No Newsy Brag Letter

I boycotted the "newsy brag letter" this year. I usually try to come up with something witty or amusing to recap the year. I just couldn't do it this year. I think my sense of humor tends to be self-deprecating. But even my sense of humor was stretched to the limit for 2007. That's not to say that nothing good happened this year, but the bad things were big, really big. They tend to overshadow.

This is a little sample of the letter I've been composing in my head.

Schmidt Family Stats 2007:

Houses bid on: 1
Houses purchased: 0
Flights taken: 8
Flights missed: 1
Lost teeth: 8 (counting 1 root canal)
Calls to ask-a-nurse: 3
Visits to PM Pediatrics: 5
Visits to Emergency Room: 5
Broken Bones: 1
Days on crutches: 7
Dismembered, Discolored toenail: 1
Kidney Stones: 2
Minor Surgeries: 2
Nights in Hospital: 1
Concussions: 1
Glasses run over by car: 1
Camera thrown in garbage: 1
Days spent wallowing in self-pity: ?
Surviving 2007: priceless!

Thanks to a patient and kind husband and loving friends and family I have survived one of the most difficult years of my life. Here's to hoping for a better 2008.

So Tired

Are you ever just so tired you can't go to bed. It's easier to sit here and check email and even post on my blog than it would be to wash my face and brush my teeth and floss. Don't forget to floss...feed the turtles, check the kids, feed the fish, move everything off the bed that I stacked on it during the day, move the decorative pillows, take off jewelry, decide where to put my clothes, get out clothes for tomorrow, check the calendar, mentally plan my day over and over in my head . . . see it's easier to just sit here. I think I'll stay a while.

Can I complain? Oh yes? I can complain.

I blame laundry for my broken toe. Haven't I suffered enough?

I know it sounds really whiny to complain about someone else doing my laundry. It sounds ungrateful, it really does.

I have lived in my apartment for more than six years. Each new neighbor has brought with them their own idiosyncrasies. My newest neighbor folds the laundry I leave in the dryer. That, in and of itself, is embarrassing. I don't want her folding my underwear and I don't want her thinking that I'm the laundry hog (I am the laundry hog, but I don't want her thinking that.) I try to do all my laundry during the day, when she is at work. I set timers to remind myself to go get the laundry. I race down the stairs if it sounds like someone is entering the laundry room when I have a load in. Frankly, my life has enough stress. I don't need this stress.

Last week, I decided to do the laundry before the weekend, before the loads were overflowing and overwhelming. Congratulations to me. I was almost done. I had the last load, the jeans, in the washer. (These were all my jeans, every pair, and not just the Lee jeans from Kohl's, also the Levi's and the Christopher Blues that I love, the pair I hide when the cleaning lady comes in case she tries to throw random laundry in with the sheets. My jeans, the jeans that make my butt look good. I never dry them. That would ruin their magic.)

I went down the stairs to get something for dinner. (Yes, in my pathetic existence, my pantry is in the garage.) I heard the washer running and I knew that something wasn't right. I ran (I'm not kidding) down the stairs to the laundry room to find my load of "reds" folded on top of the dryer and the dryer cooking every pair of jeans I own!!!!!!! I actually yelled NOOOOOO! as I wrenched open the dryer door to find . . . dry jeans. I am despondent.

I know she thinks she is being helpful. But, really, if she wanted to do something helpful, maybe she could wipe up the black dog hair that magically migrates from her large black lab all over the laundry room. That would be helpful. You know what else would be helpful. My own washer and dryer that I can leave laundry all week until it rots if I want to.

And Counting . . .

Some people say bad things happen in three's.

After the loss of the camera, I thought my life will most certainly be turning around. Silly, silly me. I tried to post a blog about how my neighbor dried all my jeans, every pair. But I couldn't get it to post. I'm sure she thought she was being helpful. Put the laundry in for the really tired woman who lives upstairs. But it was not helpful. I have spent a good part of today trying to stretch the pair that has been dried twice in a row.

At the Halloween party on Saturday, my husband's glasses fell out of his pocket during trunk-or-treat. He thought how lucky he was to spot them, only to discover that they'd already been run over by a car. He would like to take issue with the flexible frames he chose. They don't really go right back after being run over by a car.

Michael has been telling me for a week or more that his car smells like rotten milk and makes him feel like throwing up. That's not really a good thing, but his problem, not mine. On Sunday, after church, he opened up the trunk to find a large bag of garbage that he brought back from the cabin following our Columbus weekend trip. Nasty! So we are down the mat for the trunk, the aerobed and the pack and play that he had not yet moved from the trunk to the garage.

After I realized the fate of the camera, I cried. After this most recent rash of events I dug through the garage for all the coordinating parts to the pack and play; the bassinet attachment, the changing table parts, and the mobile and was almost happy to toss them into yet another big black garbage bag and into to trash. Is it getting easier to let go? I don't know. Maybe I have less use for a pack and play than I do for a camera. Maybe I have become resigned. They are just things.

