This should get easier, right?

They say that everything gets easier the more you do it. I'm still waiting for that. Every morning seems like a struggle to get up and get moving. Plus the moving itself isn't getting any easier. I did pretty well on my jogging on Monday once I got out of bed. I was cozy and didn't really want to get up, but I did.

I built Legos with the boys all morning. We went out to lunch and then to the park to play with the bouncy balls (from the dentist last week). These super bouncy balls are great on hard surfaces, but dangerous in the house. The b-ball court at Fort Smallwood park works perfectly for bouncing.

The playground there is also one of our favorites. Yesterday, it wasn't though. Once side of the playground was surround by a large amount of water and the water smelled bad...like sewage. We didn't stay long and we seemed to be the only people bothered by it. One woman was letter her son ride his scooter through it over and other (it was covering a paved path). Someone else let her two small girls walk through it. Another person let their dog drink from it. Yuck!

I wasn't the only one who smelled it. I trust Joe's nose. He has a very sensative and correct sense of smell. He thought it smelled really bad too.

We came home and got ready for our neighbor to come visit. I watch him two days a week in the afternoon. Sam and Carl had the cutest conversation yesterday. Carl will be three in about 2 weeks. They were sitting next to each other on the couch.
Sam: "Carl, I got a broken toe"
Carl: "I brought badmitton"
Sam: "I got a broken toe"
Carl: "I brought badmitton"
Sam: "I got a broken toe"
Carl: "I have badmitton"
Sam: "Look, I got a broken toe"
Carl looks very closely at the now healed broken toe and says "I got badmitton"
It was very very cute and I was trying not to giggle.
We later played badmitton in the front yard, or at least Carl and Sam swung some rackets around. Not a good idea. Sam hit Carl right on the corner of his eye. Left a nice little cut and bruise. Poor kid.
Sammy just didn't quite act himself yesterday, almost like he was getting sick. About an hour after Carl left, Sammy was running a bit of a fever and fell asleep on my bed. After he slept there for about 1 1/2 hours, I moved him to his own bed. He was really hot then so I woke him enough to give him some medicine. He went right back to sleep. He never got any dinner since he slept through it.
I got up about 15 minutes or so late this morning. I had forgotten to set the alarm but the trash trucks woke me up. I forced myself out of bed and got dress to jog. As I was hunting for socks, Jay said that I needed to be fast today. I asked why and was told that he needed to be in the shower by 7. I looked at the clock. It was now 6:49. I am usually gone about half an hour for jogging/walking and an hour for walking. Well, I guess I'm not going then. I couldn't even really go back to bed since I was already dressed and Sam was laying in my spot. I curled up on the end of bed and waited to steal Jay's spot. By 7:10, I was pretty irritated. He finally rolled out of bed, but I should have just jogged. I was trying to be considerate.

Oh not again

Well, Sunday wasn't a whole lot better for me and the funky mood. I jogged a bit but just wasn't in it at all. So I walked...all the way to the end of the road and back. It's about 2 miles to the end of the road. I walked there and then back (about 4 miles). When Joe was just about 6 months old, I used to put him in the backpack carrier, have Domino on the leash, and walk that same walk once a day. It was Father's Day and I gave Jay about the same considerations that I got on Mother's Day this year...not much. I didn't really care this year and neither did he. He worked on a lot of projects outside and I cleaned a few things in my office. I just wasn't feeling up to doing anything besides laying around. I really dislike when I am in a funk. I tried to scrapbook a little after the kids were in bed, but nothing came of it. So I went to bed early, about 9:20. I read for a while and Sammy started crying at 10. I went in to check on him. He had taken his diaper off after going to bed and was now crying because he had peed the bed. He has been known to remove his diaper from time to time. I had checked on him before going to bed, but he had his pj's on. I didn't think to pat his bottom to check for this diaper. It was also dark in his room so I didn't see the diaper hidden in the corner. I quickly changed Sam and carried him to the living room where he could cuddle with Jay on the couch while I changed his sheets. He went back to bed and back to sleep really well though.

Funky Saturday

Well, Friday night, Jay and I drank margaritas. Lots of them. So, I woke up slightly later this morning for my exercise. I got up at 7 and went out the door in a haze. I walked a long ways and then had to turn back because it was starting to rain. It then rained harder and Jay and the kids came and got me. Though it didn't rain as hard this time as it did the last time I got rained on. I'm not sure what my problem was today. Maybe the weather, maybe too much to drink on Friday, maybe the never-ending Lego sorting...who knows. I was just in a real funk all day today. Jay had hoped to work on some house projects outside, but the rain prevented him from doing much. During one break in the weather, he did manage to dig the septic tank lid out. He tied back all the branches on the evergreen tree and then dug out the lid. He was able to do it with very little damage to the tree, which is good. We now have to get it pumped. I'm sure that will fall to me to get it done.
Don't really have much to say. Not sure what my problem is. Hopefully, I will get out of this funk soon.

