Road Trip Part 2

Yesterday's pictures were the ones I had taken of our road trip to Michigan. There is another side to the story though. We also gave a camera to the kids to document the trip. Here are some of the highlights according to them.

We stopped at Mc Donald's every morning.

See.

Because we had to have these.

Well Jay didn't, because he doesn't like coffee, he had a stash of Red Bull in the cooler in the back of the Suburban, but the rest of us wanted our caffeine in an ice blended caramel and whip cream topped form.

The dogs spent each day laying on the seat in between Kimberly and Tiffany. They falsely believed that the girls' Snuggies were for them and there were quite a few child vs. dog fights while they tried to work this out.

I don't remember seeing this, but the kids found a tire graveyard somewhere along the way.

Midway through Day 2, the Snuggie became a makeshift wall. Kimberly was fed up with being stuck in a car all day with everyone.

Aimee passed the time waving at all the big rig drivers we passed and seeing if they would wave back. There are quite a few pictures like this one of one of the other kids trying to document this process. What we ended up with was a lot of pictures of tractors where you can't make out the driver, let alone if he's waving or not.

No road trip would be complete without a truck with an eagle/flag mural on it's back windows.

And finally, Welcome to PURE Michigan, not just Michigan, but PURE Michigan.

Notice in the lower right hand corner.

That's me, rubbing my temples.

Road Trips and New Places

It seems like just yesterday we were preparing to move to Michigan and had the whole summer ahead of us. Now I find that it's suddenly fall and I haven't blogged in months. Of course we've been busy living life during that time, but I felt I should at least give you the highlights in pictures.

We drove across country from Arizona to Michigan at the beginning of June. We being me, my husband, our three daughters, three dogs, and two cats. Originally we planned to make the trip in four days. Driving with that many beings in a vehicle was so much fun (insert sarcasm here), that we decided to drive a little longer (like 6 hours a day) after the first day, so that we could get to Michigan in only three days. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Have you ever heard that things are bigger in Texas? Well if this cow (bull?) is any indication, that might be true. He was however a little camera shy and started walking the other way when I tried to get his picture.

Sticking with the big in Texas theme, this cross was huge.

Then of course there are your oddities on the road. I think this guy needs a few more bumper stickers. What do you think? He's got a little patch of window there on the right he still may be able to see out of.

Texas doesn't have a monopoly on big things though. The world's largest rocking chair is in Missouri.

Nice custom tail lights.

St Louis Arch. We didn't stop.

By the time we got to Illinois and came across another giant cross, I was beginning to think that Texas didn't have a lock on all things large.

And Finally, we made it to Michigan.

Let's Be Friends

Nine year olds are mean. This is not something I just realized, but something that I am reminded of again now that we finally moved into our own house in Michigan.

We got here about two months ago and for the first month were staying at our business partner's house. He had 14 acres of property so there weren't exactly kids right next door to play with. The kids amused themselves catching frogs in the pond and things were peaceful. With the kids anyway. My husband and our business partner bickered like a married couple. They are good friends, but being that close was straining the friendship. It didn't help that our business partner had a new girlfriend that was moving in around the same time and felt like we were infringing on her turf. We had to find our own place and get out. We'd been looking and looking at houses and a lot of what we looked at was smaller than we were used to. In Arizona nothing is older than 10 years. In Michigan there are 200 year old houses everywhere. I love old houses and the charm and character they possess, but 200 years ago people didn't have ginormous sectional couches or mansion sized California King bedroom sets. Apparently they didn't have enough clothes to warrant a closet in every bedroom either. If you can call an 8x8 space a bedroom. Most of what we looked at would require us to buy all new furniture. So when we found a place to rent that was newer construction, enough square feet for us, and in a neighborhood with excellent schools, we jumped on it. Even though the previous tenants had changed the locks so the property manager couldn't let us in to see the inside. Yup, that's right, we signed a one year lease on a house we hadn't even seen the inside of. Crazy, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The gamble paid off though, because the house is really nice. All our furniture fits. There are a few quirky things I don't like, but they are minor, I can live with them. The timing was perfect. The day we signed our lease was the last day of AYSO soccer sign ups for the area. We were able to get Tiffany signed up for soccer, which made her very happy. Even though the registration deadline had passed for summer school, since it hadn't started yet, and they still had space in the class, I was able to get Aimee signed up to take the first half of the World History class they take here in 9th grade, but Arizona doesn't take until 10th. So she will only have to use one of her electives to make up the other half this year.

