V's World

The past 3 months...

2010-01-04T18:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that it's been 3 months since my last post... so much for keeping up with it, eh? We all got the swine flu (yay) in October, which was awful! But no worse than the regular flu. And I believe that is where I fell off the wagon...

Not a whole lot has happened that I remember (how sad, I believe that I am experiencing Alzheimer's to some degree... or I haven't gotten my brain cells back from pregnancy... or it's a lack of sleep... either way, I have difficulty remembering most things)... Like the other day, I completely forgot that New Year's Eve follows Christmas fairly quickly, and that a week after that is my Anniversary... Boom, boom, boom... Three major events, and I am totally oblivious to their arrival and the speed at which they travel!

Events that have happened in the past 3 months I think include Averi sitting on her own and rolling over... She is in love with her big brothers and loves it when they pay attention to her... She is also very skilled at making scrunchy faces and elephant noises!

In November I took an extended road trip to see family and it was one of those trips that made you realize how dysfunctional your family really is... Yeah, it's the family joke about how dysfunctional we are, but it's eerie about how close the joke resembles the truth! I love my aunts and uncles and think it's awesome that we can sit around and poke fun at ourselves and laugh at our quirks that separate us from the "normal".

December flew by in a whirlwind of chaos and disorder. We threw a pretty cool Gingerbread party... I scrubbed and scrubbed my house, and it was super clean and presentable for the party. The party was a ton o' fun... and 2 days later, my house was back to it's regular disaster! Oh well... The story of my life begins with "And it came to pass that she spent her day cleaning..." and ends with "and you couldn't tell what the heck she did by the end of the day... Did she do anything at all?"

And now it's January... Whoopee... My goals this year include losing all the baby weight (a whopping 50+ pounds), drink more water, yell at kids less, and a few pedicures thrown in just for fun! Oh, also keep up with the blogging thing... again, wish me luck!

More Laundry

2009-10-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, this isn't another rant, more or less just an observation...

So, I was feeling really ambitious yesterday (mostly because I ran out of clean clothes) and turned the day into "Laundry Day" and we spent the whole day doing the laundry, swapping loads from one machine into another, folding piles and hangers everywhere... running up and down the stairs (which reminds me to smack the person who thought it would be a good idea to put the laundry room in the basement of a 2 story house... seriously!).

We were able to pump out 8 loads of laundry, and there is still more down there waiting to be washed and dried! And, I got to thinking, where in the world does it all come from? We can't go more than a week without having to do a load... and I 'recycle' my pants for an extra day.

So, my train of thought is... while the clothes are down in that deep dark basement, they are having a party and breeding! Or, maybe its like mold? It multiplies in dark places... It could be that the little "Laundry Elves" are hard at work... I mean, if they're down there, the least they could do is a load or two? Any of these scenarios is a likely candidate! But it all boils down to craziness! We do not need these many articles of clothing!

But when I separate them into "ownership groups" it really doesn't appear to be ominous... Its only when they get together that the group, as a whole, becomes powerful and overwhelming!

Its crazy how this applies to more than just laundry, eh?

Laundry

2009-09-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot of excitement going on here... I'm a stay-at-home mom whose mere existence, as it seems, is to serve others. Because, apparently, all I do is sit around all day watching TV and eating Ben & Jerry's (which may explain why I haven't lost weight yet?).

However, in between my sitting around watching TV (just in case you didn't know, we don't get ANY channels... I prefer to watch fuzz)... So, in between fuzz commercials I do the typical daily chores which consist of a whole spectrum of tidbits that eat up a whole day... and by the end of this day, I, for the life of me, can't remember what it is I've accomplished! But I know I've been busy!

The daily mommy chores range from meal planning to bill paying, from cooking to cleaning, chauffeuring to boo-boo kissing, event planner to referee... Seriously, the list goes ON and ON!!! And I think you get the point.

So, I'm doing my daily chore of the dreaded laundry... I hate laundry! It NEVER ends! It seems like everywhere you turn, there is laundry that needs to be done. When you set out to do the laundry... dirty clothes hide. They know you're coming! And, they want you to feel as though you will never accomplish anything, so they hide...

And now when you think you've got it all, and the load is started. There, in the corner of your eye, you spot a nasty dirty sock peeking out from under the bed... And you can't just stop a load in the middle of the cycle because the dirty sock won't get the "full" wash that it needs! So that sock sits there as a constant reminder that you have another load waiting for you!

I mean, even IF you get the sock, and you think you've got EVERYTHING... You don't! Because you're wearing future laundry! The clothes you have on right now, is future laundry... That evening you will need to take off your clothes which will then become said laundry...

So, you try to out-smart the laundry. As you put in the last of the dirty clothes, you strip, you take it all off right there in the laundry room... Standing there butt-naked! And as you're shoving your freshly worn clothes into the washing machine, you have a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you have accomplished the laundry! You have conquered it!!! Every single piece of laundry is now clean! You have NO dirty clothes calling out to be washed...

So, you're running around in your living room naked, doing the happy dance because ALL the laundry is done... Feeling good about yourself (and a little drafty), you sit down on the sofa to revel in your glory with the satisfaction of finishing the laundry... And then that dreaded sock peeks out from under the sofa!!!

As I said, it NEVER ends... EVER!!! Did I mention that I don't like doing the laundry?

Baby's 4mo Check-Up

2009-09-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Averi had her 4 mo Dr visit today... The visit was your typical visit, weight, height, squishy the belly and rotate the hips in their socket, and my personal all-time non-favorite... the shots! Averi is growing perfectly, she is 25 inches long and weighs in at 14.5 lbs (60th percentile in both categories)...

