The past two weeks have been absolutely insane. Have I said that before?

For the last two years, we have run a haunted house as a fundraiser for my Youth Symphony. SH and a friend build all the pneumatic devices that scare people. I do all of the artsy decorating and creepiness. It is a very fun event. Last year, though, we realized that we had out grown the creepy old barn where we had been holding it. So, we went in search of a new space. Man did we ever find one!

There is an old middle school in town, that is only used for office space now. The old gym is a separate building and has a nasty old basement where the locker rooms are located. It is this one long creepy hall with no outside windows (because it is below ground). We have called it the “Haunted Dungeon”.

We asked for more haunting space and we definitely got it. The haunt takes four times longer to get through than previous years. As was the case our first year in the barn, there has been a steep learning curve when it comes to putting up walls and decorations. In the barn, everything was wood so we could staple or screw everything into place. Here, everything is concrete and our beloved “Gorilla Tape” isn’t sticking to the grimy, dirt encrusted walls very well. I have broken two flood lights trying to get them into place…

I am happy with how the haunt is ending up, things are going well. We are making money, but not what I would have liked. Halloween night was our big night in the past, so we shall see what tonight brings.

With all that said though, I have to mention how run down we feel. This year has been harder than the other two years in some ways. In others, it has been easier. We are tired though, I am ready for tonight to be over. Then I can get back to the way life is supposed to be. Not rushed, not painful (do you know what it feels like to go up two flights of stairs over and over in a day)?

Wait a second though, did I mention that we should be moving next weekend? Things are going well with the loan, but I have been ignoring the move. I don’t have enough boxes packed… my main question will be ‘when can I stop’?!

At one point in my life, I started to realize that things I said came straight from my mother. She had this wonderful way of making me think. Especially when I lost something. She would walk me through my day until I remembered where the item was. Asking questions like “when you last had it, where were you?”

Tonight we were looking for a certain video that we wanted to watch. The baby had it last, so it really could have been anywhere. I told the girls that if we wanted to watch it, we had to work together and find it. M piped up asking, “Mom, when you saw Punkin’ with it last, where was she?”

I felt like I was 10 years old again. At home, with a lost shoe. Thanks Mom, the cycle continues.

One thing I have always hated about buying a house is the waiting period. I know that I mentioned the Dr. Seus book already, but I feel it again. This time however, when the waiting is over things will move extremely fast.

For example… we heard from the loan people, things look good on their end. They sent it to the underwriting people yesterday and we should get it back in about a week. IF they don’t need any other information from us (which they shouldn’t), then we have another week to close on the house. IF they need more info from us, it could be an extra week in there. Great! Possibly two weeks, and I could be moving into the house. Fabulous. Well, except for this one tiny little detail… two weeks from then would be the 29th of October. The very night we open the Haunted Dungeon fund raiser for my youth symphony!

We are building a haunted house, packing, and possibly moving all at the same time. I don’t mean to whine, I am stoked about this home, but why the heck do I do this to myself?!

The other day I mentioned that we were in a waiting place. Well, we are still in a waiting place, but a waiting place that is not nearly so painful. Before we were waiting for approval and acceptance. Both of these have come to pass.

You see, we have been looking for a house for several years now. When we first moved down here, we saw the median home price was well above what we felt we could afford. Ever. The locals loved to complain that it was all those “dang people from California”, moving in and forcing the prices up. I don’t know if this was really the case, but in the past few months, prices have been dropping.

I have a friend who is a real estate agent. She has been watching the market for us, and a few weeks ago she mentioned a few possible finds. SH and I decided to start looking at a them. The first home we saw was nice but old. It needs a lot of updating. I mean a lot. Plus, it is on a septic system where I would prefer city sewer, etc.

Anyway, to make a long story short, last Monday my friend showed us a bank owned foreclosure. The second I drove up to the house, I knew I wanted it. The more I saw, the more smitten I became. SH as always, was the voice of reason, holding my feet to the floor with logistics. So, we made an offer and then the waiting began. Neither of us could sleep, we were all consumed with the possibilities.

