Mountain Girl Silver - Hand-Stamped Customized Silver Jewelry - Portland, Oregon

Man… it hadn’t dawned on me until just a bit ago that it’s been a long long, super long time since I’ve blogged. Ohhh I dunno, maybe it’s because I don’t even have time to take a crap, let alone write down my feelings…..  yah,, that’s most likely the case. To the right here, you’ll see an image of “flight status tracker”… a nifty little service provided by, I’m assuming, most airline websites these days. Trackin’ the flight. On this particular flight, is my precious Maggie Georgia and my dad. Dad came up last week to help me out with the kids while the hubbs is deployed to the lovely BP-summer-ruining-disaster. Wanting to do something fun for Maggie for her Summer, I opted to fly her home with him so she can go hang out with my folks for a couple three weeks. The ticket I bought her was a one-way. So who knows when she’s going to want to come home. A part of me secretly hopes she can’t stand it after a week and has to come be with me. But the bigger part of me is so dang excited for her and hope that she has the time of her life. I don’t know many 5 year olds that can fly without their mom, and stay far far away from their mom for an extended period of time. She’s one in a million I tell you. She’s the diamond in the rough. I’ve mentioned to quite a few people how she has this ability to KNOW when I’m having a bad day. Other than the obvious shouting binges I do when my fun meter is pegged, she just “gets it”… ya know? Last week she says to me as I’m screaming to some dude who cut me off… “Mommy, just calm down, and don’t get so upset, you are just having a hard day.”….   I take her for granted. I take my husband for granted. I take many things for granted. Learning not to, but still. This whole husband gone to the gulf thing is getting easier I’d say. It was hard enough accepting the fact that he was going to be gone for two full months. But once I accepted it for what it was, then it was easier to just let it go and give it to God. God has my back you see. For reals… He does. I see Him in the eyes of my kids every day. I see Him in the leaves when the wind blows. And I’m counting on Him to comfort me and carry me along….. I never used to do that. My self will ran rampant. This whole thing, I’m convinced, is a little lesson…..  to make me realize that I’m not as self-sufficient as I think I am. I’m gettin’ smarter and smarter every day.. ha ha…

Okay,, so anyways, by now they are about 1/2 way through the flight. At the airport there in Fresno, awaiting her arrival, is her Mimi, her Aunt and her cousins. She is going to have the best summer out of all of us really. My folks have a pontoon boat on the lake I grew up on. They have a camping trip planned, a birthday party… I mean, she’s just going to be in Heaven. I forget where we were the other day when we had arrived to our errand destination (probably stupid Home Depot) and she gets out of the car and says, “I can’t wait to have a break from Anders!!!”   Their constant bickering is taxing to say the least. On me, but on HER especially. I’m hoping this distance between them might wake Anders up and figure out that she’s not all that bad. Granted, she does push his buttons from time to time, but I honestly believe it’s just out of spite for all the awful things he does and says to her. We’ll see I guess. I’m just happy for her that she won’t have to be on the defense for a few weeks. Being on the defense gets a little tiring…..

Having my dad here was awesome. I honestly believe he must think me and my life is totally nuts. Zipping from one place to the other, eating on the go, sitting in traffic, working, taking phone calls as I’m flying down the freeway,,,, yelling at the kids, mocking stupid people who cut me off…  I said it more than once to him while he was here, “Gosh,, you must just think I’m crazy.”…..  He didn’t ever really give me a straight answer, which only leads me to believe that he thinks that. But, it is what it is. It’s my life. And I love it. Every last thing… I love it.  We camped up at Timothy Lake last weekend (and Anders and I are headed there again this weekend with a good friend of mine and her kids), and it was just a blast. Me, my dad, Maggie and Anders. Tent camping. Grilling, fishing, smores, dirt, ANTS… I MEAN HUGE ANTS, burgers, sunshine, powernaps, … all of it. Made some serious memories while he was up here. I want my kids to have vivid memories. My memories as a kid are vivid, and I visit them often, and I want that for my kids. Dad had a good time too… I could tell. I was blissed out. Always am when I’m camping. I go to another place in my head. A place that I don’t get to go to very often. It’s like a state of pure relaxation, and let’s face it, camping ain’t no relaxation!! But for whatever reason, I relax when I’m hussling around doing metal dishes, and wiping up dirt everywhere. Camping, for me, has a no-bra policy. I follow the rules when I’m camping.

Okay,, so now my house is totally and completely silent. I’m staring at my fattest cat in the window here, just totally lounging. I’ve got my other computer in the kitchen blaring pandora, it’s 5:14 pm and I have NO idea what I’m going to cook for dinner so I might just decide that Anders and I go out to dinner tonight. I’ve got sooooooooo much work to catch up on tho’. When I have family in town, I tend to just push it away. The work. I walk by the piles and go pffft. The beauty here tho’, is that I will have all day tomorrow to catch up. No interruptions. No “moooommmmyyyyy I’m done pooping!! Can you come wipe me’s”  I bet in a few days tho’ I’d give anything to wipe her butt.  Maggie Georgia… I hope you have the best time ever down there in California. While you’re gone, I’m hoping to clean out your room, and do a little re-decorating. And just know that I’ll be sleeping with Rosie, your build-a-bear kitty cat…..

