Coming to terms with the west

Well, I purposed to be entirely diligent about this and I really do think incessantly of all of the things I want to write. It's kind of odd to me that I think in "journal" thoughts all day long. It's a bit weird to try to explain but in my mind my life is a book being written and continually unfolding its plot. I know, deep thoughts that don't make much sense.

But, as it has been a week or so, there is much to catch up on. First and foremost is having to come to a resolve and peace with life in the wild west. It does seem that every other entry in here has some sort of wild creature theme to it but it really is quite alarming to me at times. Today Grayson had his first real close encounter with a rattlesnake....and not a baby one. It seemed a bit ironic that the last thing I told he and Evye before heading out the door was to be smart, safe and wise about where they went. The whole "eyes wide open and ears listening carefully" talk. He and Evye were going to shoot guns so they both wore hiking boots and were told to stay in the short grass pasture. They'd been out for awhile when Grayson came screaming....and I mean screaming......in the house. I honestly thought he'd been stung by a wasp. The only thing he could gasp and cry was that it was a snake. I then, in a much calmer voice than I really felt, asked if it'd bitten him. At this point I had no clue what kind it was but I just needed to know if he'd been bitten. He said it didn't strike and no that he wasn't bitten but that he looked down about the time he was going to step on its head. He jumped over it and it went on the move. He ran in the opposite direction back to the house and the snake slithered under a target paper he had out in the grass. After recovering but still shaking from the whole ordeal he said that it only started rattling once he about stepped on it. He said it had about 4-6 rattles and he was able to identify the diamond patterns on it. I corralled everyone back inside and went to go investigate under the paper. By then it had gone into the old falling wooden shed next door or had sought cover under the thick brush. I could hear it rattling but never did catch sight of it. So, I called Brad and he called Chad, the next door pastor, and he and another fellow church going member.....yes, I know we should be one of them and had we been at church this encounter would never have occurred......and they came walking over. By this time I had Brad's shotgun out and Chad had his. Of course, the snake is long gone by now and it turned into a search with no great or tremendous outcome. So, it is left that we have a 3-4 ft rattler slithering around somewhere in the general vicinity. Oh.....and the really disturbing thing is that the snake was discovered laying in the dirt under the swings where the children frequent. After trying to regain his composure Grayson became obsessed with finding an accurate picture on the internet of what he had seen. His fear turned into some mild anger and feelings of injustice that the snake had not rattled until he was close enough to step on it. The part that scared him the most was that he about stepped on its head and that it wasn't a baby.



Amazingly, I was alarmed by it but not freaked out like what has happened in the past. Maybe because it is just part of the way of life here and I am having to learn that life here means living with the snakes. Maybe it's because I know the children have a deep respect and healthy fear of them now. Maybe it's because I now know after several run-ins with them that they are not out to chase you down and inject you with so much venom that you will surely die within only seconds. Maybe it's just because I am, heaven forbid, becoming desensitized to them.





And on a more disgusting reptilian note, shortly after the rattler encounter we were all outside visiting with Mother, Thomas and Granny when a fast slithering rat snake caught our attention. We all watched as it aggressively went and killed a gecko and ATE it! It was about the most disgusting thing ever. We watched as it ate the gecko whole! Grayson was so enthralled that he went and got the camera and taped it. Evye watched in horror as she repeated over and over, "Poor gecko....poor, poor gecko". It seemed to lighten up the little rattlesnake affair though.



So, on with more mundane life. I'm supposedly 34 wks pregnant now but my contractions are endless. I am quite sure this baby will not come any earlier than the 7th and that I will most likely go until about the 17th. But if I hadn't had 2 sonograms confirming baby's gestational age I would be highly likely to think I am only a week or 2 from having this baby. I look and feel more like 39 wks. Swelling has kicked in and the contractions are pretty hard and regular throughout the days. They have now gone from being just a nuisance to being uncomfortable and making me feel like not doing anything at all. I don't want to leave the house and I hate getting out. This is seriously the hottest I've been since being pregnant with Garrison and Grant. And the heartburn rivals anything I ever had with the 2 of them. I do know for certain there is just one baby in there so the overheating and heartburn thing are just due to being pregnant in general. Up until this point the pregnancy has been so easy and effortless that I had no room to complain at all. And, I'm not really one for complaining since it doesn't do anyone any good in the least.....but I will note that the whole heat and heartburn thing are not very fun. Suddenly I wouldn't mind at all having sweet Gavin here anytime. The 1/2 naked pic...if you can get past the bra.......was taken last wk at 33 wks. The newest pic, which is under that, is at 34 wks....not that you can really see any difference between the two at this point...except for the fact I'm clothed in the 2nd one.

