Currently accepting donations for the Dillier Orthodontic Fund

Alex, at 4 years old, still sucks his thumb.

Max, at 18 months, still takes a bottle.

I KNOW!  Ok, I KNOW!

I'd hoped to get Alex off the thumb by his fourth birthday. We talked about it constantly for months. "What happens when you turn four?" "I don't suck my thumb!"  He's four years and three months old and I think the thumb sucking is getting worse. We'd whittled it down to early morning and before bed, but lately it's been constant.  It's a comfort thing, something he does when he's anxious or upset or scared or tired... And this is exactly why I haven't wanted to push him to give it up. I want him to be able to self soothe. I think it helps him to be more independant.  But dude, he's FOUR!  And his teeth, well, lets just say we're going to need to start saving for orthodontic work pretty soon. I suspect he's sucking him thumb more often now because it seems the last five months or so have been constant change and upheaval of his life; we moved, he started preschool, Mommy's gone back to work...

Same with Max, he'll drink anything but milk out of a sippy cup, but he insists on a bottle (filled with juice or milk) in the morning when he wakes up, before his afternoon nap and before bed, and since I've gone back to work, it's been "bobboo! BOBBOOO!" all day long.  And because it's his soothing device, we give in.

**As an aside, I never planned on Max really taking a bottle, he was breastfed for 13 months and I thought he'd go from breast to sippy cup.  So I've never bought bottles for him.  What he drinks out of now are three (out of the original 8) 5oz breast milk storage bottles that I used when I went to Mexico last April.  He even still uses a low flow nipple. I keep thinking it's silly to buy bottles when he won't be using them for much longer...here we are SIX MONTHS LATER!**

It is my personal opinion that aside from orthodontic concerns, thumb sucking and bottle drinking aren't hurting anyone here.  And it is also my personal opinion that forcing my children to give up their soothing habits would be worse than letting them hold on to them a little bit longer.  And I won't deny that it is much easier for us to pop a bottle into Max's cry-hole or let Alex fume in timeout with his blankie and thumb than fight about it with them.

I think once life settles down for us we'll try a little harder to encourage the boys to find other ways to self soothe.  Until then, yes, my preschooler is a thumb sucker and my toddler runs around with a bottle in his mouth just like Suri Cruise.

2010 Resolutions

These were my 2009 resolutions:

Loose 50 pounds. 

Scrapbook the boys' first years.

Learn more about photography.   

Find ways to teach my children altruistic values.  

Well, hmmm, I didn't really do any of these.  At least not in the way I'd intended.  I lost 10 pounds not 50.  I didn't scapbook a single DAY of either of my boy's lives (though they are well documented on this blog and on Facebook/Twitter).  I didn't really learn anything about photography other than having a 75-300 mm lens is really awesome.  And I didn't intentionally teach my kids altruistic values.  Anything they may have learned about altruism was purely accidental.

I won't let that deter me from making new goals for 2010 though.  I love the idea of new year resolutions.  I believe that writitng your goals down give you a better chance of reaching them.  So, without further ado, my 2010 resolutions:

Run a 5k race

•  This goal will replace my annual "lose xlbs" resolution.  If I lose weight during the course of training for my race, great, but that will not be my intention.  I simply want to do something I don't think I can do.  I also want to give myself a reason to exercise regularly. I HAVE to run several times a week if I even hope to survive the race.

Get back in the black

•  Living on credit cards has been unavoidable the last few months due to our financial situation.  But now that I have a job, I want to make sure that we are living within our means.  Even if we can't afford to pay off our credit cards this year, I want to make sure that we aren't accumulating any more debt. 

Stay connected with family and friends in Utah and California

• Now that we live in Portland, we will need to work harder to maintain the close relationships we had with our family and friends in Utah and California.  Unfortunately we won't be able to visit as often as we'd like due to our small budget, but that doesn't mean we can't call, do webcam chats, email/facebook, send letters/cards, etc. 
  
• I want to make a "family tree" in the boy's room with pictures of their relatives on the wall.  That way they can see their family every day.

Build a life here

• What this means to me is make connections.  Make friends.  Get better acquainted with John's cousins here.  Build our careers.  Join clubs or organizations to become a part of our community.

Be more active with the boys

•  This will be harder especially since John and I are both working and our schedules don't allow for a whole lot of sleep.  But I want to make sure that even though we're tired and maybe don't feel like doing much other than sitting in front of the TV during our off hours, we still make it a priority to do STUFF with our children.

 Make our marraige a priority

•  John and I now both work and in order to avoid sending the boys to daycare, we work opposite schedules (me mornings, him nights).  We have little to no time together.  I want to make sure that we're still connecting.  Even if it's just a love note stuck to the fridge.  Our family doesn't work if we don't work.  Doing everything for the children is great, but if we let our marraige fall apart, that hurts the children the most.  We have an amazing relationship, and I am determined to keep it that way!

Christmas 2009 Redux

I think we had a great Christmas.  It started when my mom sent presents to the boys, who were so excited about them I let them open them early.  Grandma Babs had made super hero capes for both of them:

I had to work Christmas morning, so we decided to have Santa come Christmas night instead of Christmas Eve so that I could be there to watch the boys open their presents, but John did let the boys open the gifts sent to them by his family while I was at work. (video can be seen on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/johndill17)

 

John's cousins Robin and Alzada invited us to Christmas dinner with their families in La Center and we had a wonderful time.

After the boys went to bed, Santa came of course.

And the final wave of present opening commenced.

Elmo wanted

I'm not sure why, but Max is under the impression that the word "Elmo" means help.

He'll come up to us and say "Elmo! ELMO!" when he wants help opening something or locating a lost toy. We've tried to correct him, but it doesn't seem to stick.  We're at the point that now, "Elmo" does mean help, at least when referring to Max.  Alex will say "I will elmo brother" if he's volunteering to retrieve a dropped toy.  I we're getting ready to go out I will say "Honey, can you elmo Max with his coat?"  If Max is demanding elmo opening up the toy car carrying case, but I'm busy at the moment I'll tell him "I'm sorry Maximus, I can't elmo you right now."

Remembering one and a half

Thumb sucka, originally uploaded by Jmelee.

This is Alex at Max's current age.

He still sucks his thumb. But without the fancy pinkie.

One and a half is a tough age. I don't know why it's so hard, but it was the hardest age (out of his four years so far) when Alex was there too. Sometimes it helps to go back and look at the pictures and remember that we survived 18 month old Alex, and we will survive 18 month old Max.

It helps that they are so damned cute of course :)

Boring post about work and all my feeeeeelings about it

Well, my first week as a working mom of two is over, and really, it wasn't that bad.  I was out the door before the boys woke up and I was home in time for lunch.  There are some little things that still need to be ironed out, like how John and I are going to get enough sleep to manage our family and our jobs, but it seems like the first week went as well as can be expected.

That said though, I'm having very mixed feelings about it.  Which, yea, they don't really matter because I HAVE to work right now, so any "feelings" I'm having about it are irrelevant, yet feelings there are.

On one hand, I like working. I do.  I've always liked working and I can't deny that it felt good to get up, put actual clothes on (instead of staying in my jammies well past lunch) and go do something all adult like.  Plus, all the down time I had at work.  I get BREAKS!  15 whole minutes during which I can do ANYTHING I WANT!  I can go to the bathroom ALONE!  I can buy a bag of chips from the vending machine and eat the whole bag myself and none of the chips had been sucked on by anyone!  Even better, I can buy a candy bar WITH PEANUTS!  I can read a few chapters of a book. And I get TWO breaks! Plus a 30 min lunch!  WHAT WILL I DO WITH ALL THIS ME TIME??? And at work, when I'm not on a break, all I have to do is the job I was hired to do.  In this case, take payments for prepaid phones.  That's all I do.  I don't have to do that and take the dog out to poop. I don't have to take payments and make four separate lunches (all four of us eat different meals, I don't know why, just to be difficult I guess). I don't have to take payments and break up a fight remembering to kiss boo boos and discipline the appropriate child. I don't have to take payments while changing a diaper, stopping a child from coloring on the wall and cleaning up hairballs from the cat.  It's 6 hours of easy livin'. 

Of course, I get home and the house is a mess, the kids are hungry, the dog needs to pee and John can hardly keep his eyes open because he only had 4 hours of sleep and I need to hurry and make lunch AND dinner so John can have something to eat when he's at work. 

One of the biggest challenges I foresee is the fact that with me working mornings and John working nights, there's no marriage time.  I only know my schedule week to week and my days off can vary due to business need, so it's not likely we'll ever have whole days off together like we used to.  He gets home at 1AM and I've already gone to sleep hours before because I have to get up at 3AM.  No more middle of the night nookie when John gets home from work I guess. 

