By The Time You Read This...

To get us through this most recent deployment, I vowed to blog.

My intentions were to give an honest, candid account of the struggles, challenges and triumphs we spouses that are left behind experience when our loved-one goes into the desert, but instead...

I moved house. I went from BIG to not-quite-as-big and left behind furniture. You know, sofas, bookshelves, built-in cupboards to, well, empty. It's incredibly hard to put things away when there's not a place to put them.

The children started school...
and needed an incredible amount of clothing, shoes, hair appointments and supplies.

Those same children all began their new football season which requires and hour and a half each on a football pitch for training and then the weekend is filled with tournaments and league matches.

Our professional team began a new football season in the Premiere League which means more TV coverage. YAY.

I became severely addicted to TV. All of my best friends either live in my computer or in the TV now.

The oldest son graduated AF Tech School and he and his new wife moved to their first duty station.

We had a death in the family. A really bad, really ugly death that will probably plague us for months to come.

I haven't lost weight, firmed up, grown my hair (unless you count leg hair which has done quite well actually) or surgically corrected anything.

So, there have been very few posts about this deployment...
but if you think this is bad, you should see the journal they gave us at our pre-deployment briefing.

COMPLETELY BLANK.

Anyway, if you are doubting the news stations reporting that the U.S. is pulling out of Iraq, don't.

We have living proof.

HE'S HOME!!!! TWO months early!!

Christmas came early to The Gutter this year...

and Halloween was complete.

So by the time you read this,
he'll be neck deep in his "honey do" lists and I'll be looking through a garage full of unmarked boxes for the Christmas decorations. Don't pity him, he's got the easier job...

She Says I Says

She says, "I can fix my own hair"

 I says, "Not today you don't".

She says, "I fixed my hair for the party".

I says (yes, I know this is not grammatically correct), "Fine, but I pick the clothes." The face paint was a bonus.

She says, "I'm ready to go!"

Luckily we're not actually going anywhere.


My style choices...

 

Her style choices

I'm accutely aware that one day she will be stronger than me. I says,  "Heaven help her when she hits the teenage years!"

Just Roll With It

School children fight over my packed lunches. They queue for a possible glimpse of what I may have created on the day. It's distracting for my poor children who just want to eat their healthy, delicious lunch.

Not so much.

In truth, it's taken us years to come up with a lunch that doesn't come home and hide itself for a rather unpleasant discovery weeks later. Peanut butter and jam is NOT a delicacy in this country and Gogurts are enough to elicit lunch-time harrassment.
My kids just want to fit in and I want them to eat, so I have done my best to make lunches that don't scream "AMERICAN AT THE TABLE!".

The walking skeleton we call A1 has recently insisted that all sandwiches be made on rolls, not sliced bread, because "That's what everyone else brings". It's cheap, less waste, so I caved.

On Sunday, I realized that we had no bread, no rolls for Monday's lunch.

I'm adamant we don't shop on Sunday, which is ironic considering what all we do on the day (but that's my choice that affects me, not some poor employee that's required to work on the day because business is hopping).
This creates a problem in a country that strictly oversees what preservatives goes into foods-- no bread that lasts three weeks over here. You may get three days, if you move it often and keep your house below 62 degrees.
That means I shop on Saturday for Monday's lunch.  But, other people schedule birthday parties, football matches and then there's lie-ins (haha) on Saturday, so sometimes I can't drag myself forget to shop.

Everyone got a hot dinner on Monday. 
That little oversight cost me £8.40 ($13.20)!!

Later in the evening, the little ones and I sat on the side of a football pitch, in the cold and in the wind for an hour and a half of training.  An hour and a half in the cold is just long enough to make me forget I needed to stop off to buy bread on the way home.


Because of that mistake, today I got up with the roosters and BAKED crusty rolls from scratch (or really close to it- prepackaged rolls from the freezer are scratch, right?).
I pulled the hot, delicious little treasures from the oven and let them cool to just the right temperature. Stacked with thin-sliced roast beef and wrapped loosely to preserve the crustiness of the roll, I knew I had redeemed my error. 

What a Mom! What a yummy treat!


It was after school, as I was distributing chores, Skeleton Boy announces:

"I didn't really eat my roll. I sold it".






I'm going to sell him, that's what I'm going to do...

Dysfunctional Fruit (Great British TV)

Blogging vs Life

Hello? (tap tap) Is this thing working?

There's a perfectly good reason for a silent blog. When I discover what it is, I'll share it with you.
I'm not sure where all of my blogging time has gone. I live a typically average, boringly-common day. All of my kids are now in school, so I should be overwhelmed with free time.

Maybe I should keep a log and see where my time goes...

Me, yesterday: "Does everybody have everything they need for tomorrow?" "J2, Rugby gear? A1, homework? A2, book?" etc... (repeated several times from 4.00 to bedtime)

Me again at bedtime: "Does everyone have everything--a full uniform?"

All answer "yes".   

Look at all of that spare time! Such efficient, organized children!

This morning, J2 says, "Did you wash my Rugby top?" (huh?! What Rugby top? The one under your bed???)

A1 is walking around with a blank piece of paper asking if we have any photos... at 8.01. Bus picks up at 8.05.
Me, unpleasantly: "No way! You don't have time for that now!  I asked you over and over yesterd..."

he folds the paper in half and rips it.

Me, shouting, because it's what I excel at: "What are you doing???"

Him: "It doesn't have anything on it"

Me: "It's a perfectly good piece of paper--MY computer paper!"

so he rips it again, and then slams the kitchen door.

I resist the urge to feed him to lions. Only because there are none in the immediate vicinity.

A1 leaves for school in a foul mood, because his mother wouldn't let him do his homework.


Miss Ky now can't find a white uniform shirt. 

So, I go out to the garage (where we now have to keep the dryer) for a white shirt and think, "It's time to put up my Great Pumpkin sign that Jenni hand painted just for me" (I keep it hanging on a hook inside the garage just waiting for the "Halloween is near!" clearance). This is what greets me in the garage:

??? huh ???

This was NOT here when the homeowner proudly showed me all of his handy work building this garage

someone "helped" with the color

It's not even 8.30 am yet.


I could also have blogged during that first week after we moved in with all of the spare time I have. I could have given daily reports and informative advice such as:

Never leave a hand towel hanging partially out of a sink if you are going to leave the tap on. The towel acts as a siphon and the bathroom floor will soon be soaked. Well, maybe not "soon" but if one leaves the tap on undiscovered say, all night long, there could be a mess.

and golden advice such as:

Never stack precious photo albums in a cardboard box while moving, but most importantly, don't put that cardboard box in a place where children might flood an upstairs bathroom and water could possibly come through the floor/ceiling into that box. And just a heads-up, page protectors are absolutely NO GOOD when the scrapbook albums are in standing water.  



AND: 

Never vacuum dead wasps. They stink. For a long time. Maybe even forever.



If you tell children, "Oh, how lovely, we have an apple tree. One day I will make an apple pie..."

while you are moving in...


They will pick all of the apples off of the tree for you. 

While you are moving in.




Maybe I watch too much TV. Maybe that's where my  blogging time went.
I finally watched an episode of The Middle.  It was the one where Frankie (Patricia Heaton) accidentally eats toenail clippings and runs away from home.

I get it.

And it wouldn't take a Dorrito bag containing toenails to push me to it either... usually a typically average morning like today would suffice.