Boressed

a combination of bored and stressed. I'm at Carl's Jr. right now with the four oldest children. I've got my cool little netbook running Ubuntu netbook remix (linux) and connected to the free wifi. Pretty cool, but a little paranoid that somebody will steal my baby. Not my children. they make too much noise.

Why am I here? because I'm such a good husband and father? Not really. because I was hungry. True, but that's not the reason. Maybe I'm trying to pick up a single mom? Nice guess, I wouldn't have thought of that one, but no. For the free wi-fi? Not that desperate. Because my wife needed to work on finances and asked me to? Wow, you're good! But right now, I'm wondering just how much work my wife is getting done since I see she's posting to facebook. I might have to nominate her to midget status if she's not careful :)

I saw a friend who used to work @ woodgrain today. He and his wife have finally decided to join the rest of zombies and reproduce. The Bible says be fruitful and multiply but I think most people divide. either 2/1 and have two kids or 2/2 and have one kid. Rebekah and I took it to heart and multiplied by 3.

My back has been hurting me prety bad, and I think I've figured out it's something in my neck. I've had a pain in my neck lots of times but they're usually of the child variety.

Titus doesn't feel well, so I'd better post this and check on him. he tends to get sick when he's tired and playing.

Bonding with the boys

I think it's interesting that "they" (not sure who they is) seem to think that in order to spend time with your kids you have to have "quality time" or direct interaction. My Dad always stated that he thought "quantity time" was more important and I think I agree. Forrest and I started watching Dr. Who and now the boys are hooked and ask regularly to watch it. Since it's a good show with a minimum of language I've been letting them watch it with me. Every once in awhile I have to brace myself ask one of them comes racing over to cower by me because something scary is going on, but it's pretty mild stuff. I compare it to some of the old radio programs that I listen to. Lots of suspense and that combined with "bad guys" and aliens seems to be a winning combination for us guys. I was amused to hear Titus and Forrest playing Dr. Who tonight after dinner. Somehow, playing star wars makes sense to me but Dr. Who? I guess they like it more than i thought :)

Well, after I worked on my fire hazard over the weekend I forced myself to go outside and try to do something with my squealing truck. At least that way I got away from the squealing girls. Anyway, I was pretty sure that it was a belt that was loose, but since I'm not a mechanic like the rest of family I'm stumbling around in the dark. So, Forrest and I went outside and he helped me put the truck on ramps and get things together. I was really pleased with the little bugger. Granted, he's a bit more motivated since when he does well I put some money towards his "Super Mario Brothers Galaxy" fund. But since the kid has been wanting it for at least a year it definitely won't be an impulse buy. The good news i think the noise was just a loose alternator belt. If not, well, I guess I'll just have to club a midget in sacrifice to the car gods and try again.

Tonight I decided that I needed to cut something and my finger still hasn't healed so I got my saws out and started working on making a crawl space in one of our bathroom closets. In case you haven't guessed, using power tools is therapeutic. So, after a couple hours cutting and whatnot, I now have a big hole in the floor. All in a days work right? I am looking forward to communing with the spiders and crawling down there soon to try to tap into the plumbing.

Must do something

Right now I haven't gotten anything accomplished today other than deal with my electrical outlet. I took the outlet out and the house wiring was good and it didn't look like there was anything wrong. So, I put an expensive GFCI outlet in (no wonder I normally shop @ home depot. It cost twice as much in here). I don't think the GFCI will help with that sort of an issue, but it make me feel a little better.

In other news (if you can call it that) our girls had to go cold turkey on Little Einsteins. But after talking to a friend I started recording Clifford and Curious George. Now my government dollars are doing something worthwhile as my girls are rabid Clifford (the big red dog) fans which is broadcast on PBS. And it's free! I think we'll totally cancel the satellite in a couple months (right now it only has "family" programming) and save $30. But, I'm taking baby steps because I love my wife (and to a lesser extent my family).

Except for Trinity. She ties with Mom me thinks.

