in church. This man who is fighting for his life in a battle against the stage 4 cancer that is in his body stood at the pulpit and urged us all to find the joy in life. To look at our lives and if we are not happy, then we need to live the gospel more fully and find the joy in life and be HAPPY!!! What an amazing man! What an amazing message! One thing that has been on my mind for the past few months is that we need to see ourselves as Heavenly Father and Jesus see us. It's not always easy but blesses our lives so much when we make an effort to see our eternal potential. 

WE...ARE...BLESSED!!!! 

Things that make you go hmmmmm...

When my mom (I use her as an example because I have never personally purchased carpet, or chosen paint for any place we have ever lived in seeing as how we have always rented) buys carpet, paints a wall, or buys new furniture she goes through this big process. She might find a picture in a magazine or see an idea at someone else's house. She ponders. She plans. She looks at lots of furniture stores and many, many swatches of carpet. Many, many paint sample cards. She brings them home and ponders and plans some more until she finds JUST.the.right.one! My mom would NEVER just walk into a store and buy the first carpet she came across. So you might understand why the "unique" interior of the house we are in might cause me to wonder WHAT was going on in the mind of the dear, sweet woman that lived here. Were these conscious decisions? Or did she swing by the carpet and wall store on her way home from having cataract surgery and make her choices with her eyes covered in bandages, clearly obstructing her vision. Or did her colorblind husband decide to "surprise" her with these decorating wonders? It truly makes you go hmmmm...

They thought this formica counter top was so fantastic that they decided to use the same material on parts of 3 of their walls in the kitchen.

They liked these paneling front cabinets so much that they decided to...

Put the same paneling on one of the sections of one of the walls...

And, while the paneling and formica are lovely wall options, it's true, I might like this fancy sparkly, pink and gold snowflake patterned wallpaper better. It's a toss up really!

I think the floor is the best feature in the kitchen, really. I mean, what mother of 4 wouldn't dream of having carpet in their kitchen. And not just ANY carpet. But this carpet. The carpet that SOMEONE presumably put a lot of time and contemplation into before actually purchasing it. It's obviously very "special" carpet! I know you're jealous!!

I know that this green carpet didn't have holes in it when it was purchased, I just thought I'd throw that in so you can see the super fun carpet we have here, but seriously, this may be the ugliest green carpet ever! Even the parts that are still in one piece. 

This carpet is Matty's dream carpet! He was so mad at us when we didn't let him have the room with the orange carpet. He says it's lava and he likes to play with his dinosaurs on the lava floor. That room is smaller and we wanted him and Max to share a room and Zack to have his own room and Gracie has the room closest to us so we can hear her at night and that left poor Matty without the lava room. Poor guy! He still complains every couple weeks that he wishes HE had the room with the orange carpet instead of Zack. Zack doesn't know how lucky he is! It is pretty SaWeeT!!!

The paneling in Gracie's bedroom is especially nice since it has a nice scallop border. FAAncy!

Her carpet is just beautiful. If you are blind or colorblind or your taste is all in your mouth then it.is.bEaUtiFUL!!!

The bathroom HAS to be our favorite part of the entire house! It is just lovely. And everything is very conveniently placed within arms length of each other. It is really nice! Not sure if you can see the baby blue tiles on the wall. So super pretty! Occasionally you do bruise your knees on the gargantuan cabinet when sitting on or standing from the toilet but that is just all part of the 'charm' of living in an old house.

This is the beautiful floor in the laundry room that is right next to the kitchen. I would rather have this ugly floor in the kitchen than the ugly carpet in there. At least it can be swept and mopped! UGH!!!

I'm sorry ladies but I don't think they make this front door anymore. It is a beaut but I think they bought the last one. Shucks!!!

On a cute note, I finally found Gracie's little purse I made for her. And I found my camera so I thought I'd post it, too. It's straps are skeewompus but I learned my lesson and the next one I made had perfectly placed straps. She didn't notice.  :) 

Skunkville

Living on the outskirts of town is kind of nice in some ways and really annoying in others. The kids love catching lizards, trying to catch the cute little bunnies that hop through our yard daily, watching the horse in the neighbors yard, the openness of our back yard area, and I love the beautiful view of sunrises and sunsets.
                            HOWEVER......
waking up from a dead sleep every couple of weeks by the unbelievably strong stench of skunkiness is NOT my idea of a good time!!!  It smells like the stinkin thing is right in our bedroom. It doesn't just spray and go on it's merry way. Oh, no! It sprays...and sprays...and sprays...for AT LEAST an hour. Sometimes HOURS!!!  It will start to subside, just a bit, to where you can breathe through the stench and then it sprays again. Sometimes it happens at around midnight. Other times around 2 a.m.. This morning he waited until about 5:30. Seriously NOT cool!!!  Anyone up for some target practice???