Of course, the most important thing is that our work schedules are such that we don't need to put the kids in daycare.  I don't think daycare is bad, not at all!  In fact Alex would LOVE daycare.  But there are a few reasons I don't want to have to resort to that.  The first of which is money.  Paying for daycare for two children would basically cost the same as what I'm making! So what's the point? I could try to find a cheaper daycare, but ultimately, I would want to send them somewhere I felt comfortable about, these are my CHILDREN of course.  Which leads me to my second reason, which is that I'm nervous about Max's peanut allergy. No one but me will be as careful about the foods that are around him making sure he doesn't so much as LOOK at a peanut.  The third is if the kids get sick, they can't go to daycare, and neither John or I have paid time off, yet we'd probably have to pay for daycare even if thekids are sick and can't go.  And finally, we both work in call centers where we can't have our phones on and wouldn't know there was a problem with the kids (an emergency, or illness, etc.) until we can check our phones on a break/lunch which could be HOURS after the problem came up.  All of these things make daycare a non viable option for me.  The advantage of no daycare is that our kids get to spend lots of time with both their parents and that, I think, is awesome!

When I'm at work, so far I'm enjoying it, and I get all excited about the potential for learning different skills and working in other departments, getting promoted, rebuilding my career....Then I get home and I think about how I don't WANT a career, I want to focus 100% of my energy on my family.  So there's a little bit of conflict going on in my own head.  This will sort itself out though.  Once I've been working for a while, I'm pretty sure I'll know exactly what I want to do whether it be build my career or just work the job for a paycheck.

Last night we had Chinese food and one of our fortune cookies (of course I can't find it now) said something to the effect of "In the next week you will need to work as a team" and it couldn't have been more appropriate.  Our family dynamic is changing drastically. We're going from a 1950's type household of the working bread-winner Dad and the homemaker Mom to a more up to date family model of two working parents sharing the duties of child rearing and earning money equally (well, sort of, John does make more money than me).  We've tried this before (during Alex's first year) and it didn't work for us, and luckily we were in a position that we could do something different. I'm hoping that an extra four years of marriage and parenting under our belts will help us adjust to our new life and be successful this time.  We need to work as a team to make sure all four of us get what we need and are happy.

We're playing "Outer Space" in Alex and Max's room (involving a darkened room and a flashlight and several large balls as planets) and Alex screams "A meat eater! It's a meat eater! It's coming to get me! NOOOO! MEAT EATER!!! AAAGGGGHHHH!" I ty to tell him it's a METEOR "Meet eee or", "That's what I said Mom, A MEAT-EAT-ER IS GOING TO GET US!!"

Hi ho, hi ho, off to work I go...

Since August, it seems our financial situation has steadily gotten worse to the point that we began really wondering how we were going to keep a roof over our heads and food in our kids bellies.  John got his job fairly quickly after we moved, though he's making about half what he used to. I've been applying everywhere since we arrived in Portland and have had virtually zero interest.  To say this was discouraging is a vast understatement. I was crushed. 

I found myself in this strange position where I was no longer qualified to go back into the field I left over three years ago and not quite qualified for anything else either.  I changed my tactics and began applying for entry level office/admin/customer service jobs only to find I had been paid too much in my previous jobs for any new companies to consider me.  This I found to be strange. Every company I talked to seemed so hung up on my salary history, to which I would respond that ok, so I made a lot of money three years ago, but since then I've made NO money, so why is this a problem?  I wasn't expecting to make anywhere near my previous salary.  Hell, what I was expecting was to make roughly what I made when I was 18 years old.  Seriously, ANY salary is a HUGE improvement in our financial situation.

Getting more discouraged by the day, I looked up several local staffing companies and sent them a pathetic email explaining my situation. I've been home raising my kids for the last three years. I want to go back to work. I NEED to go back to work.  I have all this experience in all these things and I KNOW I would do a great job for anyone who would be willing to hire me, but no one seems to be willing to give me a chance. It's like my resume is made of kryptonite or something.  Do you have any temporary opportunities that would allow me to recharge my resume, give me new and current experience? Anything?  Beuller??

One company got back to me. They had me come in to interview and take some tests.  Aside from the horrifying 80 question math test (I can't even calculate a tip I'm so bad at math. This test was pure torture for me) I passed all the tests with flying colors.  I even peed in the cup for the drug test without spilling a single drop.  I found out that I type 85 WPM!  My old boss and my good friend both gave me glowing references.  The next day the staffing company sent me to interview with a call center.  Later that day the call center called me and offered me the job, but they didn't have any open spots for the next training class. But, they said, they didn't want to risk losing me to another assignment, so they wanted me to come in to the training on Monday as a backup. If someone else doesn't show up I can take their spot.

HALLELUJAH!

HALLELUJAH!

HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!

I am SO EXCITED!  Ok, so I'm not really excited about leaving my kids to go back to work. But if I've got to go back to work, this situation is probably the best I could hope for.  I will work in the mornings and always be home in time for John to get to work so the boys don't have to go to daycare.  The office I'd work in is close to home, only 10 min away, so I won't be wasting a lot of time on commuting (like John, who has a 45 min commute).  The job itself should be easy, and I'm definately starting on the bottom, but there are a lot of different departments that I could cross train and promote into, so there is potential for a higher salary and a more interesting job in the future.

To celebrate John and I decided it was time to buy a new car.  Well, new to us. John and I don't buy new cars. It's against our religion (Dave Ramsey-ism). Strictly speaking we didn't NEED a new car. The schedule I should have and the schedule John has work out so that we can each take our one car to work.  But our little van is starting to give us trouble and isn't as reliable as we'd need it to be. Not to mention if both of us are taking it to work, we're putting even more wear and tear on a car that's coughing and sputtering under it's current work load.  Plus, the parent who's home with the boys would be stranded, unable to go to playdates or doctor visits or even take Alex to preschool.  It's too cold to walk anywhere until Spring. Busses don't run early enough to take me to work or bring John home from work (so the at home parent could keep the van).  The kids would be bored out of their minds stuck in our tiny apartment watching endless reruns of WordWorld. We agreed that the cost of a new car would be well worth the happiness it would bring to our lives.

And we found a GREAT car!  It's a 2001 VW Jetta with crazy low miles (54,000).  It's black and sporty with a stick shift.  Drives like it's almost new.  It desn't have all the bells and whistles we're used to in a car.  No CD player and no power windows, but it should do it's job as our commuting vehicle nicely.

So finally, for the first time since August, I feel hopeful about our money situation.  Instead of going backwards, instead of feeling like we're freefalling into this big dark hole with no end in sight, I feel like we've found our ripcords and the parachute is starting to open up, slow our decent and give us reason to believe we can dig ourselves out.

Little Piggies

Alex's version of the Little Piggy game:

Big toe: "This little piggy went to the bacon store"
Toe #2: "This little piggy stayed home" (smart Piggy!)
Toe #3:  "This little piggy ate mushrooms"
Toe #4:  "This little Piggy had none"
Pinkie toe:  "This little Piggy went 'wee wee wee wee' all the way into my nose!"

It'll all work out

I can see clearly where we've made our big financial mistakes.  The first one was not selling the house when I quit my job.  The second one was John taking the promotion for the job he didn't really want.  We had good, well thought out reasons for doing those things at the time, but due to circumstances beyond our control (e.g. The bursting of the real estate bubble and the current state of the job market nationwide) they ended up being HUGE mistakes.  Had we not made those mistakes, we wouldn't be in the financial toilet right now.  We'd probably be living in a small, yet affordable home.  John would still be working for eBay.  I wouldn't be desperately searching for a job and I'd be able to stay home with the boys until they started school.  We'd probably be debt free and still have our savings.

"Yeah" John says, "But we'd still be living in Utah"

I've made A LOT of mistakes in my 32 years. BIG ones. But I always find it very difficult to regret any of them because they've all led me to where I am now. To WHO I am now.  In every way that actually matters, my life is awesome.  Sure we're in the midst of a total financial breakdown. We have nothing, we owe a lot and we're not quite making ends meet. BUT we have a happy, strong marraige.  Two completely awesome boys and, give or take a kidney or two, we have our health.

I find I have to remind myself of these things a lot lately because it is so easy to get discouraged. I'm trying to look at this experience as a character building exercise.  The family who seemingly has everything, has the financial rug pulled out from under them. How do they cope?  Will they come out on top?  I say yes.  I have to keep reminding both myself and John that we have loads of potential to rebuild our financial stability. We'll get there again.  It will take sacrifice and work, but our income, our credit, a home, our savings...all of that can and will be replaced.  It's just a matter of time really. Ok, maybe a long time. 