Brad's a little tired of the whole nesting thing. Just for the sheer sake of our house I think I just need to stay 8 months pregnant at all times. Our house is quite spotless and organized. I love it. Mother and Granny brought the new white crib with them and Brad and I put it all together. After getting it up we opted not to sell the oak one so now both are sitting regally in the nursery. Garrett will continue to sleep in his and Baby Gavin will just join him in time. The nursery looks pretty great though. We still have to paint and get the border up but the 2 big canopied cribs look so incredible and so cozy.....despite the fact the canopies are just frames and the new crib has no mattress or bedding at this point. The only thing still left is just finding an old tall dresser that I can paint that has 4 or 5 drawers so that Gavin will have some drawers too. I'm getting excited and this is way more then we ever had done before Garrett's arrival.




And look who's in underwear these days......most of the time!!! Grant prefers the "bare naked booty" state at all times so there's no pics of him in cute little tiny underwear. At least Garrison has them on 50% of the time.













And how is it that when you're potty training a kid that you can have all hard floors and they seem to find the only fabricated place that you own and crap on it???!!!!!! So far the 2 times he hasn't managed to hit the pot he's crapped on the ONLY rug in the house and then IN the freakin CARSEAT that was temporarily out of the Suburban while Grayson detailed and cleaned the interior. Garrison came in and everyone spied his dirty butt about the same time and then the search was on to figure out just where exactly he had laid his golden egg. The playroom was the first place to be checked since he had been playing in there but poor Brad was the 1st to spy the infamous carseat. He was none too happy to say the least. He wanted to just chuck the whole thing but, being the frugal person that I am, knew it was completely washable. I don't know how in the world Brad can be in the line of work he's in and deal with some of the nastiest things in life he does and still be so entirely grossed out by his own kids' poop. But.....he is. It's so bad he'll put his SCBA mask on to change a freakin diaper. I told him I'd deal with it all but he insisted...... after I told him there was no way we were throwing the whole seat away. He washed it out with the water hose and after his part was done I threw it in the washer and all came out fine....no pun intended.



But that little episode also happened to take place during the great revolt of the appliances. So, Brad was in no mood to be reckoned with. I just stayed out of his way until it blew over. I did tell him at one point he desperately needed to go back on shift or get called in for OT. In some odd sense the whole ordeal was hysterically funny. But after having to spend 300.00 on having the computer chip in our oven replaced, since lightening struck it and powersurged its sensitive wiring, less than a week later our dryer just quit with no warning. I went without it for a few days. The wet towel load that the washer held was all laid out to dry all over the house since it's rainy season here and it never seems to quit so it couldn't very well go outside. Needless to say we had some pretty crispy towels for a few days. Finally with the utility overflowing with mounds of laundry we knew it had to be dealt with. It's only a week until we get our new massive washer and dryer and the house is switched over to gas but the wash can't wait a week around here....let alone 2! And, to put it mildly, there is no little convenient laundry mat to whisk them all away to. It's a minimum 30 mile drive if we wanted wash done. And with Mother needing our old washer and dryer we knew a dryer was a necessity. So, Brad and Grayson loaded up the old dryer and off we hauled it into San Angelo to trade it in for a refurbished dryer. Brad was already cranky at this point so we put a huge scratch in the door of the dryer trying to get it out of the house. I cringed but he said it didn't matter at that point. So, we made it there to this NASTY little house that smelled of rotting dog crap and way too many little gerbilish animals and birds. We went through their inventory of what the appliance man had fixed and available. The store/house was so nasty in fact that I made Grayson pee out in the field beside the house since I forbid him to use the bathroom within it. After consulting Mother on it since it was, afterall, going to be her dryer in only a week we decided on one that was only 6 months old....compared to our 7 yr one we were taking in. Brad and Grayson unloaded our dryer off the bed of his truck and they then loaded the "new" one on. The little lady that was the repair man's wife (this is the man that fixed our oven) could hardly speak a word of English.....she was Japanese.......but was captivated by all of the children. She only saw Grayson and Evye, as they were the only ones to get out while we dealt with it all, and asked if this was our 3rd baby. I smiled and said no, that it was our 7th. She repeated "#7???!!!!!" no less than 20 times and then went on and on about how incredible it is to meet a family with the same values she was raised with. She then wanted to see all of the others so we rolled down the windows for her to "view" them all and stood and talked forever with her while she went on and on about Garrett and how absolutely adorable he is and what a blessing they all are. So, as wonderful as it was, Brad was a little anxious at this point and just going through the motions out of sheer obligation and to be nice. I could tell by his short clipped answers and fake laugh that he was ready to get a move on it.




So, off we finally went to Wal Mart and then back home to then unload the "new" dryer. They hauled that in and Brad got it all situated and, alas, it did not work either. It felt a little like National Lampoon's Christmas vacation and the part of the unveiling of the lights when it comes time to plug them in......and miraculously nothing happened. By this time Brad is a little more than outraged and in no mood to even come close to. It became painfully evident that it was not a dryer issue at all but a breaker issue. So, we had just traded our perfectly good working dryer in for a mere 15.00 and bought a "new" one for 200.00. After consulting one of the guys at the station that's an electrician too we figured out what to do. Brad went and borrowed a breaker from the workshop and installed it and immediately the dryer was working. So, I then was quite consumed with the amount of money we had just spent when our dryer was perfectly great. I became kind of obsessed with rectifying the situation and getting our old faithful dryer back. But suddenly I was horrifically informed that the last thing stated by the little lady was that all sales were final. We called her immediately but she said our old one could not be plugged in until the next day to confirm that it did indeed work wonderfully. I became so tied up in the injustice of it all and the lack of willingness on their part that I was quite caught up in the moment too by that point. Finally after the absurdity of it all there really was nothing to do but laugh. If only we knew what the next day held in store for us!



So, we awoke in better spirits and it was a new day. But, suddenly and without warning, the "new" dryer quit the exact same way the old dryer had. No warning, no noise, no burnt smell, nothing. I had to break the news to Brad and could only imagine the nice response to come. And, of course, it was no less than that by any means. So, off he went into town to get yet some more new breakers. Once home again he installed the new ones. But.........nothing. Not one sound, not one anything from the dryer to elude to the fact it might at some point work. You can only imagine Brad at this point. He called the appliance man to tell them of the new dryer's faulty function and they then informed us that our old one was up there running fine! So, yet once more he and Grayson loaded a dryer into the bed of his truck and off he went with Grayson and Evye in tow. I opted out of that trip. He called from the appliance place and told me that our's did indeed work, as he stood by watching it, and the "new" dryer was NOT working even for the appliance man at his house. So, we came to the conclusion that the replaced breaker was probably good and that dryer was now bad. So, they tried selling us yet another one but I told him that, at that point, all I wanted was my old dryer back if it worked. So, he was refunded all 200.00 and once more they loaded our dryer back into the bed of his truck and it was brought home again.....new scratch and all that we had just the day before engraved into it. So, for the 4th time we hauled a massive appliance up the 2 steps and through the narrow back door and into the utility room. He cussed and let it be known in no uncertain terms that if this dryer did not work when we plugged it in that we would all need to move out of his way while he made his way to his truck and that he was going for a long drive......and the truck might or might not come back in 1 piece. So, after a thorough and detailed cleaning of the whole inner part of the dryer he plugged it in and................it just came on!



