July has started off with a bang! I don't mean fireworks, those come tomorrow. What I mean is, well, let me just show you.........What you're seeing here is a 4x4 area of my garage ceiling that came crashing down at 5:00am yesterday. You may notice the water marks. Seems a fiesty sprinkler lost its head on the outside of the garage. It shot water straight up through the eave of the house and filled the attic over the garage with water. Drywall is called drywall for a reason. It is meant to stay DRY!!! Luckily the falling debris missed my car by inches.

Not too big of a deal. Scoop up some insulation and drywall. Cover the hole in the ceiling with cardboard, and wait for Stretch to come home in 6 months!

But you all know that my life is not so simple. By the time I got home from work in the afternoon, my darling little 4x4 hole had become..........

About 2 12x12 sections of ceiling are now on the garage floor. Well, not now now. Now, they are in the back of the truck waiting to be taken to the dump. This was certainly not an enjoyable task, but a surprisingly quick clean-up. Snow shovels are quite handy, even in the summer!

I do appreciate any sympathy that may be coming my way right now. But don't feel too badly for me. There are multiple silver linings around that gigantic hole in my ceiling. 1) No vehicles were harmed in the making of this hole. 2) The water was only from a sprinkler and not something more difficult to fix. 3) The water only filled the attic over the garage, not the house. I would not be so quick to find silver linings if this had happened over my living room or kitchen. 4) I have been meaning to clean up the mess of stuff on that side of the garage; this just forced my hand and now it's done. 5) I get to use the cool hammer-stapler we got for stapling up insulation! It's super awesome....you just slam it into the wall. 6) When I went to load these photos, I found this pic of Ella in a dress. The things my children do when I'm not watching!

See, silver linings even in the soggiest of messes.

Backyard Air Show

Hill Air Force Base held their Air Show this weekend. Living right outside the base gives us the opportunity to have our own air show nearly every day. But this weekend, about 1/2 a million other people got to share in the awe of F16 jets flying right overhead.

The highlight of the show was the Thunderbirds aerial team. This is an experience you won't soon forget. These jets fly so close to the ground, so close to eachother and in such amazing precison. Considering it was also the 65th anniversary of D-Day, it's was a patriotic moment that gave me chills and even a tear to my eye. God Bless the US Military!

Additionally, this was one of those times when the guilt of spending thousands of dollars on camera equipment and software completely dissolves! Behold:

The sky could not have been more perfect for this show. Those red, white, and blue planes against that crystal blue sky was breathtaking! But it was way cool seeing them fly with our gorgeous mountains as a backdrop.

All six Thunderbirds in formation.

I love this shot because you can see the pilots' heads in the planes.

A lone pilot flies by upside down!

The neighbors were kind enough to let all the kids on the street watch the show from their roof. Squid and the Bear had the best seat in the house.....well, on the house!

Man of the House

The ultimate purpose of this post is to serve as a formal apology to my sweet husband. Over the years, I have selfishly become overly dependent upon him and his endless energy with which he accomplishes more in a day than any 10 people could. However, in fairness to the any 10 people, he often considers 72 hour blocks of time to be one day. So, baby, thank you for all you do. Please forgive me for not appreciating it enough.

It struck me tonight just how ridiculous my dependency had become when I referred to the boy cat as "The Man of the House" and tasked him with killing a spider that was creeping towards me. I mean, that's a boy job, and he's the only boy around.

I know you're on the edge of your seat waiting to hear the tale of how my trusty steed (okay, fat lazy cat) GusGus battled to the death with the spider. As is common with this blog, I must once again disappoint you. No battle ensued, the spider disappeared to who-knows-where, safe to lurk about my home for a later attack. If this blog never again gets updated, you'll know the spider staged a midnight ambush, bit me, and I died. Stupid Gus has now been demoted from "Man of the House" to "Toilet Water Drinker," for which I didn't really have a job opening to begin with, but he's willing to perform the service anyway.

