Concealer and fountain Coke required!

I know it's been forever but I've been feeling the need for a brain dump lately and that combined with sleep deprivation has lead me back to my long lost blog...

I think what my problem is the "when it rains it pores" scenario.  I have not been sleeping well for the last few weeks, no real clue as to why it's just reality.  So I have been trying to keep things together in my head anyway and then this week it's gotten a bit worse; I was up way too late on Monday night and then last night L had an asthma problem and so I ended up taking him to the doctor and getting home WAY too late...  I'm just now starting to feel awake and it's after 2 in the afternoon.  There was a little voice in my head, as I was driving home this morning, that said 'this is rather poetic justice.'  I have no idea how many times my poor Mother made that same drive too and from the ER at who knows what time of the morning because I couldn't stop coughing and wheezing.  Needless to say I sent off a text to my Mom with a profuse and sleepy apology and explination.  It weird to be on the other side of these ER visits, I know what it feels like to need the meds, but to be on the parent side it totally weird, and very disconcerting.  I'd like to not do that again.

So back to the title- My secrets to looking awake when I'm almost too tired for words.  I've been a nearly life long reader of Vogue magazine and I remember when my concealer came out, I was halfway through college.  There was so much hype around the product that I thought there was no way it was going to be THAT good, especially considering the cost!  I bought it on a whim with a birthday gift card, and it's been my go-to ever since.  My FAVORITE concealer is YSL's Touche Eclat, www.yslbeautyus.com.  It is pricy, but I swear it's the best one I've tried, it's what makes me look like I've slept since L was born.  Another thing isn't as specific, a light colored shimmery eyeshadow.  My favorite is MAC's Pigment Colour Powder in Melon, www.maccosmetics.com, it is light pink colored with gold shimmer and works with my very pale skin, they have lots of other pigment colors so I feel like most people can find one to work for them.  Another plus is this stuff lasts FOREVER.  The other essential is blush- repeat after me "a little blush is my friend, a little blush is my friend".  It just helps everyone.  Last, apply your favorite mascara.  And to jump start my brain on those really bad days, like today, a fountain Coke from McDonald's.  Normally I try to eat pretty healthy, but some days I just have to get by.

I hope anyone reading this is having a better day, or that I at least made someone laugh with this :)

Woohoo, Testing

So, I'm pretty sure that most of you know that L has been in learning and some occupational and emotional therapies since he was about 2 1/2.  If you didn't know, now you do.  
This whole thing started when he was about 18 months old and we though was the result of being very sick with ear infections and not being able to clear them.  Over the last couple years of therapy he has progressed a HUGE amount, to the point that he comes off most of the time as a normal, rambuncious 5 yr old.  Although his communication has gotten much better, as the language issues were sorted out a number of other issues started to show themselves; problems with fine motor skills, communication issues and a general developmental delay of sorts.  Because kids never stay the same, if they have an IEP, they are retested based on national standards for their age and gender, classroom observations of their learning and behavior and one on one interviews, every three years.  As hard as it is to believe it has been three years since we got L into the IEP program!  I had a good meeting with a cadre of people at his school a couple days ago where we went over all the tests that they want to cover and aquired my consent to test him in order to update his IEP and put together a plan for the next 3 yrs.  While all of this is a bit stressful, it does make me incredibly thankful for the copious about of resources that are now available to parents of special needs kids!  I talk to other parents who had kids who were different 20yrs ago and they talk about having to fight to get their kids tested, and then fighting to get services or fighting to get them tested and then being told that their kid didn't qualify for testing for this reason or another.  I think the system may finally be starting to see that not every child fits into the little wooden pegs that we've been trying to squeeze them into- as adults we understand that we all learn things differently, but the education system has taken MUCH longer to even look at that idea as a possibility.  In some ways it is infuriating to look at the system and see a the things the at are wrond with it, but the only outcome I can see of thinking that way is me being bitter; and that certainly would not help L.  SO, in opposition to my usual self, I will continue to be optimistic about the situation.  The glass is half full, the glass in half full, the glass is half full. . .

On the house front: We have removed most of the forrest of floor jacks that were jacking up the floor in the basement.   We were able to take out enough support to put a slightly used pool table down there!  Although we to have an interesting house rule; if there is no way of making the shot because of a support beam  than you are allowed to call "Pole" and move to Qball a couple inches to the left or right.  One does what one has to do. . .  DH is really enjoying the pool table, as am I, and both of us enjoyed the routing we served his parents last weeked while they were here for a visit (sorry guys!)