We didn’t want to tell the girls till we were pretty sure. It is in Kanab, so we would be moving to a much larger school district, with more options… including a *gasp* music program! The house is near the schools, in a beautiful neighborhood, where there seem to be plenty of kids to play with. We can hope anyway! Friday, we took the girls through and Saturday, my dad (who is a builder) inspected every inch of the place for us. We have decided to go forward with this, and hopefully we will be moving in about a month. Did I just say that? A month?! Wow, how things change quickly. Let’s hope the loan underwriting and closing go smoothly… I am so excited!

I think that I am an action oriented person. I like to be in control of my own destiny, and thus if something needs to be done, I will do it. Let me pursue a goal so I may have the opportunity to strive for new heights.

Without giving too many details, let me just say that this past week has been very hard for us. We have some interesting and possibly exciting things coming, but nothing is for certain. That is where I am, in limbo. Waiting. As one of my all time favorite books states:

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at
break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting

I am tired of waiting, but I have no choice. Thus, I will continue to wait and while I wait I can’t seem to sleep well. This whole thing had better resolve soon because I can’t keep living like this!

When I was a little girl, I remember someone asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. My answer always started with something to do with “famous musician” or whatever, but always ended up with “I want to be a mom”. It was always a part of me, that desire, that inner push to find a worthy husband and raise children with him.

This weekend, we went camping and wood hauling. For those who don’t know or don’t remember, we cut our own firewood, bring it down from the mountain, and then use it to heat our house all winter. Down here, it does get cold, but it is way cheaper to heat the house this way. Anyway, as we were doing all of this, the older girls asked Sultry Husband if he would go for a hike with them. I forgot the baby backpack, so I stayed in camp with Punkin’. After a few minutes, I thought that there was no reason why we couldn’t go on a hike of our own, so she and I started down the trail. Punkin’ was holding onto my thumb and walking, so we moved quite slow.

The speed at which the two of us were moving provided much time for contemplation. Punkin’ was giggling, gurgling, and waving her free hand to emphasize how excited she was. As I saw her, enjoying her walk, I had a thought come to me. That moment, that pure beautiful moment, was everything I ever wanted. It was beautiful, that thought.

There is more to me than motherhood. There always has been and there always will be, but in that moment, it was enough. I need to remember that. Although there is more, pure happiness can and does come through my children. I love what I do, I just need to remember to enjoy myself more.

My dog Phnarph is obsessed with squeaky toys. He doesn’t chew them up, he wants to fetch them. If he hears a squeak, from anywhere in the house, he will come running.

Last night, SH and I felt like teasing this poor, innocent corgi. Truthfully, we love messing with him whenever we can. Anyway, SH brought the squeaky toy into our room and put it up on the bed where Phnarph couldn’t get it. As the lights went off, Phnarph retreated to his usual place, underneath our bed. A few minutes later, SH squeezed the toy. Phnarph ran out from under the bed so quickly that I think he hit his head. We laughed so hard! Once he couldn’t determine where the squeak came from, Phnarph settled under the bed again.

We couldn’t resist, I had to take a turn squeaking the toy. The poor dog ended up whimpering at the door, thinking that the toy was squeaking from down the hall. SH and I felt mean at that point, so we gave him the toy and went to sleep. I do have to admit though, that I can’t wait till we go to bed tonight… beware little dog, the squeaky phantom will be visiting you again tonight…

It has been a long time. I think that part of my problem was that, as my friend Sariah mentioned, everyone and their dog have blogs. Most are very cute and cookie cutter. Everyone posts pictures, no one writes anything deep anymore. At least, outside my circle of friends anyway. I miss the conversations we had about real life, about the world, about nothing.

That said, I am choosing to bare my soul here. I have a fabulous husband, whom I affectionately call Sultry Husband. He is a writer. When I get to read his stuff, I am in awe, I am amazed, and I can’t believe that I am so lucky. At the same time, I read his stuff, look at my own ramblings, and hit the delete key. I can’t keep up with him, and my first reaction is to not even try. That is probably one of my greatest weaknesses, comparing myself to others who are far better than I think I could ever be. Stemming all the way back through school, I have always been this way. Striving to be first chair in a symphony or having the most violin students. I wanted to be the best, and if anyone was beyond me, I would feel very incomplete inside.