It's at this point I fall to my knees wondering who will save me? I can't possibly be expected to be on spider-killer duty. It's not right, it's not fair, and darn it, I won't stand for it!

During this deployment I have happily taken on many boy jobs. Again, this is where I must apologize to Stretch. I might joke about icky jobs I don't want to do, but in all seriousness, I have taken advantage of his work ethic and let him take on far more than is fair. It's overwhelming to me how much he takes care of around here.

Having to do it all myself has been a humbling, albeit exhausting, experience. Obviously there's a house to run. That hasn't changed. But somehow, keeping up on it is much harder than before. I realize that is partly because Stretch was the master laundry-doer. But that aside, there's so much I neglect when he's around, just figuring it will all get done. Well, I'm mending my ways and have somehow begun to squeeze more into a day than I thought possible.

Here's just a few of the so-called boy jobs I am surprisingly finding much self worth in accomplishing:
- Tuesday night lawn mowing routine.
- Pumping out the windowwell when it floods.
- Buying more sandbags to keep it from flooding in the first place.
- Lugging the dang sandbags to the backyard.
- Fixing sprinklers that are masquerading as Old Faithful-like geysers.
- Attacking weeds in the gravel, porch, and driveway cracks with Round-Up.
- Taking down the weird sized light cover to change light bulbs in the dining room.
- Scraping gross algae from the sides of the yucky fish tank.
- Getting grass to grow in the tree holes.
- This takes us back a few months, but snowplowing. Then realizing there's not enough snow to fire up the plow, so I shovel instead.
- Going to the post office every Saturday to pick up more registered mail containing ebay purchases.
- Putting those charming little ebay purchases in card holders.
- Car maintenance. Don't be delusional here......I don't do the maintenance myself. Geez, we have to draw the line somewhere. But I am good at driving the vehicles to the dealer and letting them maintain my cars.
- Arguing with the comcast people over my "price for life" that increased. I guess they consider "life" to be the course of one calendar year.
- Serving as the Pediatric Urgent Care triage nurse.
- Making fajitas.
- Tightening loose cupboard doors. Okay, okay, I graciously let Squid take over that chore. She's mighty swift with a ratcheting screwdriver.
- Are you catching my drift here?

When the year began I would simply crumble to pieces when anything went wrong. I just didn't think I had the strength or energy to do it all. Now, I actually find that the unexpected tasks that pop up don't overwhelm me at first glance like they once did. How's that for growth? I have to say it's an amazing, satisfying feeling to lock the garage and walk across the fresh cut lawn admiring my perfectly straight lines, especially when the girls are squeaking and sqwaking on the swingset in the background. It's a perfect moment when life is all good!

I believe I am inching closer to getting things all balanced out in this temporary life situation. The balance comes from having confidence that I can do the tough stuff, being grateful for all the hard work my husband does for our family, and in admitting when I need help. And killing spiders is that breaking point! I gladly take on all that is required to maintain a home, a yard, a job, 2 kids, and a long distance marriage, but I have formally and irrevocably drawn the line in the sand at spider hunting. Wow, I feel stronger just admitting it.

Mommy Needs a Break

Holy cow, it's been quite a week! I look back over it and can't seem to recall just exactly what was accomplished. It's all a blur. But I know it was insanely busy! But right now, I've put it all behind me and am forcing some quiet time upon the household!

There are two cats peacefully snoozing on the shelf next to the computer. The Bear and Squid finally took my hint and have made themselves scarce. Aaaah, just what I wanted. Crap, now what do I do? I guess post from pics the week.

By the way, go see 'UP', the new Pixar flick. So cute! Dang weird premise, but you can do anything in a cartoon! You'll fall in love with Doug and Kevin! I'm going to need to find a Kevin doll. Seriously, go see it, you'll be onboard!

It's time to typity-type-type-type. About what? I really don't know. I just need some stress relief. I can't imagine why. All I've done tonight since working all day and battling traffic was go to the gym, mow the lawn, fix a stray-spraying sprinkler, watch Adam Lambert kick butt on American Idol, and drive two kids to fourteen places. I mean, typical day, right? Why be stressed? So how to decompress? Write meaningless entries on this blog. Yes, I think that will suit me just fine.

