More Box Woes

I woke up at 2 am this morning. It mostly was because I had gone to sleep in Camryn's room and she was slowly pushing me out of bed. But anyway, I started thinking about boxes again and had a mini panic attack that we were going to run out next week. When I got into work today I ordered 36 more. These boxes are slowly driving me insane. Most people have bad dreams where they are being chased by monsters. My dreams are filled with bankers boxes. Good heavens it is time to get this move over with!!!

Eggs, Eggs...How Many Eggs Do I Need?

One year at Easter, prior to starting this blog, I remember obsessively counting how many eggs I needed to get through the holiday. I seriously spent a week counting and re-counting in my head how many eggs I would use. I needed some to dye, I needed to make deviled eggs and a cake...how many people would be there, how many deviled eggs would they eat. It was awful. I couldn't get eggs off of my mind. I went around all day every day thinking "eggs, eggs, how many eggs do I need."  To solve my problem every time I got close to a grocery store I would buy more eggs. I'm not exaggerating when I say this...I think I ended up with 6 dozen eggs by the time Easter came and went that year. And the funny part of the story...after my cake had been in the oven about 10 minutes I realized I had forgot to put the eggs in it. I took it out of the oven and re-mixed it. Surprisingly it turned out ok. 

I also do the same thing every Thanksgiving and Christmas with butter. I'm constantly counting how many sticks of butter I will need to make everything. Every time I go to the store I throw in a package or 2 of butter.  The fear of running out of butter at Christmas scares me.  It seriously has to be on the list of phobias somewhere.   Usually after the holidays we are good on butter until corn on the cob season rolls around. 

Currently I am doing the same thing with boxes.  Except I'm not just counting them in my head. I'm being forced to count and recount and count again with co-workers. How many do we have, how many do we need, how many will we need to pack our current files. We had a get together with our new Springfield staff in Tuesday. I swear we spent every bit of 10-15 minutes talking about boxes. Ahhh. I have gone over and over and over the boxes. Finally I said if I could order some on my own we would have them within a day or two. It was settled. I was ordering boxes. We could move on....until 30 minutes later. We re-visited the box discussion. Then I got told not to order a bunch of extra...ok...but then everything has to be packed up by noon on the 10th...

I went to work Thursday morning with a van full of boxes. Jade counted them for me and said we had 90. Then I broke the news that we could only use the bankers boxes on the files. The crappy boxes have to be used for our offices. Neither of us were recounting so we just estimated. I had to go back to Springfield today and I bet I talked boxes at least 30 minutes of my time there talking boxes. I am sick of boxes...It really has turned kind of hilarious. Every other word out of some people's mouths to me today was boxes. 

So..our move is in 2 weeks. Hopefully I have estimated fairly close to the correct number of boxes and file space we will need. I am afraid if I haven't some people my loose their faith in my abilities....

A Bizarre Week

This has been a weird week. On Tuesday  I was thinking about something that happened just the day before but it felt like 10 years ago. 

This week has been a mixture of sad and funny, aggravating and annoying, loud and crazy, etc. We've had some medical issues with a church member and had a funeral dinner for another member.  Camryn ran around with no diaper. Cade had some mood swings and I had a couple of days at work where I either wanted to scream or laugh. Camryn has been obsessed with a book I got at the conference last week- she even took it to Stacy's today.  I also drew the attention to someone who called the school about a Facebook comment I made. I knew I shouldn't have posted it - it was nothing vulgar or anything like that, but someone didn't like it..so I will try to not have separate opinions from others from now on. Jay got a letter from the little girl who irritated him a couple of weeks ago. They are hung in a place of honor on our fridge. 

Back to the Facebook comment- I'm still irritated about it but I'm trying to channel my inner Christian spirit and not harbor a grudge.  But it is hard.  I keep revisiting It over and over...but I have to let it go. It to shall pass.... 

And today is only Thursday...

Please ignore the chips on the floor that are on top of a huger water spot. She had spilled a big cup of water earlier in the evening. 

A side note to the day in the life...

This has been a strange day. It started out fine but them got a little crazy towards the end. I also forgot to mention Jay talking to Cade's teachers- which means we will probably be marked again. We've been marked all through elementary. But the crowning moment of the day was when the locks got changed in the school doors and Jay is now locked out of his shop. He has taught there since 2001 and he no longer can go in his shop door. We were talking about the amount of homework Cade has and Jay said he agreed there was too much...but what does he know since he doesn't even have a key to his shop. Is it just me or do people not use their heads anymore?  I told him to try to let it settle out on its own. Surely something that stupid will eventually take care of its self...But the principal did finally see that Lyle might need a key to the meats lab. Do the teachers work for a school or a prison?  I may need to sharpen my pencil and write few letters. 

