Told Ya So!

So, as I said in my previous post, Jeff is AMAZING at gift-giving. And knowing we are on a tight budget, he managed to do all his shopping at Fred Meyer, and all his research on About.com. So, he researched all the "things" that symbolize a third anniversary and here is what he got me (I'm going to quote from the card he wrote): The traditional anniversary gift for year #3 is leather (leather portfolio journal). Unlike our financial situation, leather represents the durability of our marriage. The modern gift is crystal or glass (glass vase and candle holder). Sorry I couldn't afford crystal because crystal, more than glass, is multifaceted and dazzling which is supposed to be a reminder of how as a couple in a meaningful marriage we can touch the lives of others which is definitely true of us. The gemstone is pearls. I found these darker fresh water pearls (pearl necklace and earrings) appealing because they are cool and look like something you would wear and I can see traces of jade in them. Jade is also the gem and color of the third year of marriage. I found a jade colored candle to put in your vase/candle holder because I couldn't find any fuschias, the 3rd anniversary flower. I love you. Thank you for putting up with me throughout the last 3 years. It will only get better. xoxo Jeff.
I mean, really? Could he be any more awesome?

As for me? Well, I got him a leather bookmark, a leather belt, a jade green workout shirt and black workout pants. Oh, and Godiva truffles. But his favorite gift? I picked out and printed a bunch of photos of different 1968 Ford trucks (his dream car!) and wrote "Jeff's Truck" on it. He loved it and is taking it to work so he can look at it every day and hopefully make that dream a reality soon!

Also, he cooked dinner (amazing pasta dish, potato and green bean dish, focaccia bread) and now we're off to eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream for dessert! What a nice anniversary!

Three Years of Wedded Bliss (for the most part!)

Jeff and M-L on our engagement day!

Today is our third anniversary! Jeff has this very annoying (and totally endearing) habit of doing "research" on anniversaries and getting gifts that go with the "theme" of the anniversary (example, last year it was "cotton" and "red" and I got red cotton towels, and white and red cotton t-shirts). Practical and thoughtful. So, I'm sure he did just an amazing job this year (and we talked about doing nothing since we don't have a budget for it), but of course he comes home with something - I don't know what yet because I wanted to wait till this evening to open gifts and celebrate with dinner. He's making salmon - yum! But, even though I got him a couple of things (this year it's "leather" and "jade" and no, I did not get him leather jade underpants like he suggested - ha!), I still feel like I am the WORST at gift-giving, I never have clever ideas, and all the things I'd really love to get him we can't afford!



So, Arlie made us cards this morning and they cracked me up. Besides the obvious spelling mistakes (Happy Anavurisry), here is what they said: (on my card) To M-L from Arlie. Happy Anavursiry. Who's Anavursiry Yours. I spelled Anavursiry very wrong next time I will ask. (inside) Happy Anavursiry (many times over, then...) Wow 3 years seems like a lot of years with a new man in your life o well that's just 3 yars of love most of the time JK love Arlie. Then, Jeff's card says: (on the front) Happy Anavursiry. I spelt annavursiry super wrong thats ok Im only 11. Wow 3 years of LOVE (written in a heart with fancy letters). Then, on the inside: (a picture of a heart with Jeff and I in it with "love" written all around). Happy Anavursiry Dad. I hope you enjoy M-L for the rest of your life and forever. Not that you don't enjoy her. Happy Anavursiry love your daughter Arlie. PRICELESS!!! :)



Ok, gotta run. Yoga, coffee, then I'm playing maid all day because my house is FILTHY!!! Dentist appts. later, then finally dinner and little celebration at home. Maybe a movie?

Jeff who?

I have NO IDEA how two posts showed up saying "Jeff"! I'm sure it was something stupid I did, but I have no recollection of it at all. Weird. Anyway, I don't even know what I would have been talking about because nothing earthshattering has happened to, with or by Jeff lately. Sorry, Jeff!

Anyway, I have been remiss in blogging. I think Facebook is to blame. I spend all my computer time on that and my email and don't have time to upload my photos and such on the blog. Plus, I think everyone who reads my blog is also on Facebook so uploading the photos twice is kind of a drag. But I will do it, it just seems to take me more time!

