under rested

So you wouldn't guess from all my talk of the ten, the transitions, and my general neuroses that I lose sleep from time to time.  Sophie slept through the night at least twice last week.  I was grateful for that. But Thursday night I went to bed with the house so messy that I couldn't sleep.  I woke up about three a.m. thinking about the disaster downstairs and just questioning if I had anything in my life in order.  I thought about my parenting and how I do a lot of blogging about my myriad of weaknesses, but could I do something about them? Could I make our house more functional, calm, predictable?  Well you just have to start where you can start, so I went downstairs and started with the dishes, and moved throughout the house until the sun came up and it was time to wake up the kids. That was Friday morning.

But back to Monday morning, November 15.  We had kind of a late start.  Sunday night had been filled with our kind of regular irregularities.  It started to snow in the evening so the kids went out to play in it.  Then around scripture time Bethany opened the front door to check on the progress of the precipitation.  Just like out of Jan Brett, there was an unpredicted, four legged, guest at our door.  Roxie was her name and she looked cold and confused and insisted on coming inside.

Here's what she looked like to William.

And what we looked like to Roxie.

So bedtime was predictably delayed with all the excitement of a new dog friend, who by the way, found her way home Monday morning.

So Monday I was driving Sam and Ben to school, imagining to myself that I was right on time for a change, when Sam started to panic...only five minutes to the bell. I started to smell stressed out teenager. How to diffuse? No Nacho Libre lines came to mind so I just said "Come on Sam, You gotta look at the half-glass full."

"Half-glass full? Okay, fine, but how's that supposed to apply to this situation, Mom?" he responded.

And I said, not wanting to be dismissive, just defusing, "It doesn't apply at all Sam."

Because now and then, when I'm trying to be a parent, things just come to mind randomly, and in this case it was Jon Stewart's Daily Show segment about Dick Cheney. Check it out...

 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-31-2007/half-glass-full

I said," You know Sam, Some people say the glass is half empty and some say it's half full, but George Bush say that its a  "half-glass-full."

So then a miraculous thing happened... my van-full of stressed out middle school-ers started to laugh at my random interjection. That's when I thought that it was a moment so beautiful, so triumphant that I had to write about it.

Laughter is everything you know. I think everything is falling apart, and then two of my kids get together and laugh together, and it's all worth it again.

So I dropped the boys off at middle school and it was Caitlin's turn to get on my case. "Now we're late for my school," she said. "But don't drive too fast or we'll get under rested."

Just one more incidence of under rested. As part of my commitment to helpful blogging, and part of my desperate attempt to make up for some (ahem) overspending.  I am going to personally investigate the topic "Can you earn money taking surveys at home?"  So the other day I came across a new blog via blogfrog.  Here it is http://www.wahm-solution.com/  and from there I linked on to what seemed like a fairly credible review of work-at-home Internet options.  Did some reading.  Did some buying-into. Stayed up past two am Saturday night (fortunately we're on the eleven o'clock church schedule) Grossed one dollar.  Won't admit what I invested in case Rob is reading.  But I haven't given up...so more on this later.  I will let you know when and if I find something more remunerative...because I think we're all wondering.

That's all for now, since it's late again and I start to admit to things that  shouldn't.  Next post...the Deathly Hallows...

antelope island

So what randomly coincided with my last post was this.  I chose to post that Amazon advertisement for Nacho Libre, not realizing that the kids had been downstairs watching it over and over all day, but wondering why they kept saying "I've had diarrheas since Easters..." and laughing hysterically.  They finished up their baths (we do that from time to time) last night and ran down to watch the final wrestling scene, which I have to admit makes me cry.  And then everyone started in on a relatively friendly debate about which did they love more Napoleon Dynamite or Nacho Libre?  It was a tie.  My vote went with Nacho Libre, such great music, beautiful scenery, so many words to live by..."I am the gatekeeper of my own destiny and I will have my glory day in the sun."  But then again, I've found that throwing a random Napoleon quotation into an almost heated discussion like "You're just jealous cause I've been chatting on line all day with babes..." can turn away  my sons' wrath quickly or at least confuse them into submission.

But back to catching up with July...

Tuesday night, July 27, the Raines siblings started to arrive.  We were out in Grandma's yard eating Chinese food from Master Feng's, that used to be Smith's Chinese to me.  I put us out there so we wouldn't have to sweep up the rice.  I didn't buy so much because the kids always complain about Chinese food.  Of course. this time they remembered that they love American Chinese food,  so when I went in to cut up the barbecued pork, which I don't recommend, too authentically Guangzhou tough, they had consumed the lot of it. Big families....I got stuck with the tough pork. That's when Miriam and Bryan and the cousins arrived from Iowa and not too long after, Grandma and Grandpa returned with Don and Myla, who live in Korea now.

So Wednesday morning the coolers and jugs and grocery bags were out early to be packed with fruit and cheese and drink and crackers, loafs of french bread, cookies and things.  We all left, mostly as scheduled, for our excursion to Antelope Island.  I had mentioned that I wanted to go there to Grandma, then Grandpa picked up on the idea and made a kind of pre-Raines-reunion activity out of it, since one of the family ancestors, Briant Stringham, worked on the ranch out there.

The Great Salt Lake from the causeway...

First we went to the visitors center. When we piled out of the van it was so hot, I thought I was going to catch a weather related death and die right there, in my relative young age, like poor Briant Stringham.

William was most impressed by all the buffalo and kept calling them "horsey horsey."

Bethany admired the brine shrimp.

And, of course, Grant was all about the huge spiders outside the visitors' center windows.

Next we drove around Antelope Island to Garr Ranch where Briant Stringham

spent his time. The farm was established in 1848. We were all so grateful to find a beautiful, shaded area to have lunch.

After lunch Kyle announced that he was bored to death, but cheered up when I asked him to go take pictures of the buffalo with Uncle Joe.

Caitlin and her posse of cousins watching the buffalo.

Bethany took pictures in the museum.

Grant took up semi-permanent residence in this old-fashioned trailer.

More of Bethany's pictures

I took William and Grant on a walk to see this truck and farm equipment.

On the way home, Bethany couldn't get enough of her cousin Julianna, Don and Myla's baby.