Calling all moms

And cosmetologists.  And wedding planners.  And anyone else who has an honest opinion on this one.

In many ways, our oldest is more mature than her age, but in so many others she's just a baby.  I think going through the divorce put her in a rough spot and she has sometimes been put in the position of being the other adult in one house or the other.  I have seen Man put responsibilities on her that I don't think she should have (little things like taking her sisters to the restroom when we go out to eat or being the one in charge while he works from home) and you can tell just from spending time with her that her mother has done the same, though even more so.  She is quite the mother hen to her sisters and doesn't call them by their names or "my sisters", but always calls them "the little girls" and gets upset if you remind her that she is little, too.

It's tough, because she's 10, so she's right at that age where she thinks she's big and she's well on her way, but she's still a child.  This is evidenced by the fact that she still needs tucked in every night, still wants me to brush her hair and still needs Man to make her plate and cut her meat at dinner.

So here's the deal: I'm battling our 10 year old on the makeup issue right now.  She wants to wear makeup for the wedding and I told her we could do a little.  Then her mom bought her clear mascara and she suddenly thinks that's an every day thing.  In fact, our middle child was going through the bag they took to the sitter's today (my awesome cousin has the girls today and was going to take them to the pool until the weather turned sour) and found a bag of makeup our oldest had packed, even though I've told her countless times she is not to take it places.  So now that the little bit of makeup I was going to allow for the wedding has become the norm, since her mom gave it to her without clearing it with Man or me.  This wouldn't be such an issue, except she thinks she has to do more than what she does every day for the wedding, so now she has decided she needs black mascara for the wedding.  Bear in mind, not only is she 10, but she's got red hair and a porcelain complexion.  Black mascara is going to make her look like a raccoon!

So today when we were duking it out in the car on the way to our dress fitting before I had to be at work, I got to thinking about what I did when I was 10.  And unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I had the clear mascara back then.  The difference was, BBS is 3 years older than me, so I pretty much got things when she did, so I was ahead of the curve, while our oldest is (obviously) the oldest and I am so NOT ready for the other 2 to be wearing ANY makeup!  So here's where I need help: do Man and I make her put the clear mascara away somewhere when she's here so it will be a special thing for the wedding or allow the clear mascara as a daily thing and then allow more for the wedding?  And if we go that route, just how far do I let her push it for the wedding?  I KNOW I'm not going to let her do black mascara, but does anyone have any other suggestions?  Help!

Some people

Customer (on the phone): "The cord is pulling away from the plug on my pump.  Do you have a new adapter cord?"

Me: "Yes, it's $12.99 and we have them in stock."

C: "Do you think I need a new one or could I just wrap it in electrical tape?"

Me: "You might be able to get away with that over night but it doesn't sound very safe as a long term solution (then in my head) but hey, if it's worth risking electrocuting your family to save $13.83 with tax, go for it!"

Have I ever mentioned that I work at a pool supply store?

You really do learn something new every day

Okay, I actually wrote this in...oh...March?  I thought for sure I had published it the very next day.  Today, I got into my drafts folder because I wrote something yesterday that I wanted to finish and publish and found this staring at me!  It's good information, so I definitely want to share, so you'll just have to wait on the other post!  Enjoy your education for the day!

