Quality Time Archives - Desperately Seeking Sanity

It’s Been Three Years And We Haven’t Killed Each Other Yet

May 16, 2013 2 Comments

Today, the hubs and I are celebrating three years together. The gifts are to be leather if you’re traditional and crystal/glass if you’re modern. Apparently I am neither, because I didn’t even get him a card.

In my defense, I have been laid up on this couch barely able to breathe all day… so his gift today can be the fact that I cooked dinner (breakfast for dinner, I slaved) and did 2 loads of laundry in between naps.

I’m romantic like that.

We do have a gazillion cards to open because we go to a card lovin’ church…

And we’ll go out with friends this weekend…

And we did our annual trip to Chuck E. Cheese last night to celebrate until I just couldn’t hold my head up any longer. (We also decided last night that even when the kids are older, we are going to have to go to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate our anniversary!)

I don’t know how/why he puts up with me…I’m not the easiest person to live with (I know because sometimes I have trouble putting up with myself!) but I’m glad he does…

So for your viewing pleasure, here are some shots from our trip last night…

Love ya hun…. here’s to at least three more….

Side note on this one: We need to take this child to Vegas. She can follow the right case along and they win all 50 tickets 75% of the time.

Filed Under: Dorks R Us, Heather's Quirks, Pics, Quality Time, the boy

Thursday Thirteen — Things I Did Over Spring Break

April 11, 2013 4 Comments

Typically, on Spring Break, I work… I pawn the kids off on some unsupecting person to ensure their safety and that’s that.

That’s the way it’s always been. I’ve always had to work.

And this year was no different, but my job was.

This year, I figured I wasn’t the only parent who needed something to do so I scheduled a week’s worth of activities (just half days) and invited the community to play with us…

y’all we had a BLAST!

Here are 13 things that we did over spring break (not just with the church but at home too!)

1. Went on a mini-hike and picnic at Mill Mountain Park. We had a blast! They boys (and one girl) played football. We picnicked. And we totally were on the Star Cam. (Did you know that we have a big star in our city? You can see the view from the star over the city here (seriously? It’s worth your look… any time of day!) But here is what it looked like when our group was up there! (And I’m not sure that is our whole group!)

2. We cleaned up trash at our neighborhood Food Lion and 7-11. For two hours. Please don’t think I had older ones doing this either. There were two high schoolers and NINE elementary schoolers. And they worked hard! We were so disappointed when we drove by the next day and people had littered again.

3. Ate at McDonald’s and played in the Playplace. We don’t do it often but they worked so hard… they deserved a treat!

4. Went to Chuck E. Cheese. Yes. I took 13 kids (well, me and five other adults who also have lost their minds) to Chuck E. Cheese. And I’d take them back in a heart beat. I had the BEST behaved kids there.

Funny side note: I had five girls in the car with me that decided to play the quiet game on the way there. I drove by the joint and no one said a word. I just happened to look in the rear view mirror and they were freaking out and trying to get my attention to tell me that I missed the turn. They are hard core quiet game players, I tell ya.

5. Watched NKOTB on the Today Show. ::swoon::

6. Bought the new NKOTB CD.

7. Had a Cook-in (because it was 40 degrees outside and a cookout just wasn’t happening — that and they were calling for rain in the afternoon.)

8. Played in the SNOW! Yes! That rain they were calling for was SNOW and we got an inch… just enough to cancel the event we had planned Thursday night.

9. ”Popped some tags.” That means going to the thrift shop. Thing 1 and I went. And we got two new games which we played all week. Where is the USA is Carmen Sandiego and 1313 Dead End Drive. (I’m sorry. I know you’re now humming “where is the world is Carmen Sandiego. My kids were clueless.)

10. Learned that “popping tags” means going to the Thrift shop and hearing the song for the first time. I heard OF the song, but not the song. I know. Youth Pastor of the year right here. I really need to pay more attention.

11. Went to the library to just hang for a bit. All my kids LOVE it!

12. Took a road trip to Ikea on Friday with Thing 1 and one of my best friends. That’s 6 hours in the car but worth it all.

13. Took a road trip to Tennessee to meet my parents and get Thing 2 back. She had a blast! But I missed her!

So that’s what we did. How about you? What was the best part of your spring break? (Or if last week was just another week for you, what was the best part of your week?

Have a list of 13? Link up here. and leave a comment for me!… I’ll return the comment!

Until next time…

Filed Under: Quality Time, Thursday Thirteen

Whirlwind Life… and I Ain’t Foolin’

April 1, 2013 4 Comments

I started a post two weeks ago called “Life Happening Before My Very Eyes” and it was a general catch up about life happening around the House of Chaos. I got so busy, I never finished it.

And here I am, two weeks later, sitting at the library writing a post. It needs to be done, but I find that if I’m in the office or at the house, it just doesn’t. There’s always something else to do.

I kept thinking once March rolled out of here things would get a little more back to normal, whatever that is. When you work in a church, it’s somewhat busy around the time that Jesus is born and about the time He dies and then rises again.

It’s exciting. I’m not going to lie.

Throw a middle school retreat weekend in there as well as youth activities for Easter, including a flashlight Easter egg hunt and you get crazy. And that doesn’t even include the activities that I participated in as a mom and not the Children/Youth Pastor. You know, like the 5th grade field trip to the zoo and the Egg Hunt at another local church.

But here it is… April 1st.

Life is still crazy.

It’s Spring Break. I have two choices with these kids. Let them sit at home and rot their brains with TV and video games or get them out and active. So I’m getting them out and active. (Never mind that we are at the library, all of us on the computer.) But this morning, we spent at the top of Mill Mountain… on a short hike and playing…. nineteen kids and six adults. All part of a Spring Break program I put together.

Honestly, it was selfish. I needed something to do with my kids. So I planned some activities and invited the community. I figured worse case scenario, no one would come and I would get paid to spend time with my kids.

But it was pretty cool to see the boys (and girls) playing football and making obstacle courses… and the kids ranged from four to sixteen… and all in between.

And when the time came for parents to pick them up, they weren’t done playing.

Me? I was beyond done. Hanging with a bunch of kids reminds me that my bones are so much older than theirs.

But the boys have been begging me for over a week to bring them to the library and the evenings have been so crazy… so I promised them today…

Of course, Thing 4 politely reminded me that she was the only one in the family that didn’t have a library card. That’s not entirely true as the Hubs doesn’t have one — but I don’t see that happening.

So here we are.

I need to go to the grocery store.

I need to clean up the dishes from yesterday’s Easter meal.

I need to get caught up on the laundry.

But for now? It’s so nice to sit in silence…

I’m even sipping on an iced coffee from the coffee shop within the library (free refills at that!) and process this life that I lead.

One that is always going to be a whirlwind because that’s what life is with two children, two step-children, and a gazillion other kids in my extended community.

And most days?

I wouldn’t trade it for the world…

Until next time…

Filed Under: Mom Stuff, Quality Time, Thoughts..., Time wasting..., youth ministry

What I Learned This Week — the Cruise Edition

February 19, 2013 1 Comment

Y’all I don’t mind telling you… I’m cold and tired.

And I want to be back on a boat in the middle of the ocean or in a foreign country where the shop keepers keep calling me “pretty lady” so that I’ll enter their store. (Which nine times out of ten works…I’m a sucker like that!)

But since I can’t be there, I’ll share some of the things I learned this week while sailing the ocean blue.

1. I missed my kids. All four of them. I would see things that reminded me of them and want so badly to share them. There were Navy SEALs headed out to practice whatever Navy SEALs practice and I wanted Thing 3 to see that. The picture?

Navy seals key west

…doesn’t do it justice.

(Even though he was pretty excited that I took it for him…)

2. Despite the fact that I OWN chickens of my own, I was fascinated by the fact that they roam around Key West… just roam! They are everywhere and they are beautiful. And of the 600+ pictures that I took, I bet at least 50 of them were of chickens.

chickens roam free in key west, florida

3. Nothing will make you feel fatter than getting stuck on the water slide….

4. …except going at lightening speed down the water slide and crashing into someone feet first (who was stuck on the slide.)

Water slide on Carnival Imagination

5. When shop keepers in Cozumel tell you that the ring you are eyeing won’t turn your finger green and then drop the price in half, don’t believe them. Or if you do, don’t be shocked when less than 24 hours later it turns your finger green. (Just put some clear nail polish on it and go about your business.) Please also note that this was learned a year ago in the Bahamas, but apparently I’m unable to remember these things.

6. You can make a chicken out of chili peppers…

chicken made out of chili peppers

7. If you practice hard enough, you can take a REALLY awesome picture of you and your husband while waiting to board the plane…

8. The Everglades would be more fun if it weren’t pouring down rain. Additionally, when you’re husband is holding an alligator, the picture will be clearer if there isn’t a huge rain drop on the camera lens.

bill_and_alligator

9. It would also be helpful to have learned how to say “Excuse me…it’s pouring down rain and I’m trying to take a picture of my husband with an alligator. Could you please move?” in French, Spanish and German. I would then have been able to effectively communicate better with the people who would.not.move.

