You know how when you get behind with the laundry or the dishes or, let’s get real, cleaning the entire house? And then it’s just so much to do, so overwhelming, that you don’t know where to start? That’s kinda what I feel like when I think about my blog. I am so behind.

I want to share, I promise, but I don’t know what to talk about first. (It’s a good thing catching up on blogging’s not like doing laundry, right? Where you don’t mind folding it, but you HATE, HATE, HATE (!!!) putting it all away.)

So, anyway. The beginning? That’ll work, right?

July 22-25: Time off, Stay-cation, Paris

I miss being a stay-at-home mom sometimes, especially in the summer when the children are out of school and spending the warm summer days in the care of someone else. While we love her, summer is my favorite season and I want to spend it with my favorite little people. I wish we could splash around on the beach, like I used to do when I was younger, but being land-locked kinda puts a damper on that.

I took a couple of days off in July and on Thursday, July 22, the kids and I hung out, more or less. The day before I’d found out someone had stolen my debit card number, so we spent some time at the bank getting a few things straightened out, withdrawing money and depositing Jaiden’s birthday money into her account (oh what a thrill – and she enjoys getting her bank statements because they make her feel like a grown-up!). We had lunch at Subway, then storytime at the library where I had the pleasure of reading “Pirate Jim” to the four dozen or so children in attendance.

They also made pirate hats or mermaid crowns and Jenna, in her four-year-old wisdom, glued a piece of CHALK to hers. Because she thought it was decoration. Wish I had a picture of that. lol.

Is it ridiculous that I remember the kids and I wanted to make breakfast and fruit for dinner, so we went to the farmer’s market and came home to make something yummy? At least that’s how I remember it. That was the first night the book club I have with Dara and Christa met, which we did at Marlo’s, so I can’t say for certain.

And having a dinner date with two awesome ladies mid-week? Fantastic! I can’t wait until we meet again (which was supposed to be this week, but we’ve had to postpone it because life is calling, but I’m very eager for it).

The following day, Darin was also off of work, so we packed the children up and took them to Memphis for a little sight-seeing. We’ve been planning on visiting Mud Island River Park and riding the trolley for a couple of years and finally did it.

The River Walk is awesome! We weren’t expecting it because all we’d searched for was pricing. We knew there was a park, some sort of river park. And when you get there … wow. It’s installation art, my art nerd friends. A 3-D topographical concrete representation of the Mississippi River from start to finish. And more. We walked from the beginning all the way to the end, which is the Gulf of Mexico (minus the oil spill) and a large splash park area. We rode paddle boats and had a picnic and took pictures with the Memphis skyline behind us.

When the kids were good and hot, cranky, wet and ready for a nap, we got in the truck and crossed the bridge from Mud Island over to Memphis proper. And, like little tourists, we got on the trolley. This was always so much fun to do in Nebraska City when I was a kid that I thought our kids would enjoy it, too.

Really, I was there. The problem with being the person with the camera is that you usually aren’t in pictures. Darin has a picture of me, Jaiden & Jenna on the paddle boats, but it’s on his phone. Phooey. Nevermind, I added it!

Anyway, so we rode until we saw the National Civil Rights Museum. I didn’t know where it was, but we saw it was right next to a stop so we hopped off about 30 seconds later. And it took my breath away.

(“Hello, we are cranky and tired and hot!” they say.)

Jenna is a big MLK fan. HUGE. (He is second to Obama for her – she’s a big Obama fan. And yes, she’s 4.) It was awesome to show her that this wreath marks the spot where he was shot and killed. We didn’t take the (expensive as all get out!) tour, but we did venture inside and look around the bookstore. The children each picked out rubber bracelets that say things like Hope and Change. I cried as I read the back of almost every book about the struggle for a group of people to be treated equally, to have the same rights as the white people who for so many years oppressed them. And when I say I cried, I mean I bawled huge alligator tears.

It was embarrassing, but I decided I wasn’t going to be ashamed of myself. Being there, in the very place where Martin Luther King Jr. and thousands of Memphis workers carried signs saying “I AM A MAN” was humbling and something I will never, ever forget. And we shouldn’t forget.

After the Civil Rights Museum, we loaded back into the trolley, then into the truck and headed back home. We dropped Emma off with her mother, then traveled from the Mississippi-Tennessee line up to the Tennessee-Kentucky line to Paris. On the way we stopped in Humboldt at a little mom and pop restaurant and I had a DELICIOUS chicken-artichoke pizza that was like HEAVEN. Mmm.

