Long Time Coming

Here is everything worth knowing about the last few years in our lives.... 

Baby's 8th grade graduation (me, Baby, Kid):

Baby & me at high school orienation:

Baby's first day of high school

Kid in her dorm room 

Me living the grey hair dream

Baby & Kid this December

Our new house

Please leave a comment and let me know how you are doing!  I hope all is well and you are weathering the storm of life as best you can.  

Once Upon A Time My Life Fell Apart

This was late last Friday.

I had just put up a video post giving a pretty in-depth review of where we are at and what we are dealing with.

But I was wrong.

It was worse and it was too late.

So I am here trying to figure out how to rebuild her self esteem and her sense of autonomy.

Acceptance and refuge.

And hopefully in time... peace.

And the knowledge that she never did anything wrong.

Love shouldn't hurt.

Is This Thing On

The Catch Up

For the longest time, I thought I was just about to sit down and get back to blogging.  Facebook, in large part took its place.  I had resisted for so long, but it became impossible to stay in touch with family and friends without it.  Then I started posting my photos and funny kid quotes over there instead... it felt redundant to blog them as well.  Anyway, all this time I've been hoping to come back and share the longer stories.  But the longer time went on, the longer those stories would be... and who has the time??  Plus, as you'll soon learn, I was sleeping...

Long story short, for five years I've been sick.  I didn't know it.  Not until about 2 years or so ago when I started feeling very tired... getting constant migraines (literally CONSTANT)...  and a host of bizarre maladies.  I had intense sugar cravings (weird but true) and I was gaining weight no matter what I did.  They tested me for MS, but I didn't have it and my family doctor looked through her crystal ball and said "You are in perimenopause, it sucks."  (But I wasn't...).  A year later, last fall, I just pretty much succumbed.  I could not wake up.  Like honestly... could not stay awake.  It was crazy.  I would be making dinner, and want to lie down on the kitchen floor, so desperately, I'd be crying... just a level of exhaustion I had never ever experienced.  I would get the kids to school and then fall asleep for 5 hours and have to force myself to get up to pick them up.  Every day.  My blood pressure had gone up 30 points, my heart rate was through the roof.  I was dizzy, had brain fog so badly I couldn't get my words out.  It was terrifying.  My doctor said "Hmm, maybe a mono like virus."  After another month I couldn't drive, I couldn't focus and I had constant heavy chest pain.  I cried and told my doctor something is not right.  She said "Your blood work is normal, it is just a long virus."  Mr F was traveling for work a week each month, and I have never endured as much stress as trying to raise our girls during that time.  I thought I was surely dying, and while Baby was young enough to take it in stride, Kid was extremely aware of what was going on.  I would attend a school function and people were shocked at how I looked, like a zombie with no coloring.  I couldn't stand up straight or walk faster than a 90 year old woman.  I'd sit there in a coat and scarf and gloves (inside) shivering and barely awake.  IT WAS INTENSE!!  I thought I must have end stage cancer.  I would cry myself to sleep, because I couldn't take the stress and I couldn't keep living like that.  Like, I honestly knew, a body cannot go on living like this.  It was traumatizing.  It went on like that for months, in and out of the ER.  As it turns out, I have an unusual blood disorder and my body doesn't hold iron but I'm not anemic, in the sense that my hemoglobin doesn't change, so until I got to a phenomenal oncologist-hematologist I kept getting misdiagnosed.  Turns out without iron your organs have to work REALLY hard.  It was killing me.  Even after a year of infusions, and surgery, I'm still dealing with this as a life long issue.  I'm better... SO MUCH better.  And I'm being monitored constantly so that I don't bottom out again.  But that's a lot of where I've been.  For five years I was just basically hemorrhaging more iron than I could replace each month until I got down to zero iron stores in my bone marrow.  Now, for reasons my hematologist doesn't really understand, despite surgically stopping my periods, I cannot maintain normal iron levels.  But I'll live.  I just have a bit of a harder time.  I have to readjust my expectations of myself and my day.  During the school year, I HAVE to nap for several hours.  Getting up at 6:30AM and going to bed at 12:30 AM just isn't something I can power through anymore.  I still get all the stuff done (you know I do!!), but I'm taking self-shame out of it when I need a down day.  I'm working out 5 days a week now.  It has been over a year since I was able to exercise.  Hell, last year I honestly couldn't go grocery shopping!  But unlike my old "more is more", I work out for 30 minutes.  Now that I have a massive load of iron in me (for the time being) my doctor said I'll stop gaining weight (it had slowed my metabolism).  Unfortunately, that hasn't meant that I naturally started losing weight (unfair!) so  I am following the 21 Day fix diet, which I am a big fan of since I think it is extremely well balanced.  So that's where I am at.  Some days I can do "all the things!" and some days I need to sleep (a lot).  I'm able to stay home, which considering my body's reality, is a godsend.  I am focused on doing what I need to do for myself in the day, so that I can be 100% on and available for my kids when they are home (and staying up until midnight because I have a high schooler now)...