A Day in the Life

This past weekend my mom and I attended the Joyce Meyer Love Life Women's Conference in St. Louis. It was great. I'll post more about it in some other posts this week. Instead I need to type out my evening...

It all started with me buying Cade The Battlefield of the Mind for Kids. If you haven't ever read Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind in the adult version it is great. Especially for someone like me who has problems with anxiety. Satan knows my mind is my weakest spot. I have seen Cade unfortunately develop a lot of my traits when it comes to how his mind works. I saw the book on the resource table at the conference and thought it would be something great we could read together. The first chapter must have really made an impression on Cade because within minutes he was saying how awful Monday's are. I told him he needed to repeat that today was going to be a good day. As he left for school this morning I reminded him today was going to be a good day.

My day was fine. Jay had a meeting tonight so he brought Cade to me. The explosion started the minute they walked in. Cade had some homework that he had for a few days and it is due tomorrow. Jay was mad, Cade was upset. I felt bombarded. I walked outside with Jay to get the full scoop on what all happened today. When I walked back in Cade was in my office very upset and said "you said today was going to be a good day." Whoops-I guess he didn't quite understand that I wasn't guaranteeing him a good day - he just needed to tell himself it was going to be good.

I was dreading going home as much as he was. It is hard teaching your kid responsibility and not hovering all the time. Since I was trying to make him responsible I'm having to help him catch up some stuff that should've been done earlier. So after working all day and feeding everyone I'm also revisiting cell labeling, interviewing a grandparent, spelling words, reading and the dreaded math homework. Yes, if both kids weren't already in the car with me I would've drove on past the house.

On the way home I tried talking to Cade about some of his positives. There was nothing good about his day. I pointed out that he woke up breathing, he could walk and he was healthy. There were a lot of people who would love to have his kind of "bad day." He said "no they wouldn't because if they were sick they wouldn't want to do all the work I had to do." I said "well but if they were healthy they wouldn't mind doing the work."  He said " no one would want to do all the work I have to do."  I decided to give it a rest for a minute.

Around all the time the above conversation was going on Camryn was screaming for my water bottle.  I gave it to her because I can only stand one of them being upset at a time.  All of a sudden I heard the sound of a full bottle of water being poured on her lap and her carseat.  I almost ran off the side of the road. 

After recovering from almost hitting a mailbox I tried another approach.  'So there had to have been something good about your day.  How was lunch?" 
"Lunch was horrible"
"Ok, so someone must have said something funny and made you laugh or they laughed at something funny you said."
"No, the people who laugh are better at me...(and then other incoherent mumbling)

The conversation and short ride home was quickly spiraling out of control.  Thank goodness our driveway was in sight.  I sent Cade to his room to collect himself and I walked to the mailbox to collect myself. On the way back Camryn's diaper fell off.  At least something worked right on the car ride home.  Her diaper absorbed a good portion of the water she spilled.  I threw it in our dumpster.

We all seemed to get ourselves collected and after a scrumptious meal of hot pockets settled down to our work. Cade was labeling cell parts and Camryn was coloring.  I got out a coloring book and Camryn and I worked on that while helping Cade.  I was proud of myself.  I was staying calm and I was rocking this mother thing.  It was a good night.

Then I realized  that Camryn was wearing a long dress and I couldn't remember putting  a diaper on her.  I lifted up her dress and sure enough her little bare bottom was sitting on my kitchen chair.   I never replaced the diaper that I had thrown in the dumpster over an hour ago.  She had been all over our house.

God definitely has funny ways of keeping us humble!!  I'm off to check the house.  If Cade steps in a pile of something gross tonight he's really going to think I lied to him about having a good day.

Little People Incident Update

First of all I want to apologize for some of the crazy typos I've had in some previous posts. I do a lot of typing on my phone and it is really hard to catch all of the mistakes. I also swear the auto correct changes things once I scroll past them. Seriouly - much like how I know it changes words in my texts as soon as I hit send. Then for some reason when I get on a big computer I can only do posts in HTML - which is an absolute pain. If I type on a computer I have to put the paragraph spaces in on my phone. So please, don't think I'm a complete idiot. I did finish HS...even though I had to google "predicate" the other night while helping Cade with his homework....I at least recognize the mistakes, it just almost impossible to fix all of them.

