I’ve been in a funk. Just couldn’t get myself together. Couldn’t motivate myself for anything. Even scrapbooking was just totally unappealing. The house was a mess, the kids were watching too much tv, I was just feeling blah about everything.
You know what’s the perfect fix for a time like that?
VACATION.
Yeah baby. My husband and brothers all decided to take a bike trip down the Oregon/California coast. They planned to ride about 120 miles a day. (snicker) Pretty lofty goal. Something to really shoot for. And something that sounded like a horrible family vacation to me. Spending my days corralling 4 kids by myself while waiting for him to finish riding so we could move to another hotel just wasn’t my idea of fun. Then, somebody had the brilliant idea of renting a beach house so that we could hang out and vacation, but not have to follow the ride. The women and children would go there first, then the men would stay meet up when their ride brought them there. As it turned out, by the time we went to the beach house (my vacation started a few days later than Dave’s), the men were ready for a break and headed over early.
It was so fun. So nice to hang out with everyone. That was the first time our family had been all together in one place in years. It was nice to hang out in a home bigger than mine with all of my favorite people. 
Eating meals together, playing with each others children, taking pictures, talking…good stuff.
While I can’t say I’m all gung-ho and motivated, I’m not in the funk I was. Hopefully I can ride this high tide as long as I can before sinking back into another funk…
And WHY am I bursting with pride?
Ah…that is a good story. Well, not really, but I’m telling it anyway.
So today I took The Littles to the school and we had lunch with The Bigs. It was the big walkathon. I wasn’t there to volunteer, like they’d asked us to. I thought I had plans. But I finished what I had to do early enough that I found myself in need of lunch. And they had offered barbeque lunch to parents…even suggested that we come eat with our kids that day. So who was I to turn down lunch? For the price of a couple bucks and the effort of walking a couple blocks, I was able to partake of a lunch with my children which I neither shopped for nor prepared. My favorite kind of lunch.
After a delightful lunch spent sitting in the sunshine (ok…i lied…it wasn’t delightful…but I neither shopped for nor prepared it, so who am I to complain?) The Bigs both took off for recess within five minutes of our sitting down. You can see who won in the Mom vs. Recess match, it wasn’t even close. So I gathered up The Littles and headed home. As I was rounding the corner of the playground, a ball was sent over the fence and across the street. It was the ball that Matthew and a bunch of kids were playing a game with (soccer? I don’t know).
My chance to be the hero.
And hero I was. I fetched the ball. I sent it over the fence with a good, high kick. And the oooohs and aaahhhhs and cooooolllls that such a kick received filled my heart with pride. I know…not difficult to impress a bunch of first-graders with an easy kick to a bouncy ball, but I’ll take it. For a moment, I was cool. I heard Matthew’s voice in the group "that’s my mom" and other kids saying "Matthew, your mom can kick good!" as I walked out of earshot. Yeah. Not much. Not really that cool. But as I said… I got a lunch which I neither shopped for nor prepared.
I taught a "Photography for Scrapbookers" class at a local scrapbook store last night. I signed up, thinking it would be cake. No kits to make. But once I started planning it, it dawned on me that this class would just be me. Talking. In front of a group. For 2 hours. What the heck was I thinking? So I tried to think of everything I knew to tell everyone so that I could take up the allotted time. I made a few enlargements of my pictures and put together a handout and brought some pages as examples.
Well, no one died of boredom, at least not while they were still in the store, so I’ll call the class a success. Except for the whole nervous sweating part. That sucked. But I feel good, it was a total relief when it was over and everyone was still alive. If I teach it again, it will be much easier. I hope.
Check that off my list of things that was stressing me out. Now all that remains is the yard getting worked on, because it’s layering the entire house inside and out with a fine layer of dust, cleaning the house before I have family vist (27 people!), and packing for a short vacation to the beach. Oh yeah, and random proofing-ordering-photography-business stuff. But the class was a heavy weight. Glad it’s over.
Do you ever have so much to do that all you want to do is….nothing?
Yeah…that’s me right now. Plus, it’s hot. We all know I don’t do well in hot. Bring back the rain.
Went to the mall today and came home feeling totally defeated. How could there be an entire mall full of stuff and NOTHING that appeals to me or if it does, of course it doesn’t fit properly? Every time I step into that place I come home feeling bad.
Add that to the grump pile. And now Franklin’s awake, after a very short nap. I guess I’d better go grump elsewhere…
I.can.not.move.
I have been so lazy of late. I haven’t been to the gym in too long. I’ve spent way too much time at the computer. It all started with me trying to get my website going. And all that other stuff that comes along with getting a business running properly. So I’ve had a good excuse. Until now. I really could/should be doing something else. But since the velcro butt is stuck to the chair for the time being, I’m going to share some favorites from my recent sessions.