OH, and I forgot to mention, during this same exact time period we discovered Baby has a rare chest wall deformity. And she need to fly to Denver EVERY SIX WEEKS for treatment from a specialist at the children's hospital out there.  So, yeah, the last year was the absolute worst (and the most expensive).  Thankfully, we are both done with "active" treatment and doing better.

The Catch Up

For the longest time, I thought I was just about to sit down and get back to blogging.  Facebook, in large part took its place.  I had resisted for so long, but it became impossible to stay in touch with family and friends without it.  Then I started posting my photos and funny kid quotes over there instead... it felt redundant to blog them as well.  Anyway, all this time I've been hoping to come back and share the longer stories.  But the longer time went on, the longer those stories would be... and who has the time??  Plus, as you'll soon learn, I was sleeping...

Long story short, for five years I've been sick.  I didn't know it.  Not until about 2 years or so ago when I started feeling very tired... getting constant migraines (literally CONSTANT)...  and a host of bizarre maladies.  I had intense sugar cravings (weird but true) and I was gaining weight no matter what I did.  They tested me for MS, but I didn't have it and my family doctor looked through her crystal ball and said "You are in perimenopause, it sucks."  (But I wasn't...).  A year later, last fall, I just pretty much succumbed.  I could not wake up.  Like honestly... could not stay awake.  It was crazy.  I would be making dinner, and want to lie down on the kitchen floor, so desperately I'd be crying... just a level of exhaustion I had never ever experienced.  I would get the kids to school and then fall asleep for 5 hours and have to force myself to get up to pick them up.  Every day.  My blood pressure had gone up 30 points, my heart rate was through the roof.  I was dizzy, had brain fog so badly I couldn't get my words out.  It was terrifying.  My doctor said "Hmm, maybe a mono like virus."  After another month I couldn't drive, I couldn't focus and I had constant heavy chest pain.  "I cried and told my doctor something is not right.  She said "Your blood work is normal, it is just a long virus."  Mr F was traveling for work a week each month, and I have never endured as much stress and trying to raise our girls during that time.  I thought I was surely dying, and while Baby was young enough to take it in stride, Kid was extremely aware of what was going on.  I would attend a school function and people were shocked at how I looked, like a zombie with no coloring.  I couldn't stand up straight or walk faster than a 90 year old woman.  I'd sit there in a coat and scarf and gloves (inside) shivering and barely awake.  IT WAS INTENSE!!  I thought I must have end stage cancer.  I would cry myself to sleep, because I couldn't take the stress and I couldn't keep living like that.  Like, I honestly knew, a body cannot go on living like this.  It was traumatizing.  It went on like that for months, in and out of the ER.  As it turns out, I have an unusual blood disorder and my body doesn't hold iron but I'm not anemic, in the sense that my hemoglobin doesn't change, so until I got to a phenomenal oncologist-hematologist I kept getting misdiagnosed.  Turns out without iron your organs have to work REALLY hard.  It was killing me.  Even after a year of infusions, and surgery, I'm still dealing with this as a life long issue.  I'm better... SO MUCH better.  And I'm being monitored constantly so that I don't bottom out again.  But that's a lot of where I've been.  For five years I was just basically hemorrhaging more iron than I could replace each month until I got down to zero iron stores in my bone marrow.  Now, for reasons my hematologist doesn't really understand, despite surgically stopping my periods, I cannot maintain normal iron levels.  But I'll live.  I just have a bit of a harder time.  I have to readjust my expectations of myself and my day.  During the school year, I HAVE to nap for several hours.  Getting up at 6:30AM and going to bed at 12:30 AM just isn't something I can power through anymore.  I still get all the stuff done (you know I do!!), but I'm taking self shame out of it when I need a down day.  I'm working out 5 days a week now.  It has been over a year since I was able to exercise.  Hell, last year I honestly couldn't go grocery shopping!  But unlike my old more is more, I work out for 30 minutes.  Now that I have a massive load of iron in me (for now) my doctor said I'll stop gaining weight (it had slowed my metabolism).  Unfortunately, that hasn't meant that I naturally started losing weight (unfair!) so  I am following the 21 Day fix diet, which I am a big fan of since I think it is extremely well balanced.  So that's where I am at.  Some days I can do "all the things!"  and some days I need to sleep (a lot).  I'm able to stay home, which considering my body's reality, is a god send.  I am focused on doing what I need to do for myself in the day, so that I can be 100% on and available for my kids when they are home... and staying up until midnight because I have a high schooler now... :(

