Thursday, May 22, 2008

Perspective

By this time all of you know four things about me:

1. I am moving to Las Vegas in a week (eeek!).
2. I am not so happy about it.
3. I am working on my attitude and am feeling more positive about it...usually.
4. I whine a lot... :)

I have had my situation put into perspective this week. Our dear friends Darcy and Brent's 10-yr-old son has leukemia. He has been fighting this terrible disease for nearly 3 years now. Over the past couple of days, his fever spiked to 105.7, his port where they give him medications was blocked, so he couldn't get meds, and he has been in isolation in the hospital. Today, he got a blood transfusion which made him violently ill. He is the sweetest, cutest little boy you could ever meet. Big blue eyes, curly blonde hair, and a great, sunny disposition. His 1-year treatment for leukemia has taken nearly 3 years so far, with about 6 months still to go, because of all of the complications, usually which land him in the hospital. Another friend and I are headed over to their house in a few minutes to bring dinner to the older two kids who (again) are left alone while their parents and baby brother fight this devastating disease.

So, my new prayer is: Lord, I will cheerfully move every 10 minutes for the rest of my life if you will keep my family healthy. My life is good.

Perspective is a good thing.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Viva Las Vegas

So, we went to Las Vegas this weekend in search of a home. And the good news is, we found one! Does it have a pool, you might ask...well, YES! Of course, we were ONLY looking at homes with a pool, so that was a little bit of a no-brainer. But, it is a very nice house, and should work out perfectly for our little family.

My handsome brother, his beautiful wife and their adorable baby girl came to Vegas to spend the day with Chase while divine hubby and I went house-hunting. Maybe you don't have a 10-yr-old son, but take it from me, house hunting is NOT their favorite activity, as a rule. So, Chase stayed with his aunt, uncle and cousin, and wore them all out on Saturday while the realtor showed us around Las Vegas. A fun day was had by all.

So, we are now relocating...again... in 9 days. YIKES! Why in the world am I wasting time on the computer? I gotta go pack!! :) Actually, I'm doing pretty well in that department. It's easier when you've moved 78 times before...ya just don't have as much stuff and an alarming amount of it never got unpacked!

Onward and upward, as my dear friend Jeannine would say - I believe this move will work out great, and am feeling more positive than I have in awhile. We have an address, a moving date, a moving van, a school and a life...waiting for us in Las Vegas. I'll keep posting - and let you know how it all goes, but it is certainly going.

Viva Las Vegas! :)

Friday, May 16, 2008

Question for the ages

I've always wondered...what is it about sitting for an hour in an airport, standing in line for 20 minutes to get a seat, then sitting in a comfy leather seat for 2 hours that makes me so tired?? I mean, I am more tired now than I was after I mowed the backyard on Mother's Day (see earlier post for more whining about that)!!! What exactly is it about doing absolutely NOTHING, ZILCH, NADA, NUTTIN, honey, that is so dad gummed exhausting? Honestly, every time I get off of a plane, I feel slightly nauseous, my back hurts slightly, I'm cranky, and my hair is flat and awful. No matter if it is a 1-hr puddle jumper or a cross-country haul, an airplane absolutely ruins me.

So, Chase and I are visiting divine hubby here in Lost Wages. Tomorrow, we WILL find a house to rent. Plan A is to rent a fabulous house we love with a pool in the backyard. OR, Plan B is to rent the house we hate the least...with a pool in the backyard. Whatever happens, we are signing a lease tomorrow, and we will no longer be homeless. And we will have a pool. :) The next decision is which school Chase will attend. I think we are leaning towards the Lutheran school that will be close to the area we think we'll likely live in. The next decision is if we move in late May or late June. Personally, I am hoping for late June. Divine hubby makes a good point - we are tired of this forced separation, but another month to pack and move sounds good to this tired, overwhelmed, stressed-out blonde. Whatever, that decision will also be made tomorrow. Tomorrow is a banner day for our little family - wish us luck!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Packing

Thursday is two weeks...until we move. Unless it's not. What could I possibly mean by that brilliant thought? We are currently looking at houses to rent in Las Vegas. The one we like at the moment won't be available until July 1. So, our cross-country adventures might not start until late June instead of 14 days from now. That thought fills me with such PEACE!!! I mean, I look at all of the junque (translation: high-class junk that we are willing to pay big bucks to move all over the country) we have, most of it NOT yet packed in big boxes, and it makes me tired to think of how much work I have to do in two weeks and two days. Unfortunately, feeling tired about all of the work does NOT motivate me to do it...it makes me want to take a nap.

