You are always on my mind...

I think about you, my faithful readers, everyday. I thought about you last weekend when I was baking all day, and I thought about you all day long while I chased my kids back and forth across town to and from soccer games. There are so many things rattling around in my head that I want to write about, but I don't have time to load pictures, and I even if I just sit down to write, I rarely have time to complete a thought without interruption or total diversion. While I have a few minutes, I thought I'd unload some of my random thoughts.

I have a lot to do. Right now, at 10:19pm, the pressing thing is the kitchen floor. It's a mess. I mean, it's bad. The dishes are done, the groceries are put away, and the trash is out, but the floor: yikes. Instead of tending to the pressing things, you know what I do with my time? I cruise Facebook. Here is a lovely opportunity to catch up on all your long lost friends, look at their lives, see how they interact with their friends, see what they look like after all these years, who they married, how their lives turned out; it's all that and a bag of chips. But why is it so important to me to spend hours of my life just cruising? It's like back in high school when we would drive up and down the street just to see what else is going on. It blows my mind. There are so many things that I would much rather be doing, and so many more other things that I SHOULD be doing. But just like the old days, I'm waiting for the weekend to cruise! (this is our weekend because Dale's off.)

I've been cooking as much as I can from scratch lately. Maybe you remember I posted about the plan? Well, it's in full effect. I've baked bread, graham crackers, air-popped popcorn in the microwave, made sweetened condensed milk, cooked Cajun food, and used three bags of rice in the past week. I'm making good progess in the progression to whole and organic foods. It's so much fun.

Every time I figure out how to make something new, I want to write all about it. Like the other night when I was stirring the roux for my Cajun stew, I was thinking about how fun it would be to do a post about how to make it. While I was cooking, the neighborhood kids were all coming in and saying, "It sure smells good!" Most of them have gotten impromptu invitations to dinner via my children so I knew they were fishing. Unfortunately, when I cut up the chicken, (first time ever!) I pulled out the breasts because I thought I could use them for something else. I mean, I was using a whole chicken, why would I need all that meat? And then I decided I would add it later because I realized that I only had two legs, two thighs, and two wings to feed seven people. Well, while I was stirring the roux, I melted my spatula into the oil and had to start over. But I had already cooked the chicken, so I had to pull the rest of the bones, the neck and the back out of the fridge, (I was saving them to make stock), and fry them up so they would flavor the grease. Well, it takes twenty minutes to achieve a dark roux and by that time I had forgotten all about the boneless breasts I had set aside. Much to their dismay, I turned down all the requests for company for dinner because I realized the meat wasn't going to go far. Obviously, I have not used a whole chicken often enough to know that it's not really worth it's weight raw. One of our neighbor girls went home and no one was there, so she had to come back. I couldn't leave her in the living room while we all ate, so I gave up my spot at the table, picked as much of the meat off the backbone to split with Leila, and sat on the couch to feed the baby and wait for a seat to open up. The stew was really good; more like smothered chicken in gravy than what I would call stew, but really savory, nonetheless. It gave me a real sense of accomplishment when it was all said and done. Because it took so long to make and I managed to salvage it even after the spatula catastrophe, I felt like I had really done something remarkable. You can imagine the response when I had to tell the kids they could only have one piece, and Dale was getting the biggest piece- a leg. HAHA! Poor kids. Good thing Tre is picky and opted for salad instead of chicken.

Something else I think about a lot is how lucky I am. There's this song called "The Luckiest" that I feel like is my theme song. I didn't choose him, he chose me, which makes me even luckier. And we have these amazing kids. Today in the store this woman had been shopping in the same area we were in for several minutes without saying much more than "excuse me" to any of us. When we left, she checked out behind us and caught Kennedy and Jasmine while I was paying to say, "You have been a real pleasure to be around." It just melted my heart when they told me. I can't tell you how gratifying it is to have their good behavior lauded by complete strangers. They're not perfect, by any stretch. And we are hardly perfect parents, far from it actually, but we all love each other and at the end of the day we're all on the same team. I know these blessings come directly from the hand of God and have nothing to do with luck, but I feel so, so lucky.

Even if I'm not present here, you are on my mind in the day to day things that we do. Hopefully someday soon, I'll be present in real life instead of this virtual world, and you can watch our progress in real time rather than in fast forward!