A day of sorting

I started sorting Legos and Knex on Thursday morning, around 9:30. My kids don't like to build a set and then be missing a piece so the goal is to get all the pieces in the sets they belong in and then move them upstairs to bedrooms. This is the first time ever that my kids have had toys in their rooms. They are pretty excited about it.
I worked all day, only stopping for lunch. The kids played in the toy room, carefully avoiding my little piles of pieces. When Jay walked in the door, I actually thought he was home early. He wasn't. He was home just on time and I was way late at starting dinner. Opps. I didn't even have a dinner plan.
So, we called Joe and Tom in from outside and gave a quick bath to them (they were super muddy). We all bundled up and headed to Rocky Run for the evening. Rocky Run offers a kids eat free (with purchase of adult meal) on Thursday and a man makes very nice balloon animals or hats for all the kids. This time Tommy picked a snail and Joe picked a dragonfly hat. Both were super cool. Sammy got a Cookie Monster. Sammy didn't get a choice. He is too little for a choice so he either ends up with Elmo or Cookie Monster.
I had nachos. I love nachos. I just had forgotten that those nachos aren't worth it. They just aren't the best. They are okay, certainly not worth the calories that I have to give them.
I did come home and finally hit the treadmill. Ugh. Heartburn, stomach ache and leg cramps. I know better than to excerise after a big meal. But I did at least do it for a short time.
I didn't end up getting to sleep until 12 last night, but I got up at my usual 6:20 to jog. I did really well this morning. I jogged slightly farther than I have ever gone.
My mom showed up at 9 today. Dad is out of town and she gets a little lonely. She also wanted to go to Ikea and hates shopping there alone. So we dropped the big kids off at the playland area and walked around the store with Sam. I (for once) didn't buiy a single thing. There's really no point in buying something that I will pack up to store in a few months. Just no point. Mom bought several things for the bedroom they are redoing. We then came home. She wants to help me sort and box. I am not much for wanting help on the projects I am doing right now. So I went to the attic and grabbed some boxes of kids clothes. We sorted 3t and 4t clothes by season and got rid of the really worn out things.
She really wanted to work in the office so I took her down there and we packed one box and that was it. That room is just not ready for packing yet.

Right?

Everytime Sam makes a declaritive statement or a question, he ends it with a "right?" He will proudly proclaim "I eat fruit loops, right?" Of course, this cracks me up in some ways, but it can get a bit annoying in others. There are just some things he is not supposed to do at all or by himself that he does. He has gotten to be quite the independent little man. On Sunday, Sam was napping and everyone else was outside. I was talking to Jay while he loaded the old aluminum siding onto the trailer and asked if Sam was still sleeping. I replied that he was as of a few minutes ago when I had check in on him. Not even a minute later, Jay says "Oh, I guess Sam's not sleeping." Sam had gotten up, left his room and come outside in search of us. Not a huge problem except that I can just see him wandering outside on his own without getting me to go with him. With our busy roads by our house, he is just too little to be out without a grown up.
Last night, I put Sam to bed and closed his door and locked it. We turned the lock around on his door ages ago because he was getting up in the middle of the night and wandering the house. After about 15 minutes, Sam went to his door and said he needed to go poopy. I went to unlock the door and couldn't!!! The doorknob lock was broken! No matter which way I twisted the little knob, the door just wouldn't unlock. Of course, since the door knob is backwards, the screws to remove the doorknob are on the inside of the room!! The hinges for that door are also on the inside! I couldn't get Sam out! Jay was sailing and wouldn't be home for about 3 hours, both of my manly neighbors that I trust to help out are out of town, my dad is on a business trip to Kentucky and my father-in-law didn't answer his cell. I did my best to remain calm, but it was really hard to hear my son crying and screaming for me and I couldn't do anything to get to him. I had faith that Jay would be able to get him out once he was home and that we would just have to wait until then. (If there had been an emergency, I would have busted the door or something...but this just wasn't an emergency)
Once Jay got home, I asked him to rescue our child. Sammy had put himself back into bed after about 15 minutes of crying. I had assumed he had pooped in his diaper and gone to bed. The first thing Jay did was grab a screwdriver and head for the door only to turn around and come back with the comment "the screws are on the inside". Yup, I knew that already. It took him about 15 minutes or so to break the doorknob enough to get it open. Sammy was sound asleep, naked in bed. His pj's and diaper were by the door and on the rug were nice little piles of poop. He had tried to wipe on the mess on the floor with a hat, which had made a bigger mess. Poor kid. I wasn't upset at him or anything. He did the best he could with a bad situation.