We stayed in a cabin just outside of Paris, on the Tennessee River. On Saturday, July 24, we went to Fort Donelson, the site of a Civil War battle. We were there with Darin’s best friend, his teenaged nephew and two of his nephew’s friends. It was super, super hot out (97 plus humidity) and I wasn’t feeling well, so after our picnic and eagle-watching when the guys all went hiking in the woods, the girls and I sat in the truck. They watched a movie while I read more of To Kill a Mockingbird.

To make a long story short, later that day we ended up at the river, swimming. And I don’t like swimming in rivers, so I read about another 100 or so pages in my book (which was super fantastic, by the way). The next morning, the boys all went fishing in a pontoon boat, then the girls and I and one of the teenagers joined the rest of the group. They all had a blast jumping off of the boat and into the lake.

And then? The weekend was done. We made the three-hour trek back home, I finished my book (and shed a little tear) and reality began again. So sad.

I feel like I am living for the weekends right now. Work has become just that: work. Not fun, not thrilling, not something I’m passionate about any longer. So the weekends are what I’m after (which is a horrible way to live because we should savor each and every day).

The next weekend we celebrated three birthdays (my sister-in-law Katie and both of my parents) and my parents’ anniversary. Katie and Tyrel had a housewarming/birthday party, my dad turned 60 and a few days later my mom turned 51. We had a cookout and swimming at their place the day after the housewarming.

On Saturday, July 31, I met up with some people from church and we packed meals for Haitians with the Stop Hunger Now campaign. It was incredible and a great bonding experience for us as a church family. And beyond that, it was a wonderful experience as a Christian, and humbling to pack small little meals that would serve six people. One cup of rice, one cup of soy, one scoop of dried veggies, a seasoning packet. We throw more than that away every single day. I will never forget it and plan to do it again. More pictures are up on the church’s Facebook page.

Here are Christa and I enjoying the wind in our hair nets. When we were posing for this I thought she was doing some sort of gangsta pose with her plastic-gloved hands. When we were done I asked what sign she was doing, “I was just showing my gloves off!” Oh. My bad! It’s a good thing I didn’t bust out with a sign myself, right? Ha.

That night was the housewarming/birthday party at my brother and sister-in-law’s house. My mom requested pictures of some of her other grandchildren in white clothes and in a field of sorts as her birthday present, so that night I took some. And Darin helped.

We had the boys (Caiden and Caleb) dress up in Jaylen’s baptismal outfit, Khloe wore the dress Jaiden wore in my first wedding and Emma and Jenna wore Jaiden’s baptismal dress. They turned out pretty cute, despite the fact that it was 95 degrees out, we were losing daylight (it was about 7:30 p.m. or so in this one) and we were in an itchy field. Oh, and they’re all between 18 months and 4.5 years old (blah – I’m not a fan of child photography lol).

—–

So I kept going and going and going with the update and realized it was getting entirely too long to read in one sitting, so come back tomorrow and we’ll talk all about the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year and why I was furious with the school system and whatever else I come up with!

PS – It has been RIDICULOUSLY hot here this summer with heat advisories every day for about three weeks or so. We haven’t had much relief until this week. It’s amazing how WONDERFUL it feels when it’s only 90 degrees out, right? The humidity is so crazy, basically stealing the air from your lungs when you walk outside (even in the mornings). It’s been exhausting, that’s for certain, but autumn is on the horizon again, so that’s making everyone happy. I think this is the second hottest summer on record here.

Thanks for reading and always know you can keep up with me on a day-to-day (or up-to-the-minute) basis on Twitter and Facebook (if we’re friends). Hasta manana!

Last weekend was a busy one: fireworks on Friday night; Karate Kid with Jaiden and Jaylen Saturday afternoon, dinner and Eclipse with friends Saturday evening, a UFC fight after the movie; church, a trip to the zoo (photos forthcoming) and a BBQ on Sunday; and cleaning and swimming on Monday.

I really hated it when Tuesday showed up and I had to return to work. I wasn’t ready.

This weekend we’re going to try to work in another trip the library and Darin has a couple of softball games. I think this will likely be a low-key weekend because my dad’s having back surgery in a few hours and my mom’s going on travel in a few days, so my brother and I will have to take turns checking on Dad.