Kids started school today. Damn free education cost me a fortune. Between supplies, clothes and the actual costs of just GOING to school.....$500 for supplies, $600 for clothes, $160 for Hayley to register, checks for $6 and $7.50 for both Arlie and Harrison, and today I got a field trip form already which needed another $11.50 check. Such a money suck!!!

Turns out Harrison had NOTHING to wear. The kid had three pairs of shorts that fit. No jeans, no other pants at all. So, off we went to Target tonight and procured three pairs of jeans, one pair of athletic pants, a new pack of underwear, pack of white t-shirts for sleeping, three pairs of sleep pants, and a couple of t-shirts. He also needs new shoes, but apparently a size 7 1/2 in mens' shoes is impossible to find! Perhaps online..........

Poor Arlie picked out her whole outfit - pink and white shirt with hearts, skinny jeans, pink and white shoes to match, even matching nails (Hayley did them) and she wanted to show off her new hair so she tried to curl it a little. Ended up burning her chin pretty bad and now has an obvious mark! She was so bummed about it and embarrassed that people asked her about it! What a way to start 6th grade!

Hannah had a bunch of homework tonight. Hopefully she has better study habits this year! One of her teachers told the class "I don't care about your grade. Whatever you get doesn't affect me. Not my pay, not my effort, nothing. So, don't ask me to help you raise your grade." Wow. Ok.

Hayley starts tomorrow. I will be posting pics soon of the first day and also our great camping trip to River Meadows park!

The Good Things........

Just time for a quick update. Nothing much in the past few days except I'm SO TIRED! I swear I'm getting old. And menopausal. Wow. Hayley has been super busy with ASB stuff and registration today for jr. year. That cost me over $200 for ASB sticker, planner, yearbook, spirit gear, and pictures. Yikes. I checked the bank statement. Taking out the mortgage we'd have about $300 left over but, oops, we have $322 worth of bills to pay, plus we need a few groceries for camping (and never mind we have to EAT till the next paychecks come), and we have to pay the dogsitter for this weekend while we're camping! UGH! I am so sick of being broke. Oh well, story of our lives, right? Us and a zillion other people. Time to appreciate what we have. And go for experiences rather than things! I'm already thinking about "homemade" Christmas ideas.

Arlie came back tonight after two weeks away. She is so missed when she's gone and so happily received back into the fold of the family. The kids are glued to her side (well, Hannah and Harrison are, Hayley is glued to the TV!). It's so cute to see how sweet they are for at least a while after she comes back. Everyone is happy and no one is fighting. I love that immensely!! That's a good thing.

Kids gave me a fashion show tonight trying on clothes. That was a good thing, too. I ordered everything online from Old Navy, spent about $100 per kid (which was amazing for all we got) and most everything fit and was cute. They were happy and I didn't have to spend one minute at the mall with bored kids! Yay for online shopping. What a good thing! And love Old Navy.

We're going camping tomorrow! I'm really looking forward to it because we're going with our great neighbors, Amy, Jason and Abbie and Carla and Mike. They are our best friends in the neighborhood and we've been planning this trip for a while. We're staying in some new yurts so it should be a fun experience! Plus, we are on the Stillaguamish river (my favorite!) and we're going to try our hands at fishing in the river. So, that's a good thing too!

Harrison and I baked snickerdoodles and cocoa-oatmeal fudge together tonight. He really loves to cook and bake and it was nice to pull him away from the TV for some cooking instruction, with delicious results!

Ok, I feel better now that I've layed out some "good things" on my blog. Today had some major stresses and I got pretty bogged down but I'm feeling a lot better now! Gonna go have a snickerdoodle and some milk!

