A Level One day

I had a Level One day.
What is Level One, you ask?

For some reason, I categorize levels of housecleaning in my head, and always know what "level" I'm at.

So, to me, Level One accomplishments are this:

1. All dishes done
2. All laundry done
3. Floors swept

When I have these three things accomplished, I feel like my house is pretty clean. I feel organized and in charge. I can walk freely about my house without a whole meal sticking to the bottoms of my feet.

Level Two is not as often achieved. Maybe more like once every 3-4 weeks. Level Two would include the above cleaning, PLUS:

1. Vacuuming
2. Mopping
3. All bathrooms cleaned

This happens if I have lots of extra time on my hands, and maybe some friends are coming in from out of town. Or, if my house just smells like pee so fiercely I can't stand it.

Finally, there's Level Three. This one adds:

1. Dusting
2. Windexing of visibly smeared up windows, glass tables, etc..

This one is usually reserved for visits from the Pope or Elton John. When I hit Level Three clean, I'm untouchable. Am I a perfect mother and wife? YES! Check! My kids have clean faces and are sitting nicely with their hands folded, a roast is in the oven, and my husband is sitting in a recliner with his feet up, a newspaper, and a scotch on ice, while I'm wearing a tidy housedress, apron and heels.

Don't get me wrong.
I love a clean house as much as the next fella.
I know my husband feels much more relaxed when he comes home to a clean house.
But it just takes SOOO MUCH TIME to keep it that way, and it feels like all I do is clean.
So, I do my best. I try to maintain at Level One as much as possible, and do the quick 5 pm hustle pickup to make it look as acceptable as possible before Rob gets home from work.

Rob said I'm either feast or famine with this, and then asked, Why is that? And I answered, I don't know. Either it's all nice and picked up, or it looks like my house has been ransacked for jewels and electronics while we were out. I'm not sure why. My motivations levels just vary wildly from day to day.

So, we'll see what today brings. Maybe Level Two is in my Tuesday future. Wish me luck!

As if

As if Luke hasn't had enough of a party going on in his mouth this week, we had even more action.

He lost his first tooth! At age 4!

Before; "Look mom, I can push it down at a 90 degree angle! (Note silver teeth in background!)

After (with peanut butter on face for extra effect)

Note roadrash on forehead and nose from fall this weekend

I guess it really shouldn't be ALL that surprising. These here Miller boys are all grown up like in the teeth department. Jack got his first tooth at 3 months. Great news for the nursing mother! And, Jack also lost his first tooth at 4. But still, Luke somehow just seems so young to be without a tooth!

Well, this will only add to his "I'm having a rough day/I'm on a bender/Does anyone know how I got home last night? look that he is sporting now. With the mouth full of silver, the missing tooth, and the roadrash face, he certainly looks like he's been around the block a few times and you better not look at him the wrong way 'cause he's not messing around.

And, I have to say, I hate the silver. I knew I would. And if I can teach anyone a lesson in judgement here, learn from me. If you see a little kid with a mouthful of silver, don't judge. Because I have done it myself. As in, sees kid's mouth and thinks to self, WOW! Look at that kids mouth! They must drink pop/eat candy/never brush! Boy, am I glad I feed my kid healthy so he won't look like that! But you know what, sometimes, it just happens. So even though your kid has never had a pop, only gets juice for special occasions, and doesn't eat gummy vitamins or fruit snacks so they won't stick in their teeth, they still might end up with this. And eventually, I know I'll be ok with it. 

One of my favorite things

Last night, I got to do one of my absolute most favorite things—pick wild black raspberries, or blackcaps as we always called them. I have so many memories of doing this at my grandparents. I'd get up really early, since Grandma said you had to get there before the birds got them all, and dress in long sleeves and pants. You would take an ice cream pail to hold them in, both because it was convenient with the handle to hang over your arm as you picked, as well as it was pretty large and would hold a lot. And then, the hunt was on. The thing is, the ones you find easily are never that ripe or full. You have to really dig down deep to find those beautiful clusters of berries hiding underneath the leaves and vines. Once you start, you just can't stop. I'm sure she wondered what she would ever do with all of those berries once we picked them and I guess we really didn't think much of that, we just wanted to pick them.