Then, the following week I have taken a couple of vacation days and we’re planning on going to a cabin in Paris, Tenn. (I think?) too. The next weekend we’ll be gearing up for school to begin (Aug. 5). Such a bummer. Here we are, just trying to enjoy ourselves, and school’s almost back in session. Sigh.

Four years ago today we squeezed a triple christening in between family and fireworks, then came home and joined a church. This – religion, faith, spirituality – was important to me in my life post-marriage.

As parents, and as witnesses, when our children are baptized we make promises to be responsible for seeing to it that they are brought up in the Christian faith and life. I’ve tried to keep that promise as best I can, going to church as often as we possibly can (though sometimes we take breaks and there were several months when we stopped for personal reasons) and being as involved as my schedule allows.

Luckily for me, my children really, really enjoy going to church. And so does my husband. I’m so thankfuly God answered my prayers and sent me Darin, who has always been active in church.

When I met him, we started our journey in fatih together. He and Emma started coming to church with the kids and me near Easter 2008 and he’s been in the pew next to me ever since. In Sept. 2009, we had Emma baptized and he and I were confirmed as Episcopalians (I was Lutheran, he was Presbyterian).

This morning in church I was thinking about this, about the kids’ baptisms four years ago and how truly lucky we all are to have one another. It’s such a nice feeling.

I was six the first time we spent a summer in Missouri with our grandparents. My younger brother, Tyrel, was four and had just had his tonsils and adenoids out; I was a jealous older sister because he got to eat popsicles and Jell-O and was sent home from the hospital with a coloring book which transported a young boy and girl into the human body. I remember sitting in the back of the car, our grandmother between us reading the coloring book to us as we traveled from Corpus Christi an hour north to our home in Beeville.

That year was one of change. We’d moved from our small downstairs apartment to a bigger, three-bedroom, two bath home with trees we could climb. It was Southeast Texas and always hot. Like the other families in base housing, we didn’t have relatives nearby but we made friends that were closer and formed friendships that remain to this day.

I don’t remember what my mother looked like when she was pregnant, but I remember that she was. As they generally do, strangers always talked to her and cooed over her belly in the strangest places, like the shoe aisle at K-Mart. She always told them she wanted another girl and teasingly threatened to sell the baby if it were a boy.

We drove from Beeville to the very tip-top of Northwestern Missouri, the point where the Show Me State meets the Hawkeye and Cornhusker states, in my grandparents’ maroon Buick. At least, I think it was the Buick. We stopped at a rest area in Oklahoma City and I posed for a photo near a boulder; I was wearing my favorite one-piece jumper that oddly combined shorts and a tank top and had Popples and numbers on it. I squinted and held my new Barbies, a mother and a baby wearing matching pink dresses with the large lacy collars that were popular in the late ’80s.

I don’t remember much about the few weeks we spent in Missouri, just that my baby brother was born the same day my youngest cousin turned three. Two weeks later, my parents arrived, baby in tow. Apparently I was nervous that she was unhappy and was planning to sell my brother because we have photos of me cuddling the tiny newborn while sitting in one of my grandfather’s recliners. I was beaming, he was squalling. My grandmother started making us photo albums of our summers that year, including captions; the caption to that photo suggested my pleas at keeping him.

From that summer, other annual adventures began.

Our grandparents would travel to Texas in their new minivan. To give us more comfort on the trip, my grandfather built several contraptions from plywood to make the backseat a flat surface similar to a bed. He’d cover it with blankets and pillows, in what was probably an effort to encourage sleep during the 18-hour trip.

It was always a treat to sit up front and eat hard candies or one of Papa’s Hall’s throat drops. He always had them in a Cool Whip or butter tub on the floor between the two front seats. We also loved sitting in the middle seat with Grannie, going through the bag of whatever activities she had – auto bingo or Sunday School worksheets – and singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” prorgressively quieter. As an adult, I now suspect it must have driven my grandfather bananas, but he never let on.

My favorite part of the drive was always the anticipation and excitement that built once we started seeing road signs for their small town. About thirty miles, then we’d walk back into that garage, back into that home that we loved so much.

I always thought Papa’s garage had a distinct smell. It was motor oil and lawn tractors, tool belts and hard work. My garage now smells the same way and reminds me not only of the first thing I smelled when we’d finally arrived at my grandparents’ house, but of the grandfather I’ve been missing for the past 13 years.

We spent our summers going to plays, riding bikes and hanging from the monkey bars at my parents’ old school, picking strawberries from Grannie’s garden, driving the “tractor”, visiting family members, eating what they called roasting ears and taking rides in the country. We used to have campfires at a nearby lake, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and fishing with bamboo poles.