We were also able to get paint on the walls of the dining room the day before Thanksgiving so we could have dinner in there.  To get it ready for paint took more plaster than I care to remember and my wonderful DH would (I'm sure) love to throw all the sanders out the window.  Unfortunatly we've had to suspend work for right now owing to the fact that it's 30 degrees outside and no one wants to sand plaster when you can't open a window.  It's just gross.  Come spring we should be able to get the holes in the stairway patched and the breakfast room patched and painted.  I keep telling myself that our house will be awesome and charming when we're done with it.  Some days I even believe myself!
 

Hot hot summer!

Oh my goodness it's been a hot one!!!!
I am happy to report that we do have the modern convenience of Air Conditioning to keep the house at a comfortable temperature.  It was not without a week or so of sleepless nights and a stupid amount of money, but the house is now a much more comfortable place to live.  On a note on the house, we also have ceilings!  I know we're getting pretty uppity with our construction, but ceilings are one of those luxuries that I think everyone should have.  Along with somewhat level floors, but we'll get to that stage later.

Since the summer started I feel like we've been going nonstop.  L started summer school on the 13th of June, he'll be done with that a few weeks before school starts in August.  He loves being able to ride the bus again and I'm a little worried that he's going to be bummed when school starts and he doesn't get to ride the bus anymore.  Maybe he'll like walking.  I think Q has been enjoying having Mommy to herself in the mornings while L is at school.  We've run lots of errands and gone to the gym and played outside, and had a mani-pedi morning!  We have also had a lot of great time with the Grandparents! Grandma K was here for almost a month and Grandpa and Grandma Ve have visited a couple times as well as a trip to Michigan to meet up with Uncle Steve and Aunt Tiff and Mia.  I also got the biggest vacation I've had since we had kids.  DH had a conference in San Antonio and we decided that it would be a good time for a Mommy Get Away!!!  Gma Ve and Gpa were nice enough to keep the kids for the 5 days of the conference so that DH and I could hang out together on his off hours.  To be honest, it was fabulous!!!!  It's not that I don't love my kids, because I do, but every good Mom will tell you that every once in a while you need some time to reboot and get stuff back together.  My sister and I hung out together during the day most of the week.  It was great to explore that part of Texas, I'd never been there before.  Word to the wise, the food trucks in Austin are awesome!

The week after we got back from Texas was crazy busy, I think it always takes more time to get back into the swing of everyday than it does to relax on vacation.  I thought I was about to get everything together when I got a great surprise, my brother was coming to town a moth early!  It took a few hours on the phone and a bit of running around but we got him here for a few days before he headed off on his Great American Roadtrip.  The poor kid did have a hard time adjusting to the time change but he'll figure it out.  I was glad to see him and I know the kids had a good time hanging out with him- his story reading skills are sooooo much better than everyone else!  A few days after that, just as we were leaving Church, it looked like it was going to storm.  By the time we got home, Chris describes it as driving in a video game.  This crazy storm blew through in about 30 minutes and in it's wake our neighborhood looked like a hurricane had gone through.  We are on the luckier side of the block, we lost power for about a day and a half, the other side was out for more than 4 days; not to mention the houses that have major damages from trees falling on them and the power lines.  L's summer school ended up being out for the whole week because the school did not have power.

On the upsides, along with AC, Mom and I finished our Half Marathon on June 9th!  I was really happy with the fact that we both finished, to spite the temp being 90 by the time we finished; our time was just under 3 hrs.  Next up is the full marathon in October!  I'm a bit worried about it but I know if I keep up my training I'll be able to finish.  All I want to do is finish.

100 Days gone. . .What I've learned

So my 100 days of overhaul have gone by and soooo many things have happened.  We found a house, packed everything up, moved, and have taken about half of our house apart.

I have learned a few things since this whole thing has started.  One of them is that choosing the right time for a life overhaul is important.  It's not the best idea to try and overhaul yourself in the middle of moving you life to a new location and trying to settle everything, especially when you purchase a super fixer.  The other thing is that it is very hard to change.  Changing one's life and way of thinking does not happen over night.  With those things being said, I would not call this whole thing a failure.

I have not lost as much weight as I wanted to but I can now jog 8+ miles at a time.  I still treat myself sometimes but I am trying to separate when I just want a treat from when I'm just in a bad mood.  I am learning that chocolate does not fix things, and eating a box of chocolates will give you a stomach ache (and has a negative effect on the wellness plan).  I guess in short what I'm saying is that this is just a work in progress.  Eventually I want to get to a point where a friend of mine is.  She doesn't eat sugar. No sugar unless it's in fruit.  I know she treats herself to ice cream or a shake every once in a while, but I've been out places with her when everyone is eating yummy things and she's able to say no.  This will power is amazing to me, given that I have the will power of a gnat.

