Computer Burnout

I will begin with...I should've paced myself. Just a little bit. I have a way of taking on a task in an undeterred manner...which sounds noble and quite honorable at face value. Until you get to the part where you've so burned yourself out that you are ready to take a gun to anything that has a screen. I have successfully managed to spend from 8am to midnight, if not longer, staring at the glowing screen...successfully managing to give myself a 3 week headache while my children grow quite feral. By the end of this past week I was so done I think I had exhausted every cuss word in my vocabulary and declared no less than 50 times that I would never again sit in a computer chair as long as I live. But.........here I am. Although, I will point out that I am not selling, listing or uploading pictures to a picture hosting site to upload them from there to an Ebay listing hosting site to upload them from there to Ebay itself. Tasks that are entirely easy but take up massive amounts of time....and brain cells that should probably be reserved for the education and behaviour management of children.

I grew so weary, my butt so numb and my eyes so bleary from the illegal amount of hours spent on my butt that I proclaimed to sympathetic husband I was completely 100% done and everything left was either being burned, donated, or toted to FW and dropped off at appropriate stores. So it was that we made a day trip with 8 out of 10 children to the big city and "sold" 9 boxes of books and 2 boxes of record albums.

While there we had the amazing honor of meeting yet another one of the dear people the Lord has brought into our lives because of this blog. A humbling experience to say the least...to meet the people who have long been praying for our family through the ups and the downs and everything in between. To be able to see and know that these people are very much real and it is not just a vast black cyber world is amazing to me. It's a humbling experience to see how much our family is loved and be able to fall in love on an intimate level with people we have somehow connected with over the years. We sat and visited for an hour while children ate lunch and another sweet friendship was born.

Marie, it was an amazing experience being able to meet you and your husband. I look forward to the day when we road trip west to meet the rest of your family.


After children were full we said good byes and headed to Half Price books to drop our first load of crap. The 106 degree heat tested the best of outlooks on life. With isles not even made to accommodate one person, not to mention 2 adults backpacking infants with 6 other children in tow, Brad and Grayson decided to stay with books, as they require, while I took children to shop the big city stores. First stop was the glorified Petsmart. Our little city has one...but it's about 1/4 of the size of any normal one...as is the going thing around this part of Texas. We get a few stores...but it's a tiny little matchbox version of anything in the big cities. Before entering Grant took a running leap and didn't quite clear the concrete wall he was attempting to jump. Thrown head over heels into the air he landed head first on concrete.....in the heat. With cries eventually quieted....in the heat....we walked into store. As the employees grew horrified by the masses we gained the attention of one particular mindful employee, who then took it upon his cranky, anal retentive self to follow our entourage around the store and reprimand every one of the children every time a hand was extended to touch anything. And due to heat...and a little bit of growing nausea...my tolerance waned a little....or maybe alot. The annoying dude that has obviously missed out on some aspect of childhood followed us around saying "Little boy?? Little boy! Don't touch that!", "Excuse me....um...you boy...the one in the camo shirt (Hey Einstein...they all have on camo shirts) please don't touch that. Somebody's going to buy that!" Seriously dude....a dog toy???? What's he gonna do....squeak it to death...IF I'd even allowed him to squeak it??? "Little boy...please don't talk to the birds!! They get scared easily and when they are scared they can die." First of all, you who has the corncob shoved up your rear...you need to invest in some tougher birds. Try some Amazonian parakeets or something. Second of all...if you can't even talk to the damn bird why in the crap is somebody going to BUY it????!!! So, with my tongue growing numb for the teeth dug into it, trying heroically to control it, we packed up our merry little selves and set off for the store one door over. Bed Bath and Beyond was so packed that we could hardly fit down the isles without turning sideways. Not entirely conducive for one with many children trailing behind. One round around that store and we exited it also. Back out into the humid heat. We found Party City in which all little boys lingered on the military camo birthday section where we stayed for as long as possible. Eventually older woman began huffing and puffing and sighing and groaning over our presence...apparently desiring the entire isle to self. If I'd had more left in me I would've stuck it out just to irritate her but, as it was, I was tired of fighting people and their horrific attitudes so the command was given to vacate the premises. Upon exiting the store one particularly high maintenance woman gaped with mouth wide open. Hair perfectly coiffed, high heels on, dress unwrinkled with bountiful cleavage apparent and there I walked with my talkative little bunch out the door...in my tank top, jeans and flip flops. Finally she exclaimed in fake shock and a generous amount of big city shallowness...."I just have to ask...are they all your's???!!!" I smiled kindly, looked at children and said quietly, "Come on guys...let's go."...politely ignoring her. Cause I'd kinda had it. Once again even louder...."No really! Are they ALL your's???!!" Once again I smiled at kids, looked her direction and said quietly "Have a nice day, ma'am". Eventually she said in shock..."Wow. Wow! You are blessed." This earned her some words on my behalf so I said with a smile but still rather quietly, "Yes, indeed I am." She then says...."So blessed!....but can I just ask....." and then she said in absolute credulousness...."Why? WHY...do you have so many????" Seriously lady...did you just really ruin it with that??? I smiled and spoke anyway..."Because they are my joy. They bring light to all of life." I could've said many more pointed things but my overheated brain was not optimally functioning at that point. But, for whatever reason, this silenced her and she shook her head back and forth and ended with "I guess they do. You must have more energy than I do. Have a good day." And we left.

