I Have A Blog??

Surely you jest.

This cannot be my blog. Surely not - for there is emphasis on the my. We all know I cannot do that.

Oh, but wait. I am on actual internet. Internet that does not require me to *star* and CAPITALIZE things I want to accentuate.

I thank my dear friend, laurazim, for the use of her PC.

Now......for the important stuff.

I am hopefully going to update my sidebar as soon as I am done with this post. There are many a wonderful, entertaining, informative blog I have added to my bookmarks on the crackberry that I would like to add here.

An update was requested, I believe by fellow blogger linked above in a comment on my last post.

~~Rural living is very special.

• My gas and electric bill are now separate
• In fact, I have to order the gas, AND it's propane
• The people who work at the propane place are rather dense
• I have a septic system requiring me to call and have our waste pumped away
• Weird
• Garbage must be driven in to "town" on Saturdays, they do not pick it up
• $2 per bag! But "recycle" is free
• We are now recycling for the first time ever
• When the wind blows and you live in the middle of nowhere.....will anyone hear you scream?
• It's nice when you have a cop on hand to escort you into the house in the middle of the night with his 9mm when there are rabid horses stalking you from the neighboring field
• Wind storms can knock the electricity out for hours at a time in the middle of the night
• Not so great when your husband needs electricity to run his CPAP machine so he can rest

Other than that all is well.

Ok, maybe not.

~~A devastating tragedy has afflicted our family over the last few months. One of my step-daughters has been the victim of a sexual assault. It has waged a spiritual battle in our family. Not only has it caused much stress for her, but my husband is beside himself with grief, guilt, and sadness.

Trying to deal with the consequences of the circumstances has caused even more hardship in our family. We are fighting tooth and nail to gain primary physical placement of our daughter. Her mother obviously opposes this. We have shared placement of both the girls equally for 7 years. However, with the assault having taken place in the township (less than 3000 people) where her mother lives, and under her mother's care, we have decided she would be physically and emotionally safer under or care and OUT of that school district.

The hardship of having to travel back and forth to the courthouse and lawyer's office with my babies in the car has begun to drive me to the brink of insanity. Not to mention the constant vigil answering the phone calls between the police, lawyer, social workers, counselor, school officials, and her mother. I can't even stand it.

Unfortunately for our daughter, her mother doesn't really see the "problem". Some comments we have gotten from her (and I am not exaggerating or joking here):

"We should just put her on birth control."

"I don't know why you feel so sorry for [her], she wanted this to happen."

"No one will talk about it. They'll be over it soon."

"If you tell the cops it will just cause everyone a lot more trauma."

"Kids will be kids."

Seriously. She's 13. The "offender", as the District Attorney is calling him, is 18. Yep. And her mother sees no problem. Didn't want us to go to the police. Obviously, getting a predator off the streets would be the last thing on our mind. Yeah, especially since my husband, her father, is a COP. That is the last thing we'd do. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Oh, and the fact that we weren't told about it as soon as she (the mother) found out - that doesn't bother us at all. No really, it's totally fine for you to wait 10 days to tell us. And then only tell us because our daughter was "supposed to tell" us, but didn't. Of course you should leave it up to a 13 year old victim of a crime to inform her father of the crime. You shouldn't bother picking up the phone, being the adult, and telling him yourself. Nope. You acted like a completely competent, normal, sane parent.

Oh wait. There's more. When he confessed, which he did do after we took our daughter to the police to tell her story, he also confessed to doing this to no less than 3 other girls. Three. Other. Girls. Age of consent in the state I reside in is 16. This miscreant, this fiend, wasn't in a relationship with any of these girls. Not that status would make the act of his addiction OK - but it would explain more. This creep was preying on young girls that were friends of his little sister. Genius. Or scary. Take your pick.

There are more details than I care to recall. And anyway, this is not the appropriate medium for those details. If you know me, ask me sometime about how eye opening it was to read the police report. I still have not shared it with my husband. He knows we have it, but feels it prudent not to lay his eyes upon it.

This is the real reason I haven't blogged much. Well, that and the stubbornness on my part to take the time to blog from my blackberry.

Anything else (other than my very long rant)?

