Surveying the damage

Inspecting for damage.

After breakfast this morning, the boys and I wanted to survey the damage from the storm. I spent the night in the boys' room since it was too noisy in mine to fall asleep, so I was expecting something to be wrecked or overturned outside. We found nothing damaged other than a post missing from our fence. Lukas did delight in finding different nicks in the wall that he attributed to the hurricane (but were really the result of the kids playing in the house over the last 3 years).

Best and easiest way to get kids to eat veggies. Luke demolished his.

 After discovering that nothing was really wrong, the desire to get some rain boots hit me. I would take the boys out to play in the rain, but it's cold and unpleasant when my feet get soaked. So, I headed to Target. While I sadly didn't find any rain boots I did find Dr. Bronner's Baby Soap that I've been looking for for a long time!! The store has always been out, so I picked up a bottle while I had the chance.

Yippee! Expensive, but worth it.

 The other super cool awesome thing that happened was that I picked up an area rug to cover the front entryway since it's been getting awfully muddy and gross. The rug was tucked into a $12.99 shelf, but rang up at $24.99 at the register. I that I didn't want it at that price and that it must've been in the wrong section, buuut a supervisor walked by and gave me the rug for $12.99! She said I probably had the price right, and if not, that it was their fault for not having it in the right section. LOVE that attitude ;)

My new rug.. the picture doesn't do it justice :)

Anywho, Justin may be on a late flight home tonight, but it is space-a and military air, so I don't have a ton of confidence in him arriving home this evening.

The rest of the day should be spent eating shrimp and other random stuff I've been cooking up.

Frankenstorm

 Friday evening we went to the library for movie night to do something special. They have popcorn and give out capri suns, which are a very special treat for the boys. The movie was Coraline and it was kind of creepy and a little scary for a kid's movie. Both of the boys did great sitting through it and neither seemed scared.. I am getting a little weirded out by Luke's recall abilities though, so I'm going to be a lot more conscious about filtering what he hears. I had some talk radio on the other day and during a break there was a news segment during which suicide bombers were mentioned. So, he hands me a drawing that he did today (Monday) of him as a good guy shooting a bad guy who he called a bomber man..

 Saturday we visited Summer's Farm with our friend Carrie and her daughter KK. Carrie's husband is also on the drill team, so we're good company on these weekends without the guys. I enjoyed the kettle corn and doughnuts again this year and the kids had a great time.

Sunday I spent the day doing laundry since I had mountains of it and didn't want to be without clothes if the power went out. Also, I did a pretty fair amount of cooking of chicken and steak and stuff to have pre made in the fridge even though we've got a gas stove and can cook when we need to. I splurged on some k-cups for my keurig recently and have been enjoying my morning coffee that way, but my backup tea kettle and french press are good-to-go :)

Windy and cold, but not dangerous here yet.. Around 2pm.

Today we've been hanging around the house since it's a little too yucky to go out. Justin's flight was cancelled, but I'm happy. I wasn't looking forward to him flying into the awful weather here.. I need to stop writing blog posts and watching episodes of Revenge at the same time since I can't write well with divided attention ;)

Mousecapades

Two different sizes of poop = two different kinds of mice

 If you've been following my Facebook, you know that we've lately been dealing with mouse problems.

 Upon return from my trip to NY, I found poop in every room and closet in my house except for the master suite. The worst were under the boys' beds where they had left nuts/raisins and also in the linen closet. In complete disgust I went on about an 9 hour cleaning frenzy and cleaned the house from top to bottom including the garage.

 The lovely grey house mice have been coming into my house via the cut out around our gas line behind the stove in the kitchen. I have so far been greeted three times by these mice in our pantry/playroom. Each time they escaped me when I tried to trap them. Of course they surprised me and I am shaking from adrenaline while I'm trying to catch them. I first baited the traps with honey, but ran out and got peanut butter after discovering that the mice were just ignoring my traps.

Black locked poison trap. Where the foam board thing is is where the hole used to be.

Sticky pads. There's also another in the garage.

 TO MY UTTER HORROR: I heard scratching coming from my wall in the laundry room while taking the dogs out around sunset and looked to discover huge chunks of plaster knocked down around the dryer vent. I quickly stuffed steel wool in there after banging on the wall and the scratching noise ceased. Well, I was lying in bed unable to sleep and decided to just go listen one more time to make sure the mouse was gone. As I walked by the dryer I saw something scurrying out of my peripheral vision!!! I looked and the thing had just chewed around the steel wool at the bottom. I stuffed two pairs of pants in the doors to block escape routes and grabbed a box to trap the mouse. Eventually a gigantic BROWN deer mouse ran out from under the dryer and scurried all over the laundry room. The box I had grabbed had holes in it that I didn't realize were there, so I guess it's ok that I was too freaked to trap the thing.. It hid under the dryer again so I decided to just go to bed and stuff more things under the door to keep it out of the main house. In there morning there was no more poop, but there was steel wool pulled out indicating he had beat feet soon after I left.

