Choosing your messes...

Kids unerringly find the biggest mud puddles, the tallest pile of leaves, the wettest pile of sand, and the grossest mess left in the corner by a sick pet....So why then, when encouraged by a momma, does a child squirm away from a mess prime for the playing in?

The other night we finally carved our pumpkin...and the only time Alyssa wanted to touch the ickiness was trying to put it back into the pumpkin!  I think she was trying to clean up the mess Momma was making....Awfully nice of her to help clean up the one time I'm NOT asking her to do so.

She also demanded the use of the sharp tools.  Momma didn't go for that one though.  Alyssa was given the pokey (serrated) spoon and the pumpkin top.  This is where you say, a toddler with a pokey scraping spoon?  Are you nuts?  Apparently I am because after being chased away from the sharper tools, Alyssa in a fit ran away with the spoon.  Yes the dish is upset over the kidnapping.

The Nuk typically stays in bed....

Momma gave the Nuk to avoid "spoon" fed raw pumpkin guts.

She did lose the spoon privileges after jumping onto the couch with no regards to Momma's command for her to be careful and bring the spoon back.

Yes...Momma's carving skills are sadly lacking....

A Military Family

Some days are amazing.  Some days make you realize that your family is much bigger than what you think it is.  Yesterday was one of those days.

These amazing people are a larger part of our family.  This is part of Chris' unit and our local FRG leaders.  They showed up at my house on Sunday around 2:30pm on drill weekend and put some of our lives back together.

They cleaned up the remaining pine tree debris from last week's adventure.

The guy on the right is using a jack to pull a branch out of the ground.  It was buried at least 2' deep!

Some of them started in on the fence right away.

H. even mowed my backyard to try and get more needles up using the bagger.

 There was so much going on that I don't have pictures of everything.  A couple people unhooked my outdoor water hoses to avoid winter issues.  They also fixed my yard's front gate so that it would swing close easily and not require my shoulder's weight into the fence!

All of this was an immense list of things I had to figure out how to get fixed and done.  It took them less than one hour...The teamwork was incredible and I was overwhelmed by everything being done for us.  It took less than an hour to have my yard back, my fence back, the gate working, water being winterized, and a mowed backyard!  None of this was expected and what was suggested by the FRG was the pine debris removed and the fence fixed.  These little extras were amazing and thoughtful and everything was wonderful.

I was able to post pictures to FB and Chris was moved to (he admits to only one in his eye) tears over the outpouring of support for our family from his military family.

So thank you, to our military and FRG family.  Thank you for something that may have seemed easy to you but means the world to me.

When God is mad at your yard....

If nature is full of acts of God...then God really did not like my neighbor's trees and clearly disliked my yard as well.

We have had two occasions this year where a pine tree ended up being thrown into our backyard, through our fence.  This second time happened last evening as I was gone picking up my daughter from daycare.  I happened to get a Facebook notice on my phone saying

Dean

sooooo tree number 2 is down in your yard and it may have ripped off your power to your house

Yup...Can you guess what I said?  Thankfully I was alone in the car.  No censorship necessary when no one can hear you!

We get home and we had power still, we had cable still, and we had a 40 foot pine tree spanning the width of our backyard.  Here are some lovely views from my kitchen window...

Why yes! Those are my power and cable lines!

This tree spanned all but 5-6 feet of my yard.  Thankfully it didn't quite reach the fence on the other side.

Electrical mast (pipe) hanging at a 90* angle from the electrical box...bringing with it the gutters, shingles, and splintered pieces of fascia and roofing.

My neighbor had called our energy company and they made sure to tell him if he sees any smoke before they get out there, that he should call the fire department.  (Aren't those dispatchers so helpful?)

The energy company guys came, they unhooked our power (at supper time...with a hungry toddler and all electric appliances) and told me I'd need an electrician so they could continue with the work of getting my power back up and running.  Where in the world am I going to find an electrician at 6pm on a Friday?!?!?  This is where I develop some mushy hero worship of the older gentleman on the energy company crew.  He not only called the electrician he uses for his house, but while we waited for them to come over (and yes, it was only about 20 minutes!) he took those shingles you see attached to the mast and put them back on my roof for me!  Not that it fixes my overall issue but it sure does help keep some of the rain from going inside instead of on the ground...He did this all after asking if I knew any handy people.  Sure I do!  My main one is overseas, my dad is an hour away, and I have a couple in the Twin Cities (4hrs) and one more in the general area of us whose number I do not have....Does that help?  Not a bit...  (I don't mind pity when it comes in the form of pounding a couple nails into shingles on my roof!)

Under that tree is the sandbox in which I was planning on playing in with Alyssa after coming home that day.  Glad we weren't half hour early! O_O

The electrical being fixed and back up in the air, we had a massive tree in the yard, a cable line still down (but power obviously was a little more important to me still so cable would wait) and no idea as to how much of an issue my exposed attic would pose over the weekend.

