Being Green

My family's green clothes are officially now in the bottom of the laundry basket, where they will probably stay until next St. Patrick's Day. I love green veggies and fruit, like to decorate with shades of green, but cannot pull it off in my wardrobe. And I noticed yesterday, most other people can't either. It is not a super flattering color for very many people. I am sure St. Patrick himself can't help but roll over in his grave every March 17th and think to himself, "I looked much better in blue." I do think it is ironic that we live in a country that thrives on non-conformity (or at least they think they do) and the individual spirit but everyone can be convinced to wear green clothes on a holiday they know nothing about merely on the threat that they might get pinched. Whoever gave that first pinch years and years ago must have given a whopper since we all still fear it now. We should hire that same person to deal with terrorists, we would probably live in a much more peaceable world if we did.
As a side note, I had to go to Costco yesterday because our pantry and fridge were REALLY bare and I saw our old car. Isn't that weird? We traded in our car in August and went down to one family car, and I totally saw our old van - same plates and everything - in the parking lot at Costco. And do you know that my first thought in my little scheming evil brain was, "I wonder if we still have an extra key and we could take it back..." Sad, I know. That sin nature is just ever present, you know?

Must be the Beans

I went to Michaels yesterday to try and find some springtime crafts. I swear that store draws me in just like Target and I can spend forever wandering around getting ideas. At least, that is, when my kids aren't with me. So as I am looking through some of the fake flowers the woman next to me starts talking to me in Spanish. She is an older woman, maybe late 60's, who looked very friendly and was admiring the flowers and noting what a good price they were. Rather than insult her with my spanglish I nodded and smiled and continued my search. She then looked at me rather intently and asked - in english this time- Are you mexican? At that moment I cannot tell you how many things flashed through my brain. Vocab words from AP Spanish class, the time I met my dad's family in Mexico and they asked me how old I was in Spanish and I answered "fine", the stunned faces that met mine when I walked into my first Mensa club meeting. I quickly blurted out no, for fear that she would then expect me to speak to her in Spanish, but then corrected myself and said something profound like, "Well, yeah...my dad is but umm I don't speak spanish umm sorry?" She politely did not laugh in my face but I was totally humiliated. I should add here that I am easily embarrassed and completely hormonal right now. I spent the rest of the day wondering what about me she saw that clued her in to the fact that I am, in fact, half mexican. The blond hair and blue eyes usually throw people off, which is why I spent a great deal of time in high school trying desperately to convince people that I did have some spanish flair in me. Sadly the only thing I could come up with is that I have been eating a ton of beans lately because they are Weight Watcher point friendly and maybe she could smell them on me. Usually in the summer I tan really nicely which can sometimes clue people in but right now I am winter pasty white, so I know that wasn't it. Why do I even spend time overthinking these things? I think I need to give my brain a rest and go make brownies, which I know are not point friendly but they taste really really good.

Shocking!

Considering my young age (ha ha yeah right) I feel like I have seen a lot. I have been witness to several births, as well as watched older loved ones fade into dementia or suffer through illness until they finally found peace in death. I have three kids, which means I have been peed on, pooped on, thrown up on, and suffered through the inevitable grocery store meltdown. As a pre-teen I had a huge love of horror flicks so I watched everything from Ammityville to the Omen, which is probably why I am still afraid of the dark. My reason for stating all of the above is to explain that there are few things that truly shock me. However, at Disneyland this past week, I was definitely dumbfounded. I saw a precious little boy, maybe 2 or 3 years old, in the midst of a meltdown. This, sadly, is commonplace in my home so it wasn't too surprising. Not until the child started beating the crap out of his mother. Seriously. I felt bad but I couldn't help but stare. This little pipsqueak was punching his mom in the face and pulling her hair out of its neat little blond bun. All while the very patient mommy remained quiet, I assume waiting for the child to calm down. I was both shocked and saddened. I know that there are a bazillion different parenting techniques out there and my kids are far from perfect so I know I shouldn't judge people but REALLY? Since when is it okay for our kids to beat up on us? I admire her patience but am truly saddened if she believes that being terrorized by her kid is acceptable. The bigger question for me is when did we stop teaching our kids to respect? Respect parents, adults, friends, fellow human beings. It feels like this is a rare thing to find, which is really sad to me and makes me want to shelter my kids even more. I will say that I have several friends with amazing and kind children, but it is depressing to me how rare that is. Is it wrong to teach our kids politeness, kindness, respect, and caring for others? Are we not teaching it because we aren't doing it ourselves? I feel like when things are tough in parenting, more often people throw in the towel and lower their expectations for their kids. But no one ever said parenting was easy, did they?

Feeling Blessed

Wow, didn't realize how long it had been since checking in with the blog. What an amazing couple of weeks it has been. I have been witness to several answers to prayer lately that continue to remind me that God is present, which is always a good thing for me!
As some of you know, we would be under the category of a "paycheck to paycheck" family. Yes, we have read the books and attended the budget seminars about savings and streamlining budgets blah blah blah and we do the best we can with what we get. We know that for us it is all about choices, and we choose to live in an expensive town on one income so we know that there will always be things that we have to live without. Sometimes, that even includes groceries. Long story short, I have continuously gone to God in prayer that somehow, someway, money would fall from the sky and land in our lap. Low and behold we got an unexpected check in the mail about a week ago. Our insurance company finally recognized a few bills that we had paid last year and actually sent us a refund check - praise God! I know to many people that wouldn't seem like a big deal, but for us it was a huge answer to prayer!
Continuing the praises...Last week we were supposed to go to Disneyland and the Science Center in Los Angeles for some much needed family time. Of course, my two boys ended up with fevers and I was in panic mode. I was shoving Zyrtec, OJ, and vitamins down their throats as fast as I could to no avail. When Thursday morning finally came and we were due to leave all 3 kiddos had fevers and I was struggling to figure out what to do. Knowing that all I could do was give it to God, I started to pray. Actually, the more accurate phrase would be I began fervently begging God to heal my kids. By the time we got to Los Angeles, all three kids were fever free! Their fevers never came back and never turned in to runny noses, coughs, or ANYTHING! Praise God!
One final praise...We have been really trying to fit in as much quality family time as possible knowing that Matt will be gone a LOT this year with conferences, camps, training, and missions trips. The kids really have been wanting to go to the snow, which when you live in Santa Barbara isn't always easy. We are feeling SO blessed that friends are letting us borrow their cabin in Mammoth for part of spring break! The kids will already be out of school, Matt will already be excused from his PE job because there isn't any school so he won't have to request time off, and the best part is it's FREE! I feel like stuff like this never happens to us, but I am counting my blessings while they do. We are hoping there will still be snow, and that the kids won't kill each other on the 6 hour drive, but at least that will make for another fun post :)

Frustrating Night, Frustrating Morning

It is only 9:20am and it is already one of THOSE days. Started off with a bad night, and sadly I have no one to blame but myself. I have been waiting forever for September camping reservations to be open since Matt is so booked the rest of summer, and I knew they went on sale on March 1st. So, despite the fact that I was tired and ready for bed at 9:00, I waited up until midnight to try and get reservations. Being the dork that I am, I didn't check the website earlier to find out that they actually don't open reservations until 8:00am. That was the beginning of my bad night.
I have always had nightmares. They occur all too frequently in my opinion, and there is problem some explanation that involves me being insane so I try not to think about it too much. Last night after waking up from a nightmare, I had an amazingly acute realization. The only nightmares that I have had that involve my kids all have to do with Kendall. There have been 3, all incredibly vivid and unfortunately memorable, all about her. What does THAT mean? I wish I had an answer for you, and considering I couldn't go back to sleep forever because I was thinking about it you would think that I could have come up with something. To top it off, after I finally managed to get back to sleep I was awakened to Camden screaming like someone cut his foot off only to find him upset because his blankets were messed up. Aahhhhh!
So, after my wonderfully non-restful evening, I plopped myself in front of the computer at 7:45 to again attempt some camping reservations. Apparently there is a trick to this that I am not aware of because despite the fact that some of September was already booked even before 8:00 I couldn't make a reservation until 8:01, when practically everything was taken. I ended up with 1 night in probably the least favorable campsite on all of the west coast. I think I need to hire someone to do this for me next year because there must be some computer trick that I obviously don't know.
Wishing I could go back to bed right now....