My washer crapped out on me.  My high efficiency, top of the line, didn't-get-any-better-than-that-when-we-bought-it-five-years-ago washer.  I don't know about you, but to me, five years just doesn't seem like that long for a washing machine.  Especially when for over three of those five years it was just my laundry and I'm not a dirty person.  I mean, it's not like I play in the mud for a living.  Another almost year of those five years it was just me and a toddler.  Again, not a ton of dirt.  Admittedly, I do have more dog hair going through my machine than most people, but I'm pretty anal about cleaning it out regularly and running vinegar through the machine pretty frequently (about once a week) to flush everything out.  So, I called a repairman.  I was thrilled that we didn't need to replace but a little surprised at the problem...I've been using too much detergent!  I use HE detergent, in the amount recommended on the package (although, admittedly, on the rare occasion that I do have something really dirty in there [think rags used to clean up doggy messes], I have been known to add a little extra detergent).  The repair man was super helpful (if you're in the greater Cincinnati area, try Morris Appliance Repair.  They're prompt, friendly and super helpful.  And no, they didn't pay me for this endorsement, they were just that good!) and gave me a little lesson on doing my laundry.  Apparently in an HE machine, you should only use 1/4 to 1/2 the amount of detergent recommended, even though you're using HE detergent.  And you should never use traditional detergent.  Really.  If you have some left over, give it to a friend.  It will save you money in the long run!  So that doesn't sound like much detergent, and you may be wondering how your clothes will get clean with that little soap, but think about it - an HE machine uses WAY less water, so it won't be able to rinse out as much detergent.  So really, how can your clothes get clean if you use too much soap?  High efficiency washers don't clean your clothes with soap and water, they work based on the friction your clothes create when tumbling around in there.  So there you have it - stop overusing the soap.  You'll save your washer and save yourself money on detergent, too!  By the way, this is also a good reason to only run your washer when you have a full load of laundry.  If you don't have enough fabric in there, you don't have enough friction and your clothes won't get clean.  So there you go, saving yourself money on detergent, plus on water and electric but not running your washer as often since now you'll only do it when you have a full load...man, I should start a money saving blog with all these great ideas!

UPDATE: Yeah, because I have time for that, when I didn't even take the time to realize I never published this post!  Hope you learned something, anyway!

Shower report

The shower was awesome! :)  Of course I knew BBS and my aunts weren't going to torture me too much, but it was really a great day.  My foster friend came over to do my hair and we were almost done when Man got home with the girls.  We finished up real quick and ran out the door.  The girls immediately gravitated toward Princess and Miss Thing while I made my way around visiting everyone and when it was time for gifts, all the little girls (our three, Princess and my cousin's two little girls) swarmed around me and "helped" me.  They brought me presents, unwrapped things, held things up for people to see, wandered off with gifts (especially the really cool stuff I really wanted!) and photo bombed just about every picture.  It was crazy, chaotic and wonderful!  There was one time when I had to ask the girls to back off just a little because I was starting to feel claustrophobic with them all so close but there was another time when I said to my aunt "I certainly feel loved today" and our oldest piped up with "we love you every day!" and that made all the squishiness totally worth it!  I am so lucky to love such amazing women who want to throw a shower for me, more awesome women who want to attend said shower and a bunch of crazy girls who steal the show and make it such a great experience for me!

Naked blogging: That's my gift

Tomorrow is my first of two bridal showers.  I have to admit, I've kind of been dreading them.  It's not that I don't appreciate them, in fact I've thrown lots of showers and not only do I know how much work it is (and really, really appreciate the fact that BBS is helping with both my showers!) but I also know how much fun they can be.  It's just that I'm not one to love the spotlight, despite my singing, dancing and acting background.  I was always part of the group on stage, not one to stand out.  These two days are going to be all about me.  I'll be in the hot seat, and even more than that, everyone is showing up to give me presents.  I just got off the phone with an old friend who was heading to shop for our shower gift.  She wanted to know if there was something special on our registry that I was super excited to receive.  I didn't register for stuff I don't want.  In fact, it was really hard to make a list of all the stuff I wanted instead of just buying it.  After all, it's for me, why shouldn't I buy it for myself?  How weird is it that I got so incredibly lucky as to find the love of my life and we get to share that with all our loved ones and have this huge celebration, and they all have to give us something?  If anything, we should be giving gifts to our family and friends for helping us along this journey that led us to each other.  As the dates approach, I find myself becoming excited about my showers, but it's not because I'll get to sit around and open presents; it's because I'll have the opportunity to gush about Man all day long without anyone telling me how silly-in-love I am!  I found this amazing man, I fell madly in love and I get to share it with the world.  That's my gift.

Facebook PM between my old "new girl" and me

• (work talk that I won't bore you with.  Now that she works at a different store, we often keep facebook up at work so we can chat in between customers.)
• 

  5:46pm
  

  Karen
  

  
  

  Is anyone else finding it a little ridiculous that we're fb messaging and texting?

