why messy and wonderful?

Our littlest wonderful mess maker.

My blog name needed to change for quite some time now.  Adoption has changed our lives in more ways than one and I’m really not in my “world surrounded by men” anymore.  I have been deliberately hiding from my blog for many reasons, but the change and overhaul was one of them.

Joya's adjustment into our family has been a moving target of what we might be dealing with next.  With each new challenge, we wonder if it is caused by the trauma of adoption or if it is merely a part of her two year-old life.  Should we handle it by doing "A" or "B" and which one won't traumatize her even more???  It's been messy.

But, when she counts off each family member by name every morning and reaches her arms out with a smile several times a day with the words, " I HOOOLLLD MAMA!" - wonderful doesn't even begin to describe it.  When we watch our fifth child take up skiing just like the other four have, with squeals of joy and a desire to go faster, our hearts overflow with how wonderful and worthwhile all of the mess is.

Tonight's dinner was breakfast burritos, served one at a time because our house was a complex machine of people coming and going tonight.  My meal prep and service was messy tonight.

But when they sat down to eat it, everyone loved dinner, and that is wonderful.

Our boys spent their coveted Christmas break passing the flu from one brother to the next, not coordinating well enough to all get through it at the same time.  We looked like a sick mess, but they all loved to snuggle close and watch lots of DVDs, day after day, and that was wonderful.

Down and out over Christmas break

The sickness was only compounded by the fact that our 40 year old furnace finally leaned too closely to, “Hey I might just leak enough carbon monoxide in the night to kill you all,” so we made the executive decision to shut it off and live without heat until we could get a new one installed.   We must install it in a new location in the house in order to actually conform to building codes.  This all happened while our outside temps in this mountain ski town dipped down to negative numbers.  Warm blankets and cold noses!!!

So now, we have walls ripped apart and floor plans being drawn for an unexpected and expensive project.  We are wearing fleeces and running space heaters.  There is a layer of messy construction dust almost everywhere I turn.

But soon it will be done.  We’ll be warm.  We have saved money for the unexpected, and it will be wonderful.

Our house is constantly noisy and it is never completely picked up.  By the time we finally update the outdated avocado green carpeting and 1970’s bathrooms in our house, the “new” kitchen we remodeled nearly six years ago will be outdated.

The papers on my desk scream, “PAY ME!  FILE ME!  READ ME!”

Parenting our brood is a nearly humorous trial and error experiment cycle as we weigh and measure each child’s needs, temperament, good and bad deeds, love language, and hormone level. Then we try to match all that adequately against our best prayerful guess of what is needed AND muster the energy to execute the plan.

My head hits the pillow at night yearning for a couple of extra hours to supernaturally sneak in to my REM cycle, yet the 6:30 a.m. alarm always feels too soon and too painful.  But during those hours, I’m wonderfully intertwined with My Beloved, who I love and respect more each day that I know him. 

We snooze when we can.

All that leads up to the fact that when I showed My Beloved my short list of truly inspiring and (I thought) fitting titles, it lead to a discussion about naming my blog something that reflects ME.  Not my kids, husband, passions, job, or interests.

So I asked him, who knows me best of all: “Who do you say I am then?”

He paused, looked down at the floor, then shrugged and sighed and said, “Messy and wonderful,” to which we both broke out into whole-hearted laughter.

To revisit in another post is the fact that ten years ago, that comment would have hurt my feelings and had me personally offended for being called messy.

But I am.  And our life is.

But it is so WONDERFUL.

