Chaos and Cupcakes

There are some things going on in our lives right now that are emotionally draining and it has taken a lot of the joy of blogging away for me.  So I will be taking a blogging hiatus.  Plans for the other blogs are on hold until I get back to a place where I feel motivated to blog again.

In the meantime, I keep our photo gallery updated on a regular basis and will continue to do that.  I just put some new pictures on last night.  Andrew lost his first tooth and there are some pictures of his proud foray into “big kid” status on there.

…Halloween, that is.

“There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people:  religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin!”

–Linus in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

http://seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com

We have a strict no-shoes in our house policy. I have had various little signs up asking visitors to remove their shoes, the cutest and most current being a little sign my mom just brought me back from Hawaii. I also keep baby wipes in our mudroom and by our back door and we wipe our bare feet when we enter our home during the summer. We wear flip flops a lot during the hot months and feet can get dirty and germy wearing these so we clean them up before we come in. I know that not everyone is a germ-hating clean freak like Jared and I. I was raised in a “no shoes in the home” family by a “no dirty feet” mom so to me this is just second nature. Jared is a bare feet kind of guy who appreciates having a very clean home so to him it is second nature. I saw this today and this is exactly why we don’t wear shoes into our home:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Consumer/story?id=5177409&page=1

Note: I edited this post because after I went back and read it later, it seemed like I am a total freak germaphobe. Well, the truth is I am a total freak germaphobe. But I needed to turn down the freak a bit! So if you get this in an RSS feed and read the first post- hey, don’t be afraid to come over to my house. After all, I own a great steam cleaner. Anyway, if you read the article it talks about etiquette when asking people to remove their shoes. I do keep clean socks in a basket by my door for those who aren’t comfortable barefoot (it’s what Martha Stewart does, too). But bottom line is my job is to keep my kids safe and healthy. Did you read about the bacteria that can cause stomach, eye, and lung infections? Gross! I just read some interesting things about people removing their shoes in others’ homes and there definitely are some cultural trends to it. For instance, I read that in Canada and Hawaii you wouldn’t think twice about taking your shoes off at the door; it’s just what everybody does there. In our new neighborhood, everyone takes their shoes off in their homes and their neighbors’ homes. That probably has more to do with the fact that everyone wants to keep their new carpets nice. When Jared and I went to the Parade of Homes you had to put on booties before you could go into any of the homes. Great idea! Well, as they say in Hawaii, “Mahalo for removing your slippahs!”

Cameron and Andrew had overlapping baseball practices tonight lasting from 5-7pm. Since Jared is out-of-town and it was also the last day of school, I decided to take the kids to IHOP for dinner as a treat (I was also exhausted and had just cleaned and mopped the kitchen and didn’t want to redo it right away). IHOP was not a good choice. The service was awful. First of all the server wouldn’t stop commenting that I must be completely crazy and she would shoot herself if she had 6 kids. Well, that is why I have 6 kids and you don’t, lady. I enjoy my 6 kids and they behaved like angels the whole dinner. She asked me how old I was and I said that I was 29. She replied to that, “Well, @#$*, you just keep poppin’ em out, doncha?!” Then it took forever to get our drinks and we were extremely thirsty, it took forever for her to take our order, and- you guessed it- it took forever to get our food. When the food did arrive we had one meal we didn’t order and were missing a meal we did order. It took 30 minutes for that meal to arrive and so, in the meantime, poor Cameron just shared my food. In that 30 minutes, I requested refills for all of us (our first and only refills) 3 times. We finally got them at the same time as Cameron’s food. Of course, by that time we had all finished and just wanted to get the check and leave. When I first ordered chocolate milk for the kids, I asked if there was a charge for a refill on chocolate milk (IHOP is funny about its refills and doesn’t have consisted rules or charges). The server told me there wasn’t. When she brought the check, she had charged me for both the meal I ordered that arrived 30 minutes late and the meal I didn’t order. When I brought this to her attention, she said, “I know, but I didn’t charge you for the kids’ refills.” I said, “Ummm, you’re right. Because you said there wasn’t a charge for them.” She said, “Well, there is.” To which I replied, “But seeing as how you didn’t bring them until 30 minutes after we asked for them and we had already finished our food, I wouldn’t pay for them anyway. I would ask you to remove the charge for the late food as well, but I’ll just settle for you taking off the meal I didn’t order.” So she took off the extra meal and I signed the receipt. Right in front of me, she then proceeded to hold the receipt up to a co-worker’s face and say, “Can you believe that’s all she left me?!” So I said, “Look. That is 15% which is way more than you deserved. I had a bad day and figured you might have too and so I was cutting you some slack. Don’t make me regret it.” She looked a bit sheepish then and we left. However, this is not the first time we have received horrible service at this particular IHOP and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the last. I think we will take a hiatus from IHOP. Sorry, kids, no more Funny Faces for you.

Faced with today’s economy, I’ve done a lot of thinking about the way a lot of people, my family included, live. We are a society of conspicuous consumption. We want what we want, when we want it. Our society, in general, shares a feeling of entitlement.

I have been trying very hard lately to curb my spending, to really evaluate and differentiate between my needs and wants. I would be doing a great disservice to my children if I didn’t try to set an example of not rushing out to buy everything I want. They need to learn to save and to sacrifice and to not be spoiled. If all children learned this, perhaps that feeling of entitlement wouldn’t be so pervasive.