I love the look she’s got here. She knows she’s in charge. It’s like she’s got this little inside joke going on there, some evil genius grin or something.
I got a lot out of this one that I really loved. But for today, I’ll just share two. Again, the baby ruling the family. They crack me up.
I love the lovey-ness of it. And the golden light. Though I love the b&w version of this too.
So it’s family Wednesay here. I have some fun individual shots too, but I love it when I can get everyone together, being themselves. Fun stuff.
I’ve got to get moving now before I’m permanently stuck to this chair….
I got my first summons for jury duty today. For some reason, I’ve always wanted to be called to jury duty. Especially to get picked as a juror. Not sure why…too much TV probably. I understand that as a full-time caretaker to young children, that gets me out of jury duty. But part of me regretfully checked the box that says I’m ineligible. Someday, maybe in my retirement, I’ll get to waste several days bored out of my mind in a jury box. Not sure why I felt that was blog-worthy, but I guess if that’s all I’ve got, that’s all I’ve got.
Hey…and today’s the last day for the fundraiser. The total is over $10,000!! That is SO amazing!! If you haven’t donated yet, go do it now…it’s your last chance!
Today is National Scrapbooking Day.
For those of you who don’t scrapbook, I know you’re probably gagging right now.
But if you DO scrapbook, go play over at 2 Peas! I just finished hosting my hour at the online crop and it was lots of fun. Here I am, saying hi, eating cupcakes.
Enjoy this holiday. Because it’s a very very important one. 
Franklin is two today. I can’t believe my baby is two. Crazy. It’s been an awesome couple years.
I really can’t believe how much I’ve enjoyed having him. I loved all my kids. Loved the little babyness of them. But even moreso with him I think. I just felt good. Comfortable in motherhood. And with my experience, I knew how fleeting this time would be. I really do think I’ve enjoyed him as much as I could for the whole time he’s been with us. It makes me really happy that I can honestly say that.
Off to make cupcakes. But I’m leaving you with a picture of him being born…just to commemorate the occasion.
Happy Birthday little dude!!!
how the heck do you spell jeapordy? jeapardy? I’m usually pretty good with spelling…huh… oh well.
So Dave has signed us up for life insurance. I know, we should have had it long ago. We did have some, but we wanted more. Dave’s dad sells insurance so he got us all set up.
Today we went to get some crazy exam that they require. Blood drawn, urine analyzed, blood pressure, all sorts of medical testing… You’d think they were getting ready to clone us. Which I’m not going to rule out. If you see someone exactly like me someday and it’s not me, you can blame the insurance company.
Anyway…it was funny to see Dave get stuck with a needle for the first time in over 10 years. How can it be that during the last 10 years he got ZERO needles, while I’ve had so much blood drawn and IVs and all that crap that I can’t even count it? Anyway, he was such a baby it made me laugh. He got all woozy. Said his arm hurt for a good half hour afterwards. He’s not usually a wimp, but I think that word might be appropriate today… don’t kill me for saying that, Dave! Then again, I’ll be pretty valuable once that life insurance kicks in…
The problem is, I have nothing to say. I bore myself, no fair of me to go boring others. I just didn’t want to inflict that kind of torture on anyone. That said, here I go, inflicting such torture.
I’ve spent a LOT of time on my stupid computer last week, trying to figure out how to get a shopping cart/gallery function up on my website. Oh…I should link that…ahem…my website. Anyway…I’m not exactly the most technical-minded person. So each thing is a challenge for me. But I think I got it. All except for the password part. So people can’t actually get in to see their pictures. Which means, then, that I didn’t get it. Still more work to do. Or just give it up and forget the whole thing. But that would mean I wasted a whole week working on it, so dag gummit, I’m going to get it right. Eventually. I just hope it doesn’t take another week.
I had two photo shoots last week. Lots of fun. Great subjects, good weather. I’m liking this whole gig. Except for the computer part. That is the hard part. Oh…and to top it off, my computer is threatening to die on me. Keeps freezing up for no reason. I.cannot.live.without.it. So, as much as I just trashed you, computer, please love me and don’t die.
The charity thing…did you donate yet? The total is over SEVEN GRAND and there’s still a week left. GO SCRAPBOOKERS!!! That’s awesome.
Oh…and one more thing. New Garden!! Fun stuff. Still. I don’t think it’ll ever get old.
I need to take a look at this page so I’m posting it here. A page of my hot husband, who hates getting his picture taken and is usually either very grumpy looking or blinking or wearing sunglasses. 
Ok. That’s it for me. If anyone died of boredom I won’t be held responsible. YOU need to be responsible and close the window before you die of boredom. It goes both ways, see.
by Shannon Montez
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