Reasons

When I lived in Chicago, I discovered this cool little book that inspired me everyday. I'm sure you've heard of it, it's called "Life's Little Instruction Book". There are a bunch of 'em now, but back then it was pretty new and I loved reading it because it always gave me one more tool for my life tool belt. I read years later that it was written by a man who wrote it for his child before he left for college. It had all the information he could possibly pass on for this little bird leaving the nest.


It never occurred to me until this minute how lucky we are. Right now Dale is teaching his class to the kids. Every Wednesday, Dale fills their heads with all kinds of valuable teaching that he would never, in any other situation, have the time or opportunity to give them without serious discipline in scheduling. But, because they are home, he is able to think through the things he wants them to learn and the seeds he wants to plant, and then spend this few hours cultivating thought. What a rich, rich blessing from our home schooling opportunity. It's just awesome.


This little number thrilled me too.
It was our first day of school journal entry. For those that don't read phonetically, it says, "I love school because my mom rocks!" WOOHOO!

Leila's Birthday

It was a few weeks ago, but these pictures were so cute, I had to share them. She pranced around the house like a princess all day. Now if you ask her, "Are you the big sister?" she says, "No, I da pwincess."

This is the little Cinderella cake the we bought at Albertson's to commemorate the occasion. She fell in love with this cake and Dale and I were trying to avoid a real cake, so I decided this was a good fit for the little princess. We all got a little sliver of the dress. It was so good (I love grocery store bakery frosting) that I was tempted with the giant cheeseburger cake that I saw there last night. Here I'm skimping on groceries, saving $.40 here and $.67 there, and I had to talk myself out of a five dollar indulgence. What can I say. I heart cake.
Leila loves the part when we all sing happy birthday to her. It's the best part of the whole day. She adores it. You can see it on her face.
Here she is with the tiara and earrings. So cute.
And this little necessity was added to her wardrobe just a few days later. She only takes it off to bathe and go to Wal-Mart- if I make her. Her little friend saw her prancing up and down the street and ran right in to get her dress on. They were bestest, bestest friends for the first hour they were twins, then Leila, after she brought her in the house to play, must've gotten tired of the pressure to perform as a princess because I heard her yelling, "Go home!" Sometimes she's really naughty.

Happy birthday, little one. Live it up; you only get to be three once.

The Plan, Part Two

I have this great friend that apparently knows me very well, which is rare because my life is like a locked diary and I don't ever share it with anyone. Ever. No details; it's all classified, if you know what I'm saying. She called me about a week ago and after listening to me moan about my troubles for awhile, she said, "So what's the plan? I keep waiting for you to blog some new plan, and I'll know that you're OK." And that was all I really needed to hear, a reminder to live deliberately. Honestly, for the past few months I have been just trying to get by hoping something would change and the blues would clear up on their own. Well they're not. So I decided to devise a plan that would: a. save us money, b. help us to eat healthy foods again, and c. get me organized.

After some hunting, I found this awesome website that was just what I needed to kick myself into gear. This gal lives on $50 a week and tries to eat organic as much as possible and also buy local produce. She doesn't calculate her spending in the week, but only using supplies equal to that amount. For example, if she uses a tortilla, she charges herself two cents, etc. It was perfect. She has healthy recipes, ideas for minimal meals like lentils and rice, and because of her organic tendencies, she is very resourceful in her cooking.

Now, coming off of vacation, which I hope to write about someday, and a week of eating convenience and fast foods, lentils and rice doesn't look too good to the masses, so I have to improvise a little. And we're big meat eaters; everyone panics when there's no meat. But the idea was all I needed, with a little bit of instruction.

First, I wanted to try to use everything in the cabinets before creating a menu or going to the grocery store. I made flour tortillas, for pennies, and used up the leftover refried beans. I cut all the meat off the leftover pork chops and used the bones for the broth of my soup. We had quesadillas and canned soup with the leftover tortillas, cornbread from scratch with the soup, and tonight we're having pizza, if we don't go to Applebees, which is what Dale is pulling for. Also we made slushies last night for family movie night with KoolAid and ice and a little bit of extra sugar. They were yummy, just like Sonic!

