Not a cat person

I am not a cat person. Never have been, doubt I ever will be. Now, I have a cat and I have owned cats in the past, but given the choice - a dog will always win out for me. But how can I resist this snugly warm creature at my feet on a cold winter night? There is something just right about a cat curled up at your feet to warm them up - just so long as you don't move and she decides to bite you! Then all bets are off and that thing is going flying - forget about it.

The iPhonomenon

I kinda love my iPhone. Is that wrong? I mean really? What did I do before I had my iPhone? I am pretty sure we are about to celebrate our one year anniversary - my iPhone and I. Life must have been so dull before.

With the year 2010 I know y'all expected flying cars or personal jet packs or whatever. But if you had told me even 15 years ago that I would have a mini computer that I walk around with all day long in my pocket and at any moment I could use it to search the internet (what was that?), place phone calls - not attached to some cord plugged into the wall, email, send text messages, take pictures, listen to music, watch movies, organize my calendar, map my route with my GPS location, give me the weather and the traffic, entertain my children, look at my bank accounts, order movie tickets, count calories, read the Bible, name music I hear playing on the radio, or keep me posted on old friends, or really any of the other bazillion things the iPhone can do, I would have thought you were crazy. That was back in the day of the Apple IIGS. We were, like, loading our computer by floppy disks back then. The internet was for select few like my friend, Portia, with the totally techie dad. Digital cameras were cutting edge technology and the picture was totally pixelated.

I walk around with my iPhone today like it is an appendage. Really, I am sure there is some kind of psychological disorder all this iPhone business is going to create for my generation, but seriously - the technology we have today is awesome! Perhaps my iPhone is that "jet pack" that we were promised - just way, way cooler!

You would love your phone too, if you had an iPhone. Plus, if this is what you saw every time you turned on your phone, I am pretty sure you couldn't resist it:

Ughh

I had totally intended this post to be a highly creative post about my grandma's chair (I'll explain in a later post). But I am not feeling it. First of all I have been somewhat creatively stymied since I starting working normal hours, oh, say, about a year and a half ago. Apparently I am so much more inspired while experiencing sleep deprivation. Go figure.

I have felt it, this impermeable fog of not-creative-ness that has just sort of hijacked my brain. It came over me and left me wondering where my genius went. At first I did think it was my every-day-ness of working, uh, everyday. Over time I am inclined to believe that is just an excuse that I made up. Something is decidedly different. Even my Christmas letter this year was not as funny nor as witty as years past. What's up with that? I mean, the Christmas letter? That is classic funny stuff right there - but not so much this year.

I used to walk around every day thinking, "This would make an awesome blog post!" or "I totally should take a picture of that for the blog." But recently my camera has been untouched and my brain doesn't tune into that channel anymore. So please, bear with me here in this little space while I find my brilliance again. I am going to really work on it. (FYI - because I am prone to screwing up phrases like "bear with me" I double checked that one on Google - apparently "bare with me" is an invitation to disrobe. I thought that was funny. Also FYI, when you swallow something, it goes "down the hatch" not "down the hatchet" - that would hurt, apparently.)

Practice makes perfect (or so they used to tell me when I wouldn't practice my piano playing - didn't really fly with me in that department, I digress). So, I am going to publicly vow to write a post everyday until I feel the fog lifting - even if by publicly I only have admitted that to all three of you that might read this. Whatever.

And because I am a big fan of blogs with pictures and mostly because I think this is super cute, here are my girls:

Under sentimentalized

You might not believe this about me, but I tend to under sentimentalize dates. I am not sure why. I convinced myself not to be all gushy and goofy the day I had each of my babies. No tears were shed when my children went off for their first days of Kindergarten. If my best friend hadn't come to town and insisted I celebrate my 30th birthday, I wouldn't have paid it any mind. I used to think this sort of attitude was how I kept my wits about me and stayed sensible. You see, naturally I am not a very sensible person and am prone to extreme emotion. A darn Hallmark commercial can send me right over the edge. Worse, a standing ovation for a soldier, good grief, you'll have to pass me a whole box of Kleenex. I am embarrassed by such things. So, I guess I figure those times when most people would be overcome by sentimentality I am superior if I don't place too much importance on it.

Certainly this is backwards thinking. I am starting to understand this now. Dates are important. It is significant that on May 3oth, 2002 my oldest child joined this world. It is a big deal that my baby girl started Kindergarten this year. February 9th of every year should be celebrated with gusto. I definitely cried through my best friends wedding this summer, even though it did not make for very good pictures, I am not ashamed. And though January 1st is just another day, I do need to start taking it seriously. It is the beginning of a new year, a fresh start, and the end of the old year, all the things we should leave in the past. After all, how do we know where we have been without time to demarcate where we were?

So, I don't know about you and January 1st or the 3rd which it appears to be now, but I am making some resolutions, looking forward to a good year, and letting 2009 go.

My greatest flaw

I know, it's hard to believe, but I do possess some imperfections. Perhaps the most embarrassing and most obvious flaw I have is my lack of tidiness, er cleanliness, um ability to pick up after myself, eesh, I am basically a down right slob. Seriously. I have read the Messy Manuals, self help on learning how to de-clutter and clean, made vows to myself, lived with roommates that forced me to clean, I have even gone so far as to schedule visits with people so that I am forced to clean up, but alas, I still seriously lack the clean gene.