~~Oh yes. I have been knitting - a sweater and a pair of socks. The former for my husband. The latter for the Boy. Did you know that when you are knitting a circumference of 59" a skein of yarn only makes 4" of height? So even though I've been knitting my butt off, the sweater remains a mere 7" in depth. It will be at least 20" to the armpits, then there are two sleeves, and the yoke/shoulders. I only have 7 skeins of yarn. I'm going to need more yarn. That translates to, "I get to visit the knitting store again soon!" Woot-woot for me!

The socks will probably be done first. :P

~~Flower is the cutest 3 year old ever. She says super cute things and does super cute things.

She is constantly putting all her "babies" to sleep all over the house. She covers them with whatever is handy: a washcloth, a baby wipe, a clean pair of underwear from the laundry basket. You know, whatever looks like a blanket. Her "babies" can also be whatever's handy: a remote, a hairbrush, her "duke", a shoe.

When she wants to be picked up she says, "I want to pick YOU uppie." I ask, "You want to pick ME uppie?" "Yesh," is her answer. Really.

~~Lovey can walk. And run. He has an opinion. He is sick of his sister beating him up. He has a love for steps and a fear for NOTHING. He has a set of curls across the nape of his neck that I could just eat up.

~~If you do not care to hear of fertility issues GO TO THE NEXT SECTION.

I am fertile again. How do I know this? I got my period. For. Ten. Days. 10. T-E-N. It was looooong.

It wasn't that unpleasant, just never ending.

I had to wash pads 4 times.

Yes, I use cloth menstrual pads. No, it's not gross. Yes, I wash them in my washing machine where all my other laundry is done. No, it doesn't bother me. I've used cloth diapers extensively. They feel better against my skin. They are pretty and soft. They make me feel happy and lovely at a time when most likely I would be feeling icky and run down. Organic bamboo velour - look it up.

~~I have been asked (and I may have said something about this already, so forgive me) to be the Confirmation Sponsor for a dear friend's daughter! It was the daughter's Guardian Angel (she tells me) that thought of me. I guess I never expected that I would ever be considered for such an honor as a Sponsor or a Godparent, etc., being that I am myself a new convert.

It's very cool. I am a little nervous as to my exact role and what things I should be doing for her. For now, I pray. I know I can do that. My sponsor was really awesome about answering questions about the Faith, bringing me little presents at important ceremonies throughout the year leading up to my confirmation, sending me cards here and there in the mail with inspirational messages, etc. I hope I can live up to the call.

~~Lawyers are EXPENSIVE. Really. I wish I could charge $200/hour on the phone and $300/hour in person. Although he is very good. But it would be awful expensive for my children to have a mother if I charged those kind of rates. Can you imagine - "Mom, can I ask you a question?" "I don't know, you got 10 bucks?"

~~Cops don't make a lot of money. It's been a year at this cop's salary and we have finally exhausted our savings. It's down to $5. We are praying for a miracle.

~~I am very much looking forward to Mass tomorrow. All Saint's Day beats out Halloween any day in my book.

Something I've been wondering lately....

How do those who don't knit deal with stress.

Without my yarn and needles, I might just kill someone.

Discuss.

Blackberry Blogging vs Normal Blogging

Normal: have access to a full keyboard and typing speed of 80 words per minute; thumbs responsible for space bar only

Blackberry: must type entire post with thumbs, requiring more brain power and agility than thumbs are comfortable with and thus reducing my wpm speed to 20

Normal: able to view internet in it's entirety - all links, photos, videos available in an "easy to read" format, making sense

Blackberry: links lost in cyberspace, photos upload in minutes rather than seconds (if at all) and all videos become the word "Flash" with techno babble typed after it

Normal: able to link to other bloggers and websites in an aesthetically pleasing way in my posts

Blackberry: must paste the entire link, if I can even figure out how to produce it on this ¤#*!, thus reducing my blogger savvy points to nil

Normal: can produce italics or even bold font to enhance my readers' understanding of my posts and easily distinguish between sarcasm and normal "speech"

Blackberry: browser is truncated and blogger functions with no buttons leaving me to *star* items of interest or CAPITALIZE ENTIRE PHRASES AS THOUGH I AM YELLING to make my point

Normal: can easily add photographs from the internet or my own collection to supplement the viewing experience of this blog

Blackberry: huh?