As the doctor is going through all the "this is what to expect in the next 2 months", I realized that Averi, who is 4 months old, is about the same length as Nevan was when he was born... So then I'm trying to sort of bunch Averi up into a ball (all gentle and stuff, she's loving it) and I, for the life of me, can't imaging something that size balled up in my belly... Yes, Nevan was a giant, but I didn't realize how much of a giant he was (maybe I tried to block it out?)...

Nevan was induced 2 weeks early because he was getting too big and they were afraid he wouldn't fit. As it turns out, he was too big to fit through anyway (weighing in at 9.5 lbs and 24 inches), he got stuck coming out. So the Dr had to go in and try to maneuver him into a better position for exiting, which didn't work either, Nev's collar bone broke, and then he was able to fit through... All I have to say is... Ouch!

Anyway, I just thought it was weird that my 4mo old baby is roughly the same size as my last newborn (which didn't feel like a newborn at all, more like a 6mo old)...

So that was the excitement for my day (yippee)...

Lost in Translation

2009-09-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

You know that game that we use to play as kids called "Pass it On" or "Telephone"? How at the beginning of the kid chain a phrase is concocted followed by "pass it on". And by the time it reached the end of the kid chain, the phrase morphed into something silly and possibly made no sense at all...

Just like in the movie "Madagascar 2, Escape to Africa" where Alex the lion and Marty the zebra are dangling in a bucket supported by a chain of monkeys that is being flown in a plane by the penguins... The bucket is heading towards the crazy human camp and the dam...
Alex says, "She's got a gun, let's run while we can... Pass it on"
Message makes its way up the monkey chain
The last monkey in the chain says the to captain penguin, "Let's have some fun and break down the dam... Basset Hound"...

Well, the other night, we had a similar moment during dinner. Aidan is learning Spanish this year and was so proud of his new vocabulary. He was running through all of his new words and phrases that he learned that day and we were trying to guess the translation... I piped up with a phrase that I knew and had Aidan try to guess what I was saying... And this is how that conversation went:

Me: "Mi hombre es guapo" (translation: My man is handsome)
Nevan pipes in: "Me hombre is a waffle?"

The confused look on Nevan's face as he was trying to figure out how "my man was a waffle" was enough to send all of us laughing... which then in turn caused more silly phrases to be uttered by my 9 yr old. Good times!

Which reminds me... Always take time to laugh at the silliness! Life is too serious, we need a break from it every once in a while!

Basset Hound!

Hmmm... Almost 3 years?

2009-09-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I officially suck! Its been almost 3 years and I haven't posted anything... How lame!

Ok, quick run down on the past 3 years:

Hubby graduated with a Masters degree in Information Technology, got a job at a fancy-shmancy place.

I spent a year playing single mom... I also made my house ready to sell (kept it showroom clean for a year) and sold my house (all by myself). I moved to MD to join Hubby. I had a mini breakdown because of all the drama that was in TN and all the new drama in MD... Crazy stuff...

I made a wonderful friend who liked me even when I was all crapped out and depressed (and she's continuing to help me get back to my old self).

I got pregnant... and surprise... I was able to carry to full term (with the help of specialists, bedrest and several trips to the ER... and a very supportive friend who let me crash on her sofa for most of the pregnancy) and have a healthy baby girl named Averi D'Annellyn... My boys (Aidan & Nevan) are absolutely in love with her!

I'm continuing to homeschool... However, MD laws are way more strict than those in TN, so I have to do a lot of extra hoop-jumping.

Lots of things have happened in the past 3 years (more than I could possibly mention), so once in a while I might do a *flashback*, who knows?

Again, wish me luck!

Who am I?

2007-02-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

Well, my name is Veronika. Many people call me V, mostly because they have a hard time remembering my name. They know it starts with a V, but their not quite sure about the rest of it, so I end up getting called all the V names, but never the right one (Vivian, Victoria, Valerie, etc...). So, to make it easier on everyone, I go by V.

All-righty... Enough about my name! Now about me...

I've lived in all 50 states (some for only a couple of months) and toured Canada and Mexico (a couple of months each). I am not a military brat (though my husband is!). Both my parents liked to travel... A LOT! When they divorced, they kept up their traveling, and with joint custody, I was all over the place.

I roughed it in a jungle for a year (living in a tent made of clear plastic and bamboo, absolutely no plumbing or electricity). I've lived on a sailboat countless times. I've toured Alaska for a year while living in the back of a pick-up truck (and pulling a sailboat behind us). I've had 3 wild bear encounters (I prefer to do this from a distance, however, my dad likes to go be "one" with them). I've bathed in rivers with icebergs floating by (can we all say "brain freeze"?). I nearly drowned on my first attempt at surfing (I thought I could hand the 7ft wave by myself, next thing I remember, I'm being dragged out of the water by my hair... Ouch!). I have found myself without clothing in a public setting (completely by accident!).

The list goes on and on... I have lived a crazy life, you name it, I've probably done it (or at least know someone who has)... Now that I'm married and have popped out a kid or two, the adventures don't seem quite as wild and crazy, but they appear to be more chaotic in a normal kind of way.

The purpose of this blog is to write down my thoughts (kind of like a diary). I've told some (a lot) of my adventures to my friends and they have always said "you need to write a book!". So, this is my attempt to do what my friends have suggested. If this goes well, be prepared for the book.

Wish me luck,
V