Grateful

I am grateful that y'all read my posts in spite of my poor typing, stinky grammar, bad spelling and crappy proof reading skills. I can only imagine how crazy it must drive my teacher friends. Thanks for closing your teacher brains and reading anyway.

I am also grateful for super-glue. . . and finger nail polish remover. I'll tell that story later. I'm still recovering.

Angry Tree, part deux

Heather asked how cold it was. I could make something fantastic up and say that it was -25 and there was a blizzard a foot, but I can't lie this close to Christmas. The weather has been amazing and very Texas familiar. God has been very kind when we move, he changes the weather to help us acclimate better. It snowed on Christmas Eve the first year we were in Houston. And the weather has been very friendly to us now that we are back in Wyoming. So the weather was probably in the mid to high 30's. It's a different, dry cold. Not the sink to your bones wet cold that you get near the Gulf. So anyway back to the tree... The ride home was fairly uneventful. As uneventful as you can get with 7 kids, 2 grown ups, the *not broken* dog, and a tree tied to the roof of the family vehicle. We got home and got the tree off the roof and were pleased to find that the height we needed was exactly what we had chosen. No we didn't pre-measure. Come to find out our ceilings are almost 8 feet the tree was 7 1/2. We sawed off some of the lower branches and stuffed this 15 year old tree into our nice big sturdy tree stand. We filled the bottom with water and proceeded to decorate. Lights and all the old ornaments, and the little snowmen with the dangling mittens. And the snowmen heads with the bells for bottoms, so cute. These are the ones my mom-in-law sent us over the years. Anyway we got the tree decorated. And while it was pretty, it was still thin, and a tiny bit Charlie Brownish. So the next day I decided it needed some tinsel/icicles to fill in the holes. I used to love that stuff, but it's only fun to pull it out of a cat or child's throat just so many times, then it gets old. I must have felt pretty desperate to have to resort back to tinsel. I was a little upset after buying the tinsel and a few other things from a local store (of which I refuse to name because they are so over priced there,(most of the time), I get angry when I shop and refuse to give them any credit or recognition.) Tinsel in a package of 1000 strands at Wal-mart costs 50 cents. I paid $1.09, this was on sale from $1.99. And that wasn't all. We also needed more lights for our roof. So I paid $8 something, also on sale. I came home upset and then Jason went to go run an errand and took the lights with him just in case he found some cheaper some where else, he did. $4 thank you Ace Hardware. Anyhoodle, while he was gone the tree and I got into a fight. It started to lean a little and so I tried to straighten it out a little. And it fell on me. I have never EVER had a Christmas tree fall, let alone fall ON me. So I put it back up and tightened the screws in the base. This wasn't going to work. With the tree being so fresh it had soaked up all the water we had put in the base. The bark was sopping wet and had turned into mush, the screws had nothing to dig into. So what is the first thing that comes to my mind? Duct tape. It fixes everything. I put the tree back on the ground ornaments and all, actually I don't know if I put it there or if it put itself there, and proceeded to wrap duct tape around the trunk of the tree to give the screws something to grip into. I then put the now half decorated tree back up into the stand. I was irritated. And the lights were falling off. The only logical(hormonally logical) solution was to un-decorate the tree. So I started pulling the lights off. Spencer was trying to help. It wasn't really working, and just to prove that I wasn't the only irritated thing around, the tree fell again. That was all I needed. So I grabbed it, drug it through the house and threw it out the front door... and there it STOOD, yep, stood in its smug little manner. If trees had mouths it would have been smirking. Now there is a story, kind of a legend really, to anyone who grew up around Shumway's. It has to do with children being in trouble and a tree being vaulted out of the house, but that story belongs to Christin and if she chooses to tell it that's up to her. But we have heard it in my house and so when Jason came home he thought for sure the kids were up a creek in trouble, and that he would enter to find me a raving lunatic. He was relieved to find that I wasn't having any trouble with the kids, just the stupid @*&%#$#@ tree. He fixed it by screwing pieces of 2x4's into the trunk and wedging it into the base. Needless to say it'd probably stand until July if we let it. So I redecorated, with the help of super-glue of course, to glue the little bells back on the bottoms of the snowman heads that had broken on their jaunt through the house.
I typically have great reverence, respect and admiration for the trees we get to help us celebrate Christmas. I admire their beauty, being lighted and decorated with love, care and tradition. I'm always a little sad for the life of the tree that was shortened. BUT when I look at this tree, all I can think is how much I'm going to enjoy using it for firewood.

Good day to ya.

