Hot Mess

I'm stealing a phrase from my dear sister-in-law.  We all have our moments when we realize what a mess we are and I love it when she describes herself as not only a mess, but a "hot mess."  It's been one of those weeks and I am officially acknowledging my status as a hot mess.

I shared in my last post that my mind is always going like crazy and I usually have a post composed in my head before I sit down to type it.  This is how my mind is going today.  Are you ready?

We have survived this week.  That's it.  And frankly, I'm glad to be able to say that much.  I was sick for a couple days and it was a very strange sickness.  It started with a pain in my lower abdomen.  I thought it was just because I was ovulating, then it got worse, and I started thinking I might have a cyst.  Or maybe it's ovarian cancer.  Yes, ovarian cancer, because my brain goes in crazy directions like that.  Then the next day I had a fever and body aches and extreme tiredness.  No stomach flu, but a horrible stomach ache.  Probably appendicitis.  But I don't want to go to the doctor in case that's not it.  So I continued on, felt a little better, but still really tired and sporadic pain in my lower abdomen.  Pretty sure it's not constipation.  Maybe a bowel obstruction, I've heard of that before.  I wonder what it is.  Or my gall bladder, sometimes people have problems with their gall bladder and it's down there somewhere.

You'll be relieved to hear that I'm fine now--physically at least.

So yesterday afternoon we had some new friends over for the afternoon. They are delightful people and we all enjoy them thoroughly.  They have three teenagers to play games and be loud and giggle a lot with my teens, two little boys to run and play with Easton, and two little girls to play with Kiana and Tyrell while the mother and I just sit in recliners and talk about every random subject that pops into our heads.  During this time on a blessedly gorgeous afternoon, Tyrell and Kiana took off their boots while playing outside.  (That's just what we do around here.)

Kiana received these adorable boots for her birthday from my mother and she loves them.  She wears them every single day with dresses, skirts, jeans, tutus. . .you name it, she's convinced they match.  I don't even want to know what they cost.

And one of them got lost.
While the kids were digging in the sand box that doubles as our yard.
Really deep holes.  With shovels and hoes if you really must know.
If my mom is reading this, we of course tore the yard apart until we found it.  If you're not my mom, we're still on a mission to find that stinkin' boot!  I wonder if they have metal in them and we could buy a metal detector. . .

The problem here, you see, is that I have issues with stuff.  As in, stuff is not important to me.  My parents tried really hard to teach me good stewardship and responsibility and to think ahead about potential outcome but all it managed to do was give me a huge guilt complex about always losing, breaking and otherwise ruining things.  My mom would get me a nice necklace and I promptly broke it or lost it.  When they bought me a nice dress my senior year I wore it twice.  The first time was for my senior pictures, the second time was for a vocal concert.  Then after the concert was over I changed my clothes, put the dress in a garment bag, teased my big hair some more, sprayed half a bottle of hairspray to hold said hair (hey it was 1991, what did you expect?), then threw the other half of the bottle in the garment bag.

I threw the hairspray in with the dress.
The hairspray bleached a huge spot in the dress.
Ruined it forever.
Ooops.

In case you're wondering, gifts are not my love language.  Please don't buy me stuff.  Unless you hate my guts and want to send me on a huge guilt trip when I lose it, break it, or otherwise ruin it.

Speaking of stuff, you may remember we thought we were moving to Colorado about eleven months ago, so we gave a bunch of stuff away.  Who wants to move a ton of stuff halfway across the country?  For example, it would be much easier to just buy new welding equipment there than to move it.  And we don't watch a lot of TV anyway, so let's just give that extra TV with the built-in VCR to some friends.  We're trying not to regret that now as Alan needs to weld something and I would like to put the little kids in one room with a cartoon tonight while I watch something more interesting with my husband since our teenagers are going down the road to a friend's house to play games.  But we only have one TV.  I guess that's because we like to be together and sacrifice and pick something everyone can watch and enjoy.  growl

But as I was saying, it's been one of those weeks.  Our schedule has somehow taken over my sanity.  The older kids started Driver's Ed this week (Mon eve, Thurs eve, and Fri aft) and we started the children's musical on Monday.  There are lots of boys in the musical, which is a really good thing.  Boys are very active and wiggly and noisy, which I'm also reminding myself is a very good thing.  Did I mention that I'm directing the musical?

It's going to be fun, and I'm sure it will turn out just fine.  It always has in the past.  It's just one of those areas where I'm a little out of my comfort zone.  I am more gifted at organizing people and telling them what to do than I really am at music.  While I love to sing, it's always a bit of a toss up when determining if more notes were in tune or more were flat.  I can tell you the names of notes and read a key signature, but you have to be really missing the pitch for me to notice.  So I always wonder if the musically gifted parents are wishing I would just sit down and let them direct.

But the good news is that Briana and Destry are going to be helping me a lot.  I'm a firm believer in "providing opportunities" (a.k.a. telling people what to do)  for them to give back and serve others as they have been served.  Briana is great with the kids and she just might have inherited a healthy dose of my gift for "organizing people and telling them what to do".  Destry is also great with the kids and the boys especially think he is super cool.  Did I mention there are LOTS of boys?  So this will help a lot. And I'm hijacking his musical ability for my own use to lead the children in scales and such.

Speaking of his musical ability, we were goofing off the other night while waiting for the microwave to reheat leftovers for supper after I got home from a Bible study and the big kids were done with Driver's Ed (don't judge me) and I for some reason started singing "The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round."   (Having teenagers is fun--they bring out your goofy and immature side.)  Destry looked at me curiously for a moment, tilted his head and said "Hey, you started on the note from the microwave.  You're singing it in A-flat major."

!!!!!
Who does that?
Do you ever wonder why the Lord gave this kid to me?
A musically-challenged hot mess!

In good news I have never lost or broken a kid (the jury's still out on ruining any).
And this is Friday.

Oh, and I picked up Iris Johansen's new book at the library when I dropped the big kids off for driving and the little ones are napping.
Goodbye.

EDIT:  3:41 pm  Destry found the boot!!!!!