Fun @ 4

AM that is. We woke up to the sound of an incessant beeping. Rebekah investigated as I was totally out of it. She reported that the breaker had tripped and now it was smoky upstairs. I assumed that without power the pellet stove couldn't vent properly and thus it was the cause of the smoke. We had a oil heater plugged into an outlet and so I figured that tripped the circuit. Odd, but not unheard of. I was holding Clell and so Rebekah in her jammies went out and flipped the breaker. As we debated the cause in the dark, a few minutes later I heard a pop and the power went off again. Again, the brave beka went outside, but this time when she flipped the breaker I heard more pops and flashes of light and then one solid wavering light. While still holding Clell I ascertained that the outlet was emitting something commonly known as "fire." I reached down and unplugged the heater and thankfully the fire went out. But needless to say, we were and are greatly disturbed. It was old wiring in the house and now that we think about it we have had some issues before, just nothing near this magnitude. The power to that circuit is currently off, but I have to turn it back on eventually. I am going to remove the outlet and make sure the wiring up to the outlet is ok. Then, i'll put in a GFCI outlet. My Dad thinks that the problem is with the heater since the problem seems to be external to the plug. I hope this is the case as that's a much easier "fix." I'm gonna go get started working on it and if there's anything eventful I'll post back here. If I don't get electrocuted or burned up in a house fire that is :)

itty bitty polka dot

computer. Well, it's itty bitty at least. No polka dots though. It is blue for what that's worth. I've had my eye on one of these for awhile but didn't really need one. It's a netbook. Too small for most people but perfect for facebook and blogging. I bought it from a friend who is taking the funds and redirecting them towards an iPad. Unfortunately, my wife is eyeing this poor defenseless netbook with a lustful eye. Kind of inappropriate if you ask me. I mean, she is a married woman. But anyway, I am hoping to be able to blog a bit more now. Probably won't really, but the point is that I am happy. I even put Ubuntu Linux Netbook remix on it. Fast little bugger. I think it's pretty amazing myself, but without being able to see it, it's hard to understand. I had it at church tonight (ya know, so I could play Farmville on Facebook during the service) and people just thought it was my Bible. Anyway, I got it for a nice price because I was patient and my friend gets to further Apple's invasion. Win win if you ask me.

It slices, it dices!

my finger that is. I cut my ring finger really bad with a box cutter tonight. Usually, I use dull knives so the damage isn't bad. This cut was deep though, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to stop the bleeding. But, pressure does wonders and a tight bandage seems to be keeping the green (oops. I mean red, my blood is red. not green. nope. no green blood here. move along) RED blood in pretty good. A bit hard to type, but not too bad. The good news is that Titus' little play area is almost done. I have some mudding and trim left to do and Rebekah has to paint it, but I think I'll let the kid move in this weekend. Then I'm onto my super big project--putting a new bathroom in upstairs. Gonna be fun!

Haunting

Most people like Nostalgia. It's cool when it's controlled and all warm and fuzzy, but I just spent an hour going through a couple old shoe boxes of college mementos and sorting out stuff that didn't have any real meaning from stuff that sort of did. Wow, are those some acidic memories. Not necessarily bad, just traumatizing. Of course, going through all that turmoil enabled me to endure the whirlwind romance with Rebekah later on in life. I was watching a documentary on Joseph Goebbels (google it you lazy bums) and they read from his diary. Man, I guess everybody has the same emotional problems regarding love (and life). Even my friend Kelly admits to being human in this area at some point in his life. Anywho, I found some neat stuff including a MAC-10 tie tack my Dad sent me. Well, nothing incredibly pithy or anecdotally amusing, just some mental drivel emitting since the house is quiet.

I'm confused

I just read my blog a minute ago and found out that I was a pretty great guy. Of course, I knew that already but somebody felt compelled to login to my blog and write something nice about me. What? No, I didn't write that myself! What do you mean, you don't believe me? Would I do something like that? Well, yeah, but that's beside the point, I didn't do it! Ok, I'm going to hold my breath until somebody confesses.