Normal: can type and edit numerous posts in one kid-free hour at night and set then up to post automatically throughout the week

Blackberry: must painstakingly type slowly and rack my brain to stay committed to each and every post for no less than 1/2 hour and still have no italics, bold face, links, or photos to show for it all the while listening to my kids try and tear each other apart (which is happening right now) causing me to truncate my post(s)

-H

Blog, Interrupted

"You are not currently connected to any network."

My computer triumphantly tells me this everytime I log on.

Why not just say:

"You're unconnected."
"You have been disconnected from the outside world."
"Don't even think about rejoining society any time soon."
"No one wants to connect with you."

Ok, that last one is a little bit of my own insecurities shining through.

Still.

I am unconnected. I sit and type with my thumbs and it's not the same. I have looked into satellite internet. Expensive. I miss my DSL. Dial up would make me cry and render everything unreachable and obsolete.

Not to mention that aside from missing my blogging, many other extreme, stressful situations require my attention at this time.

If anyone is still reading this, please pray for healing, spiritually and emotionally, for my daughters. And, as always, continued conversion of my husband's heart. (Yes, I realize that wasn't a complete sentence. Yes, I homeschool. Scary, I know.)

-H

Liturgical abuses.....

....make Baby Jesus cry.

And my friends, he cried a lot today.

Please pray for my local parish. Today was the first Mass I attended here. I am seriously thinking that the hour and a half drive to the Cathedral Parish in the Big City might not be such a hardship after all.

Unfortunate

Me awake in bed at 5:30 am with my kids asleep.....

a phone call to attend a labor....

and my husband just left for work.

Rats.

My New Master Bathroom as described by my friend, CW

The walls and ceiling are painted a hot pink magenta (think Pepto-Bismol on acid). Then it looks like the previous owners passed out some jars of fingernail polish and told the kids to "have at it".

Really.

Testing, Testing

Ok, so we have moved. We have no internet access because I now live in the boonies - way, way out in the boonies.

I am typing this post on my Crackberry (it's really a Blackberry, but it's like a drug, hence the crack). It has taken me a while to figure this thing out and this is my test post, typed with my thumbs on a keyboard no bigger than a bus pass.

I am still living, as Candy has so elequantly put it (although I can't figure out how to link to her on this thing), in Cardboard Stonehedge. It's a little depressing. Still, I hope to grow to love this house and the land.

I still hate bugs, a lot. But it was awesome to see a whole flock (if that's the right term) of turkeys out in the field we own this morning while I nursed my youngest.

Oh, and his birthday is tomorrow. Lovey will be one. He's atill such a baby but growing so much too and almost walking.

:)

I feel CRAZY

We are moving.

In fact today, a huge truck with green and orange lettering parked itself in my driveway and proceeded to eat all of the boxes and furniture in my house.

My neighbors, bless their hearts, were kind enough to come over and help us load the truck. My dear friend, C., has spent the last 3 afternoons, including today, at my house helping me pack through my neurosis.

Candy posted wonderfully about the kind of exhaustion that accompanies moving, although I know not of the kind of move she is doing across the country. I hope she knows that now since she is a midwesterner I may have to stalk her and meet her someday.

I am experiencing that kind of exhaustion, not to mention I FEEL CRAZY.

I hope my husband really loves his job because I AM NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN.

See you on the flip side.

Bloggy Break

Just an FYI, in case you don't hear much from me.

My family and I are moving in 2 weeks to a home much closer to my husband's job.

This means more time for him to be with us since he won't have to spend 2 hours each work day driving back and forth to work.

This also means we will be even further out in the boonies.

AND I get to pack. Which I love so, so much. So much in fact that even though we are moving in just 2 weeks, I have not packed a thing.

Of course, if you ask my friend laurazim if we're moving she'll tell you that we're just doing the "un-move". The "un-move" is where you pack up all your stuff and throw out what you don't want. You do this to declutter and make it easier to clean your home. Once your home is clean and clutter free you unpack your stuff and get to enjoy a much happier place.

Except that I'm not telling her: We really are moving.

I still have to:

Pack
Cancel our phone/internet
Pack
Forward our mail
Pack
Set up new phone/internet
Pack
Change my address with the bank
Pack
Change my address with the utilities
Pack
Set up new utilities
oh, and Pack

It would be nice if there wasn't so much packing to do.