 Secondly I wanted to update you on the Little People situation from Sunday night. I thought I'd save all of you who where gathering your Little People up and planning to hold them hostage from your children until they were 10 some time. I don't think the choking episode went down quite exactly how I first described it. I blame that on Jay (ha ha). He was in no mood to talk or describe with any sort of detail the play by play that I needed when we talked about the incident. He was done. All he wanted to do was watch Argo. I kept making him pause the movie as I drew a word out of him every so often. Finally I gave up and pieced the story together as best I could with the limited amount of informaiton I got out of him. Monday night he was much more talkative and I was able to get the whole story. 

 Error #1 - they were not in the church basement. They were in another part of the church. There was a couch set up facing a TV and there was a table behind it with the pizza's on it. Cade, some other boys and our youth minister were on the couch zoned in to the Xbox. Error #2 - Camryn did not bounce off of the island. She staggered into the couch, bounced off of it, hit the table AND then (rest your elbow on your desk, hold your hand straight up in the air, then drop your hand to your desk) Camryn fell over face first "like a 2x4" according to Jay. He demonstrated it to me exactly like the arm thing described above. Jay picked her up and the Little People was not actually wedged in her mouth. It was stuck in her teeth. Her jaw was completely extended so she couldn't move it anymore to get the toy out. Much like the time I remember getting a toothpick stuck length wise in my mouth. I panicked-which is what she did. Jay said when he picked her up she looked like a roasted pig with an apple stuck in her mouth. Oh and the boys had no idea any of this was taking place directly behind them. 

 She seems to be fine, no worse for the wear. She has been acting normal so I'm going to try to not let myself get concerned about the whole ordeal. But I will be cautious around her when she plays with Little People from now on.

20,000 tickets....

Saturday, which felt like the hottest day if the year, we went to Silver Dollar City. It was Cox Employee Day. A lady who worked for Cox said they gave out 20,000 tickets to their employees and their families. Twenty thousand tickets...and I saw my first two every cranky SDC employees. You know it's bad when they loose their tempers.

It ended up being my dad, Charity and her kids and me and Camryn. Did I mention it was hot?  And there were 20,000 other people there?  At one point we heard the train was backed up three train rides. Thank goodness I've seen Alfie and Ralphie rob the train and  shoot themselves about 600 times in the last 36 years. We didn't have to go on the train Saturday. But we did have to ride the Merry Go Round probably 10 times. I rode it twice with Camryn and then I felt like I was going to get sick. We took a break and played in the sand for awhile. 

Sand and sweating. Not a really good combination. Camryn did really good for awhile. There were some older kids playing and she kept to herself, which is normal for this age, but at least she didn't seem intimidated by them. Then they left and she had the area to herself for awhile. A few minutes later another girl about her age came over to play.  I was sitting in a bench trying to recover from spinning on the merry-go-round so I was supervising from a few feet away.  This mom and grandma were much more helicopterish than I was. Clearly they had been able to skip the hellish carousel ride and could still stand. 

I don't know what came over Camryn but she picked up a handful of sand and threw it.  I want to say I have no idea if she meant to do it or not. But I don't think that would be truthful. I saw a gleam in her eye when she tossed it. Anyway I told her not to throw sand. End of story. I didn't swat or threaten...honestly I didn't even get up from the bench. Well I don't  think mom and grandma liked it much. I got two dirty looks from them and then they spent 5 minutes bugging their little girl by peeling her eyelids back.  They irritated her more than what Camryn did to her.  It is a good thing Camryn was ready to do something else or the heat might have made me say something I shouldn't have, especially when they went back to digging in her eye the 2nd time.  I don't condone sand or rock throwing, but I've also been a mother for almost 12 years. The minute you act like another kid is the devil is pretty much ensuring your kid will eventually do the same thing. Now if Camryn had pushed the girl down and started throwing punches I would've understood the dirty looks, but come on...they are toddlers!!!

After that I convinced Camryn to let Papa take her on the mere-go-round. I had to leave to get everyone water. That turned out to feel like the equivalent of trekking across the Sahara. When I got back I waited for the ride to end so I could rescue Papa Kerry. My poor dad...he was drenched in sweat. He handed her back to me and said "she is a chunk!!"  We decided we'd had enough and it was time to leave!

We did eat at Lamberts that afternoon!  That was fun-and really good!  It was a fun trip and I'm glad we all got to go. We missed Cade, but he was at a 4-H Livestock Judging contest. 

Jay had an altercation of his own at the contest. A bratty girl who is Cade's age was on the team. While Jay was trying to take a team picture she kneed Cade in the thigh. I'm pretty sure Jay lost his mind with this girl. I talked to him awhile later and his blood pressure was just returning to normal. He wants to send a letter! But he got the ultimate modern day revenge. He cut her out of the team picture he put on Facebook. Take that!!!

You can see her elbow next to Cade. And yes, Jay is FB friends with her mom.