I didn't jog yesterday because we all had dentist appointments first thing in the morning. It was pouring this morning, so I didn't jog yet today. I plan to get on the treadmill here in a bit and do some jogging and yes, I do plan to hold myself to that.

Another day, another jog, and the boxes

I took a day of rest on Sunday from excerise and then regretted it. I just didn't want to get up in the morning, but it's not like I slept in or anything. MOMS Club drama in the morning caused me stress all day. I hate conflict, even if I am not directly involved.
Most of Sunday was just not very productive. I folded a little laundry, I did some dishes, made dinner, but that was it. My house is full of boxes that I have no where to put. Before Jay left for Australia, we were putting boxes in the attic of the garage. Then we weren't moving so the boxes that I packed while Jay was gone have sat in the basement. Now we are moving to Australia and everything that I packed before needs to be gone through. We are limited on both what we can store and what we can take with us. NGC will only ship 1400 lbs of stuff and store only 11,000 lbs of stuff. The 11,000 will be all of our furniture, books and dishes. We are hoping that the limit is enough. Once we made the decision to move to Australia, I started packing our books. We have 21 boxes of books. This doesn't count children's books as we will be taking many of those with us.
Those boxes are also sitting in the basement. Of course, with all that weight on the floor, the floating floor can't float anymore and can't shift when it expands. The floor is now buckling in many places. Jay really wants to get all the stuff out of there, but we have no where to put it. He doesn't want to put in up in the top of the garage because everything up there should be sorted again with a different purpose in mind. Jay would like to empty one side of the bottom of the garage for me to have a place for sorting and storing. We have to pay to store the Checker and the motorcycles and tools anyway. I was going to wait until late fall to pay for storing that stuff, but Jay thinks we should do it sooner. That way I would have a place to stack boxes. Okay, sounds good. I will just suck it up and pay. Then the next day, Jay says we should wait until August because he just doesn't have enough free weekends until then to move the stuff to storage. Okay...but what are we going to do with the boxes? He doesn't know and doesn't like any of the ideas that I have given. Some of my ideas:
1) top of the garage- no, doesn't want to carry them up the ladder just to carry them back down. Plus no room to separate them from the ones that are up there.
2) get the toys out of the basement and store boxes until fall there- no, he wants to get the floor cleared so that he can fix the floor.
3) move the Checker out of the garage so that we can move things around in there and have one side empty- no, the Checker must be in the garage. (Okay, this car was built in 1963 and bought by his grandparents brand new in the fall of 63'. The car was never parked in a garage until Jay finished building his in 2007. The paint has been bad for years. It won't hurt it too much more to move it out for a few months. Geez.)
4) Smartbox- rent a Smartbox and park it in the driveway for a few months. (I don't really like this option, but at least I wouldn't be banging into boxes all the time). --Jay says no, too expensive.
I am worried that I will have boxes everywhere until mid to late August. I have no more room to pack more boxes. Packing and sorting is a huge project and I feel like I need to be working on this now, not waiting until fall to pack up more. Plus, I just don't like have no room to move around the house.

I did successfully get up and jog this morning. I was happy to get back at it even though I was very unhappy about getting out of bed. I am really tired this morning.

Our Saturday

After a really late night Thursday, I decided to stay up even later on Friday night! Jay and I played PS2 until 1:30 when we finally called it a night. Jay probably would have stayed up even later, but I turned off the game. We sleep in a little on Saturday and I headed out to exercise at about 8. I was very proud of myself. I rode my bike all the way from my house to Fort Smallwood Park and back again. That's a 5 mile trip! Jay says "5 miles isn't that far". True, but it is for me. There are quite a few hills coming home on our road and I was super tired by then. I never walked my bike though I did take two small rests. I am having trouble getting my bike to go into the gears that I need. Jay says I am just doing it wrong and that he never has a problem when he tries to do it. I don't think that I am doing it wrong, but perhaps I am.