OH, and I forgot to mention, during this same exact time period we discovered Baby has a rare chest wall deformity. And she need to fly to Denver EVERY SIX WEEKS for treatment from a specialist at the children's hospital out there.  So, yeah, the last year was the absolute worst (and the most expensive).  Thankfully, we are both done with "active" treatment and doing better.

This is Kid

Kid is now a Freshman at our public high school.

And she's a cheerleader...

I'll let that soak in.

Eating My Carrots

I think that the 30s are possibly the most transformative of decades.  What do you think? Surely more than your 20s.  I guess I can't speak to the later decades, but it seems that so much growth and change happen in this decade.

Part of that, is that I have been thinking a lot about my perception of myself versus others' perceptions of me.  As a life long people-pleaser this is not necessarily new, but my thoughts on it are.  I am thinking less about whether people like me, and more about the function of the power I place in that.  I am actively attempting to place less power in it.  And to place more value in whether I like someone.  Being a people-pleaser can feel a bit like being a hapless contestant on the The Bachelor... you suddenly catch yourself competing for the love of someone you do not know and might not even like... hell, often you KNOW you do not like them.  It is a sickness, and it can be so toxic.

I think, if you are a people-pleaser, you most likely grew up with self-pleasers and inherently seek them out to replicate that role and your (often hellish) spot in it.  It is essentially a survival mechanism that becomes a crutch.

In my life experience, self-pleasers cannot understand the motives of people-pleasers. (And the reverse is certainly true, as well) They are typically suspicious of a people-pleasers and apt to consider them manipulative or judgmental, not able to understand the reward in the pleasing behavior.  And who can blame them?... it certainly is confusing... because there often isn't one.  They are likely to confuse you for a martyr... but you aren't that... you simply cannot see your worth in being loved for your own merits.  You cannot stomach choking out a request for your own needs, lest they seem selfish.  You believe you need to make people like you (or see you) by being useful/helpful/available.  I can tell you, it doesn't get you anywhere... in those toxic relationships, anyway.  Which sadly comes to cloud your ability to see your worth in other ones.

I have spent my life like this.  In real life.  In every day.

There are people who do like me.  They think I am smart, funny, engaging, and giving.  They respect me, even.  Mr F has to remind me of this (almost nightly), because I have spent my life focusing on the few core people who don't.  It is hard and frustrating to feel trapped in someone's description of who you are.  These negative views are almost always held by people who spend little to no time with you... so how they justify their opinion of you adds even more layers to the accumulating hurt and frustration... because, of course, if they see how inherently unlovable you are with so little contact... it must be true.  And that just feeds the original injury.  It is hard to keep going to those dry wells dug in your childhood and ask to be seen differently.  And yet you feel compelled to.

Anyway.  I just spent a weekend with my family (can you tell?).  It is exhausting for me.  It makes me tense and upset to not understand how to be liked and seen as who I am.  To not have room for my real personality.  To get no positive reinforcement or even just regular conversation that isn't defensive or weird or strange or borderline combative.  To not be talked TO, but around or at.  To feel outside.

This is the normal, and I am coming to understand that less is required of me to maintain it, not more.  There isn't more effort or more time that will result in an understanding among such different perceptions of our world and our interactions in them.  That is what my 30s have gifted me.  Some dynamics are at an impasse and you have to figure out how to cut them down to what will work.  Not keep building them up.  That really only works between brains that process in similar ways.  In this situation, there will always be a language barrier.  There will always be the misinterpretations and misunderstandings inherit with that.  That's okay.  It CAN be okay.

