Not Even A Week Yet, But Still Too Long...

Well, my best friend from high school called me Monday and told me that her grandma passed away on Saturday. She came all the way from Missouri for the funeral which was Tuesday, and went back home on Wednesday. Between getting everything ready for her short stay in town, and the funeral itself, we've had a pretty busy week. We've done the basics for school, and gotten a lot more time to be outside and notice the way spring is coming to the area. We've done a lot of our spring cleaning, and taken things to the dump and junkyard depending. Got the old broke stove and freezer out of here, and made lots more room for the kids to play as it gets warmer. We also cleaned up the back patio and the yard, making sure that all the trash and debris that accumulated over the winter (pop bottles, wrappers, things that blew in the yard) got taken care of an cleaned up.
And yesterday, we had our first cookout of the new year! It's been hovering in the 60's during the day, and our home thermometer had even recorded a few 70's in the past week. But I've heard that we may get some cooler weather for the next week or so, only getting into the 40s and 50s. I hope not because I love this warmer weather!

We're going to visit our friends Ron and Renee' on Saturday, and Sunday is our 13th Anniversary. Can't believe it's been that long. Heck, can't believe we've lasted that long! Doesn't seem like we've done enough with these years. Like we haven't come that far. We've moved 10 times in the last 13 years, lived in 9 different houses. Lived in 1 house twice (here!). That's if we include moving into his cousins for a month and his grandma's for a month before we got our first place. Otherwise, not counting them, we've moved 8 times and lived in 7 different houses. I don't usually count those 2, because we only had our clothes and bed, not furniture or anything like that because we had just gotten married.
In the time we've been married, we've rented, bought, and lost a house. That's a lot if you look at it from the standpoint that we rented 3 different places for a year each, then bought our house, lived there for 6 years, and lost it to foreclosure. Then we rented this place for 9mos, moved to another place for 13mos, and moved back here again. This fall would've been 8 years that we would have owned our house.

I don't really miss our house most days. I keep busy and don't think about it. But when I drive past it, I look at the work that's been done by the people who bought it, and I wonder why it was so hard for us. We did some work on the place, it's not like we let the place fall down around our ears. We pulled up carpet, refinished some floors, painted, redid some plumbing. We got rid of 10+ years worth of crap that had been left by previous tenants and the old landlord. We got rid of old cast iron sprinkler pipes that ran thru the entire house, and replaced doors, some windows and the entire boiler system and hot water heater. And we hated every minute of it. That house needed so much done that it sucked the life out of us. We fought nearly every day, there was something new to be fixed every time we turned around. None of us was happy there.
But I do miss it sometimes. Every time I have to say no about getting something we want or need because we don't have the room for it, I miss that big old house and its space. Every time the kids are fighting about not having room to play, or space for their stuff, I miss it. Every time I do laundry, and run out of hot water for showers, I miss it. I miss not having to screw around with the furnace, not having the extra space in the laundry area. Not having the room for company, or for a friend who wants to come and stay for a few days. I miss the floor that we spent a whole weekend refinishing til it was beautiful and new-looking again.
But I don't miss the constant headache of robbing one bill to pay another because we had to fix something else this month. I so don't miss the roof leaking, or the electrical that was bad, or the kitchen that needed the floor re-done. Or the tiny pantry and lack of cabinet space.

But life moves on and so do we. We're hoping that we can manage to find a house that fits our needs within the next year or 2. We're considering a land contract, rent-to-own, or just outright buying. We're trying to pay some things off, and get our credit better before then. We have a few loans, they're improving our credit because they're paid on time, even when he's been laid off. We pay cash for darn near everything else, and we are careful of what we spend money on. If we can't afford it right that minute, we don't get it.
Here's to another year of trying hard and working on all that we have.

Been Gone For Nearly A Month.....