bullets

• We inherited an outdoor cat to solve our mouse problems from some friends who moved away.  Our outdoor cat has suddenly become an indoor-sleep-on-Rufus's-bed-22-hours-of-the-day-until-I-put-her-out cat.  My husband likes We like her though. 
• I've decided that my favorite daytime listening Pandora station is "70's easy listening" - there is rarely a song I don't love.  I know, I should work in a doctor's office.
• I'm seeing my sweet Squirt blossom at four and a half years old.  I agonized over the thought of him going to Kindergarten this fall, but now I think he's really ready.
• Two weeks ago a dear friend and I set up a "let's meet for dinner come hell or high water" night.  That night was last night.  It was blissful.  We ate lots of food including fried green tomatoes.  We talked and talked and laughed until the restaurant closed and then we walked to my car, I drove her to her car, and we talked for another 30+ minutes.  I left with a smile on my face.  It was a treat.
• Fifth grade homework sucks.  I hate that projects become MY work and I wind up caring more about his responsibilities than he does.  Then again, I thought that midnight feedings sucked until I was on my third and fourth child and then they were easy.  So maybe fifth grade will be like that.  Or maybe not.
• I hate the school science fair.  Please refer to my previous bullet.
• My kids are so hungry when they come home from school.  Today I have dinner prepared for them at 3:30 so we can eat for real and then a snack later.  I'll report back with how that works.
• One of my older children still wets the bed at night and I've gotten my hands on a "potty pager" to try to train the stubborn child out of the habit.  Last night was the dry run, except it wasn't dry, it was wet, more than once, and he hates wearing it.  I hate pee, so there.
• The first part of January was spent painting Mrs. Nesbit's room, and since we've lived in this house six and a half years and I've been looking at dingy not-so-white walls and ugly light fixtures in my bedroom, I just decided to push on through and paint that room too (which happens to be a rather large bedroom).  Ceiling, trim, walls, outlets, light switches, and light fixtures are all new now.  I was an aching, messy, paint covered, non-showering woman on a mission for an entire week, but it is done and I love it!  Now we are drooling over the thought of new carpet, and I hate to drool.
• Because I know you're wondering, our adoption paperwork is in the final stages and we look on track to leave for China on March 14th.  My waves of anxiety have started regarding our/her transition and I'm clinging to the proven fact that God works good through the hard stuff in life.  Not that I wish it to be hard, but I want more of God for sure, so pretty much I can't lose, right?
• The ski season has been a total BUST so far and I am actually praying for several big, powdery snow storms to crush our little town so that I can frolic on the slopes sufficiently before I bring a precious two year-old home from China.  Have you ever known me to pray for snow?  It's bad, people.

a victim of his own success

My Beloved titled this post.

I wanted to title it, "Clearly, We Have a Problem."

Or maybe, "Intervention:  The Hunting Edition."

Possibly, "Dead Things Belong Outside!"

This sign over the windows in his office says it all:

Almost exactly two years ago, we had this major expense addition to our home his office.

I'm sure you all remember THIS.  How could you forget?

Well, this boy took a little vacation at the taxidermist, but he's back!

I didn't expect his legs to still be attached... to a rock.

The other side of the office wall is the garage - I made sure that there was still room for my van if his hind end was popping through the other side.

One more - the man who is in total denial that he is over the top.  He's trying to look all tough, but he's so giddy about this thing, he's trying not to smile. 

(I have the same expression behind the camera, but for a different reason.  I see the new living room couch I want so badly hanging on the wall.)

Lest you forget, he also has these in his little 10x14 office.  That cutie pie holding the antlers is my trophy!

It is really sad when the hard-earned MBA diploma is in the floor under the animal heads, don't you think? (My blog, honey.  They will agree with me!).

I must go.... I need to find another recipe that disguises uses goat meat!

p.s. I might complain, but I secretly feel this way.

hidden treasures

I was so pleased to find out that I don't need to buy napkins anymore.

This is what I get when I actually get down on my hands and knees to clean the kitchen floor.

And look up to see the underside of the breakfast bar.

Just another thing I NEVER thought about before having kids.

OK, I never thought about it until this exact moment!

why?

Why do I have this amazing shoe collection and organization system?  Not pretty, but everyone has a bin and there is plenty of space for boots and overflow.

All tucked into a closet.

Why do I find this EVERY time I walk in the door?

That's it.  They're all going barefoot.

my brown thumb

I am not a gardener.  My sweet mother in-law is a master gardener who can turn any brown space colorful and blooming.  She loves to dig in the dirt and once every couple of years, she comes out west and revives my yard from the dead.

Seeing that neither my husband nor I carry her green-gene, I have one, lone house plant.

It was looking a little sickly at the onset of summer, so I took it outside for some sunshine and regular moisture from the sprinkler system.

But I forgot to bring it in when the snow arrived.

Hence, I may be on trial for murder:

 

 

 

 

 

Ouch!