Thank You Netflix

Pickers: it's Antiques Roadshow meets Hoarders.

Why Can't he Just Take a Mistress?

Why do we believe we'll have the opposite of our parents' undesirable traits? My mom is a worrier, and so I have always thought I would not be that way.

Yet, here I am at nearly one in the morning, worrying. Although it doesn't happen often, I do have these worrying fits at times.

At this such time, as I am typing, my husband is driving to the Grand Canyon. He had flown to California on business, and has decided drive to Arizona to hike from the north rim to the bottom of the canyon. In one day. In July. Alone.

Should I be worried? He has hiked the Grand Canyon several times before, and usually makes the hike in one day. What is different this time is that he will be hiking from the north rim, which is a first for him. It is a longer and more difficult trail. Oh, and yes, let's see, he's ALONE.

I hope that he will be wise on this excursion. If he leaves the marked trail but yet manages to come home alive, I will then kill him. Leaving the marked trail is what gets a person on a show like I Shouldn't Be Alive.

I shouldn't be worrying, but I am.

Darth Tired

Taking over the galaxy is exhausting. Don't make me climb stairs afterwards.

Saber Sorrow

My children have discovered Star Wars. In many households, this would not be a catastrophic discovery, but in this house, we have four boys. Too much force it is.

No Cookies for You!

Dear Hubby,

Did you think I wouldn't notice that you got into the chocolate chips? Now I know why your eyes didn't widen with delight when I said I was baking cookies.

A Think on Ink

I am beyond a tattoo virgin. At this point, I am a tattoo spinster. It's never gonna happen.

Settling Down

Last night my family and I grabbed our ponchos and strolled downtown for an evening of 80s music and fireworks. While it may seem we were prepared due to my mention of ponchos, we were decidedly unprepared. We noticed this soon after we arrived at Lakeside park with no ID card with which to admit our ready-to-pee, penis-holding three-year-old to the restroom. You see, in our neighborhood, one has to have his town ID card to get into the amenities, such as the awesome playground our kids had to sit next to all night without being able to go in, because I forgot aforementioned card.

Also woefully left behind was the blanket we were to sit on, the cold beverages and tasty snacks, and the card game we would have enjoyed until someone got tired of losing and threw the cards all over the grass. Insect repellent: who would have thought to bring that along on a warm Florida night near the lake?

So we perched on our ponchos amidst our fellow townspeople who could pee when they wanted or send their whiny kids to the playground or pick up the Uno cards their sore loser seven-year-old tossed at her brother's head. We waited about two hours there shooing bugs and playing solitaire on our phones. We "watered" the bushes and found some toys in the bottom of my backpack amidst the layers of toddler snack crumbs, diapers, and sand. The children quit fighting and complaining about lack of snackage. It didn't even rain as expected. Little by little the "misery" eased (it wasn't true misery after all). We settled down.

I wish to "settle down" in the other areas of my life. Like our outing on the Fourth, our lives are lacking due to not being prepared. Granted, it is not easy to prepare to move a family of eight out of state and start a new job and life, but I am rethinking our decisions this past year. We have moved three times. We are currently paying high rent. We need new cars. We may have been emotionally damaged by homeschooling. I am only partly joking on that last one. Our decisions have gotten us to this place in our lives, and this place is not ideal.

Let me go back a few steps. I said it wasn't true misery on our Fourth of July outing. It wasn't. We were sitting under the stars waiting to see breathtaking displays of pyrotechnics to celebrate the amazing country in which we live. My baby girl perched on my belly as I lay on my back to view the show. The rest of my family was flung out beside me, the sparkles reflected in their eyes. It was worth the wait, and the wait wasn't all that bad anyway (spoiled Americans we are!). Reflecting back on that outing, let me put my life in perspective. The place we are in is not ideal, but it is far from horrible. We live in a beautiful home in a beautiful town, albeit temporarily. I could go on about the ocean, the weather, the Mouse at our disposal, blah, blah... We have the challenging, but fun task of finding a permanent home, school, and "life" for a family of eight. We may not have things exactly as we want, but like the fireworks display, all's well that ends well.

Midsummer Night

I am eating my Peanut Butter Captain Crunch as various minutiae orbit my mind. The peeling laminate on the drawer, the baby in the photo, the loud washing machine containing the VBS shirts that need to be clean by tomorrow. I should brush my teeth and go to bed, but some nights, like this one, delay me. What is the thing I should be doing instead of sleeping?