So, I may or may not be posting a bunch between now and the move.

Have no fear.....I'm sure I'll have plenty to say once the move has been completed.

~H

Modern "Art"

Found this on Fr. Longenecker's blog. Here's his take on it.

An article about a piece of "art" that is a bible with some pens next too it. A sign next to a container of pens says: “If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it.”

Blasphemy as I have never heard of before.

Please pray that this will end.

I can't even say anything else.

~H

Invention Lets Pregnant Women Hold Models of Their Unborn Babies - Science News | Science

This amazing article was shared with me via my friend laurazim on the "bookface". I had to share it here. Go read it. I'll wait.

Invention Lets Pregnant Women Hold Models of Their Unborn Babies - Science News Science & Technology Technology News - FOXNews.com

Did you click on the link in the article for the "Full Article"? No? Ok. Here it is. I'll wait again.

Did you check out the pictures? Well, if you missed them, here they are.

Ok, what do you think?

I think we *just might* put a small dent in abortion, God willing, if became standard procedure at your 8-12 week prenatal visit to get a model of your own baby to take home.

I'm just sayin'. Pass it on.

~H

Just what I wanted to hear.....

I have been out of commission for a few days....ok, maybe like a week or more.

I have managed to get mastitis, again. It is so bad that I actually asked my husband to stay home from work and help out with the kids......AND HE SAID YES. Really.

When he called his boss he told him why he was staying home. As in, "I really hate to call in because I LOVE MY JOB (he totally does), but the wife is really sick and needs my help." Blah, blah, blah from his boss (obviously I can't hear him). My husband says, "Well, she's sick. She has mastitis....where her breast is really red and tender and she has a fever and kind of feels like she has the flu." More from the boss that I can't hear. Then my husband says, laughing, "Yes, cows do get mastitis. People do too."

When he gets off the phone, he explains to me that his boss wasn't aware that people could get mastitis. He sends his condolences because he knows it seems to really be bad in the cows and can't imagine what it would be like for me.

Nice.

Even better is on day 2 of antibiotics for said "cow disease" My Lovey, who has had a fever for almost 4 days, is not getting any better. My boss calls to see how I'm doing with the "cow disease". I tell her OK and give her an update on Lovey. She says his behavior and symptoms sound like and ear infection.....fever, not wanting to lay down, not nursing well (probably how I got cow disease), overall crankiness, etc.

So I decide, "Hey, let's try and get him an appointment to see somebody." Yah. It's only 1pm on Friday afternoon. Should be plenty of openings.

Um, not so much.

First clinic I called didn't have anything available. But they could see us tomorrow. No thank you.

The next clinic had a *lovely* (because I've been told if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all) receptionist who said, "We've got two doctors in. Who does he normally see?" Nobody. Do you have an appointment or not? "Well, it has to go through his Primary." He doesn't have one. "Well, I could take a message and have the triage nurse call you back." Look lady, I just need to see someone who can prescribe antibiotics, m'kay????!!!!

Ok, I didn't say that last part, I just hung up.

We decided just to go to the Urgent Care/ER. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

What I found out during that visit was:

A) He's fine
B) I just lost $60 to find that out
C) Apparently, I'm an idiot, because he's going to die from a childhood illness if I continue to not vaccinate him

The doc says, "Why aren't you vaccinating?" We've chosen not to.

"You know that more kids die from childhood illness every year than from vaccinations?!"

You got evidence to prove that? No? Ok, well we have chosen not to vaccinate.

Reminds me of a friend of mine recently who learned at her daughter's 3 year check up that if another child at the playground bites her she'll probably die. (They've done limited vaccinations.)

Really.

There actually sent someone chasing after me when I got sick of them waiting to come back to my room with "Discharge Instructions".

Probably because I'm such an idiot.

Wish List

For family far away, or even close by friends or family, I am posting a wish list for the two upcoming birthdays....Lovey turns 1 next month and Flower will be 3.

I like to do Montessori Activities with them, especially Flower. Mostly, I go to the thrift or secondhand store and pick up things and make activities that are similar to the ones I see on different Montessori teacher websites. I have a lot of stuff that I've gotten from there. But still, there are some classic Montessori activities I'd like to have for them that I can't buy at a store around here and can only find online and I can't afford to buy on my own.