Weeds, Stones, War, School, and Football

~Our back yard is a large open area that is dirt and weeds. It's so large back there that the cost of watering grass back there would be too much for the people who own the home so they just left it open and dirt. Well, it's being overtaken by weeds now. When Brian tries to mow it it flings dirt and rocks all over at him  cutting his legs and arms and face, and they fling at the house, the windows, everywhere. So we decided to spray weed killer on them. I sprayed some cheap weed killer from Walmart all over them a few weeks back...NOTHING happened!!! It was as if I had sprayed fertilizer on them instead of weed killer. The other day I decided to spray some Round Up on them. I mean it's ROUND UP!! That will kill anything right?!....NOTHING happened again!!!! It looks like a jungle of weeds out there!! The kids don't even want to play out there anymore because of the craziness of the weeds. Any suggestions?! I'm going to put on some long pants and a long sleeve shirt and mow them again but doesn't there have to be some kind of killer that actually KILLS weeds? If you have a tried and true brand and particular type please enlighten me!!!
~So about 4 years ago, on Memorial Day, Brian passed his first ever kidney stone. Between that day and Labor Day of that year he passed 36 kidney stones. UNBELIEVABLE!!! And he didn't experience much pain at all. He has an incredibly high threshold for pain!!! Well, the last one had spikes and got stuck and he had EXCRUCIATING pain and ended up having to have a lithotripsy to break it up so he could pass it. The anesthesia made him very loopy which made for some great entertainment for me! :) 
Since then he has passed about one kidney stone a year. None of them being very painful at all. Just a bit uncomfortable for him. Well, last Thursday he woke up in the middle of the night feeling very nauseous from the extreme pain in his back. He said it felt like he had a knife stabbed in his back and realized he had another stone. He had a lot of pain with this one Thursday and Friday as it tried to leave his kidney. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday he just had a small amount of pain sporadically throughout the day but not bad at all. Finally, Tuesday at around 3:30 am he finally passed the darn thing. I felt so bad for him! Those things aren't fun!!! I have been lucky not to have those. I may have just jinxed myself! But I'm sure that I would have been much more whiny if it were me. I would have had to use much more medication and would have milked it a lot more than he did. He's awesome!!!
~For years now people have suggested The Children of the Promise series to me. Even Brian read them and he's not a super big reader. He enjoys reading but doesn't often commit to a series of books that big. I always say NO WAY!!! I get so freaked out about war. I just can't take it. It's so hard! We don't watch R rated movies but I wanted to see Saving Private Ryan when it came out because I felt it would be good to see the reality of that war and appreciate the things people went through to ensure my freedom and the freedom of so many others in this world. Well, it was HORRIBLE!!! At the time my little brother Nathan (yes he's 6'4" but he will always be my "little" brother) had just joined the Marines. My brother in law Richard was in the military as well. I can't remember if he was in Special Forces in the Army yet or not but he has been for years. It was too close to home for me. It made me so sad and sickened to think of what these soldiers had endured. And it scared me to wonder what my relatives might have to face if anything bad happened while they were in the military. There was one particular scene that has haunted me since I saw that movie. I woke up with nightmares of that scene for at least a good month after I saw that movie. It was horrifying!!! To this day when I hear the name of that movie my mind immediately goes to that scene and I feel sick to my stomach.
Since watching that movie September 11th happened and the war broke out. Nathan spent a month in Iraq. Richard has been there many times for long periods of time. War terrifies me and I just don't do well seeing stuff about it or reading stuff about it. I finally caved and decided to read that series because my mom let me borrow a whole bunch of books and I realized they were all extensions of that series. I figured what the heck...I'll give them a try.  I finished the first one this morning. I couldn't put it down. It was really good but also so hard to read at the end when the Japanese soldiers began the Bataan Death March with our soldiers. It's just disgusting to me!!! What those poor men went through and what their families went through. It's just horrible!!!
I have been watching my Gilmore Girls Series boxed set again lately because it makes me HAPPY!!! I catch an episode when I'm folding laundry in my bedroom. I like to stick a disc in the computer and watch an episode while I do dishes. As many as I've watched you would think I would dream about them but I haven't done that at all. Not until I read this book about war and now I'm having nightmares about them. I'm debating if I should keep reading these or not if they are going to affect me so much. There are still 4 more books in this stories and a whole bunch more in The Hearts of the Children that is an extension of these books from what I understand. If I keep going I won't want to stop I'm sure but can I handle the stress these books cause in my heart? Have any of you read them? What do you think? Are they worth continuing?
~Only 12 days til school starts!!! I'm so very excited and worried. The kids are going to love being in school again but I'm wondering how Max will ever manage without his brothers around. How will I ever manage without Max having his brothers around?! It should be interesting that's for sure!!!
~Football practice has begun for Zack. It's his first year in tackle football. He is very excited! He's so cute in his football pads!!! He has a scrimmage tonight and his first game in a week and a half. We're excited for this fun new adventure for him!!! Baseball about puts me to sleep but I really get into football so I'm excited to watch his games!!!

