The need to write

I've been scribbling on scraps of paper, doing scrapbook journaling--sans pictures--and working on a couple of posts for someone else's blog. Sometimes lately I feel that I am about to explode with pent up words. So I return to my neglected blog. I don't know if this will be for a day or a season, but for now I will write.

The new year's news

My exciting new year's news is that I am going to be a grandma.

All else pales in comparison.

What a year!

This time last year:

• We knew a transfer for Colin would be coming, but not the timing.
• Evan and Bethany had been dating for almost two months. He had spent Christmas at our house and she was in Wisconsin meeting his family. Colin and I drove up to Wisconsin to bring her back. We met Evan's parents over lunch at Buca di Beppo on New Year's Day.
• We lived in the same house we'd been in for almost nine years and knew that we had a lot of work to do to get it ready to sell.
• We had our eye on a house close to church that had been on and off the market for years.

 Now:

• Colin has been working in the 'burbs for seven months, staying in an apartment during the week, and coming home on the weekends.
• Evan and Bethany have been married for 4 1/2 months. (That means we got an engagement, wedding planning, and an out-of-state move for her all into one year!)
• We prepped our former house, vacated for tons of showings, and ended up living there for a couple of months longer than we had planned. This fall we turned it over to a relo company and heard yesterday that it is finally sold.
• We bought our "less-expensive" house down the street from church and spent our summer finding out all of the problems it had and spending all of our money to fix them. It is on its way to being exactly the home we wanted and the location is great.

It was all rather frantic and stressful while we were living it. But, with the exception of Colin being gone four nights a week, it's all turning out well. And that has an end down the road, which makes it bearable.

Five Cheese Egg Casserole

I've had several requests for this recipe. I first had this at a B&B I went to this fall for a scrapbooking retreat. I loved it and was glad to be able to purchase the recipe. I have made it twice this month, once for a ladies brunch at church and once for our family Christmas morning.

7 eggs

1 cup milk

4 ounces monterey jack cheese, shredded*

4 ounces colby cheese, shredded *

8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

4 ounces cream cheese, cubed

16 ounces small curd cottage cheese  (Michigan brand is perfect, if you can get it.)

4 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1/2 t. salt

Fresh herbs to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Whisk eggs and milk together. Stir in the cheeses and melted butter. Stir in the flour, salt, and baking powder. Immediately pour into a buttered 13x9 pan. Bake 45-50 minutes.

*When I made it the first time I gave up my colby to another cook and used double the monterey jack. I liked it a bit better that way, so my suggestion is to leave out the colby and use twice the mj. It seems to let the flavor of the cheddar really stand out.

Early New Year's Resolutions

I've spent some time this evening lining up my reading challenges for 2012.

It's made me start thinking about my plans for 2012 and I've got a few resolutions.

In 2012 I will:

--Swim in my pool.
--Read more books.
--Plant a garden and enjoy the harvest.
--Go on a vacation.
--Not tear out any walls.
--Enjoy the occasional Saturday with the hubby.

I also have no intention of moving or planning a wedding. I plan no drywalling or mold clean-up. When I have my friends over I hope to entertain them, not put them to work.

The best thing since. . .

Well, I don't know what. But something for sure.

Pinterest. Just the name makes me want to go paint something. Or buy something cute. Or at least find a picture of something cute.

So if you're playing there, come find me.

It worked with my kids

Right now I'm really struggling to like some people that I love. And I'm disappointed with some people that I like. This isn't anything new. It happens with jarring regularity.

I am so tired of grown adults behaving like children. Or even worse, like junior high students.

I'm so tired of snide comments and pot-stirring. Of extreme comments begetting more extreme responses. Of plain-old, flat-out meanness.

I'm sick of bickering.

I'd like to grab several different sets of people by the scruff of their necks and stand them in the middle of my living room. I'd make them stand forehead to forehead with each other until there was laughter and forgiveness.

As my children have taught me, some people are stupid-stubborn, and this can take a while, but I've never seen it fail.

