1,111 and more

This is my one thousand, one hundred eleventh post!

Don't worry ~ I'm not going to write 1,111 things ;-)

I just happened to notice and thought it was cool.

~

Our Papa comes home tonight!!!

He's been in Cozumel with his brother ~ but he's quick to point out,

it wasn't for vay-cation, it was for certifi-cation. ;-)

Yep ~ my man is now a certified scuba diver.

(Not sure exactly what he'll do with this certification ~ but he's got it!)

I imagine he was able to get in bit of vay-cationing, too.

~

Around 10 o'clock Friday morning,

I decided that I needed to clean up the shoe area by the front door,

which led to pulling out the couch and cleaning behind that,

which led to touching up the paint on the wall.

Which led to dusting (oh, the dust!) and sorting through the books, and neatening up the white shelves....

I sent my girlfriend a text around 7 that night, asking why it takes me so long to sort and clean ALL THE THINGS.

Basically,

the whole time Tyler's been gone vacationing getting his diving certification,

I've been tearing up the house cleaning it.

And currently,

besides the boys' bedroom 

(which is cleaner and neater than it's ever been

 (but sadly still looks gross 

because - well, the whole house is gross..))

the rest of the house

 is in that 'this is a worse mess than when I started!" state.

But - there are no dust bunnies under my bed.

All of this (badly needed!) sorting and cleaning leaves me thinking about all the sayings

that encourage you to put off cleaning

and just enjoy your children

yada, yada, yada.

At some point ~ the cleaning has to happen!

And when you have lots of people - it needs to happen a lot.

~

Ton' graduates from Combat Training today

and then he's on to his job schools in 29 Palms.

It is looking like Kacy will be able to join him ~ yay!!!

~

I am hoping 

that if/when Jeremiah and Josiah remember all my (heat-induced) fits of the past few days ~ they also remember 

that their momma spent hours (hours!!) helping them clean up mess that she didn't have a bit of a hand in making.

~

I signed up to do a book sale this Friday with our homeschool group.

I waffled back and forth - I really don't feel like doing it,

but I do have a good-sized stack of books that the thought of just donating to the Salvation Army or Abilities makes me cringe. 

I waste spend a lot of money on books, and it'd be nice to get a little of that back.

(to buy more books... ;-)

We can sell other educational type things, too.

Since I'm already going to be there (ugh - not looking forward to it!) I really do need to have everything sorted through, so I can make it worth going...

~

Even though I sort through our crap a couple of times a year,

and feel like I am fairly ruthless when it comes to getting rid of stuff (and buying in the first place)

we can never be 'minimalist' people.

Large family + homeschooling + crafty + cooking from scratch

just does not = minimal.

It just doesn't.

~

Last night, after we went to the National Cemetary (which, of course, choked me up...) I took the kids to Goodys

(an expensive frozen yogurt place where you serve yourself from a variety of frozen yogurt and stale toppings dispensers)

Lexi just sorta had at it, without getting any help or guidance.

Her concoction was nasty

(she had more topping than yogurt)

so I wasn't a bit surprised when, after a few bites, she asked if she could get some more yogurt. Without any toppings.

(Pretty impressive that she recognized that that was the problem, I thought)

Tony called when we were on our way home (Tony called ~ yay!!!) and I was telling him about it.

"That sounds familiar," he said with a chuckle.

When he was little and we went for snow cones, he would always pick Ninja Turtle. Always.

And after a few bites, he'd want to trade me, because the ninja turtle snow cone was always nasty.

I would always trade him.

I didn't trade Lexi though.

(Her yogurt was even worse than Ton's ninja turtle snow cones)

I ran back in and bought her what I was eating.

~

I'm sure I could sit here much longer, recounting tales of our days,

but stuff has exploded all over the house,

and I need to get it put away,

'cause our Papa's coming home today :-)