My son is Jim Morrison

"Break on through to the other side..." Jonas may be the reincarnation of Jim Morrison (minus the chest hair, drug habit and alcoholism). Quiet, sometimes sad, and from the looks of his 3rd grade papers, really a pretty good poet. It may be time for a haircut, or not.

"I woke up this morning and I chose not to comb my hair" sung to the chorus of Roadhouse Blues.

"Let it roll, baby, roll!"

The Craziness That Is My Life

This is my car.  This is an essential part of my life.  Without it, I could not run the Stringham Family Taxi Service, and where would I be then?  (In a much simpler, possibly dull place,  I am sure. )  May is an absolutely insanely crazy time at our house.  And I think it all culminates in this one week.  We have 3 kids playing soccer with either practices or games 2 days a week for each of them.  I play soccer once a week.  Shawn has lots of extra band practices because Studentfest is this weekend, plus since Summer Solstice is only weeks away, the Eddie band has also commenced practicing.  And swim team started this week for Jonas and Samantha.  Of course, we also still have piano, harp and dance going on.  

This is how my afternoon went: Pick Amelia up from preschool.  Run home to get swim stuff, ballet stuff and snacks for all.  Load it all into the car.  Load kids into car to go pick up Samantha from school.  Samantha in car.  Toss her her swimsuit to change into, then toss her a cheese stick and some crackers.  Drop her off at the pool.  Drive back to intercept Jonas and his friend, Tanner who are now off the bus and walking home.  Drop Tanner off.  Toss Jonas his swimsuit to change into, followed by his snacks to eat as well.  (All this time I am, of course, driving very carefully since I have children not buckled in and removing clothing - safe, huh?) Get back to the pool, unload everyone, watch Samantha swim for 5 minutes.  Get Samantha out of the water and Jonas in.  Hustle all the girls back out to the car where Samantha now changes into her ballet clothes while we drive to ballet.  Drop her off, return to the pool.  (Yes, this is now my third trip there in an hour!)  Unload and watch the last 10 minutes of Jonas' workout.  Then reload everyone, take Jonas home, unload all of the clothing, backpacks, towels, goggles, shoes, wrappers, papers, etc., from the car and dump it in a pile on the floor.  Load the girls back up and go get Samantha from ballet.  Bring her home.  Whew!  Now the problem is, they all want dinner, and I've clearly not made any yet.  Say hello and good-bye to Shawn as he heads off to scouts with some mention of how it would be nice to see him for an extended period of time in the near future.  

And to think we chose it all.  At least it will only be this crazy for a couple of weeks.  After next week, preschool ends, soccer ends, Studentfest will be done and things will settle into a slightly more manageable groove until school lets out for the summer.

It kind of makes me nostalgic for the days of a couple of young kids when the days seemed long and we were looking for things to do.  Anyway, it brings me back to my point of the necessity of my car in my life.  It's a sad state.  I wish I were less dependent on it, especially since, as Samantha puts it so gently, I am killing the penguins.  (They apparently learned something about global warming at school and my driving the car is clearly a direct cause - but she doesn't seem willing to ride her bike everywhere either.)  So there you have it - my life of craziness.  If you think you don't see me much or hear from me often, you can now understand that I barely have time to come up for air and my antisocial behavior is nothing personal. :)

Ah, The Joys of Motherhood or The Weather Needs To Improve Soon

This cold, rainy, snowy, weather is making me crazy, and therefore quite a bit less tolerant of all the lovely things that my children do.  Four times in the past 2 days, I have walked into a bathroom to find the entire roll of toilet paper unrolled and piled up on the floor, with parts of it shredded and spread all over. (Kind of makes me wish I hadn't bought the big rolls.)   I dream of cleaning up a room and coming back 5 minutes later to find that it is still clean.  But alas, it is not to be.  (Perhaps if it would stay warm enough, I could send the kids outside!)  Instead I come back to see that my 1 year old has poured herself some cereal or that both Amelia and Megan have helped themselves to yogurt, and in the process, Megan has painted both herself and the counter with it.  And one of my favorites is to find my girls making "phone calls".  (We have quite a history of dialing 9-1-1 around here, so this is never a good situation.)  This all happens in the time it takes me to go change a load of laundry or run to the bathroom, mind you. 

                                                                          I've heard that some kids 

will sit in front of a t.v. and stay put, therefore allowing a parent to accomplish some tasks, but I'm not that lucky.  And even if I leave the younger ones under the watchful care of an older sibling for a few brief moments, I may find when I check on them, that they have all colored themselves blue!  (So much for hoping that with age comes the ability to make good and responsible choices.)  I think even my kids are feeling a little cooped up if I am to judge from  all of the screaming and fighting that is going on between my two youngest, who are usually good buddies.  

All I know is that it better warm up quick if we are all going to survive!!!!

 

Another Race Done

I have been extremely negligent in my posting lately.  I just don't know where all my time goes.  Anyway, on Saturday, I completed the Salt Lake half marathon with Shawn and my friends Becky and Charisse.  So that's two down and two to go - at least of races I am committed to at this point.  The race went pretty well - with Shawn dragging me along.  Without his help, I would not have been able to go as fast.  (Fast, of course, being a relative term here.)  My time was about 8 minutes faster than Moab and about 11 minutes faster than last year's Salt Lake half, so it's good to know I am still improving.  But that downhill course made me so sore.  