Once we started moving in we learned that there were a ton of kids in the neighborhood our kids ages. On one side of us, a girl Aimee's age with a couple of younger brothers Kimberly and Tiff's ages. On the other side, they have a boy Aimee's age, and a girl Tiffany's age. The next house down from them another girl Aimee's age, one a year older than Kimberly, and a boy or two around Tiff's age. There are a ton more, but I'm not sure exactly where they originate in the neighborhood.

The thing is, the nine year old next door, and her other friends from the neighborhood have all been friends since infancy. They've lived in this neighborhood their entire lives and their moms were all pregnant at the same time. That would be a hard group to break into at any age, but there's something about 9 year olds. They aren't "little" kids any more. This year in 4th grade, school will get harder for them as their teachers try to prepare them for middle school. This is the age that cliques start to form and you aren't automatically friends just because you are the same age. Nine year olds are starting to develop a sense of themselves as individuals, and their self esteem is largely based on how much "cooler" they think they are than their peers. They aren't afraid to cut down their friends to make themselves feel superior.

It breaks my heart when Tiff comes home crying because they were mean to her. They let her play and then they ditch her. Or she asks if she can join and they refuse her. I can't go complain to the other parents, because Tiff isn't going to gain any respect with these kids by having a mom that tattles on them. All I can do is try to teach Tiffany that she doesn't have to put up with their BS. She doesn't have to play with them, just because they live in the neighborhood. Two nights ago she came in crying. The kids had ditched her and she was heartbroken. My husband came unglued and told her she couldn't play with them any more. Yesterday, the whole incident and her father's edict were forgotten, and she wanted to go play with them again.

I need a minion

I've always made lists. It's a coping mechanism I taught myself at an early age to deal with my ADD. Even though I didn't know that I had ADD until a few years ago, I knew I suffered from CRS (can't remember shit), so I made lists. Then in 2001 I was in a car accident that scrambled my brain a little and wiped out my short term memory, and I really needed my lists. Before the days of Blackberrys I had a day planner. I'd write down all my appointments and refer to it daily. It had a leather cover and I lovingly called it my Bible. If it were not for that day planner, I probably wouldn't have made it through college. Whenever I had something particularly important to remember, I would enlist the help of friends to give me a call to remind me to look at my day planner. Now I set my Blackberry to remind me. If I lost my phone I would be so dead.

We move in 32 days. I have so much to do, I have multiple lists. I made a big calendar of the six weeks leading up to the move on a poster board. I needed to be able to visually see where the openings were in my schedule with one look. There is a lot going on in the remaining 4 weeks. Forgetting the move for a moment, there is the stuff of normal life that usually keeps my days quite full. There are dentist appointments, doctor appointments, therapist appointments, orthodontist appointments. There is endless laundry to do and weeds that seem to grow back as soon as I pull them up. Then there are the things I have committed to doing such as the American Cancer Society Relay For Life, the school PTA carnival, and chaperoning my 3rd grader's school field trip. Once you add in the move, there is the trip to Disneyland with our cousins from California we are making because we don't know when we will be anywhere near California again, a going away party, and garage sales that need done. The car needs new tires, an oil change, and hopefully a DVD player installed. Have you noticed that I haven't even mentioned packing yet? Somehow I have to fit that in between all that other stuff. And I do mean "I", as in there is only one open weekend left on my big calendar and the hubby might show up at home a week before the move and the kids are in school all day every other day. Oh, and just for the record, we still haven't found a house in Michigan.

So I have lists.

A list of things we need to get/take to the Relay For Life

A list of things that need done to the car to make it roadworthy

A list of things we need to pack for Disneyland

A list of things I need to make sure don't get packed and go with me on the road trip to Michigan

A list of things I need to fix so I get my deposit back

A list of things we may need before we have a new home and therefore need to be on the ass end of the moving truck in case we need to access them while it's in storage

A list of what is not getting moved and getting sold in a garage sale

A list of the hotels we are staying on our road trip along with the touristy stops we are making along the way

Each day I make a to do list for that day. Each day I feel that things get added to my list faster than I can check them off. I need a minion to help me get this all done.

