Onward and Upward

Its a strange thing, finding your footing after losing somene you love. When Ken died I had two choices: die with him or go on with living. Because of my boys I really only had one option in my heart. But how does one bgin to carve out a brand new path? And how to do so without feeling guilty? For a good month after he passed away I did not smile or laugh without abruptly catching myself and scolding myself. I felt guilty. Ken had been a good man, my best friend, my soul mate, how could I be happy? We had promised to love eachother forever but neither of us had planned for THIS. Here I was lost out in the wilderness where he had left me all alone when he died trying to carve this new path. I missed him horribly. I would get angry at moments and then feel guilty for feeling angry.
In the midst of this emotional turmoil I stumbled across Dave, one of mine and Kens close friends.He  had always been there for me. And when I needed to get through things in those early days it was him who I called. On that awful 18 hour bus ride back from Kens funeral, at the moments I thought for sure I would fall apart, caught up in pain and thoughts I could not stop, I called him and he listened and talked me through and kept me from dissolving. When I was scared at nights ad not wanting to sleep alone, he drove out to my house to sit with me, to hold me, to listeto me ramble. I did alot of talking. Its what I do, I talk out big issues, pouring it out of my soul to make room for healing and peace. Dave allowed for that. He understood my grieving, having known and loved ken as well. We went to the memorial cross together. He was a part of my healing. A patient steadfast hedge of protection.
I have thought many hours. prayed. spoken to Ken in my heart. Idont feel guilty any longer. I know that Ken would not want me to give up. Hewould not want me to settle either. He rose the bar and there are things I expect of dave simply because Ken showed me I deserved them. But I aso know  will never be happy quite like that again. Iwill never throwmyself headlong into romance and passion and all of that ever again. I do find myself falling in love with Dave. Very much so. But it is a far more cautious measured love. I am aware now of the risk of loss and pain and death and scarring. I am no longer that girl that Ken loved. He took a part of her with him ad the rest has been drasically altered to fill in the void. Its not all bad, I dont mean to make it sound so. Ken taught me what LOVE is. TRUE love. I now can love a man properly and skip over the childish issues and doubts because of what I learned. Because of Ken I know what I deserve and I will stand up and demand it and not settle for less. Because of my loss I am stronger. I never knew myself to be this strong. I always thought, if he died I would die. And yet....I walked alone into that large silent room where his cold still body lay and I spoke to him, and I touched his hand, and I smelled his hair, and I kissed his lips goodbye....and I did not die. In fact, I stayed on my feet. (But by the grace of God) I have learned to never go a day without telling my kids I love them. To not waste time on petty stuff. To LIVE. I do this to honor Ken. So those two years he spent with me were not in vain.
I know to some people it may appear I amrushing into things and leaving Kens memory behind. Iwant to make it clear that not a day goes by, or will go by for the rest of my life, that he is not in  my heart. He made me who I am today. I see him in our sons, especially the youngest. A million little things remind me of him. Somtimes those things make me laugh and other times I cry. It is such an odd thing, feeling gateful and happy with where your life is while at the same time griving for what is past. But here I find myself, putting these pieces together so I can see the picture God has painted on my puzzle.
R.I.P. Ken. Forever in my heart.