Wow, didn't realize how quickly that flew! In the last month, I've rearranged our room, painted the bathroom, painted most of the living room, cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more. It's been super busy around here. We also got some new furniture and appliances with our tax refund. That took most of our refund, but we really needed them. And scratch-and-dent is cheaper than you'd think! We now have an oven that actually preheats! And a fridge whose shelves aren't falling out every time we open the door. Amazing how little things like that really make a difference.

As far as schooling goes, we've backed down a little on the pressure that Gabe was feeling. He has voluntarily started to do lessons with me out of the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" book. Easy? Yes for a regular child, but not so much for mine. It's not pretty, but he's trying. He already knows the letters, but not so much the sounds that they make. So this book teaches him the sounds and helps him to learn how to sound out words. Since the 5th, he has been working on the beginning lessons, and he can now recognize am, mat and sat. But we've also noticed that he's now reading more sight words without our prompting (mostly on games!). Words like "infection" and "slayer" and other game-theme related words.
He's also consistently falling asleep but 10 (most nights, we have had a few bumps), and is drawing more pictures. He wants to draw nearly every day now, faces, people, things. Always with pencil, always what he wants to draw, always when he wants to draw.
Caleb and I are working on his reading, as he can do it, but lacks confidence. We skimmed through the same book I'm doing with Gabe, and I just had him do the words. He knows the sounds the letters make, and knows how to sound them out. It only took him maybe 20 minutes to go through all the words in 23 lessons. And he had them all right. Granted most of them are simple easy words. But it's gotten him to realize that it doesn't matter how big the word is as long as you sound them out.
James and Caitlin are reading well, and we've been trying to really make sure that they are engaged in what they are reading. She's been reading the Junie B. Jones books, and is enjoying them immensely. He's reading Artemis Fowl, and has already listened to all the books on CD, and checked out a lot of them from the library before I bought him the first set that he wanted.
Our main focus the past few weeks has been their reading, because I feel that with reading, anything else is possible and will fall into place.

Aside from the early spring cleaning we've been doing, that's pretty much it. Hopefully I can remember to keep posting and not let there be that much of a break!

Trying To Catch Up!

Things have been busy around here still. The weather has been good and bad, warm and cold, and is wreaking havoc on Caleb's asthma. Gabe has been having some rough nights and some days, with frequent waking and accidents again. It's more of the one step forward two steps back kind of dance. All in all we are all doing fairly well, not overly sick or anything.
The dryer is still broken, so we are still hanging clothes. We are still waiting on news about our apps for the house we looked at. Mike is back to work full time and is even getting some Saturday work. We did finally get the van window replaced, to the tune of $100. But that still beats paying the $500 deductible.
School is hit or miss some days as far as getting actual written work done. But we always manage to get something read or looked up on the computer, and we are picking 1 thing a day that they want to learn more about and at least getting that accomplished. It takes some of the pressure off, because with it getting nicer out, they want to go to the park and be outside more. It gives us a chance to learn about things that we see or hear outside, or about the plants that we see coming up. We currently have our own plants that the kids are helping with as part of their schooling. That's another thing that is so awesome as of late with how the kids are learning.
Caleb found a pumpkin seed in Nintendo's (the bird!) dish. Neither Mike or I thought that it would grow, but we told him if he wanted to try and plant it he could. Imagine our surprise when a few days later it was already growing and had 2 leaves!! It is now 2 weeks later and the plant is like 2-3 inches tall and has been transplanted outside to its own box. He waters it every other day, and checks it daily to make sure that no critters got to it.
The younger 3 also each got a cactus when we went to Lowe's, they are called "Moon Cactus" and they only get about 5-6 inches tall, which makes them quite manageable. They came in very small pots, and we will be transplanting them soon. The plants are proving very useful in teaching Gabe especially how plants grow and how much water, sun, and nutrients they need. Gabe's learning how often the cacti need to be watered, and when to move them, how not to touch them and all that.
I've been trying to pack things that we aren't using and get rid of things that are too small or won't fit anyone within the next year or so. Just generally de-cluttering and de-junking the house. It's been kind of crazy most days, which makes it that much harder to get on the computer and post.
Hope to post more, not guaranteeing anything though!