But, I got a lot done today, and my living room is starting to be fairly un-live-able because of all of the boxes stacked around. That's good, right? The act of securely wrapping and placing all of one's worldly belongings in boxes is a very weird thing. You think to yourself that you could probably live without that particular "thing" for two weeks, so you put it in a box. But there are many many things you really cannot live without for two weeks. Namely, everything in the kitchen. Oh, I guess the breadmaker and the waffle iron could probably get packed without concern, but don't you take my beloved food processor. Ditto for the crock pot. And the vegetable steamer? I'll wrestle you to the ground before I'd let you put that in a box yet.

When you move three times in four years, you know what you have. You don't have a lot of stuff you don't use. You have almost nothing you don't want. At this point, I won't buy a new pen because it just means I have to pack it. It's kind of a funny existence when you move a lot. That being said - I hope to never ever ever ever ever move again and to start accumulating worthless junk that I'd never pay burly men to load onto a truck. Even though we're moving to Las Vegas, which is NOT my first choice for my home, I hope to dig deep down into my gravel front yard and plant some roots.

Moving is weird - packing is hard - leaving people we love (again) is sad. I think I'll go take a nap.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Mother's Day

'Tis the day after Mother's Day and all through the house...

No, just kidding. I was going to try and do this post in poem form, but it's too much work, frankly. It was a beautiful Mother's Day here in Colorado yesterday. 80 degrees, light breeze(hey, I'm rhyming after all!), missin' my main squeeze... but I digress. Chase and I went to church, and it was a fantastic service. Left me in tears, and in a good way! Then, we went to lunch at Red Lobster. I was pushing for Italian, but you know how that goes.

THEN, we went home and the real Mother's Day treat began. No, not a spa treatment, no, not even the annual Mother's Day nap...the Mother's Day mowing of the yard. sigh But, it had to be done, and with no husband in sight, and knowing that making Chase do it would be tantamount to doing it myself...I did it. I got the front yard mowed with a minimum of scratches acquired and a minimum of bad words muttered, and then proceeded to the back yard. I thought to myself, "Self, be a responsible mower-owner and check the oil." So, I did. It was low. I added, oh, half a quart. Should be enough, right? I mean, my motto is, you can always add more, so start slow. Yep. It was plenty. In fact, when I proudly started it up again (feeling oh, so responsible, I might add), I was treated to a Mother's Day smoke cloud that probably single-handedly made it an ozone action day in Denver. Apparently, half a quart is a smidge too much. Like maybe 50% too much. Oops. Teach my hubby to leave me to do the yard work, huh?? :)

Luckily, my neighbor saw the cloud, figured I had set myself on fire and came over to put me out. When I told him how "responsible" I had been, he did a good job not laughing RIGHT in my face...He diagnosed my problem, loaned me his lawnmower (but first made me swear I would not add anything to the mower) and I finished the back yard without being reported to Al Gore...at least, not yet.

The question of the day is...what should the Craigslist ad say? "Moving to Las Vegas, no need to mow the gravel, lawnmower $20." OR "Wife forced to mow yard on Mother's Day. Lawnmower free to first person to pick it up before hubby gets home from work." Whaddya think?

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Deep thoughts...