Grant has passed out and laying on floor bleeding from a bad head wound. Ironically is was his wife that wrote the blog post, thinking that she was logged into her blog. Hopefully, she'll come get him before he ruins the carpet.

My Husband

He's outdone himself this week - really! On Monday, he watched the four older kids (and a friend watched the babies) while I went shopping. I left the house before 9am and got home at 5pm, so it was all day thing. While I was gone, he fixed my computer and then worked some in Titus' new room. And when I got home, he helped unload the Durango. Today, after work, he got me a shelf unit from Lowe's. It's better than the one I had picked out, and looks awesome in the kitchen! He put it together while watching the 4 kids again while I took a couch in to town. See, isn't he great?! And you thought he couldn't be a sweet, lovable, and thoughtful fella! :-)

Oh, and tomorrow is his birthday, so that makes it even more amazing...it's his freebie week! LOL

Love you, Grant!

"I Will Survive"

I have lots of profound thoughts that never make it to my blog. that's ok. most is just mental regurgitation that probably isn't that interesting anyway. Since the audience I have is so diverse (three different people) it is sometimes hard to avoid saying things that will offend. Normally, I don't mind offending people. That's not my goal, but if they get offended then I am doing my part to help them build a thicker skin, thus improving humanity. Why this odd post? Oh, they're all odd you say? Well, I had a challenging few hours last night. Nothing big to be quite honest, but they could have been very ugly. For once, family had nothing to do with it. I won't bore you with what happened at work, but suffice it to say I locked myself out of some systems. Then, after cleaning up that mess, I went home @ 7 PM only to find out there was bad news on that front too. Thankfully, Rebekah managed to prepare me for some bad news before hitting me with it. I sat down on the floor while she ejected the kids. My mind races through all sorts of horrible things before she told me. I had time to ask God that whatever it was to give me grace and not get too upset. Turns out that our pellet stove was broken. Instead of throwing a hissy fit as I am prone to do, I asked her some questions and went and looked at it. The auger wasn't turning, but you could hear the motor trying. Rebekah had removed all the pellets as well as the back of the stove so I was able to sit right down and look at it. I was able to quickly figure out that either something was wrong with the motor or the auger. I disconnected the motor and Titus helped me troubleshoot it (he turned on the power when I told him to). That was good. So, I looked at the auger. It sure seemed jammed to me. After messing with it, I finally opened up the stove door. There was a huge pile of pellets in the burn pot backed all the way up. Aha! It was Rebekah's fault. Not sure how, but she makes a cute scapegoat. So, we *think* that we didn't empty the ashes enough and that caused the pellets to stop burning which caused the backlog which eventually caused the auger to jam. We fixed that and I turned the shaft manually and it broke free. Sweet! I rule! I did a little jig like Hitler did after the successful invasion and surrender of Poland (or was it France? I think it was France) and promptly dropped all my tools and went downstairs and ate dinner (It used to be supper but my wife has corrupted me and now I use the wrong word). What's the moral of the story? I'm not sure, but I think it had something to do with Hitler and Obama.

Speaking of Obama, I'd like to take this time to thank President Bush and the Republican Congress of 2004 for passing the additional Child tax credit portion of the Working Families Tax Relief Act. Thanks to that we get a nice return due to the fact that they'll let me have some of my social security tax back before I'm old and the guvmint is bankrupt. Unfortunately, in 2011 (unless Obama decides to feel my pain) our tax refund will be less than 25% of what it was this year. Oh well, to quote some 70's singer "I will survive." Not sure about Bek and the kids, but I'll make it :)