More Random

I've been trying to figure out what to post, and been sitting here for way too long without any ideas. I could post more about how the kids are doing, or what we're doing in school. I could post about Gabe's ever growing obsession for Lego Star Wars, or his slowly diminishing hatred for anything school related. He did actually do all his work today without any screaming, kicking or throwing a fit. And he now knows most of his letters. I could also post about how my baby will be 8 years old tomorrow. But when I write it I end up deleting because it doesn't come out right. Heck, I could even post about a certain 11yo boys complete and total lack of respect for anything I say. And how he goes out of his way to start trouble with Gabe and the other kids on an almost hourly basis. But I figured that was a post better left for a day when I wasn't already ticked off about the way he was behaving.

Really, there is sooooo much that I could write about, but then I start thinking about whether it's too personal to share with perfect strangers, or with certain other people that may or may not eventually find their way here and read it. I mean after all, how many people do I really need to share my personal issues with before it gets to be old news?

Mike's been having health problems on and off since the beginning of February, and has another Dr appointment tomorrow. Hopefully that is good news instead of bad. Gabe will be 8 tomorrow, and my friend Missy is having her baby boy tomorrow as well. Plus dad has his appointment tomorrow with Social Security.

On a more personal front, I've been doing bible studies by myself, not through a church or anything. I like it better that way, and am working on little ways of changing my life to get it to the way I should be living. The problem with that is that certain family members (on his side) don't think that's what I should be doing. They want me studying with people from their "church" and going to their "church" and they believe that what they teach is the only right thing. So I'm having a difficult time coping with all the pressure and the well meaning comments that I really should start coming back to their "truth". In fact, since Saturday I've had people at my house 3 times trying to get me to commit to coming back and get me into conversations about their beliefs. I love his family, and I like the people that are trying to "help" me, but when I'm ready, I'll make my own decisions about what to believe or not believe. I'm sure that in their minds, they are trying to do what they think is best, but honestly, all I feel is them telling me that what I'm doing is wrong. It's not that I don't appreciate the efforts that they put into things, but I don't believe that their way is the only way, that they have the only "true" worship.

Enough of that for now, I have kids to chase and a house to clean, and a LOT of thinking to do.

Gross Pt 2

So he went back to the Dr today, expecting to get cleared to go back to work, or at least get a general idea of when he could go back. Yeah right! Work's pissed at him, because the state (Health Dept) is up their butt. HR at work is pissed at him too, and actually TOOK his name badge from him today when he went to drop off his Dr's note and get his check. He was told in no uncertain terms that it MUST be his fault that he is sick, and don't come back until they tell him to.
Doc has him off for another week at least, maybe more depending on what the results of his next "sample" are. He's to go back next Friday and leave a sample, and they'll call him with the results. Then, they'll fax the results to work, and he is to call them and find out if/when he can go back.
I told him to watch his back, since work is so t'd off about the Health Dept. being involved, and I'm sure that they're going to try and find a way to fire him. So, he took vacation pay for the next week, hopefully he goes back to work then. Or we're sunk, no work = no $$. He said he's going to start looking for a new job while he's off, and the Dr said that as long as it's not dealing with food he can work. Here's hoping that next week is better than this week has been.

On the plus side, we got cable installed today, but now I'm left trying to figure out if we'll be able to afford it in another month. If you're the praying type, I could use some prayers right now.

Tired.

So today was spent retrieving passwords, and getting back at the other blog. I've edited a couple of the posts, and messed around a little bit, but not much else, since it's taken most of the day to just accomplish that much.
I also managed to clean the baby's room, and the bathroom and bathroom closet. Sent Caitlin up to clean her room, but she didnt do much of anything. Gotta tackle the boys' room, and get it straightened, and get some more laundry done. Take trash out, and clean up my room again. Adrian only had a very short nap today, and has been running full bore all day. His dr appt is tomorrow, so I'm taking him and his mom to it. Hopefully I can get the MIL to watch the kids for me, cause then I can go with, otherwise I'll be sitting in the van with 4 cranky kids.
On a really cute note, when I picked him up, his mom told me that he's been calling my picture "Mimi", and he's been calling me that since I picked him up. Guess I better get back at it, have a ton of housework to get done, and very little time before their bedtime to get it done.