The next morning I went to Loew's and bought some animal repellant which I sprayed liberally around the vent. AND it stunk like rotten fish and garlic, but so far no more scratching or steel wool pushed out.

Finally, on Thursday, a week after initially calling to report a problem, pest control showed up to lay down two poison traps, sticky pads, and stuff steel wool down the gas pipe. I think he almost laughed when he saw my setup around the dryer vent, because he said that wasn't going to cut it. I'm currently waiting for maintenance to come and seal this as it was too big for pest control to do. Also, I'm not suspicious that there have been mice coming and going for awhile since I've always seen a little plaster here and there knocked out and chalked it up to the dryer moving. Never huge chunks of plaster though, so I'm thinking that this is our first year being visited by a deer mouse.

Die mouse, die!

Lukas making mustard-glazed chicken thighs

I have been a little too distracted by this mouse thing, so I don't think we're going to do Halloween this year in the trick-or-treating sense. Plus, there's supposed to be a Frankenstorm or something so I guess it's good we're staying in.

Other than that, no news! Justin's off to Georgia for another TDY and he told me that drill team already has their dates picked out for the next "camp" which is the 30 days of bonding they all do at a base far away every year around March. He went last year and that was not a good time for me. I'm hoping all these little trips away have broken me in for this next one. Plus, he was gone almost all of September and I survived that..

Until next time!

Balanced Bites Seminar + A whirlwind trip home

The boys in the fall leaves outside mom & dad's house

 On Friday I drove up to NY as I had a seminar in Rochester to attend. This was my first nutrition seminar and I had an A-W-E-S-O-M-E time learning.. and I think the woman who ran the seminar bored the crap out of the people who signed up and thought it was going to be a simple this-is-how-you-lose-weight or fuel athletes type of seminar. It was run by a woman named Diane Sanfillipo, author of Practical Paleo and blog writer at Balanced Bites. She's a big traditional foods (organ meats, bone broth, cod liver oil, etc etc.) advocate. Robb Wolf (the big guy at the moment in paleo) is putting together a weekend-long nutrition certification in the works that I hope to someday attend too!

Outside of CrossFit Rochester.. seminar host.

Practical Paleo! Autographed!

I also had the pleasure of watching the Obama: 2016 movie - which is now available at quickflix kiosks. It was a bit slow-moving, but VERY eyeopening. You'll learn some things about your president that will shock you.

I also was able to go to bible study at Justin's parent's house, which was great. I get to learn, the kids get to see their cousins, and I get to chat with all the Lemmons/Martins/Shofkoms/Burns :) It's great to catch up face to face.. there's something lacking in digital communication.

Justin was off of work Monday, but I saw another mouse running from the pantry to under the couch in our toy room so I spent the morning cleaning instead of going out. Justin also was feeling sick that day, so that was a further reason to stay in. 

I watched the last presidential debate last night.. not sure why since I always end up biting my nails or unable to fall asleep thinking about the direction the country is going or going over what each of the candidates said. Glad that was the last one! I've already cast my vote, so I wasn't watching as an undecided.

Anyway, sorry for all the broken thoughts! Just trying to type this up quickly before I forget to.

The drive back from Rochester. I love the fall leaves ~

Happiness in a Cup

 For Luke's "homeschool" today, we have been reading The Rag Coat. It's a story about a girl in Appalachia who loses her coal-mining dad to black lung disease. We talked about coal and then read a book called My Grandfather's House, which is a book about a boy who loses his grandfather. I think this kind of backfired because Luke thought I was telling him that his grandpa was going to die and got a little upset. We moved on quickly to the tune of Devin chirping "I'm going to die!" I guess I'm not very good at explaining this kind of stuff to kids and won't bring it up for awhile.

Cleaning up under the stove.

 After a walk the boys "helped" me clean up under the stove and Lukas made this nifty sign for any mice that dare enter our house again. It says "NO" in the bottom right corner for NO MICE! Luke's idea.

Also, Justin got home and was craving something desserty so I made what he called: Happiness in a Cup. I get the impression that people think I eat pretty strictly. Here's some proof that's not the case.

It's a nuked chocolate brownie in a cup using this recipe: Chocolate Mug Brownie , a couple scoops of ice cream, syrup and cool whip. Pretty yummy. I did decrease the amount of sugar in the brownie mostly because I knew the ice cream would be sweet and I don't enjoy my teeth aching from sweetness.