Faith Part 2

Once again I find myself needing to let go of worry and have faith that everything will work out in it's own time. I've been very stressed lately. The much anticipated move to Michigan is rapidly approaching. The moving truck comes in 42 days. In 43 days I set out on a cross country adventure with three kids as well as dogs and cats in tow. The insanity that is trying to drive small humans and pets cross country is going to be lessened by the fact that we are taking a little longer route so we can visit friends all across the country along the way.

Little by little things are coming together. I've got movers booked. I've got friends that volunteered to help. I've planned the road trip and know everywhere we are going to stay along the way. I'm making appointments to get new tires on the car and a DVD player installed for the trip. The last remaining detail is where the movers will be delivering our belongings and where exactly the endpoint of our cross country journey will be. The huge boulder in this path is that we are looking for a house to rent in a small town where there are precious few rentals.

So here is the part where I need to have faith. I went out there in March and the hubby and I looked at a lot of houses in a lot of towns much like the town we live in now, a suburb with mostly tract homes. What we decided is what we really wanted was a house like the one where we were staying. A house on a large lot (13 acres) in a small town. We want to give our kids room to roam and the ability to have things they've never had, like the ability to have big dogs and Kimberly wants to raise chickens. We can't do that in a tract home in the suburbs. We want our kids to have the experience of living out in the country in a small town with small schools where the teachers have the opportunity to build a relationship with each student. We decided which small town had all the things we wanted.

For the last month we have looked and looked in this town for a house for us. So far it isn't there. I'm getting worried. I'm losing sleep. So now it's time to let go and let the solution work itself out. Our perfect house is there somewhere. The one with the porch I can put a rocking chair on and the pond that the hubby can stock with fish. The one where Kimberly can have her chickens and I can plant a garden. It will have a big laundry room where I can sort and fold all the clothes without bumping into things. It will have all the room we need for our family and our enormous home office. It will have room for the piano the kids want me to get so they can take lessons. I know it is there and I just have to have faith that it will find us.

Clearing out the clutter

In my ongoing project of cleaning out the clutter in my life, I cleaned out the list of 60 something blogs I was following and trimmed it down to less than 30. I pretty much went down the list and if there was anyone I couldn't identify by their blog title, I figured that meant that I wasn't reading them enough so they were out. I started following a bunch of people last year during the SITS spring fling and while I had all the good intentions of keeping up with them, it just didn't happen. The list in my reader was so long, it took me a long time to go through and find the blogs I wanted to read. I was also following one blog about coupons and while I love me some coupons, she posted like 10 times a day so it was taking over and pushing everyone else far down the list. I think that this also might have something to do with the reason why I've avoided opening Blogger in the last few months, so I felt it was time for a change. If any of you that were cut are actual readers of my blog, please let me know. I'm all about support, so I'll be happy to follow you back.

Today I've got a lot of work to do and when that is finished I have hopes to get my Christmas tree taken down and work on cleaning up my house. My hubby has been in Hawaii all week visiting his parents and comes home Monday. I'd like to surprise him with a clean, Christmas tree free house when he returns.

My people

Ever watched the show Hoarders and thought OMG, how do those people live like that? Or OMG that's so gross? I watch that show and think OMG I'm one major traumatic life event from being like that. Now don't get me wrong, my house is no where near what's on that show. I'm in no danger of being evicted or losing my kids, I don't have vermin, and there aren't piles of stuff as tall as me in my house. In my garage it's another story. I mainly have a clutter and organization problem, but I do have an unhealthy attachment to stuff.

I once had a therapist tell me that clutter in your home is an outward expression of clutter in your mind. I can see that. I know that both stress me out. I'd love to live in a home where everything was tidy and just so, where there was a place for everything and everything was in it's place, but I have major problems with putting things away when I'm done with them, and having more things than I have places. My garage is the catch all for this stuff.