It's exciting to see how far I can stretch what we have because I tell myself how much we're saving every meal that we don't have to buy from the grocery store. Yesterday I wanted to make sloppy joes and didn't have any onion or green pepper, but instead of going to the store, I used onion powder and put a few pepperoncinis in it and it was good.

If you know me at all, you know my dream is to make everything I possibly can from scratch eventually, even having a few chickens and a cow on the ranch someday. But for now, I'm picking up what I can here and there so that the kids are conditioned for life without pre-packaged foods.

The Plan

Alright, the reality is that I'm not depressed, I am severely overwhelmed. Today I received four of the twenty-some boxes that I'm waiting for so we can proceed with a successful school year.
I have cardboard boxes and plastic bubbles full of air that I need to find a place for so that I'll have the supplies in the event that we don't finish the school year here in California. (I know, it's a long shot, but I'm an optimist. And my mom is a woman of faith.) I don't have a place for it. My shed is full of other stuff that I'm saving for who knows what reason. I can barely keep up with my regular housework on top of shuffling our storage space to accomodate these things, and trying to meet the needs of all these little lives around me. I haven't cooked in a couple of weeks. (Hey guess what! Chicken nuggets tomorrow too!) I get overwhelmed with the guilt of not being a competent teacher, not praying for each one of them everyday, not meeting my husband on a grown-up level, and the baby's crying again. I can't do it all, but I want to believe that somehow I can. I don't rest well when the housework isn't done, but if I don't go to bed without finishing, I won't ever sleep. There's always more to do.

I'd really love to give the impression that I am capable of raising all these kids in a cracker jack box, home school them, have another baby, cook all our meals, get to soccer practice on time, still wear the same size jeans I wore in high school, and not skip a beat. But I can't. I feel like I'm drowning sometimes. So you know what I do? I eat. I drink soda instead of water. I spend money we don't have. I don't know why these things make me feel better, but somehow they get me past the fact that I have neglected cleaning the kids' bathroom long enough to grow mold under the sink. Gag. And clearly, I cannot keep up with my avid blogging passion, because it's been like twenty days since my last blog.

But I will tell you this, I do love my life, even when I don't want to get out of bed in the morning and try to sneak back to it in the afternoon. I did get some incredible pictures of San Francisco and some of this side of the country. Plus, I have pictures from Tre's birthday still waiting to be loaded, and some of Princess Leila in her new wardrobe. So, I'll be back eventually.

All that to say this: here's the plan. I'm going to get out of bed tomorrow and try to be nice. I'm going to go as fast as I can without losing my patience with my kids or my husband. I'm going to pick up what I can and fold all the clothes that are in the dryer right now. I'm going to try to do something generous for someone that I know because people are constantly doing this for me. I might not cook. But I will kiss everyone in the house as often as I can, so that they know I love them even if I fall in a heap at the end of the day. That's the plan.

Summertime

The kids in our neighborhood all went back to school this week, so before that happened, I snapped a couple of pictures of their summertime activities for posterity's sake.
This little stinker, don't you just want to scoop her up? I do too! And I do every chance I get.
Trek and Tre were play fighting on the trampoline this morning and Trek clocked Tre in the nose; Tre came in with a bloody nose howling about how he was going to get Tre back. Micah came storming in shortly after snarling about how Trek better watch out because he was going to get it back. I reminded them of Jesus's forgiveness and told them that they needed to forgive Trek. After a couple of failed attempts, I let them know that if they didn't practice forgiveness, I was going to get them back. They're all best friends again.
Jasmine is such a mommy already, she always takes to the little ones immediately. This is a continuation of the tea party she hosted on our stoop the day before school started. She is such a jewel!
Of course you can't forget the hours we spent in front of the Wii... and all the neighborhood kids' joy along with us.

Gotta love the summertime! Woohoo! Just a couple short weeks until ours is done too...

Sparkpeople

For a few months, I've been vicariously doing weight watchers, using the manual points calculator and logging my food journal on Word. After some prodding from other users, I had decided to sign up for Weight Watchers online; my manual entries were not cutting the mustard. As a matter of fact, I plateaued and then started to gain weight so I was doing something wrong. While I was on the Internet searching for some answers and found this goldmine: www.sparkpeople.com It's a lot like Weight Watchers Online, only it calculates fat and calories and is totally free! I've been using it for a little over two weeks and only have about five pounds to lose to meet my goal weight. I'm so excited about it, I just had to share it with you here.