Our girls are mostly normal

Much to my incredible dismay we had an appointment with a pediatric endocrinologist on Saturday. In Boise. At 12:00 PM. Argh! What's an endocrinologist you ask? Google it! I'm not here to answer questions for people too lazy to use a search engine. I'm here to regale you with stories of triumph over tragedy as well as a some of trial over tribulation. Now, back to my story. So, why were we going to an endo... forget it. Why were we going to the doc? Well, that's an ok question but too personal to put it on the blog. Suffice it to say, the girls have had an abnormality of the hirsute variety since birth. We didn't worry about it since the NICU docs said it was normal, but our ped doc freaked out and wanted to do all sorts of tests. I said we weren't doing that until somebody smarter than her (the Ped doc) told us we should. Obviously I was slightly more tactful than that... slightly. So, 4 months later we got hooked up to a traveling doc who knows something about these things. Turns out the girls are mostly normal (I was pretty sure of that) but their motorcycles might be out of tune or irregular or something when they were older. I forget, but I know he said something about cycles. And apparently cycles have something to do with getting pregnant. I've heard about such things with regard to cars and their backseats, but never about motorcycles. Anyway, i'm not sure what cars and motorcycles have to do with a couple unique little girls but that's ok. What matters is that our girls our "Mostly Normal"

Since I wasted my Saturday in Boise, I'm taking tomorrow off to do some more work upstairs.

Oh! and I was watching American Outlaws with Colin Farrel (Jesse James/western) and one of the guys @ a town meeting is "Clell Miller." cool huh?

Sieze the Carp! quick, before it gets away!

I really hope that when I'm more old and infirm I don't yearn for yesteryear. Most people's lives seem to have peaked in college. Well, thankfully I went to Bob Jones so that was the opposite of a peak for me (read pit). I know that many parents can't wait for their kids to grow up. I don't really feel that way. Yes, I'm running on the ragged edge of my sanity and of my abilities. But I do love my children and although it seems like all I ever do is yell at them, a friend pointed out that I must be a horrible Dad since the kids are so scared of me (yeah, he was being sarcastic). I think like Paul said (and I brutally paraphrase here) it is best to be happy in whatever situation you're in. The temptation to be discouraged or even depressed can be great at times, but I think that I have less (far far less) to complain about than ever before. Not that I've ever had a truly good reason to complain. I think that the point of Carpe Diem (sieze the day) gets lost. It is too easy to make everything about ourselves. And as much as I like to tell me wife that it is truly all about me, deep in the cockles of my heart I know tis not true. I think that being a parent is one of life's greatest responsibilities. So little of what I do is because I "want to" but rather because my family needs it. But I don't mind because I love my family. But to be honest, there's not much left of me when I'm done. But that's ok, cause I said so.

Oh, and my kids are already growing up too fast to suit me. They always have.

Before I finished this blog post a partially clothed Serenity came and laid on my side while drinking out of her sippy cup.

God doesn't like me very much

yeah, that's Rebekah and I were thinking last night. Of course, @ 1:30, 2:30, 3:00 AM you're not thinking really rationally. Of course, Rebekah was up a lot more than that. Both Trinity and Clell are sick. But last night they must've had a stomach ache or something because they were really miserable and let us know it by screaming. I was planning on taking this morning off so Rebekah could get some rest so I finally went upstairs and pulled out a mattress that we had put under the girls bed and slept on it. I would've slept on the floor at that point. Rebekah is going to take Trinity to the Dr. this afternoon so I guess I'll be home the rest of the day. Poor little baby girl has a bad fever. Clell isn't doing too bad though this morning and nobody got any toys out so he pulled himself up tot he basket and got some out himself. He's a self-serve kind a guy, just like his namesake.

Other than sickness, things are going pretty well. Christmas was enjoyable but really showed our financial limits. I'm not sure what else we can do and wonder repeatedly if I should look for a job elsewhere. We'd be fine but for all our medical debts, but I know that a little hardship is good for the soul, even though I don't like it. Why don't I get a job somewhere else? Because I'd have to commute to downtown boise in most instances. I don't think I would mind the time but to lose that much from my family every day is pretty hard to take. I guess I'm waiting on the Lord (that sounds better than "I'm procrastinating")

ok, If I don't see you again, have a nice life.