Engage in it less.  That is an option... it might be the first self pleasing move you make, but there is something of value in that after all.

Choose better in the relationships you CAN choose.

I have learned a lot about this, this year, sharing carpool and volunteer positions at school.  The world is a great divide of people-pleasers and self-pleasers and those few sane people in between.  When you remove the emotional ties of your family and work-related dynamics you can see it played out clearly and differently.  You can see that there are healthy ways to be either.  This year has taught me to pay more attention to the positive, because there is so much more of it (really... for you, too).  This has been a wake up call for my sense of self and self esteem.  People want me on their team.  People see my worth and value my input and talents, even those who don't always agree with me or "love" my personality. There are people who see my strengths as strength and not as weakness.  There are people who see my strengths IN SPITE of my weaknesses.... This is a revelation.  And there are people who will see yours that way, too.

I can choose to make the positive interactions more powerful than the negative.  And more frequent.  I can give them more value and more of my time.  I don't need to chase the stick when I have a bushel of carrots sitting right in front of me.

The Longest Hardest Time

I think I'll name my book that.

The book about raising a family after you start to let them go.

I think I've entered one of the hardest times of my life.

Which is both ironic, and not lost on me, that now that we have less actual hardships (financial, etc)

I feel left with a life that is hard to adjust to, or live through, or maybe to be fulfilled by.

Maybe it is just my midlife reckoning.

Which considering I may very well live into my 100s, feels exhausting to think about, as it may continue on for a good 20 years or so...

Maybe it is the 16 years of co-habitating with someone whose ADD meds have worn off by the time he gets home that is wearing me down...

Or my perimenopausal metabolism and exhaustion (which not enough people talk about!!!!) that leave me in a shame spiral of depression and disappointment.

Or maybe it is the spike in my chronic migraines (see perimenopause, above) which are worse then ever and truthfully leave me wrecked and feeling suicidal for 3 days every other week.... only to wake up on day 4 completely normal like nothing ever happened... relieved that I'm not actually losing my mind.  And, frustratingly, there is no end in sight. (which IS making me lose my mind)

Or that my girls are older, and I love who they are, but miss the time we had... which is getting less and less...

Or the calendar striped with 100 shades of highlighter which direct me, to the minute, from one location to the next, mostly unfulfilling, but necessary, and leave me feeling stressed and over-scheduled and like I am squandering all of my personal time and energy promoting opportunities for everyone but myself.

This is real.

And I know there are countless others living it.

And we all smile and say "I'm fine.  How are you?  Sure, I'll be room parent next year.  Yes, I can bring in two pies tomorrow.  You need a ride home, absolutely.  Help making costumes, yes, I can sew..."

I have chosen a path because it is important for me to be available.  It is important for me, to be able to do what I can for the community that supports my kids.  But the reality of older kids and those needs is very, very, different than with little kids.  You are more in service to their needs and less in service with them.  It is a different commitment and sacrifice, and the rewards are not felt immediately... or maybe at all.

And it is a loss.

And so, yes, this is a period of grieving for me.  And a period of struggle to determine what is important to me and my family.  To assess and prioritize our needs and our desires, and discover which path will accommodate as much of those as possible.... without me feeling wasted in their pursuits (mentally, physically, and emotionally).

Because this path is clearly no longer working.

And that is the truth.

Dear Ones

Here I am sitting home with a sick child... AGAIN. Not that I mind the company, but I think we've had nary a full week of school, for one reason or another, since October. And it just makes it very hard to get in a good productive routine, in any department.

So...

This seems like a perfect time to endorse my favorite shows:

The Great British Bake-Off !!!!! Spectacular. WEll, at least to a home baker like myself. American TV just cannot match the quality & humor of this series. You know?? You can find it on PBS.org

Broadchurch Holy shit, this is good. I mean, the kind of good that you grieve for a bit when it is over. The 1st season is available on Netflix. Be prepared to binge watch this. And be forewarned that this is intense and depressing, but in a most well execute fashion. The acting in this series is top notch. The characters are deeply flawed. You will love it.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries- You guys!!!! Did you ever listen to me the last time I recommened this?! It is so charming. One of my favorite shows to workout to. Fast paced, entertaining. Really enjoyable. I cannot wait for the 3rd season. Available on Netflix.


On other fronts: We went to Disney World. And we loved it.