My parents finally chose to come up and take a look at my roof.  I was relieved because at first my dad didn't seem inclined to drive the hour up and back over this...I was mentally wracking my brain for people I knew in the area who would know how to look at it, determine how long it'd be okay, and if there was anything that needed to be done ASAP--that they'd be able to do it.  Yeah...like I said, I had one name in my head and no numbers to call (oh, and no power or internet to FB).  So yes, I was greatly relieved that my dad was on his way.

All in all, we ordered a pizza for Alyssa and I to eat, got power back up and running, the roof will make it as is until at least Monday when I can find a contractor that works with insurance agencies and also talk to my insurance company to find out what kind of claims process needs to be started.  Thank goodness no one was hurt.

Mission Changes and Guru-ness

My husband over the last 24 hours has been moved.  His mission has changed (though his job has not).  Overall, this isn't the worst thing out there.  He is now (temporarily) up in Iraq in support of a draw down.  While some would freak out over this, I think I had only about 30 seconds or so of apprehension over this.  At this point, Iraq is generally a safe place to be again for our troops (as the bases they are restricted to are quite secure).  As I sit here thinking about it, really, the biggest inconvenience as I see it is that the mail is suspended due to the draw down of this base.  All letters and packages will be held at his original post until his return.  What a shitty thing to not be able to get physical letters and packages!  We just sent his first box off last week and he didn't get it before the move so he likely won't get it for over a month now--those poor lonely Oreo's!

There goes our wonderful thoughts of a cake walk deployment.  Well, my mind is a little complex because I have a hierarchical mind and without snail-mail it only really goes from cake walk downgraded to easy...  As a techy army man, this deployment his job requires internet...which means he should almost always HAVE internet.  We will have Facebook; we will have e-mail; likely during at least some of the time, we will have Skype.  This is so much more than many families get over a deployment that I am blessed with the expectations of it even.

On the plus side (if one wants to look at it this way...) he was specifically chosen for this mission because he is 'well-rounded' in the equipment of not only his job, but the sister jobs as well.  His newest designation (posted at his new place) is the S6 Guru.  So Congrats Hon!  Your over-achieving, productiveness has been noticed...next time aim for a promotion instead of a deployment.  ;-)

Birthdays and Philosophical Theories

So I *think* I was first to say Happy Birthday (via FB anyways) to my husband....But this brings a small debate into the FB sphere.  Is his birthday only valid during his time zone or does one ahead of him get to start his birthday early?  LOL, someone beat me to it by an hr but it would have been an hr early based on Chris' time just not the poster's time.  Here where I am his birthday doesn't start for 8 hours but he is 27 where he is.

Ah the questions bring us into deep thought.  Is he still 26 here?  Is he older in China than where he is now?  It is so crazy that his birthday came on Oct. 2nd for us this year when last year (and most years before) it was always Oct. 3rd.  Granted to him it is Oct. 3rd....Well, if one didn't believe in parallel dimensions, this should be easy...otherwise you may end up with a headache!  Just some fun food for thought.

Happy Birthday SPC Chris Lee!!  We love you, miss you and wish you as good of a birthday as the weather over there can! ;-)

Internal Clocks vs Day to Day Life...

October....Wait, when did we switch months??  Oh good, it was just today.  Yeah, my internal calendar, clock and overall brain is on strike.  I don't know up from down, January from October or even awake from asleep at this point.  Alright, that last one happens pretty much from 2pm-5pm every day but still!

I am pretty certain that kids use naps as their 'down-time' but what about us parents?  Supposedly we are cleaning, cooking or maybe taking 5 minutes of the day to breathe finally and then nap time is over!  I almost wish that my daughter and I were on opposite sleeping schedules just to have a quiet house for longer than the span of an afternoon nap.  Does this make logical sense?  No.  Mostly because she is too little and too devious to be trusted on her own while I sleep in the other room (or violent enough to hit me on the face with something if I sleep on the couch).  Do those reasons stop me from thinking how blissful it might be?  Not a chance!

On the plus side, my child likes to take a 2+hr afternoon nap...I get those couple brief hours to regain my composure, store up a few reserve deep breaths and enter into round two swinging (mostly swinging her up into the air but you get the idea...).

This morning was exciting though, we got to skype with Papa!  Amid a few well placed squeals and many grins, we did get her to SAY "Papa"--once--but hey, we take what we get!  She also showed Papa a few things she has learned recently.  She identified her nose, eyes, ears, mouth, head, toes, fingers and belly button for him.  I'd say she had a very proud Papa at that moment.

Now that I have entered a mostly nonsensical post jumping from thought to thought, I will let you get on with your day which is probably more structured and actually follows a wall clock instead of the inner workings of a frayed Momma and an energizer child.  Good luck to us all!