Just so you know, I wouldn't "friend" Facebook, even if I could.

I'm just not that kind of gal.  I am a blogger.  I just am.  But because I am a blogger, I get frustrated when I don't have the time or energy to, blog.  Blog blog blog (I just felt like I hadn't used that word enough in the first two sentences.)
I am home from the most amazing, memorable trip I have ever taken and I have not the drive nor stamina to post about it, just yet.  And even though I went to bed at 8:10 last night and slept for almost 10 hours, I am exhausted.  I was sick the last couple of days of our trip and I think my body was waiting until I hit home to really attack. 
We have NO food.
I feel really crappy.
It is my oldest daughter's birthday and she is 10, 10! (Just so you know, I am more frustrated that I don't have it in me to celebrate big, than I am that I don't feel like blogging about our trip.  Motherhood one, blogger zero.)
The suitcases are unpacked.  That WILL be happening today.
Our toilets are gross and I am fairly certain that I cleaned them before we left.
I miss my Mom and Dad.

I will blog about our trip soon.  Life is going to get crazy in like 2.3 days.  We have meetings, open houses, church activities, school starting and for the first time ever, about five different extracurricular activities. 

I really am excited about it all.  I love fall.  I LOVE fall.  I am really looking forward to everything, I just need to climb back into bed and freeze time for about 48 hours so I can totally recuperate, and then, straight to work!

I promise myself, pictures coming soon.

Ah, Sweden.

I am not even going to begin because it has not ended yet!  Just thought I would throw out a teaser there....

and say THANK YOU for all the birthday wishes.....WHAT THE HECK in regards to a missed earthquake in DC and another GOO! for the worst hurricane in 5 years expected to hit our house in DC this weekend.

It's a good time to be on vacation, I suppose.

And we're off for some more.

Hej da (the a with a crazy little o over it, of course.)

Is it possible to be having a nervous breakdown without knowing it?

I mean, I think I have had a real nervous breakdown once.  It was the last time we ever moved ourselves.  I had spent a month slowly packing everything up while tying up lose ends to leave and taking care of two toddlers.  It was late and we were on to the clean-every-nook-and-cranny phase.  I was crying so hard that Clark told me to stop what I was doing immediately and go to the hotel...which I did.  I then proceeded to sit on the edge of the bed and cry inconsolably until I had no moisture left in my body.  I am still not sure why.
I am leaving the country in one week with my entire family of 6 for the most amazing trip ever to my homeland (I can say that because I was born there, right?) and I am not stressed one bit.  In fact, I am not worried about preparing for the trip at all, as in, I am making dresses from scratch and eating ice cream while starting all 80 episodes of 30 Rock from the beginning...again.  However calm I may be on the surface, I suspect my subconscious is totally freaking out.  I am waking up with splitting headaches and sore teeth.
I have sat down multiple times to do my insanely detailed list thing (which may or may not include sketches) but am drawing a total blank.  I take that back, I have written down "umbrellas" and "soft headphones for kids" and that is only because I talked to my sister yesterday who did the trip just last year.  Don't worry Mo and Dad, I also have a running list of the things I am bringing to you...at this point, it will be the only stuff packed in our suitcases.
I blame this on 11 years of being a Navy wife.  I have spent years knowing that I had no choice but to do hard stuff, whether I wanted to or not.
In high school I suffered from legit anxiety...the kind where I would cancel dates at the last minute and pretty much feel like vomiting 24/7.  I was on medication and everything. I went off of that medication about 6 years ago because my anxiety seemed to have simply vanished.  Over the years I have learned and developed my own strategies to manage and work through it.  It's mostly a mind over matter approach  but I now suspect that it might be swinging back around to smack me in the back of the head.  Instead of totally overcoming anxiety, I think I have unintentionally trained my body to just repress it.   Not the kind of repression where I am in denial but more the kind where in order to live my life,  I knew that I had to fake it to make it.  If I acted as though I didn't have anxiety, then it would just go away, right?  This approach works most of the time.  Not easily mind you, but it doesn't keep me at home with the door locked.   I am stronger than this issue...that's what I like to tell  myself.  That, and "I am in charge".  Sometimes I say "large and in charge" but that is only if I want a little laugh.  The point is, I couldn't not do things just because I didn't feel well or was nervous about it.  So I have learned to not even waste time or energy thinking too hard about things that are going to happen.  It's good because I can go on with life, it's bad because my body has had to find ways to cope with the nervous energy that still exists there, even if I am not willing to give it the time of day.  Does that make any sense at all?  My body still experiences anxiety from time to time but my mind refuses to acknowledge it.
The problem with this of course, is that while in my waking hours I am seemingly fine both to my waking self and those around me, going about my business, an alter ego is brewing beneath the surface...one that wants to fidget incessantly, forgets the names of my children and everyone around me, is going gray and also probably has 12 ulcers waiting to erupt.  Also it makes me want to adopt a crazy disgusting habit like smoking.  Don't ask me why.