I know someday we'll look back on this time in our lives and be glad for it.  Already it's teaching us to think creatively, recognize hidden opportunities, work together, appreciate what we do have and let go of the things we don't need.  We've grown closer as a family.  We've done what we've always wanted to do and moved out of Utah and almost unexpectedly found a place we both love. Portland has so quickly and easily become our home, I can hardly believe it's taken us so long to come here.  In only three months, I can't imagine living anywhere else. Once we're able to gain a little financial stability, even John's career crisis, I believe, will turn into a positive. He has to start all over. Which right now, sucks big hairy donkey balls.  But, he wasn't happy before.  Now he has a chance to try again, do over, find a career he's happy in.  Maybe that will be at the company he's working at now, maybe it won't. The point is, now that he's not stuck in a career path he really has the freedom to do whatever he wants to do.  I have to go back to work, but maybe that will be good too. I've always liked working, maybe now that I'm not exactly a "new mom" anymore, it will be easier to find that work/home balance I couldn't find before. 

Everything will work out. I know it will. I have faith in us.

Thankful Turkey

Thankful Turkey, originally uploaded by Jmelee.

This year Alex is thankful for:
- Paper
- Suckers
- Turkey
- Mommy, Daddy and Brother
- Crayons
- His blankie
- the laundry (I don't know why)
- His eyes

Giving thanks

What sucks:
The dog ate the passenger side seatbelt in the car and we can't afford to get it fixed.

I'm thankful...
..that we have six other seatbelts in the car, four of which are available for me to use.

What sucks:
Our health insurance costs THREE TIMES what we used to pay and because of that we are completely broke.

I'm thankful...
..that we have insurance so that we can keep our family as healthy as possible

What sucks:
I can't seem to find a job

I'm thankful...
...for all the time I get to spend being home full time with my boys

What sucks:
We can't afford to go to Utah to be with our families for the holidays

I'm thankful...
...that I will be with the three most important people in the world for the holidays

What sucks:
We can't afford to buy presents this year

I'm thankful...
...that this year I can show my children that presents aren't what make the holidays special.

What sucks:
My hair and those stupid bangs I had cut in Septmeber

I'm thankful...
...that I have hair and I'm not suffering from Alopecia

:::

I'm thankful for my husband who is truly my perfect match.  It's been an eight years long love affair with no signs of cooling off yet!

I'm thankful for my Alex who changed my life and redefined the word LOVE for me.

There is not a single day that goes by that I don't look at Max's beautiful face and know exactly how lucky I am to have him. He will always be my miracle boy.

I am thankful that we've been able to give Fancy a home, and I do love her, despite her seatbelt eating ways.

I am thankful that Kitty (aka Maxine) is still in good health even though she was one of the first mammals to evolve in the early Jurrasic period. She will probably outlive us all.

Video

Random bullets

• Alex can zip up his own coat now. For some reason this is completely freaking me out. He's just a BABY! He shouldn't know how to zip up his coat! I've been treating it like a really cool parlor trick, showing anyone who will watch. Look! The coat is open, then all you have to do is say the magic words "Alex, zip up your coat please" and voila! Zipped up!


• Max is now what Alex calls a "walking talking baby".  His verbal skills are similar to what Alex's were at 2 years old. I can hardly believe it.  I mean, he still sounds like a baby, I imagine if you weren't around him all the time and came to spend the afternoon, you wouldn't understand most of what he says, but with me anyway, he communicates verbally and effectively. I remember this age being so difficult with Alex because the communication just wasn't there, it was all grunts and pointing or all out screaming, but with Max, he can tell you what he wants "bobble! Apple ju juice bobble!" (A bottle with apple juice) or "min min peeze" (I would like my vitamin please) or "SHOES! SHOES! SHOES!" (I would very much enjoy wearing this fine pair of shoes).  He knows how to make his words into a question. "Daddy?" with his little hands upturned is him wondering where his daddy went.  or "Buddy do pee pee?" Where's Alex? Is he in the bathroom?  He is so quickly turning into a little boy I'm almost afraid to blink or I'll miss it.


• We're starting to get out a bit more and meet people. I've joined a few local meetup groups, and so far they're promising. Really cool people, fun activities on the calendar, lots of little playmates for the boys.  When I first signed up for them, John was reluctant.  I was really excited about one group that was geared toward geeky/nerdy/gamer/sci fi/comic book parents and he thought they'd be too nerdy.  This made me laugh. John, the man who dedicated an entire room in his basement to Star Wars, thinking other people were too nerdy.  They weren't too nerdy at all, they were really cool, as I expected them to be, and we plan to go to a lot more meetups with them in the future.


• All three of the boys were able to get H1N1 shots this week because all three of them fall into high risk groups that are currently being vaccinated in our area.  Sadly, I'm too healthy to get vaccinated at this time.  It probably doesn't even matter anyway because I'm pretty sure I've already had the swine flu over the summer anyway.  But I'm relieved that the boys will be protected.  Now I can relax about that and find new and interesting ways to trigger my panic attacks.


• I'm sucking at NaNoWriMo. I've got just over 3000 words and, well, that's REALLY behind. My biggest problem is sticking with my story.  I'll be into writing one story and another will come to mind that sounds better, so I'll scrap what I've written and start over, or completely change the plot to accommodate the new idea, and it's just making me write in circles. I'm going to chug through it though, I probably won't meet my 50,000 word goal, but it will be a great learning excercise for me to try to just follow through on ONE story at least.


• I'm still trying to jog, I haven't the last few days because we've been busy, in fact our whole month is filling up with dr appointments and playdates but I know I've just got to schedule time to run and make it happen.  I still hate it.  But I still want to run a 5k more than I don't want to train to run a 5k.  So, there's that.

Another thing I'm not sure I can do, but I'm going to do it anyway

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo next month.  50,000 words in 30 days.  Seeing as how I've started at least a dozen novels in the last 10 years and have a cumulative total of maybe 10,000 words, this will be, well, a challenge. But, the thought of having an actual DEADLINE to work toward, might actually get me to finish at least one book. Ok, so it will likely be a crappy book, but a book nonetheless and I can cross that off my life-list with confidence.

I've got a few ideas floating around in my head, but I think what I'll do is sit down on Sunday night after the boys go to bed and just start writing whatever comes to me and that will be my novel. If you're interested, you can follow my progress here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/554685

Run

I went running today. And when I say I "went running" I really mean that I went to the park and hobbled along the path at a slightly quicker pace than my usual walk for about a quarter mile.

I learned a few things from this morning's "run" though:

a) it is WAY easier to run here in Oregon than in Utah and it seems to have everything to do with the altitude. I can BREATHE here.  I've noticed this while walking as I hardly ever get winded at all, even going up steep hills.  It's really awesome because I can feel like I've actually increased my stamina, I haven't, actually, but somehow it's still motivating to me.

b) it SUCKS to take the dog with me. Where we live, and I imagine all of Oregon because it's so woodsy here, is positively INFESTED with squirrels.  Have you ever tried to walk a dog through a squirrel infested park?  Now try running with that dog through the squirrel infested park.  Lots of pulling and tugging and tripping over each other.  One of us is going to get killed or break a leg, I'm sure of it.

c) I HATE running. I HATE HATE HATE it.

d) Yet, despite the firery hatered I have for running, I still dream of running a 5k.  Probably because it feels so impossible for me to do.  I mean really, ME?  RUN? A 5K? And SURVIVE?  Why not?  Linda has been hugely inspiring for me lately, She's doing 5k's, she did a triathalon, she's training for a half marathon! I mean how can you NOT be inspired by her?  Her most recent post about not wanting to run, her last line literally made me get off my ass and put on my running shoes "It makes me feel like I’m capable of doing anything I set my mind to." 

So, I've made a goal for myself. I will run a 5k. I will run outside, I will run with the dog, I will run with the kids in the jogging stroller, I will go to the gym and run on the treadmill, but I will train and I will run a 5k this Spring.  I will do it even if I hate it.  Once I've crossed the finish line, if I never want to run again, I won't.  I don't need to become "a runner"  I just need to do something that seems impossible, if, for no other reason, to prove to myself that I can.

Better

The worst thing about a completely irrational freakout is the fact that I KNOW I'm being completely irrational, yet I can't stop freaking out.