Turkey Makes People Grumpy, or Attack of the Angry Tree

Either that or I've just been hormonal for the last week. I'm guessing that is probably the REAL explanation. But the turkey excuse works for me, it's dead so it doesn't mind taking the blame. So Thanksgiving came and went and it was OK but I'd rather not talk about it. I cooked, we ate and there were leftovers. Our day after Thanksgiving family tradition is going and getting a Christmas tree. In Texas this involved a trip to Wal-mart or Kroger, followed by a lot of shaking, bug spray, and a hose, for the tree that is. This year we were able to continue the *original* tradition and go cut down our own tree, and it only cost $8 not $25-$75 (depending on how many bugs you want included on the tree.) Now there is something I must explain, I have a thing with Christmas trees. I have two. One is a fake fiber optic sparkly tree. The other must be real. I grew up under the false impression that I was allergic to pine trees in the house so my family had to have the short ugly fleece snow covered, fake tree. Which now, when I see it, brings back some nice fluffy feelings of carefree Christmases past. That is beside the point. I had a friend whose mother had 2 Christmas trees. The one downstairs in the family room was covered in the ornaments that the kids brought home from school or church, and popcorn strands or paper chains, etc. The OTHER tree was upstairs and decorated elegantly with the *no touchy* sort of ornaments. I thought this particular set up was brilliant and from that day forth I decided that one of my life long goals was to have two Christmas trees. And in the year 2002 I got my wish, and it has been that way ever since. (I'm easy to please what can I say) Anyway, where was I... Oh yes, this year we got to go up to the Big Horns and cut our own, no bugs included, they all got cold and took off. Now the interesting thing about going up to this particular mountain range from where we live is that there's a lot of up. For example, the conversation in the car went something like this "Oh look! There's a nice tree, did anyone bring the climbing gear? No? well lets drive on and see if we find a more level spot so we don't have to repel back to the car." Drive on we did. Now seeing that the majority of the Big Horn mountain range is available to Christmas tree cutting our options seemed pretty open. Had we been here three or four kids ago, this process could have taken hours, but my expectations have wained a bit and so I saw a decent spot that looked safe enough and we stopped. So here comes the exciting part. We then piled out of the suburban all 9 of us and the dog. I had the baby in the snuggli, she's 13 months old, snuggli's aren't meant for 13 month 22lb (give or take a pound) babies. So I guess it would be better said that I had the baby crammed into the snuggli. Sariah had Jacob. Spencer had the dog. Jason had the saw and Joey who wanted to be carried. And I think that Gabe and Caleb we're close on Sariah's trail. We followed a little closed road just a short way and came to a cattle guard. Now honest to goodness, half of my kids have never seen let alone crossed a cattle guard. That really didn't seem to be a huge deal unless you know that the dog hadn't had much, if any, experience with one either. (He has a past life so I don't know what he did before we got him) Anyway Spencer was the first one to the guard. I suggested that the dog would be fine crossing, so to proceed. I guess he went a little fast because halfway across, the dog freaked out, lost his footing and one of his back legs slipped through the grate. He got across, but was limping on the other side. "GREAT, " I thought, "we broke the dog." Jason crossed picked the dog up, (which is probably what we should have done in the first place.) Crossed back over and carried the dog to the car. He (the dog) was fine. Turns out he just scratched up the inside of his leg. Meanwhile back at the cattle guard, Jacob had figured out how to cross on all fours, hands and feet. It wasn't good enough to go just once he had to go over at least 3 or 4 times. Spencer learned that his feet are big enough to stretch across two rungs, so he went across 3 or 4 times as well, to his credit, one time was carrying Joey. Caleb and Gabe we're fine. And Sariah carried the saw. While we waited on the other side for Dad to return, I sent Spencer up the side of the mountain to check out potential victims, I mean trees. When Jason got back, we all headed up. It only took three times up and down to different spots to find the almost *perfect* tree. When I wrote earlier about my expectations, this is part of the change, I'm just not as picky anymore. Our tree turned out to be the first one I sent Spencer to check out. So we agreed, Jason sawed, we conquered. And then we headed down the mountain, across the cattle guard that bit the dog, to the car to have our leftover Thanksgiving lunch while dad tied the tree to the top. Which, after 10 years of practice, he has gotten quite efficient at doing. So we ate lunch, peed in the trees and on rocks (it's great having so many boys) and headed back home to decorate our trophy...
to be continued...