I didn't expect to find too many ripe ones yet, so I was surprised when I was able to fill up this bowl:

I was assaulted by mosquitos ( I have about 20-25 bites— right through my pants!), brushed against nettles, earned purple fingers, got a sliver and stuck by more thorns than I can count, and sweated like a pig in that hour, but man, was it fun.

On tomorrow's to do list—make freezer jam. Don't I sound like a country girl now?

Whew, ok, finally catching up enough on my "to do" list to blog a bit more about my recent trip to Indiana. Despite the fact that all of our derrieress still had car seat indentations from North Carolina, the boys and I turned around and headed to Indiana to visit friends and family just days after returning. I basically had time to do laundry, mow, pay a few bills, and hit the grocery store before we were off again.

This is what Jack asked:
"Mom, how long will it take to get there?"
Me: "Oh, about 8 hours."
"Oh, well that's not bad! That's only one day!"

Is there anything wrong with this picture?

Let me just say, I did a horrible job capturing this trip with photos. I took all of 3. And, they were all taken at just one of the 4 places I stayed, sooooo, I'm so sorry if it appears skewed in any way but I just finally got smart enough towards the end of the trip to set my camera out on the counter.

3 of the 4 Kreiner boys and my two watching Tom and Jerry

Yeah, ok, so I always think pyramids and other silly poses like this cheerleading one are just funny, so here you go. My old euchre group together once again. And yes ,this pose was my idea.

Claudine and I

We started our trip at my Mom's for the weekend. It's really nice to just have a whole weekend to hang out and really have no plans, since our time together is often rushed by events or holidays. We lazed around outside all day in our own sweat and laughed as the boys jumped into the pool and wiped out. Mom made a nice dinner Saturday night and I was even able to go to church alone. Thanks Mom!

Next we went to my sister's, who remained remarkably calm in the face on an impending move in the next month. I raided her candy cupboards like normal, ate breadsticks from Pizza Express (yeah, now it's called Hotbox but that just doesn't feel right), and we just hung out and enjoyed each other's company. We entertained ourselves by playing tricks like changing the language on Jack's DS to Spanish to see if he'd notice next time he logged on, and we laughed so hard about it we almost peed ourselves. Seriously. This is what it comes down to sometimes. We just make our own entertainment.

Next, we were off to my old pal Claudine's. We have now approached the era that we have known each half of our lives. How awesome is that? She has 4 great boys and seems to stay incredibly calm throughout, though once my two loud boys were added the noise in that house was unbelievable. We had to go outside or move into another room just to hear ourselves talk. But seriously, 6 boys 7 and under, under one roof? What do you expect? Once again, Pizza Express breadsticks were enjoyed, beer was drunk, and my bloating factor was increasing by the millisecond but I was loving every minute of it. Thanks for hosting euchre and letting me see all of my very naughty friends again! It was a blast. I still don't have a friend yet in Iowa who will send a text beforehand saying "Let Rachel know I will be getting there soon and I'm not wearing a bra." What trash talkers you girls are and boy is it fun.

I rounded out my traveling circus show visiting with old neighbors, and seeing my beautifully glowing pregnant friend Allie. This girl knows southern hospitality like none other. We had delicious food which I still drool a little into my pillow thinking of, and it was fantastic to sit and talk for over 3 hours after the kids had gone to bed.

Thank you to all who put up with us so graciously. I always leave these trips reaffirming just how blessed we are to have such a strong and wide circle of friends and family. I love you all!

This is the longest day EVER!

In the spirit of Jack-ism's, I'd like to declare that this is the longest day ever. No, seriously, it is! In more ways than one! First of all, because, it actually is, which is both awesome and depressing at the same time. Sadly I seem to focus more on the fact that this means each day after will start getting shorter and shorter, leading to the end of summer, RATHER than the fact that it was just a long freakin' day of sunlight.

And, also, it was the longest day ever, because it started at 4:30 a.m. Well, more like every hour on the hour through the night. Luke had his dental surgery at the hospital today, so I woke up just about every hour looking at the clock and making sure I hadn't overslept. This needed to be done NOW, both because he has started to complain that these teeth hurt, and also because in a few short weeks, he'll turn 5, and insurance at that point thinks kids can "handle" these types of things without being put under, so it wouldn't have been covered anymore.

So, the poor fella had 4 baby root canals, 2 fillings, and 6 crowns put on. And let me tell ya, he was not a happy camper when he woke up from that. Thankfully, after a nap in the car on the way home he woke up a new man, though not interested in eating since his teeth hurt. Poor guy! It is so hard to feel that helpless.