I am too tired to think of it. Pull away, brush the teeth. The bed will stop the searching, unless my pillow puts the answer in my head.

What's this Cardboard Thing with Pictures on It?

Why does it feel good to see my children sitting around the kitchen table playing Chutes and Ladders? Yet, seeing them in their respective bedrooms playing PSP and DSI brings no fuzzy feelings.

I have always loved board games, cards, and dominoes. I do enjoy the occasional video game, but I love the human interaction and physicality that comes with games like Monopoly and Uno. I think kids like those things too. It is ironic, but I think my kids like the "novelty." For me, it is the nostalgia.

I am always happy to retrieve the games for them from the closet, even though I know that, in this house, a board game never ends well. They end with silver thimbles thrown on the floor, or maybe a preschooler throwing himself on the floor. Dice are rolled, then eyes are rolled. Tears and tantrums. Yes, we have sore losers. Often, games are played too close to bedtime for tiny temperaments to handle. Then there is the cleaning up (or not) of little pieces, fake money, and flitting cards.

Why do I still enjoy handing them Operation or Connect Four? You see, all that fighting and frustration is good for them. Video games bring frustration as well, but a computer won't talk back or fight. It is good for children to work out these human conflicts and have a little fun while they're at it. They also practice different skill sets playing a board game than with a computer game.

Secretly, I am glad board games, flat, non-animated, and sans flashing screens, still entertain my children. It means they still have innocence of some sort. They aren't completely spoiled by modern technology.

I'm sure I'm not the only parent who gets an uneasy feeling by the fact that my kids know more about computers (or possibly everything) than I did at their age. In fact, it is because of computers that they probably know more about everything. This knowledge separates us, and it does so early. My three-year-old is already joining the ranks of the computer literate, as are most three-year-olds.

So help me Candyland. Work your magic, Slap Jack. Keep them a little longer laughing at the kitchen table. Sibling rivalry, you're OK, go ahead and stay. It's better to play and fight than to never play at all.

Home is Where the Heart Is

I am packing tonight for the third move here in Orlando. We stayed in corporate housing for the first two months before finding a rental we loved in Reunion. We planned to stay for a while, as we are hesitant about buying a house in Florida. The home was foreclosed by the bank, unfortunately. We were offered a sum to move by the end of the month, and we decided to take it instead of staying for the end of our lease. I may regret that decision.

It's tough work to move. Moving from Indiana to Georgia was tough enough to make me not want to do it again. From Georgia to Florida, we had movers do most of the work, but the "work" is not just packing and lifting, it is also mental and emotional. We had to move ourselves from the apartment to our Reunion house, and that was bittersweet for our children. They were glad to be in a house instead of a small apartment, but moving means upheaval. It was more of that. Now, even more.

We are moving from this house that was starting to feel more like home every day. The kids loved their bedrooms and their own bathrooms. We hadn't even swum in our pool yet. Again, it is bittersweet. The kids are excited to be moving to a better school district and go to a school with other children instead of being homeschooled. The new neighborhood has lots of kids for playmates. It is bittersweet because the move makes us feel homesick. Homesick for our old house, sure, but also just in the generic sense. We want a home for keeps.

While packing, I found a small planter that my mom gave me. It was my grandmother's. It's vintage, but nothing of monetary value. When I unpacked it back in December at the Reunion house, my husband asked if I wanted to keep it. We were thinning out, since we didn't have as much storage here. I said to put it in the "maybe pile," because it was my grandmother's and also chartreuse, my favorite color at the moment. It has a pink dogwood flower on it, and reads "home is where the heart is." As it turned out, I didn't even have time to sort out the maybe pile, and it is there that I again find the planter. I reexamine it, thinking of the Goodwill box. I read the message again and know its destiny is not to be among the other discards on a thrift store shelf.

Earlier this evening, I was thinking of a pep talk for my kids. Emotions are tender and tough. The environment here is uncertain. The planter's little saying hits home, pardon the pun. Wherever we are, as a family who loves one another, that's where the heart and home is. After we return the rental truck to Uhaul, after we get around to unpacking all the boxes for a third time, we are heading to Home Depot and picking out a little plant. Maybe an African violet would look nice in this inherited pot that is destined for the window sill of our new "home."