Another Busy Day

Spent today rearranging the boy's room, and putting James' bed in there with them. He's been begging to have his bed in with them for the last month or so, and we finally gave in. Their room now has 2 twin beds and a queen size bed in it, and one dresser! I didnt think they would all fit, but they did. Gabe's dresser fits in the bathroom (large bathroom) against the wall by the closet, Caleb's dresser is in the bedroom, and James' is in his old room. Adrian's dresser is also in James' old room, along with the pack n play (with Adrian lol) and the futon. And FYI, a queen size mattress and box spring will fit on the futon frame! Ask me how I know...
Anyway! Been super busy today, and plus we got a few inches of snow between last night and today and its STILL snowing!
Other than all that, not much else today, did school with the kids, folded and put away 7 loads of laundry, and vacuumed. Got all that done in between chasing kids and mediating kids trying to kill each other.
Tomorrow's my day off!

Wow long night...

So I got Gabe to sleep by 945, figuring that he'd be up early. Well he was by my side in bed by 2-ish, and at 330 this morning we got a very rude awakening. The police were at our door. No, none of the kids escaped, neither did the dog.
They were doing sweeps, going door to door looking for people with warrants. WTH? At 3 in the morning? So hubby answers the door, and they ask "does so and so live here?" "do you know so and so?" "is so and so your landlord?" "who IS your landlord?" etc. Omg, to say I was ticked was the understatement of the year. Couldn't fall back asleep till like 430-500, when he want to work. The dog wanted to eat the cop, that was the best part of the whole thing, he was sitting there growling deep enough to make the floor vibrate!

Fun fun fun!

So today I was a little sleep deprived, and of course the day wasn't going to wait for me to catch up. Cleaned house, did school with the kids, made lunch, and went to get Adrian. Who of course didn't have a nap today, and is currently (at 6pm) sleeping! All in all a long night and day. I'm tired just reading what I wrote lol.
On another note, Amy ( http://raising-arrows.blogspot.com/ ) had her baby!
Micah Emmanuel
Born New Year's Day 2009 @ 12:18 am
10# 6 oz
22.5 "
All I can say is better you than me at 10# and 22 inches long! That's a BIG baby! My biggest baby was James at 8# 10.5 oz and 20 inches. And I had c-sections with all 4 kids. Congrats on the baby Amy!

Been in a cleaning mood

So, today I finished the dining room the way I want it, then started on the bathroom closet upstairs that we use for storage. Got it all cleaned up and rearranged, and things put away. Took a trip to Menards for a new light fixture piece (you know the kind with the pull string that you just screw in to a regular fixture?), then found out that the fixture I screwed it into didnt even work!
Also cleaned off the bookshelves, and rearranged the "school" area. We have 3 full size shelves just for school things, books, pencils etc.
Not much else going on around here. School starts back up here tomorrow, the kids are thrilled that they won't be going back there. Tomorrow is our library day, so we're gonna be heading down to the public library for each one to pick out a few books and maybe a movie or 2.

On another note, please pray for Noah ( http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ourquiverfull ). He is sick and it may be another infection in his line. He's had a lot of ups and downs, and can use all the help he can get.

Today went sooooo slow

From the minute I got up this morning, I knew it was going to be one of those days. Caleb was being a spaz from the minute he got up, and of course since he was, so was Gabe. I had to keep pulling the 2 of them off of each other. Got most of the house work done, and finished the grocery shopping. Then I came home and rearranged the freezers and cabinets and shelves so everything would fit.
Went to the in-laws for dinner, and the kids got to see the deer that grandpa's gonna be cutting up. The boys thought it was cool, and Caitlin thought it was gross.
Yesterday and last night I rearranged the dining room and cleaned under everything. Moved the birds cage and cleaned it, moved the couch and the table. Freecycled the treadmill that no one uses (which I had to help carry out to the lady's van this morning).
Today I folded and put away 4 loads of laundry, did the shopping and put it away. Picked up my friend and her son (my godson), did some running with her. Came home and made lunch, and hung out. Hubby got home, and he headed over to mil's house, and I dropped her and the baby off, and headed over for dinner.
Now, I'm sitting here watching hubby and Gabe play Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer on the Wii. Makes me tired just watching them.

