En Plein Air

The other weekend, Moanna and I ventured back to Virginia. While we were there, my Mom dug out the painting supplies from our childhood and commanded everyone to paint.

I feel certain that some of these paints are older than I am.

Evan painted a comet. His work of art had a lot of texture.

GiGi claimed she wasn’t in the mood for art, but her smile begs to differ.

Moanna used every type of paint on the table.

Since I had not painted anything other than a wall since high school, maybe even middle school, I was quite proud of my master piece.

The professional painting there in the bottom right corner was painted by GiGi.

Fire Safety

I have to tell you something. I am terrified of my house catching on fire. I have had this fear since I was a wee one. I went through phases where I couldn’t sleep at night because I was afraid the house would catch on fire, and I wouldn’t be able to get out of the house in time because I was asleep. I still worry about it today, though it doesn’t keep me up at night. I have no idea where this fear originated, no clue. I’m not even afraid of fire itself. Candles, camp fires, bond fires, brush fires, I have no problem with them. It’s just the house burning down.

Because of my fear of the house burning down, and because of my desire to raise independent and empowered children, I started teaching Moanna about fire safety a year ago. I wanted her to know what to do if the house caught on fire. How do you teach a toddler (she was two at the time) about fire safety without scaring the bajeezus out of them? You make it sound exciting, sort of.

I started at the smoke alarm. I showed it to her, pushed the button and told her what that noise meant. Then, I told her when that goes off, we need to get outside fast. I showed her how to crawl to the door and go out side and wait for Mommy and Daddy. Once we got outside the firetrucks would come!! That was the exiting part, the fire trucks coming. I left out everything about what a fire is, and what it would do to our house and all of our things. It was simply, when the alarm goes off you crawl outside and then the firetrucks would come. We talked about it and practiced about once a month.

This past Saturday, Moanna and I went to a free fire safety event for kids. There were hamburger and hot dogs, a jumping house, fire trucks, stickers, coloring books, silly bands and lots of handouts. Naturally, we had to go to the jumping house and eat a hamburger before Moanna would even consider looking at firetrucks. At first Moanna was shy, but after walking around the firetrucks several times snuggled into my shoulder, she started to warm up to the big bright trucks and half a dozen firemen and firewomen that were there. Finally she was brave enough to climb into the fire truck and let me take her picture. She had to take my picture with the firetruck too, to make it even, of course.

After we explored the trucks, Moanna and I went to talk to the fire educator. I wanted to know if what I was teaching Moanna was helpful or damaging to her. Was it too much at such a young age, or not enough? We talked to the fire educator for about ten minutes, and she said that we were pretty inline in how we were teaching Moanna. The only part that we left out, was that we needed to designate a meeting place once we get outside. She also said it was important to practice these drills often, even after Moanna is in bed and asleep. She said that she does fire drills in school all of the time, but she has never responded to fire at a school. They are safer buildings. However, she responds to house fires all the time, so practice the drills!

I felt relieved that my uneducated, fire education was inline with what we should be teaching her at her age. I was also thrilled that we came across this free event that allowed Moanna to get to spend time with firetrucks and firemen and women to become more comfortable with the people that protect us and our homes.

Before we left, Moanna got stickers and silly bands in the shapes of fire-hats and fire-dogs. I picked up two fire-safety DVDs for us to watch at home, and several handouts and guides to put in my collection of home school materials to start building a safety unit. I plan to do a safety unit with Moanna (and all future children) every year that will progress in depth as they grow. We’ll start with basics like fire safety and strangers, and move into more serious topics like food safety, CPR, first aid, self defense and so on as they mature and are ready to take on more personal responsibility for their safety. Of course, this unit will include field trips to firehouses and such.

When we got home, Moanna asked to watch her safety DVDs. She has watched them multiple times in the past few days. The other day I walked into the living room to find her crawling across the floor and putting the back of her against the door. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, “My safety DVD said to do this to see if the door is hot.” I was so proud.

Have you ever had to live through my fear of your house catching on fire? How do you teach your children about fire safety? How young were they when you began? Where is your meeting spot?

I’m thinking the mailbox is a good spot for us…

Today…

Today…

It’s rainy.

This is the view from my back deck.

We are playing credit card games.

There is no food in my house.

I will finish the first book of the Twilight Series.

Moanna and I missed a car accident by less than 60 seconds.

We are still celebrating with a GIVEAWAY.

I need to wash the sheets.

The office is still not unpacked.

I am working on projects for my blog and Angel Wings International.

Today is Monday, and there is much to be done.

Lethargic

I’m feeling lethargic today. I’m not 100% sure why, but here are a few possible explanations…

* My tongue hurts. No this is not a make out injury. It feels like an aching sore throat but instead of my throat it’s my tongue. Eating, talking and swallowing are not pleasant experiences today.

* Moanna is not napping. We’ve been struggling with this issue for a few weeks now. At first I thought it would be OK for her to just have some quiet time in her room and not nap. Maybe she’s outgrown nap time? However, after observing her evening behavior, it is very clear that she is still in need of naps. The last three hours of our evenings together are far from peaceful. She is either so far past hyper that she can not be tamed, or she is an emotional ball of tears and tantrums. Also, if we go anywhere after “napping” she falls asleep in the car within five minutes, so I know she is tired. When she naps, our evenings are calm(er) and we have fun together. Help me!

* We (minus Steve) went to Virginia this weekend for a friend’s wedding. It was a nice weekend, but I don’t think I bounce back from road trips like I used to. This makes me blue because other than having a big ol’ happy family, traveling is one of the most important things to me. I want to see the world. I will see the world even if my ol’ set-in-its-ways body has a long rebound in between trips.

* I miss my husband. He’s not been traveling since we moved to Atlanta, but after our initial period of unpacking and settling in, I’ve not seen him much. He’s been working like mad, and in the evenings we’re both so tired that it is an accomplishment if we manage to stay awake on the couch for an entire movie.

Blah… That’s how I can sum this all up. Blah… Tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be in a much chipper mood, and I won’t give these things a single thought. Unless my tongue is still not up to par, then I can’t say that I won’t think about that tomorrow.

Please forgive me for being a party pooper today. To make it up to you, I will leave you with this…

This is the only picture I took of my dear friend’s wedding. Isn’t this one of the most beautiful wedding backdrops you have ever seen?

The Move – Part 4: South Bound

If you missed the first three episodes start  with Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.

I wasn’t expecting The Move to turn into a Lifetime miniseries. I thought that it would be a short one act play and we’d be done. I hope you are not getting bored or annoyed with my long winded play-by-play of this chapter in my life. However, therapy is expensive and we are in between insurance right now, so you’re all I’ve got. Please hang in there with me for another chapter or two.

Once we finally had our house in Georgia secured, it was time to kick it into high gear and get to a packin’ and a loadin’. The time had come to get serious about moving, however my husband had other plans in mind. Instead of using our last real weekend in Virginia to pack up our house and prepare for our decent into the South, Steve wanted to spend the weekend at the beach. One morning before work he announces to Moanna and I that we are going to the beach for the weekend because, “We could all use a vacation.” Dead serious. I flailed about in protest about how ludicrous it was and how we were so far from being ready to move that it wasn’t even funny, and didn’t he remember that we were going out of town for a few days before our move to the temple, and just how did he plan on getting everything packed if we were spending all of our “free time” at the beach? I told him he was insane and that there was no way we were going on a vacation. He was not interested in hearing anything about my rational thinking, “We could all use a break before things get crazy. We work better under pressure. We are GOING to the beach.”

(Remind me to tell you the story about getting stuck in traffic for over an hour on the way home from our trip to the beach. It involves getting stuck in the same traffic jam twice. Yes, you read that correctly.)

Before we were able to rinse the sand off of our feet we were packing boxes. For three days straight we packed. At first we were meticulous in our packing methods. Everything was neatly wrapped and padded. We discarded things that we no longer needed as we went along. The boxes were labeled and double taped. About 36 hours into our packing we realized that we were running out of time and we needed to throw stuff in boxes, tape them up and pray that nothing would break on the journey to Georgia. There was no more organizing, no more down sizing, no more double taping, just a lot of prayer.

The packing was nonstop until we had to stop for our trip to the temple. Our trip to the temple was amazing and absolutely insane. I won’t go into detail about that here. It really does deserve its own post.

We returned home from our trip to the temple late Friday evening to find that our moving trailer had been delivered while we were out of town. If this whole moving thing wasn’t real to us before, it was real to us then. By Monday evening at 11:00PM that trailer would have the contents of our entire existence crammed into it. I had no idea how we were going to pull it off. Just looking at it made me tired and nauseous.

Saturday afternoon it all came crashing down on me. It was too much to take. The task was so much bigger than I was. I felt that it was impossible to continue to say goodbye to so many people and to continue to shove every thing I owned, every memory I had of my life so far (most of which took place with in a 20 mile radius of our home in Buena Vista) in boxes. I was exhausted emotionally, physically and mentally. I was so far gone that I knew if I didn’t give into the nap that my body so desperately needed that I might find myself in the emergency room. I closed the door to our room, belly flopped on our bed and cried until I passed out.