Name Discrimination

You always here about different types of discrimination - people who are racist, homophobic, biased or whatnot.....now how about name discrimination? I have an unusual name, I understand that. Now, on their own, Mary and Leah are perfectly normal names and shouldn't present a problem. Leah might get spelled wrong (Lea, Lia) but not too difficult, right? Well, my parents, in all their wisdom, decided to put a HYPHEN in my name. Not that unusual, except that most hyphenated names these days are last names, not first names. So, that sometimes throws people for a loop (is that her first name? Or her last name?) but even then I don't run into too much trouble. Sometimes when people HEAR my name, they furrow their brows and can't quite put it all together. One man even said to Jeff once, "Oh, is your wife Hawaiian?" (Being from the midwest, we tend to say my name "Mara-Leah" and run it all together really fast, so it comes out sounding like Maraleah, and, presumably, sounds Hawaiian?). Jeff said he considered telling him my middle name was "Comeoniwannalayya". But I digress. I've become accustomed to spelling my name.....M-A-R-Y-hyphen-.......and that's where people get lost! What is a hyphen? Who really knows anymore? Who uses punctuation? One time someone wrote an apostrophe instead. Semi-colon anyone? But back to the discrimination. I was in a coffee shop the other day ordering drinks for Jeff and I. I ordered his first and they made their precise, sharp little X's on all the appropriate boxes (decaf, X, tall, X) then said "name?" I replied "Jeff" and she wrote "Jeff" on the cup and handed it off to the barista. I then placed my drink order (decaf, X, tall X, no whip, X) and she chirped "name?" to which I replied "Mary-Leah" as distinctly as I could (I try to help people out by speaking clearly). She wrote "M" and then gave me a look as if I had just asked her to hand over all the money in the till, viciously scratched out the "M" with her wicked black Sharpie marker and wrote "Jeff" on my cup as well! Jeff? Do I look like a Jeff to you? How rude! I told Jeff, this has happened to me enough already! I'm going to come up with an alter ego name I can put on coffee cups, reservations, name tags, etc. Hello, my name is ______. Any suggestions? Send me your ideas. So far I've come up with KiKi (mine) and Muffin (Tonya's).

Refund = $90

Remember that horrendously expensive school supply shopping trip? Well, wouldn't you know it, I happened to open the paper yesterday (usually I just recycle it!) and there was an ad for the same store (Fred Meyer) that I bought all the supplies and almost everything I bought was on sale!!! I couldn't believe it. So, this morning I took my receipt in and asked them to adjust all the prices. The clerk had to ring everything separately and refund it, then charge it back, so it took FOREVER, but in the end, I got $90 back in my account! Totally worth the trip back to the store. I had anxiety all week about the huge expenditure and now, at least, I got some of the money back. It was still insanely expensive but now it comes to about $100 per kid. I spent about $100 each for their school clothes so now my credit card needs a breather! And we all thought public education was free! HA!

A Couple of Harrison Funnys!

We had just visited Tonaiya last Sunday and Harrison had helped Ingrid rub some essential oils on her feet that were to promote brain function and healing (remember, Tonaiya is Harrison's good friend who is hospitalized with encephalitis, and Ingrid is her grandma who is an "energy healer" by trade). On the way home we were talking about these oils and Jeff said "well, they must have absorbed into your hands, Harrison. Do you feel any smarter?" to which Harrison replied "No, but you look a little dumber!" (ba-da-bum!)

Yesterday I took Harrison to Toys R Us to FINALLY spend a gift card of his I've been carrying around in my wallet for months. He picked out some walkie-talkies, we paid, and were leaving the store. He looked wistfully at the "rides" (the ones you put a quarter in) and said "me and the rides, we used to be tight. But as I've grown older, we've grown apart!"

He makes me laugh!

What's Happening?

