Life.. most exciting when least wanted..

well, life around here just keeps trying to be exciting... not sure I like that.

Back on the 13th, Tom decided to take advantage of a small break in the cold rainy weather and go out for a short, relaxing spin on his motorcycle. about 20 minutes or so later, he called, needing me to hitch up the trailer and come get him. He'd gone off the road, into a ditch, the bike flipped and sent him flying. Luckily he wasn't hurt because he was wearing all his gear. This is especially important because he landed on his head before rolling and bouncing around. How he managed not to break anything we don't know. we're just grateful for it. Bike took most of the hit and even that's not too bad according to the shop guys. Just enough to use up the deductible but not enough to be worth talking to the insurance company. So he will be slowly putting that back together piece by piece.

The girls got here Friday, so house is full again. The 16 yr old is at girls camp all this week though, and her Tom went up last night and all of today to be the "token" priesthood holder for the day. He should be back home in a few hours though.

Sunday morning we woke up to find the basement had flooded again.. no apparent reason this time. We have no idea what is going on. Starting to think the little old man who built the place had some sort of contract where it has to flood at least once a year or something.. But we got it all mopped up fairly quickly, and the girls made muffins for Father's day breakfast, then made dinner that evening.

A week ago my brother announced that they were expecting their 4th child, and about 3 months along, but Sunday they found out that she'd miscarried, so we're all trying to help them deal with that. It's hard. I know enough from my battles with infertility how easy it is for well meaning people to say something that is completely the wrong thing to say because while it may seem "helpful," to the person hearing it it's like twisting the dagger. I've been sending them some links to some miscarriage support pages and articles about how it's ok for them to have all the emotions and pain they are going to have. While most of us in the family have only known about this baby for a week, for them it was years of waiting and hoping and expectation and 3 months of "hey, we're having a baby.." There has been a death in the family even if most of the family doesn't realize it.

Personally, I'm trying to avoid cottonwood fluff.. it's out in full force right now and I hate it.. it is pretty and looks like big fluffy snow.. but it is terrible stuff for allergies.. and I want to be out pottering around in my garden bed, which is doing really well this year, so it's hard. Today I decided to stay indoors and finally go through my pots and pans. I got a new set about a month or two ago but have never had the time to sit and weed out the ones that need to go. Finally got that done today and now there is room, the door actually closes all the way and everything... Even got one of the other cupboards sorted a little and made room on one of the book cases in the living room for a bunch of parenting books I had ordered that came in the mail today. (And I got them for FREE!! Being in the military does have some benefits!)

Speaking of parenting, today, in the mail, we got the paperwork from the agency we're going to try adopting through, so now we've got to sit and go though all of that, dig out all the info they want, do the background checks, etc... and figure out where we'll come up with all the money :) I was starting to print out the requests for copies of our tax records from the IRS, but my printer is out of ink, so will have to wait and do that later. I was just so anxious to get started!

2008 is gone- yay!! 2009 ???

Well, December is over at last... can't say that isn't a bad thing. As much as I love Christmas and had some nice plans for spending it by myself and popping around to vasious friends that had invited me over. It didn't work out that way.
I should, I suppose start at the beginning. The last few months of 2008 were really crazy for me, I spent a good solid month or more with a really nasty cold that kept coming back while i was trying to get things ready for my step kids to visit for Thanksgiving and get my husband all ready and packed for his year long military deployment. So we decided that I'd pretty much take off the month of December and not do anything around the house that didn't absolutely need to be done this month. That way I could spend the month just relaxing, which is an important thing for me. I've got seriously high blood pressure and I have to work hard to keep it as low as I can and lately, all the stress I've been under was a good part of why it was so high. So I was going to have a mini vacation and just live stress free.
I should have known better.
Things actually weren't too bad up until Christmas Eve. (Note: I live in Alaska and right now it is REALLY COLD!!!!! right now we're averaging about 20 below and it's been that way really since Christmas. The week before that we were averaging about 9 below. And it doesn't look to be getting any warmer for at least another week.) The morning of Christmas Eve I discovered that my basement had flooded due to a blockage in the septic lines. Most likely problem: ICE!!! Of course I couldn't get a plumber until Friday the 26th, so I lived without running water for 2 days.. It wasn't too bad that morning, but I went to a friend's for Christmas Eve dinner and when I got back realized I hadn't thought to unplug the water softner, which cycled while I was gone and seriously swamped me again, so I spent Christmas day mopping and cleaning. Not the fun, relaxing movie watching I'd hoped for. But the next day I got the plumber out and got it all taken care of, and right now I'm more careful and leave some warm water running overnight....
Thought that would be an end to it, no more little disasters...
Again, I should have known better...
New Years Eve day I decide I need to run to the post office, I have some letters I need to send and I need to be able to track them, so I bundle up and head out... No luck. Too cold, my truck won't start. I have been up here since 2003 and have never had a block heater on any of my cars. We'd talked about getting one on the truck, but ran out of time before my husband left, and then I was waiting til I had the money for it. Hopefully I can get in to get one sometime early this next week, but I've got to get it running again first. Actually had a neighbor come over and get it started on the 2nd, and it ran yesterday, but this morning, it decided it was too cold again. Which meant we couldn't go to Church today.
Oh yes, there's a "we" now, too.
Late afternoon on New Years day I got a phone call wanting to know if I would be willing to take in an 8 year old girl for up to 3 months. Her parents are getting a divorce because their father molested her older sister. There are 6 children total, the oldest is 12, the youngest is about 2. The girl I have with me is not aware of what her father did, but the kids were starting to act out and it was decided that it would be best if they all went to different homes for a little while. They will all be going to therapy and the plan is that over the next few weeks and months the kids will all be able to safely go back home.
We actually know this family pretty well, which is part of why I was asked to take one in. They wanted to lessen the seperation as much as they could so have placed everyone with people they already know. This is nice, I think, but means I'm waiting for Child Services to contact me so they can come inspect and approve me before we move the bulk of her stuff over here. So she moved into my step daughters' room, and once we get approval, I'll be getting her school work. She's homeschooled, so this will be interesting. Home schooling is something I haven't had that much interest in, and what little I ever did have, was greatly damaged when we tried homeschooling my stepson back in 2003 after he got himself expelled for being stupid. So this will be interesting.
As she will likely show up in some of these blogs, and I really don't want to post her personal information any more then I have to, I will give her a secret identity and, since she arrived in January, I will refer to her as Jan (which is no where near her real name...)

Anyway, this gave us a few answers to things, such as why I hadn't been able to find a job yet - I need to be home right now to take care of Jan while we're fostering her. Hopefully their counciling will go well and the family can all be united again soon. As I mentioned, we know the family quite well and this whole thing has just been a shock to everyone who knows them. Certainly never would have ever thought this sort of thing would happen there. This was a couple that had regular religious retreats where just the two of them would go away for a long weekend of spiritual renewal, scripture reading and romance. They adored each other. Just makes you wonder about the world.

Meanwhile.. for all my single male friends out there... I know of a soon to be single LDS female.. as long as you don't mind 6 kids (well, plus the 4 older fosters they raised...) :)