Today Alex seems better yet again.  He had a 102 degree fever at 4:00 this morning, but after I gave him some Tylenol and he went back to bed, he got up this morning around 8:00 fever free and as of right now (1:30 in the afternoon) is still a healthy 97.6 degrees.  So, I'm hopeful we can start our 24 hour countdown before he's allowed to leave quarrantine and get out of the house for a bit.  He still can't breathe out of his nose and is having EPIC booger production, but otherwise his spirits are up and he's got plenty of energy to torment his brother.  When I asked him if he's feeling better he responded "I am feeling better today because you filled me up with medicine"

Max and John still have coughs and John is dealing with his trademark mucus overproduction issues, and I've got a headache, but I'm thinking that has more to do with lack of sleep and worry about my little boy bursting into a fireball at any minute from fever.  I went to the craft store this morning and brought home a bunch of little art projects for Alex to do since he feels better but still can't leave the house.  He can't go to school today, but I'm crossing my fingers he'll be able to go on Thursday because they're having a Halloween party and he's been so excited to go to school in his Spiderman costume.

I'm going to try to do some yoga every day, nothing fancy like standing on my head or twisting into a prezel, just some meditative breathing and stretching.  Give myself some time to relax and clear my mind. As the matriarch of this family, my mood sets the tone of our household, and that old saying "if mama ain't happy no one is" can really be true.  Having a nuclear panic attack about something only makes that something harder to deal with than it really has to be.  If Alex really does have H1N1 and really is getting better now, I have to say that all the stress and worry I had was really pretty silly because when compared to other illnesses he's had in his short life, this one was fairly mild.  If Max, John and I get it, I'm going to hope it is mild for us as well instead of freaking out because WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! GAAAAHHHH!

I'll just go ahead and have a good old fashioned emotional breakdown

So after all my hemming and hawing about whether or not to get the H1N1 shot, it doesn't even matter because it's impossible to even GET the shot yet and Alex is already sick, which means it's just a matter of time before the rest of us succumb.

Then, I hem and haw about the Tamiflu, he seems better, but then he didn't anymore and is now registering a 102 degree temp again.  After a frantic call to John (who's out getting the car fixed with money we don't have) he agrees to give him the Tamiflu, which I do, and Alex promptly throws it all up.

Shit.

I'm already completely worked up about the Swine Flu because of the stupid media and their determination to cause a nationwide panic, then Obama and his "state of emergency" and THREE pediatricians telling me Alex could DIE from the fucking Swine Flu and here he's probably got it and the best defense against it is Tamiflu which I can't even get him to take without him throwing up and not even GETTING the medication in his system and Max is going around licking everything and I can't keep him away from his brother and John is high risk for complications with the flu as well because of his asthma and kidney disease, not to mention he doesn't get sick pay at work, so if he's out sick how do we pay our rent? Buy groceries? Pay for our ridiculously expensive insurance so we can afford the medical bills that will surely pile up with all of these high risk flu suffering people I live with??? What if they fire him because he's only been working for three weeks, and now he already has to take time off???

GAHHHH!

John, always the calm one, says we'll get through it. We always do, to which I respond YES! WE ALWAYS DO AND WHAT IF WE'VE USED UP ALL OUR MOJO? THE HOUSE ISN'T SELLING! I CAN'T FIND A JOB!! WE HAVE THE SWINE FLU! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! AGGGGGHHHHH! 

I think it's pretty clear that I've already lost it and perhaps the flu isn't the worst of our problems anymore. 

Damned pigs

So Alex may or may not have the Swine Flu.  He's got a flu, that much seems certain, and according to the doctors and nurses I've spoken with recently, Swine Flu is actually more common right now than the regular seasonal flu.  Alex just got his seasonal flu shot, so everyone is assuming he's got the Swine Flu.  John thinks the flu shot gave him the regular flu.  Who knows.  What I do know is my little boy's sick and that sucks.

All the hype and drama about the Swine Flu has me more worried about Alex being sick than usual, which, considering I barely manage my children's illnesses without going into a full blown panic attack before the Swine Flu craziness, you can imagine when Alex was moping around with a 102 degree fever on Saturday evening, I freaked right the hell out.  I spent over an hour on the phone Sunday morning trying to talk to a nurse because I was unwilling to take my poor feverish sick baby boy off his comfy spot on the sofa and into a Swine Flu infested urgent care clinic.  The nurse talked to a pediatrician and the pediatrician called in a prescription for Tamiflu and Albuterol.  Since Alex has asthma, he's at a higher risk than other kids of developing more serious respritory complications.

So, I gave him the Tamiflu yesterday afternoon. He only got about half of it in his mouth and spit the other half out, then later, he threw up.  We spent the day and night giving him Tylenol to keep his now 103.5 degree fever down, cool baths, washcloths, etc and this morning he doesn't appear to have a fever at all.  This morning, he's eaten a pancake and acting more or less normal, albeit with a stuffy nose, and I'm thinking, maybe I prematurely freaked out about him having the flu (wouldn't be the first time I freaked out before there was anything to freak out about).  Yesterday I called the nurse before he had any wheezing because I wanted to try to preemtively head off an asthma attack.  But now I'm thinking, maybe he would have been fine.  Alex doesn't want to take the Tamiflu today, he's afraid it will make him throw up again. I'm inclined to agree.  I've always been uncomfortable giving a kid already on the mend medication. But, I was told by the pharmacist to give him the full round of the medication even if it appears he's getting better.  But here I'm looking at him and thinking, I'm not sure if it was the Tamiflu that is making him better now because I'm not sure he even got much of his first dose.

So, do I give him the Tamiflu that makes him throw up and feel sicker when he's already feeling better?  The thing is, if I don't give it to him, and he gets worse again, I don't think Tamiflu will work for him if we try it again because you're supposed to give it to them within the first 12-24 hours of flu symptoms.  GAH! 

I don't think I'm going to.  John agrees.  Alex doesn't want to take it. I don't blame him.  I have the Albuterol and at the first sign of wheezing I'll take him straight to the ER if the puffer doesn't help. 

I hate it when my boys are sick. It's awful watching your baby be miserable and not knowing what to do to help them but DESPERATELY wanting to make it all better.

Autumn

I took Fancy for a walk this afternoon and it took me twice as long to finish our loop than normal because I kept stopping and staring at the leaves on the trees.  Autumn is my favorite time of year and I always made a point to take a drive in the mountains in September to see the colors.  Now I live in Oregon and the colors are right outside my door.

I've never seen color like this before.  Vibrant reds and oranges, the leaves start turning red around the edges, moving to orange, yellow and finally bright green in the center.  It's crazy beautiful.  My walking route takes me along a part of a street that is completely covered by trees.  The leaves, which were a light green in September have turned hot pink, and look like they are glowing with the afternoon sun shining through them.  It almost looks like a tunnel made out of pink flower petals.  I keep meaning to take my camera with me, but I always forget. Maybe I will tomorrow, though the leaves could be all gone by then, more and more fall every day.

The weather itself couldn't be more perfect.  We're getting more rain and it's cloudy more often than not already, but the temperature is mild, in the 60's. Even when it's raining. The boys and I go to the park everyday wearing sweatshirts, but quickly have to shed them because it gets too warm when we're chasing each other around.

The rain itself isn't what I'm used to.  There have been a few days with short downpours (and I assume these will become longer and more frequent as we move into winter), but it seems most of the time it's just wet out.  Sprinkling and misty.  It's humid enough to make my hair fuzz up into an impressive white girl afro reminiscent of that one time my mom gave me a home perm, but not enough to be uncomfortable in any way (unless you have to be seen in public with me and my 'fro, that's uncomfortable, I'm sure).

I find myself wanting to be outside all the time.  Rain or shine, I want to be outside.  I've never been very outdoorsy, but these days I'm forcing my family to go on nature walks with me several times a week.  The air is so clean and fresh.  It's easier to breathe here because we're at a lower altitude, so I never get winded walking up a hill.  I may even give jogging a try again.  Or not. I really hate jogging.

I feel so lucky to be able to live here, a place I'm falling in love with every day.  I am nervous about winter, it's so strange not to know what to expect.  But I feel like I could forgive Portland of anything it decides to throw at us this winter, as long as it rewards me with a spectacular autumn every year.

Fight club

The boys are now at the age where they are fighting, oh, about 99.999% of their waking hours together.  It seems I spend all my time making sure they don't kill each other.  Strangely, the .001% of the time when they're sweet together actually DOES make up for all the fighting because it's just so cute.  It will go quiet and I'll rush into the room thinking surely they're both dead, why else do I not hear screaming? And I find them sitting on the couch together, Alex's arm around Max, watching Word World or looking at a book.  Of course the moment is fleeting, if I blink, I miss it, Max will then drool on Alex or Alex will squeeze his brother a little too aggressively or the dog will walk by and disturb the delicate atmosphere and they're fighting again.