A little randomness...

~We discovered that a child safety thingy for the refrigerator door keeps cute, silly one year old little girls from throwing random, possibly important things in the garbage if you attach it to one of those handy garbage cans that has a lid that you open by stepping on a little pedal with your foot. It's amazing what a little child proofing can do for a person's sanity! Brian put those little locks on the cabinet doors as well so now the kids still have their plates, cups, and bowls low enough to reach and they can open the child proof locks but Gracie stays out! It has saved me so much time cleaning up that stuff several times a day and rewashing everything that she was dragging everywhere. Especially had to rewash them when we had our dog. YUCK!!!
~2 weekends ago Brian said he would do anything I asked him to. He's been so busy working 10 hour days and then delivering for J.J. on weekends and then we've been running around a lot so it was wonderful to have a weekend that was freed up so we could get caught up on some stuff that has been neglected. He mowed the lawn, bought and put together a weed eater, mowed down the weeds I couldn't cut with the weed eater, put weed killer and fertilizer on the lawn, he built a book case, built some shelves in our closet for our shoes, took a bunch of stuff to the cellar, cut and spliced back together the hose that had a hole in it, helped me hang pictures, fixed the broken handle and the broken shock absorber on the front screen door, took the tv out of the dining room and hooked it up in the bedroom, baby proofed the garbage can and cabinets...I can't remember everything but it has been wonderful having those things done!!! He did SO much and never complained, sighed, or rolled his eyes once!!! I am SOOOOO grateful for everything he did and does for our little family!!! I know I don't say it often enough but I love him and appreciate him!!!
~I cleaned up the boy's room today and it looks so good!!!  The computer is in the kitchen and right by their bedroom door so as I'm typing I sneak a look every now and again. I'm hoping to remember how nice it looks since I'm sure it will be completely destroyed in about 5 minutes when Gracie wanders in there and starts throwing everything around again. It's always nice to enjoy those things while they last!!!
~I'm thinking that pink car seats and strollers are super cute but not very practical. Not for my daughter anyway. We took her poor stroller camping since we didn't have another one. It's DISGUSTING now!!! YUCK-O!!! Keeping her car seat clean is quite the chore, too! But they are SOOOO cute I just couldn't resist!!!!  Oh well! At least she had fun, eh! I refused to try to keep her or her stuff clean when we were camping! What would have been the fun in that?!   :) 
~I'm so glad that I can use the internet to listen to my favorite radio stations, from where we lived before. We can still listen to them even though we can't get them on the radio here. I love the internet! And I LOVE music!!! It makes me happy!!!!

Be Careful What You Wish For...

We (mostly Brian) have always wanted a dog. Our boys REALLY wanted one and have begged relentlessly for years for one. When we rented this house the realtor told us we could have a small dog or a cat which prompted an almost daily beg from the boys. Brian was listening to Barter Bar on the radio on Wednesday and heard about a little one year old Shih Tzu/Chiuaua mix for FREE!!! Well, we drove over right away and checked him out and in a moment of pure insanity I decided we could keep him. He's pretty cute. He reminds me more of a Terrier. I think of Eddie from Frazier. But he's not his mom is a Chiuaua and his dad is a Shih Tzu (or vice versa).

Gracie was positively TERRIFIED of him the first day but by the end of last night was chasing him around trying to "love" him. With 4 kids vying for his attention and showering him with "love and affection" (I guess that's what you'd call it) I have the same fear with him that I had with Max and Gracie when they were tiny babies...that he'll be loved to DEATH!!!

The kids have been so happy! Matthew and Zack have both at different times said, out of the blue..I can't believe we actually have a DOG!!! 

Zack even cleaned his room so the dog could come in there the first night. WOW! I've been trying to get him to do that for weeks! Once he cleaned half of it. Literally half. There was practically a line down the middle. It was pretty funny. 

The biggest problem we've faced so far is that he keeps running away constantly. We have a fenced front yard but he's small enough to squeeze through. We're working on it. He took off this morning and ran across the highway. Zack took off running after him...without looking...across the busy highway...giving his parents heart attacks!!! Luckily there weren't any cars coming which is unusual! What a blessing! We explained to him that if that happens again he needs to just let the dog go because although the dog is important he is no where near as important as Zack is!!! Seriously...what was he thinking?! Zack was upset and scared and frustrated when he came back and said he hated the dog. He can't understand why he keeps running away even though Zack loves him so much. SAD! 