Deep thoughts

by Jack Handy.

Ok, not so much. I've had a few thoughts that were deep that I seriously considered blogging about but I like to keep things superficial. That way, when the time comes for Operation "Yo Momma" everybody will be surprised.

The Ballard Clan of New Plymouth has sojourned south and east for the Christmas season. We have joined with the Ballard Clan of Fairfield and the Ballard Clan of "Lives right behind Clan of Fairfield" for a family filled Christmas. Notice I omitted "fun." Traveling with six wee ones and the various accoutrements  is fatiguing. The packing begins the prior day which is preceded by lots of organization by the Clan Mother. We decided that for safety and other reasons we really needed to take two vehicles. So, just to come visit is costing almost $100 in gasoline alone. Oh well, Christmas comes but once a year. right? Please tell me it's only once a year. So, we made it here safe and sound even though those stupid 1A/5B drivers try to run us off the road. I'm only going the speed limit on a snow covered road through the mountains, silly me. The natural man part of me wishes to see their stupid rig go plummeting off the edge of the mountain and burst into a a fiery explosion. But the redeemed part of me prays for their safety and that of others that may encounter them.  One kind of odd sight that we witnessed was a bunch of snowboarders using parachute type sails to pull them over the prairie. Kind of cool. But once again a part of me wished coyotes on them. I'm just very grinchy, what can I say?

Smile, you're on candid camera.

Ouch

I've been working on the upstairs "play room" for the boys and I put some wood paneling up. Unfortunately the two pieces only gave me 8 feet. I needed 8 feet 2 inches. So, they're barely attached to studs on both sides. Since I need to do the drywall on the other side I was trying to figure out how to cover up the gap that would be left between the drywall and the paneling. So, since we pretty much have exhausted all our funds on wood and Christmas I found a piece of trim outside that I think I can use. I brought it inside and Serenity greeted me and promptly wanted to help. Since I never let the girls help and it was really light I let her carry it. Liberty wanted to help too so I let the girls carry it upstairs. It was cute because they were so excited to be helping. Other than it catching on things due to the length they were doing well. Unfortunately things went horribly wrong when we got to the tops of the stairs and I told them I would open the door. As I was trying to step over the trim, they turned and it caught my leg. Remember in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Luke wrapped the cable around that AT walkers and they came crashing down and exploded? yeah, that's a pretty accurate description of what happened to me. Not exploded as in got angry but more like the crashed and burned. My full weight came down on my knees in a rather violent fashion. Surprisingly, other than saying fudge! as I crashed I kept my expletives and anger to a minimum. My whole body aches (especially my knees and wrist). But after my wife and Forrest picked me up I had the girls come back up and finish. They were so happy that oddly enough I don't regret shattering my kneecaps yet. We'll see about tomorrow.

btw, i hate drywall

forced convalescence

I guess God decided I needed a break or something because I got sick Sunday-ish. So, for monday and tuesday I missed work. But I couldn't stand the thought of missing another day of work so I compromised and worked from home today. Less strenuous in some ways. Mostly a psychological thing since with the chaos around this house it's usually more restful to go to work. My Dad always encouraged me to get up and I'd feel better. To be honest, I think that may be true for some people but I usually feel worse. After I take a shower my body temp usually is higher and so I'm completely miserable until around 10:30 in the morning. But, whether it's true or not it's important to not "give in" to being sick. At least, not for more than our social mores deem acceptable. I think it's funny that in four years of college at Bob Jones, I never got sick. Ha! Yeah, I did. But when you got sick there you had to check into the campus Hospital "Barge." And to add insult to injury, they charged you room and board! We were already paying room and board once! So, for four years I just suffered and endured. One semester I was sick with some sinus problem almost the whole time. Seems pretty savage talking about it now. We always knew that if we saw a Dr. it was going to be expensive because it was an out of network. So, for the most part we just saw the Doctor on Christmas break or summer vacation. Now the co-pays keep me away unless I've suffered for a month. Well, I'd better get back to resting. I'm planning on going to work tomorrow and leaving Rebekah alone with all the sick kids. Nice of me huh? :)