Three things

First, I have some business to take care of.  I forgot to add these words to the Master List of Words Max Can Say:

Bubbles
Hi
Sheshe (fishie)
Book
Hat
Ni Hao (learned from watching Ni Hao Kai Lan)
Emmo World (Elmo's world)

He's adding words to his vocabulary almost every hour at this point.

*Note: I realize it seems he knows the name for A LOT of TV shows. We don't watch THAT much TV, it's just that we watch the same shows a lot.

Second, I'm sorry that my posts have been so dry and boring lately. I know my writing has sucked recently and I hope when we can get our family on a reliable routine, I can carve out some "me time" during which I plan to blog better and more often.

Third, an update: John's off to his third day of training at his new job and so far he's happy going to work. Which is in stark contrast to his last job where he'd get all gray and grumpy and I'd have to literally SHOVE him out the door while he dragged his feet saying "I don't want to go! Ugh, do I really have to? Don't make me go!" Then, as soon as he got to work, I'd get a Skype text from him "I WANT TO COME HOME!".  I realize he's still in training, and next week, when he's actually DOING the job may bring on a different going to work attitude, but overall, we're really excited and hopeful about the career change.  I know he's going to kick ass at this job and get promoted like crazy.  I've forbade him to talk about money, he's really worried about how we'll live on his new, much lower, income.  But as far as I'm concerned it will work out becasue it HAS to work out.  I'm not going to allow myself to worry about the house in Utah not selling until we run out of money to pay the mortgage (probably around the first of the year). 

This summer, when we realized that we wanted to make a significant life change in the hopes of making our family happier, we knew it would be hard.  We knew we'd have to make sacrifices.  We knew there would be risks.  The easy part was leaving our old life.  We were done with it.  We were sick of it.  We were ready and excited for the changes ahead.  Now is the hard part.  Now we have to rebuild our life from scratch.  This is really hard and there are still so many unknowns. But, the good news is, we're already MUCH happier.

Words 'n' stuff

So many things are going on lately, I'd love to blog about it all, but I just don't have time. I'm still not sure what I do all day, but it does seem that I am busy all damn day long.

There has been a recent explosion in toddler vocabulary lately.  I don't remember Alex talking this much, at least not in words humans could understand.  In fact, I remember when he was almost two I worried about him being speech delayed.  He wasn't.  The problem was I was a first time mom and worrying was something of a full time occupation.  I'm not really sure if Max is talking more or if I'm more fluent in toddlerese and understand him better than I understood Alex.  For the sake of documenting my son's life (alas, I haven't even STARTED a baby book for Max.) here is a list of Max's words:

Mommy
Daddy
Buddy (for Alex)
Dog
Kitty
Candy (pronounced NANDY!)
Doddog (hotdog)
Sees (Cheese)
Kee kee (Blankie)
Bobble (bottle)
WERWORLD! (Word World)
Bob Bob (SpongeBob)
Juice
Apple Juice
MEAN!
Car
Ball
Me (he says this when he wants to be picked up. ME! MEEEEE!)
Mine
Pee pee

He can parrot almost any word you ask him to, but the above list are words that he uses on his own.

Alex started preschool and it seems to be going real well.  He goes two days a week for 2.5 hours each day.  The first week he got in trouble both days and had to be sent to the time out chair.  Last week it seems he decided he didn't like the time out chair and hasn't gotten into trouble at all.  He's really enjoying it.  The last two weeks have just been fun days though, crafts and songs and games, show and tell, getting the kids acquainted with the classroom, teachers, eachother, etc.  This coming week they start on some academics; learning letters, math and geography.  I'm glad I was able to find this preschool program for him because he really loves it and it's affordable for us. 

John starts his new job on Monday. I think we're both ready for him to go back to work, it's been almost 2 months he's been unemployed and we're starting to drive each other crazy.  I won't deny that it's been nice to have his help with the kids, but I'm ready to get back to our old routine.  I will miss him though.  Especially since he's my only source of adult conversation, not having any friends here yet. I'm going to try to remedy that problem this coming week though, I'm going to an open house for a local mom's group.  If I like them, maybe I'll join.  I made such great friends through my old mom's group, I'm hopeful I'll be able to do the same thing here.

In general we're still loving Oregon.  The weather has been wonderful since we've moved, it's been raining a bit more the last week or so, but not bad.  In fact, it hasn't even been bad enough to make us stay indoors.  We've been going to the zoo, on hikes, to the park...there's so much to do here.  I'm hoping to do as much as we can outside before the real rain and cold set in.  I still really have no idea what to expect this coming winter.  People say it'll be cold and icy, some people say it's much milder than Salt Lake, some people say it snows...who knows.

Falling into place

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day.  Alex turned four officially, even though he had a birthday party before we left Utah three weeks ago.  I made him pancakes in the shape of the letters in his name, then he opened some presents, Alex and I baked his birthday cake, he talked to his grandparents on the phone and we all piled in the car and drove out to a place in Hillsboro called Out of This World.  Basically a pizza joint that has a huge playarea with inflatables and slides and scooters.  The boys had a ball there!  We came home had cake and ice cream and watched SpongeBob (at the birthday boy's request) until the kids went to bed.

Oh yea, and JOHN GOT A JOB!!!

John had an interview on Thursday at Netflix then another interview with another company yesterday morning.  He REALLY wanted the Netflix job.  I picked him up from the interview on Thursday and he'd basically decided that was it, he'd found the job he wanted.  I insisted he still go to the interview on Friday morning, you know, just in case, and when he came home from that he said it went well, but he was really discouraged.  He did not want that job.  He wasn't excited about the job, the company, the pay or the benefits.  20 minutes later he got a call from Netflix offering him the job he wanted!  A couple of hours later John's phone rang again and it was the recruiter from the interview that morning offering him a job, which he of course turned down.  He starts at Netflix on October 5th.

Getting a job was Priority One for us in our plan to move.  Getting a job meant we would be able to support our life in Oregon, have health insurance with providers in Oregon and our savings will now go to paying our mortgage back in Utah and since we're not living on that money anymore, it will go further, giving us more time to sell the house.

John's job offer also means we have the weekend and all next week to RELAX.  There will be no job hunting this weekend.  John can lay around and watch football and I won't badger him about any listings on Monster.com.  I won't spend all afternoon ignoring the kids so I can write customized cover letters.  We can just enjoy some family time before Daddy goes back to work.  It's like we're on vacation.  We might even go back to the beach!

Progress report

No news on the job front.  We're still holding out a little scrap of hope about one of the jobs John's been interviewing for. They said they'd make a decision in two weeks, and that was a week ago.  So, we wait.  In the meantime, he's applying for other jobs as he finds them.

I did not get the Netflix job, which was actually shocking to me because the first interview went so incredibly well.  I went through the second interview which was called an "Interactive Interview" where eight of us prospective employees sat in a training room, took a test on a computer (which I passed with flying colors) and discussed the Netflix Values and talked about our own personal customer service experiences. After this "interview" we were given a piece of paper asking us to write a short essay about why we would be a good fit for the job and how much we love Netflix and we'd be contacted within three days to confirm they recieved the essay and tell us if we were hired.  No one called me.  So, after waiting a week, I called them, left a message...and they still haven't called me.  So, I think that's pretty clear.

I let this get to me for a while.  Most of it was a pride thing.  Why in the world wouldn't they hire me? I'm awesome!  But they didn't.  I suspect I might not have done as well as I normally would have in the "Interactive Interview" because the night before I was up until 4AM with Max who'd had to go to the hospital due to getting croup and not breathing well. So, I was tired. REALLY tired.  I tried not to let it show, but, I'm sure it did.  Also, I didn't connect at all with the recruiter.  You know when you meet someone and you just don't like them.  No real reason, you just don't.  That's how it was with this lady.  I tried to be smiley and happy and friendly with her anyway, but maybe it showed that I was faking it.  And then, maybe the real reason I wasn't hired was the fact that I don't have any experience as a customer service person in a call center.  I worked in a call center in my last job, but not on the phones.  So, there ya go.

The kids keep getting sick, as usual.  They both got croup and both ended up on the ER in the middle of the night.  But they're both on the mend now.  Unless you count today because Max has been throwing up all his food today.  He's not acting sick otherwise, no fever...who knows.  The good news is Alex is nearly eczema free!  This weather is really great for his skin!

The house hasn't sold yet, we've had about 2 showings a week, which our realtor says is average for today's market, but no offers.  So, we decided to lower the price considerably (I thought it was too high when we listed it anyway).  We'll see if we get any more action at this new price.  For some reason, this house thing isn't bothering me at all.  Out of sight out of mind I suppose.  I don't miss the house one bit.  I really like our apartment and I absolutely LOVE our neighborhood here.