I want a cookie

I've been doing really well avoiding sweets and refined carbs most of the time for the past year. I did it for my health, but it's had the happy side effect of a 20 pound weight loss. I'll take it!

Most of the time I'm satisfied with the way I eat, but all it takes is one weekend in a bed and breakfast--with cookies and orange-almond french toast--to turn me into a cookie-craving, m&m devouring basket case.

I've probably eaten 30 m&ms tonight. I feel like crud from the sugar. But I still really want a cookie.
Tomorrow I need to be strong and do the lean protein and yummy veggies thing, and put the thoughts of cookies out of my head.

Costs of disorganization

I keep finding myself paying the price, financial and otherwise, for being chaotically disorganized.
I've had to pay late fees on bills frequently during the past six months.
I just paid $26 extra dollars to sign my son up for the SAT.
Yesterday it was $32 in library fines.
I lose hours each week just searching for things.
We aren't eating as well as we could be.

The problem is that I need some time to get organized, but there is always something more urgent. The overwhelmingness of this move has taken me by surprise. I've made state-to-state moves with small children that didn't leave me in this kind of chaos. Maybe that was easier because moving was, in itself, a break. I didn't move and continue to work and do my regular activities. And I guess I didn't do all of that and plan a wedding and have to work on rehabbing a house at the same time, either. So, I guess I can see how I got here.

But looking ahead, I don't see a break coming. I don't see a chance to catch up. There is Thanksgiving. There are cookies to be baked the week after (about 30 dozen.) There is Christmas shopping, house guests, and--oh yeah--this is one of the busy times at church/work.

Somehow, I have to figure it out, because I can't continue in the disorganized state that I'm in.

You just have to laugh

I discovered something this weekend while I was scrapbooking. There is something very therapeutic about making a nice layout with beautiful paper for pictures of stressful events.

Very few people knew how hard this summer was for me. There were all kinds of stresses, but chief among them were the constant negative surprises with our new house. Each new discovery added to the financial, time, and health-related strains. For a variety of reasons I felt the need to keep a calm facade and not to let on how close I was feeling to the edge of what I could handle.

This past weekend I had planned to scrapbook wedding pictures, but various circumstances led to me scrapping other photos from this summer, and especially those of the house problems and the resulting demolition and work. I wasn't really looking forward to working with those pictures. First off, they are mostly of ugliness: mold, demolition, lathe, weeds, green board, and, did I mention, mold. And further, they depicted a really low point for me. But as I sorted through the stack and got ready to work with them I was cheered, partially by the fact that they were in the past, and partially by the reminder of all of the people who worked so hard on our house.

Our sons ( 2, 3) were amazing. They worked hard for months. I have tons of pictures of Bethany, hair tied up, sweaty and dirty or covered with paint. I have pictures of Evan working in almost every room of the house, doing anything that needed to be done. We have pictures of the best neighbors in the world working both inside and outside of the house, and of other friends helping out, too.

So I pulled out some of my favorites of the new paper I bought, and a few old favorites, too. And I made some of my favorite layouts in a long time with those pictures. At one point I was actually wiggling in my chair with glee over one of the layouts because it was such fun. And looking back through the pictures with the boys today I feel like I left a lot of that stress on those pages.

Sometimes stuff happens

Things get lost.

I didn't manage to blog Thursday night because I couldn't find the tote with most of my scrapbooking tools and I lost a couple of hours of my packing time looking for them. My 18-year-old son found them, but only after I had already searched frantically.

There's no internet access.

Friday and Saturday I was at the retreat. There was supposed to be internet access at the camp, but it was slower than dial-up and wouldn't even load my email, let alone allow me to do anything on the internet.

People die.

I spent last night not doing much more than feeling sad. One of my dad's sisters died on Friday, and although I'd been thinking about her all weekend, it didn't seem quite real. Talking to another of my aunts last night really got me thinking about the loss to her husband and young adult kids and how much all of us will miss her.