I remember

I remember that when I was a boy my Dad was at his maddest when he was trying to do something that should be relatively easy but for some reason he was being thwarted. Usually, because he didn't have the right tools. Frequently, because his tools had wandered off with the help of a small child. We (Probably Forrest my brother and myself) lost my Dad's hammer for a couple years. Thankfully, my dad did have another hammer but that was a sore spot for him I know. I also remember being at a wrecking yard outside Jerome and my Dad was being thwarted at some simple part removal. If memory serves (which I'm sure it doesn't) we shouldn't have needed tools but for some reason my Dad desperately needed his vice-grips. He ALWAYS had his vice-grips. To this day he still wears them as they are an invaluable tool. But on this day, my Dad was without. He was so frustrated that I went hunting through a bunch of wrecked cars hoping to find something he could use. I never found anything, but somehow my Dad got the part off. What should've been 5 minutes took an hour. Why do I mention my father in this blog post? Hang on, apparently Baby Clell is reading my vibe and is trying to steal the show by trying to stand up before he even crawls. Overachiever, sheesh!

ok, so why mention Dad? Well, I have been working on my own little home improvement project of my own. But I have a major deficiency (character flaw) that my Dad doesn't. I lose focus and motivation at the drop of a hat. So, in order to remain focused I increase my planning and organization. But that in turn, increases my stress level. Weird huh? Well, I have so far put in a pellet stove and chimney, tore down two walls, built two walls, drywalled them walls, and done some electrical work. Well, the electrical shouldn't have been too hard. But the only place to put another line in was a junction box. But wow it was crammed with big old wires from days of yore. And they didn't exactly follow code (probably hadn't been written yet) when they did it. So trying to pigtail into that box was crazy hard as my wire nuts weren't quite big enough to handle what was there with what I needed to add. After much hard work, I got it in. But then I realized I had to take it apart so I could put the drywall up. So I did that. After much crazier frustration (because I had less room to work with now) I got it hooked up. Then I realized that something wasn't making connection and I had to take it all apart again! Keep in mind I'm doing this while hunched over at a really awkward angle. Yeah, well, after my assembly disintegrated for the fourth time I was reaching my breaking point (an old southern expression for that is "losing my religion"). My wife came upstairs. Very dangerous. But she braved my foul attitude and and asked what I needed help with. So, with her smaller hands we got it fixed in record time. So, right now I've gotten about 50% done with my project. But the problem is, I'm burned out. Toasted. Fried. And now i'm not sure if i'll ever finish completely. The thought of working on it makes me sick to my stomach. But at least I got the wicked insulation done before I snapped.

I remember

I remember that when I was a boy my Dad was at his maddest when he was trying to do something that should be relatively easy but for some reason he was being thwarted. Usually, because he didn't have the right tools. Frequently, because his tools had wandered off with the help of a small child. We (Probably Forrest my brother and myself) lost my Dad's hammer for a couple years. Thankfully, my dad did have another hammer but that was a sore spot for him I know. I also remember being at a wrecking yard outside Jerome and my Dad was being thwarted at some simple part removal. If memory serves (which I'm sure it doesn't) we shouldn't have needed tools but for some reason my Dad desperately needed his vice-grips. He ALWAYS had his vice-grips. To this day he still wears them as they are an invaluable tool. But on this day, my Dad was without. He was so frustrated that I went hunting through a bunch of wrecked cars hoping to find something he could use. I never found anything, but somehow my Dad got the part off. What should've been 5 minutes took an hour. Why do I mention my father in this blog post? Hang on, apparently Baby Clell is reading my vibe and is trying to steal the show by trying to stand up before he even crawls. Overachiever, sheesh!

