Sunday, December 30, 2007

Not only are my husband and I getting old...

we are also big dorks. It started with my husband saying "You know, it's New Year's Eve tomorrow and we have no plans. How lame is that?" I agree, but I cut us a little slack for a few reasons. We have four children and things have been crazy and busy and we've been sick so it's been nice just being home. Also, New Year's Eve is also one of my sisters' birthdays and we usually spend it with her and our family. This is one of the few years we will not be celebrating with her as they stayed in California for the holidays this year. I have to admit I've been a little sad about that and really haven't made an effort to plan anything.

Also, we are getting older. We are not OLD people yet, but already in our early thirties we can't hang like we used to. Gone are the days of working, athleticism, and partying till the wee hours. I'm sure much of the tiredness can be attributed to my illness and how it affects both of us, along with working and having four children but it is still funny to realize how boring we've become.

That being said, here is a sad, sad story to show our lame dorky oldness. The boys got these really cool robots for Christmas and when each of us saw them on Christmas day we had the same reaction, we couldn't wait to chase the cats with them. We'd forgotten this until tonight when the husband said "Hey we haven't gotten the cats with those robots yet!" and both of us got up out of our chairs in excitement to do so. Sadly, we are so lame that the cat we tried it on wouldn't play. She merely glared at us with disdain.

Sigh.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

what? pictures?!?



YES! I have a brand spanking new digital camera and I am very excited about it. These are pictures of the hats I am working on and the blanket I'm making for my sister. :)

Thursday, December 20, 2007

GAH GRRR ARRGH!

I am officially sick with a cold, which is no good when you have no immune system. I am becoming very, very growly and I do not want to have any obligations, but as I have a family and a job and it is almost Christmas obligations abound. I will need to call for another antibiotic to hopefully fix this latest illness.

And, my dryer has stopped working. Upon searching the internets I have diagnosed it as a dryer door switch problem. According to the fix it sites this is a fairly simple repair. According to my history and handy chick learning it will not be at all simple. It will be something I would start and then totally jack up and get frustrated with. Why is my husband not handier? He is on the bad list at the moment because I found that he has taken ALL of the tools from MY toolbox and put them somewhere that is NOT my toolbox and I cannot even find a screwdriver at the moment. The power drill is dead and the battery charger is MIA. I am highly irritated by all of this and it is not at all good to not have a working dryer with four children in the house.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

My son is hilarious.

The Sunday School Christmas Program went very well, the kids were all very cute and did a great job. My older three had speaking parts, and for the older son this was the first Sunday School program he actually participated in. He is now 7 and has ADAMANTLY refused in years past. This year he VOLUNTEERED for a speaking part and did it very well. I was shocked and very, very proud. The girls had a speaking part each and one together, which was really adorable. Also funny was Arenne nudging Abbie over over to the correct spot. The nudging was really close to a shove and got some laughter from the audience.

My Sunday School class was very cute and adorable and did really well. My youngest was one of the loud singing microphone lovers and even threw his hands up in a ta-daa fashion at the end.

Still, the funniest moment was while we were sitting and watching and Colin, who was wearing black pants, black vest, white button up shirt, and tie, turned to the kid next to him and said quietly, "Do I look like a waitress?"

Monday, December 17, 2007

Venus & Box

are some seriously crafty girls, and have my favorite podcast ever, It's Not Us, It's You. They had a salt dough ornament smackdown and the results were great. I give them both mad props as our salt dough ghosts were more like salt dough blobs.

I love them both, and was not looking forward to having to choose one of them as the winner, until I saw the Bear Jesus ornament. It was over. Venus did a nice job on the boobs of her chickie though.

Go here to see their entries and vote. And check out the podcast if you haven't already!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

We're putting up the christmas tree tonight, finally! I'd also like to get some lights up on the house, except the husband is opposed to them. Scrooge. I think the kids may just be excited enough to get him to do it though.

The cold is biting and I'm over the ice, but the snow is really pretty. The youngest threw himself down in it right off to make a snow angel and soon learned the lesson of only doing that when wearing snowpants with your coat. I've also decided that whoever steals the socks also takes the gloves and hats. No matter how many I buy we end up with only a few mismatched pairs when it's time to leave the house. I've tried lots of tricks, including a bin that the kids can just throw them into right by the door, but nothing works. Maybe I should just duct tape them right onto the coats.

So the Christmas tree trimming is tonight and tomorrow is the kids program at Sunday School. I teach the preschool/kindergarten group, who are singing the old standard Away In a Manger, complete with motions. It's cute, as small people usually are.

