A picture a day

Since my blog is lacking some luster, and I haven't had the inspiration or desire to do much photography, I thought I'd spruce it up with a new picture each day. You know,... of every day things. I will commit to putting up a new picture each day for the next week. I might try to keep going for the whole month of October, but I'm not making any commitment. Tomorrow will be kick-off day

It goes on

Not sure how writing on my blog has escaped my memory over the last while, but for some reason I rarely think about it. I go through phases, when any little thing that happens, starts me thinking about how I can blog about it. Maybe it's because we're back in a routine, and nothing terribly exciting is happening.

Winter is really enjoying gymnastics, and getting better each time she goes. I usually sit in the viewing room, and read a book, watch, and talk with the other moms. Last week another mom was reading a book that recently came out (the Mockingjay), so we started talking about books. Diana is always reading something new, and enjoys reading. I told her about our ward's bookclub, and asked her if she might want to come with. Tuesday she came with me, and I think she had a good time. Since she's not a member, and all the other ladies were, I would tense up every time someone would mention anything about the church. I don't know why I get so anxious about religion. It seems like a fear of rejection. That they will reject me, once they find out I'm Mormon. These feelings are probably mostly unrealistic, but still, they're there.

As we're living with Joe's parents now, I've taken up an extra day with grandma. It's easier in a way, but also harder. Easier, since all my belongings are right upstairs. Harder, because after the kids get home from school, I'm expected to work full-time, and help the kids with homework, and keep the house clean. Luckily Earl has taken over the cooking for these days, because before he did, I was one big stress ball.

I've been working on getting things set up in Holland. The housing seems to be a lot harder than I ever could have imagined. In the first place, Dutch landlords only like to rent out to people with full-time jobs. And you have to earn 4X the rent amount. There are only a few companies who will even consider working with people like us, who will be paying our rent from savings. Why? Well, apparently Dutch non-paying renters are hard to kick out. So say we pay the first year ahead of time, and then by the end of the year we still dont' have a job, and no saving, and all of a sudden they have non-paying renters in there. Of course we wouldn't do that, but that's what they are afraid of. They're also afraid we'll just fly back to America, leaving a bunch of unpaid bills. We found one company who seems willing to work with us, so hopefully that all works out. I sure would have been easier to go with the University housing, but it just wasn't a good fit for our family.

Next on the schedule is a kitchen renovation. Just when we thought we were done renovating, Joe's mom asked for our help redoing her kitchen. We are more than happy to help, but it reminds me of 3 years ago when we tore our house apart. At least this time we'll have more laborers, and more expertise.

Need a woman's advice

So I found some laptop bags that are very cute. I've been trying to get my husband to help me decide which one to get, but he's of no help at all!

Basically, there are 4 bags to choose from. They're all about the same size. Two of them have 3 main compartments,

the other two have only 2 main compartments.

I prefer the outside look of the bags with 2 compartments, but I'd prefer to have 3 main compartments.

Then there's the issue of color. Initially I was going for the basic black. Now I'm considering the dark brown. (each bag is available in both black and brown)

I will put up a poll. Will you please vote?!?

Bag #1 "Emanuele"

2 main compartments

Bag #2 "Serra"

2 main compartments

Bag #3 "Fegina"

3 main compartments

Bag #4 "Molinelli"

3 main compartments
So please vote on the right hand side of the blog! I value your opinions!!!

Stash it

We have been living in a state of chaos in the past week. Ever since we moved into Liz's house, we have been too busy to really put everything away. Luckily Joe's parents have been gone for the past week, so his mom hasn't had a heart attack yet. But they come home today. It's crunch time now.

Part of the problem are the numerous boxes of Ebay items. We sold a bunch of stuff on Ebay before we moved, but then Joe moved out of his shop, and more items started appearing. I'm not very good at keeping my house perfectly clean, but I can tell that messes have a direct impact on my psyche. I get irritated, nervous, and generally in a bad mood when things clutter my line of sight.

The other part of the problem is, that we are trying to move from a 2300 Square feet home, into about 200 square feet of space. Sure, we got rid of a lot of things, but you still have some stuff. My biggest challenge is where to put my "office stuff". Papers and such. And to put them away in such a way, that they don't appear to create clutter.

So we keep trying to find hiding place to stash our things away, and also wonder how the heck we'll manage to move to Holland with just suitcases. That will be whole new challenge!

Homework

Sometimes it seems that the kids' homework is just as much my homework. If I'm not on top of all the different assignments they have, and nag them, they just don't get done. And then my kids will have bad grades. You would think that by the time kids are in 3rd grade, they should be responsible for their own grades. And they should. But how do you teach that independence?

It's the same with the bedtime routine. You would think that after 9 years of brushing your teeth, putting on pajamas, and going to the bathroom every night, that those activities would be easy to remember. But no! They need to be reminded over, and over, and over.

Am I missing something?

Jobs

I got a new MacBook pro! It's beautiful! It was my reward/payment for my real estate services. Selling your own home is a lot of work. With the closing sheet in hand, and comparing it to the closing sheet from when we bought the house, the sellers costs were significantly lower. $15,000 lower! There's that realtor fee for you. So instead of paying a realtor, I did all the work and rewarded myself with this laptop that only cost a fraction of that $15,000. And I'm happy!

Now that we've closed the chapter of the "farm", we can look forward and move on. We have just a few months to get ready for the big move to Holland. There's some researching to do, but nothing too intense. The kids are in school. Ginger in preschool and the others in elementary. I'm doing things that other moms do now. I signed up to volunteer at the school. All 3 kids are signed up for extracurricular activities

Winter: Gymnastics

Sterling: Cub Scouts

Ginger: Ballet/Tap

On top of keeping up with the kids, I'm now watching grandma twice a week (all day). And now I've also taken on another voluntary full-time job: my blurb book. I decided to make a book for the "Texas years". It might have to become a 2 set volume, but I'm determined to get it done before we depart across the ocean. If I finish the pages for 1 month, every day, I should be able to get it done in the next 2 months. That will give me a good goal, where I can slip up and still reach it!