If only I could figure out why his teeth went to pot, I'd feel much better. I wish they'd tell me he had a case of soft-teeth-easy-cavititis or some other condition which would instantly exonerate me from any guilt in relation to this but alas, no luck. I wish I would have started using fluoride toothpaste and rinse sooner. I wish I would have been more dilligent on teeth brushings instead of skipping because it was too big of a fight and I was too tired for it. I wish I didn't have to drag him to 4 dentist appointments to confirm this diagnosis, and actually believe that putting crowns on baby teeth was the only solution. But, despite all of this, I am glad to say it's over, he's almost back to himself, and geez, how easy will future appointments be if there's no teeth left to find cavities in? Let's find the happy here, right?

Coming soon to a computer screen near you,  a blog entry on my recent trip to Indiana. I'm just too exhausted now!

Holy Weedfest!

So, this is what my garden looked like when we got back from vacation:

HOLY WEEDFEST!

Can you even see the rows? My poor neighbor in charge of watering said at some point she just started watering everything because she couldn't tell what was what.

So, I have spent this whole week using whatever free time I could muster to attack those weeds. So, I finished half and hope you can tell which half I've worked on. If not, please lie, with all that you've got.

From the right to left, it's strawberries, asparagus, potatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce and green beans. In the foreground are sunflowers.

Aren't those chairs cute? As in, isn't it cute that we thought we'd just sit there and enjoy our beautiful garden? As if there wasn't always SOMETHING to be doing in the beautiful garden? AS IF— I haven't set butt in those chairs yet.

All 11 of the asparagus plants came up! This is what they look like now— kind of fern-like

The potatoes-yee hah!

Overall, though the weeding has been more than I anticipated, I am loving the way things are looking. However, the mosquitos are eating me ALIVE. I saw an ad for a clip-on mosquito repellent you wear on your waistband and I want to try it!

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I just need to give some props to my boys. We drove 9 hours on Saturday, and 15 HOURS on Sunday, to come home from North Carolina. And they never complained— once. I mean, most kids can't handle that. I am so blessed that they are great travelers. We have traveled from birth on, and they know how to do it. We hope that we are instilling the love of travel and adventure in them as we so love to travel. Good job boys.

Yeah, we had some of this goin' on

And yeah, we stopped at Steak and Shake. Kids eat free on the weekends— what can I say.

 So between a little DS, reading, looking out the window, and movie watching, they get by. And it's pretty amazing.

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Have you been missing Luke-ism's? He said today that his feet were sprinkling. That's right; they fell asleep. Isn't sprinkling a good description of how that feels?

A visit to the Outer Banks

We just returned from a great trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina with Rob's family. We had originally scheduled this trip for Gulf Shores, Alabama, where we'd vacationed 5 years ago, but with the uncertainty surrounding the Gulf oil spill, we felt we should switch gears about 3 weeks before the trip. I'd always been intrigued by this area, though I had to google to even figure out where exactly this area even was. We went online, found tons of beautiful and very well priced houses to choose from as it wasn't prime season yet, and we were off. Here's the house we rented:

The house was great, well furnished, and slept all 14 of us. It had 4 master suites with bathrooms, and lots of decks around the house.

The weather was wonderful, above average for the time of year, and not a drop of rain. We spent most days at the beach and then would come back to the house and use the pool, drink pina coladas, and just relax.

Poor Amber got fried the first day so she did lots of this

He was SO proud of himself! Steve fried them up at the end of the week.

Lots of these were made during the week

Some kite flying but it was pretty windy

We tried to do this as much as possible

We did a little bit of sightseeing but not as much as we'd thought we would. Once you get yourself on that beach it's hard to get back off...

Cape Hatteras lighthouse, the tallest in the U.S.

Luke was OBSESSED with these two. I mean OBSESSED. If he wasn't holding one of their hands or laying his head next to one of them he just wasn't happy. I was chopped liver all week.

and THESE two were ATTACHED at the hip like no other.

We had a really great time and it was so nice to be able to spend lots more time with Rob's family than you can fit in during a quick weekend trip.

And now, back to the reality of laundry, bills/mail, mile high grass and a van needing an oil change after driving almost 3000 miles in the last 10 days. But it's all so worth it for a good week of vacation, isn't it?