I came home and walked inside on rubbery legs. I folded some laundry and this and that. Jay decided it would be a great morning to knock off some small projects on our giant to do list. He managed to get three things done. The garbage disposal has been on the list for about 6 months, the bathroom tub drain has been on the for over 4 years and the bathroom cabinet only a week. While he was working on some of these, I buzzed all the kids hair off for the summer. Tommy and Sammy have never had a buzz cut so I was curious to see what they would look like.

Joe and Tom's pictures don't look as cute as they do look with their cuts. Of course, before their hair cuts, I would key off of their hair in order to tell them apart from a distance. They look very much alike now. It will be tough for friends to tell the difference if Jay and I are having problems. The new cuts should help with a lot of the sweating that Tommy complains about. He sweats the most out of all the kids. He also had the thickest hair before the trim. Hopefully, this will help a bit.

Jay took Joe to a birthday party at 2 and then he met us at the MOMS Club Chili Cookoff and Cookout. He actually beat us (Tom, Sam and I) there. Jake had had another seizure right when we were getting ready to leave. I didn't want to leave him alone until he had recovered.

We had a great time with friends and food. The hostess had an above ground pool as well as a perfect backyard for kids. The pool had a little deck with a gate that latched and the entire huge yard was fenced. They also had plenty of out door toys. Sammy played a whole lot while Joe and Tom stayed in the pool the entire time. We had to force them out to get them dinner, but they went right back in.

All in all, a good day. The boys had good behavior all day, the rain didn't bother the cookout and Jay and I only stayed up until 10:30. I didn't win the cookoff. I found out that Jay didn't even vote for mine. Geez.

Walking is still moving, right?

I had a very late (and fun!) night out with some gals last night though I was the first to leave the bar at 12:35. I did some drinking and a tiny bit of dancing. I quit drinking at about 10:30 since I knew I would be driving. I got into bed at about 1:05, then got right back out to put my excerise clothes into the dryer. Back into bed at 1:08. The alarm didn't go off for some reason, but I still woke up at 6:21. Up I got. While dressing I decided that I really could ride my bike today. My head was still ringing. I didn't want to jog. So I walked. I walked 30 minutes in one direction, then turned around and walked 30 minutes home. It was a real effort to get up and move after such little sleep, but I need to keep with this whole excerise thing. I may try to sneak a nap in today if any of the kids will let me.
The boys were totally crazy yesterday. While running errands, Joe reverted back to toddler behavior. It is very frustrating to have both your two year old and 6 year old pulling things off the shelves at Office Depot or screaming a fit in Michael's. What's irritating is that we were out buying crafts and activities for the boys to work on this summer. I explained to the boys that they needed good behavior in the store in order to go home and work on something. We did Michael's first and then they were worse at Office Depot. So no crafts yesterday for Joe. Tommy got to do one with his dad after he woke up from his nap.
We grabbed a couple of workbooks (kindergarten and first grade) at Ollie's yesterday as well as a coloring book for Sam. The boys are sitting and working happily right now which is great.

Jogging, interrupted

So today was supposed to be day number 2. I woke up at 5 again, because the older boys were getting up to go potty. I tossed and turned and tried to go back to sleep. I had actually set the alarm for 6:20, but I got up at 6:10. It was sprinkling outside so I thought and thought about what to do. I got dressed which helped motivate me. The question was bike or jog though. I had planned to bike today so that I use different muscles than the ones I had worked yesterday. The big problem is that I am not a fan of riding on wet roads. So, I decided to jog. I stretched out and went outside. Just as I got to the end of the driveway, the sprinkling stopped. That made me happy. So off I went. I didn't get far before I stopped jogging. The pain in my muscles was bad. I gave myself 10 walking steps and then started jogging again. I didn't have far to go before I went down the hill and that helped me stay moving. At the bottom of the hill, my muscles were fairly warm and hurting less. I made it almost as far as I did yesterday on the jogging part before the heavens opened up and it poured!! Yesterday, I walked a long ways after the jog, but today, I just turned home. I was still jogging a little, but that didn't last. The motivation was gone. So I walked home briskly in a very heavy rain. Rivers were forming on the sides of the road, my shoes were soaked, socks were wet. I trudged up the hill and finally back to the house. Jay was a really nice guy and had gotten out of bed and hung a bath towel by the front door for me.
I am happy that I didn't get stuck on a bike in the rain, but I am hoping it doesn't rain tomorrow morning. My legs would rather ride tomorrow than jog.