Now I know I don't NEED all the stuff. I can tell you that there is stuff out there that has not been unpacked since we moved from California five and a half years ago, but every time I sort through the boxes I find reasons that I can't let it go. Either I'm worried that I'll need it as soon as I don't have it anymore, or I feel it's worth too much to just sell in a garage sale or give to goodwill.

With our move to Michigan just four months away, again I'm faced with thinning out my possessions to make them easier to move over 2000 miles. Last week the hubby and I went through the garage and had a garage sale. We didn't get through all the stuff in the garage, mainly because there wasn't enough room to work, but we did get through quite a bit. I managed to sort about 12 tote buckets for the garage sale and whatever was left after the sale went to goodwill. I gave one trash bag full of clothes and toys to my friend, and I have a box of stuff to put on ebay. That was supposed to be my project for this week, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Ok, so I have a procrastination problem too.

I'm totally stressing about the enormity of this move and have set a goal of sorting and getting rid of stuff every week to make it go more smoothly. So far this week, I've done zippo towards this goal. I suppose I know what I need to do this weekend.

My Name is

I've been reading Mama Kat's blog for over a year now. I've had every good intention of using her writing prompts to become a more frequent inhabitant of bloggy land. Finally today I am using one of her prompts, a day late of course, shut up, I know I totally suck.

The prompt that inspired me to finally write is this:

What’s in YOUR name? What does it mean? Why was it given to you? etc..

My name is Lorna. That's LoRna by the way. I have to watch out for the Arial font because it makes my name look like Lorna. Yeah, notice how the r and the n run together to look like an m. My name is NOT Loma. Thanks. At work I have to wear a name tag. They get them engraved and they use the Arial font. I can't tell you how many name tags I have thrown out the window lost so I could get a new one of the temporary name tags with the labels made on the p-touch machine that are in ALL CAPS. I have explained to the management that I don't like being called Loma, and won't wear one of the engraved name tags until they make me one in all caps, or a different font or something because I don't like being called Loma all the time. Every time a new order of name tags comes in, there is a new one for me, Lorna.I give up.

Have you figured out that I'm not terribly fond of my name yet? Oh, but I'm just getting started. Let me count the ways.

Let's start with the fact that it means NOTHING. It is a made up name for a character in a book, Lorna Doone, published in 1869. Some baby name books will tell you that it is a form of Lorne, Lauren, or Laura and means laurel plant, but it's not. It's a made up name for a character in a book. In 1951 this book was made into a movie, but more about that later.

According to the Grade Your Parents app on facebook, my parents, or really just my mom, because my dad had nothing to do with it, got an A- for originality. Nineteen percent of children born that year had a rarer name than me, and my name peaked in popularity in 1942. My mother was 2 when this name was most popular.

So how did she come up with such an odd name you ask? I think the doctor slipped her something special in her epidural. Up until the point she was in labor my name was going to be Jennifer. Now, had she named me Jennifer she would have gotten an F for originality, Jennifer was one of the most popular names the year I was born. I always had several Jennifer's in each of my classes at school, and still know more Jennifer's than I can count. I'm kinda grateful that she didn't name me Jennifer. Want to see something funny, yell out "Hey Jennifer!" in a crowd of 30 something year olds and see how many turn around. Yell out Lorna in a crowd, and unless it's a bunch of 70 year olds you will probably strike out. I can count on one hand how many other Lorna's I have ever met (4), and all of them were significantly older than me.

Since my name is so unusual, most people I've met have never heard it (unless they are in their 70's). Seriously if they qualify for a senior discount, all I need to say is "like Lorna Doone" when I get that inevitable quizzical look upon introduction and they are all "OH, Ok". Everyone else, still confused. People call me Loren or Lorena a lot. I've pretty much given up and learned to answer to anything starting with L. I always have to spell my name out so it doesn't get butchered, and to make this even more fun, I married a man with a last name that requires spelling out also. Hello my name is L-O-R-N-A _-_-_-_-_. Yeah, tons of fun.