Our thoughts have amazing powers, don't they? It's funny, I can be having a perfectly good day, when out of the blue, I'll think to myself... "I didn't play with Chase yesterday. I'm a terrible mother." All of a sudden, my emotions, my feelings and my self-esteem take a HUGE nosedive, and I'm in a deep blue funk. It's not that we spent a rare day in an uncharacteristic rush, it's that I'm a terrible mom. What's up with that? I mean, it's amazing the things we say to ourselves! If someone walked up to me and accused me of being a terrible mother, I would defend myself and give eight million examples of days when I did nothing but play with him. But, when I say it to myself, somehow, it seems true.

I just finished a class at church called Beta. It's a class about faith, about having a closer walk with God, and about life in general. One of the topics they really stress is purifying your mind. You've heard the old "garbage in, garbage out" adage. That was part of it - being careful about what you put into your mind, but a bigger issue was about taking your thoughts captive. That sounded kind of like "church speak" to me, so at first, I dismissed it. But, it's really not church speak; it's very concrete and very effective!!

Basically, it goes like this - a thought, like the bad mom one I described above, enters your mind. What you do is say (out loud works best for me, although it makes those around me wonder about my sanity...), "That's not from God, and it's not true!" Now, you say, how do I presume to know that thought isn't from God? Because God might give you a thought like, "you need to make time to spend playing catch with Chase today. He needs your attention." But God just wouldn't tell you you're a bad mom. Name-calling doesn't seem to be God's style! It's like if your sweet son told you a lie. You would deal with the lie, but you wouldn't call him a LIAR.

It takes practice (and makes people think you're a little loopy), but it really has done wonders for me and my general outlook. It's amazing, when you're paying attention, how many nasty little negative thoughts creep in during the day! I don't mind the little correcting ones, but the name callers? They gotta go.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Ah, the sweet feeling of NOT being sick

Chase woke me up this morning (at 9am!) saying, "Mommy, I feel like I could conquer the world today!" His fever-flushed cheeks are back to normal, his eyes are bright, and he is back to my old Chase. A little less energy than usual, but he is feeling NOT SICK, and that is great. However, we decided that due to the horrific-ness of the weekend, we would take today to completely recover.

So, we have plans to take the dog for a little w-a-l-k (you have to spell it or he gets all excited), eat some homemade chicken soup for lunch (just call me Martha Stewart), then settle down to watch Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I hope, now that it's been several thousand years since I saw it as a kid, that it is appropriate for my sweet boy to see...I remember the Nazi-face-melting scene being pretty scary, but that's at the end, and I can warn him about that. Other than that, I remember it being pretty much like the "National Treasure" movies - pure fun action, just made for a 10-yr-old boy. I'll let you know if I'm wrong...

In the meantime, it's a Spongebob fest around here. I don't usually wish we had cable, but when Chase is sick, it would sure be easier than renting Spongebob movies. Even when Chase is sick, he doesn't slow down unless you plug him in, so if I need him to be still and quiet all day, the TV is my friend! Tomorrow, it's back to his usual 1-hour of PBS kids programming a day plus Survivor on Thursdays. Oh, yes, and Smackdown. Can't forget Smackdown. If you are not aware of the SD addiciton in my family, see my earlier post (sigh).

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Hopefully, the last posting about vomit...

The only thing worse than having the stomach flu is waking up at 1am and realizing you gave it to your 10-yr-old son. My poor Chase has been up every 30 minutes for the past 7 hours being sick. I made a pallet next to his bed, so I was up exactly the same number of times (yawn). It is awful to watch him being sick and knowing I can't do anything to help him. He handled it SO much better than I did, though. After I had been sick for 4 hours, I was in tears most of the rest of the day. Chase has really been a trooper. He has now gone more than an hour without being sick, so hopefully the worst is over.

I'm going to go take a nap now - stay well!!!

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Addictions

I have an addiction. It's to a silly computer game called Zuma. My dear brother and his dear wife gave it to Chase for Christmas. I can't seem to stop playing it! :( So, just a second ago, I deleted it from my computer. After I deleted it, I actually looked at the spot where the icon used to be and felt sad...