Spring Cleaning Vs. Five Monkeys

Its getting there. Slowly but surely....Spring has officially sprung and the cleaning fever has hit. Let me just tell you, if you have a choice between cleaning your entire home top to bottom alone or with the so-called "help" from five monkeys (aka little boys), go it alone. Unless you get some sick pleasure out of re-doing the same tasks over and over and over and over......well, you get my drift. i don't know about you but I really only prefer to scrub my bathrooms ONCE a day, thank you. Cleaning it to a satisfying shine just to walk back in ten minutes later to be greeted by toothpaste fingerpaint smears on the toilet seat sort of takes away the former satisfaction. (And leads one to contemplate WHAT exactly was going through my 3 year olds mind to squeeze the entire tube out onto his hands and then rub it into the toilet?????
But i digress. Anyway, my OCD is having little happy parties in my head recently with all of these organization tasks. I cleared out the food pantry and donated three boxes of food. (WHY oh why did we have fourteen cans of canned meat????? Is that stuff even MEAT? Ugh.) I organized the DVDs by category, flipped all the mattreses, cleaned out the fridge. (Including the top, which has not been tackled since I moved here 14 months ago.) Tip on your fridge top. After cleaning it, line it with saran wrap. that way the nasty gunk and dust settles on that and you can just peel it up and lay new wrap down. I wish I had done that in the first place. Yuck is all I can say. My first order of business today was to organize my books by color. Inspired by a photo I came across online. seeing something so orderly and pretty gives me the motivation to then attack less enjoyable tasks such as the dreaded junk drawer.....which I must confess had somehow turned into TWO junk drawers over the course of the last few months.QUITE the accumulation of nothingness.
To rid one self of so much STUFF really is freeing. I find with less clutter around me, thre is less clutter in my brain. I am not as overwhelmed. I plan on rewriting teh book I wrote a few years back that got lost and the potential of a beginning is rising with the clearing out of my office. (Which somewhere along the way became the throw-everything-in-here-that-you-don't-want-the-baby-to-get-into Space) I miss sitting at my desk and pouring my soul out onto blank pages. Though now with the lovely addition of my laptop shall be a blank screen. :)
This is a sideways shot of my bookshelf. I probably get overly excited over organization. LOL

 And here is my livingroom. Its an ivy theme, in honor of the beautiful ivy plant my mom gave to me at the memorial of my deceased fiance, Ken Kubit. My friend Traci gave me a load of ivy themed things and I found ivy wallpaper border on sale! the paint was free and was a terrifying hot pink color whilst in the can. I was trepidatious to use it but once on the walls it dried to a deep lovely hue I actually really like.

Now if only my house would REMAIN this tidy. Ha!

A step back, A bonfire, and a roll in cow manure.....

Phew. Today was a long day. Woke up late so we had to pile all 5 boys into the van and drive the older two off to school. Which was a stress-fest in and of itself and reminded me WHY I am thankful to be a work-at-home mum! Shoe hunts and jacket wars and who-gets-to-sit-by-a-window battles had me completly obolishing my no-yelling vow before we ever even got out of the driveway. My eldest, Zane, is quite a particular and sensitive soul. Which means pure and total meltdowns if he doesnt get the seat he expects or if someone TOUCHES his cushion on the couch or if his blanket isn't JUST SO on the bed.....MY new tactic for dealing with this issue is to take him out of his comfort zone as often as possible. Little things like making him sit in a different seat than his everyday one at the dinner table. Because the fact is, in the REAL WORLD you can't always get what you want. (but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.)
Anyway, so I was already at the yelling (through gritted teeth, at that...very shining and mature moment for me) by 8 a.m. But the fact is, I had not had my obligatory two cups of joe this morning so the dragon was not at bay. (Translation: I am NOT a morning person.)
But onward and upward. I apologized for holloring and losing my cool. I brought Bailey in with us to catch a glimpse of the school as he is INSANELY excited to be in kindergarten next year. Its an adorable little school. So little in fact, that the kindergarten and first grade classrooms are housed in little trailers seperate from the school. Which I know SOUNDS white trash but is actually quite charming.  I got to meet Aidan's teacher who I just wanted to hug. I am not sure if this woman is magic or what, but between her and her assistant....they have achieved a miracle. Aidan used to wake up every morning adament he was NOT attending school, that he hated it. He would scream, cry, kick, refuse to get dressed......Do you know how much FUN it is to begin your day wrestling clothes and shoes and a coat on a screaming red-faced child who then promptly lies on the wet pavement when the bus pulls up so you can't send him to school anyway as he is now soaked?!? Well, trust me, its not as fun as it sounds. Anyway, this kid has done an about-face. he LOVES school. He loves learning. He picks up chapter books now and reads them at his own free will. His teachers have sent him home with hand me downs from their son, offered to buy him shoes when his sole fell off of his and looked like it had a flapping mouth that talked when he walked. And I recieved the kindest note  when Aidans daddy passed away. Anyway, so the school is fantastic. I long to be homeschooling again. I miss those days so very much. And its not looking like we will be back on that bandwagon this September which is just the pits. But with this tiny little country school as an alternative I have my peace.