Enter the magic of friends. I know I have blogged on this before, but it's worth repeating. My friends are awesome. I have always had someone who could help me clean. My BFF as a child cleaned for me, my sister cleaned when we shared a room, my college roommate (couldn't have done college without her) kept our room tidy all four years, and well, my husband has seriously failed in this department. He is just as big a slob as I am. I am grateful that here in TX I have found my enabler, a hem, clean friend. We have worked out a deal, she and I. She cleans my house in a way that I couldn't even envision and I pay her. So far so good.

Seriously guys, we spent all of last night cleaning the upstairs and the kids' rooms. I mean we organized, we unearthed, and we cleaned. But apparently Brenda (clean friend) went into their rooms and created some sort of magic. The kids walked into their rooms with oohs and ahhs. Jacob was so excited he called me into his room so I could see how, "she made my bed!" For real. I spent nearly an hour on our art table that seemed just as bad as when I started. She spent 10 minutes over there and it looks like an organized studio. I could hate her for her clean brilliance.

So, for a few minutes tonight, I am sitting back and enjoying my clean house. Just a few minutes though because I think we were already on our way back to our previous state the minute I let the 3 shedding dogs back in the house.

And this is just a picture of my adorable children from like 4.5 years ago because I don't actually have any photographic evidence of my clean house. It does exist though, for now.

Sarah and Brian + 8

Okay, so first of all, Brian would like to know where our TLC contract is. Second of all, all 8 kids are not ours really, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief - we have not lost our minds, totally. We did, however, have 8 children here overnight and all day today between our two biological children, our two foster children and my friend's four kids (the ones that lived with us this summer). Regardless of how you count it up, 8 is still a lot of kids.

When you have 8 kids you might miss that one of your kids is wearing a sleeveless sundress in the middle of November. Or you might not see that one child has his dress shirt on inside out and even managed to button it that way. If you had 8 kids one of them might have lice and you might have to go to Walmart at 11pm to get lice shampoo so that you can de-louse all of them - lots of lice shampoo by the way. When you have 8 kids probably 2 or more of them could be getting into trouble without you seeing it until it was too late and someone might have already called someone else stupid or something worse. When you have 8 kids you might banish 3 boys to the backyard for-some-peace-and-quiet-for-crying-out-loud, and they may or may not string the hose up over the jungle gym and try and use it as a tight rope to the deck. When you have 8 kids you might have to do like 500 loads of laundry even using your new giant size super sweet LG washing machine and dryer. When you have 8 kids probably a few of them will spill at each meal. When you have 8 kids, more than likely 3 of them will hate whatever it is you made for the meal that the other ones spilled something at. When you have 8 kids you have to take two cars to church - even though you have one of those nifty SUVs that has a 3rd row that seats 3 - unless of course your vehicle is bright yellow and seats 70. When you have 8 kids the gate you installed to keep the little ones off the stairs and the big ones upstairs might end up broken by one or the other going over it. When you have 8 kids and they all are asleep, you probably will be drinking a BIG glass of wine and writing a really long blog post about it.

I like staying with y'all

Foster parenting has been on my heart since I was a young woman. It seems that I have always known in the depth of my soul that I was supposed to love children. I felt a drive to have children in my home that were not my biological children almost as strongly as I desired my own Jacob and Reba. As a 15 or 16 year-old I was expressing my desires for many children to my mom (a woman who has dedicated her life to loving children as an educator). With her love and wisdom she pressed on my heart the first memory I have of desiring a large family that may or may not share my genetic makeup. "Have children of your own, if you are able. But there are many children in this world that do not have someone to love them. " And there it was. I knew instantly I would open my family to these children.

I have been blessed generously with my Jacob and Reba. We actually just had their parent conferences with their respective teachers. Of course every parent wants to believe things about their children, they are smart, they are confident, they are good kids. It is so affirming when someone else believes this too. Jacob's teacher added his humor to his list of strengths (we get this every year - we are afraid, very afraid) and we know he is funny because he pulls some great one liners at home. He is just funny enough to get in some big trouble - uh, does this sound like someone else we know (eh hem, Brian). Reba had too many strengths to list, her weakness is perfectionism (she only looks just like me - clearly I don't suffer from perfectionism, eh hem, Brian and mom). Most importantly each teacher confirmed our greatest hope for our children, they are nice, loving children. But then again, we knew that.

Life could be complete and fairly tidy with these two. I could easily live forever knowing I had a Jacob and a Reba and things could go along mostly uncomplicated. There would always be one kid for each parent, one boy, one girl, Jacob looks like Brian, Reba looks like me, a bedroom for each, we could easily fit at our small kitchen table, and we would always have enough seats in a regular car. In many ways they more than fulfill my need for children. But after that moment so many years ago, I knew that it wasn't going to always be about my need for children but rather a child's need for me (though I feel more blessed than ever). Who needs tidy and uncomplicated?

Along comes S and I (I am not going to use their real names and can't post pictures here because this blog is not password protected). S is 3 and I is 1. This is our first official foster placement. I am overwhelmed - with love. I is as cute as can be. He brightens our days with his baby laughs and smiles. We marvel at the milestones he has already hit in just one month. Having a baby in our house again is fun. S is very active and high energy and there are times when I want to pull my hair out. But for every moment I am going potentially bald, she makes up for it with words or actions that melt my heart. Ah, 3, I remember you. The magic mercurial age of 3. You are just cute enough that your parents won't kill you. Bless her little heart. She looks up at me with her cockeyed pigtails at least once a day and says, "Momma, I love you. I like staying with y'all." And this is when I remember - have children of your own and love them and then open your heart and home to the children in this world that need a momma to love them. In the end, the love you give to a child gives back 1000 fold.