Despite the kids being sick and the lack of employment and the little matter of still carrying a large mortgage in Utah, we are REALLY happy here.  I mean REALLY happy.  Both of us.  We live in the suburbs but it's just 15 minutes to Portland which is a really cool city.  An hour and a half drive (a very pretty drive at that) and we're at the beach.  There are hiking trails everywhere. I've never been much into hiking, but you can't really avoid it here.  Taking the dog for a walk ends up a hike because this whole place is a forest! I feel like if we ever ended up in our worst case scenario (no jobs, forclosure, homelessness, etc..) we could happily live in a tent somewhere in the trees off the freeway and learn how to creatively BBQ banana slugs (which, believe me are plentiful and would make a hearty meal, if a little slimy).

So, overall, a little stressed, but very happy and still hopeful :)

Moved

I feel like I need to write SOMETHING about how on Monday morning we were all packed up and we drove north to Oregon. And now, we LIVE HERE!  Holy crap, I can't even believe it.

The move itself went perfectly. John and his buddy Josh drove straight through to Beaverton on Monday, stayed the night in a hotel and Tuesday morning got keys to the apartment and moved our stuff in.  My mom, the boys, dog, cat and me drove to La Grande, Oregon for the night, stayed in a smelly motor inn (smoking room because of the pets), then got up early and drove right to our apartment to find the guys were almost done unloading the truck.

There was the part where the first thing I said to John was "The kids are hungry, we need to get lunch" then he and Josh proceeded to drive away with both our cell phones and was gone for several hours leaving my mother and me with two starving children in a house full of messes and no food, then returned with stories about how they'd gone to have a leisurely lunch of Honey Baked Ham sandwiches and I nearly killed him dead.

After my mom, me and the boys got some food in us, we basically spent the last few days unpacking and settling in to the new apartment, WHICH I LOVE!  Perhaps the most surprising thing about this move is how much I am enjoying our new place. I really thought I'd hate it and have to get used to it, but so far, it's pretty nice.  I love that it's smaller and the boys have limited space to get lost and cause trouble, yet the floorplan is still open and livable. 

Even dealing with Fancy not having a yard is working out fine.  We take her out in the morning for a long walk, then right outside our door on a grassy area to pee in the afternoon, to the dog park in the evening, then once more on the grassy area just outside to pee before bed.  The dog park is really helping to socialize her, and she's already showing improvement in the way she reacts when she sees another dog while she's walking around the complex. It used to be if anyone, man, woman, child, dog, cat, squirrel or blowing leaf dared come into visual range, she'd flip out and bark, growl and throw a mighty fit and attempt to get free from her collar and harness.  After a few days of going to the dog park, I took her for a walk and she barely even looked up at the humans walking by us.  Dogs still caused her to tug on the leash, but no barking!  Another week or so and I might have a well behaved dog on my hands! 

The job search seems to be going well.  John and I both had our second interviews at our respective potential employers and they both seemed to go well.  John's been invited back for a third interview for Monday morning and I should hear by Wednesday whether or not I've landed the job I've been trying to get.

The last week we were living in our house in Utah, we were packing and it was a holy mess, we had no calls about showings, however, the day we left, Monday, we had a showing and then two more this week since we've been gone.  No offers yet, but nice that there's still interest in our property, and still we have yet to lower the price from the original listing! 

So, all in all things seem to be going well so far.  I'm looking forward to having a relaxing weekend with my little family and maybe check out some sights in our new home town!

Nerves

Every morning since we came back from Oregon I'd wake up and think "Oh, only 13 more days 'til we move!" "Only 7 more days!" "YAY! We're MOVING! WOOT!"  This morning I woke up and went "Holy shit. We're moving."  I walked through our near empty house and thought. OH GOD! We're LEAVING!

I'm feeling it now.  A lot of it has to do with the fact that I just went to the last mom's night out activity with my mom's group.  My friends said good bye and hugged me.  Today I'm taking Alex to his last playgroup.  We've given away our sofa, our dining room table, packed away the boys toys and the entire kitchen. Tomorrow we're having dinner with John's family for the last time before we move.  The moving truck comes Saturday.

Oh God.

I still feel good about the move. I'm not second guessing our decision at all.  I guess I'm just being caught off guard with the feeling that I'm actually going to miss living here.  I KNOW! I HATE it here, yet today I woke up and realized that there are things, friends, family, our house, that I am really going to miss. A lot.

Will I make friends in Oregon?  Will I find a mom's group as cool as the one I'm in now?  Will I have a best friend again?  Will Alex and Max be able to make friends?  Will my dog get fleas?  Will our friends and family ever come to visit?  What will it be like to visit them in Utah?  Will the house sell?  Will we get jobs?  Will we hate living in an apartment?  Will we miss the sun?  Will we turn into hippies?

I am still very excited about this move. But all of a sudden, I'm also nervous about it.  Maybe that's normal when you're about to make such big changes.  Maybe I should have been nervous this whole time.  I don't know.  What I do know is I need some chocolate.

Exploding moon

I wrote about this picture on Facebook, but figured it deserved it's own place on the blog:

  

Alex:  "This is the moon and it's blue and purple and pink and it exploded by going into an exploding machine and went POW! And these things are little pieces of the moon that EXPLODED! See, this black stuff is fire! And this orange part is a litle tiny piece of the moon that is on fire."

When asked why the moon exploded he responded "Mom, it's just a picture, it didn't really explode. Don't worry"

Almost four

He can't be four yet can he?

 

According to the candle he is.  I still have a couple of weeks to get used to this idea.  His birthday isn't until the 25th.  FOUR!  Wow.

My boy.  My amazing, smart, funny, creative, independant, cuddly love bug of a boy.  Four seems both so old and so young!  It's only been four years since this child came into my life and turned my whole world upside down and inside out and yet I can't even remember what life was like before him. 

I am so proud to be his mommy.  I am so proud of the kind of boy he is growing into.

I love you Alex.  So so so so so so much.  I'm glad you had a great birthday party today!

Blah blah blah...moving stuff...blah blah

I am so tired. Between going through all of our stuff and giving/throwing things away, now packing and cleaning and having seemingly endless playdates and playgroups (so Alex can spend as much time as possible with his friends before he moves) I am just completely beat.

The good news is things are getting done.  Lots of our stuff are finding new homes with our family and friends, it seems every day someone leaves with a truckload of stuff.  Strangely, we still have so much left!  I packed up half the kitchen today,  I'll finish tomorrow and maybe start packing up the playroom as well. 

I've reserved the moving truck and hotel rooms for the trip.  We lucked out that a buddy of John's is able to come with us to help us move.  My mother is also driving down with us to help watch the boys for a couple of days until we get settled.  We'll all leave Monday morning, John and Josh will drive the truck all day and stay in Beaverton the night before we can get the keys to the apartment.  Tuesday morning they can start moving the stuff in.  My mom, the boys, the dog, cat and I are going to drive to La Grande and stay there Monday night and drive the rest of the way to Beaverton on Tuesday, arriving sometime in the afternoon.  Mom will watch the boys while I help the guys unload the truck, then we do some creative sleeping arrangements to make 6 people fit comfortably in a 2 bedroom apartment full of unpacked boxes for the night, Josh flies home Wednesday, my mom flies home Thursday.

Alex's birthday party is tomorrow afternoon. This is his first kid party, and he is SO EXCITED! I hope it goes well.  There will be 8 little kids, plus Alex and Max. We reserved a room at a local place that has playground equipment and a big bounce house indoors (I didn't want to have to worry about weather), we'll have pizza and cupcakes and the kids can play like maniacs for two hours. I've asked everyone to please NOT bring gifts because we're already having to give away a lot of his toys before the move.  I'm hoping he'll have so much fun playing and eating cake that he will forget that there are no presents.  I did make up some goodie bags for all the kids with some little toys and he'll have a special birthday boy hat.  I'm betting he won't even notice the lack of presents.

While we're out partying tomorrow, our realtor is having an agent tour come through our house. Just some of his collegues, to get feedback and have our home fresh on their minds if they have any potential buyers.  Our house had quite a bit of interest the first week on the market, but it seems no one is too interested this week.  Actually that's been good because we've had the house a mess with packing and going through stuff. I'm not as worried as maybe I should be about selling the house.  It's a nice house in a great area.  SOMEONE will want to buy it.  I'm sure of it. It actually makes our lives easier if no one wants to see it until we've moved out of it. I'm betting our realtor will want to do a price reduction next week and that should get people interested in seeing it again.  This is the one thing that is completely out of my control, so I'm trying to be all zen about it and just stay calm.  Focus on the things I can control and let whatever is going to happen with the house happen.  I've got plenty of other things to worry about right now.