I lost Samuel at Disneyland this Summer. He wandered off in another direction and I couldn't find him for about ten minutes. (I couldn't move very fast in the Jazzy chair.) So, if I'm choosing what to lose and what to find. I'm glad I found Samuel. Especially because now he can wear my jeans that were put in the dryer.

Guilty Confession

Why I like Candy Corn?

Honesly, I don't know. When I really think about it, it's really not that good. It doesn't meet any requirements to be a favorite food. It's not chocolatey, it's not rare or unusual or homemade. It's sugar and artificial colors shaped like a vegetable. I have come to the conclusion that it is the candy that is most available to me right now. So if you can't be with the one you love . . . love the one you're with.

New Favorite Show

Pushing Daisies

My favorite new show this season. It has just the right amount of quirky sillyness and the set is just bursting with color and fun. I'm not sure how far they can carry the plot, but for now, I love it.

Murphy's Law

We had a great summer, the fall's been a little rocky. Broken toe and dismembered toenail followed by two months of health issues culminating in this little story of what not to do.

Anyone who thought that I was intelligent or put-together, let me put your suspicions to rest.

Right before school started we took a last long weekend trip to Washington DC and Philidelphia with the family. When we got back we had a lot going on so we cleaned out the car into a large black garbage bag and left it in the living room to sort out later. I was in a hurry one day and put the bag behind the couch so that my cleaning "helper" wouldn't have to deal with it. Several days later (after garbage day,) I discovered that the bag had been thrown away. I wracked my brain trying to remember what was in it besides happy meal boxes and spent color wonder pictures. Over the next several weeks, several things that I had suspected were in the bag turned up: an ipod, Samuel's new flip-flops, etc. I congratulated myself on the good fortune of not losing anything of consequence. I told myself, "It's just stuff."

We spent last weekend at a cabin in the Adirondacks. We planned to take lots of pictures of the family and the beautiful Fall foliage. In the process of packing, I may have discovered the one thing of consequence that was in the big black garbage bag of doom.

That's right: camera, lens, bag, memory card, the whole shootin' match.

I told a good friend that I have one more thing to add to the long list of stupid things I will never do again.

Now I'm off to the podiatrist to spend an undetermined amount of time waiting for him to fit me in. The dismembered toe-nail that was stitched back on hasn't fallen off yet and has become infected.

Anyone feeling bad about their day should be cheered to know that today, you're not me.

Summer . . . at last!

I've been waiting for summer since the day school started last year. I enjoy the school year for many reasons. I love to see my children growing in knowledge and social skills. I love to see the connections they make with excellent teacher. Both of my children had excellent teachers this year. I love to see the progress they make in their various after school activities and lessons. I love the exposure our family gets to new ideas and the reminder I get of the things I've learned and forgotten. I just don't like to feel like I'm doing all those things at once and I have to pack a lunch too!





Here is a list of the things I love about summer:

• reading books in the morning in our pajamas.
• staying up late to catch fireflies.
• hours at the pool.
• hours at the beach.
• lazy afternoons spent with friends.
• my new BBQ.
• summer rain.
• the possibilites.
• impending vacations.
• watching a moving in the afternoon.
• having time to play with toys and read books.
• fireworks.
• fresh fruit and vegetables.
• ice cream.

I remember my childhood summers as some of the most carefree, simple, glorious times. I spent the best years of my childhood on a foothill at the base of a small Oregon mountain. I remember countless rambles through the foothills. I remember the feeling of being completely alone in nature. I think that is a luxury my children will never have until they are adults. Solitude. I miss that from my childhood. Not that I wish to live as a hermit, but sometimes I long for that feeling, that quiet, that complete suspension of responsibility and obligation. I guess that's what I like best about summer. I get a chance to let go of a little responsibility and obligation. I get a little closer to the ten-year-old girl sitting alone under a canopy of prickly-pear trees on a sticky summer day listening to the buzzing of all the little flying creatures. Summer. Glorious Summer.

Happy Mother's Day

My mom asked for the same thing every Mother's Day.

"A clean house and kids who don't fight."

We always laughed and then gave her something else. I don't think she ever got the one gift she always asked for. Sorry mom.

I guess time took care of that one. My sister's and I get along great now that we're all in our 30's live in three separate states and we no longer mess up her house, only our own. Now my mom gets a little teary around mother's day and talks about how much she misses us and wishes we could all just be together.

I guess that's a good lesson to me. I wish for a house that is perfectly ordered. I dream of the day I no longer consider my home and belongings a burden, but a joy. In the last week I have, once again, realized that I really want to enjoy my children and spend less time shuffling them from here to there. I'm not sure how that will be achieved but I think the impending summer will help.

So here's to Mother's: the one we're born with, the one we marry into, the mother's that we are and the mother's we will become. Thanks to all the extraordinary examples I see around me every day. Thank you to the good friends who assure me that I'm not a failure and that we really are all in this together.

I'll close with a little story my sister-in-law emailed me.
Enjoy!

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died.

Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom. Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loveschapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood. We finally have the older one and and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind. And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth. And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

Announcement

For all those who didn't hear. Micheal's kidney stone arrived via orthoscopic "c-section" last Tuesday, April 3, 2007 at 3:30 pm. I drove back from Atlantic City for the special occasion. The doctor said the proceedure would take between 10 minutes and an hour. It took an hour. He said it was a very stubborn stone and despite the hours and hours of "laboring," he didn't think it would have ever delivered on its own. Unfortunately the actual stone was sent to a lab for testing and analysis. I have included a picture of what Michael thinks it looks like.

identity theft

Apparently, I have been the victim of identity theft. Someone decided to deposit two bad checks in my account and then immediately take a withdrawl.

They also tried to open a Wal-mart credit card in my name but they were rejected. I am trying to imagine what they might have been eyeing at Wal-mart when they decided to open the said line of credit.

Perhaps one of these:

The toothbrush that puts hit music in your mouth. I don't know about you but my kids just love them!

I feel a little bad to have spoiled someones fabulous shopping spree with that fraud alert on my credit report. With the money they stole from my checking acount they won't be able to get the 50" Pioneer plasma but they might be able to swing the 42". Happy viewing identity theif. Just know that the singing toothbrush will not be on me.

Tagged

I was recently tagged by Denise. Thank You. Here it goes. Five things people might not know about me:

1. I am a closet perfectionist but not a great organizer. I had to bury my perfectionist tendencies years ago because of small apartments and small children.


2. If you count all the steps and halfs, I actually have nine siblings.


3. In high school I won a state-wide short story contest with a tale about a dead cat.


4. I love animals but I'm allergic to dogs and cats. I especially like rabbits and little chubby birds.


5. I have a quirky sense of humor.

"There is nothing as inherently unequal as the equal treatment of unequals." — Thomas Jefferson

Harlem Globetrotters

We enjoyed a fast-paced game last night at The Garden. The favorite team won a close game against the New York Nationals. Some of our favorite plays were the "steal the purse from the lady on the front row," and "throw the bucket of confetti on the crowd."

We had great half-court seats. Emily thought the seats would be better under the basket (I suspect she wanted to get hit with confetti.

This is three kids hopped up on cotton candy at 10:00 at night. I hope sugar doesn't effect memory or all these excursions will be blotted from their minds.

I don't know that they will be able to view a regular game the same again. I don't think you could take kids to NBA games if they mic'd the players to hear the game dialogue. And I'm not sure a player could stay in the game after spanking the ref with a powdery hand or stealing his whistle to make his own calls.

Some tips if you plan to take in a game on the National Tour.

• Arrive on time. The game does not take as long as a regulation game and if you miss the first quarter, you've missed a quarter of the fun.
• Don't buy the cotton candy with the Knicks hat attached. The kids in front of us were wearing them and Emily had a hard time seeing past them. Besides if you buy the regular cotton candy you can share a bag and have some to spare. If you buy the one with the hat you have to buy one for each child. Is that really necessary?
• Be prepared to explain the difference between an exhibition game and a regulation game to your child who wonders why they don't use trampolines to dunk in the NBA.
• Have a great time. It's a fun show.

Reward Board Follow-up

We are on week two of the reward board and the novelty has not worn off. I thought I'd add a few chore ideas that have been working for us.

• empty dishwasher
• load dishwasher
• take out garbage
• take out recycling
• make bed
• brush hair (it requires points to make it more exciting)
• brush teeth
• homework
• dusting
• exercises
• practice violin
• tongue depresser (Hunter has to use it for his underbite, if he can fix it himself with the tongue depresser then we can use the money we would have spent on orthodontics to take a nice vacation! Orthodontists idea, not mine)
• get ready for tomorrow (includes laying out weather appropriate clothing, making sure you can find hat and mittens, packing backpack and taking lunch box to kitchen.)

There is also a section that autopays allowance once a week. It has a section to put a savings goal. Samuel decided to save for a candy bar. He exceeded his goal after the first week. I think I'm going to save for my dream home. So at $3.00 per week, how long will it take me to save a nice down payment?

Hunter has now entered the blog world. I put a link to his site if anyone is interested. So far it is all about the books that have become the air he breathes.

My Reward Board

I found this great new software to motivate kids to do their chores. We are still trying the free trial but so far it works great!

Bah Humbug

Every Christmas when all the lovely cards and brag letters start rolling in I spend about three days in a minor depression. Maybe depression is too strong, more of a funk, a little blue. I look at other people's idealized lives and I examine my own and I am admittedly, a little harsh. It takes the said three days to finally talk it over with my loving and understanding husband who inevitably debunks the mystery and convinces me that everyone else's life sucks just as much as mine and then I feel infinitely better.

Do you ever have days when you just are a little down. A little critical of yourself?

Yea, me either.

blog challenged

I am blog impaired. Honestly, I am trying. I used to think I was computer savvy. Not anymore. I think I might wait a few years and just have my kids do it for me. That would probably be faster. Is this a trial and error thing or do you all know about a tutorial that I don't?