As always, I conclude that I am (and probably will forever be) a work in progress.

In connection to a Facebook post that I put up this morning, I want to clear something about my thinking.  I know that different people have different ideas of what being 'moral' consists of.  I think sometimes people confuse knowing their beliefs and the changing values of our culture.  Reading our scriptures can teach us a lot of things; who we are supposed to value, how we're supposed to build our families and (one of the most important in my mind) how we are supposed to treat other people.  Disagreeing with someones life choices does not mean that I hate them.  It does not mean that I think that they are going to hell.  Christ treated everyone equally and told us all to love one another, that message is simple.

Now I've got a funny story from yesterday.  Given that we are on such a tight time schedule during the day right now, I've gotten really good taking fast showers and getting my self out the door in time to pick up L from school.  While running out the door yesterday I was running late and therefore not checking everything as closely as I should have.  I managed to lock my self out of the house, while at the same time locking my keys, and Q, inside the car.  Long story short, I got my keys back and got L from school on time.
Ah, the adventures in parenting!

We can't have it BOTH ways.

As I'm sitting here listening to the storm that is rolling it outside, and the noise of Mom and DH positioning things to jack up the floor in the basement, I keep thinking about a news story that was on the local news a couple days ago.  A number of nurses were headed down to Springfield to protest and talk to the legislature about not cutting things from Medicare.  They were saying that they were going down there to speak up for the needs of their patients and against cuts that the state is talking about making to the system to keep itself solvent.

On the surface this is a really good and noble idea.  Those who care for others giving them a voice against those in power taking advantage of those who are vulnerable.  But if you look at the issue on more than just a surface level, you can see many layers of a very complicated issue.  Companies are "retiring" people earlier and earlier these days, in many cases people who are very good at their jobs are being "retired" out so that the company will not have to pay them retirement benefits.  They are making the argument that they can hire someone younger to do the same job for less money.  In the short term I can see the business case.  But what about the cost to the rest of us, outside the business world.  What happens when all the aging Babyboomers, who were "retired" out of their jobs before they qualified for retirement benefits, when they become older and need more care?  Right now most of them are healthy, my Mom and In-Laws included, but so many of them are starting to suffer the diseases of old age and are working at jobs that they may lose at any time.  Do the powers that be understand or care what happens to the bill for their care once they are kicked out of the private sector???  Maybe it's because I already lost one parent that I have a pretty consuming worry for the well being of my remaining parent.  She is one of the lucky few who are able to purchase private healthcare, for the time being.  When she's not able to do this anymore the burden of bills will go to the tax payers; the rest of us.  The nurses idea is still a good one.

But.

One of the major political arguments that is bound to come up in this election year is this issue of taxes.  Now in case anyone has not made this connection before, its our tax dollars that fund things like Medicare.  I know it's part of Social Security and all that but it all comes from the same accounts.  Now while we argue that no funding should be cut to seniors and other Medicare recipients, it occurs to me that there is no way of doing this without raising or freezing the amount of taxes that we pay.  No one wants this.  So it occurs to me that we can't have it both ways.  We can't be an entitlement society and not be taxed very heavily (and unfortunately we are moving more and more toward an entitlement system).  If those who have worked most of their lives are not able to take care of them selves we should have something in place to help them and at least provide adequate medical care.  In the case of those who are NOT willing to put in the work, I'm sorry but my policy would be, no job (or proof that you are looking as hard as you can) and your benefits need to have a time limit on them.  I know this will get me flamed but I'm going to say it anyway: Just because you are born into bad circumstances does not mean that you automatically get benefits or help.  Sometimes peoples bad situations are not their fault, sometime they are no ones fault but their own, but bad situations should not entitle you to free healthcare on my dime.  We just can't have it both ways.
So either we tax up, or we get off the entitlement bandwagon. What is fair is not always equal. 

I'll get off my soapbox now. . .
Have a good night everyone!

H o u s e

So, I thought I'd post about the last 2 weeks of insanity.