The girls, ages 12 & 8, were maybe the best ages yet. I mean, we were in the parks, riding ALL the rides, for a good 12 hours a day. Disney continues to be a great vacation for our family... where we are together, engaged, and active. The very very poor wifi-signal also meant very little phone/screen use, and for that I am grateful. Maybe they do that on purpose?... 

After a week enjoying ourselves, lest you think it is all fun and games over here,  I came back to HELL...

 

Um, yes, those would be live lice.  WTF??!?  Worst outbreak in history at Baby's school.  I went through her hair for 8 straight hours one day.  I was picking nits out like it was a full time job (literally)  So, let me save you a lot of trouble... if you have daughters with long dark blond hair... order the Terminator from Amazon RIGHT NOW.  It is, hands down, the most effective tool.  For $10, it is absolutely worth just having on hand.  No chemicals necessary.

I'm not sure when we'll go back to Disney again, I think Europe is in our traveling future, now that the girls are capable. I'm currently trying to plan out a Spring Break trip for the me and the girls... at this point, after spending their future inheritance at WDW, Paris is off the table, much to Baby's Francophile chagrin.

And speaking of Baby, check out her new haircut:

She feels like a "successful business woman!!"

If only I had cut her hair before the lice... would have made my life a bit easier!!

We Laugh, We Cry

Laughably, I found myself feeling relieved that it was 3 degrees outside.

I guess I'm acclimating to the arctic winters. Also, wind is EVERYTHING. Or lack of wind, I should say. It makes all of the difference.


 Plus, another frigid winter means Baby is actually getting use out of the badass snowsuit I bought her last year:

My 3rd Up by Jawbone band died in a year and my warranty was up, so I switched to the Fitbit Flex. I do find having a fitness band helps me stay motivated (immensely)... although I will say I find the Fitbit much less user friendly. Kind of disappointed, but I just can't condone sinking more money into as flawed a devise (battery-wise) as the Up band.


 I just booked a mid-winter trip to Disney! I think it has been 3 or 4 years (??!) since we were there. Yowza it is much ore expensive... both because it is, because we can't travel during a discounted time, and because Kid is now full price and I cannot (even with our mad acting skills) try to pull of Baby being under 3 and therefore free. So, this will likely be our last trip for quite a few years. We are maxing it out though, staying onsite, doing the meal plan (character meals every single day, baby!), and after much debate... flying. I think I said last time that driving there and back was a Hell I never wanted to go through again (in part because Kid had food poisoning and puked the entire drive home... and in part because two very long days of driving after a vacation kind of negates any relaxation you might have had on your vacation).


 I wish I had a picture of Kid for you (why don't I take any photos anymore?!... Oh, I know, because my iPhone4s has been ruined by iOS8... why did I update?!?!?) Maybe I'll try to post a picture for you, later. She is really good looking. I mean, she had a rough patch (toddlerhood and your strange old man's hair... I'm talking to you), but holy shit she has really grown into herself. She lucked into some rogue supermodel genes. And she is only 12 and completely through puberty... so no awkward teen years. What the heck? And her teeth are naturally nearly perfectly straight... didn't inherited either of our jack-o-lantern mouths. She is like a genetic marvel. I don't know how it happened.


 It almost makes up for the fact that I was inadvertently feeding her a neurotoxin for 4 (formative!!) fucking years and it possibly was the cause of her epilepsy. I kind of want to throw myself off of a bridge. It is done and there is no going back and redoing it. I am compensating with humor. Anytime something is going wrong for Kid, I yell out "Miralax!", as it will now hold the blame for anything that goes wrong (FOREVER). And we laugh instead of cry. Because there is nothing we can do now, and no one to sue (yet).  We had the best doctors and, at the time, they believed it was as safe as water. Seriously (and unfortunately). I am SO glad I spent so much time and energy avoiding BPA! WTF??! But just know, that if I dwell too much on it, I might have a significant mental breakdown.

 Please, let's not have this be a carcinogen we have to pay the price for down the road. PLEASE.

I might start to cry so let's move on...


 In other FANTASTIC news, a goddamn registered sex offender has moved in across the street. He assaulted a child, so good news... I now cannot ever let my kids outside. Awesome. And our neighbor saw him standing fully fucking nude in front of his glass storm door looking out at our side of the street (which is how we all learned he was a sex offender). Our neighbor talked to the police, but there is nothing we can do but wait and WATCH. He was convicted 2 months ago but has not served his prison term yet... why is he not in a county jail or something while he awaits sentencing?? Why are they not sentenced at their trial??? This seems absolutely insane that he would free to live in the community before he gets locked up for 15 years.