Man am I sore!

Just started working out recently with the Total Gym, and am doing 45 minutes at a time now. My body is rebelling and telling me where to go! So far I've only lost 2 lbs, but hey 2 is better than none! Been drinking lots of water, about 2-3 liters a day. Plus of course my coffee, because I'm not human without it.
So far the kids are doing well, we have a lot of things that we are working on right now, and James wants to do some Unit Studies. We are planning a unit on the Solar System, and one about Rome and the gladiators. Caitlin wants to do a unit on different types of cats, and Caleb hasn't decided what he wants to do.
On another note, our basement is leaking, so I spent today washing clothes and rearranging the basement to make sure that our stuff wouldn't get ruined or wet. I moved the shelving units from one end of the basement to the other and got Mount Laundry contained. Then Mike wet vac'd it and I mopped. We got 5 loads of laundry done today, and have 2 more loads in right now, so tomorrow is fold it and put it all away time.
We are looking for a place sometime after spring gets here, but are in a lease until July 31. I hope the next place we find has some counter space! Course a first floor laundry would be awesome too! We've decided to look within an hour of where we live now, which opens up a lot of possibilities. That gives us: Janesville, Milton, Fort Atkinson, Johnson Creek, Whitewater, Watertown, and Jefferson, plus probably a few others that I can't think of right now.
Still trying to figure out how to get traffic to my blog, haven't had much time to do much of anything lately though, but I have a few minutes here and there to post. I'm going to try and post every day, hopefully that will keep me motivated.

Long Weekend!

I'm soooooo glad that they go back to school tomorrow!!!! Mike goes back to work tomorrow, he's had the last week off for vacation with school starting back up. Fun for him, not so much for the kids. Friday was interesting, I had Adrian (my godson) and my 4 and my little sister and her 2 kids! Too many kids!
On another note, Gabe's special ed teacher met me on the playground on Friday when I got there a little early to wait for the kids. She wanted to let me know that the school is having to transfer some students, only the ones with open enrollment, and that Gabe was the only one of mine that would be transfered as they had too many first graders. Not happening, I did not work hard to get them all at one school just to have one transfered out to another school! So, tomorrow, after I drop them at school, I have to run over to the school closest to us (the one they'd be going to anyway if they weren't open enrolled) and find out what I need to do to get them set up over at the new school.
Yesterday we pretty much just sat around and cleaned house and stuff. Today though we went to "Heritage Days" which is basically a bunch of tours of the old mill and horse rides and stuff. Gabe's favorite part was the bee display, and he got to taste the different honey's that the farm makes. We also bought some honey with a piece of honey comb in it, and some whipped honey. So good! He did pretty well, only problem was getting free of one of us and running loose among the other people. Caleb and him were also enthralled by the blacksmith demo that they had too. It was amazing to watch them watching him work, it seemed like they didn't even blink most of the time that he was working. We got to watch him make a meat fork, a bottle opener, and a fork/spoon combo that had the fork on one end and the spoon on the other. It was a great day!
Not looking forward to the drama of moving to the other school, and I found out that the school that they're at now doesn't even have a copy of his eval's from Waisman Center yet, and I gave the school at least 4 copies already over the course of the last year or so. Messed up situation there, to say the least.
We'll have internet a week from Monday (on the 15th) and then I might actually be able to post everyday! Or at least whenever I feel like it instead of having to wait until I have a chance to go somewhere that has internet. Grandpa Dave is coming home tonight, so hopefully next post will have info on how it was down in Louisiana while he was there this past week!