Our House Is A Very, Very, Very Fine House

Our house is a very, very, very fine house.

Except when it isn't.

Like when I'm digging through the one closet in the whole downstairs that serves as a closet for my clothes, linens, storage, and present hiding or when the one bathroom is being waited on by some one who is always late for work and is getting later or when I'm trying to find the elusive outlet in our bedroom and it involves moving furniture and getting into a dust bunny nest.

Then I find my self muttering hateful, hurtful things about our house.

And that's not fair to this old lovely house. I knew it only had one closet downstairs. I knew it only had one bathroom. I knew it only had one outlet in the master bedroom. But it had hardwood floors, and beautiful molding, and awesome double glass doors, and three bedrooms and a big yard and I loved it.

I walked into this house with my eyes wide open, and while they may have been covered with rose colored glasses, this house is still a very, very , very fine house.

It is ours, warts and all, and it fits our family perfectly. It's a snug fit right now with two teenagers, all their friends, three dogs, and way too many cars and motorcycles, but it will be too roomy before I am ready.

The next time I am tempted to say mean things as I struggle to get the vacuum out of the closet, I will instead think about all the reasons this old house is so right. I will be thankful for the roof that holds up to snow and rain and bees and bats, for the spacious upstairs rooms with walk in closets, for a yard big enough for three dogs, a veggie garden, and a patio, for a driveway that holds 3 cars and one tent trailer, for a carport that shelters the guys as they work on their truck project, for the hot water tank that gives 3 hot showers and one luke warm one on a Sunday morning, and for a porch that is perfect for sitting.

Our house is a very, very, very fine house indeed.

Welcome To The Modern Age

I'm one of those people who doesn't like change.

I still have VHS tapes and I still watch them on my VCR.

But it was getting harder and harder to listen to my music CD's when everyone else in the family has iPods and sound systems designed to play said iPods and while I like a lot of the music on their iPods, lots of music I loved was missing.

My number one reason for not wanting an iPod is I do not like things in or on my ears, so those little ear buds are out. My family goes everywhere with their iPods plugged in to their ears. That is not for me.

But my lack of good music options led me to ask for an iPod for my birthday. My husband was shocked! But had been thinking along the same lines: he was going to get me a CD player.

I was overwhelmed by my new iPod before I even get it out of its packaging! It's so sleek and new fangled and how do I decide what music to download onto it? I want ALL of my music but there is no way that is possible.

My daughter sat down with me and for HOURS we went through my music CDs and downloaded them and listened to each song and picked my favorites. I kept saying, "I love that one," so by the end of the night, with my first session of downloading songs, my iPod was more than 3/4 full and I still had a ton of music I wanted and I hadn't even started using my iTunes gift card....

I was a bit obsessed for a few days!

But now it's been a week and my iPod is plugged into the speakers and I am listening to my favorites while I cook, do dishes, read, blog.....

Look at me! I've stepped into the modern age of music listening, and I've got to tell you, it is bliss.

Very Good Memories Are Made Here

Last year, when it was suggested that we (my sisters and our families) could camp in our grandparents back field, I said sure, but I was thinking how will this work? We've got 13 plus peeps, four dogs and we can get a little loud.

Well, it worked so perfectly, we decided to do it again this year.

We pack up our trailers and bring our fire pit and unleash the dogs and let the kids run barefoot and we don't worry about anything. We make pancakes and bacon and shout with joy when Grandma and Grandpa come down for breakfast. We build a fire, roast marshmallows, watch kids (and dads) wrestle, and we laugh. Oh how we laugh! We put the tired kids to bed and sit around the campfire until we are too tired to keep our eyes open...for some of us that happens earlier than others!

And when we have to say goodbye after two days of fun, even though we are tired and dirty and ready for a shower and clean clothes, we sympathize with the kids who are sad and the one dog who tries to stay behind. We understand!

Very good memories are made here, when we camp in the back field at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Sitting In A Field At 6:00 AM

Sitting out in a field at 6:00 in the morning might not sound like a good way to spend a Saturday morning.

I'm here to tell you it is.

It's all the better if you can sit out there and watch the beauty that is a country morning unfold. The peaceful quiet broken by a rooster crow, three dogs bounding around sniffing, the dew so plentiful said dogs are soaked from explorations, all the rest of the family campers still sleeping, a book in hand and the feeling of just right.

