Anybody who knows me knows that if you want to insult me, just tell me that I have short eyelashes. I DO have short eyelashes, but I don’t need to be TOLD about it all the time. My friend Brooke (hi Brooke!) has the longest eyelashes in the history of the world. I try not to hold it against her. And I don’t know HOW Honor ended up with loooong eyelashes, maybe he’s not really mine? Eden’s are way longer than mine too.

Anyway, my super mascara. The nice thing about being an Avon lady is that I get to try new products before they become available in the catalogue. Last week I ordered in some new mascara called False Lash Effect. I love it. Most people (including Brooke) can tell the difference. We’re talking tenths of millimeters here, but still… longer is longer. I’m impatiently waiting for the day they can do eyelash implants. But until then, I’m happy with my new mascara, I’m glad Honor hasn’t lost it (yet).

EDIT: Ok, I now realized that I already wrote about this awhile back. Oh, well, now you know how obsessed I am.

My friend Sarah had her baby boy yesterday. 8lbs 7 oz. Congratulations Kevin and Sarah!

Today is going to be a wild day. I’m so sad that I won’t be able to make it up to the hospital to see the new baby. Since Jim’s gone, I have no one to watch the kiddos while I run up there. I’ll have to wait till he comes home. boo. But today is going to be so crazy, I don’t know when I’d get to go visit anyway.

I have to be at the church at 9am. Now to most people 9am, is not a big deal. To me it is. Well, to just me, it’s not. To me with Eden and Honor it is a big deal. By 7am we have to be up. I have to throw both of them into the shower with me. It will be a huge ordeal in which I chase at least one naked kid through the house with the lotion bottle.

Then I have to try to do my hair. I’ve got to lock myself in the bathroom so somebody doesn’t get pushed onto the curling iron again. During that time, at least one, probably two children will be banging on the door. Or one will be getting into my makeup while the other spills cereal all over the kitchen floor. No, wait. The same one will get into my makeup and then go spill cereal all over the kitchen floor while the other one bangs on the door telling me about said childs cereal spilling.

After that I’ll have to do my makeup. This will take some time because first I will have to locate my make up. My eyeshadow and powder will have rolled under the bed. My new super lengthening mascara (well talk about my eyelash fetish another time) will be in the huge decorative pot in the hallway. And probably I will find my eyeliner in the bottom of the heating duct. (You think I’m joking. I’m not.)

Are you starting to see why 9am is freaking early?

Anyway, the reason why I’m going to (try my hardest to) be there at 9am is because we’re giving away free pizza to the nearby high schoolers during lunch. We’ve got to get there early to make the signs we will hold up to direct the high schoolers to the pizza.

After all this, I’ve got to do all my regular youth group stuff… planning games, etc. I’m tired just thinking about it. And also, maybe because it’s 12:44 am… I need to go to bed. Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t find myself at 8am arm deep in the heating duct, sifting through the lint gathered in the bottom, trying to find my eyeliner.

I just got this email from Joelene

(It was not intentional, that’s just how my life is, Kix everywhere.)

Jim made it to L.A. ok. I think he’s having a good time, as good as 3 days of training can be. I’m trying to talk him into making a trip to Ikea. There’s so much stuff that I’ve been drooling over that I WANT IT ALL!!!!! I do have to get a new desk though, Jim took mine to the office because it matched the desks they had down there. I think I just want something like this but with different legs.

I also want two of these arm chairs and this dining table set in the clear lacquered pine. I want two of the half rounds and one of the rectangles. Here are some cool chairs and so cheap! I also like these shelves. Oh and I’ve got to have lighting. How about these?

All of that would only be 740 bucks. Not bad huh? I heart Ikea!!!

Ok, now onto something that’s of interest to you. The scarf swap! I send out everyones packages on Saturday.

Here they are all lined up.

and here’s what I did with my squares. I made a knitting bag.

the back

and as soon as I feel it’s safe to get my sewing machine down (safe from Honor that is) to sew a liner, I’ll add these two squares to the inside as pockets.

Also, my friend Sarah is now TWO weeks over due with her second son. Keep your fingers crossed for her, she will be induced tomorrow if nothing happens beforehand. I can’t imagine how crazy she’s got to be going!

I know that this past week has been a lot of me saying how bad things are. It’s been a really awful week and I appreciate all the support I’ve received. When things get so crappy, it’s nice to know there are people out there pulling for me.

So this (I hope) will be my last, “the world is ending” post.

Honor broke my computer last night. As I type it looks like I’m looking through a broken windshield. He slammed his head into the closed top of my lap top which shattered the LCD screen. I love my mac, but you’d think they’d make their laptops with a little more fortitude. So I’m super frustrated. I feel as though I’ve tried really hard to protect my computer, it was just one of those fluke things that I couldn’t see coming. And I’m frustrated that it seems like he destroys everything.

Here’s to next week being a happy one. One in which I don’t want to lock my children in a padded room and throw away the key. Jim leaves Sunday for LA and won’t be back until Thursday. I’m trying not to worry how I’m going to survive 5 days without his help.