I want to be better! I am going to stop this nonsense and get back to the reason why I started this blog. To be myself. I can’t write like SH, but I can write. I will never publish a book or have a byline in a national magazine, but I can love the man who does. I can be part of this process by sharing my thoughts about my children and my life. That will be enough for me. I used to love to blog, and I will love it again.

I have found friends on Facebook, that I have not seen in ages. Friends from High School, who really weren’t all that close to me, but suddenly want to be my “friend”. Sometimes I feel like I am just a number on their little friend counter. I find myself not posting a “status update” very often, and the friends I actually care about were becoming buried in the background. That has to stop. “Vecinni, I am going back to the beginning.” Back to where I felt loved, supported, entertained, and welcome. Back to where it all began, with a simple blog.

I feel blessed. In this economy, my dear Sultry Husband has a job that he loves. We have a one year old beautiful baby who desires my attention. I have older children who smile and hug me. My two dogs want to play with me, snuggle with me, just be near me. I have a youth symphony that is thriving, even during the summer months when I am the only director and kids are often gone. We are surviving. My complaints right now are all small in comparison to my blessings. I am writing this post to remind me that things are oh so good. A “count your many blessings” moment, you know the saying- if you go looking for your blessings, you will not be able to number them all? I am doing that.

So, when I think about my dental experience lately, I can still keep my chin up. Last Thursday, as I was eating breakfast, I broke my very back molar. It didn’t really hurt at that moment, but I didn’t want it to get worse, so I called my dentist. He had an opening right then, so I ran up there. He said it looked like an old filling had cracked. It would need to be replaced, but it shouldn’t be any kind of big deal.

As he drilled it out, I heard him utter “oh”. Not something you want to hear from your dentist! As it turns out, the crack must have happened quite some time ago because there was much decay underneath it. He went deeper, then decided it was time to make me more numb…. this process repeated itself four times. Four shots to make my mouth more and more dead. I ended up with a full on root canal, but with the added bonus that there was such a raging infection in there that he couldn’t even finish it! I have been referred to a specialist who can’t see me till this Thursday. Much pain going on here. Grumble… must. keep. chin. up.

In the process of making me feel no pain, my dentist (who I quite like), hit a nerve in the side of my mouth that caused my Tongue to go numb… it is still numb… he says that the condition could last a week, two weeks, or even two months. In the mean time, I can’t taste anything in half of my mouth. A very frustrating status, yet I can function, I can walk, I am fine. I am healthy. I even laughed when my dentist told me why the feeling didn’t come back into my mouth.

I will continue to count my blessings. I will, I will, I will! Things are good.

My dear Princess Peanut is one today! As I look back on this year, I truly can’t believe it has been that long. It seems like only yesterday that I would catch her napping in her bouncy seat. That she wanted to be wrapped up as tight as could be.

Then I look through my pictures of her. I find that she really did grow up slowly. She smiled by September. She was still such a skinny little thing, but that smile captured our hearts.

A baby's smile transforms her face

As she continued to grow, that smile grew with her. That personality that couldn’t be a more perfect fit for our little family.

By Christmas her little cheeks were filling out, she was getting chunky, and she finally started sleeping more.

By 8 months, I noticed how like her older sister she looks. It is funny how we all just seem to mesh. Our lives were not complete without this glorious little girl.

One of my favorite memories is always the first spaghetti. There is something magical about that orange substance.

Then came hiking. We rediscovered Zion this spring and early summer. We have gone over and over again. Punkin’ loves the backpack.

As we returned from one of our hikes, we had to get on a bus that takes us back to our car. It can be quite busy and thus tight on the ride. Punkin’ was still in the backpack, but on Sultry Husband’s lap. She watched as strangers boarded the bus and held on to the bars provided. I watched as she reached out to hold one, looking up to see what these other people would do about it. That bar was her friend for the next 30 minutes.

And finally, one of my favorites. Punkin’ used to be content to be surrounded by her toys. Now, she wants nothing more than to explore and find new and glorious things to create mischief with. She loves to “find” us as we call to her. This last picture shows her wonderful personality and the excitement she feels when she find’s us.

Happy Birthday little one, you are a welcome addition to our family. We couldn’t imagine our lives without you.