Life at it's Finest

Nothing like a good ole dose of reality bringing life right back into perspective. Granted, we have plenty of reality going on everyday around here.....just quit writing about it for awhile I guess. Nothing quite like the change of seasons to bring out the romantic sentimental side of one's self. But, as spring arrives in full force so does the need to sell off anything and everything....including the kids, depending on the day. As stated in the previous post, I have successfully drug out pretty much everything to our name. For some insane reason in my psychopathic head I decided to tackle absolutely everything all at one time. Usually quite the organized person, this unintended chaos I poured forth on myself does take its toll. So, I emptied the attic in preparation for the yard sale..into the playroom I might add...which already had an entire wall full of yard sale stuff occupying it. So now we have the entire attic, which Brad unceremoniously dumped into any available space he could pitch stuff into, scattered recklessly all over the playroom floor along with all of the crap that was already occupying what little room was left in there. Like....you can't really even open the door and poor Athena has to complete an obstacle course before ever reaching her bed for the night. So, with that waiting...or rather lurking scarily on my to do list in my overloaded head.....I began to live in denial that it was really out there and proceeded to drag out every article of clothing we own....all 10 of us. Since clothing is my most major downfall and continues to be it is continually overwhelming and so it builds and builds until it runs me out of house and home. Laundry is not an issue. Laundry gets done on a daily basis, folded by the older 3 and put away by a group effort of the older 6. Yes, laundry is no longer the monster lurking behind the utility room door and after 10 years I can safely say that is one area of my life that needs no more help or adjusting. Clothes.....well, clothes on the other hand I am continually juggling and rearranging and trying to find a good way to make it all work. I am still in great need of finding a tried and true method of storing them until the next season or next baby....whichever the need is. So, in my attempts to once again regain control over this area of my life I emptied every closet and drawer in the house. Umm.....so no. That wasn't such a grand idea in the long run. I"m still paying for that one, as we are sitting on the floor at this point. And I actually have the audacity to get mad if anyone dares sit on the piles heaped on the couch that fall off if you look at them wrong. It is indeed getting somewhere though, as I now have 3 massive boxes filled with donation and sell items.




Then next came the toys. Since having children we have gone though cycles. I think toy ownership was at its peak when we had a mere 2 children. By 3 I cut back on small amounts of unused items and by 5 I saw the need for a complete overhaul and re evaluation of what is really necessary in a kids life. We eventually narrowed it down to large outside toys, mostly riding, large vehicle toys such as the ever popular fire trucks around here that make for easy pick up and a tote size container of small toys. I am now of the mindset that the tote's just gotta go. I'm thinking the only thrill they get out of it at this point is dumping it out and walking off. Gavin may pick out a choice truck that he hangs onto for 2 entire days and then soon that is found lying somewhere in a hallway. Instead of being the meanest parent in the world and selling off every toy we own I am of the mindset to box all but a shoebox size box of them up and stick them in the attic to see how they fair....kids not toys, that is. We did this as Brad commuted and I was required to show the house at a moment's notice with a houseful of 6 children 7 and under. They never seemed any worse for the wear and they surely aren't mentally handicapped due to lack of toy stimulation. So, anyway, amid attic dumping and closet emptying I moved on to trashing and boxing toys. This was definitely not the wisest tactic.






Brad has had no overtime shifts in months and it is once again a true walk of faith to make ends meet. But, as always the Lord is faithful to provide. Maybe not exactly in the timing we would have preferred but we have food and every need is met. But, as overtime picked up we went from none in months to almost every off shift within the last 2 weeks he has worked.....translated into never being home. He has had 2 96 hr shifts. We are both exceedingly grateful for this but, I think God may have failed to take note that I was in the midst of turning the house upside down when he opened the overtime gates. As it turned out I have had the 24/7 care of all 8 of them on my own for days and days on end along with the house having just vomited up everything that ever lurked in it's shadows. This would not usually be an issue except that one has to stop and break every half hour to feed a kid...which then promptly turns into 7 kids...and then of course, something about a new baby that smells food and wants to nurse. How that correlation works I'll never know but somehow a newborn is born with a nose that knows food and therefore wants to nurse whether they actually have the ability to eat what they smell or not. I finally established hours that the kitchen is open. Of course, they loved this and played restaurant, liking it for all it was worth until they figured out I was serious. Suddenly, certain little 4 year olds and 2 year olds didn't like the restaurant so much anymore.