Nothing much. After a whirlwind of vacation activity it's been pretty low-key the past few days and no pictures have been taken. Arlie is back in Spokane for ten days to wrap up her summer visits over there. Back at work today, and Hannah came with me. Harrison came over a while later and the two of them helped me out. They are both great at helping take care of the girls and playing with them. After we got home, it was such a beautiful day and even though I was overheated and tired and would have liked nothing more than to take a nap, I felt like the kids and I should do SOMETHING so I went downstairs and yelled "road trip!" and told them we were going to check out the new donut shop. That was met with a lukewarm response, but it did get them out of the house for a half hour or so. Geesh, you'd think playing outside was akin to hard labor camp. These kids are driving me nuts with their lack of motivation to do anything remotely smacking of summer vacation! No swimming pool visits, no local beach visits, no mall, no movies. Hayley, at least, has been out to the mall and movies with her friends a few times, but Hannah has spent the entire summer mostly indoors with her face in front of You Tube! Not, in my opinion, a healthy way to spend summer. When I insist she do something else, she lies on the couch reading a book, or watches TV. Harrison has watched way too much TV, although he occasionally goes out and rides his bike up and down the street twice. And if Hayley is not out with friends, which is rare, she's also on the computer or watching movies on a portable TV in her room. Let's just say there has been very little calorie burning or any actual MOVEMENT from those three all summer. Arlie is a different story - she will play outside until dark and be happy to do it. She is always game for a trip to the beach or park or pool or wherever else. I wish some of her enthisiasm would rub off on the other three. Because school is going to be SUCH a rude awakening when they have to actually get up before noon, and exert themselves by doing such tasks as WALKING. Not to mention using their brains and THINKING! Oh, my. Rue the day, my children..........it's coming! School in 15 days!!!!

The $500 Dollar Shopping Excursion.......

I cannot believe how much it cost to get the kids ready for school this year! They each needed a new backpack ($30-40 a pop for one big enough for their ridiculously large binders), plus the regular supplies, plus Hannah needed a $90 calculator, and Harrison and Arlie needed $10 calculators. Then, there were the notebooks, pens, pencils, scissors, pencil sharpeners, rulers, etc. Last year I didn't buy much and we "shopped" from our inventory around the house. It worked out fine, but this year things were just falling apart and/or depleted, so we had to go all new. And I cannot believe how much it cost. I just don't understand how things could cost that much to get ready for school. I need to start a checking account just for school related expenses because they really are exhorbitant. This was JUST for backpacks and supplies, not clothes or shoes or anything. I spent $200 on clothes for Harrison and Arlie online, and spent another $40 or so on supplies at Costco, plus I still need to buy clothes for the older girls, probably shoes for everyone, and planners, yearbooks, ASB stickers, etc. for Hayley and Hannah that come to $50-$100 each. I'm about to pull them all out of school, make them wear thrift store clothes exclusively and move to a farm where we can grow our own food! We've already been SO tight on money for the past several months, and that's not looking up as my kids' dad is paying $600 less per month in child support now. I'm trying to work extra hours to get a little more money coming in. It's really stressful and I feel like I'm smothering under the weight of all the financial stress. I know it's not just us - millions of other people are in this or worse situations due to the economy, job cuts, etc. We've dealt with job loss, increased mortgage, decreased child support, and all the downfall of a poor economy and sometimes it's just too much. It could really bring a person down. But we've had so much fun, camping, going places (free!), making the most of our summer. Life is still good and it will get better! I just wish these "necessary" expenditures weren't so necessary! :(

Tonaiya

Harrison's good friend Tonaiya, 10, has been hospitalized since last Tuesday with a sudden and mysterious case of encephalitis. It's source is unknown and she went from being seemingly totally healthy to unresponsive and unconscious in a matter of hours. She went downhill quickly and suffered several seizures but improved on Thursday a bit and was a bit more responsive Friday. On Saturday she could respond with a squeeze of her hand to mean "yes". Today we visited and Harrison seemed to be a tonic to her. She smiled, giggled, got excited and made some choices by squeezing our hands to mean "yes". She still cannot walk, talk, sit up or eat. She is being tube-fed and is bedridden. It's such a scary time for her grandma, Ingrid (her guardian) and the rest of her family. Ingrid and Tonaiya live next door to Doug and that's how Harrison met her. They have been great friends for the past two years and have become really close. We took Tonaiya camping in July and she went fishing for the first time with Jeff, one morning while we all were still sleeping. They went out in the canoe and caught nine sunfish! She came back so thrilled. So, today, Jeff brought her a fishing pole of her own (pink!) and told her she needed to get better so they could go fishing again. She grabbed and held on to that pole for dear life with a big smile on her face! I had to pry it out of her fingers! We plan to visit again tomorrow and every day that we can until she's better. She needs a lot of prayers and good wishes. Such a sweet girl! It's heartbreaking to see a strong, healthy girl become so sick. You can't help but think of your own kids and realize how fragile life is. Treasure every minute...........