  That's a good idea
• 

  5:51pm
  

  H
  

  
  

  i know lol we are weird
• 

  5:52pm
  

  Karen 
  

  
  

  but awesome
• 

  5:52pm
  

  H
  

  
  

  excatly lol

Many animals + hot summer = lots of water

We tried switching over to the big water dispenser but after two days Wolfey is still scared of it so I finally put his water dish back down. Goofy dog gets all freaked out if I even put my hand in the dispenser water while he's taking a drink.

Cat conundrum

It's been a while since I've written about feeding the animals but today we had a weird food issue.  With the cat.  When Man adopted Brady about two years ago he was severely under weight and unhealthy.  Man nursed him back to health but unfortunately he's still under weight.  When I took Brady and Lolly to the vet a couple weeks ago they said Lolly needed to lose a few pounds (my little porker was under weight when she came to me, but she has really packed it on in the past few months!) and Brady needed to gain a few.  It's really too bad it isn't as simple as doing a quick transfer!  I had been on Man for months to switch Brady to a home made diet, or at least soft food (cats really shouldn't have dry food) but he was hesitant to change anything since Brady has had so many changes in the past year.  I had been giving Brady bites of the dog food, leftover scrambled eggs and other little bits here and there but had left the dry food as it was, in an automatic feeder where Brady could eat as much as he wanted, whenever he wanted.  When the vet heard my concerns about Brady vomiting a lot and not gaining weight until I started in with supplementing his diet, she repeated everything I've been saying without me even suggesting that that might be the solution. Man finally conceded and gave me the go-ahead to start the transition to a home made diet.  The vet recommended that we start by giving Brady a purchased wet cat food that was similar to his dry food, then slowly give him more and more purchased raw food until we finally get to the point of the home made diet.  Man bought some decent quality wet food and I began giving it to Brady in small amounts in the morning and evening.  I slowly started mixing the store-bought raw food in and Brady continued to gobble it up and began almost completely ignoring his dry food.  I continued to make sure Brady had dry food available, but it seemed that he was eating less and less of it.  I got to about a 50/50 mix and Brady turned up his nose at it so I decreased the raw just a bit and we were coasting along just fine.  I figured I'd try to increase the raw in the mix again in a few days, but for now just the fact that he was about off the dry food and hadn't vomited in several days was a huge success in my book!  Last night Man finally showed some interest in Brady's new diet and asked if he could feed Brady.  Of course I jumped at the chance to teach him something new and showed him how to prepare Brady's food and Man took Brady's food to the basement (that's the only place we can keep it away from Lolly the Porker!) and made sure he had a little dry food available, too.  This morning, when I went downstairs to feed Brady, I found that he hadn't touched his wet food but his dry food was completely gone and there were two piles of vomit on the basement floor.  I can't figure out where we went wrong, but I can't help but wonder if it had something to do with the fact that Man fed Brady last night, and Brady is so used to Man giving him dry food.  It's the strangest thing and I'm definitely going to have to experiment with things and keep a close eye on Brady for a while.  I'm so thankful Man is on board with changing the food and wants to help out, but it looks as if I may be doing all the animal feedings from now on!

Naked blogging: I choose to be engaged today

I don't wear my engagement ring all the time.  I know so many people who do, but somehow I'm always afraid something will happen to it when I'm cleaning, doing dishes and rough housing with the kids or the dogs.  I take it off as soon as I get home and don't put it back on until I'm ready to leave the next morning.  The other day, as I ran back into the bathroom to grab it out of my little jewelry dish I said, "I choose to be engaged today."  Man was brushing his teeth at the time and gave me a look as if I'd hurt his feelings.  I didn't understand why it upset him but Man explained that he took that as me having the option to not be engaged. To me, it's the process of making a conscious decision each day to put my all into our relationship and now that I've explained that, he actually likes that I say my little daily mantra.  I truly believe you have to remind yourself daily why you love your significant other.  Some days it's easy; other days you really struggle to remember.   I read an article today about "happily-ever-after" versus "reality-ever-after" that said it so much better than I could ever hope to:

"Being married isn’t one decision. Being married is deciding to stay married every single day. It’s hard. It’s boring. It’s not terribly cinematic."

It's hard to admit that it's not all roses and puppy dogs, especially when we're not even married yet.  No one likes to expose their flaws.  But it's important to talk about those things and to remember, we're not alone on those down days.  Everyone goes through it, and it's the healthy, successful relationships that come out the other side.  I hope I can remember this and continue my mantra now and forever.  I am so lucky to have found the Man of my dreams, and today and forever, I choose to be with him.