I have gone way off tangent.  My original point was to tell you all how incredibly excited I am to be going to visit my parents in Sweden with my husband and daughters.  Everything about that sentence makes me so happy that I can't even find a word in the thesaurus to re emphasize it.  However, I am not packed.  I assume that as long as we have our passports and plane tickets how could we go wrong? I figure one of two things is happening here, either I am totally over being anxious about things like big vacations and flying on airplanes or my anxiety is severely dormant and may rear its ugly head on the morning of departure in the form of a face full of zits or a raging case of diarrhea.  Let's hope it's the former.
I also hope, that for preparations sake, I do not post anymore between now and then because let's just assume that I have my brain back enough to be doing something more productive, like packing...or at least drawing pictures of the things I am going to pack.

In other somewhat related news, I am overjoyed to announce that one of my children is finally blossoming in the ways of Type A personality...now if I could only mold it towards keeping things tidy...
This is what Haley has been working on....'sigh' a girl after my own heart.

Complete with a title page, index, drawings, checklist and a haiku.

Why am I sitting on the couch unpicking this dress for the hundreth time?  There is nothing on all 2,000 channels on cable.  Seriously, I can choose between Tuna Wranglers and The Real Housewives of Somewhere.  I have almost blinded myself like five times.  Note to self, stop trying to scratch your eye while holding a seam ripper.  Mostly, I blame my sister.  Yeah, the same sister that I was just congratulating in the last post.  She deserves it.  I shouldn't be mad at her for making me perfect this dress (I use the term "perfect" lightly, very, lightly.)  Afterall, she has been through a lot...including forcing me to give her shots in the bum every night that she was here.  Do you know how hard it was to post about her coming to visit me and NOT be able to publicly pat myself on the back for administering nightly shots into someone's skin?! I was proud of myself for trying something new.  She also is responsible for me making this darn dress.  You see, she inspires me to sew so while she was here she helped me pick out patterns and fabric.  She even helped me cut the patterns out but then had to go back home with her husband while I was left holding directions that might as well have been written in Elfin.  I had better wear it more than once.  I am hoping that more people ask me where I got it from than if I made it.  Is that wrong?  I mean, I want the credit for making it, but only if they think it is cute and also as long as they are not saying "where did you get that?" in a way that would make me feel like poking myself in the eye with the a fore mentioned seam ripper.
I heard this expression today and decided that I needed to use it right away.  I need to tell someone that they are the bomb.com. I am so hip, and with it.  I think I will say it to the next person who calls me on the phone.  I hope it's not someone asking me for a donation because I don't want to give them the wrong idea, like I want to help their organization or something.
I just had nachos for dinner at 9:45pm.  I washed them down with some limeade and I am contemplating retrieving my hoarded treats from their hiding place in the office.  The hiding place is so obvious.  My children are sooo non-observant.  But I still count the number of 100 Grands left in the jar, just in case.  There are 13 left...Make that 12.
Seriously, this dress.  I have spent so many hours on it now, I am not sure that I even like the fabric anymore.  I have finished it like four times.  But I keep returning to its imperfections like the dog to its vomit, or rather like a Mom to her hidden candy stash.  I have unpicked and redone the sleeves, bodice AND skirt (some of them multiple times.)  I am getting ready to sew on trim because while taking the waist up two inches last night I made it a teensy weensy too short.  Drat.  And now, the collar, it would be the only thing I wasn't completely satisfied with.  However, the collar required a skype session with Carrie after e mailing her the directions so she could very literally talk me through it.  Do I really want to chance being able to do it a second time?  Eh, why not?  I always take Carrie's advice, she is smart.  OK, usually I take her advice.  I just dyed my hair a shade or two lighter because I can't forget that she told me two years ago that I shouldn't really be this dark.  It was done lovingly I can assure you.  And guess what?  She was right, even though I loved it dark I need it a tad lighter to hide those emerging grays a bit better.  It is beginning to sound like I am just giving her a hard time but I promise that's not it.  I just have a tendency to start blaming other people for my problems, especially when it gets late at night and I have just eaten my weight in nachos and hidden treats.
Maybe I will show you my dress when it is done, but only if you promise to ask where I got it from.