Neither one of us are really sure at this point what the whole point was or what we actually accomplished in that whole mayhem. We figured it up and he and Grayson actually put a dryer into the bed of his truck 8 times during that whole ordeal. The old one up, the old one down, the new one up, the new one down, the new one back up and the new one back down and then our old one back up and our old one back down. All of that to end up with the same dryer we started with. Ummmmmm.........so what exactly was that all about anyway??????



In order to mark the event I decided I'd be as absurd as the entire situation itself and memorialize our appliances in pictures. Heaven forbid I take pictures during the whole affair. If I'd even aimed the camera in Brad's general direction I'm not sure it'd still be working. So, here's after the fact. We both had a good laugh after it was all over. The absurdity of it and the whole why of it still isn't quite clear to either of us......except maybe to do a little character building on our parts.......but at least we have a working washer and dryer. Brad still doesn't see quite the amount of humor in it that I do but we did both get a laugh out of it by the end of it.





Our dryer!!!













All of that to round out a bit the whole pooping incident. Yes, Garrison crapped in the carseat right in the middle of shuffling the dryer back and forth. Sometimes you just have to sit back and look at life and realize how funny it is. It makes me laugh even now just thinking of what the last few days have held for us. But isn't life always like that? Somebody peeing on something, pooping on something, puking on something (oh yea, I forgot that somewhere in there I got puked on too by........yes, Garrison), somebody's too full diaper exploding into diaper crystals all over the floor, the a/c making a new funny noise, somebody breaking a window with a flying rock or baseball gone astray, something always going wrong. What would life be without it all? I can't help but think it would be boring and mundane and I would always be wishing for something more.......something like the life I have been given and that I live everyday. And, bear in mind, that not every family with a ton of kids functions in such chaos but I think that somehow I just, in some way, maintain my sanity and a sense of humor in a world of such peaceful chaotic circumstances. It's not always fun but it's the part of life that keeps it interesting and far from boring..........or even remotely equivilant to normal for some.



And, no, we didn't choose to have this many kids for entertainmant purposes but I think it's truly one of those things that you find such a huge blessing and overwhelming surprise once you are in this odd place. It's like the fact that you can never attempt to even explain to a person how the love just grows by leaps and bounds with each one. It's not even like the love you had the 1st time around. It's kind of like marriage and the mystery that Brad and I have often thought that it is. We knew we deeply loved and cherished each other from the beginning and that we were truly best friends in every sense of the word. We loved each other's company more than anything.......but after so many years of marriage the depth of what we have come to love in each other and appreciate each other for so far surpasses everything that we felt when we married that it just kind of mystefies us. Who knew so many years ago that it could become so much more wonderful than it already was. And who knew that as long as we had waited to be together on our long awaited honeymoon night that so many years later it would put that night to shame. Sorry guys for the graphic details but it's just true. Brad teases that he can never have an affair now due to all of the years he has invested in me. He says it would take way too much time and effort on his part to start all over again with somebody new!!!

Anyway, that is what each and every new baby is like. The love that grows multiplies so many more times than you can ever imagine that it is really one of those things that is not experienced or understood until it is lived out. And the blessings discovered along the way so far surpass anything we ever thought life might hold in store for us......like the humor in which we can view life and the miracle of seeing and discovering things through the innocent eyes of children and the way I am not brought just 1 flower from a sweet chubby little hand but entire bouquets from 5 little hands..... all being shoved up to my nose while I am being ordered to smell them all at the same time. It's just all so amazing to me...this whole life experience. Even when I am tempted to get out of sorts due to a baby needing to be bathed for the 15th time that day depending on what treasure he dug out of the trash that specific time around (it varies from a discarded PB & honey sandwich.....I know, I know....yes, the allergy awareness has hit painfully home with him......to left over yogurt cups to soggy cereal that cannot go down the drain due to our wild west way of living with no disposal these days). I am just overwhelmed by the breathtaking love I am showered with by the blessings I have been given. It literally takes my breath away to think of the love that I have and am being showered with from both Brad and the children. There truly is no greater joy.


(Garrett's newest life threatening accomplishment)





(His sweet mischevious smile...always hunting for the latest thing to get into...the latest being the trash, as he is now on the same level with it since he is a walking pro these days.)