I love the way she sleeps

My little girl is growing up

Last year's "new girl" is this year's superstar.  She has gone above and beyond anything that anyone should have asked of her, picking up extra shifts, covering other stores and doing way more of my managerial duties than I like to admit.  And all of this without a pay raise.  She had a promotion dangled like a carrot at the beginning of the season and then snatched away when an old manager returned to the company looking for a management position.  She took it all in stride.  Today, she has finally received the recognition and promotion she deserves.  Today, I welcome my "new girl" to the management team.  I couldn't be happier for her.  She has clawed her way to the top and I am proud to call her my friend, my former employee, my equal.

It's a wonderful life

Remember when I said I have some really awesome family?  Well, I really do.  In fact, I have more examples.

Sunday I was completely wiped out after work.  Man called and asked me to stop at the grocery store on my way home to pick up a few last minute things for dinner.  I got home and he had things almost completely ready and was just waiting on my few items...which, of course, I got wrong.  Instead of getting frustrated that he put so much work into something I screwed up, Man totally rolled with it and made my mistakes work.  And we had an amazing dinner!  It was really awesome to come home to yummy smells and happy faces around the table!

Monday Man tromped through pastures, ducked into corn fields, climbed a semi and sat on farm equipment all in the sweltering heat so I could have the engagement shoot I've always wanted down at Dad's farm.  Yes, we did get engaged  in January, and yes we did just get our engagement pictures done in July, but time kind of got away from us, deal with it.  Additionally, an old friend from high school gave up an evening with her family and joined us in that sweltering heat at 7 months pregnant to take the pictures for us!

Wednesday BBS and I took 9 kids from 4 different families to the zoo.  We had BBS's 2 little ones (the 3 older ones are on vacation with our parents), Man's 3, the 3 kids BBS babysits and BBS's niece, ranging in age from 10 months to 11 years.  We sweat, we got rained on, we had an awesome time.  We fully acknowledge that we're crazy for taking so many kids, especially with only 2 adults, but there's no one else I would have rathered do it with!

Life may not be perfect, but I'm not sure how it could get much better!

Potty mouths

Yes, I really mean poop talk.  If you're not amused by poop humor, maybe skip this one.  You've been warned.  Also, potty mouth language, just a heads up.

Last night, as Man and I were preparing for bed we were talking about our days and trying to figure out why we both had such bad headaches.  Headache talk always leads to analysing what I've eaten over the course of the past day or two, because usually I can track my aches and pains back to eating an allergen and last night was no different.  Man started with my intake yesterday and eventually got back to the three ears of corn on the cob I'd eaten at our 4th of July cookout.  Yes, I know better, but come on, it's corn on the cob on the 4th of July and you just can't pass that up!  So as we're talking food intake and he mentioned the corn, I burst out with "so that's why I shit my brains out today!" and we both moaned at my over sharing but then laughed uncontrollably, with Man commenting on how inappropriate I am and inquiring as to whether I was going to discuss texture and color.  I pretended I was disgusted, so Man launched into a description of his "frothy" poo, saying he had a crappuccino and we again dissolved into fits of laughter.

It's true that we're gross.  It's true that we overshare.  It's true that we're horribly inappropriate.  But it's also true that we really enjoy each other and can have more fun brushing our teeth together than I could have with some past boyfriends actually going out and doing some fun activity together.  I really am so lucky to love someone who loves me not only for my good, appropriate side, but also for the silly, dirty, inappropriate, craziness that is me!

Damn cat

The dogs sleep gated in with us so Brady can have free reign of the house during the night, since the dogs rule during the day.  Every morning when he hears Man and I stirring, Brady comes to the gate at our bedroom door and starts meowing.  When I get up to let the dogs out, Brady usually stays put next to the door and the dogs go by without encounter but some mornings he stands crosswise in the hall so we cannot pass, meowing like he's distressed that the dogs are coming toward him.  It's like he can't figure out that the dogs couldn't care less if he's there or not, as long as they can get to the back door to go out to potty.  I can't decide if he thinks he's so special that he just can't wrap his head around the fact that the dogs don't care or if he is literally scared stiff!

