Godcousins

Butch and I were so happy to have Anna and Matt be Evangeline's godparents. Last year, when Anna was newly pregnant with Marek, we celebrated Evangeline's baptism on May 16th (the ONLY one of my children's baptism dates that I remember...only because it was exactly one month after her birth date!). They have blessed us with the honor of being Marek's godparents and we will celebrate his baptism at the end of this month (probably the only OTHER baptism date in the family that I'll remember because it is also one of my brother's birth date!).

I love this picture (taken by Trina when we were unaware she was taking it) of our first visit to their house since Marek was born. They live 2 hours away and we had a hard time getting there with a broken van and so many people that wanted to visit (no one would let anyone ELSE go if they couldn't) but we finally braved the trashy weather and bald tires and gave it a go. We made it there and back alright but it just makes us wish we could live closer and visit again and again and again...sigh.

Cute Messenger

I'd just like you all to know: I'm done with snow and cold.
So...


...on YOU, Old Man Winter!!!

Soft and Stinky

I am sitting in the rocking chair in the living room. All is quiet. Everyone has abandoned me except the squirrelly girl in my arms who FINALLY decided to drift off while nursing. I switch her to my shoulder, where she grows limp and snore-y, and shnorkly.

I'm thinking about my sister with her new baby, Marek. I'm imagining holding him and having him fall asleep on my shoulder, limp and soggy, stinky and shnorkly.

Patchy Posting

I know I haven't been really regular at posting but it's the Holidays and I've got a lot of irons in the fire. Not the least of which is an on-going project to do some work for my local Patch site. If you don't know about Patch, read on:

It's a venture to get local news to individual communities. It was started up some time last year and is spreading all over the U.S.. Check out www.patch.com and then click on your state and maybe your own city to see what's going on in your hometown!

I also happen to know the editor and he asked me to "write something" (very descriptive instructions, I know!) for our Patch. I did, and he published it yesterday!

Here's a link to the story I told about my dad and how he made Christmas time very special for us every year: Click on the word PATCH
I've told the story before, I'm sure. I thought I had told it on here, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Then, I remembered that I had actually told it to our mom's group a few years ago and I remember how I was amazed at the reaction from a lot of the women in the group.

I think that people didn't have such rich traditions as my parents started in us. It made me understand just how important it is to HAVE traditions, even if it's just little ones, such as: "My mom and dad ALWAYS have us say prayers as a family before bed."

Kids form their memories around repetition, don't they? It's so important for them to have "something to hold on to" when their thumb doesn't taste so good anymore and their favorite blanky can't go with them to their office job. The comfort of a good family tradition will make them feel warm and snuggly even out in the cold, dark and lonely world...at least, that's what it has done for me!

So, read that story, curl up with your kids on these cold winter nights, and start some new traditions of your own. It's never too late!

P.S. My 16 year old daughter took that picture of my dad. She's very talented!

Nice Ice For Sale, Ten Cents A Pail

Analise and Niklaus, making the best of the dome-crushing 2010 blizzard.

Advent Freakout

I thought about doing "a post a day" in December but Lord only knew it wasn't happening. The transmission went out on the big gray bus, my baby sis had her first baby, I had to do a job for St. Michael Patch (our new local news site...check to see if you have a Patch.com site for your town!), I put Trina in a few classes at the high school, and there are many many many other things still on the schedule until before Christmas.

I can't wait until Lent.

Lent is more of a time waiting than Advent is. Advent seems to be a little more "bustle-y" for our family and it's not a matter of going around freaking out about gifts. It's more of a time of everything-falls-to-crap and we're playing catch up all month.

Maybe it's the same for a lot of other families. I know that things aren't all bad or dramatic (like a new baby or two!) but it feels like I've been on overdrive and it's always one step forward, then WHAMO back about 10 steps. I need to focus more on the 'reason for the Season'. Of course, everyone needs to be reminded of that this time of year, right?

Part of my new project was to visit businesses in the area so I got to see a lot of what was available in my town and I've actually gone back to 6 of the businesses (so far) to purchase something in the past 3 days. I stopped by a computer refurb store and bought a computer so this one doesn't have any pictures loaded up on it yet for that oh-so-exciting picture people always want to see with a new post.