Several hours later I woke up. You know what it’s like to wake up the morning after you just ended a major relationship? Initially you wake up feeling like everything is right in the world, then you remember that you are all alone and  that all of your happy memories are nothing but ashes of loneliness and emptiness. Eventually, you peel yourself away from your emotions and out of bed and begin going through the motions of life. Being detached and numb is what keeps you going. For the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday I remained detached. I went through the motions, and not the emotions of what was before me.

Monday was loading day. We woke up early that morning and started throwing what was left in the house in boxes. The men from our church were coming at 6:00PM to load the truck, and we had ten hours until they arrived. We were machines, stopping only long enough to give people hugs and tell them goodbye when they stopped by the house. A friend from church came to help. I asked her how brave she was. She said she was feeling pretty brave, so I had her clean out the fridge. She went right to it without even flinching. I promise you, we would still be in Buena Vista right now if I had to clean out the fridge because I had been dreading that chore since Steve told me we were moving months ago. We didn’t stop for lunch. We kept packing, and packing and packing.

6:00PM came and we were not done. A mob of church men barged into my house and started taking my things away. Their wives helped me finish the last of the packing and taping. With in half an hour everything I owned was on the front lawn. My house was empty and I wanted to collapse in the floor, but my body wouldn’t let me. Night fall came and flashlights and headlights were aimed at the back of the truck while my stuff waited patiently on the lawn for its turn to be added to the puzzle. By 10:00PM everything I owned was tightly packed into 12 lateral feet on the moving truck.

Tuesday morning we woke up and went to a friend’s house for breakfast before loading up the car and driving south. Moanna and I walked to and from their house, one last walk around the neighborhood. It was so sad. I walked around our neighborhood almost every day, and every time I would pass a dozen or more people that I knew. It was so sad to know that I wouldn’t have my neighborhood to walk around in anymore and to know that when I walked around my new neighborhood I wouldn’t know anybody.

After breakfast we loaded up the cars with our things that we felt we would need before our moving truck arrived in Georgia. Moanna and I in one car, and Steve in the other. As we drove off Moanna and I waved goodbye to our house and to our pink tree, and I swear to you, that was the hardest goodbye of all. I don’t know why. Every  time I had to say goodbye to someoen my heart broke a little bit. I knew that they were not goodbye forevers, but I knew that our friendships and relationships would become something entirely different. None of it hurt as much as leaving our house and our pink tree. Maybe it was because it was the final goodbye and from , or because I felt like we were abandoning them after they took such good care of us. I don’t know.

(With how much I’ve watched the pink tree over the past two years, I can’t believe this is the only picture I can find. To add insult, this picture was taken through the window.)

We filled up with gas, and headed south to Tennessee. We stayed the night with my Dad and his wife Janet. It was wonderful to spend time with them, and had we known that our moving truck was going to be  late getting to our new house we would have stayed two nights. Perhaps the second night we would have been more social and energized because sadly they were graced by our emotionally rundown and physically exhausted selves. Next time we visit it will be just for fun, and not as a commercial break during  ”The Move.”

It felt like as soon as we got to Tennessee we were on the road again heading deeper into the South to Atlanta. After driving all evening, we arrived at our new home. It was close to 10:00PM. Our Fabulous Realtor and our new landlord were there to greet us. We signed some papers, they handed over the keys and and left. We were alone in our new Atlanta home. We checked the place out, blew up the air maitress and passed out.

The next morning things got interesting. Interesting, indeed.

Wiggle Dance Shake

Good morning Peaches! (Don’t ask.) If your morning is going anything like mine – slow and stiff, I thought you might need something to get you going. This video will wake up you, get you moving and if nothing else make you smile.

Enjoy your Thursday!

The Scholar

“I learned how to write an A! You go up, down and across. That’s how you do it, Mommy. That’s what the teacher  taught me in school today.”

I plan to home school Moanna, so I never thought I would put her into a preschool program. However, ever since we got settled into our new home Moanna has shown an intense interest in learning, and with everything that I have had to accomplish and adjust to in this new little world of mine, I was not at all prepared to begin Moanna’s education. In order to feed her mind, and keep my sanity, I felt that this program at our gym was a good starting ground for the both of us. It’s a little three day a week program (she only goes on Mondays and Wednesdays because that is all the budget will allow)at our gym that meets for two hours a day. The teacher has her master’s in education and Moanna is one of two students in the program, so I know she is getting a lot of attention that I would not be able to give her while trying to drill holes in the wall and not burn dinner.

Why?

Why?

Why do children insist on doing this? I’ve never seen a child play with a public fountain or a backyard sprinkler without doing this. Why?

Why?

Why is it that one of my favorite pictures taken of Moanna  this summer  is washed out, grainy and not in fantastic focus? Look at her running away from the water screaming bloody joy. Why?

Why?