Movin' movin' movin'...

Almost as soon as I published that last post about how I'm going to work and John's going to be staying home with the boys, John got a call on his resume and had an interview!  He says the interview went pretty well and they've asked him back for a second interview after we move next week. Wow! Ok then. YAY JOHN!

We've been busy going through our stuff and getting rid of absolutely everything we don't NEED or LOVE.  Friends and family have been showing up and taking truckloads of our stuff.  I think I'm supposed to be sad about seeing 3/4 of our possessions go, but I'm not.  It actually feels almost cleansing, getting rid of all this stuff we've hauled around forever but don't use. 

I told John to bring up all my stuff from our storage room the other day, figuring I had just my antique violins, my dad's guitars and a box of old angel figurines my ex husband gave me a million years ago.  I took the boys to playgroup and came home to find our dining room full of boxes!  I had no idea I had so much stuff.  Most of it was my dad's. Things that, until now, I couldn't part with; his lighthouses, elephants, some of his craft projects he started but didn't finish, a box of dorky old man clothes that reminded me of him...  That was the only time I got emotional about purging stuff.  But I did it.  I whittled it down to 2 small boxes. One of home videos and the other just misc. stuff that had the most sentimental value.

Unfortunately John will have to do something similar with his mom's stuff, though I suspect most of her stuff will go to his siblings, which I hope will make it easier for him. 

Our house is starting to look empty and sad. This is probably good.  The less it feels like home, the easier it will be to drive away next Monday.  It's starting to really sink in for me now.  We're leaving. We're really doing it.  We've talked about it for years, and now it's a week away.  The overwhelming feeling both John and I are having is excitement. We are READY to start our new life in Oregon.  But, I admit it, I am sad to be leaving our family and friends.  It is going to take work to keep the relationships we have built here close, but it's something I am willing to put every effort into. 

I feel so confident about this move, and have felt confident about it since we made the decision.  In fact, it's been hard NOT to be confident about it because things just seem to be happening perfectly to make this move happen.  Almost everyone we talk to tells us "Wow, you've sure got balls to up and move like this!" (translation: "You people be CRAZY!") and to us, it just feels like the most natural course of action. I mean, of course it's scary, seeing as how we have no guarantees of a job or the sale of our house, but we wouldn't have that if we stayed in Utah anyway.  Plus, we'd still be in Utah, and instead of being exicted and looking forward to an adventure, we'd, well, still be in Utah.  Maybe soon I'll be able to write a post about exactly why we want to get out of here, but until I can make it sound less like we live in the firey depths of hell, I need to remain silent on the subject. Utah is a fine place to live. For other people.  I am looking forward to visiting Utah often. Visitng Utah sounds WONDERFUL!

Role reversal

I had an interview for a job in Oregon. The office is less than a 20 min drive from our new apartment. The pay is good (for the job), the company is growing (opportunity for advancement in the future) and best of all health benefits start on the day I get hired!  Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck about the interview. So much seemed to be riding on me not making a complete ass of myself over the phone.  Turns out, I didn't make an ass out of myself, in fact, I scored an in person interview for the week we move!  If all goes well during that interview, I'll be working at a new job within days of our Big Move.

You might wonder why I'm looking for work and interviewing for jobs and John is not.  Well, I suppose it's because I'm more motivated right now.  Frankly, I think he's burnt out.  The last year was really rough on him and he needs some recovery time.  And while we do have the funds for both of us to be out of work until the end of the year, I'd much rather get a job and support ourselves on that and use the money we have towards paying off any debt we still have after the house sells or putting it away in savings for an emergency fund or in the boys' college savings.  It would also be nice to start a travel fund so we can fly instead of drive back to Utah next time.

I want John to find a job he'll be happy in. If I'm working, that gives him extra time to find a job that will be the right fit for him.  Plus, I'm excited to go back to work!  I've been home for three years, and I love it, don't get me wrong, but I think it would be really good for our family for John and I to reverse roles for a while.  I think it would be good for John and the boys to have some real time together.

That said, John's not so excited to be a stay at home dad.  The kids are at challenging ages right now and they tend to drive him crazy a lot of the time.  But I think he gets so frustrated so easily because he's not around it all day long.  They kind of wear you down after a while. You learn to pick your battles, you learn what disciplinary techniques work best for each situation.  Plus, if he REALLY doesn't like it, that will give him incentive to kick up the job search a notch!

I think this role reversal will also be good for our marraige.  Occasionally we find ourselves getting after eachother becuase we think the other has it easier.  My supporting the family financially for a while and John managing the home front will help us to better understand what we each deal with.  Who knows, we may like it better this way.  We'll see.

FREAKING OUT!

But not about what you'd think I'd be freaking out about.  I'm freaking out about Alex's birthday party that's been moved up three weeks before his actual birthday to fit it in before we move.

Alex has been excited about having a birthday party all summer.  Literally, every day since mid May, he'd wake up and ask "Is it my birthday yet??"  It's not because he wants presents, no, Dude wants a PAR TAY!

I'm worried because I want to do it next week and I'm not sure which of his friends are starting preschool and on what days/times. I'm worried no one will be able to come because it's such short notice.  I'm worried Alex will get over stimulated and go crazy and end up in time out the entire time.  I'm worried because I've never thrown a kid party before and this party has to be awesome because we're moving in 2 weeks and it will be a long time before he gets to see these friends again.  I'm worried because I want it to be perfect for him.  He's been so excited for MONTHS for his birthday party and I don't want to let him down.

I'm also freaking out because my little boy is turning FOUR and that just can't be possible can it?

Point of no return

In every plan, there is a point at which you've gone too far and there's no turning back. We got to that point in our plan to move to Oregon yesterday evening when we signed a lease on what will now be our apartment in Murray Hill. We'll be moving in on September 7th.

I know many of our family and friends think we're crazy. That we're making rash decisions. That we haven't thought this plan through.  I assure you we have given this plan a lot of thought, that we know the risks and we feel that we're doing what is in the best intrest of our family.  Will it turn out to be a mistake? Who knows.  Will it turn out to be the best thing we've ever done?  Who knows.  Last year when John accepted the promotion we were thrilled and hopeful. Sure, it was a risk for him to leave a position he loved to do something completely different, but the MONEY! The OPPORTUNITY! That didn't turn out so well.  That's the thing about taking risks, they're risky. 

We're planning to make a big life change.  We're leaving our home town.  We're selling the big house in favor of a small apartment.  John's making a career change, and we're well aware he might have to start at the bottom and work his way up again.  I'm probably going to go back to work myself.  At least until we get reestablished in Portland.

Would it have been better to sell the house first, get John a job in Oregon, then have him quit his job and then move? Well sure, of course that would have been ideal, but it didn't work out that way.  It seems our plan had a mind of it's own and started executing backwards and we're trying to keep ahead of it by taking control of the things we can, namely getting our butts to Oregon and start looking for work.  It's probably better that it's happening this way because now we're actually following through on it.  Had it happened the way we were planning, it would have been too easy to just stay in the situation we were unhappy with, formulating plans to escape that would never come to pass.

Things seem to be working out perfectly so far. Until we got to Portland this week, I was sure our plan would fizzle out and die because we wouldn't like it here, or we couldn't find a place we liked, or we wouldn't be approved or we'd have to live in a less desirable area.  But instead, we LOVE it here.  We found a great place in a really nice area.  In fact, I'd say it's nicer than where our house is now.  Now the rest of the plan is out of our hands.  We have to rely on other people to buy our house and hire us.  There's not much we can do about the house, it will either sell or it won't. It's a nice house, I can't imagine no one wanting to live there.  And I like to think John and I are still hire-able with skills that are in demand in the workforce today.  Sure, we might not be able to get THE PERFECT jobs right out the gate, but I can't believe between us we won't find anything.

Right now we're both excited. A little nervous, but mostly excited.  We don't know what the future will bring, but we can do our best and hope it will bring good things.

Waiting for approval

On Thursday we drove and drove and drove around the suburbs of portland trying to find one that felt like "home".  What we discovered is it seems you have to look really hard for a bad neighborhood.  We found lots of areas we felt we could live in quite happily.  Beaverton won the day however, it was hands down the most comfortable area we drove through. 