One thing about it that really intrigued me is that the guy that started it is a multi-millionaire and set it up and made it free to *spark people* to lose weight. He is a health philanthropist. I look forward to getting on everyday, there are all kinds of motivational tools and incentives to stay the course; it's so fun! Check it out and let me know what you think.

Deisha

I love this outfit; someone that Dale works with gave this to her and I had to get a picture before she outgrew it! This shot is clearly on a rainy day in Deisha's world.
She still fusses, but the sun is starting to come out for her. She's smiling and laughing and learning all about her hands because she is constantly investigating them. I love that!!!
I just took this picture a minute ago. For about three shots she smiled right before the flash. On the other four she smiled right after. She's gonna be a stinker just like her older brother and sister. Get ready world, there's another Sutton on the horizon!

Betcha!

... thought I fell off the face the earth??? Well I didn't. I'm still here. We had Tre's birthday, which I've been meaning to write about and post pictures and haven't yet, so I thought I'd wait until I got that done, but I have to load the pictures. For some reason loading the pictures seems like the most daunting task and I just haven't gotten it done. I even bought batteries and everything... it's just one more thing.

So I have this baby that cries all the time. OK, she doesn't cry all the time. She only cries when I can't hold her and she wants me to, or she's falling asleep and she really doesn't want to, or she wants to nurse instead of take the pacifier, and I can't sit on the couch all day long. As much as it might simplify my frustration, I just can't. I had resigned to the fact that she was fussy during the day, but after I got her into bed, she would sleep until daybreak. Whew. I had from about nine o'clock to seven o'clock to decompress from the day. However, she has decided to transfer her contentment to various parts of the day- not one long stretch, just an hour here, an hour there. So last night, and the night before that, and the night before that, she's been waking about every half hour to switch sides. Seriously, this baby wants to be latched on all night long. I am going crazy.

Sometimes I want to yell, sometimes I want to cry, and sometimes I just plain want to run head first through the sliding glass doors to release some of this tension. There's this war inside me because I want, more than anything, to enjoy these next few months because it will probably be the last time I have a baby, and I love having a baby so much. In fact I adore it, but she's making it so tough to really enjoy. And then, when she's happy, she looks into my eyes and smiles the most endearing smile and even laughs sometimes because we're so in love with each other. I'm Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde; totally happy one minute, totally miserable the next hour.

That's the other reason I haven't been here. But I'll tell you one thing; the complex B vitamin really does work. And here's why. There are some-- undesirable side effects of this vitamin, some minor intestinal side effects. They affect the entire household if you know what I mean, without getting too graphic here. So I stopped taking them just to see if that was really the case or maybe it was some weird leftover postpartum issue. Lo and behold, the issue ceased after a few days, but my moods took an immediate dive. Now, I've been back on for a week and I am back to feeling grounded and level. I didn't yell at my kids even one time all of last week and I was a single parent to boot. So that's a blessing.

Please pray for my little Deisha. (DAY-shuh; rhymes with geisha. Some spell it Dacia, just in case you were wondering.) If there's something we can do to regulate her schedule and her moods, I would do just about anything at this point. I thrive on normalcy and right now there is none; it's making me loco.

Disappointment

I have, countless times, been disappointed in my life. Disappointment should be a friend to me. I am the queen of dashed expectations. I have said for years that if I could just lower my expectations of circumstances I would live a more simple life laced with sweeter happiness. But somehow I cannot make the shift. I am an optimist almost to a fault. While it strengthens my faith on certain levels, filling me with hope, it also trips me up time and time again.

There's this war inside me between the acknowledgement that I have everything I've ever hoped for, and the daily let-downs that threaten my peace. It's like swinging from branch to branch- I get one thing resolved and swing on to the next so I can fret over it. It's strange because I know I have everything. I lack nothing. But I freak out if I get a bill I didn't expect or a phone call that bugs me. I don't know. Someday I'll find a balance and learn to live in quiet submission under the sovereignty of God and his perfect, sustaining grace.

But for now what I have in this life, is a promise. It's the hope that I always come back to when I get tripped up by something insurmountable.

"Behold, I lay in Zion, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed."