The Barter Bar

So, in my rural Utah location there is a call in classifieds radio show. So every morning on one of the local radio stations you can call in and let all the faithful listeners know that you're selling your old tires, or goats, or spinning wheel. Perfect for getting rid of my moving boxes I thought. But here's the thing, it's really hard to get through. People are just burning up the line trying to get the word out on their junk. So, I had to resort to email, which they read on air. Then my line was burning up with people who wanted to come and get my free boxes.
The lucky recipient? My garbage man. Yup. He said, "Oh, I know where you're at I pick up your garbage on Thursday mornings." When he came we had a nice conversation about trash, you know, how my neighbors forget to put out their garbage, or the lady who lived her before me didn't produce much. Turns out that's what living in a small town's like.

Alternatively

Alternatively, I can just release the J-vac.

You're Gonna Be So Jealous

If you are well over 30 and/or have multiple children you're so jealous:

That is the central vac intake located underneath my kitchen cabinets, which means I don't need a dustpan. I just sweep all the crumbs, cheerios, and dried mac right over in front of it, flip the switch and it all gets sucked away. So, until the boys realize how cool it is and suck up something sticky and it ceases to work I am just going to enjoy it... it and the rest of our new house.

The Party

We did a combined birthday party for my boys this year. It was supposed to be N's turn but since he wasn't too pleasant on his actual birthday,

I decided three-year-olds aren't ready for mass present reception and we went with the combined party, no gifts.

Since we have so many boxes I decided we'd build a box city at the party. This is part of the reason I couldn't just call it off after N's shenanigans at the family party. This was the perfect plan to re-use my boxes (and be forgiven by mother earth for the carbon footprint of those pants...maybe).

Pre-party, land development, - with cousin D
Cousin D really got into the whole thing
Creating the building of their choice

The nice thing about moving so much, is that you only have to be slightly creative once, then you can do it over and over...
N loved using the glue

city at completion

It really got fun when we pulled the basket of matchbox cars out.

Defending the Galaxy (again)

I made my boys use the same costumes as last year (they were great costumes), plus we had an important addition:

Nacho is a lot easier to throw together than Chewbacca

A full range of anticipatory emotions

Sometimes I Worry

Sometimes I worry:
that I'm doing this parenting thing all wrong
that the tone in our voices and in our house is too critical
that I spend too much time organizing and cleaning and party planning
that while I worry, I don't seem to be able to change

Posting on My Mind

Frequently things happen and I think: I've got to blog about that. The last few weeks have been filled with such moments. Here they are all at once, pace yourself:

Oct. 7 - Biggest D@&! Carbon Footprint
I unpacked a pair of pants I bought from Old Navy.com for S before we left for India, not realizing that clothes are cheap there. They never fit him while we were there so I packed them in our shipment, not realizing it would be a year before we saw those things again. I looked at them today: Made in India. Which means that $7 pair of pants were made in India shipped to the US, flown back to India, packed, stored, and shipped back to the US. Now they are too small. Sorry Mother Earth.

Oct. 4 - Greatest Friends Ever
A number of my friends from Dallas helped me pack up (nearly two and a half years ago now!). The messages they left on the boxes had me laughing all day. AND MISSING THEM!

Oct. 3 - Ah, General Conference Weekend

We love General Conference Weekend

Oct. 1 - We Did It!

We closed yesterday!

Which means our last 11 months of living like this:

Are pretty much over. Thank goodness for the minivan, eh?
Sept 26 - Fall

We are between houses. My mother in law sold her house, and so, she was finally able to get us out of her basement. Our new house is under contract and we are waiting for it to close. We should be moving in Oct. 1!! In the meantime we are living in the family cabin. It's about a 45 minute drive to school and work and I was kind of dreading these two weeks, but it's been beautiful and quite relaxing.

Sept. 23 - Baby J

Sept. 14 - My Condolences to Facebook

Facebook here I come. I got a new job at church, I'm going to be working with the teenage girls. I didn't like teenage girls when I was a teenage girl (my mom says that's not that unusual and that's part of the problem with teenage girls). So, it looks like to communicate with them I'll have to get a facebook account. Of course, they are likely to doubt my cred, what with my brandspankin' new account and all.

As I've shared, I'm about the latest adopter around and my joining/buying/using usually coincides nicely with the sharp decline in popularity of said fad. My condolences to facebook. Good thing they got the movie out when they did.

Don't bother looking for me yet, I haven't even had a chance to blog over the last few weeks.