I'll illustrate with words:

I look like an old lady with about 10 new wrinkles, unshaven legs, barely showered body, haircolor that's all worn out, my house is a disaster area, my kids are ignored, my hubs is yelling at me to stop writing on my blog and get back to work, and I gotta gooooooo......

Adios. Until I have a minute to breathe.

P.S. My legs are always unshaven this time of year. I just threw it in for your extra added enjoyment.

Soft and Stinky

I am sitting in the rocking chair in the living room. All is quiet. Everyone has abandoned me except the squirelly girl in my arms who FINALLY decided to drift off while nursing. I switch her to my shoulder, where she grows limp and snore-y, and shnorkly.

I'm thinking about my sister with her new baby, Marek. I'm imagining holding him and having him fall asleep on my shoulder, limp and soggy, stinky and shnorkly.

Seestairs, Seestairs

Around this time of year, I like to get into the holiday season by watching the classic "Christmas Movies".

Here's a short list of the Advent MUST SEEs:

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Miracle on 34th Street

Elf

and, of course, White Christmas

To tell you the truth, I only just watched White Christmas for the first time about 15 years ago, right around this time of year. We were living in an apartment in Monticello, and we had these neighbors, who rented a house on the other side of the parking lot. The mom was a few years older than me and was very...different from me. They had a couple of children together and their names were the first and last name of a famous musician. The man they named their kids after, happened to be a cousin of the dad of the family.

The kids played with little Trina and were very sweet, if not just a little rambunctious. The kids had very little discipline because their dad didn't work and their mom worked all the time. All in all, they were a nice family and they always had time for a visit. One day, the little girl (who was about 7 at the time) asked me if I'd watch a movie with her. She pulled out her FAVORITE tape and the whole family spazzed out when they found out I'd never watched it. The dad, especially, was aghast. "You mean you've nay-ver seen the White Christmas? Aye! It's the BES! OH! (singing in flat, out of tune voice) Seesters, seesters dare wear nehvar sohch deevoted seestairs...?" When I blankly stared at him (I mostly was just so surprised he had suddenly become so animated!), he looked at me with a "HOLY GUACAMOLE, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS AWESOME MOVIE BEFORE!" look. Clearly, me never seeing this movie was something he needed to remedy so, I settled down to watch this SOUPAIR movie with the family. After about 10 minutes, the dad was asleep, snoring on the couch.

I thought the movie had REALLY bad acting but the songs were good. When the movie came to the famous "Sisters" song, I finally figured out what the Mexican dad was trying to sing and it took all the couth I could muster to not bust a gut. The dad woke up at the end of the movie, scratched his stomach and offered me a beer. He then asked what I thought of the movie. I politely declined on the beer issue, and told him I liked it very much, thank you. He eyed me, warily, and asked if I wanted to borrow it. Of course, I borrowed it and watched it again. I needed to see what it was about that film that moved this family so much. It's almost like it provoked instant happiness in this family and it was OBVIOUSLY something on which they all agreed.

I still can't figure out what is so great about that movie. The only thing that I like about it is the sisters song. I felt so sorry for Rosemary Clooney because she was such an ugly duckling compared to Vera-Ellen. When I looked up Vera-Ellen on IMDB, I saw this unfortunate paragraph at the end of her bio:

It was discovered that Vera-Ellen silently battled anorexia throughout much of the 50s before doctors had even coined the term or devised treatments. Moreover, she developed severe arthritis following her retirement and was forced to revert to dance lessons again in order to combat it. If that wasn't enough, she had to endure two failed marriages while losing her only daughter, Victoria Ellen Rothschild, to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 1963. These tragic events turned her into a virtual recluse. Little was heard for decades until it was learned that she had died of cancer in Los Angeles, California, on August 30, 1981. Less remembered today compared to several of the big stars that shared the stage with her, Vera-Ellen was a lithe and lovely presence who deserved so much more. Nevertheless, she has provided film lovers a lasting legacy and deserves to be called one of Hollywood's true dancing legends.


Whoa. No thanks. Hollywood sucks the life of the soul, doesn't it? By the way, I learned that Rosemary Clooney's son, Miguel Ferrer is the crabby boss guy on Crossing Jordan. Also, he was in Robocop. He's George Clooney's first cousin. Weird.

So, around about this time of year, every year, I watch that movie again, wonder if I'm missing something about how great it really is, wonder what ever happened to that strange family, remember the Mexican dad's rendition of the sisters song, and I giggle.