To start we are now totally moved into our new (to us) house.  The house it's self is by no means new and shows it's age in new ways almost every day.  It also shows the bad decisions by the former owners, both in design tastes (brown paisley wallpaper going all the way up the stairs), and in the planning of the house.  It was someones brilliant idea to take out/move a stairway that was weight bearing and not bother to replace it with any other load bearing system.  Someone later attempted to fix that issue by putting in some floor jacks.  Too bad they didn't put them in the correct place.  And then they later allowed someone to re-plumb parts of the house and cut (yes, cut) through a couple floor joists, without really putting anymore supports down there. . .  Needless to say someone payed some idiot to make part of the house look better, 40 years ago, and the person did that while weakening some of the structure of the house.  Making a problem that the inspector should have noticed but failed to do so.  This is the reason that one side of my living room floor is 1 1/4" lower than the other side of the room.  So before we can put the ceilings back in we have to jack up the floor so that it's at least kind of level.  This is the point where having friends who also buy crazy houses that others think are tear downs comes in handy.  My Mom was able to bring us a number of floor jacks, but we'll need a few more in order to totally get the job done right.

But, while we've found a number of problems we have also made some progress in terms of making the house more liveable.  With the help of DH's parents we painted the kitchen ceiling, making it look much less like a mine and more like an actual kitchen.  Our couch, which turned out to be more broken than we though, has been fixed by my awesome Mom.  The brown paisley wallpaper that made the stairway feel like a black hole is now in garbage bags waiting to go out to the curb.  AND we successfully painted and reorganized L's room so that instead of the pealing wallpaper that was there when we moved in (along with VERY BADLY patched walls) it is now a very nice shade of blue and most of his things are organized into the closet to make the room bigger.  The upside of the floor jack problem is that we now KNOW what the problem really is and can therefore take the needed steps to fix it.  So the overall result is a positive one!

And for the last week while we figured out some of this mess, DH was in Baltimore for a conference.  Good thing my Mom was here to save my sanity! (Or whats left of it.)

In the midst of all this chaos, we had an IEP meeting with L's teachers and therapists.  The meeting went really well and all the reports that we were given definitely sound like my kid.  The only thing that was a little bit concerning was that he's been having some coping issues at school, something like the same type of issues he's been having at home.  The going theory is that since February, when L had his tonsils taken out, the little guys world has not really slowed down to the pace that he's been accustomed to it moving at.  For a kid who has a really hard time with change this end result is a little predictable.  We have seen some improvement since we changed his allergy meds, but I think when things slow down he will do better.  He is on pace academically but he is still having a lot of communication issues and because of that his teachers recommended that he be put into some kind of full day kindergarten with a normal class in part of the day and therapy classes the rest of the day.  While I'm a little torn on the idea of full day kindergarten, I think it's probably the best idea.  It would also make the transition to 1st grade a whole lot easier.  Good thing the elementary school is right around the corner! 

I know that usually I have some sort of witty/snarky comment about current events or some talking head saying something I don't like in the news. . .a the moment though my brain is a little too full of plaster dust and paint fumes to come up with anything really good!

An open letter to Hilary Rosen

Dear Ms. Rosen,

I understand that you have a few things to say about the opinions of stay-at-home Mothers. I get where you are coming from. You, like some other women who don't have children (or pawn them off on someone else), probably think that those of us who chose to raise our own children are somehow out of the loop. You seem to be convinced that we don't really leave our houses or that when we do we are just going to the gym, salon or spa. And that while we're home we are sitting with our feet up, watching soap operas and drinking our hot chocolate, oblivious to the struggles of "real women".

Let me tell you what a "real women" thinks about all the things that you presume about my lifestyle. While you go home from you job everyday, I wake up to mine, usually a bit earlier than anyone would choose to. My job does not end until I go to bed at night. If I want some time off I usually have to pay someone to cover it for me, there is no paid time off. You seem to be under the impression that only those who are part of the 1% decide to stay home with their kids. I am not part of the 1%, DH and I have simply made the decision that it's more important that our children be raised by their parents than that we have a larger house or better cars. I'm sure we could have bought a larger home (or one that does not need 5 yrs of work) and we could buy new cars if I were to go back to work. You are also assuming that I have nothing to do with our finances. That I don't notice the rising prices in food, gas and just about everything else. That I don't notice that the cost of a college education will be enormously expensive and that I have to find some way of saving or my kids will have student loan payments bigger than mortgage payments. If you want to hear about how the economy is effecting people, you should be talking to us stay-at-home Moms. We are on the front lines of this whole thing, we shop, pay the bills and then have to find a way to make it all come out in the wash. I think that your ideas come out of a true ignorance of other women's situations, and an absolute disrespect for women's choices.

The assumption that those who choose to make unpopular decisions, particularly those with conservative morals, are somehow out of touch with what is going on with the entire country is ridiculous. Frankly, if you are a pundit who is supposed to represent the interests of women, any women, I would prefer if you didn't speak for me.
Sincerely,
Kari Anton