 So, yes, DISNEY. Let's just focus on that.

Things Of Little Or No Importance: Part 155

Hello!

#1  Lindalou, I am sorry you have had to wait so long for a new post.

#2  Video of little to no importance:

#3  I am now hooked on Gilmore Girls and attempting to hook my girls on it.

#4  Kid is popular with the boys.  One of them gave her a Duggar side hug!  What is next?  A ring??!  God, I wish her school had middle school dances... it would be the most entertaining thing in the world!

#5  Baby has been writing comic books.  We already knew she was a fantastic artist but her dialog is amazing.  Honestly, people, these are really good books.  And hilarious.  She has asked Santa for a typewriter so she can make "professional" books going forward.  Santa will deliver!

#6  Kid wants nothing for Christmas except to fund a girl in India's schooling.  She is putting up all the money she has ever received.  At school they had to give an oral presentation to the middle school parents about what career they wanted to pursue.  After a hilariously underwhelming slew of choices presented by classmates (bartender, handy man, etc), Kid's was on humanitarian aid workers.  Long story short: she's a pretty great person.  Also, she claims she is never going to drink: soda, caffeine, or alcohol.... so, yeah, watch your backs, Mormons.

#7  Kid and I both had Meningitis in October:

 What the ding dong???!!  It was fucking horrible.  The worst pain I've ever been in, in my life.  

Worse than the broken tail bone!  I was really in despair.  

Good God.... try never to get it.

Happy 12th Birthday, Kid!  You have meningitis!  Enjoy!

When you live in the most educated city in America

It is really fun to yell out "I have to go to work at the Tire shop!" at school drop off.

It does not get old.

***********************************************

Do you remember the long crazy saga behind Mr F's job?  You know we moved to NC (thought permanently) only to have the economy tank, pay cuts, workload increase, etc?  Then after 2 years he was up for his dream job in MI?  So we went for it... but someone beat him out and they offered Mr F the job of #2 instead.  And because I was so depressed in NC, we took it?  And then immediately we figured out the #1 was a sham.... and so did the #1.... and Mr F was doing 3x the work but stuck in the #2 because the sham #1 was misrepresenting Mr F's work as his own?  Then after 2 years, another magazine moved up here and hired a new art team.  And Mr F got beat out for the #1 AGAIN and offered the #2 AGAIN... but we had to get away from the crazy sham guy so he took it?  And then the Sham guy (who no longer could hide behind Mr F's work) finally got fired, and they wanted Mr F back for the #1 at that magazine... but corporate has a no hiring an employee that has quit policy?  So that was disappointing, especially since by then we had figured out that the guy who got the #1 at the new job was a megalomaniac with a disdain for cars and photography.... which is kind of the job.  And unlike the Sham who knew Mr F was a better designer and just let him do his work... this guy just crapped all over everything Mr F did and it was really depressing for Mr F not to be proud of anything that ever went to press.  WELL, that guy was finally fired (which we really didn't see coming and were actively pursuing other options out of the area) and Mr F is redesigning the magazine.  All of his dreams (career anyway) have come true, and I guess the lesson here is that patience is a virtue after all.  So it has taken us 4 years, but things have finally settled where they should.  And the girls are thrilled that we don't have to move again.  Me?  Eh, I've realized that I kind of relied on the promise of a move to keep me in the unsettled place I find most stimulating.  I'm just not a settled type.  Not sure how to replace that.  Maybe more extensive travels?  For now, I have moved on to looking at local houses...

Did you follow all that?  It has been crazy, stressful, disappointing, depressing and infuriating but ultimately a story of redemption.  There were a lot of times when I felt like people are hired for their big personalities and not their actual qualities (which I do think is sadly true) and wasn't sure how Mr F could break through that barrier.  But perseverance, competency and talent have finally won out.  Which is a sigh of relief for society at large.

******************************************************

First Day of School:

Kid is in 6th grade
                                                   

(Can you believe it?!?!)

Baby is in 2nd grade

(Sad to report that, so far, Baby hates 2nd grade.  Mostly because now there is actual work to do.)

 The start of school means one thing around here, Big Boy can get back to his favorite past time.... 

harassing Kid while she does her homework.  