The Most Frivolous, Stupid Post I've Ever Posted

Prince William is engaged. I thought when he was very young and when he became a teenager that he was going to be a VERY good looking man and I always thought, "Poor, poor Prince Harry, he's so awkward and funny looking. He'll always be 'second best'."

Recent pictures of the two, however, have altered my original thinking.

Prince William is looking an awful lot like his dad. He's got that funny shaped head, goofy horse teeth, and those sharp features are seeping through.

Prince Harry is turning out to be a very handsome man.

This opinion has been confirmed by my teenage daughter and google searches of images, at all ages, of the two.

Also, Prince Charles might be suffering the effects of all of those years of royal inbreeding. He's pretty much a total nutcase these days.
The End
P.S. I will never talk about this again.

New Stuff Never Gets Old

I can't believe I've known this child for 5 months and had no idea that she had this...this...this THING inside her mouth that entire time!


Oh, it doesn't look so...well...so obnoxious at this angle, but just you wait...

And THIS is only half-mast!


Here it is. Yes, it DOES look like those Tom & Jerry cartoon shots where Tom's tongue comes out of his mouth and Jerry walks up it like its a set of stairs. This thing is so weird, I just HAD to capture it in all of its glory and present it to you for your careful observance. Do you think she might be some kind of alien, switched at birth when I was taking a bath in the hospital? She looks otherwise normal, but I have my suspicions.

(We were both laughing so dang hard, it was almost impossible to take these pictures! It's this weird new trick she's been doing and there's no rhyme nor reason to why she does it...I think she just LIKES to do it, so she does!)

Momento Mori

*"Funny when you're dead, how people start listenin'..."

Sure like them there lyrics, yup I do.

Allrighty, so here's what's going on in my head this week:

What are my final wishes?

I've already expressed, to many people, some of these desires for my unfortunate demise but I figured I'd keep a place for all of them, right here on my blog, for all to see eternally, forever and ever, amen.

1. Everyone must wear black at my funeral. No clown colors.

2. I want a black cover for my coffin, no white. This isn't China and dead doesn't mean white...it means black. Dead, dead, deeeeeeeduh. Death=black.

3. I don't particularly like cut flowers so, if you MUST, bring something my kids can plant in the yard and that won't depress them so make it something pretty that you can't kill...like my favorite, LILACS!

4. I won't be a ghost and I won't come back to send you any messages, or leave you pennies, or make you feel like I'm watching you when you're picking your nose, or read my caringbridge page (if someone made one for me), or read facebook, or even this blog, or whatever so get over it already. I will either be A: in Heaven and won't want to leave but I'll put in a good word for you...or B: in purgatory where there is not escape so pray for me instead of look for me in the corner of that picture where you thought you saw a Laura shaped shadow...or C: in that other place (I don't THINK I'll be there, but one just really never knows and I'm pretty sure you can't leave once you get there, anyway so the issue of whether I'd be around to bug you if I went there is probably moot.).

5. If there HAS to be music at my funeral, please make it Latin chant? Just, just PLEASE don't torture me with the "Yoo Hoo" song at one more stinkin' funeral? You KNOW which song I mean: "YOO HOO dwell in the shelter of the night..." and YES, I do realize that I probably won't be there to punish you with a major haunting if you play that yoohoo song, but you don't know that FOR SURE, so, just to be safe. NO YOO HOO SONG!!!

6. Closed coffin. I don't want people's last sight of me to be in fake makeup and for people to see my chewed up fingernails wrapped lovingly around some rosary that should be left to my kids. Nope, I don't want to be dressed at all and I would PREFER to be cremated but there's no guarantee that every little dust bunny would be buried in sacred ground so bury me in a cheap coffin, no frills, not fluffy satin blankies, no artifacts, no jewelry (I'm not a time capsule, for pete's sake!) and no clothes. I want the worms to do their darndest RIGHT AWAY. No mouldering for years and years. Blech.

7. No leaving trinkets and notes at my graveside. I can't read them. I'm DEAD. I can't touch or enjoy anything left where my stone is placed, so offer it to some living person. I don't even need flowers brought there. Just visit the site to make sure nobody's desecrating it, say "howdy, Laura" and give me a quick wave (if you must) and a prayer. That should do the trick.