This is just right.

And it is so right, I did it again on Sunday morning.

The Best Kind Of Dish Towel

I do not have a dishwasher. Unless you count my own two hands....or the hands of my kids....or my husband. We have all taken our turn standing at the kitchen sink.

I know the kids wish we had a dishwasher, but I don't mind being without. I actually hate them. It seems like such a hassle to load everything down into it, then unload everything back up. My dirty dishes sit on the right side of my counter, my clean ones stack in the drainer on the left. I do not bend down unless I drop a spoon.

The problem I have is, I usually have too many dishes for the one drainer. Some have got to be dried and put away before I can fit more in. And I want them DRY. No wet cups suctioned together for me.

Having a decent dish towel is important. I am less about the cuteness or the color matching my kitchen scheme and more about the fact that the towel needs to dry the dishes. Not smear drops of water around to create an all around damp dish.

Enter this old school favorite: flour sack dish towel. This is the best towel in the world. It absorbs water, my cups are dry, and it's pretty darn cute. My sisters and I fairly separated out a stack of towels and table cloths between the three of us and I got these darling ones. I was so nervous to use them because they are so cute. My current dish towels are ragged things, used to dry dishes and to wipe chocolate cake batter off my fingers.

These little squirrels are not going to be pristine and clean for very long in my kitchen.

But they can dry a dish like nobody's business, and I love that!

Oreos: Regular Or Double Stuff

I have always considered myself a regular Oreo kind of girl. I like double stuff, but have you noticed you don't get as many cookies?

I have.

And I am all about the number of cookies. I can have 4 regular Oreos or two double stuff...hmm....decisions, decisions.

My husband loves double stuff (he recently said mint double stuff are his favorites) but he will make do building his own double stuff out of two regular ones. I love the white filling (what is that anyway? The best stuff on earth?) but the cookie part is so, so good. Sounds kind of gross now, but as a kid I'd eat the cookie part after my sister licked her white filling off.

While my husband and son were camping, my daughter and I bought some Oreos, regular, thank you very much. And they were good. I ate way too many. I went to work the next day and there was a ziploc baggy of double stuff Oreos in the kitchen. I'm usually suspect of baggies of cookies (always wanting to know where it came from, imagine that) and I wasn't going to eat one, but my lunch just needed something extra.

Holy Moly.

It was so good. So very good, I might be tempted to buy double stuff next time we want Oreos.

I finally understand. There is a difference, it is a delicious improvement, and eating two versus four doesn't really seem like a big deal anymore. They are that good!

16 Years Ago Today

There are pivotal moments in life that shape you into the person you become....

August 16, 1995 at 8:31 AM was one of those moments for me.

That was the moment our son was born, the moment sealed in my memory with joy and disbelief....I couldn't believe that he was really here, that he was really a boy, that he was so freaking beautiful....I remember saying, "Oh my goodness," as the doctor held him up for me to see, positive that couldn't have been all there was to becoming two instead of one.

And to the girl who prided herself in not crying at sad movies and remaining stoic in trying times, the first sight of my baby surprised me with tears. I was overwhelmed with this intense feeling of love and pride and amazement and worry and disbelief and it turns out, much of that feeling can be summed up in one concept: motherhood. And the only outlet for this surge of emotion was through tears.

The first born child is so very lucky, so says a first born child myself (sorry, second born beloved daughter), but it's true. He was the focus of all our attention. People would ask me if he was a good baby, and I would say yes, of course he is....then when his baby sister came along I learned he wasn't actually an easy baby. But he was our baby, and he was perfect!

Kind of still is!

August 16, 1995, at 8:31 AM, 16 years ago today.

It's gone by with the blink of an eye. Now when I see my son standing taller than me, I can't help but remember his tiny fingers and toes, his out of proportion with his body chubby checks, his swirly, curly cowlick in the center of his forehead....He may have grown and changed in looks, but when I look at him, I still see my baby. It's weird to think they let babies get drivers licenses.

Cuz that's what we are doing today.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, smart, funny, handsome Son. The moment I met you I knew I was going to love you for the rest of my life. Thank you for being you and making our lives so fantastically better!