We typically get to have fun with our tax return. This year we were slammed with major medical bills due to the events surrounding Parker’s birth (before, during, and after). Our tax return went to paying those bills. We even have a bill to pay now as we have been fighting with our insurance company and have just been denied coverage for it. So we didn’t get to have fun with our tax money this year. We didn’t get to buy all of the wants on our list and we didn’t get to squirrel away money into our savings account. We sacrificed to meet our obligations.

I have been talking to Taylor about this lately. He has a big list of wants. I told him right now our family is using all of our extra money to pay for Parker’s birth and to pay for all of the tests that I have had to have lately. With my recent health struggles, we are incurring another load of bills. I also have to have major surgery this summer, as does Taylor. So that will bring it’s own huge batch of bills. So Taylor is learning that having a healthy family is more important than new stuff that isn’t necessary.

Perhaps if more people learned to sacrifice instead of expecting others to enable them to maintain a consumptive lifestyle, the economy wouldn’t be as poor as it is now. My family just recently had this discussion. It was brought up that the majority of those people who have lots of money worked hard to get to that place, didn’t ask for hand-outs, and are innovators. I am proud my husband works his heart out to get ahead and takes pride in providing for his own family.

Jared got this remote for an early Father’s Day gift. It apparently can control all the TVs, DVD players, DVRs, sound systems, game systems, etc. in one house and can even control compatible lights and appliances (like our fridge) and all with a touch screen. The best thing about this remote was that even though it was $250, I got it for free! How’s that for a bargain?!

What I want is a remote that can flush toilets when the kids forget to. One that can make kids go to sleep even when they keep saying “but I’m not tired!”? One that can do dishes. One that can fold the 4 loads of laundry I have to do each day. How about one that can add 8 more hours to my day? Now that’s an invention I could go for.

I’ve been tagged by Aidan, so here we go! It’s one about marriage.

1. What is his/her name? Jared Russell Ottley.

2. How long have you been married? Our 8th anniversary was last December.

3. How long did you date? Hmm, that’s a tough one. We sort of long-distance dated for a little over a month. Then we took a break. Then we dated for a week before we unofficially got engaged and for 2 weeks before we officially got engaged. Weird, I know.

4. Who eats more? Jared. Although I probably snack more and eat more sweets. But he can definitely out-eat me at a meal.

5. Who said I love you first? I don’t know. Neither does he. But I would guess him. Yeah, it would have been him.

6. Who sings better? I would say we are equal on this. I like to sing with him as we can both sing tenor. Also weird, I know.

7. Who is taller? Jared by 6 inches. Although if he would stand up straight it might be more.

8. Whose temper is worse? I would say Jared’s. I am more passive-aggressive.

9. Who does the laundry? Jared usually does his own laundry. But I do the laundry for the other 7 members of our family. And that is a full-time job!

10. Who does the dishes? We both do. He used to do them more often, but ever since he started working from home, it seems he has less time to do dishes and such. Go figure!

11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Well, since I always seem to get up on the wrong side of the bed, he must be sleeping on the right side, right?

12. Who does the cooking? Me. Jared’s one and only foray into cooking involved chicken, lemon pepper, garlic, cheese, apples, cinnamon, and sugar. TOGETHER. Actually, he does cook the crepes (after I prepare the batter).
13. Who is more stubborn? Ha! Are you kidding me? If you know Jared, you know this must be a rhetorical question. I am pretty stubborn but I don’t hold a candle to him.

14. Who proposed? Jared did. Well, I actually had to make him officially propose to me as he didn’t think he needed to since we were already unofficially engaged. How’s that for romance?!

15. Who is most likely to admit that they are wrong? Again, this must be a rhetorical question. Jared has never been wrong a day in his life.

16. Whose parents do you see the most? My parents since they live closer. But lately we have seen Jared’s parents quite a bit as we just went on vacation with them and then they stayed here last weekend.

17. Who pays the bills? He makes the money and I spend it. It’s a nice arrangement, wouldn’t you say?

18. Who wears the pants? Our kids.

19. Why do you love your husband/wife? Jared is absolutely wonderful. He is a hard worker, he’s dedicated, ambitious, extremely intelligent, fun, a terrific father, handsome, loving, compassionate, and he spoils me rotten.

20. Who are three other people you are going to tag? Let’s see… Mom Ottley, Kimberlee, and JARED! Tag, you’re it!

I was going through yesterday’s paper this afternoon and saw that Albertson’s was having their General Mills sale, meaning great prices on cereal, granola bars, Fruit Roll-ups (nice to have a stash of these with t-ball season approaching), etc. In addition, I had several coupons to use on top of the sale. I coerced Jared into taking me since I had another MRI this morning and so I can’t drive (or even think straight) today as I had been sedated for the test. We ended up buying $165 worth of groceries for $47! That’s a savings of $118!! Albie’s groceries are generally higher priced so the savings is a bit inflated, but it is still an awesome deal and I am excited about it. With my coupons, I got boxes of Cheerios for 25 cents, Chex for 50 cents, 6-pack boxes of 100 calorie Chex mix for 50 cents, and Lunchables for 60 cents! The only price I wasn’t happy with was for eggs. I usually buy them at Sam’s but needed some and didn’t want to go to another store just for eggs.

With grocery and gas prices soaring, I love chances for stretching my dollar. Sales like this are also a great way to build up food storage.