He loves it.  

Almost as much as he loves trying to lick the butter dish off of the counter when we aren't home...

(Sadly, he has finally succeeded)

 ********************************************************
Update!  Kid got the Taylor Swift haircut.  Which unfortunately means that this low maintenance mom has to blow out her daughter's hair EVERY SINGLE MORNING.  Even while her dad was out of town and we had to get up a half an hour early to get to a morning carpool... My love knows no bounds!!!!

Because It Is Safe To Say

That I am the first person you think of,

when you think office organization...

I got a temporary job setting up a corporate mandated best practices filing system for a tire shop.

45 minutes in the opposite direction of the girls' schools.

That makes sense.

But, I have always said, if someone offered me a job that was from 10-2, on the days I don't have the kids, I'd take it.

So, I did.

And people, you better believe that is one hell of a filing system.

Well, today is my first day of work at a ....

TIRE SHOP

You Are Always On My Mind...

You should know that I do indeed think about you all the damn time.  My inability to carve out the theoretical few minutes (actual 2 hours days) to come and update has nothing to do with my lack of interest in updating.  Just laziness.

This summer has been epically lazy, and I'm not even going to pretend otherwise.  It's been delightful.  The girls have spent hours upon hours shut in a bedroom playing Calico Critters (door shut because Kid doesn't want anyone to know she is actually playing, too... but word is out... she totally is).  I haven't gotten anything done, have cooked as little as possible, haven't organized a damn thing.

I read a few books.  Have been keeping my hair short.  And started the DailyBurn (whoa... do it!!!!!! deserves its own review post).

We went to Mackinac Island (loved it).  Mr F's mom came to visit (great). We packed Kid off to camp & Baby to day camp (so-so).  We bought an RV (which turns out to be an investment in the FUTURE of our summer vacations and not so much for this year... boo... still waiting at the body shop for welding).  The kids and I went Up North to the cottage for the annual parade and to hang with family (and first time cherry picking).  Matt went to visit his mom (brought me home an original NordicTrack... what was I thinking?... It is pretty much a leg breaking machine, there are no safety features on that thing at all). We took our hobbled RV on an overnight trip close to home (everything works on the inside at least!). Baby got glasses! My niece came to visit (yay!) and we went back Up North to visit with more family and enjoy a stop at our favorite lunch spot.

And now we have 18 days of summer vacation left!

I intend to continue to avoid cooking & cleaning at all costs (there will be time for that soon enough), doing my DailyBurn (worth it, peeps), and plotting out future RV trips (will they ever happen??!).  I will also fight the urge to make more of this summer than what we are... because... maybe we are totally nailing it.  You know when people count down their kids' summers left at home?... let's never do that (whoever thought of that is a horrible masochistic person).  Let's just take a load off when the opportunity comes and be grateful for it.  You know?  Not need to "take advantage" of everything, max out summer break, use up all of our "spare" time,  etc... just actually relax.  Because, as I always say, it will take just as long to clean up tomorrow as it will today (or next month).  So why do it?

xoxo, Mrs F

Summer Photo Recap:


Kid has grown into herself and has developed a natural elegance with her style and super long limbs.

Baby?  um... yeah... she looks like she just finished a serious Prancercise workout, am I right?!

Baby's new glasses:

Just kidding!

These!

Cherry Picking:

With hands

And mouths

Annual Anchor Day Parade in Empire Michigan:

Shriners in gocarts.  

Also a septic company that tosses out toilet paper rolls (coveted!!)

 First camping trip:
 
                    
Those captains chairs convert to a bed as does the dinette they are on.
You can see the kitchen on the left, and the bathroom & closet are on the right.

Don't mind Kid's glamourous eye makeup... she had just received a stunning makeover courtesy of Baby.

Here they are trying out their converted front bed.  Um... that looks comfortable, right???!

 

 Kid loves the camping lifestyle!!  To make matters worse, she forgot her book. Good thing for her we really aren't camping people, we are road trip people... the camper is a means to get places (eventually).

  
Them there are Fudge Stripe S'mores.
We are never ever ever going back to graham crackers and Hershey bars.  EVER.

Enjoy your summer, peeps!
 
 

 As I say to Mr F, every single day (albeit often sarcastically), 

"Enjoy your lifestyle!"...

 

 because you really can always clean in the Fall (if you must).

 TTFN!