ok, so why mention Dad? Well, I have been working on my own little home improvement project of my own. But I have a major deficiency (character flaw) that my Dad doesn't. I lose focus and motivation at the drop of a hat. So, in order to remain focused I increase my planning and organization. But that in turn, increases my stress level. Weird huh? Well, I have so far put in a pellet stove and chimney, tore down two walls, built two walls, drywalled them walls, and done some electrical work. Well, the electrical shouldn't have been too hard. But the only place to put another line in was a junction box. But wow it was crammed with big old wires from days of yore. And they didn't exactly follow code (probably hadn't been written yet) when they did it. So trying to pigtail into that box was crazy hard as my wire nuts weren't quite big enough to handle what was there with what I needed to add. After much hard work, I got it in. But then I realized I had to take it apart so I could put the drywall up. So I did that. After much crazier frustration (because I had less room to work with now) I got it hooked up. Then I realized that something wasn't making connection and I had to take it all apart again! Keep in mind I'm doing this while hunched over at a really awkward angle. Yeah, well, after my assembly disintegrated for the fourth time I was reaching my breaking point (an old southern expression for that is "losing my religion"). My wife came upstairs. Very dangerous. But she braved my foul attitude and and asked what I needed help with. So, with her smaller hands we got it fixed in record time. So, right now I've gotten about 50% done with my project. But the problem is, I'm burned out. Toasted. Fried. And now i'm not sure if i'll ever finish completely. The thought of working on it makes me sick to my stomach. But at least I got the wicked insulation done before I snapped.

Favorite quote of the day

background: Bugs Bunny is fighting a witch. He turns her into a gorgeous female bunny. As he's walking off he says
"Aah sure I know. But aren't they all witches inside?"

It burns! it burns!

actually, it itches. my head, my neck, my legs. Anywhere that came in contact with the pink panther insulation. Now I'm glad we harvest those guys for their itchy fur. We do harvest insulation from animals right? If not, i'm sorely disappointed.

Let's go back a couple weeks. I was sick and I hadn't cleaned my roof. I mean, my chimney. You'll have to forgive my roof obsession as getting up on it is my primary focus. Last fall (or was it spring? It was one of the four seasons, I'm sure) I had to climb on my roof to try to keep the shingles from taking flight like a bunch of pigs. What do you mean pigs don't fly? Yeah, well, neither did my shingles thanks to my lightning fast reflexes. Anyway, that experience was unpleasant. The pigs flying away with my shingles I mean. But other than pink things giving me trouble, the wind was so fierce that I almost got blown off the roof myself. But, although the weather was foggy that morning, the one that i needed to clean my chimney, I was able to get up on the roof and scratch a little soot off of my chimney. After I got up there, I turned around only to see Titus climbing up after me. The little monkey. He was very careful, but I didn't have the ability to send him back down safely so I just had to yell at him at various times to try to keep him safe. Once I got to a stopping spot, we went down together. He certainly enjoyed himself though.

Last weekend I tore down the wall to our attic that I had put the pellet stove in. That was interesting. Rebekah was a big help which was really nice. I miss her not being able to help on a regular basis, but she's trying to get more involved. Doing demolition and then construction with four kids underfoot was challenging. But thankfully, nobody got hurt although I was pretty bruised from hitting my back, head and knees a bunch of times. So, we now have two smaller attics and an alcove that the pellet stove is in. We're pondering putting the boys in the two little attics (they're short, they don't mind lower ceilings) but I have to run electricity and finish it with drywall and insulation. It needs done but it will take some time and money. Oh, and energy. I tell you, I have learned so much having an old house. As the needs of my family keep increasing I am forced to adapt which forces me to learn. The nice thing is it's not a huge pressure all at once. I can see the needs developing and plan. I am definitely going to have to put a bathroom in upstairs next year. It's bad enough sharing with the boys but when a 2 year old (almost 3) girl starts pounding on the door and screaming "I've got to go potty Daddy!" it's a little bit too much to bear :)

ok, my grammar and sentence structure is bad but with the chaos in the house like now I'm lucky I got anything pounded out. As my Dad always used to say, "If you don't like it, you can lump it."