I must add that while all of this takes place that they find it so entirely fun to wreak havoc due to the fact that my attention is definitely elsewhere. And 4 little boys all born within 3 years can do some damage. They can dump entire bags of cereal out onto the kitchen floor and then think it's hysterically funny to stomp on it. They can "clean" the mirrors with lotion. They can all 4 climb into the waterless bathtub and empty entire contents of shampoo and baby wash and then play "slide". They can pull shower racks completely down and break off the little decorative curtain holders. They can place a cup on the floor and open up the spout on the water jug to see if the waterfall will hit the cup.....in which case, of course it failed to. The 3 bigger boys discovered it is fun to feed cat food to the baby boy. Oh yes....lest I forget.....they discovered the novelty of sticking their bare butts in the toilet while yet another stands by and flushes so that the seated one can feel the water swirling on his butt and be privy to a grandiose butt washing. They learn to scale closet shelves in order to reach their, supposedly, out of reach clothes. They have discovered it is hysterically funny to blindfold their "baby I-thee" with her headband and watch her look through the lace "like the Lone Ranger, Mama!". They've found that they much prefer to nap in the nude....all 4 of them.





That scenario only originated by the many spankings they seemed to have earned themselves in this whole "spring cleaning - daddy absent for long periods of time" period in our lives. Recently when I have spanked Grant he has been so outraged over the injustice done to him that he has taken to stripping down to absolutely nothing after the fact. With his butt screaming in protest to what came upon it and his effort to rid himself of the sting he proceeds to holler and discard every piece of clothing on him. And, yes...it has succeeded in getting some good laughs out of everybody. Usually I don't force his clothes back upon him but tell him that whenever he regains his composure and is ready to come out of his room that he needs to come out fully clothed once more...which works. I didn't really ever take into account exactly the fun that would emerge from having tons of brothers in there with you as you proceed to run around naked. It took them all of 5 minutes, if that, to figure out that Grant indeed has the right idea going and soon there were not 1 but 3 little naked people having the time of their lives....and soon all 3 were fast asleep.....naked. Fun.






As for our chicken endeavors, apparently chickens have not quite discovered the miracle of life quite like I did. I have found that if you look at a chick wrong it is apt to die. If they don't die in the eggs, they die while hatching or shortly after hatch time....or a few days later. The one in the pic that was hatching actually had something mentally wrong with it and couldn't even hatch out of the egg correctly. We were told to never help a chick hatch or else it was imminent death. But, after 72 hrs of hatching we figured it was going to die anyway so we'd at least give it a shot at life. This would be after 3 other chicks hatched successfully while this very first one was still trying to peck out...and it was dying. He actually lived the longest of them all. But when his 3 friends died I guess he just figured it was the in thing to do. It was a little too stressful for me to find any kind of enjoyment out of the experience. So, by the end of it I told the children in no uncertain terms that I was quite done with the egg hatching for awhile.






So, as I'm cleaning out I instruct Grayson to put preacher neighbor's styrofoam incubator in the shop until we are ready to use it again. That would be the shop with the big brooder and the 36 bigger chicks...that are now near chicken size. Never once did I ever contemplate a chicken being so entirely stupid as to eat styrofoam. But they do....and they did. By the time we discovered it they had obviously been working on it for a couple of days. To make matters worse there was not one trace of styrofoam crumb on the shop floor...just about 100 pds of bird poop to eliminate all doubt as to who the culprits were. Of course, my 1st thought is the expense of a new incubator then it turns to the lives of the crapped out chickens that ate it. Mental images of chickens blown up like little round party balloons float through the head. But I guess they're a little tougher than what I gave them credit for....at least at this stage of their life. After the complete irritation of it I did not fail to see the irony of the fact that chickens ate the egg incubator. Sounds like they may be in need of a little chicken therapy, if you ask me.




In the midst of it all I have grown extremely weary of feeling like an overweight tub of lard. So it is that I have once again hit the road and am running my 2 miles again. I have a morning workout routine and then go run at night. Hopefully that will be enough to burn my fat butt off and kick my milk supply back into high gear....seeing as how it kind of forgot what to do. Due to my over zealousness in conquering the world all at one time it has left me kind of exhausted and playing the catch up game. Maybe one day when I organize my time a little better I'll be back on here regularly. Dont' ever expect me to preach a sermon on time management though.


So goes life around here.

A little company for school work

One of Daddy's boys

Sweet contented girl

Finding the toes

Yep.....there's a story behind this one too.

It'll have to wait for the next post though.