8. You may briefly sob and carry on at my funeral. You can go ahead and make a giant posterboard of pictures of me but only if they are at least 80 percent of me making faces or dressed in a funny costume. I want people to remember me as a person who made them laugh, not as some forgettable whiner who wasn't very good at math and who was quite selfish and boring when you really think about it. Also, most of the pictures should be of my kids because they got all of my good features and that's how I'd like to be remembered.

9. I want pall bearers to ACTUALLY CARRY out my sorry carcass. No "honorary" wimps, only real life giant men get to carry my coffin. If you followed rule number 6, it shouldn't be a problem. Yep, that's me! "Light as a feather, stiff as a board!"

(I reserve the right to change my mind and add to this list. I don't expect to keel over anytime soon, I've just been thinking a lot about death since my 38th birthday is coming up. Forty is one foot in it and I've been feeling my mortality lately.)

Identity

I have been emailing a good friend. I used to babysit for her, back when I was a teenager. Her son has babies and I see him and his family in church. He knows who I am (sort of, I did babysit him when he was in diapers) but my friend recently informed me that her daughter-in-law said they saw me in church and referred to me as "that red-haired lady".

Wow.

I'm a "THAT"??!!! I am some old, busybody, red-haired, stalker, crazy woman who smiles too much at babies, asks too many nosey questions, and pays too much attention to them in the back of church? That's worse than that skinny usher lady with the bossy demeanor, or that goofy looking usher guy who says the responses too loud, that guy who wears overalls to church, or running/stomping/screaming kid who continues running/stomping/screaming even when they bring her OUT of the sanctuary!!! Come ON! Seriously? Oh, man.

I'm going to introduce myself to them the next time and remind them my name is Laura and maybe invite her over for a visit with her kids.

I just can't be a "that lady".

Oh, and to be fair, guy-who-wears-overalls wears his NICE overalls to church.

That One Kid

I just enrolled Matthew in public middle school part time. It will be his first time in a public school setting. He'll have to check into the office and out again. He'll also try the school lunch. He was only going to take Spanish, Industrial Tech, and Gym during that third period (rotating days) but the counsellor told me that it wasn't next to lunch (the only "class" he was REALLY interested in haha) so I signed him up for science and math too! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THAT'll show him! I told him it's not it's all cracked up to be, but he's a boy and might actually enjoy it...lunch, that is.

He and Wade were in the backseat the other day, talking about how he'll act at school, since he's the only one in that school who will have that weird schedule. I told him that he could invent an identity for every class. We came up with cool states he could possibly have come from or some kind of secret spy identity. I told them both about what the witness protection plan is all about and how he could say that "Matthew N." is just his cover name and his real name has to be kept a secret or some nefarious group would find him. I told him he could really achieve the status of "The Most Interesting Man in 8th Grade", if he played his cards right.

No matter what his secret identity story, or how shy he decides to act, I know he'll make a lot of new friends and the teachers will really enjoy teaching him. I've already got the office staff excited about a new student. I think that they are jazzed about proving to a home educated child that public school is not bad and can be a good thing (we already know that, but I'm okay with the teachers/staff going that extra mile to try to prove it heh heh heh!).

Matthew just turned 13 and though I've been trying not to highlight the older kids, out of respect for their privacy, I have to say how proud I am of the man he's becoming. He just finished firearm safety training and I watched to see how he responds to someone else teaching him. He sat at attention, took notes, followed along, all with a cool expression...as if he's been public schooled his whole life. He didn't offer any know-it-all answers (even though he DID know everything they were talking about), but I know he's taking it all in and he even studied when he came home.

I know that doesn't sound like any big deal, but since he mostly hangs around public schoolers, he's under the impression lately that he's a freakazoid because he homeschools and that homeschoolers are anti-social weirdos who regularly wear capes and pretend to joust well into their twenties.

I set him straight and show him how he knows all kinds of different weirdos from all walks of life, but then he points out to me how I'm married because I went to public school.

?

So, since I won't let him go ALL day and get institutionalized and zombiefied by "The Man", and since he wishes to experience life outside this pukey, poopy, chaotic, baby crying, "I can't concentrate when people make NOISE!", no I didn't yes you did no I didn't yes you did infinity...household, we compromised with this modified schedule for the school day. I think it's just perfect! Wouldn't you just LOVE to go to school at 10am and then head home after lunch around 1:30ish?

I don't usually like to predict what my children's vocations will be, but I can see that kid in the military. He is obedient, hard working, dedicated, strong, smart, handsome, and makes friends very easily.

He's also a total goofball with a smart-a sense of humor.
I think he was switched at birth with some other baby because no one else in this house is like THAT.

By the way, doesn't it bug you that NO spell checks recognize the word "homeschool"??? That's always kind of bothered me.

Something Different For A Change Of Pace Myself And I Have A Dream A Little Dream

There once was a man from Siam
Who ate lots of beans and Spam
Al Gore came to scold
the neighbor, he told
He forgot to recycle the can

I only re-wrote it twice. Oh yeah, I'm just that good.

Here's another one, just off the cuff:

(Jennie's twins: A Haiku)

Plural pals, sleep now
Mama waits to snuggle you
two more cute Herbst-es

But, what I started with was this:

Jennie hears two hearts
"I'll be as big as a HOUSE!"
Little stinkers laugh

I need to slow down and just get things done around here. I was hoping this weekend would be my "get the school stuff organized" weekend, but the humidity is up and the A/C is DOWN. Yikes.

Okay, going down the wrong path now so it's time to screw around again:

Doris the cat went to jail
for getting caught out in the hail
"I didn't expect
that I'd get so wet
and now, I'm hairless and pale."

Got hail-pelted cats on my mind, I guess.
Oh, here's another one for Mike:

Beer: A Haiku

(I love the title, it's so contradictory in that it's so earthy and sophisticated, all at the same time, don't you think?)

It's called a "Beer Club"
A whole bunch of microbrews
One giant headache

Of course, how could I not end this fabulous post-etry without a tribute to my beloved:

Butch was a husband I had
the kids and I called for him, "DAD?"
We looked and we looked,
could not find where he booked...
he was in the garage being bad.

Okay, that one was kind of for Mike, too.

Crush

I've got so much to be thankful for. I could list it all but I'm sure it would be a boring thing and too long of a list to read. I have the list in my heart, and that's good enough.

I also have much to regret and be embarrassed about. I've made so many mistakes this year, it's crushing me and my family under a mountain of worry and all of these "running away" feelings are just my coping mechanisms taking over and it's not good.

When the people around me lose hope, I usually fight back with tons of optimism and fixits galore, but I'm getting very tired and not really finding those reserves that I need to help prop everyone up. I HATE. I have a lot of anger and hate in my heart for the things around me that seem to be pulling me down into that sin of hopelessness and useless regret.

Debbiedowner is back again, full force. As much as I love the season of fall, it always happens this time of year. I think I kind of know why. It's because it's the time of year that I feel most accountable to "the Man". School starts, activities for the kids rev up, we have to be certain places at certain times, winter is coming and so are the bills that come with colder weather, the holidays, and school books, kids are not used to the "buckling down" and get more anxious and their fighting starts to make me feel like a failure. I can't keep up.

I really can't keep up. I've been fooling myself for 2 years that things FOR SURE have to get better and that the economy will turn around soon and that there will be more work for Butch and I can make "extra" by doing something at home...it's all a total farce. Work is NOT coming for Butch and, in reality, his income will have been cut nearly in half by the end of the year (with the bits and pieces taken off in such a slow, menacing way, it was hard to see at the time:lay offs, injury, half days here and there, etc.). The sick irony of it is that his job was always "recession proof" in the past. Every time he'd come home and say "Things are going to slow down! They hinted at it in the office!", I'd just laugh and say "Yeah, right!" because it never did...BEFORE. Now that it's a reality, it has me stumped. How do we move forward when we can't even pay for the here and now? How do people live like this?

We've always been stretched, and suffered hard times early in our lives together...but this is just...so bad. We have each other and we have a great family, but everyone in it is suffering similar worries. What happens when we can no longer lean on each other for support, for fear of pushing the other person over the edge?

It's going to be a tough rest of the year. We are going to have to make some hefty decisions and I really don't know what to do. I hate being a slave to debt and insecurity.

There are a lot of "I"s in this stressed out rant. Depression is a very selfish thing.

Hopehopehopehopehopehopehopehopehopehopehopehope has to be the mantra/prayer. I just can't find it right now.