So, dinner tonight. I spent the afternoon clearning out our firepit and restacking the rocks. Looks awesome. Then the boys and I tromped through the woods to gather firewood along with the three little girls next door. (whose mother never watches them so they are ALWAYS at my house and are practically my children at this rate...but I digress) We got a gorgeous blazing fire going and roasted up hotdogs (and dropped a few in the dirt. Those went to the dog.) Then it was on to marshmallows. My two ADHD kids (Zane and Bailey) shove theirs straight in the flame and light them on fire then blow them out and eat the blackened ball of sugar. Aidan dutifully crouched and held his over the fire just-so as he said he wanted it to be "golden."  (He wants to be a chef someday, so everything he cooks is a masterpiece.) I learned that Drezdyn prefers his marshmallows uncooked. Creed got more marshmallow on his face than in his mouth. Me? I was being my typical barefooted hippie self and managed to step on a burning ember (ouch!) and a dropped marshmallow. (yuck!)
Then here comes the dog at the  ending of our cookout....covered in green and brown disgustingness. UGH. Across the road is a cow pasture,. Which apparently Goliath the Great (our tiny little chihuahua) thought would be fun to run through, explore, and roll in lovely warm piles of cow poo......So, back inside for a nice doggy bath. I really really need a daughter. Even my pets are male and gross. Well, except for Prissy Missy the cat. But she is too much of a priss to hang with me.

 This is Goliath. Minus the cow poo. Dressed in his oh-so-tough-guy sweater.

And Prissy Missy. Being Prissy. Two of my furbabies. i will intro the other two at a later date.
Anyway, that was my day today. Minus all the boring monotonous housecleaning and such.

My new "No-Yelling, No-Hitting" Home......Day One.

So......I used to be a lot better at staying in a moment of zen like peace whilst the kiddos were melting down. I have learned it is far easier to keep my children calm if I remain calm. But in teh last couple of months some things have happened that have thrown my focus elsewhere. So, the level of noise, complaining, arguing and yelling has drastically increased as I have gotten lazy and begun to react to negative behavior with yelling and even a couple of swats on the butt recently. I'm talking very childish. Slamming doors, stomping my foot, holloring in teh middle of my livingroom. Totally useless. Kids dont hear that. All its been doing is causing them to get frustrated in turn. I have created quite a muddled mess. So, we sat down and had a good talk and here we go. No yelling, no mean words, no cussing, no hitting. This applies to adults and kids alike. Its harder than I expected. Yelling is faster and lazier. Having to think of creative solutions to resolutions takes actual thought and effort. Pulling the two year old off of the kitchen tabel where he is dancing after whipping his diaper off sans Chippendales is ok...the first six times. By time two billion forty three I want to scream and throw him out a window. Patience is sure being tested!
My first satisfying success: This morning my 10 year old son got angry with his three year old brother who adamently refused to leave his older brothers room. Thsi is an ongoing battle as the older boys room is stocked with "cool" toys like legos and other things which come apart and are fun to destroy. When Creed, the younger, refused to leave Zane's room Zane shoved him. Hard. Onto the floor. And made Creed cry. In a very loud annoying voice that can pierce a mother's skull in 3.5 seconds flat. My instinct was to hollor at Zane...or maybe even give him a good ol "this is what it feels like" shove.....
Instead, I ordered Zane to hunt up a pen and piece of paper. I told him to sit down at the kitchen table and write out a 5 sentence paragraph describing an alternate solution to the scenario that had just occured. This resulted in Zane dissolving into an emotional outburst that topped Creeds previous indignation at being shoved. zaen whined and cried and stamped and stomped. He announced he woudl write no such paragraph. I told him he would sit there until he did. He finally wrote it. it didnt kill him. After he was done he apologized to his younger brother. I talked to him about impulsivity and dealing with his anger. It got through and i know this because he is my very ADHD impulsive act-first-think-later child and for the rest of the day when things upset him I could actually see the wheels turning in his brain. He kept it cool the rest of the day! SUCCESS!!! And the coolest part was, i didnt need to yell or get stressed or need a cigarette to make it through a moment without strangling anyone. :)
Oh, and Zanes paragraph? He wrote that the next time if Creed would not get out of his bedroom he would come and tell me and I would properly punish Creed by making him clean the bathroom. :)
It has not been easy today, this no yelling approach. habits are to be broken. I have had to remind the kids alot and have had to bite my own tongue a few times. But I know it will be worth it in the long run.