I have some really awesome family

Two of my cousins came out to the house yesterday to work on our AC unit, which has been peeing all over our basement floor.  Correction: my cousin's husband and my other cousin's boyfriend came out.  They're not even technically family, but they still do these awesome things.  Turns out the drain line was damaged so they repaired it and updated it so Man and I can do maintenance on it ourselves.

Another cousin (who is also, legally, not a cousin, but is my aunt's ex-husband's son and chooses to stick around our family, because that's just how great we are!) is coming out next week to work on some plumbing issues we have and install our new dishwasher.

BBS has been busting her hump preparing things for my bridal showers.  Yes, showers.  As in, plural.  And BBS is taking the lead on both of them.  She has recruited an aunt or two from each side of the family and they've been working like mad women to ensure I have not one (my wedding), not two (my shower) but three (my second shower) special days.

BBS and hubby threw a 4th of July party yesterday and not only invited Man and I (who were the only ones there who were kidless, since our girls are with their mom) but waited dinner on us (since I had to work) and then raved about the strawberry pretzel salad Man made in which the jello refused to set up, so it was more like strawberry pretzel mush.  We had a great time and although the kids struggled with waiting until dark to set off the fireworks, we still got to see some of the prettiest ones!

For the past several weeks, Man has dealt with a grumpy, sleep deprived, over-worked-and-under-paid, confused and weepy Karen and taken it all in stride.

I've really been struggling lately with trying to find a balance between work, home, wedding planning and starting my It Works! business, but with such an awesome family, I know it will all work out.  I am so lucky to love so many amazing people!

And this is why I love you

Text conversation between Man and I:

Me: "We keep saying we're going to put that wine in the fridge and then not thinking about it when we're home to do it.  You're home and I'm thinking about it.  Just saying."

Man: "Ok.  It's in the refrigerator."

Me: "And this is why I love you :)"

Man: "That's why?"

Me: "Because you humor me and don't question my ridiculous logic, all the while spoiling me by enabling me to drink on a work night?  Umm...yeah."

Me: "That and the millions of other reasons why you're amazing!"

Man: "If you say so."

Yep, he's all that and modest, too!

It really does Work!

I kept seeing these facebook posts from people who put Defining Gel on sunburns and bug bites and had near-instant relief, but I thought they were crazy.  How can a product designed to firm and smooth your skin take the sting out of a sunburn or the itch out of a bug bite?  And then I tried it.  Amazing!  I was already completely sold using this product on my chest and upper arms (I can't have saggy arms showing in my wedding dress!) and seeing great results but now I'm a total believer in its many awesome uses!  I've had a huge bug bite for the past several days that seemed to be getting worse instead of better and finally broke down and used the Defining Gel last night.  Within 15 minutes I didn't itch any more and this morning, while the bite isn't any smaller, I could barely feel it.  Even though it didn't itch, I put more gel on after my shower and I haven't scratched once today!  I'm in love!

Our little family

They're all grumpy so they don't want to hang out together but they're such a pack they just can't bear to be too far apart!

I've become one of those women

It was purely unintentional. I just realized it. And I think I'm going crazy. I've lived on my own for so long I've learned to take care of just about anything around the house on my own. Yet somehow when Man moved in and started helping with things I became I've if those helpless women who relies on her man to take care of her. The biggest problem, though is not that it's not me, but that it's causing fights between us. I can admit I've spent a good portion of the past weeks (since Man started his new job and is helping around the house less) irritated with him. But there's no reason to be! Man said he'd install the new under sink trash system we bought (it's one I'd those ones that slides out for easy access) weeks ago but it's been sitting in the garage ever since. Yesterday Lolly got into the trash and Man and I both ended up irritated, though for different reasons. Man was upset with Lolly for getting into the trash while I was upset with Man, because the whole mess could have been avoided if Man had installed that darn trash system. But today it hit me: why am I upset with Man when I could have installed it just as easily? Yes, Man said he'd do it and should have done what he said he was going to do, but it's my house too and it's about time I start acting like it. I'm so lucky to love a Man who puts up with me getting irritated with him and lets me come to these realizations on my own instead of beating me over the head with them! For the record, I installed the new trash system this morning.