Out of the nearly 20 apartments/duplexes we drove by yesterday, we'd picked three that we wanted to walk through.  We couldn't get hold of anyone to look at the two duplexes, so we decided to just drive up to the one apartment complex we were interested in and look at that then try the duplexes again.  When we drove into the complex, we were reminded again why this was our favorite.  It was beautiful, though this whole city is beautiful, the complex is away from the center of town and all the other complexes, it's actually in the neighborhood and the buildings are arranged on a hill, so you have beautiful views.  Strangely, what sold us was the fact that as we drove in, we passed a resident walking her Bull Mastiff. This place was large dog friendly and we happen to have ourselves a large dog!  There are trashcans and poo bag dispensers throughout the property to easily clean up after your pet's buisness.  There's a pool, a 24 hour fitness room and a small theater room in the clubhouse.  There is no playground on the property, but there is a big park about a mile and a half away that I could easily bike the kids to.  We walked through the apartment (2 bed/2 bath) and it was definately smaller than we're used to (it's about 1000 square feet and we currently live in 3200 square feet), but it felt livable. I'd hoped for a bigger fenced patio than this apartment offers, but it will do and the park I'd take the kids to also has an off leash dog area, so it would be easy to take Fancy there to run.  There's a small laundry room in the apartment that we could take the door off and put a baby gate up to keep the cat's litter away from the kids and the dog.  The boys room is large and would easily fit both their beds and lots of toys and their walk in closet could easily be used for extra storage.  The master and the living room is much smaller than we're used to, but again, livable, and the kitchen is small, but I don't cook, so not a problem at all.

We were sold. We filled out applications and put a deposit down on the apartment without even looking at the other places. Now we wait to see if we're approved. The leasing lady didn't think it would be a problem, but our situation is a little strange, so you just don't know.  We should find out Monday.  We're leaving tomorrow, so if we're not approved, we'll have to try to get into something else from Utah, which wouldn't be ideal, but at least we now have a good idea of the area, so not impossible.

The house in Utah has been officially listed for sale and it sounds like we've already had one showing while we've been here, so that's good news.  Hopefully things are starting to fall into place for our big life change!

Unknown

We're in Portland.  We came out here to see if we'd like it, and OH! Do we like it!  It's like they took a forest and built a city inside of it. SO! MANY! TREES!  John was concerned about missing the mountains in Salt Lake, but it's hard to miss the mountains when it feels like you're actually IN the mountains.

So, we like it here, so much.  We are really excited to become Oregonians.  We spent all day yesterday driving around, looking at different areas, trying to decide where we want to try to live.  I've fallen in love with the Murray Hill area in Beaverton, but all of Beaverton is nice.  We also really liked Happy Valley.  There was only one area when I turned to John and said, "turn around. Turn around right now, GO GO GO!"  And that was in Hillsboro. I don't think Hillsboro itself is a bad area, just that one neighborhood we were driving through was pretty sketchy.

Now we face the real challenge of trying to secure an apartment.  This wouldn't be such a hard task if we weren't unemployed with two kids, a cat and a large dog and a very large mortgage back in Utah.  It seems like we're really asking a lot.  I suppose what we do have going for us is good credit, clean background checks and nice trustworthy faces. 

In the next couple of days, our dreams of moving to Portland could shrivel and die before our eyes (much to the delight of some of our family and friends back home), or we could end up getting the perfect place and living happily ever after.  We just don't know what will happen.

Starting over

As of today, John has decided to leave his job and we've put our house up for sale and we are planning to move to Portland.

It all seems sudden doesn't it?  Well, it's not really.  This has been coming on for months now.  Years, really.

We live in Utah.  And Utah is a fine place to live, I mean it's got four distinct seasons and it's relatively safe, very family friendly, decent schools, reasonable cost of living, lots of recreational activities...  But, for John and I, me in particular, it's just not a good fit.  It's REALLY conservative, and we're much more liberal.  It's REALLY religious and we're non believers.  We've both been here all our lives and it just feels like it's time to go.  It's time to find a place where we do fit in. 

As long as we've been together we've talked about moving out of Utah, and our ideal destination has always been San Diego. But when we really consider it, we realize it's not a good fit either.  It's simply too expensive.  So when we began thinking seriously about moving out of state, we looked at this great country of ours and started to talk about what exactly we want.  We want to be within a day's drive or less of Salt Lake City so we can come home to visit often.  We don't particularly like four seasons.  In fact, we'd much prefer only two seasons if possible.  We don't like really hot summers or snow at all so a milder climate was a must.  Alex has really bad excema so we'd like a more humid climate to help relieve some of his skin troubles as well as good air quality because of his and John's athsma. We want to be in a place that is much more liberal than here as well as a more diverse group of people (different ethnic groups, religions and lifestyle choices.  Everyone here is white, Mormon and married with kids, and even though we're white, married with kids, it's really kind of boring.).  Of course we want to live in a town that is family friendly, safe with good schools.  John wants to be within driving distance of professional sports teams and I've always wanted to be within a few hours of the coast. 

When looking at all these parameters, we narrowed our choices to Washington and Oregon.  Specifically Seattle and Portland.  It's been a tough decision to choose between Seattle and Portland because it seems like they are very similar, and we've never been to either city.  Seattle's job market seems to be doing much better than Portland, but Portland's cost of living is lower. In the end though, we've decided to go to Portland.  Mostly because it feels like a good fit for us.  What we hear and read about the people and the general way of life in Portland really appeals to us. 

As for John's job, he hasn't been happy for over a year. He accepted a promotion to a position that hasn't been a good fit for him and a couple of months ago, it became clear that it never will be a good fit.  We began to talk seriously about him leaving his job and what we'd need to do to survive financially and the only answer was to sell our house.  Which is a tough decision seeing as how we LOVE our house.  But it's no use living in a house you can't afford, especially if someone has to spend the majority of their life stuggling at a job that just doesn't fit.  So, we began making preparations to sell our house.  The good news is, we got a deal on it when we bought it, so we should be able to break even, which is nearly impossible to do in today's market.

So here we were, talking about selling our home and John leaving his job and it occurred to us that if we have to start all over, this might be the perfect opportunity to start over in a new place!  Then I freaked out a bit over the fact that we'd be leaving family and my parents moved me away from family when I was Alex's age and it sucked, and is this the right decision? Are we ruining our kids' lives forever by isolating them in the Pacific Northwest with no grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins to play with?  And then I snapped out of it and realized that we're moving to Oregon, not Egypt.  We're a 12 hour drive away, or a two hour flight.  And in this day and age with blogs and Facebook, Flickr and webcams, I am more confident than ever that we can maintain close relationships with our friends and relatives back home.

The snag in our plan is that we don't have jobs secured in Portland.  John's been sending out resumes for a couple of weeks, but it's tough out there these days and employers often don't even look at the out of state resumes.  Our best bet is to just go out there and rent an apartment and start looking for work.  Of course we haven't sold our house here yet, and we'd be supporting two households while UNEMPLOYED.  We're lucky that we have the funds to support our family for a few months. It's when our funds run out, if we don't have jobs yet, that it will get hairy.

But, it will also be an adventure!

I am looking forward to simplifying our life.  Living in a smaller space with less stuff.  Getting back to basics, and feeling happy in the things that matter instead of always trying to get ahead, get more, do more, etc...  It will be an adjustment.  It will be a difficult few months.  But, I am confident that our family will come through this change stronger and happier than we've ever been.

Mmm, smells good

The last couple of days, anyone who comes to my house mentions that it smells good, what am I cooking?  Well, I am going to tell you my secret.  You too can have a house that smells like mine.

Step 1:  Turn the large burner on the back of the stove on high. (It works best if you have a flat/glass top surface)

Step 2:  Forget you turned it on.

Step 3:  Actually cook your meal on the large burner located on the front of the stove.

Step 4:  Remember you have the back burner on.  Turn it off.

Step 5:  Immediately forget it was ever on in the first place and that it is still very, VERY hot.

Step 6:  Finish cooking your meal and place your large black plastic spoon directly on the back burner. 

Step 7:  Leave the room

Step 8:  Smell something suspicious from the other room, run into the kitchen to find a puddle of black goo bubbling on the back burner of the stove.  Disregard the fact that the burner is still LAVA HOT and proceed to attempt to wipe the black goo off the stove with a wet Clorox wipe.  The Clorox wipe is the key to the subtle citrus scent.

Step 9:  Burn the EVERLOVINGCRAP out of your fingers to add the musky fleshy smoky smell.

Step 10:  While burner is still piping hot, use the biodegradable, earth friendly kitchen pumice stone on the back burner.  Make sure you take care to scratch the shit out of your flat top range.  Somehow this adds a spicy scent.

And there you have it.  A unique food-like yet vaguely plastic-y aroma that is guaranteed to seep into all of your porous surfaces and last a few days, possibly weeks/months/years.

It is also best to do this just days before you put your house up for sale.  Nothing says "BUY ME!" like a mysterious smell coming from the kitchen.