Sring Break

It must be spring if it is already spring break! We are heading out to Phoenix for the week. I am so looking forward to some "no one else's kids" time. Yeah! Arnold got a little apartment of his own, and we are taking him some things to furnish it. We have decided that right now for the kids and I it is best to just stay here in New Mexico. Even if it is a little yucky to be apart from Arnold. Now that he has his own place, we will be much more likely to visit him.
I have yet to do anything with the garden as far as planting is concerned. But once I get back from Phoenix I intend to get busy. It has just been so wet this winter. Every time it seems like the ground is getting dry enough to do something with it rains again! Not that I am complaining, the rain is good. My grass already looks good, well as good as my grass ever does! I need to re-seed a few places.
Yeah Spring!

The kids room is painted, except for the closet, which is still purple. I have yet to find the time to get every thing out of there in order to paint, so it sits purple, very purple. Arnold was home for a week (YEAH), but doesn't like the idea of wood floors. BOO! For some reason he thinks the house is to cold to have bare floors. Maybe he is right. I do hate walking on cold floors. But my poor little dream bubble has been deflated. There is a very sneaky part of me that wants to just do it anyway, and not just that room but the whole house! I know there is wood in my room, the living room and the dining room. To bad the pellet stove is in the dining room and I can't move it by myself to remove the current flooring.
In other news, it is raining, again! I love it. Except for the mud that is tracked in. I am so excited for spring to spring! My tulips, daffodils and hyacinths are poking there heads up getting ready to bloom. The garden lays sleeping. I started to dig in it the other day, but my poor body has sat far to long inside and left my in pain. I'll dig some more when it stops raining! I will not be stopped by pain. Just have to get use to it again. Not the pain, the being physically active again.

Wood floors?

My house is old and small. The floors have creaky spots and sag in others. For two years now I have been planning on painting, getting new carpet, fixing cracks, but for one reason or another it never gets none. I did manage to turn my bathroom from black to white. The paint was peeling, (helped along by my children) I hated the color, it seemed easy enough to just peel the paint, right? Wrong. Whoever had painted the sheet rock in the first place didn't think it necessary to primer it, so when the paint started to peel off it took a layer of the paper off the sheet rock. To make a long story short sheet rock doesn't like to be wet, even if it is primer you are putting on it, it makes more layers peel. So I had to mud quite a bit of my bathroom, good thing it is small. It is still a work in progress, as I don't think I want to keep it primer white, but I still have yet to decided on the perfect color. Plus I was a little put off by how long it actually took me to finish what I did.

I now have a new project. The kids room. Which also has peeling paint that has been helped along by children, not only mine but little hands who do not belong to me. The color is not a horrible color, it is just not one that I would have picked, nor would any of my kids. Plus it is peeling, so I have taken on a new project. This time it appears that the task at hand will be easier in the fact that the sheet rock was primer, making the paint peel right off, but the room is bigger, and has much larger furniture in it. Which brings me to a whole other issue.

The bunk beds. I have moved them around that room a hundred times, or at least ten, with no problem. But as I was trying to move them this time I became a complete wimp! I could not get the post in the corner to budge. Which was unacceptable. So I pulled with all my might, and low and behold it started to move, I continued to tug with all the strength I could muster. At this point Breana informs me that I a pulling up the carpet! Yes it is true. My strength is more than even I am aware of. So I squeezed myself between the wall and the bed to see why the carpet is coming up with the bed. It looks like the post has been glued to the carpet! I kid you not. Upon closer inspection I notice the "glue" is blue and smells like blueberries. Ashley admits that it maybe some of her goo candy that she left on the bed. It had spilled down the post and dried around the bottom, holding the post in place, very solidly I might add. Getting the post unstuck from the carpet was, let's just say not easy.

Now I have the carpet unpeeled from the floor, and since it was up I had to look. Guess what? There is hard wood flooring under that stinky purple carpet! It is not the best I have ever seen. What can you expect it has been under carpet for 20 years. A little scratched, but have I found my next project? Surely I could learn to redo a hardwood floor?

I have found myself at a lose for words, which explains my lack of blogging in MONTHS. It seems that I need to tell a story whenever I write, and since nothing new has been going on in our little lives, I don't write. I wake up every morning get my kids ready and off to school, then watch other peoples children while they, the children, play. There is comfort in routine, there is also boredom. I can't complain, after the year I had last year it is nice to have predictability, and stability. I haven't made it to college just yet, pell grant doesn't cover enough, and couldn't get to paper pusher of the army to send to required info I needed to complete my application. So I wait. I am sure when the time is right the way will be made for me. But I am studying up on my math skills.

Here are a few pictures of life these past few months. In no particular order.

It snowed, a little.

Christmas. Poor Ashly was sick on Christmas!

Ashley had a birthday, 11 already!

Halloween.

He hates getting his picture taken!


No pictures of Thanksgiving. I did make a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin, not from a can. And it turned out good!

No pictures from News Year. The kids and I went to the movies then come home and almost made it until midnight. It just isn't as fun as it use to be to stay up late. Arnold was back in Phoenix so it was just the kids and I. He is currently in Little Rock going school, for National Guard. He will be gone until February 12. But after that he will be fully qualified to do his job. I should say trained, because he had been doing this same job for the army for 7 years. There are minor details that are different, anyway, he is away.

We have had lots of much needed rain the past couple weeks. I am now looking forward to seeing the sun any day now. And I am ready for spring. So that is what you have missed while I have not blogged. Probably there is more, but that is all there is right now.

Close encounter of the eight legged type

Why is there a spider on my arm? Not just any spider, but a tarantula. As the kids and I were coming in from our morning of play outside, they spotted it, and screamed. I had on gloves, been creating a new flower bed, so I picked up our little friend, just to show there was nothing to be afraid of. I must say, I myself was not sure enough to take off my gloves in order to test this idea. Our friend was not content to say on my hand, where else to go except up my arm. So of course I grabbed the camera to capture my calm/fear. It creeped me out just a little. I really hate most spiders. I am not sure why, but tarantulas aren't as scarey to me. He was kind of small.

Fall

It is more than the chill in the air, and changing leaves, getting up before the sun. Or the smell of chili being roasted, the shorter days and orange pumpkins. It's the light. The way the sun shines and the heat of the afternoon just doesn't feel as hot. There is some thing about the light this time of year that is unmistakable. Then I woke up a couple of days ago to find my house was cold. It is usually cool in the morning, but this morning I was cold. I feeling I hate! After the sun had spread it's warmth for a few hours I went outside to enjoy the feel of fall. I always water my garden in the morning, but this morning I was shocked to find my tomatoes looking as if they had been froze. Can it be? Already. The Weather Channel says no, it was only 37 degrees that night, but I have proof they are wrong. So now I must admit the the fact that it is time to snuggle down at night, closing my windows and turning off fans. Time to take the air conditioner back to the garage, and buy pellets for my stove. Good bye to summer and fresh veggies. Hello to sweatshirts and sweatpants, thick blankets and hot soup. No more flip flops and tank tops. Here we go again, another summer come and gone. I love this time of year!

Tonight my heart is breaking. Gabriel is crying his little heart out because Arnold had to go back to Phoenix. I am not sure how much more of this I can take!