The countdown

In less than 40 hours I'm leaving for my first of two fall scrapbooking retreats. I've been sorting through things and getting organized, but I still have a lot to do. My packing is complicated by the fact that I'm packing for two. All of Bethany's scrapping supplies are still here, and she will be going directly from Wisconsin to the camp. So I'm bringing tools, albums, paper, bedding, etc., for two.

Oh, yeah. Snacks, too. Guess I need to squeeze in a Target run tomorrow.

It's going to be a great weekend. I get to spend it with my daughter and a couple of my dearest friends. I get to get back to one of my favorite hobbies, which I have not indulged in since the retreat last fall. And I get to scrap again next weekend.

Why Janie can't read

I am, and have always been, a reader. But this year has been rough. I am way off pace. My concentration has been horrible. I have to really be in the perfect mood for a particular book to be able to read it. I keep trying to figure out why this is. It would seem that my favorite relaxing pastime would be just the ticket when things have been a bit crazy, but that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Very few books that I've read this year have really grabbed my attention. Those that have, have. If you want to see my reading lists, challenges, etc., I have a book blog.

I'm hoping that life getting back to normal helps. We'll see.

This counts

I'm begging off posting anything substantive tonight because I had a kitchen accident and a trip to the ER. I'll fill you in tomorrow after my eye is un-dilated.

Okay, so I didn't make it back yesterday

It's been a busy weekend. Sauerkraut, out-of-town guests, church, birthday party.

Tonight I ordered another 600+ photos from Snapfish, so between this order and the last I have almost 1300 photos to scrapbook from the last year. Of course, almost half of those are wedding.

I think it's a good thing that I have two scrapbooking retreats coming up. I can't wait. I hope my pictures make it in time for the first one!

Can we call it even?

I didn't blog last night, but I did blog twice two days ago. And I promise I'll blog again today.

Last night was our sauerkraut supper at church. In spite of the fact that I thought we should do something different and I wasn't in charge of it--because I *did* say no, as I am so often encouraged to do--I still spent 12 hours at church yesterday working on it.  So when I got home at 9:00 last night I was complete mental and physical toast.

Today's agenda: getting ready for a sixteenth birthday party for my baby and his friend tomorrow night.

Groceries, baking, cooking, and some visiting with out of town guests. And--oh yeah--I have to work today.

Better keep moving.

Erasing posts

 I've blogged twice tonight.

And promptly erased each entry.

It wasn't the quality. The writing was good.

It was the subject matter and tone. They were cranky. And I refuse to be a cranky person.

And now I'm tired, and seemingly incapable of a complex sentence.

I could sit in this chair and waste the rest of the night on Facebook or Pinterest, but I think I'll go organize scrapbooking stuff.

I love

. . .my youngest son's giggle when he sees something funny. Especially if it involves cats, squirrels, or bunnies.

Stumped already

I am starting my month stumped about what to write. If I had written earlier in the day, it probably would have gone smoothly, but I was busy with work and errands, so I put it off.

When I sat down to blog I had a couple of ideas rolling around in my head, but I decided to check Facebook first, just to see what my friends are up to. Well, that was a bad idea, because--as is too often the case lately--someone is behaving badly. I want desperately to ignore it. (Actually, I want desperately to tell someone off.  But it wouldn't be nice and they wouldn't accept what I was saying anyway.) So I want to ignore it.

But I can't. Because it's bothering me. And I can't write when I'm bothered unless I'm addressing the source of the irritation.


So tonight's post is pretty much of a waste. Maybe I'll come up with something else later.

Blogging for blogging's sake

Something about the theme-less theme for NaBloPoMo this month really appealed to me.

I need to write more. I think that I'm at a point in my life for the first time in many months that will allow for some daily blog time. It doesn't really matter if anyone reads what I'm writing, although it's more fun that way.

My brain has felt really sluggish lately. Reading has been slow. I haven't been researching anything. I've just been trudging through, living in my too-full, too-demanding house, trying to keep up with everything everyone wants me to do. It's time to get the sludge out and start thinking again.