Jogging

Okay,
I am not a jogger. I am not a runner. In high school, I used to be able to sprint well and forced myself to jog during the off seasons of the sports I did, but I hated every step I took.
I love walking, but our bodies are too good at walking to really get much exercise out of it.
My doctor talked with me last time I was in her office about my body temp and said that pretty much no matter how well I eat and how much I walk in the evenings, I need to get my body temp up or I am not going to burn any calories. My metabolism is just too slow. More thyroid meds are going to help because they make me too jittery. Her solution: get moving early in the morning and do something better than just walking. Yesterday, I woke up at 6 am, but the thunderstorms kept me in bed. This morning, I had no easy excuse. I awoke at 4:50, but decided that was too early. We don't use an alarm in our house because we don't want to wake the kids and Jay doesn't have to be at work at any set time. But 4:50 was just too early to get up and job. I dozed in bed for a bit. I didn't want to go all the way back to sleep because I was afraid I would sleep too long. I finally did go back to sleep a bit, but woke back up at 6:25. I got up and got dressed. Jay asked where I was going. "Jogging" I sighed. "Really?" "Yeah, I guess."
I grabbed my ipod and off I went. I did okay for a first day out. I jogged for about 1/2 mile and then walked another mile for so. I am really out of shape. I jogged farther than I expected too, which is great, but I have a long way to go. I plan to ride my bike tomorrow morning and will alternate them if all goes well. I did not take the dogs with me. Domino is out of shape and has a hard time doing our 2 mile walk ever evening. Jake stops to pee on everything and would make jogging impossible. He makes walking difficult. They will just have to get theirs in the evening.

So many things...

In the next several months, we have so many things to do. I am feeling overwhelmed because I am not sure where to start. There is no point in packing things that we are taking with us because they are things that we use now and need now. Everything that we don't use daily is already packed since I was packing in the hopes of buying a new house. I feel like I need to go through those boxes now and repack them. Some things (like DVD's) will go with us and some will be packed to store. Though this move isn't happening until December, it is impacting our lives so much right now. We are out of kaluha, but I am not sure that I want to make more because there's no way we would drink a gallon before we leave. We could give it away, but that seems like a lot of work to just give it away. We will celebrate birthdays and Christmas before we leave, but I don't want people to buy the kids a bunch of gifts that we won't be able to take. Nor do I want the kids not to get gifts though... Plus, all of our memberships and magazines will not be able to be renewed this fall because we will be leaving.
This move has finally put an end to planned child bearing though. I was pretty darn sure that I was done, but Jay wanted another. I told him that there was no way I was going to have a baby in Australia. A baby would prevent us from doing all the things that we would like to do and I would have no support system there. So, I am finely able to get rid of all of our baby stuff. Our entire house needs to be emptied, but I just don't know where to start.

We are moving!

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that we would move to Australia! Jay got an offer about 2 weeks ago to be a Northrup man in Australia for a bit. We talked about it and thought about it, and we decided to go for it! There are times that I think, oh my, but over all, we are pretty excited.
We have lots to do in the coming months and we have lots of decisions to make. My parents took the news pretty well today when we told them. I will really miss my friends and family while we are gone. I am really going to miss watching all the little kids from my friends grow up.

Big news and catching up

We have some great big news to share with everyone. We have decided that we need to share it with our families first. We are hoping to share with them this weekend and then I can share with friends starting Monday.
Joe is almost done with school. He has a half day on Monday, his promotion program on Tuesday and then his final half day on Wednesday. I think that he is ready to be done with kindergarten. He is looking forward to a break. I have mixed feelings about it. While, it would be nice to not get up and rush in the mornings, I am going to have find stuff for all of us to do all summer long.
I haven't really written much lately because I really only have one thing on my mind and I am not allowed to share it. Of course, it is such big news that I am not even sure how to share it. I'm sure that there are some people who will get upset by it, but it is a great opportunity for us and should be great.

oh those silly kids

Last night, we headed out for dinner. We loaded up the car and asked the kids where they wanted to go.
"Rocky Run" shouted Joe.
"Pizza Hut" shouted Sam.
"Maryland Statehouse" shouted Tom. What? The Maryland Statehouse? We asked Tommy to tell us more about it and he said "the place where you throw the peanuts on the floor. Oh. Texas Roadhouse. That makes more sense. That sounded good so we headed there.
While eating there, Joe was talking about the peanuts he was eating. "Homey smokes! This one has three nuts in it." Yes, my kid really did say "homey smokes". I then explained that he is supposed to say "holy smokes", but I don't think that he really understood.

I painted the chicken coop today while Tommy and Sammy played in the yard. I turned around just in time to see Tommy pulling up his pants. He peed in one of the toy dump trucks! Ugh! Enough already. Gross.