A New Chapter in My Life

Yes, another change is in the air! No, I am not pregnant again!

I have loved every moment of being a stay at home mom, OK that is a lie, I have loved almost every moment...but there was an opportunity for the best of both worlds, a part time job, and I took it!
I am now officially a "Food Tech" at the school that my children will be going to in the future. Just a fancy term for lunch lady I know, but I am so excited about it!

My hours are amazing, I am getting out of the house everyday, time away from my little monsters, holidays and summers off, and I still get to be Mom first. I think this is what I have been looking for.
 I'm excited to get to know the women i will be working with, to swap coupons and baby stories with and to have a little life outside of our home. Also it is good for my husband, taking some of the pressure to make the bills off his shoulders and for my children to socialize and learn new things at Daycare.

All this and I still have every afternoon and weekends to spend with my family! So here is to my new adventure!

"The Adams Family Values"

I have been so preoccupied lately! As a mother this is pretty much a constant state of being anyway, but I have taken it to a whole new level for me. Let me explain a little something about myself before I go on. If you haven't figured this out already, I will just put it right out there: I am an obsessive person. I have always been this way. Growing up, when a new band would strike my fancy or a show interested me, I would listen/watch it until I wore it out. I am sort of like that with people also, I get excited when I meet someone new that I fall in love with instantly and want to spend more time with them. Of course life is too busy for those kind of friendships anymore. Somehow D escaped the use and throw out part of my obsessiveness, maybe because he pursued me and stuck that ring on my finger before I could change my mind. Or maybe it is just that he is so completely amazing and perfect for me...

To get back to my point, I am on the trail of a new obsession, (thanks to my BFF, who started this whole thing)  one that keeps me challenged and takes up most of my thoughts: Ancestry. My favorite aunt, I mean that, I have always looked up to her, and I have decided to find the source of the craziness in our family (I say that affectionately of course) and have thrown ourselves into filling in our family tree. This has not been such an easy task as there are several unanswered questions and overused first names. That is the fun of the hunt though, the challenge. I find myself laying in bed at night, (when I finally tear myself away) thinking up the next words I will plug into my favorite search engine. Everyday I say to myself, "This is gonna be the day that I hit the jackpot, the day all the pieces will fit together." While searching I have come across a lot of interesting facts and stories, most of them not even related to my ancestors but amazing nonetheless. I have really enjoyed reading through other peoples lives.

 A man I respect more than any other person in my life, my GPA wrote this and I loved it so much I thought I should share it:

"I know that knowing a lot about our family is important, and we all have this curiosity about "where we came from". On the other hand,  Perhaps time spent on where I'm going, what I can accomplish for the  good of others, and how I might leave a legacy for mankind might be possibly more important. and of course, this comment is not intended to imply that your search is silly or a waste of time." I am going to think these words each morning when I wake up, what wise man he is!

Its too Hot to Play Outside

I just had a vision of myself as an old lady...

I am obsessed with buttons. All shapes, sizes, and colors.
I don't really use them for anything, except for the occasional scrapbooking project (which I can never find or make the time to do).

One Saturday, as a family, we drove around checking out garage sales and local craft sales. At the retirement home, they were having a big inside sale that had air conditioning calling to us to stop in and cool off. Not expecting to find anything that we couldn't live without we just enjoyed walking around.
Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see colors, little round objects in baby food jars,  lots of pretty colors! I was drawn to them like a child is to candy.

The first table I came to had two little old ladies selling various craft supplies along with several baby food jars full of buttons. Each jar had been organized by color, some with a mix of pastels others with an assortment of brights. The one I couldn't live without had yellows mixed with oranges, dazzling before my eyes! I handed over four quarters for one and  six quarters for a bigger jar full of muted colors.  I decided two jars better be my limit. 

  Have you seen how much a jar of buttons can go for in some antique stores? I once ran across a big mason jar for $40! Can you imagine spending that much money on buttons? My obsession doesn't even go that far...So thinking I had hit the jackpot, I thanked the women and walked around some more. At the other end of the room there was a whole table dedicated to buttons, several matching sets sewn nicely to cardboard strips and arranged by size and color. Beautiful buttons for only $.50 a strip! I ended up walking away with a few different colors making my grand total to $5.00 just in buttons.

The date on the lid is Dec of 1987.

Obsession satisfied.

So on this hot Saturday morning while the boys are out in the shop and the baby is sleeping, I am sorting through my buttons. Examining each one and dividing them up in a rainbow of colors. It may sound silly but it truly is relaxing. As a little old lady I will be selling these very buttons and the many more I collect over the years, in baby food jars at the local craft sale.

I got the FUNK

Vacation ruined me...

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every moment of it; but now that I'm home, I am finding it hard to get back into my routine.
 I worked so hard to develop good habits: cleaning the kitchen before bed every night, walking every night, losing the baby weight, getting up early in the mornings, and keeping up on chores each day...
 I feel like I have taken 100 steps backwards. I look around the house and feel so discouraged at all the things that need to be done. The kitchen has one wall of wallpaper stripped, a project I have yet to finish. I don't feel like I can start that until I have finished my everyday chores first. Laundry has piled up on my once again and our bedroom is in desperate need of organization.
These are just a few of the things that need to be taken care of in my life this moment, and yet I sit here griping to you about it.
 Every morning I say "Today I get back on track", and every morning I wake up too tired or with another excuse.
Where did Ambition go??
That is my rant for today, I will try to be my normal  positive self again soon...

I'm back!

A normal day at last! We took a 10 day vacation visiting family and friends up north, traveling a total of 2004 miles. We had an amazing time but were all thankful to be home and in our own beds. Yesterday was a stressful day, waking up to our refrigerator going out, having to juggle cleaning up all the leakage from the meat in the freezer and keeping the kids away from it, not getting any of the things needed to be done the first day back from vacation... Making us want to just go back on vacation! So let's go back and recap...

We started our journey at 4 a.m, after an almost sleepless night taking care of children, on the very long car ride to Detroit, MI to visit with my sister and her family. We finally made it there around 10 p.m exhausted and relieved to be there. We jam packed a lot of fun into the 2 days we had together, playing at the park, getting haircuts, water balloon fights, BBQ, game nights, Slurpees, and lots of picture taking! Besides the kids not getting along, it was an awesome experience! It was amazing to find out just how alike my sister and I are, even though we grew up in completely different worlds. Her in the city, not knowing that I existed and Me in the country not finding out about her until 2009. I loved getting to know her family, she has an amazing husband that takes care of her and two beautiful children that I hugged and kissed every chance I got. My sister is an an extraordinary woman and I love her like I have known her my whole life.  

We have so much in common it's scary! Spending time with her made me really miss all the years I didn't have a sister, making me feel cheated that I was able to experience all the things we tried to pack in those two days. I miss her already and am really thankful that at least we have the technology to keep in touch over the distance. We left there sad but excited for our next stop, IL to visit friends.

It was so great to see my Best Friend, we always feel at home at their house. We had a day to rest the first day there and the second day we visited my Aunt and Cousins. It was great to spend time with them and to see the home I spent so many summers at when I was young. After that we watched movies, ate great food, played at the park, took the kids to blackberry farm, had a couple bonfires, BBQ, six flags, the boys went to the drag races, and we all spent some quality time together. There were a lot of fun times, all told through the many pictures taken! My favorite part of all? Watching our friends treat our children like they were their own. I love that more than I can express.

I miss everyone already but am glad to be back in our daily routine. Hopefully I can get some chores caught up today...