Addictions are funny things - I know people who are addicted to cigarettes, to chewing tobacco, to caffeine, to chocolate and even to alcohol. It's funny that we humans take things that make us feel good and make them a bad thing, isn't it? There are studies that say that some alcoholics truly are alcoholics from birth; they just haven't taken their first drink yet. Once that first drink is consumed, the switch is flipped, and their life is almost certainly ruined. That's kind of scary to us parents out there who had their first drink as a teenager! I figure chances are slim that Chase will graduate high school without having had an alcoholic drink - I hope he doesn't have that switch...

I would say I'm fairly addicted to chocolate, at least on the short term. Meaning, if it's around, I really can't resist it. I can resist buying it, and can resist (for a day or so) opening an unopened bag of chocolate, but once that seal has been broken, Katie bar the door. Even though it is TERRIBLE for my digestive system...even though I KNOW I will suffer for it later. Even though it causes me to not fit in my size 10 jeans...somehow, it all seems worth it at the time.

So, poll time - what are you addicted to? C'mon, I know my Aunt Cathye, my husband, my mom and my friend Beth read this at least occasionally. Anybody else out there reading my rantings? I'm addicted to Zuma (where's that install disc??) and chocolate. And maybe crime shows on TV... What's your guilty pleasure? :)

Friday, May 2, 2008

Today's entry delayed due to possible death

I have the most dreaded of all illnesses - the stomach flu. I woke up this morning at 4 thinking... "Hmmm, I feel like I might need to throw up." Instead, I decided to ignore it and go back to sleep. At 4:30, I woke up again with the clear message: "We can do this in the bathroom, or we can do this right here, but it's gonna happen in 5..4..3..." At which time I broke several land-speed records making it to the bathroom. I mostly spent the day either crying over the toilet, crying in bed or crying as I crawled between the two. On the bright side, I got to watch all of the soaps today. All of them. Did you know Erica Kane is in jail? I couldn't really figure out why...but she makes those prison clothes look good!

It's funny, there aren't too many times that my mom is AWOL for more than a day or so, but it never fails that I get sick when she is! Last year, I got strep, and Chase had the flu AND strep at the same time. Mom was in New Zealand. Now, I need to cry to my mommy on the phone that I'm throwing up vital organs and she is on some cruise until tomorrow! :( I know she can't actually help me - we live more than a thousand miles away from each other, but it's always nice to call and cry to your mommy when you feel like kaka. So, Mom - if you're reading this, call me when you get home! I still have a tear or two, and I'll gladly shed them in your general direction.

Thankfully, I'm up, wearing real, honest-to-goodness clothing (a first for the day) and feeling about 30% better than two hours ago. I think the worst is over and now I'll just be tired and unable to eat solid food for three days. Which, honestly, compared to the last 13 hours, sounds as good as a week in a spa to me!! Ok, maybe not quite that good, but you know what I mean.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

If you don't like the weather in Colorado...wait a second, it'll change

This is a special message to all of my Texas friends. DON'T use that phrase regarding weather in Texas EVER again. That particular phrase was CREATED for Colorado weather. One example (of many):

Monday - Wednesday, April 28-30, 2008 - 75-80 degrees, beautiful sunny days.
Thursday, May 1, 2008 - high of 40 with nearly white-out conditions. To those of you in the warmer climates, that means it's snowing like crazy!!! And, the snow is even sticking to the ground because there's just so dang much of it! I've lived in a number of different locales at this point in my life, and I have just never seen anything like Denver. 70 one day, 20 the next. Blizzard in the morning, sunscreen at 2. Every day (and yes, I do actually mean every single day) in the summer, the sky starts out absolutely crystal-clear. By noon, big black clouds roll in over the mountains and it rains (like crazy) for about 20 minutes. By 1, we're all back at the pool again, with no sign of the tornado that just passed over. Very odd...

I know, I know, nothing makes me happy, huh? I complain about Las Vegas because I will probably melt in the sun, and I complain about Colorado because it snows in May. I'm a malcontent, let's face it. If I keep moving West, maybe someday I'll end up in Hawaii??? :) I'll try not to complain about that.