10. When your tour guide in Cozumel is short with dark hair and continually says to the group, “Vamanos” you will call her Dora.

11. When she asks you to help get the group out of the tequila factory and back on the bus and you yell, “vamanos!” she will smile, laugh, and you will score MAJOR brownie points with your tour guide.

cozumel tour guide with tequila

12. Good tequila doesn’t have a worm in it.

13. There are some tequilas that didn’t want to make me vomit at the smell of them… specifically the blue something or other (margarita tequila) and the almond tequila.

14. Alligator meat tastes like chicken. (so says the hubs. And he would know. He ate a whole plate full of alligator bites.)

15. The fries on the Norwegian Sky were 1,000 times better than the fries on the Carnival Imagination.

french fries

16. If, when you get back to the airport after traveling through the Everglades, and are soaked and want to change clothes, don’t let that rush you so as to not pay attention to the suitcase you are grabbing.

17. When you open it and wonder when you got a brown bag and where all the OTC pills came from, realize immediately that you have picked up the wrong suitcase.

18. When sending your husband to see if he can find the person whose suitcase you have, make sure you send the suitcase with him.

19. As the school is calling trying to get ahold of someone to pick your children up from school and the overhead page is for your husband to return to the baggage drop off area even though you now have your suitcase back and are trying to take your clothes into the bathroom to change, make sure that in the process of “talking with your hands” that are full of clothes that you don’t fling your undies across the airport.

20. My Bible and a wet sweatshirt together weigh 5 pounds. I know because my suitcase was 5 pounds over weight and upon removing these two items, it was safe to fly. God’s word is “heavy stuff”

21. Mary Snyder doesn’t take a bad picture and her smile will light up a room!

mary snyder

22. It’s a small world. We ate dinner with two couples from Lynchburg (an hour from us) and we knew some of the same people. By the time the week was over we were all great friends, now friends on Facebook and planning outings here in Virginia.

23. We had an amazing time listening to the speakers, being together, making new friends, listening to the Christian entertainment the awesome weather (except in the Everglades!)… in fact, we had so much fun, we’re going again next year. It’s just THAT important to us to invest in our marriage. If you’re interested, let me know! I have a deal for you!

What did you learn this week? Link up at From Inmates to Playdates.

Until next time…

Filed Under: Pics, Quality Time, Sans Kidlets, the boy, Weather, What I Learned This Week

A Wrench in the Birthday Works

January 19, 2013 1 Comment

I had a plan to celebrate Thing 1′s 16 birthday today.

God had other plans.

I’ve been gone all week at the Minister’s Convocation… you know a retreat, with other clergy, refreshing and renewing and all that jazz.

But we drove right back into the thick of a snow storm… schools were let out two hours early, so whereas I should’ve been home before the kids, they were home before me.

We hunkered down, waiting for the hubs, watching the snow fall to the tune of an inch or so an hour.

The call to close schools today came quickly… before we even sat down to dinner.

Many around us lost power as it was a heavy, wet snow. While ours flickered off and on, staying off for just a minute or so at a time, it stayed on throughout the night. Honestly, while the rest of the neighborhood was without power, I thought it was God’s way of sparing us. When the major storm went through this summer, we were the only two houses that lost power. You know, like it was THEIR turn.

The hubs went to work this morning – the roads were fine as the snow stopped last night about 10 and the amazing crews from VDOT worked all night clearing and salting the roads.

I slept in.

It was wonderful.

I woke up and puttered around for a little.

I headed downstairs to get pictures from the first year of Thing 1′s life. I sat down going through them, picking out the ones that I wanted to show on the blog, and went to scan them.

Because isn’t he so STINKIN’ cute??? Just six hours old in this picture….

The computer was off.

Hmm.. I thought. Must’ve gone off when the power went out last night.

I hit the button to turn it on and nothing.

At this point, I’m working through my head that the computer was fried and that it was okay because it was old… that surely we could get off anything that was on there, etc… without freaking… (quite proud of myself)…

It was then I realized that the router lights weren’t blinking.

I poked my head in the kitchen and the clock was out on the stove.

I yelled for the kids, all getting ready to go out and play, that we had lost power.

We are on a well, so therefore, when the power is out, we have to go to the neighbors to go to the bathroom. And I had to pee. So I headed over, in my pajamas, to visit… and use the bathroom.

I snapped a few pictures on my way back to the house….

Not knowing how long ours would be out, when an invitation to come for lunch and for the kids to play, I jumped on it. I stopped at the store and grabbed a few cupcakes for Thing 1 so we could celebrate and off we went.

We had a GREAT impromptu visit… with friends that we never get time to see.

We laughed, and ate, and fellowshipped.