The Best Laid Plans...

Something that is not at all news to me, but may be news to you all, is that my dear sweet husband underestimates the time it takes to do things... by a lot. All the time. Like, always. I'm completely used to it, so when he planned to have the roof pulled off & put back on in about a day, I nodded & smiled, but secretly tripled that in my head. Funny thing is, he's always surprised that he wasn't all that accurate. ;) lol Anyway, we were able to get most of the roof off in one day, but the last little bits took another day (they were really really stuck). And then I had to work the next three days, so he lost his "call 911 if I fall off the roof" person and had to stop. So we still have no roof, but hopefully will at least get the felt rolled this weekend. (There was metal underneath, so it's at least as protective for now as it was at first). Snow should be coming to the mountains this weekend, and people here tell me that that means it will be here in the valley in about 6 weeks. That means we have six weeks to get the roof done, the siding replaced, and new windows in or we're screwed! :S We'll see how this goes! lol

So I've never been the kind of person to hide things about myself from most people. You could call me an open book. So please understand that what I'm about to tell you is really embarrassing! To the point where I almost didn't share it. But, it makes for a good blog entry, so I will. But promise you won't judge ok? lol Let's just say it's a not-so-mighty-mom moment...

Okay. So I just told you that I have been at work for the last three days. Mathew doesn't want to go a single day without doing at least something on the house, so even though he wasn't able to do the roof while I was gone, he did go there while I was at work and get other things cleaned up, planned out, torn out, etc. So seeing as it's gorgeous outside here lately, he naively allowed the kids to play outside while he worked.

Well,

One of the things that bothered us about our life in Kansas, was that our kids were slowly turning into wild animals before our eyes. We didn't live in a neighborhood, we lived on 120 acres. So the kids could run around as much as they wanted & it wasn't a big deal. They didn't learn common sense rules especially well, like keeping your volume down around others and their homes, & maybe watching out for cars while in a parking lot or crossing the street. See where I'm going with this??? Ugh.

So right across the street from the house is a restaurant. The house that was next to ours was recently knocked down & has become the parking lot for said restaurant. Well, apparently the kids were playing in the parking lot while Matt was in the house unaware of what they were up to. I'm not sure what they were doing, but apparently they were being so rowdy that one older woman (well intentioned I'm sure) thought they must be unattended by an adult and called the police!!!

OMG the police were called on my obnoxious kids!!!!!!!

(Hanging head in shame).

The officer came & spoke to Mathew. Didn't give him any kind of ticket or anything (not really sure what kind of citation that would be, but anyway) but he did take down his name & number. Now we're freaking out that we're going to be in the town newspaper! Seriously! Everything is in this town's paper! There was actually a police report in the newspaper that someone filed a claim that their Huggies were stolen from their house! lol It could totally happen! How embarrassing!!! To her defense, the house has been vacant for a very long time, and I'm sure she had no idea that any kids had any business playing around it. And Mathew wasn't in view, but still!! OMG!

We've been trying to teach the boys to become civilized human beings again, but apparently when our backs are turned there are no holds barred. Holy cow. No idea what to do with them at this point other than take every privilege away known to man.

Anyway, if any of my readers are mothers (which most of you are), I'm sure you'll understand what I mean when I say I feel like a complete failure as a parent right now. I wasn't even there, but I'm totally blaming myself for not teaching them well enough how to behave in public. I swear, I used to get compliments from strangers at how good my kids were. Now I hang my head & hope there's no one around that I know! lol We're trying really hard, and I know that the life we had to lead this past year and a half did not help things in the slightest bit. It'll take time to get them to be the great kids I know they are again. But I'm really hoping it'll be sooner than later. And I'm really praying that at least they're decent to their teachers! :/

My Favorite Time of Year

I wish I had a camera that could do this place at least some justice this time of year. This picture I tried to take with my cell phone, so I apologize that it's really not all that great. But I can't even tell you guys how unbe-friggin-lievably gorgeous the trees & mountains are right now!! It's seriously leaves me speechless... and we all know how nearly impossible that is! lol ;) At any rate, the leaves are changing & Fall is here. It has always been my favorite season, so it's only fitting that I get to spend it here in Fall Wonderland! :) And it seems I'm not alone, because this town seriously knows how to celebrate this time of year. There has been some type of festival or parade, or celebration every weekend this month! Makes me fall in love with the adorableness of this town even more. (Dontcha love how I seem to have made up my own vocabulary? lol) And aparently, we're not the only ones who love this place. I've recently heard that Michael J. Fox has a place in town, & was here last weekend for the Colors of the Kingdom Festival! Holy Cow! (And no, before you ask I didn't get to actually see him. Damn it. lol) But that's pretty cool though!

So, speaking of the parade, that one was last weekend. The kids' school had a float in the parade & we didn't feel like we should join in since we weren't available to help decorate. So we went to watch... but one of the teachers saw us on the roadside & made us jump in! So the kids (and Copper!) got to be in the parade after all. They felt pretty special. It's so great how welcoming everyone is here. Seriously. I don't think I've seen my boys this happy in a long time. I really think they are loving their new school! Mark tends to get a bit grumpy sometimes, but I think that's just part of being a 9 year old boy. I also haven't seen him smile this much like ever, so I'm taking that as a good sign. ;)

So we've been enjoying some play time on the weekends. We've been heading to the farmers market every Saturday.

(And yes, they're all homegrown, & organic, & very Vermont ;) lol)

And we've taken the kids to all kinds of activities & booths & fun. They got face paint:

And jumped in bouncy castles:

And made pasta necklaces. (This one I pretty much only included so that I can prove that indeed Mark was present for all of the family fun. He just refuses to let me take his picture like it's going to steal his soul! lol That would be him in the hoodie.. still hiding... sigh)

So anyway, we've been really enjoying the beautiful weather & getting to know our new home!

As far as the new house goes, I can't even tell you how busy poor Mathew has been. I've been at work all day every day, and when the kids are in school, he's there. He's been hauling load after load after load of crap out of the house. These people left so much worthless stuff in there it's unbelievable. And it seems like it's multiplying! lol But he's managed to get most of it out. I think the guy at the city dump knows him by name now with all the loads he's dropped off. Plus he's been trying to recycle everything he can & scrap whatever metal he can find. He's already pulled out some godawful drop ceilings & knocked down a wall or two, so we're making progress! :) Tomorrow will be the fun of fixing the roof. We're hoping to take advantage of a beautiful day & get it torn & put back all in one day... wish us luck. We're gunna need it! :/

Welcome to Vermont!

It's been a busy week! Amazing how I've really just begun this blog and already I'm so attached to it & sharing with you all that I was going through blog withdrawls before we got internet installed! lol But it's in now & we're settling in, so now I can back up a bit & fill you all in with our adventures.

We left Kansas for the final trip on Wednesday afternoon. It took a lot longer than we expected to load up the trailer of tools & building materials & last bit of things we needed to bring, so that meant a later time to leave, a lot more stress for me in particular, & missing out on saying official goodbyes to some really good friends. Not at all the way we wanted to leave. But it's amazing how once we set out & got a good distance away, we really didn't look back. Not just Mathew & myself, but I really feel like all five of us can feel the stress fall off of our shoulders with the more distance between ourselves & that chapter of our life. Yes, we still have things to deal with there & it's not truly gone away, but it's no longer the center of our daily existence. Our family is. Can't complain about that! :)

So anyway, our trip up was looooooong but went just fine. We stopped for a couple hours in St. Louis to see a few family members for a quick hug, but other than that we drove straight through. For thirty three hours. Oh yes. Thirty three hours! It took that long because a) this trailer was smaller, but heavier, so it didn't really like going up mountains b) add three kids & a dog to the mix & you add a lot more stops! and c) the middle of Vermont is pretty much completely impassable right now thanks to our friend Irene, so we had to take a roundabout way. BUT, we got here all in one piece and the kids didn't kill each other on the drive up, so I'd consider that a success! lol ;) (With the exception of Mark puking all over the place at one point. Thank you motion sickness. But we'll just choose to forget about that part...)

Anyway, next came the ridiculous task of fitting a 3500 sq foot house's furniture into a 1000 sq foot rental house. Didn't really work. So some things will stay in storage until our house is done & that's ok. But still we need to figure out where to put all of our stuff! We have a lot of clothes! And sheets! And towels! And toys! And stuff!! And practically zero closet space. Looks like we're going to have to find a Bed Bath & Beyond or something somewhere in VT to get organized. But in the mean time I think we're doing pretty well getting settled in & unpacked.

I can't tell you how excited we are to have the little things back in our life that we used to take for granted. First, we were so happy just to have our own beds back. We haven't slept in our own beds since December. And with Matt's back injuries that was such a blessing to have back. And the kids were certainly happy to have their own space again instead of sharing a hotel bed that's for sure! ;) I was super excited to have a washer & dryer again. When you're used to having that in your own house for forever, it's so hard to rely on going to friends houses or laundromats to wash your clothes. It's so nice to have that back! And a kitchen... oh my god it has just killed me for the last several months to not be able to cook anything for my family. And being on a restricted diet myself made it super difficult to eat out for every friggin' meal. (Not to mention how expensive that gets!). So to have a kitchen & my cooking utensils & food to prepare makes me SO very happy! (Now all we need is a kitchen table that fits in this house to eat at... ahh. Details. ;) lol). And now, as of today, we have TV complete with DVR and an internet connection! Things we haven't had since moving out of our house! We're super excited about that!! So if you haven't gathered, we are so happy to just have our life & some normalcy back. We can tackle anything life throws at us now that we have that.

Other than unpacking, we've been staying busy with taking advantage of the perfect weather God has given us since we got here. It's been a perfect 70 something degrees each day while cooling off to the 40's or 50's at night. And the leaves are starting to change too so being outside has been amazing. We've gone to the farmer's market on Friday & got a bunch of organic Vermont grown veggies, and we also got to go to a fun Fall Festival. The kids really enjoyed that: they got to play in a bouncy house & get face paint, & pet bunnies, & all kinds of fun stuff. We've gone for walks nearly every day & are just enjoying our time together as a family. Believe me, we're not naive to the fact that the beautiful weather will be short lived & the cold is going to hit. Soon. So we're taking advantage for now! lol (And hey, the cold & snow can be pretty too!)

Finally, to complete my update, I started my new job at Dartmouth- Hitchcock Memorial Hospital this Monday. I really think I'm going to love this place! :) I will be working in the Hematology/Oncology Special Care Unit (HSCU for short), and though I'm really nervous about caring for adults for the first time in my nearly 10 years of nursing, I am really looking forward to all I get to experience & learn! The campus is *beautiful* and absolutely everyone I've met so far has been super nice. This week & part of next week, along with the typical auditorium lectures about hospital policies & benefits & such, they have what they call an Experienced Nurse Orientation where they take us to a complete high tech simulation lab to practice scenarios & get familiar with equipment & hospital procedures on some of the most sophisticated mannequins I've ever seen! Super cool! Plus, New Hampshire is just as green & "crunchy" as Vermont, so it's right up my alley ;) lol. I'm really excited to start this new chapter!

Sorry that I had so much to share. Now that I am able, I'll try to update a little more often & not have so much to talk about! lol Hopefully I'll have more to show you on the progress of our house! (Matt's been working hard already cleaning up! :)) Talk to you all soon!

Our Moving Saga: Part Two

Is miraculously drama free! :)  We just got back to Kansas this afternoon after an uneventful drive back from Vermont.  With the exception of needing to stop & sleep for a couple of hours because we were both COMPLETELY exhausted, it was no big deal!  So we're staying at the Oh-so-very-lovely Paola Inn for the night & plan to be outta heah by noon tomorrow.  Bye bye Paola.  I hope you don't take it personally when I tell you I will NOT miss you.  Kansas City, the friends we've made, the memories we have here, absolutely.  But Paola?  Not so much.
Not much to report for now.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head back to cuddle my kids that I missed so much over the last few days! ;)  Good night!

Our Moving Saga: Part One

It has been an eventful last few days! Like any major event we've ever experienced in our lives, our move, so far, has been full of drama! lol So of course I need to fill you in on our ridiculous story. ;) With most things in our lives nowadays, we really have learned that it's much easier to laugh at our crazy bad luck than to cry. I mean seriously, who else would this stuff happen to? So here's our whole story broken down in easy to digest chapters. You're welcome for the entertainment. It's what I'm here for! (lol!)

Wednesday: You want me to drive what?!?

So my husband is quite creative when it comes to saving money. It's pretty amazing the things he comes up with sometimes, and I've grown to not only accept his crazy schemes but enjoy them for the most part. Most people think we're pretty nuts, but hey, we're just eccentric. ;) But even I have to put my foot down sometimes. And when Matt says "hey, let's not hire a moving company to move us across the country, let's buy 24 foot and 14 foot trailers, pack them ourselves, take our own truck & two trips to haul them 1500 miles & back, then we can sell the trailers when we're done" I definitely tried to say "NO way!"

Obviously I lost.

So after spending a whole day on Tuesday and half the day on Wednesday packing up, we finally set off for Virginia on Wednesday evening. (Virginia because we were picking up a car half way through our trip.) Matt & I usually take our road trips in one run, switching on & off to let the other sleep & save time. So that means that *I* have to drive this 8,000 lb trailer for at least some portion of our trek through the mountains. OH. MY. GOD. Scariest thing I've ever done. I seriously am shocked that I didn't put permanent dents in the steering wheel as I white-knuckeled it down the highway. It was NOT easy. But I did eventually get the hang of it & we managed to make our way through the night with me doing a good portion of the driving. Granted, it was at 45-50 mph adding an additional 5 hrs to our trip, but that's ok!

