meet the basement

Watch out, basement!  Those THREE gallons of Kilz destroyed you, and a few cells in my brain.  I was flying a little too high for a stay-at-home mom!  And that was just one coat.  This basement is larger than our house in Texas or a large NY city apartment.  Stinky!

Josh kept his word and scraped the ceiling smooth and gorgeous.  I kept my word and attacked the walls.  Can I just say that that is a lot of wood paneling.

Here are the before pictures.

The "after" pictures will be coming soon.  I think I may be recovering our yellow eternal flames couch and the thought of that unpleasant project makes me feel sick to my stomach, but it could also be the Kilz.

Either way, I am excited to have it finished and a place we can enjoy.  It's going to be sassy.

happenings

Ida has watched Smurf cartoons nonstop for the last three days.  She has had nothing else to do seeing as she has been smurfing a fever.  Last week she was smurfing up, so this girl has been through it.  I took her to Dr. Daniel this morning and smurf enough, she smurfed strep from one of her smurfing friends at school!!  Do you get how much of the Smurfs we've watched?!! 

Tomorrow is a huge day for Emerson and mom.  He will be going on his first field trip without mom or dad there watching him.  I didn't think I would feel this over protective about someone else watching him in a public place.  Surprising.  I tried to have a serious conversation with him about tomorrows behavioral rules in the car tonight but between smurfing (because we were talking in smurf at the time) a booger and pretend sawing Ida's leg off with his imaginary arm saw, I don't think he heard or even smurfed a care.

Oh, Urban.  I sent Urban to comfort-coma in the car tonight.  I knew we would be taking a good drive around bedtime and knew a bottle was the only way to go.  He has been here and there in giving up his nighttime bottle, meaning he hasn't taken it for a few days.  But tonight I knew he would want it.  The second he got his little hands wrapped around the BPA free plastic his eyes rolled back into bottle heaven.  He stayed so content both ways the entire drive just sipping and babbling away to his bottle friend.  When I laid him in his crib when we got home he giggled and said, "Mama."  Sounded so much like a thank you.

As far as the mama of this house, I am READY FOR SUMMER BREAK!

lucky with a clover

My grandma always told me growing up that I was a lucky person.  I guess she got the idea because the dice always seemed to roll my way when I played board game with her at her house.  Or, maybe it was from the millions of gifts I won at baby showers.  I was usually the youngest one there going home with spatulas and candles and dishtowels and magnets, stuff I wouldn't use all because I won it.

I do remember in 4th grade winning a She-Ra post and activity stuff from inside the wrapper of the Strawberry Bubblicious I bought at the corner store by our house.  That was the coolest thing, I was a She-Ra fanatic.

And, I was also with my Mom in Pamida when she won a turkey around Thanksgiving time because I made her fill out the give-away slip.  We laughed about that for a long time.

I haven't ever raked in a big mama-jama Publishers Clearing House or Mega-ball winning.  Not even a four leaf clover, until Mother's Day, that is!

Glad to know I still have it!  HA!  But seriously, I know my life is full because I'm extremely blessed, mostly hard working and a little lucky.  I have all these Fraker people I love dearly and to whom I'm a mother to the little ones, I live in this free nation, I have a home and means to take care of my family.    

I am pressing my clover in my big book of dreams, a jumbo vintage Webster Dictionary.  I will keep it as my wing man for the future.  Maybe if I start rubbing it and saying something magically rhythmic my beautiful hardwood floors will be laid in the house.....?  Just thinking. 

 

i made my way home...

It's been a long, hard road since my parents divorced, but I now feel my family is in the best place it's been in 5 years....and last night I made my way home.  On the way, I drove through my old town, staring at my old people, smelling my old smells, driving my old roads with the same curves and bumps and dips and hills, seeing my old pond, and spying on my old neighbors.  It's still mine.  My heart just blew right up inside of me screaming "it's still yours.  This Waterloo is still yours."

...and I was so happy.

I went back to the place I grew up to sort the attic with my mom and sister, milling through boxes and boxes of memories.  Collecting mine and making piles for my Laura sister and two younger brothers.  The attic felt the same.  It was hot and slightly stuffy like it should be this time of year.  The floor boards squeaked where they were supposed to squeak and the ceiling sloped as it always did.

(Emily and I wearing her old prom dresses, the Mill Pond Dam)

When I left last night, I was overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude for the place I grew up, the people I grew up with and the family that raised me.  I would go back and do it all again in a heartbeat if I could.

My sister posted these pictures on her facebook and a fellow Waterlooer commented:

"Spent lots of summers looking at that same view. Miss living there. The world will never know people, place, or time like the Waterloo we grew up in."

My wish for my children is that their childhoods provide that something that I had growing up in Waterloo, the place that will never be taken out of me.

i'm 33

I've started doing this funny thing on Urban's birthday.  I tell myself that I am a year older than I really am so that when my birthday comes around I'm not in so much shock about how old I'm getting.  Call me crazy, but it works.  In my mind, I've been 33 for quite some time now!

My day started out awesome with a morning phone call from my dad who thought I was turning 30.  I laughed so hard!  When I was laughing he said to me, "Well, you were born in 1979!  Oh, (and all at once he realized) I did the math wrong."

The best birthday gift was this family picture:

It brought me to tears.  How did this happen from a camera propped on a pillow?!!

I made Chicken Parmigiana from the Pioneer Woman.  It is incredible!  I've had it in my rotation for about three months now and it never gets old.  It's amazing on top of sauteed zucchini.  The other Frakers Four made me a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

I am so blessed to feel so much love from my family and friends.  I just feel so grateful for each of the 33 years of my life.  It seems like each one could be titled with what was milling in my life during the time....Battle Creek, Troy Sutton, Orange Walk, Summit St., Emerson, Ida, Urban, the final move, Oklahoma.  Josh and I stayed up into the early hours of the morning talking about all these memories and how rich they are.....

Thank you.  Each year I understand the secrets of life a little more fully.