Boy BP sure has themselves in a pickle don’t they? The sad reality is that us Americans… we don’t even KNOW how bad it really is down there. They aren’t letting the general population even hear or see the real damage. And I’m not even talking about the photos you see on the media of dead, oil covered, birds…. not even that. This spill is Armageddon!!  I’m bitter tho’, as my whole Summer has just been flushed down the toilet, more or less, as my husband left yesterday on select n’ direct orders to Louisiana to help with whatever in the hell is going on down there. Clean up??  Pfffffft. He’s a Lieutenant Commander in the US Coast Guard Reserves, and his number came up on this one. In fact, if you’re a CG reservist, chances are you’re already there, already been there, or will go in the near future…. pack your stuff. As I said tho’, I’m bitter. We had thee most awesome Summer planned this year. Last Summer was pretty much shot because we decided to move, so it was consumed with packing and unpacking and painting and laying floor etc…   So we were jazzed to get back to our Summer routine this year. Packing our weekends with camping, hiking, camps for the kids….  And yah, I can do all of it alone with the kids, but it’s only going to be a fraction as fun w/out their daddy here. And my gosh,, if you only knew how badly my husband hates hot, humid weather. I’d venture to say he’s going to sweat off about 30 pounds while he’s there. Poor guy…..

So last night was our first night without him.  Maggie pretty much cried all afternoon. She’d be fine, and then it would hit her, and she’d cry for a good, solid hour. Me and Anders tried to console her, but it we were only making it worse by trying to explain how fast TWO MONTHS is going to go by. Finally I just bit the bullet and admitted to the both of them that this was going to royally suck, but as long as we all got along, stayed positive, said our prayers, still went camping etc…. then we’d be okay. Once we get into the groove of him being gone, the time will fly. But these first couple weeks are going to be touch and go. Especially with Maggie. She’s pretty emotional for a 5 year old. Yah, 5 year olds are still whiners, but she has that hormonal emotion thing going on already. I think it’s because she drank so much soy milk as a baby.  Who knows…  You know those crying jags we have from time to time as women?? She’s already doing that crap I swear. Maybe she’ll get her emotions in check well before high school…. ha

So… they are actually calling for upper 80 degree weather this weekend. And naturally I won’t believe it until I see it, but will hold out as much hope as I can. My husband is the one that takes the kids to the park, and to the skate park, and to the movies, and whatnot because I tend to work on the weekends. I think the kids are in dread fear that now that he’s gone, I’m not going to step it up and fill his shoes in that regard. I just may surprise them. I’ve got to wrap my head around this. I think my dad may fly up next week and stay a couple weeks. Then, I think Maggie is going to fly down to California with him and kick it with my mom and dad for a couple/three weeks. Anders has summer school this year in July, so he and I will have to be buddy buddy. Which is good, because we never really get one on one time. Depending on what sort of “groove” we get in as a family will determine whether or not I’ll tackle the large chore of taking them camping by myself. You see, me and my hubby wait up till midnight on New Years Eve JUST to reserve our campsites for the summer. Reserve America only lets you reserve after the 1st of Jan, so we get on there and score on all the good sites, and then we put them on Craigslist if we don’t end up wanting to camp that particular weekend. It’s kind of messed up, but at least we are always guaranteed awesome sites every weekend. I was soooo looking forward to camping this year. The work tho’,,,, that goes into tent camping, and then doing it by myself??  Sheesh…  And I don’t drink anymore??  Yah,, we’ll have to see about camping. How the heck am I going to put up our 6 man tent by myself. ??  And who’s going to chop the wood???  sigh

So the new font I ordered will be arriving here shortly this morning. There was a huge boo boo on it when it arrived last week. So I had to spend the $55 bucks to overnight it back to the manufacturer, and then they were going to two-day it back to me. It ….. is…….thee….. coolest font yet. Finding a font to have made on stamps really is stressful. Dropping a grand on something like that, you have to totally make sure you love it love it love it. Not only that, but sizing as well. Like “roots” font is all lowercase letters, this new font is all uppercase. I was seeing so many requests lately for “all caps” on people’s orders that I thought it would be wise to make an all caps only font. I’m sitting here trying to think of what it reminds me of…..   the font style. Like,,, on signs and stuff, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before on ANYTHING….   It’s not a “she she” font…not a “foo foo” font. It’s a font with character…

Okay,, gotta get the kids up and out the door. Typically I’m just now leaving my AA meeting in Lake Oswego, and hubby has the kids up, dressed, breaky-filled, and lunches packed. I’m slackin!!!!!

OH….  and BP can eat my turds……