May is already half way through, and it still seems like it should be January. Today I wrote 2008 on no less than four documents. I'm still not used to 2009. Pitiful! The time is flying by so quickly that I'm getting a little dizzy! If I sit and make plans to stay ahead of the curve, I've sat and planned for too long and missed another day. Of all the years to fly by, this is the one we'd pick. Naturally we want Stretch's deployment to come and go quickly. However, I'm afraid that next year will only breeze by more quickly. How do we slow it down?

Maybe a cabin in Montana? Along the Missouri River? Yes, that will do quite nicely.

Or how about peacefully gazing on while the horses mosey by:

Oh Squidles, someday, you'll have horsies of your own. Refer back to that Montana thought!

I know, there's one thing that always makes me smile:

A gorgeous, red tulip! And the smile gets bigger when I brag that, not only did I take this photo, I did the Photoshop editing too.

It's working........I feel a bit more relaxed. Or, it's nearly 11:00pm and I've simply run out of nervous energy. Whatever, I'll take what I can get.

Kittens in My Everything!

You know those teeny-tiny little toy cats? Not Littlest Pet Shop, even tinier. They are called Kittens in My Pocket. Or, for you weird dog lovers, they have Puppies in My Pocket. It is naturally safe to assume that if you have little girls at home who love cats, these toys will make in into your life eventually. Well, at my house, they make it into my life frequently.

Just when I least expect it, one of my daughters strategically places one of these feline miniatures where Mom will run into it. The best part is: nobody says a word. These critters could be hanging out for days waiting for me to find them. They end up in the most random hide-outs that you can't help but break down laughing when you find them.

One evening, I came home from work and walked in the garage door. Sitting on the dryer inside the door was an upside-down, red, plastic cup with a note on top. "For Mom. Don't worry, it's not a spider or anything gross." Under the cup sat one of the tiny cats.

On another occassion, my sweet daughter must have picked up the vibe that I was having a particularly awful day. When I approached the door to the house, there hanging from the garage door opener button wires were two little kittens. I immediately forgot my troubles and thanked God for my sensitive daughter and her perfect comedic timing.

Every now and then, the Squid will come running upstairs all in a dither calling for me. She'll have me convinced that she urgently needs something. When I turn to acknowledge her, she'll have a concerned look, hold a hand right up to her face, then reveal one of these cats sitting in the palm of her hand. She doesn't say a word. She doesn't have to. Even when I'm making dinner, I'll turn around for just a moment, and when I turn back, Meow!

You may think this game of cat and mouse (ha), would get old. But you have to remember with whom you're dealing. Squid's timing is impeccable. She'll rarely, if ever, over-do a joke. She is patient enough to wait for the perfect moment. If I don't find the toy quickly enough, she's happy to wait it out. It's all in the timing. I have been referring to these dang cat attacks as "Kittens in My Everything." As if to anticipate the perfect ending to this blog, little Bear loaded up my camera, without saying a word, with the photos of the real cat. Imagine my joy when I found these pics.

Literally, I do have "Kittens in My Everything!" I think it's time to have a 100% outside cat policy!

Anyone Need a Photographer?

If so, I know some good ones. But if you want a crazy lady with a camera (they're more fun), then please, call me. I have been having so much fun with my camera. See look!!!

Aren't my kidlets gorgeous? I'm lucky to have beautiful subjects to photograph.

But seriously, what a fun job to be a photographer. I'm available most weekends to take your family's pictures, or I'm available ANY day to take your family's pictures for $100 an hour. However, please remember, it is not my fault if they don't turn out as nice as these. Remember, the subjects here have unparalleled beauty, so they make it appear as though I have some mad photo skills, which truth be told, I do not! I take pictures for the sheer joy of it! If they happen to turn out fantastic, well, that's a bonus. See......bonus: