no coincidence.

I don’t believe in coincidence.

it’s no secret that I have not been feeling well.  posts composed at 1 in the a.m. usually divulge too much information.  but it’s not just that.

I have three kids.  three girls to be exact, and while it is a terrible mess of emotions, fun, and happy times, it is also entirely too stressful for my own good.

every day there is some kind of sister or girl drama. 

there is homework, some that drives a mom to think horrible thoughts about what to do with sharp pencils and orifices in their own head.

(the only thing that could possibly be worse than the third grade homework packet would be what will take place next year, which will inevitably be second and fourth grade homework packets.  ugh.)

then there are the other normal, everyday type stuffs:  cooking, cleaning, laundry, mending, ironing (which someone has taken-up again after their husband was spoiled on his last trip and had dress shirts starched and ironed.), bathing, fixing four heads of hair (sometimes repeatedly throughout the course of an ordinary day), not to mention any other task or need that arises any given day.  you know, all the normal “mom stuff”.

then there’s the list of stuff I “should be doing” or the stuff that I do, just not often enough.

we pray as a family daily.

we don’t hold family home evening, well, a structured one, often enough.

we don’t read the scriptures, unless it is during a structured family home evening (which I have already stated, is not held often enough).

I should also be helping my third grader more than I already am with “homework” type things, like memorizing times tables and junk.  I have my list of excuses as to why we don’t take more time doing that as regularly as we should, it does have something to do with family time, homework, tumbling, getting in reading minutes, and allowing my kid be a kid.  needless to say, she isn’t having the easiest time, and that is only aggravated by the situation in her classroom. 

there are some punk kids in there.

it doesn’t help that she is so easily distracted in the first place, but to have boys that I would like to discipline myself, causing problems and distractions daily in her class, makes a difficult situation that much harder for her.

the other day, feeling tired, drained, quite emotional, and not at the best health-wise, my best friend allowed me to cry to her for more than a few minutes (on the phone, where she would be at a safe distance from the plague, you know).

I let out my feelings of inadequacy.  how I feel that I am not doing enough, but equally frustrated with how+where to find the time to do all of the things I should, forget what I “want” to do at this point.  I worry about the state that our world is in today, about best protecting my girls, teaching them what they need to know to be safe, successful, and happy.

I know what I need to do, and feel guilty that I haven’t been doing it regularly.  I have been shorting them.

I beat myself up for a while.

then, quite timely, the next morning, my dear mother, who chastises me so well, posted this on facebook:

I feel a bit better, not so bad about myself, but hopeful that I can do just what I need to, and that I will have some heavenly help on my side.

thank you mom.

a mom + me journal follow up.

did you enjoy that idea?

did you have questions?

do you by chance want to know how to make them?

has it been keeping you up at night? 

(really, you can tell me.)

well, if you answered yes to any of the above, there is a treat in store for you.

no, not a treat at the store, although that is probably true as well.

I have been invited to guest post (!!!!) at my dear friend mandi’s blog.

(okay, it’s not just hers, but that is my connection, yo.)

there is not only a whole tutorial, by yours truly, about the ins and outs of making the mom+me journal, but there is also a give away.

(!!!!!!!)

you, my friends, have a chance to win either a darling girl or little guy version of the mom+me journal so you can start to have the kind of fun that me and my girls have been having.

(ashley is sticking to a rather extensive list of “what’s your favorite…” questions, while lynnie-lou and I have had more heartfelt dialogue.)

so go on over, give them a visit, and well, me too.

this cold/allergies/cold/flu/plague/cold i have is not allowing me to sleep, or maybe it is the residual guilt i feel from my mother's chastising phone call?

it is true, the delirium is driving me to compose record-breaking post titles.

so here's the craps on the haps:

last weekish, i started to feel a little sore throat coming on.  it made it rather difficult to sleep.  i decided i was getting a cold and then the next day, it was gone.  the the sneezing/runny nose phase set in, so i decided well, what with the crazy utah weather we have going on, warmth, blooming, wind, it could really just be allergies.  but the same night the sore throat decided to come back, with glory.  i had merrill and his healthy self go and procure me some nyquil (so i could get some zzzs).
that is when hell made an appearance, not that i can recall, cause nyquil messes me up, but the next two days were pretty awful.

i have learned that i cannot take nyquil if i am needed, at a functioning state, before 2 pm.  seriously.  not even if i take it with dinner..  it messes me up kids.

that was when i decided that this was no cold, it was "the plauge".

the girls were home from school on friday, that was one of the days i was not functioning properly, but my best friend forever, called and told me to send my children to her house for lunch and to be around someone who is capable of being a mother-type figure instead of a blob on the couch who is under the influence of nyquil.

(okay, so she didn't say all of that.)

she did feed them and even entertained them for a while.

i decided friday night, that there would be no more nyquil in my future.  "the sauce" was not good for me.

saturday looked much better, still not feeling 100%, but i was functioning by 11 am. (!!!!!)

i was determined to go to church the next day.

merrill was starting his downward slide though.

oops.  i had been so careful!   no kissing, no sharing drinks or food.  washing hands and junk.  (do you know what it is like to have a sick husband?  yeah?  so you can understand that i was super careful.)

sunday morning (very early) he resorted to the couch.  and then hell set in for him (and me, for a second round, because he was sick, get it?)

church was great, until the plague told me it wasn't anymore.  that is what the plague does, you see?  it tells you when you feel good, and then suddenly, it's like "not anymore, punk!!" because the plague really talks like that.  i am sure it is getting back at me for every time i have said "dude" or "punk" whether affectionately or sincerely to another person.

needless to say, me and the two oldest kiddos high-tailed it back home.

and such has been my health these past days, resembling a pendulum.

merrill, on the other hand, is dying, i am sure.
(sarcasm.)

the weird bit, like super weird (don't make fun of my lack of vocabulary skills, they are currently stuck, held captive by copious amounts of snot stored somewhere in my head.  like seriously, there is a lot, and i have no idea where it is located, or where it comes from, there is an obscene amount of it.  sorry for the image.), is that we cannot sleep!  i have not allowed my poor self a nap in days, because my body takes that time i spent napping, multiplies it by 3, and then puts off my bedtime by that amount in hours.  it sucks.  but for some reason, i can't sleep?

dude.

not fair.

neither can merrill, which makes it that much worse.  our house is handicapped with two junked-up parents.

(not that we were exceptional to begin with.)

so here comes the part where my mother calls me and chastises me.

it's good, it involves facebook.

i mentioned the aforementioned "handicap" existing in our household on the old social networking site, and received both sympathies and interesting offers.  apparently, my mom, didn't see it until today.

(insert a janet-sized chastisement here.)
(just teasing mom, i love you.)
(but really, it's not so much teasing as it is sleep-deprivation.)
(or maybe the violent amounts of snot.)

she wished that i would have called her to tell her i was sick, so she could help and so forth.  in all honesty, i don't think i was capable of calling her.  that nyquil messes me up!  besides that, if i did call her, it would have been to whine, and i tell you, she doesn't need to hear my stuffy-nosed voice whine. 

it's not attractive.

so she found out that her most favorite daughter was sick, on facebook, which led us to a rather interesting conversation that ended with the topic of snot, wouldn't you know.

and now, let me tell you of the things that are entirely too annoying when one is not feeling well.

- the menu music, that plays over and over when a child leaves a dvd stuck on the menu screen with an unconscious parent in the room, on the couch, stuck there, unconscious.  listening to it play  over, and over, and over...

- while extracting compressed files, they keep opening, one right after the other, right when i am ready to click extract.  i know another one will open right when i am ready to click "extract".  it is most definitely going to happen, but it buuuugs.

- hearing merrill clear his throat.  bless his heart.
- children who run around, screeching, giggling, and tattling.  sure, it is an everyday occurrence around here, but those copious amounts of snot, really leave little room for the ordinary things to be tolerated inside my crowded head.

and last, and most perhaps least in the categorizing of annoyances would have to be the many political candidates calling, reminding responsible citizens about voting and caucus (giggle) meetings and so forth.  seriously, i can't wait for this election season to be done and gone.  the phone ringing and interrupting my nyquil coma for this, is not cool.

sorry about the snot imagery and all.

my mom will probably call me and chastise me again for that...
(but really mom, love you.)

my replacement.

lynn and I went to a mother daughter activity a couple of weeks ago.  she learned how to decorate cakes!!  sure, she’s seen me decorate a cake or two in her lifetime, but there is something that gets a girl more excited when it isn’t her mom trying to teach her.

a fabulous lady in our ward taught the girls some of the ins and outs of cake decorating, and even shared a few new fun things with me!

I am looking forward to the day when lynn will take over decorating duties, and I can just enjoy eating the cake.

mom & me journals.

I remember when my sister-in-law bought a circle journal for her daughter years ago.  that made me look forward to when my own girls (and I only had two of them at the time, one just an infant) could read and write so we could do fun stuff like that.

well, 2/3 of those girls can read and write!

it is also a time in life when I want to really help our relationships to grow and become stronger.  enter the mom & me journal.

(it also helps with their reading, writing, and spelling.)

(bonus!!)

so thanks to pinterest for some fun inspiration, we are diving right in.

I could have bought a notebook, slapped a label on it, but no.  I had to do something fun with it, girly it up so they would be as excited about it as I am.

I spiced-up the outside of a plain old black & white composition notebook with these pretty papers and elements from cosmo cricket.  I added some tattered angels glimmer mist in “electric blue” (on the blue one), and chalkboard mist in “sprout” (on the green one), before I glued all of my embellishments down.  I also added a strip of ribbon to use as a bookmark.  I glued that down to the outside of the spine before I covered it with muslin.  the strip of muslin was folded and sewn at either end to help control the fraying, and I left the raw selvage edge to add to the prettiness of the front.

so far the girls love them.

I have been participating in a conversation about favorites with ashley.  she is rather extensive about favorites.  example:  “what is your favorite type of carpet?”  this one can go on forever.

lynn is currently conducting an interview with me.

looking forward to more fun days and questions with these, not to mention the great keepsake they will be one day.

“babe”raham lincoln.

so lynnie-lou-hoo had a biography study that we worked on for the better part of february.  they cold choose pretty much anyone, and lynn chose abraham lincoln.

I was a little surprised to say the least.

she went with it though, and enjoyed it, for the most part.  there was a bit of drama during the process, she was really worried about her speech.  but she did great.

last night there was a wax museum for all the third graders.  grandmas came, they brought cousins and even great-aunt doreen came.  it was nice to have such a great show of support for lynn.

(and she was so happy when the night was over!)

ashley had to get in on the action too.

the kid cracks me up!

spotlight.

another designer is being spotlighted this week at jessicasprague, and surprise, surprise, she is another favorite!

kitschy digitals is a go-to folder of mine for those important little details and for anything that I want vintagey.  her stuff is gorgeous!

so to motivate you to go and visit her store, and shop a rockin’ awesome sale (40% off the WHOLE store, yo.) here is some motivation:

(click on layouts for full list of credits, if you want to.)