So my camera is freaking out. It's having energy consumption problems. It can take about 1 picture and sucks the batteries dry. Other wise I would be posting tons of new pictures. One of my new hair cut. It's great. Which is unusual for me because when I get a haircut it's usually followed by another one to fix all the things I didn't like about the first one. But anyway... Jason comes home tomorrow night! And no my house is not perfectly clean. But I'll get it done before Thanksgiving. I have to go help teach a class now, so I'll check in later

hasta

Not much

ONLY FIVE DAYS LEFT!!!!!! and my husband will be home. These last two hitches have taken (cover your eyes) FREAKIN' eternity. Literally. We moved, had been in our house for a week and then he went to work a little early. He was gone for 28days. Then came home for 9 days and had to go back early for some silly class. On Friday he will be coming home from being gone for 25 days. That time table seems a little heavy on their(meaning the company's) end. So now I can finally breathe and say "Holy crap I have to clean the house, Jason will be home in 5 days!" No, I really am relieved. It's strange though, he hasn't spent more than a couple weeks in our new house. I have to tell him where things are when he comes home.
I am very aware and grateful that he gets to come home. I understand that there are many families that have extended time away from dad. Military and such. Or the long separation called death. There is a family in my ward at church whose dad just died. I sang at the funeral the first week I was here. I just sang at two of their daughter's baptism. He wasn't a member, and after letting his oldest two daughters get baptized, I guess he said enough, no more. And so it took his death to allow these two other girls to enter that gate. Sad really. But the gospel will not be stopped. But aside from that, I think of their mother quite a bit. I think of how sad she must be, at times, to just not have him home. This makes me ever more grateful that my separation from Jason is so temporary. I'm sorry for their grief, but grateful for the reminder.
So I'm guessing I'm just blogging to blog. I really don't have anything huge to say.
I think the people here are so funny. The Relief Society Pres. came by to see how I was doing. I laughed and said I was fine. They think I'm an anomaly. crazy part-time single mom of 7. Singing, speaking, and getting up at 4:45 every morning to go write music at the church with her best-friend. and reminding us that she doesn't have a calling outside of visiting teacher. I guess when you look at it, it does seem a little odd. But it's my life, I'm very blessed. and I'm pretty happy with it and not really overwhelmed... now that everybody has stopped puking. so the natives are restless... I must go intervene.

good day to ya.

Uh...So I am not "super immune woman" like I suspected. Neither is Gabe. Spencer is still the anomaly, he must just be the carrier of all things illness related. So I started to feel a little "not right" on Sunday night. I took a Dramamine because there is nothing worse in the world to me than being nauseous and throwing up. Well if I was gonna puke I'd rather not be dizzy doing it. I was still optimistic as I fell into a cautious sleep. I had been out for about 45 mins when the phone rang. I answered thinking that it must be important for someone to call me at 10:39 (I looked at the clock) I was thinking maybe it was my husband. It was my grandmother-in-law. Calling to tell me that she had a hard time finding my phone number and that she wasn't going to send me the canning stuff, we'd have to drive to Idaho and pick it up, and then she started razzing the rest of the family like she does in every conversation. I typically "uh-huh" quite well, but this night all I wanted to do was get back to my non-puking sleep. I told her right at the beginning of the conversation that I had been cleaning up after the stomach flu for three days and that I wasn't feeling very well myself. She finally caught the clue when a half hour later I said "I need to go to the bathroom." I said it in part to just get off the phone and in part because I had an interesting feeling that I really needed to go. Little did I know that for the next several hours, on the hour, I would be in the bathroom *stomach fluing* my guts out. Stupid germs. When Monday 7am rolled around. The thought "There is no way, in anybodies world, that I am going to get any of these kids out the door to school...ain't gonna happen." Good thing too. Gabe started being sick a couple hours later. So they all watched movies and made messes. Lot's of messes. Spencer helped pretty well. I still had to change the diapers, but I was allowed to stay in bed/bathroom most of the day. And since most of everybody was still pretty queasy, the topic of food didn't come up that often.
So...we're all maintaining what goes in now. That is good. I do have to say that I would have preferred to lose the last 5 pounds in a different way, but whatever works. Only 10-15 more to hit my *before I had any kids* weight. I think I'll exercise for the rest though.

Good day to ya.

Stupid Computer,
I just went and added all my other friends blog addresses to my fellow bloggers, saved them. and then they didn't want to save. So I will have to take another 10 minutes of some imaginary hour to do it again. Whatever.

I am happy, however. The puking has subsided. Spencer, Gabriel and myself have gratefully escaped the clutches of the virus. I am remaining happy and grateful (a little bit of the Secret) that this will be the case entirely. So for now I am going to go clean my kitchen. I didn't dare take anyone to church today, it's Stake Conference. While I am disappointed to not be there. I am also not stupid or rude. It's not impossible to sit alone with 7 children and attempt to keep them sort of reverent, for 2 hours, But it isn't an easy task. Especially when they are recovering from the flu. I also don't want to take a chance at re-infecting everybody with the flu. Anyway I'm just wasting time now so it's off to disinfect I go.

Good day to ya!