Amanda's Modeling Thing

Well, it's been a busy week but I thought I'd post a few pics of Amanda's modeling gig. Mom and Dad are here and we're having a great time. Blogger is giving me trouble with pictures again so I'm not going to write a lot in case I have to re-do it.

Catching Up

There really is a lot of stuff going on here and I just haven't taken the time to post about it so here it goes all at once:

Amanda is done with school for the year and is officially a senior! She has 18 days at home (I think) before she heads off to Governor's School. She is also in a fashion show this week at Centennial Park. If you'd like to go just let me know- I know she'd love to have as many friends and "family" there as possible.

Chloe's last day of school is tomorrow and is a "half day". Can you consider 2 hours of school a half day? It's kind of annoying to drop her off and then come right back and pick her up but at least the school is only a few minutes away. She had her last field trip yesterday at Pinkerton Park- 5 hours of unstructured playtime- wow! I really think it would have been better if they'd planned games and things because I was there for a while and the kids were sitting in the shade, sweating, and looking miserable. Chloe had a great time though and was super-excited to have gone on her first bus ride. And I don't know what plans you other Mom's have for the summer but I know that some area movie theaters have free movie days (I don't know about the one here) and maybe we could plan to go together sometime. I'm also hoping for a few library days and Pinkerton Park is fairly shaded to if we go early it might be cool enough. I'm all for wearing the tikes out in the morning so I can have a couple of hours to myself in the afternoon. I hate to say it but having all of the girls at home during the day is going to be a bit of an adjustment but I'm looking forward to having a great time with them.

So I finally finished one fan blade and have started on the second. It really doesn't take long and the last two blades will be really easy because I'm just painting the flowers on them but it's difficult to get to because Halle is constantly trying to stick her fingers in the paint. Then if I do it at night Chloe wants to help but I definitely want to get it finished in the next week. I'm also working on painting the living room. I've had a little bit of luck finding some $5 oops paint at Lowe's so I'm tackling the living room and the kitchen and Tisra gave me some leftover paint from Lael's room so I need to do the girls room as well. The difficulty is clearing the room and spackling and sanding. When we clear the room there is hardly a space to put things and every time I think I'm done with spackling and sanding I find more termite damage. I found a good bit to the right of the front door frame that had been covered with scotch tape and paint! Seriously- SCOTCH TAPE! I find it very difficult at times to not resent the former owners. So anyway, the living room color is called "angel" but I have no idea if they messed up on it or if the people that bought it just didn't like it. But even though I'd planned on going with a slate blue color I really like the stone/sage-y color that it is. I hope it's not too dark. I plan on lightening it up with floor to ceiling light blue curtains (that my Mom and I are working on next week!) and silver accents. And I really think it hardly matters what the color is as long as we paint it something. Our house doesn't feel comfortable at all and it's very stressful so I think a coat of paint will make a huge difference.

It is So Not Worth It!

I've been sick lately- a lot. Actually it's gone on for about 5 1/2 years that when I workout strenuously I get sick. I like to work out hard- it makes me feel good. I know that some people don't understand that but it's just how I am. So a couple of months ago I went to the Dr. (because Travis made me) and laid out the sickness routine- I work out strenuously for about 3 days in a row and then I'm sick for 5 days and up to two weeks. I told him that we'd been under a lot of stress for several years and he said that when you're under stress your body released a hormone (that I can't remember the name of) and it's the same one that Dr.'s give to transplant patients to wreck their immune system- and it's very effective. I was happy on the one hand to hear him say that because it's just not natural for someone to get sick as often as I do and it's frustrating. I can't count how many days I've spent lying on the couch when the kids are outside playing. I resent not being able to be as physically fit and as active as I want to be- it's all just very frustrating. So I've kept working out and kept getting sick. And all this time I feel the Holy Spirit saying to me "relax". Relaxing is not in my nature- I need to achieve and conquer something- always, even if it's just reaching that next level on the exercise bike. But on Mother's Day I decided to take a walk with Chloe. We decided to walk in the neighborhood across the street from ours- the one with the crazy-expensive houses. So as we walked we came across a series of ponds that the developers call "lakes" (I really hope the residents didn't pay extra for that- I'm from Lakeland and I know what a lake looks like) and then came across a dock. Chloe and I walked out onto it and saw lots of medium sized fish (probably bream) and turtles and a goose. I think they were waiting for us to drop some breadcrumbs but alas, we had none. We had so much fun and it was so relaxing- even though we walked for an hour and a half. So yesterday we decided to walk again and took Halle with us since Travis was mowing the lawn. We went back to the dock and had a seat this time. The turtles that would disappear under the water if we flinched the day before seemed very curious and some swam right up to us- including a small alligator snapping turtle! Chloe said to the goose, "sorry goose no bread" since we'd forgotten to bring it along. And Halle mimicked her saying "sowwy goof, no bwead", with her hands out and a shrug of her shoulders. It was slightly breezy and the girls had the happiest looks on their faces and I thought, "it's just not worth it". I guess my desire to work out has to sit on the shelf for a while. I'm going to take it easy and walk for a while- which I don't really like. In the past walking was what I did on those days that I felt like a slacker. But I'll walk and take Chloe with me (or anyone else that wants to tag along) and stop and smell the roses that she picks for me and get better.