We camped out in the backyard in tents, watched fireworks at the park and caught candy during parades. I had a television in my bedroom and always enjoyed watching Nick at Nite – the good shows like “Car 54, Where Are You?”, “Andy Griffith” and “Green Acres”.We always loved helping collect the offering after the church service (sometimes we’d iron the bills), eating out on Sunday afternoons, making homemade playdough and pies and desserts, putting on fashion shows for the neighbors wearing old dresses that belonged to my grandmother. We enjoyed playing with our cousins and going to Indian Cave State Park and spending Wednesdays with our other grandparents.

Grannie and Papa always made sure we had a lot of fun. And we always did.

I was fifteen the last time I spent a summer there.

On Friday nights, Grannie took my brothers to the dirt track to watch the go-cart races; Papa took me out to the country roads to teach me to drive. Once we got stuck on a gumbo road, as he said, and I don’t remember how it was that we finally were able to get back on the road, but we did. I now find it comical that he was the one who taught me to drive because we certainly have the same bad habits behind the wheel.

I was a full-fledged teenager and had a boyfriend I missed; I called him long distance several times and wrote him letters. Nosy as I am, I went through some of my mother’s old things and found the script to a play she must have been in in high school. I don’t remember the name of it now, but I read through the script and, between that and watching plays at the small theatre in Brownville, Neb., decided I wanted to act, too. I spent a lot of late nights writing that summer.

The next time we visited, seven months later, my grandfather was dead. I took it very hard and still can’t write that sentence without tears.

Today my co-worker and I browsed items at an antique shop after our morning meeting and I found a bowl containing the same cookie cutters we used to use during those summers that seem so long ago now. I picked up several of them, the thin metal shapes were exactly as I remembered them. An they’re in an antique store. I have so many fond memories of cutting bell-shaped sugar cookies or pie dough on that flour-covered counter. Seeing those brought back a flood of memories, emotions I wasn’t ready to deal with today.

I remember Grannie used to tell us that the day would come when we’d choose not to return for a summer. I never thought it would, but it did. And now I want to go back, to pick strawberries and play in the corn and take walks around the block and ride the country roads again. But that time has passed. Just like the overpriced cookie cutters, those days have to stay where they belong.

I started the day with the bright idea to capture snippets of my day with my 50mm lens.

And, well, it started to get boring. Do you really care what my day’s like in 50mm snapshots? I wasn’t photographed in any of them, simply because it’s hard to do anyway, especially with a manual focus lens. lol.

It was another busy day. And a hot one, too. I sat in on a video arraignment and visited the Project Play 2010 site, where volunteers are working hard in scorching temps to rebuild a playground lost to arson in February. And beyond that, I was chained to my desk dealing with the thousand and one things I need to get done by 3 p.m. tomorrow and about five million interruptions.

Also, have I mentioned it’s HOT here? It’s ridiculous.

This afternoon my former co-worker offered me two tickets to a Memphis Redbirds game and since I knew my friend/co-worker Sara was going on a date there tonight, we accepted so we could meet the new guy. We had Sara take our picture with  Mr. Day’s new phone, too:

The Redbirds lost, 6-3, but we had an okay time. We didn’t get drunk and stupid, but we can’t say the same for the people sitting behind us. It’s always fun to hang out with Darin alone and we try to take advantage of the time alone (the children already had their own plans – three have spent the last two nights with their teacher per her request and Emma was staying with my in-laws, so we were child-free tonight). It was a date night – or what we like to call a team building/bonding exercise in the corporate world. lol.

Anyway, I’m off to bed for the evening. Hasta.

I (big puffy) heart interviews with children and thus I completely loved the Father’s Day gifts the children brought home from school last week.

The answers are sweet and cute and hilarious! One of those “I should have thought of that” things! Loved it so much I had Emma do one, too. Here are their answers:

Jaiden

My daddy is 27 years old.

He weighs 10 lbs. and is 20 feet tall.

His hair is brown and his eyes are green.

My dad loves to relax by the chair and he likes to wear his softball shirt.

He loves to cook sausage, eggs and hamburgers.

His favorite household chore is to fold laundry.

His favorite TV show is baseball and his favorite song is “Superman.”

Daddy always tells me to clean up my room.

It makes him happy when I clean up my room.

When my dad shops, he loves to get drinks.

If he could go on a trip, he would go to Boston.