Post Edit: I kid you not.  This is where I am at.  And this is after my second trip to the fabric store in one day to get more of the same trim that I needed.  What was that old saying...measure twice, cut once?  How about, measure at all.  I am a doofus.  Where is the seam ripper?  I'm goin for the eyes....
And just in case you were wondering, it doesn't look like a polygamist dress...at least, it looks less like a polygamist dress than it did before I changed the sleeves...and the waist.  Not there is anything wrong with polygamist dresses...it's just not me really.  That, and I can't get my bangs to do that crazy wave thing.

Because baby news is the best kind...

And no, it's not me.  It's better.

It's her.

Thanks sister Suzie for reminding me that I actually do have something exciting to post about this week.

A jaunt down south for the weekend

Here is the question of the day that is un-original seeing as how I just said it in my comment on another blog.
Why are so many of us married ladies single?  I know the answer would be something obvious to make us feel ungrateful like, our men are working hard for a living but why are there so many jobs out there that require 80% of their time away from their families?  Where are the days of Dad home in time to play with the kids before dinner or even actually see them before they go to bed...or home at night at all?  It's not fair.  It's not cool.  It makes life really hard, for a lot of people.
Complaining done.

We took the weekend to go down and see our besties in Chesapeake.  We love that they are so close to us.  Close enough for a weekend jaunt.

This picture has nothing to do with our fun weekend but I had to share.  Does anyone in my family recognize this?  I came across it in an antique store last month.  This is the EXACT same as the ET doll that I had as a child.  It was my favorite and I loved it but I was also oddly terrified of it at the same time.  I would have bought it on the spot but I was a little scared.  Happy, but scared.

Now this is from our trip.  This represents the night that we got there.  Not that Poseidon represents what we did, it just happens to be the only picture I took.  We went out, just the adults, for Laurie's birthday.  We ate steak and then went for a walk on the beach until our old legs and bodies told us that it was late and we needed to go home to bed.

The next day we hit Virginia Beach with everyone.  Nine kids is a lot to keep track of but everyone had a lot of fun and no one drown the entire time.

Mia jumped for joy.

 Hazel sat in a hole and dumped sand on herself.

Mia gave boogy boarding a go and loved it even though the water was freezing.

 Clark struck a pose on demand.  He's good like that.

The babies wore goggles.

 Laurie went for her open swim in preparation for her big triathlon coming up.  Clark accompanied her so she wouldn't be caught in a riptide while no one noticed her floating out to see.  Just kidding, she totally knows how to get out of a riptide.

Haley played and chased little ones.  Abby was there but apparently flew under my Mom with the camera radar.  I am fairly certain she was not swept out to sea.
Then we went home, ate lunch, rested and went back out to a waterpark.  It was a blast.  Children of every age had fun and no one wanted to go home even though they were totally wiped out.  Little E fell right asleep in the kiddie Amazon lazy river.  It was pretty awesome, and adorable.  I love doing things where my kids can step out of their comfort zones and do something amazing.  All of the girls tried waterslides and things that they were otherwise nervous to try.  I did not take pictures partly because I am lazy and partly because my camera kept telling me that the battery was dying.  Typical.  So typical.

Then we did sparklers.  I bought a box from Costco this year for the fourth of July.  It's like the never-ending box of sparklers.  We gave the older kids three boxes each and that didn't even make a dent in my supply.  I have been giving them out like party favors to everyone who comes over.
The kids would light their sparklers and charge around the outside of the house to see if they could make it back before it went out (it's a big house.)  It was adorable.  I love that these kids love each other.

The best part of our trip was when Mike (who is in the Bishopric) woke Clark and I up at 7am on Sunday morning, and while we laid in bed in our pajamas amongst sprawled kid bodies and looked at him through half waking eyes, asked us to speak in Sacrament meeting at 11.  His speakers called to say that the wife had fallen down the stairs Saturday night and broken her back.  What some people will do to get out of a talk.  (I can only joke about it because she is OK, on bed rest for two weeks and totally being taken care of...OK, you're right, probably not appropriate to joke about still.)  We obliged because we really like Mike, felt sorry for Laurie who was also asked to speak, AND Clark and I kinda like to talk, in case you hadn't noticed.
We dragged our feet as long as we could until Sunday night when we hit the road to come back home.  The rest of the story is very uneventful.  It includes things like laundry and kids in pajamas all day, blah blah blah.


Riddle me this--I can take my kids to a carnival, pay a million dollars for rides, treats and attractions and they will whine and complain until kingdom come.  But then, I can take them to the Target parking lot for a vendor hayday where they can wait in line no less than 45 minutes in 95 degree weather for everything (which is free) and be happy as clams.

Free hamburgers, face painting and a thrilling ride on "The Seat Belt Convincer" and they were plum tuckered out with a totally fun evening under their belt.
Who knew.