Today I need to go in and do a bunch of work I wasn't able to get done this week, all things needing done by tomorrow for church. Should be pretty exciting and hopefully there won't be too many snags. Hopefully.

This blog is really boring, and I so need to get some pics up, at least if I get a post up it helps, right? RIGHT?!?

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Ice, Snow, and Cold Oh My!

In the past week we've gotten more of the ice and snow and our temps have dropped quite a bit. Still, we've dodged much of what was predicted, yesterday they were saying anywhere from 3 to 11 inches depending on how it hit us, and I think we ended up with about 4 inches? Not too bad.

The kids have been loving it, I love it until I have to shovel or scrape/sweep it off of my car. It is pretty though.

I haven't done ANY knitting or crocheting this past week, I haven't been feeling all that well and have been pretty exhausted by work. I am reading more though. Currently I'm reading the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly, except I haven't figured out exactly what order they should be in and that's kind of driving me nuts. I bought a bunch of them with a gift card my sister gave me for my birthday, I love having books just waiting to be read.

I'm feeling pretty lame and boring right now, and nothing exciting is really happening. Maybe when we get the Christmas tree up I'll have some fun cat/tree stories.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Ice and Snow

are on their way. Looks like we will be getting our first big winter blast this year. The snow would be fine, except there is supposed to be freezing rain with it, so basically it will be awful trying to drive on and go anywhere. I'm hoping to get everything done at work today so I can hole up in the house with the kids tomorrow. Yarn, here I come!

Monday, November 26, 2007

See My New Header?

Isn't it great?!??! As if Sharnee of suckmylolly were not cool enough with her awesome free blogger templates, she offered to customize my header. This girl rocks. She even gave me a choice of fonts, how cool is that?!?

Thank you, thank you, thank you Sharnee, I love it!

If you haven't been to Suck My Lolly yet, you NEED to go. Sharnee rocks.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

ow ow ow ow ow!

So I've been crocheting away, wheeeeeeee. Really enjoying myself. And then last night while at work I dropped something really heavy. On the first two fingers of my right hand. It hurt a whole lot and still does. My knuckles are both swollen.

Crocheting is not as fun and I keep having to take breaks. Sigh.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Like My New Look?

Isn't it great? The fabulous Box of Rain linked to this really great fabulous awesome free template site called Suck My Lolly. I am totally in love with her designs, she rocks!!!!

I'm still getting used to the smaller font size and it took me way too long to realize that the header is a graphic when I was trying to change *Insert Witty Blog Title Here* to Blue Crochet. Oh my. Hey, my html knowledge is rudimentary to begin with and it's been awhile-obviously for those of you reading my blog-since I've done anything with it.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Totally lazy day

except for some laundry and changing the cat litter. While not fun, that was all I did today. YAY!

Originally I was going to go into work, but I ended up being completely wiped out from all the fun of Thanksgiving yesterday so I decided to wait and rest today and go into work tomorrow. I'm glad I did, I am feeling much better and will hopefully have more energy tomorrow.

As I type, my 5 year old is curled up next to me rubbing his head on my arm because he is now a cat. If I want him to actually answer me I have to call him little boy, or he will just meow back. He is a pretty convincing kitty, he even lifts his leg to lick his knee like the cats clean their legs. This kid is too much sometimes, lol.

Thanksgiving day was really great, I loved it and we spent a lot of time with family and had a lot of fun, along with all of the VERY good food. Except I only had one roll, instead my usual 4-6 and I didn't get to eat any pie, because of my new diet. I also was very tired throughout the day, but not in as much pain as I have been so all in all a good day, healthwise.

(I had to make the kitty go lie down because he was becoming "Berocious" which means ferocious.)

I am also actually really crocheting again HOORAY! And knitting! I am crocheting some caps for a bunch of kids, I have 7 and probably a few extra to make, I have two done so far (aside from weaving in the ends.) I'm knitting a bag for myself which I'll felt and can take my time with. Little by little I am getting back into my yarn. It's no fun when you lose the yarn drive.

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving, or a great Thursday for those not in the U.S.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

So there I go.

Today I woke up late, I'd worked a long day yesterday and par for the course was completely wiped out today. I drug myself up and spent much of the afternoon attempting to just get going, feel better, be okay, feel okay. Aleve, water, meds, stretching, coffee ZIP ZERO NADA! Unfortunately I needed to go back into work to finish some things that had to be done.