I am blaming the race on my forgetting to call my brother Dan on his birthday.  It's not really a good excuse, but after getting up really early and running and then being wiped out for the rest of the day, it just got away from me.  So Happy Birthday Dan (and Lisa, since I clearly am in a trend of forgetting to call on birthdays.)  And also Happy Birthday to Matej yesterday.  (I think I'm all caught up now.) 

Well, since there is no rest for the weary, there is no time to sit around, I have to get on my bike since the St. George triathlon is only 31/2 weeks away!  (Oh, man!  I thought I had at least one more week!)  Cross your fingers for me that the weather will warm up enough for me to ride outside. 

At some point, I will have to pull out the camera and catch you up on the rest of our doings.  No telling when I'll get around to that though, so don't hold your breath.

My ABC's

My friend Rachel tagged me with this ABC list so here it goes...

A-attached or single:

I am definitely attached.

B-best friend:

Fortunately, I am married to him.

C-cake or pie:

This is a tough one, however, if brownies were an option there would be no question, so I guess if the cake is somewhat brownie-like, then cake.

D-day of choice:

Anyday that isn't packed full of carpooling, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.. or a day that has some freetime or a day when I don't have to go anywhere.  (I can't remember the last time that happened.)

E-essential items:

Food, water and a little sleep.  Plus sunglasses and a little chocolate.

F-favorite color:

I love so many colors that it's hard to choose, but probably something in the green family, although yellow makes me happy, too.

G-gummy bears or worms

Bears - especially if they've been dipped in chocolate.

H-hometown:

Salt Lake City, UT

I-indulgences:

Probably books and an occasional treat from the bakery.

J-January or July:

Absolutely July!

K-kids:

So far, I have four: 1 boy and 3 girls

L-life would be incomplete without:

family, friends, sunshine and books

M-Marriage date:

September 1, 1994 (Wow! going on 14 years!)

N-number of siblings:

I have 6 brothers; 3 older and 3 younger

O-oranges or apples:

I like them both but it depends on the time of year.  I love those little clementines at the beginning of the winter, and I love apples in the fall, but will eat either anytime of year if they're good.

P-phobia or fears:

Rodents! and failure

Q-quotes:

I love so many quotes, but this is a current favorite: "If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room."

R- reason to smile:

warm, sunny days, my kids, good music, good books, good conversation, etc.

S-season:

Summer (there's a reason we have a big party for summer solstice.)

T-tag 6: 

Shawn, Katie, Becky, Charisse, Matt and Anne (and Rob if you feel so obliged)

U-unknown fact about me:

I wish I were 3 inches taller (although many of you may know that so, how about that I am certified to sail a 48 foot boat on the ocean.  Sailing, anyone?)

V-vegetarian or oppressor of animals:

I'm about as close to vegetarian as you can get without actually being vegetarian.  I could easily go through the rest of my life without another bite of meat, but I will occasionally partake.

W-white or wheat:

Definitely wheat.

X-x-ray vision, invisiblity or flying as a super power:

I can see the value of all 3, but how much would I really use x-ray vision, and I might learn more than I want to with invisiblity although I find that highly tempting, but I really have always wanted to be able to fly,so flying it is. 

Y-Your favorite food: 

I don't know for sure, but I am definitely a fan of pastas.

Z-zodiac sign:

I am an Aries.

How I Spend My Time

My sister-in-law Michelle keeps a running tally of laundry loads on her blog.  I thought it might be interesting to keep track of a few of the things that make up a very large part of my daily life (and thus prevent me from spending much time doing the things I really want to do such as reading.) Anyhow, this is how things turned out for the entire month of March.

Loads of laundry:  65

Dishwasher loads:  29

Diaper changes:  91

Sixty-five loads of laundry in 31 days including all of the sorting, folding and putting away that goes along with it!  (No wonder I'm tired.)  I think I saved myself a couple of dish loads by traveling and having a Sunday dinner at my Mom's, because in general the dishwasher has to be run everyday.  I'm not entirely sure if the diaper count is accurate.  That was the hardest thing for me to keep track of because I just didn't remember to mark it down everytime I changed a diaper.  Now I just need to figure out a way to cut back on all that laundry...

Conference Sunday Beignets

Along with being able to stay home and watch church on t.v., one of our favorite parts of conference Sunday is our breakfast of beignets.  For those of you unfamiliar with these tasty little treats, they are french doughnuts.  Little bits of dough fried in oil and covered with powdered sugar.  (There's a reason we only eat these 3 times a year - Christmas being the only other time that we indulge.)  In New Orleans you would find these to be square shaped, but in the Stringham home, they are shaped to fit the occasion.  On Christmas, they are shaped as trees, Santas, stars, reindeer, etc., and at conference time they are shaped as beehives, covered wagons, temples and angels, with some hearts and stars thrown in for fun.  As you can see, the whole family pitches in to help.   We have finally learned to not bother with Saturday night baths and instead give post beignet baths - for obvious reasons.  Despite all of our best efforts, everything and everyone gets covered with flour and/or powdered sugar, but it's fun for everyone, and no one complains about the post breakfast "sugar lips".