The stress of our crazy lives has brought me to this point but I know that God is restoring us. I'm not content to say that this is just how it is. God has brought us through this amazing and painful journey and while I believe that we're at the end of that journey, our journey into restoration, healing, and ministry is just beginning. I will be climbing mountains again soon.

I thought I'd post some pics of the fun we had at the Main Street Festival in Franklin this past weekend. The picture of Chloe is very similar to one I took of her last year at the festival and I thought it would be cool to get the same picture every year to watch how much she grows and so that the she can remember the festival as one of those nostalgic-home town type things that we do every year. And for the first time Halle was able to get into a little bounce house and really had fun. She was a little hesitant at first and seemed content to hang onto the ropes on the side and yell for help (in Spanish which she got from Dora the Explorer). We ended up getting to the festival kind of late but it was nice because it was starting to get cooler outside and most of the families already had their fill of fun and had gone home so it wasn't as crowded as last year and we were pretty happy about that. I think this will be a fun thing for us to do every year. But hopefully next year it won't coincide with a women's conference at church- that made for a super-hectic weekend.

A few weeks ago when all of the trees were in bloom and the "helicopter" seed pods were falling from the maple trees I decided that we might as well plant one. I've also planted lemon seeds several times with no success and had tried again about 4 weeks before I planted the maple seed. I typically dig the lemon seed up and am always disappointed so this time I just thought "forget it I'm not even digging the lemon seed up and I'll just plant the maple seed in the same pot". So I did and about 2 1/2 weeks later a little maple tree sprouted! Chloe and I were so happy. We've watered it and watched it grow pretty quickly. Well about a week after that I noticed that something else was sprouting and I couldn't figure out what it was. Did I somehow plant more than one maple seed? But they didn't look the same. It took several days for me to confirm that it was, in fact, the lemon seed that had sprouted. Gaaa! I didn't want to just pull one of them up, I already had plans for that maple tree. And I'd been trying to get a lemon seed to grow for so long that I wasn't giving that one up either- not intentionally anyway. So I decided to try to separate them and hope for the best. I dug the lemon seedling out, put it in a pot, filled in the soil, watered it and set it in the shade. I read last year that if you transplant something you shouldn't put it in direct sunlight for a couple of days so that it can get over the shock. During the process though- since the two trees were so close together- the maple seedlings root was completely exposed and I filled in around that, watered it, and set it in the shade as well. All day I watched them both to see if there were any signs of wilting and as of yet there hasn't been. I'm hopeful because they're tiny and if they were going to wilt they would have already, wouldn't they? I'll have to keep you posted.

In other great news, I seem to have my happy toddler back! It has been several weeks since she's felt well and been herself. I thought we were on the other side of her illness but last Friday when I took her to the Dr. to check her mouth out we discovered that she had bronchitis as well. *sigh* But this morning she's happy and playing and I'm so excited. Today feels like it will be a productive day so I'm going to work out now (it's kind of early for me to do that), and tackle laundry so that I can take Halle outside to play. I am really looking forward to making a lot of house progress today.