At this point my husband attempts to give me advice, a pep talk. He means well and I should not expect him to understand how absolutely frustrated and fed up I am with my limitations or how hard it is to just get through the day some days. He says I need to do little things to push myself. But he doesn't realize there are days where even the littlest things ARE pushing myself. We proceed to have one of those talk/argument/whatever sort of things where I cry because I am an emotional ninny, well not really a ninny, but I HATE the fact that I cry like I do, and he doesn't get the fact that I am a crier type of person and that I do not do this on purpose and can't control it or I wouldn't be crying in the first place. So, after a tiny bit of heated words (mainly from me) and talking and him not getting what I am saying and me getting what he is saying but not wanting to hear it we sort of each get our points across but I am still left with my situation and the fact that I have this illness which I have to deal with in all its varied and fun ways. I have spent the end of this conversation explaining to him that I push myself every single day and that some days brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom, walking around the house can be really exhausting and difficult and painful tasks. The good days those are easier but then getting through normal stuff, like work, laundry, etc. are tiring and often painful as well. Now, I am saying much of this for the first time out loud and of course crying and feeling angry, frustrated, and sad even more than I was before.

I have tried to not give in to self-pity, but this gets very difficult when taking a shower leaves me breathing heavy and exhausted and I still need to actually go do what I took the shower for in the first place.

I had promised the kids they could come to work with me, although they do end up being at work with me after school each day as their afterschool care and my job are in the same place, but I really wanted to follow through for them so they were coming. We FINALLY get out the door and off to work, where on the way we are stuck waiting for a long train. Eventually we get there and I'll spare you the details, suffice it to say that so many things went wrong or nuts or haywire it was just unreal. My frustration point was reached very quickly, things were even MORE difficult than usual and I had had ENOUGH.

I've found myself saying that a lot lately. This is enough. I've had enough. I'm done. I don't want this anymore. Bemoaning the bad, tired of everything being this fight, this effort, these normal activities becoming so ridiculously difficult. And then tonight all these even smaller things becoming difficult and I went okay. Okay God, I know I am stubborn. I know! But I get it. Thanks for the reminder.

Now if you are a non God person you are probably sighing or ready to stop reading, or all of those things even God people will do when normal things go a little God-talky. I was not a big talker of my faith. I do not like to push my faith on people, I don't feel the need to make other people believe like me (even if I would love for them to do so) I respect the fact that people have different beliefs, or non-beliefs. In the same way I want to be respected, I respect others. My writing this is not an attempt to bring you over to my Lutheran church and baptize you. This is just me, what I believe, and what I thought today. [/End disclaimer]

Life is rough, I have a lot of struggles right now, but there are always struggles. Some are small, like my stapler jamming up, and some are large, like my hands not working or my kidneys shutting down, but they are all struggles. And at this point I want to be glad I have those struggles because the alternative for me is to be dead. So bring on the struggles. And God help me to be at peace with my life and help me get through the rough times even if I need to vent or bitch about them. Get me through them and remind me of the good stuff and what I'd be missing if I weren't here to struggle through this.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Which podcast am I?




You're The Mep Report!

Hilarious but random, you captivate all of those who spend
time with you. While you think a fair bit of yourself, others seem to think
even more of you, though you personally find this baffling. Flightless birds
play a major role in your life, though no one can really figure out why. You
manage to pull everything together in the end despite your penchant for
discussing literally everything at once. You honestly believe you can save
the world with Tonka trucks.



Take the Podcast Quiz.



Coincidentally, the ostrich picture is one I used as an av for quite awhile. Who knew?

BlueKids!

Here they are, on the end of the first day of school. It was still raining, hence the picture quality.


The Absent Blogger returns...again

Here I am again, you'd have thought with all the time I've had to spend resting I should've been able to post a blog entry or too, but noooooo. Truthfully I could have taken the time, but my early days home were spent mostly sleeping or being with my family. One of my sisters also stayed for a month and helped me get my house in shape, and I got to spend lots of time with my little nephew man, who is growing bigger very quickly.

I did do some yarny things, made baby hats, started a bag for myself, and worked on some projects that have been and continue to be sorely neglected. I just can't seem to get back into the groove, it doesn't help that my hands have not wanted to work properly and are swollen a lot, but still! I miss working with my yarn. A ton. For my birthday I received a gift card for Hobby Lobby, ostensibly for pictures for my office, but I'm hoping to squeeze in a few skeins to make caps with. Those are always fun, easy, and useful.

I've got to get some pictures up to make this more colorful, it's sad how long it's been since I've posted any. I have one of the kids with my grandma and nephew I will try to get up here later, along with a first day of school pic that was actually taken at the end of the day because of a HUGE thunderstorm we had that morning. It's a hilarious pic of my four kids, I love it. They are all growing up so fast, my baby is now 5 and quickly losing any of those baby reminders, like his chubby little hands. My older son is 7 and very much a boy, complete with skinny legs and knobby knees. My daughters are now 8 and very much girls, no longer little. It's so cliched but it really is true that they grow up way too fast. Unfortunately no amount of hugging and holding onto them keeps that from happening.