Babies cried in the heat, 2 little boys needed to pee, one needed to poop, I was disgustingly drenched in sweat and there was nowhere left to go. I was near tears with no sign of husband or son in sight and people walked around in digust or awe....or both. And I was tired...tired of being in people's way, tired of being hot, tired of bad attitudes and feeling overwhelmingly nauseas. Finally husband and son emerged, children were loaded into 120 degree van, a/c attempted to cool it and eventually the question..."So, how much did we get for all of that?" Knowing it'd be more than 50.00 but hoping for 100.00 Brad raises eyebrows and smirks...."30.00" At that point I did want to cry. I could've saved everyone an hour's worth of heat induced misery by donating the books...or just plain burning them. 30.00???!!! So, I sulked and I got mad and then I finally realized it was 30.00 more than we had and it was also 11 less boxes we have to move or that we have taking up space within the attic, within the brain and within our lives. Optimistic husband cheerily said...."Hey! Look at it this way. It paid for lunch!" I wisely kept quiet until my attitude improved a little. We headed over to friends for a few hours to eat and let kids swim and exert some energy before buckling back up and heading back home late into the dark night hours on lone Texas interstate.

So, with that I think I am done selling for awhile. I've got a few more things to craigslist and then after that the children's retail store taking place up in the attic will be conquered. I think I'm just going to go through that and take them all to FW and turn them over to Kid to Kid. I may not get as much as I would've had I sold them myself but it takes the brain work out of it for me, the time, energy, and effort of selling them and NO TAGGING in the JBF sales. But....no more Ebaying....for years. Think I'm done on that one. I have children that I'd like to watch grow up. Overall, we've made well over 200.00 on Ebay, over 600.00 craigslisting and another 200.00 just misc selling stuff to guys up at the station...and we still have more to go. Oh yeah...and the whopping 30.00 at Half Price Books. That'll be a sore spot for awhile.

But it IS progress. It's been enough to pay off two of our smaller debts, and begin work on the bathtub I so fitfully saw to rip out. We learned that an entire 1 piece replacement tub and wall combo is a mere 328.00. And I can do all the work myself with Grayson acting as my right hand man. We need to put up drywall...cheap....and and then can just go in and fit it over the existing tub and walls. We'd been quoted 10,000.00 for someone to come in and redo that bathroom. Granted, this is only the tub/shower part of it but the rest just consists of tile demo...which I am amazingly adept at...and replacing with some granite looking laminate. It did my heart good to check out our options and know how close we are to beginning work on that project.

So, that would be the long version as to my long absence on here. To sum up...my butt's numb, my eyeballs are shot and my head has an infinite computer induced headache. But, I have accomplished what I set out to do...and that is clean out and clean up. Hopefully, blogging will once be an enjoyable experience here in the near future...when feeling returns to everything that is infinitely numb at the current moment.