Yesterday was an awful day. Our teenager called to tell me that she thought she should move out of our house. When I pressed the issue, I found out that her mom had signed her out of school. She dropped out of school. Since I didn’t want to have the whole conversation on the phone, I told her to come home so we could talk about it. Then I hung up and freaked out. What was I going to do? I tried to get ahold of Jim, but I knew that he had a meeting scheduled for that time of day. So I called Josh, the youth pastor at our church. He said that he’d come over and help me talk to her.

The hardest thing about teenagers is getting to the heart of what their problem is. I think she, especially, has a hard time talking to us because she’s afraid of being vulnerable. Every person in her life has abandoned her and I think she’s just tired of getting hurt. I’m not sure that’s the total reason why she dropped out of school, but I know part of it is a test of our steadfastness. Our conversation with Josh was cut short because she was very angry and insulting. I can only take so much and after a particularly mean insult, I got up and walked away. I know that she was just trying to be mean, but it did really hurt.

But it all boils down to the fact that we’re NOT going to give up on her. I think she wants us to, but we won’t. It would certainly be easier and we really considered just being done, but I don’t believe God brought her here for it to end this way. So Jim called her and had her come down to the office. He talked her into homschooling via correspondence. She also has to come work for him a few hours a day at the office.

So things ended up working out, but it’s all a matter of what she’s willing to do. We can’t force her to succeed, but we’re going to do everything but force her, to ensure that she does succeed.

It’s definetly spring in Grand Junction. I always love this time of year, the tulips are starting to poke out of the ground and green buds are starting to form on the globe willows. The neighbors forsythia bush will be blooming amazingly yellow blooms next week. Our trips to the park will become more frequent and on the weekends we’ll all walk down to main street and window shop, maybe eat lunch in a little cafe.

There are only two bad things about spring. First, spring means that the sweltering heat of summer will soon be upon us. Here in Grand Junction, it could be really hot by the beginning of May. Second, it means cockroaches. I HATE cockroaches. There’s really no way totally get rid of them. We have pest control come out and spray every year, but that means that we’re just finding dead cockroaches not live ones. At one point our house was so infested that they had come up from the basement and were found crawling up the couch and our bedroom door. Not to mention all over the bathroom. There were a few nights that I didn’t sleep because I was sure they were going to get in the bed.

I’m so paranoid of it getting like that again, that as soon as I find a live one marching around, I call pest control. I hate to have poison sprayed in the house, but knowing Honor, he’d eat one and I’d have to dig it out of his mouth. I might just die if I had to do that. Jim insists that our kids will not be afraid of bugs. (But, I think deep down, Jim’s creeped out by cockroaches too.) He wants to bring praying mantis’ in our house so the kids can pet them. I’m fine with the kids not being afraid of bugs, as long as he doesn’t expect me to pet the bugs too.

Edit: Because I haven’t posted a picture in awhile. Here’s Honor sitting in the doll house.

I’m writing this as Eden sings along to a Charmin Ultra commercial. I think her hour a day television allotment needs to be decreased.

Yesterday I made Empanadas, from Martha Stewart Everyday Food. Those of you who read my weekly menus know that I LOVE my Everyday Food magazine. There have been very few recipes from the magazine that I haven’t liked. Unfortunatly, Empanadas were one of them. To me they tasted like Sloppy Joe Pockets. I HATE, I LOATHE sloppy joes. I was very disappointed because I spent a lot of time on the Empanadas. Friday I made the filling and yesterday I finished them up by making the dough and filling them. I baked half of them and froze the other half (so I get the pleasure of eating sloppy joe pockets again!!!!) Oh well, I guess Martha can’t be perfect.

Now that we have Tivo, I’ve been recording cooking shows. I love cooking shows. Everyday Food just started doing a show on PBS. What could be more perfect than watching my favorite cooking magazine on TV? I’ve also been watching Barefoot Contessa. It’s a little cheesy, but I really like Ina Garten’s cookbooks and any cooking show is worth watching.

Eden and I both hurt ourselves this past week. Somehow, I’m not exactly sure how, she burned her finger with the curling iron. She burned it really bad. I think what happened is that Honor pushed her into it. I always keep the curling iron in the sink while I’m doing my hair, so they can’t pull it down onto themselves. Well, Eden was standing up to the counter on the stool and Honor tried to climb up on the stool with her. That’s when she burned herself, but I’m not exactly sure how she got to the curling iron. Poor Baby. It’s burned in a place that I can’t put a bandaid on it, so I’ve got it all bandaged up with gauze and tape. She looks like a real invalid.

Saturday I was cutting a bagel when I sliced my finger really bad. It hurt like hell and made me really upset with myself for being so stupid. I’m still working on everyones scarves, but it’s really slowing me down to have a bandaged index finger. That’s the most upsetting part, not being able to knit efficiently!

Also, it seems that the spam filter that I installed on my blog blocked some of you from being able to comment. I deactivated it so please email me if you are still not able to comment.

So, the kids got me sick. Darn it. Honor is so….himself. He took the opportunity of me lying in bed today to “explore” the house. At one point he came to me covered in butter, carrying the turkey baster. Eden, on the other hand has been so sweet. She went and got me jammys and a diaper for Honor and she also brought me a bottle and the carton of soy milk, so I could fill it up for him. I can’t believe how big she’s getting. And luckily, I’m starting to feel better.