Anyway, time for Arrow and Modern Family! Much more interesting than the debates last night. I already sent in my ballot, so I'm not really sure I care much more to watch any more election politics.

The Mouse Attack

 Today I did much more than I set out to do today: I got our comforter cleaned at the laundromat.. Devin had a little accident in our bed and the comforter won't fit into our washing machine.

I tried a new Paleo ranch dressing recipe from Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook. It was kid approved and pretty tasty. Not an exact taste match for the original, but I liked it.

It was a mix of a homemade mayonnaise, coconut milk, dill, parsley, salt.. and I think that's it.

 I also made an apple crisp that I wasn't impressed with. It turned out more like a dry apple oatmeal. BUT, the exciting thing that happened was when I heard a squeaking after we put the kids to bed and settled down to watch an episode of Game of Thrones before the presidential debate.

I kept hearing it and walking into the kitchen. Justin told me to just forget it, but the idea that there could be a mouse near my food really bothered me.. so I started exploring and as soon as I pulled out the drawer under the oven I saw it!! And screamed! Justin hopped up and killed it. Going to pick up some traps tomorrow ew!

Time to watch the debate!!

Cute, but disease-ridden. Also very dead now..

The Whole Summer + Some Fall

Me with a mug from the very first Starbucks in Seattle, Washington

 It happened again: I let this blog go for months without an update. The summer was a blur..

Over the summer we took a couple trips up to NY to visit with family. Devin showed his wild and brave side and Lukas has continued to grow more and more independent.

We continued with much of our same preparations to open a business: several CrossFit certifications and many many nights talking business and logistics.

I have been trying to cultivate an interest in CrossFit, but I really have no natural inclination or desire to do it. I think this is unfortunate for Justin since he's turned into a big-time fitness enthusiast. Left to my own devices I would probably just read books all day. One other thing we've been discussing is personality types. He is the type that feels energized being around people, while I'm the type that feels drained. My own friends will attest to this here as I don't often go out to hang out and I prefer to be one-on-one. Give me a secluded house, a garden and some books.. or a good show ;) I think this is why it takes me at least a year after every PCS to make good friends.

At a CrossFit Bolling get-together.

Lukas, my super good kitchen helper

Justin has recently spent a lot of time away from home. Much of September was spent away and most weekends are gone. I knew going into the drill team job that this would be the case. Happily the boys are a bit older and I get overwhelmed a lot less than I used to when he would work ultra-long days during parade season or the very busy Spring/Summer months in Arlington when it seems like every official wanted to do a wreath laying ceremony. I'm not meaning to diminish the importance of their job here, it's just hard to remember in the moment.

One neat thing that Justin has started doing is bringing me home a mug from each StarBucks shop he visits. It's turning into a tradition now and in a weird way I look forward to getting my new mug when I hear he's going TDY to a new place. One other neat thing is the closeness the boys and I have. There are moments I know they act out extra because dad is away, but it seems like overall we help each other deal with missing dad by loving on each other more.

The boys doing FaceTime with Justin while he's away

Justin has been awesome through it all: making sure to call or text often and being understanding when I'm D-O-N-E with drill team and tdy's and him being away. It makes me wonder if I keep getting this test to see if someday I'll pass it............... ;)

In any case, it's kind of brought into sharp focus that life has to be lived one day at a time. There's no "I'll be happy when xyz happens.." because usually xyz doesn't happen when you want it to or at all. You really have to find joy in each day. Sometimes it seems like waves in an ocean.. sometimes those waves are like tidal waves, but then they recede and things are going fine until the next wave happens. Maybe I'm rambling, but this is sort of how I'm coming to peace with our reality. It's just way too easy to let resentment build up and steal your happiness. 

Dad holding a sleeping Devin at Iron Kettle Farm

Justin reading to the boys on his first or second day home after the September TDY

Playing at the Playseum in DC during a goodbye trip with the Kendalls!

I have been exploring homeschooling with Lukas by following a series called Five in a Row. It's actually quite a bit of work. I don't think this one is really sustainable with my Type-A personality.. if we do do homeschooling, I'd rather have a program already put together that I know for sure meets the requirements for age-appropriate learning without a ton of preparation work. Lukas has fun "doing school" in the mornings.

Something else we've been doing is trying to find some direction as to what to do within the next year or so. We have many choices in front of us and sometimes it's hard to know which direction is the right one to go. After months and months and months of discussion, I've finally come to the conclusion that whatever happens, I don't care as long as I'm with my boys and my husband. If you spend too much time thinking about a future that might not even come to be as you like, you will lose precious moments now that will certainly never come back. 

Dream house

Promise the next post will be more of a what's-going-on post than a me-me-me philosophical post.