For example, I think Flower would love more sensorial activities. She loves to sort and stack things and especially touch them and organize them. I think she would love to have the Pink Tower and/or Brown Stairs. There are a couple of different stores you can get them at online, just click one of these colored links in this post. I know they may seem like just a bunch of blocks, but they are designed to help them with visual discrimination....which Flower has a high sensitivity to already. I think she'll love the "order" without chaos of playing with these two toys.

I also like the Movable Alphabet. I'd like to start her with the D'Nealian letters so that it's not hard for her to make the jump from recognizing and writing manuscript to cursive. Then there's the Number Rods. Again, visual discrimination but this time with a math approach.

For Lovey...I really like the Circle Sorter. It's the easiest puzzle to do because it doesn't matter what direction you turn the circle, it always will fit.

Love the Farm Puzzle for both of them. And this. And the Color Tablets. Flower would love to sort these out. For. Hours.

Both of the websites have the classic Montessori items like the Pink Tower, Brown Stairs, the Number Rods, and the Color Tablets. Those are the real hardships for me to get for them right now and would be my priorities based on what I am seeing as far as readiness to learn right now. Remember, I'm also getting them ready for eventual homeschooling. I'd love to be able to start them out with this stuff.

This is just a "wish list". Being that we have 5 children, we really already have most of your classic 3 and 1 year old boy/girl presents. We have dolls and dress-up stuff, cars and blocks. We have balls and stuffed animals, and toys that make noise (see previous post). We have movies, and books, and toys to ride on. We have so much "stuff", I'd just rather see something that is needed and will be fun for them and useful (even if we have more kids).

Flower does NOT need anymore clothes, no matter how cute they are. She has at least 20 dresses and lots of shirts and pants. I love garage sales. Lovey could get more shorts....but I can garage sale those too 'cause he's just going to get them messy. :)

I realize this is not a normal-type post. But it is important to get this stuff out there, and I know so of you family types are readying this.

We love you and miss you and hope to see you soon.

Mowing the Lawn

My husband and I "mow the lawn" occasionally at our house. In the event that we need to keep the subject matter PG, this is terminology we can use without the kids being any the wiser....or other peoples kids if in mixed company.

Not that we talk about mowing the lawn often or with people we don't or do know. We're not perverts. Just every now and then, especially with close friends (mostly my close friends and I talking alone) the subject comes up.

So at our house it's "mowing the lawn". If you're not following, I'm not talking about grass or any outdoor activity (although some people, somewhere, probably do consider this an outdoor activity). When I talk of the "fruits" of our gardening.....I don't mean flowers, even though we call one of our children Flower. I mean kids. You get it now.

Ok.

So, my husband and I decided to mow the lawn. The babies were asleep in our bed, and the big kid was downstairs playing video games. We settled on the babies room. It was empty and convenient.

We learned a few things:

1) We are not as young as we once were.
2) Carpet sucks.
3) We really like the cushioning of our bed.

We also learned why we hate toys that talk. Case in point.

My husband's mother bought this for our Flower for her first Christmas. We were going to throw it out, but we kept it around. She never played with it. It's been almost 3 years.

My Lovey really likes this toy. It says things like, "Green Hand." "Blue Ear." See the picture? You get it. It says it's body parts when you press them. When it's in the "music" mode it plays songs, etc.

When you press it's tummy it says, "Tummy".

So, we're mowing the lawn. On the HARD floor, which really hurts. Trying really hard to be real quiet. Out of nowhere, the little dog says, "Yellow Foot."

I laugh. My husband laughs. We continue.

No one touches the toy. A few minutes later......

Out. Of. Nowhere.

"You're my friend!"

Now let me tell you, I was almost in tears at this point, I was laughing so hard. I also noticed that my lower back was screaming at me to get up.

Still, must go on.

Out of nowhere, the lawn mower stops. I didn't even hear anything and I gave my husband what I'm sure was a "wtf are you doing???" kind of look when again an interruption occurred.

He says, "Yes?"

Wobbs says, "Are you guys in there?"

I think, "Here's your sign."

Hubby says, "Yes."

Wobbs - "Are you OK?"

No dude. We're not ok. Go away.

Hubby says, "Go watch a movie."

Wobbs - "Ok. Just checking on you."

Ugh.