I really love it when my dad plays with me outside.

—

Jaylen

My daddy is 27 years old.

He weighs 13 lbs. and is 12 feet tall.

His hair is brown and his eyes are green.

My dad loves to relax by the chair and he likes to wear shorts.

He loves to cook sandwiches and ramen noodles.

His favorite household chore is to clean the floor.

His favorite TV show is baseball and his favorite song is “Howl at the Moon.”

Daddy always tells me I love you.

It makes him happy when I give him something.

When my dad shops, he loves to get candy.

If he could go on a trip, he would go to Texas.

I really love it when my dad lets me sit up front.

—

Emma

My daddy is 6 years old.

He weighs 6 lbs. and is 9 feet tall.

His hair is brown and his eyes are blue.

My dad loves to relax by sitting on the chair and he likes to wear his blue shirt and pink pants.

He loves to cook macaroni and cheese.

His favorite household chore is to do homework.

His favorite TV show is carnival and his favorite song is Michael Jackson.

Daddy always tells me a story.

It makes him happy when I clean my room.

When my dad shops, he loves to get apples.

If he could go on a trip, he would go see Miranda Cosgrove.

I really love it when my dad loves me.

—

Jenna

My daddy is 1 year old.

He weighs 12 lbs. and is 20 feet tall.

His hair is brown and his eyes are black.

My dad loves to relax by crying and he likes to wear shorts, socks and a shirt.

He loves to cook rolls and potato soup.

His favorite household chore is to clean up his room.

His favorite TV show is basketball, football and baseball and his favorite song is “Ba Ba Black Sheep.”

Daddy always tells me I am good.

It makes him happy when we are being good.

When my dad shops, he loves to get some food.

If he could go on a trip, he would go on a school bus.

I really love it when my dad hugs.

–

And just, you know, for the record, Darin just turned 29 on Friday (not six!). He’s about 195 lbs. and is 6’2″ tall; his hair is light brown and his eyes are blue. When he actually sits down and stays out of the poison ivy, he likes to relax by lying in bed and watching some kind of sport, any kind of sport. Wait, did I mention sports? He loves to cook anything easy – ramen noodles, sandwiches, soups and, yes, Sister Schubert rolls – and especially sausage and eggs for breakfast. I think his favorite household chore is mowing the grass, but he often blurs the stereotypical gender roles by folding laundry and cooking and cleaning the floors and picking up where I slack off (but I’m getting better at this).

The “relaxing by crying” comment made me laugh out loud! How funny! Also, he didn’t know who Miranda Cosgrove was; Emma’s obsessed with iCarly.

The kids had the store answers nailed. Quite often he drops by a gas station for food, candy and drinks. I nag him about this (he’s a diabetic and doesn’t make the best choices; I nag him because I want to keep him around for as long as possible). lol.

His favorite show is Ghost Hunters, anything that has to do with any kind of sport (except ice skating) and any kind of show like Cops or stupid criminals, etc. Jaiden was pretty close with guessing “Superman” as one of his favorite songs; he also loves Ozzy and various other alternative and classic rock things. He often goes on trips for business and has been to Boston once and Texas twice since October; he loves those places and those guesses were pretty close. He also loves national parks, California and one day hopes to go camping in the Alaskan nothingness, a la Into the Wild.

They were all correct with the “Daddy always tells me” and “It makes him happy when …” answers. Because Darin’s a great dad. And we love him for it! This interview was SUCH a great idea. I’m totally keeping these. We can display them when they get married or something. lol.

Jaylen was so cute – he colored Darin a Father’s Day picture at school and he FRAMED IT when he got home. lol! I love that precious boy.

We spent Father’s Day at my parents’ house with my brother and his family, Dara and Isaac and my in-laws. We ate a ton of food, swam for most of the afternoon and brought home leftovers and sunburns.

Life is good.

I remember when you were eight and my pretend-husband, watching footage of the Oct. ’89 earthquake in San Fran at your house. I remember breaking in to the house next door to yours and the sleepovers we had. We used to play house.

Lucky for me, every night is a sleepover now.

Twenty years later, we’re married and have a collective menagerie of four children. You’re still watching baseball but have given up breaking into homes. I hope.

And today you’re 29.

You’re an awesome, involved, loving, caring father.

And an awesome, involved, loving, caring husband, too.

You really don’t give yourself enough credit, because you are wonderful. And we love you.

Hope you enjoy the phone.

Love,

All of those people in your house!