The thought of a dog is much better in a lot of ways than actually owning one. For me anyway. The best part for me is that he's house broken already and he is very sweet and loving!!! He is scraggly looking and we want to let his hair grow out for a bit and see how he looks. The owners had him chained up in their back, dirt yard, on a short chain and he was FILTHY and pretty neglected looking. He needed us I think! They had a child or grandchild that was allergic to him so they put him outside and decided to give him to someone who could care for him better and give him more attention. He's definitely getting attention!! His name is KuJo...we're changing it to Tex (Brian grew up in Texas and I think it's sweet and kind of manly).

We (again...mostly Brian) also wanted a yard. WHAT were we thinking?! We've managed to live only in apartment complexes or houses where the HOA fees covered lawn maintenance so we've never actually had to care for our own yard. We've experienced caring for a yard when we lived with Brian's mom in the past and mowed, weed eated, weeded, planted flowers in her HUGE yard. Our yard is tiny! Brian mows it in like 5 or 10 minutes. It's awesome!!!

 But the weeds!

 It's ridiculous! And there isn't a sprinkling system. But at least it's a yard and even though it's lots of work we are happy to have a nice place for the kids to play. We have already spent a small fortune between the weed eater, fertilizer, and weed killer. Thank heavens my sister KayTee and her husband Chris had an old lawn mower that only works part of the time so they bought a new one and gave us the old one. WE ARE SO GRATEFUL!!! There is NO way we could have afforded a lawn mower!!! Next spring we are planning to plant a nice little garden in the garden spot to the side of the yard (once again Brian's dream!!!)

It's kind of fun having added adult responsibilities of a dog and a yard.  Lots of work and patience but still enjoyable!!! 

Hooray!!! I found the floor!!!!

My kids were so incredibly helpful when we moved in here.  They were so excited to see all of their toys that had been in storage for 8 months and they couldn't contain the excitement!  I begged, pleaded, commanded them not to unload boxes.  I have a system that works really well for me and I wanted to follow it the way I have followed it each of the 16 times we have moved.  Of course, they didn't listen. They unloaded box after box of everything imaginable looking for their beloved toys.  There was crap strung everywhere!!!  As if unpacking, organizing, D.I. piling with 4 kids, baseball and soccer season, summer break, no dishwasher with 6 people and making 3 at home meals a day, a clingy, confused 1 year old who also got an ear infection and has been getting molars wasn't challenging enough!  Now you add crap strung everywhere to the mix and it was bad!  Very, very...bad!  You know how when you move it's best to have a place where you can pile all the boxes and such so that you can kind of gradually unload one box at a time and have some organization to the madness.  In Salem we used the garage as this area.  Here we don't have a garage and apparently we live in a wind tunnel these days so we can't leave anything out on the carport so we just had to make due with having random piles of boxes strewn throughout the house.  My favorite!!  Well the dining room became the biggest area of craziness.  Tons of boxes were being stored there.  The kids unloaded the most crap there.  It was a danger zone!!!  Early last week I found the table.  It was so exciting!  We were having our first corn on the cob of the season and you have to have a table for corn on the cob!  Yesterday I actually found the floor of the rest of the dining room.  I have widdled it down to like 10 boxes in that room and they are stacked neatly to one side and I could even vacuum the wonderful, ugly carpet!  I feel like a new woman!!!  I have been telling Brian that I think those horders on t.v. just moved during baseball and soccer season and just never found the time to finally get the last of their crap unpacked and then life happened and it just got worse and worse until their houses just became a mess of junk they never had time to get to.  I can't handle living in clutter and mess.  We always live in places that are too small for us and it's hard to keep up with them but I HATE living in disorder!  I am a perfectionist!  I absolutely LOVE organization!!!  So living in a crazy mess in a basement for 8 months was just TOO much and the slow process this organizing, unpacking thing has been here was just about to put me over the edge!!!  But I found the floor!!!!! I.found.the.floor!!!  I feel so much better now!  I don't feel like those crazy horders anymore!!! It's awesome!!!!   I like our house more and more each day! I LoVe the feeling of US that we have here!  Sure cosmetically there are some kind of crazy things. For instance, there are holes in the ugly green carpet and your knees touch the bathroom cabinet when you're on the throne, and the 90 year old kitchen carpet made me want to hurl but you have to look at the positive things.  If we have a stomach virus where it's coming from both ends we're set!  Grosse I know!  And luckily we have a huge carpet remnant that we used in Salem that covers most of the floor in the kitchen so I don't have to be grossed out constantly over that!  The front yard is great!  The size of the living room is great! The ward is great!  The huge 2 car carport is great!  Having storage space in the cellar is great so we don't have to rent a storage unit. It really is a great little place for our little family.  Like Brian said,"If love grows best in little houses, we're really going to love each other!!!"