Thursday: Because I need to be one of the cool kids

All was going relatively well until we hit the mountains. With that kind of weight behind an over-taxed truck going up steep hills & down crazy declines on narrow roads it was nearly impossible to keep it under control. And these big bully Mack trucks would whip by us (to show off to the idiots driving the doolittle I assume!) creating this vacuum effect that would only make things worse. It was really hard & it seemed to take not only all of our time but our every nerve. Finally we made it to Virginia just in time to pick up my new (to me) car. We do this a lot: buy a car online for cheap, then go pick it up. We just don't usually drive to get it in the middle of a major life-altering move! This particular car I found, to be perfectly honest, because I wanted to be part of the in-crowd in Vermont! ;) I found an '07 Subaru Forester for under wholesale value in perfect condition & had to have one. (We sold all of our cars because we couldn't exactly drive any of them in the moutains & snow!) So I'm super excited to have my New England soccer mom car (I swear at least 50% of Vermonters have one!) and we ended up having a great night. We stayed at a nice hotel in VA & were well taken care of by the staff there since it was the eve of our anniversary. (Eleven years of marriage! Wow where did the time go?)

Friday: We might as well change our name to Grisewald

I seriously feel like I'm in a Lampoon movie sometimes. How can all of this ridiculous stuff happen to one family & not be fiction?? Oh, but it's real folks! lol I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried! And seeing as I never feel like people could possibly believe these tall tales of mine are actually real, I took the liberty of taking a few photos of our turn of events on Friday. Otherwise, I truly wouldn't believe this crap myself!

So as I mentioned before, Friday happened to be our 11th wedding anniversary. It just so happened to turn out that it landed on the day we had to spend driving two separate cars, and though that was a big bummer, we were going to end the day in VT in our new home, so it was all going to be ok! We had a lot of the same driving issues trying to make our way up the coast, but for the most part it wasn't that bad. It took a little longer than we expected of course, but it turned out that that landed us on the George Washington Bridge outside NYC during the tail end of rush hour on Friday evening. Fantastic. An hour & a half later we get across the bridge and are trying to get off onto the exit to 87. New York drivers though, didn't like the idea of letting over an extended cab pick-up hauling a 24 foot trailer and all but pushed Matt off the road. In an effort not to hit anyone, he swerved & the trailer slammed into the concrete barrier blowing the tire & bending the rim.

Great. Now what? He calls me (driving behind) and tells me he's getting off at the next exit and going to call roadside assistance. He gets off at the next exit which happens to be Fordham Rd. in the Bronx. Safe! Excellent! :/ Well, he cut the corner a little close trying to pull into the gas station & here's what happened next:

Yep. He wrapped the trailer around a pole & was completely stuck. Drivers were honking & cussing us out. A homeless guy plopped down to watch the entertainment of the evening. And four well-intentioned guys on the sidewalk tried for a half an hour to direct Mathew into maneuvering the trailer from around the pole. No such luck. In fact it just got dented more. So guess what? Sometimes you just gotta listen to a woman. We know what we're talking about! ;) I, Yes I managed to direct him around the pole. (I'm a little proud of that!) He pulled into the lot & finally connects with roadside assistance. Yet again Nationwide is NOT on our side! (Don't use them folks, I'm tellin' ya!) They pretty much tell us we're screwed because it's after hours & they can't get ahold of any tow companies at this hour. What?!?! WTH are we supposed to do now? So at first Matt thinks we can try to drive it with the weight balancing on the other axel. Ray, one of our New Yorker Helper Guys, directed traffic so that Matt could u-turn around the busy street and get back on the highway. Well that clearly didn't work because he pulled over at the very next exit, a Mobil station on the side of the Deegan. We tried Nationwide, we tried, calling tow companies ourselves, we even called the police. No luck whatsoever. Finally, at midnight, we get ahold of a company in NJ who will come to help us. They finally arrive & spend an hour banging the crap out of the wheel until it's close-enough bent back to the original shape. They replace the tire, charge us $225 & take off telling us to air it up every hour or so because it won't hold air very well. Awesome. Well we no sooner turn around from their leaving that it's completely flat again!!! Grr! Well Matt had enough & said "eff it. I'm driving." He fills it up with fix-a-flat, airs it up & starts to drive. We actually made it to Connecticut, about 40 minutes of driving, when it COMPLETELY blew. We were screwed.

Lovely huh? So we were forced to get a hotel up the road (it's nearly 4 a.m. at this point) and try again in the morning, pushing back all of our plans & hotel reservations & everything else for the entire week. (And don't forget this is supposed to be our anniversary!)

Saturday: Happily Ever After... so far.

We slept about 3-4 hours and got up early to start making calls in the morning. Thankfully, the first call we made was able to help us & came right out to change the above tire & rim. We were back on the road in no time & headed out for the final 5 hour leg of our drive to VT. We got here at about 3:30 pm and were able to get our trailer unhooked & get a nice hotel room for the night. (Thank God people in this town are so nice!)

Ahh. Serenity.

We plan on heading back tomorrow morning (a 24 hr straight trip) to pick up the kids from Pa-Pa's, hook up the smaller trailer (the one with all of the tools & supplies to repair the new house), and head back to VT, this time to stay!

Wish us luck. We're gunna need it! ;)