When I named my kids I took particular care to give them common enough names that people would understand them but also not so popular that they would end up being the Jennifer's of their generation. Of course this was helped by the fact that at the point I had kids, most people were going out of their way to name their kids the most unusual things they could, adding extra letters and phonetic spelling to already unusual names. Of course I hadn't given proper thought to the whole spelling out thing with my oldest when I named her Aimee, not Amy, but realized this blunder after making calls for doctor's appointments and what not. Aimee, A-I-M-E-E _-_-_-_-_. Yup, doomed my kid to a lifetime of spelling out her first and last name. At least until she gets married. At least she doesn't get called Annie or something else because they've never heard of her name. Even if they spell it Amy, at least she will be called the right thing.

I would have thought that my mom would have given this kind of thought into naming me considering the fact that she changed her own name when she moved away from home. Left her old name and identity behind and started fresh in a new city with a new name. Of course this was easier to do when you weren't required to have a birth certificate to prove you were who you said you were and when children were born at home on the farm and their birth certificate doesn't even have the right date on it because nobody got around to making the trek into town to report their arrival for days after their birth. But for whatever reason, my mom remembered a movie from when she was 12 and decided that Lorna would be the perfect name for her one and only child, I blame the drugs.

I've often tried to think of what I would change my name to if I had the opportunity to reinvent myself. If I ever went into witness protection or something, what would I want to be called, and surprisingly, as much as I HATE my name, I can't think of anything that seems to fit me better. So I guess I'm Lorna, like it or not, forever.

P.S. spell check hates my name too

Christmas 2009

Remember last year when I wrote this post. Well I did. At least most of it. I forgot the part about the wine. Mostly I remembered that I could save myself a lot of money by getting the kids these

Seriously. Have you ever seen a happier child. All for a $15 backwards robe contraption.

I also enlisted the help of my oldest who no longer believes in Santa to keep the magic alive for the two younger ones. Have you heard about Zhu Zhu Pets. They are little fake hamsters that come with all the balls, cars, and tunnels to play in like the living kind without the smell and the poop. Really pretty awesome. Except everyone else thought they were awesome too and they couldn't be found anywhere. The littlest one saw me looking at them selling for over twice their retail value on eBay and said "Zhu Zhu Pets. I want those." I told her she might be waiting for awhile because mommy couldn't find them anywhere. To that she said "Santa will bring me

some, and if he doesn't, I'll know he isn't real". So when I saw that Walmart was going to be selling them, one per person, starting at 7 am a couple days before Christmas, I made the oldest get out of bed and go down there with me at 5 am to get in line. Turns out Walmart hadn't advertised this sale very well because there weren't a ton of people there. We bought our two and then rushed over to the next closest Walmart and got two more. We then ran all over town trying to find their toys. Good times. The end result was worth it though when they opened them Christmas morning.

The middle one swears that next year she will catch me putting the presents under the tree. If she only knew how close she came this year. It was after 11 and I was sure they were asleep. I brought all the gifts in and put them under the tree. I had JUST turned off the lights in the front room when she appeared at the top of the stairs rubbing her sleepy eyes. I told her she'd better get back to sleep or Santa wouldn't come. She turned around and went back in her room. If the lights had still been on she would have seen everything. I've got maybe one more year with her. She will be a good helper though once she knows. She doesn't believe in the tooth fairy anymore but has made up elaborate stories about what the teeth do in "Toothland" after the tooth fairy takes them for the youngest one. She's so believable my youngest writes notes to the tooth fairy asking if her teeth are having fun on the roller coasters they ride on Tuesdays, LOL.

I want

I want my own office. I swear my next home will have one. It might be a closet, but it's going to be my little closet, soundproofed if possible. Two months ago I swore I would try to come back and blog again soon, and you know what, it didn't happen. I've got all kinds of excuses as to why it didn't happen, but mainly it's the lack of privacy. Not that I blog about anything sensational or anything, just that I need a little peace and quiet to be able to think and properly form sentences. Already in the first 5 sentences I've been interrupted. See? How am I supposed to keep a train of thought. Right now my desk is in between the kids' desk and my husband's desk. Usually he's playing music on his computer, one of the kids is playing Webkinz on their computer and the other two are fighting over the Wii in the room next door. I was an only child. Raised in a home with two people. I can't think with that many noises bombarding my brain and fighting for attention. With that said, I'm going to attempt right now to write about some of the things going on in my life until I get interrupted so many times I run away screaming.