I hope, if there are any readers left, that you are all well. If you haven't yet, check out Venus' blog for her very cool sock creatures and see what she did with a pincushion, it cracks me up and I want one too. Even though I rarely sew.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Oh Holy Moly I'm Here Again!

In true me fashion I completely forgot my username and password to sign into this bad boy. Finally I have had the time to sort it all out. Why, well because I am in the hospital!

Bleu Convalesces Part Deux. So I've got an auto-immune disorder, finally diagnosed after 3 years. I had a pretty scary night last Friday and was admitted to the ER, then ICU, and now I am in the urgent care unit. I am doing incredibly well all things considered, and they are now getting me set up on meds and working that all out. I will be here for a few more days while they make sure everything is working right. I am very, very blessed.

So, my days are pretty eventful and full of excitement. I am woken up for all the bp, heart rate, blood draw, and so on. At this point one of my next door neighbors begins asking for and trying to go find her breakfast, even though it comes at the same time everyday. Then she doesn't want to eat it. At this point I brush my teeth, have breakfast, get showered, take a walk around the halls-mask firmly on because I am on a med to suppress my immune system as it has been attacking my blood vessels, bladder, and colon. Thanks to large doses of steroids I am back on track. Thank goodness for this laptop because I was getting a little bored with tv, books, and magazines. So, after all of that excitement I have lunch, then jack around a bit, then another walk, then a nap, then jacking around again, and then dinner! After dinner I occasionally do another walk, which I usually take after the man who walk the halls and farts continuously is done, then jacking around and then I try to crash. Sometimes I am not able to crash because my other next door neighbor likes to yell for nurses instead of using that handy, dandy call button.

As I said, big big times. I am storing up all sorts of yarny projects in my head for when I am back at home convalescing. Woohooo!

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Oh My Goodness

I am finally able to post on this blog!

So, the whole switchover to the google thing with blogger had me very intimidated and I kept putting it off thinking oh i'll have to back up my blog (ie. select all and copy and save on my computer) and then transfer everything over (ie. follow the directions and if it doesn't work then I'll need to find that copy I saved and then copy and paste that) and then make any fixes (ie. check to make sure the c&p went well.) and so here we are. Apparently the switchover was actually quite painless and if you only do half of the process blogger helps you out. Thank you, blogger. Aaah.

Finally, after many numerous login attempts so that I could blog previously here I am. Probably the few people I had reading this have totally and completely given up on me, especially because I am not that exciting or a great writer. So, if you are one of those few and are actually still checking to see if I am posting, bless you.

Work is the same, still much of it and I will never, ever, ever be caught up although for the most part I am very good at leaving work at work. Home is incredibly busy and crazy as usual. I have to say that I am so happy to have my children and absolutely in love with our life together. It's pure chaos, in spite of any attempts at organization. And even more so as the children are out of school for the summer, except for the youngest who is still in daycare, although he will be going much less over the summer. Mr. Blue is now going to a night shift, so I work daytime while he is home with the children and he works at night while I am at home with them. As altruistic as it may sound it also saves us a few thousand in childcare fees. (And as a former primary sahm who only worked part time on the off shifts a tad more palatable.) I was a daycare teacher before having my children and very much value the fact that people who love and care about children are there to care for them while parents are working I am also very happy that one of us is able to be with them all the time. In fact, I love it. What I don't love is that we don't see each other really except for brief moments on the switchoff. But, we'll make it work. There's always the weekend, eh? Well except for when one of us needs to go in to work for all that stuff we can't finish on the weekdays. Aaagh. Don't let that fool you, obviously family is first, always.

Yarn. We're here for the yarn, right? I have it, I'm using it, I love it, and I have even less time for it than before (*sob). Current projects-blanket for my sister, another dishcloth, and ponchos for my mother and grandmother for mother's day gifts. We spent a really great Mother's Day-what could be better than spending it with your mother and her mother? We did the winery trip again although this time the men went to golf, with our blessing, as golfers ourselves this is key, and we sat at the park and had fun with the kids while having some wine and snacks. It was a tremendously fun day and I can't wait to finish their ponchos. P.S Poncho really is not an attractive word for what I am making.

Also a note about how big of a day this is, the third child has lost his first tooth! His very first one and he is so excited about that gap in his grin. I love it. And of course I am not the tooth fairy because how would I have been the tooth fairy for myself when I was a kid?!?!