A perfect kick off to the holidays!

I am taking a breather from studying for finals and the above statement is very close to the amount of attention I have given my professors this semester. I think it is a combination of non stop classes for the last two years,  my uncertainty of my last two years of hard work becoming pointless if I don't get accepted into the nursing program, and stresses at home. Needless to say I am ready for winter break...let me say that again...I AM READY FOR WINTER BREAK!

Anyways, I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving! I got to spend mine with my mom and my niece Gabby. They flew in Tuesday and flew out the following Tuesday. We spent Thanksgiving at my in-laws and had a yummy dinner. Friday we spent the day decorating for Christmas. My mom stepped in and did what she does best, decorate...she did a beautiful job with my fireplace mantle. Here is some pictures of the upstairs decorations...the downstairs is a work in progress still and hopefully will be done before December 25th.

I love suns and you can spy a few suns on my tree.

I have a side table in my kitchen and this what we came up with.

My tree... decorations in red, white, and silver.

A table in my living room, my mom decorated this table.

My fireplace mantle turned out beautiful..my mom took over this project while I did the tree. It has lots of details to it you can't see in the picture...BEAUTIFUL!

All lit up at night

I love lots of lights on my tree.

Saturday we took the family in and saw the Muppet movie and got some dinner at Red Robin. I guess with age you get more sentimental about things of the past. I loved the Muppet's as a kid....LOVED the Muppet's. The movie is well done and very reminiscent of the original Muppet movie. At one point in the movie Kermit sings rainbow connection...


...yup...I teared up...I know my kids won't fall in love with the Muppet's as much as I did as a kid but I am glad I got to share a little bit of my childhood with them.

I needed this  weekend..to take a deep breath...to laugh..to be with family.....

It was the perfect kick off to truly one of my favorite times of the year.

Google Engine, M.D.

I am not old by any means but I now mark the box that says 35-48 age range so I guess that puts me in that middle age range. With age I have a few more gray hairs, few more wrinkles, random whiskers that show up in weird places. A few more ailments that seem to crop up like stiff joints, stronger eyeglass prescriptions, a questionable mole, but overall my health is fine.

I will admit as you get older you are more in tune to your body if something is not quite right, and maybe because I now mark that middle age box, mortality is a little closer than it was 15 years ago. I think in our technology age we also tend to google our symptoms to try to self diagnose our ailment. This is never a good idea because what may be a simple case of indigestion by the time you are done browsing the web you are certain you need a triple bypass and are moments from certain death.

This is where I share an experience on Wednesday that I was certain God had decided to put me out of my stressful misery and google was going to give me my final diagnosis moments before my death so that the coroner would not have to do an autopsy.

Wednesday was a long day with a long list of activities to get done. At our church I had a mother/daughter activity that needed my full attention. So I headed over to the church in the afternoon to set up and get the room decorated. We were pretty much done and all of sudden I was getting a weird distortion in my sight in my left eye......

It was as though I was looking through a crystal prism in the upper left hand corner of my eye. It was small but distracting and out of the norm. I sat down, blinked my eyes a few times, and it would not go away after a few minutes.

I excused myself from our decorating and drove home...the distortion was getting increasingly bigger....my anxiety level was reaching a threshold point.

I walked in the house and immediately laid down on my left side. I have been under a lot of stress so maybe it was my blood pressure, laying down on your left side will help bring down your pressure. I was running through 50 possible explanations in my head...but ....all I could think was....STROKE!!!! 

I was in a full on panic attack at that point. The distortion was growing larger and it was not going away.

Adrian came in the room asked what was wrong, I explained what was going on and said, "I need to go to the hospital, something is not right."....then I stopped, and in all my medical wisdom said, " GOOGLE IT! I am having a STROKE! SEE if this is a symptom of a STROKE!"

So I followed Adrian downstairs, laid down on the floor,  still on my left side, because I am positive my panic attack has sent my blood pressure through the roof, and I was going through all the self tests for signs of a stroke. I am yelling out my symptoms and Adrian is search engining his wife's possible demise.

... and amidst all this panic the five year old was laying down beside me whispering in my ear, "Can I have a fruit snack?"

This is it! This is going to be my last few minutes on earth...lying on my basement floor, my husband googling my possible stroke, and the five year old wanting fruit snacks.

...and then...google came up with my diagnosis...the diagnosis the coroner would use for his paperwork.

OCULAR HEADACHE...a precursor to a migraine....sometimes a migraine may happen, sometimes not...it lasts for 5 to 20 minutes and it will go away.

...about that time it went away and I did not have a migraine...

...I was not having a stroke.

I laid there...let my panic attack subside....and then we looked at each other..and started to laugh....

...what else do you do at that point...

 I laid on the floor while we searched engined a diagnosis for my possible death... and the five year old was more concerned about me getting one last snack for her....

There it is...my obituary in a nutshell....

 Wednesday, November 16, 2011, over stressed wife and mother found dead lying on her left side on basement floor. According to Google it may or may not have been a stroke.

Five year old asks you send fruit snacks in lieu of flowers.

A Sign That I Am Doing Something Right?

Life has been heavy around here lately. The stresses of life have consumed my conversations with my spouse. Tensions run high and patience run short because unfortunately though we know better, sometimes that is the easiest way to deal with things.

All these stressful conversations of our financial concerns, job hunting, and our future here in our hometown..

...but....

There is these pauses in between all this chatter ....and it is the chatter of our children.

They make us smile. I love hearing their conversations between one another, their conversations around the dinner table, their conversations one on one.

It takes you away from life and and distracts you from your burdens.

I listen to them share things about school. It always start with, "MOM! Guess what happened at school, it was way cool!"...and then it is followed by telling me about a kid that fell and "CRACKED" there head all the way open, or a kid puking in the lunchroom, or maybe the power going off, or the fire alarm going off and  how they all got to stand on the playground forever but in reality it was probably 15 minutes. Stories about library time, P.E., and computer lab are told in great detail by the five year old because everything experienced by my kindergartner is comparable to a visit to Narnia.

Dinner time is usually dominated by the five year old sharing stories of...well...half the time we don't know what she is talking about, but whatever she is saying is usually entertaining because of her dramatic flair for acting out everything she says. I have come to the conclusion it has been good dinner conversation when one of the twins announces their drink came up their nose because they were laughing so hard.

One on one time with our children is usually  a time for them to to narc each other out, which I find funny because it is usually just the minor things they have done not the big things. I suppose they think if they narc each other out for the minor things repeatedly it will make the bigger things less...big?!! I always find it funny that if you take just one of them with you to run an errand..especially the twins....they talk nonstop. I suppose they feel it is their time, their platform, their time to let go of everything, and they won't be interrupted by a sibling. You also realize that they are close and do look out for each other in their quirky ways. If we stop for a treat all of them will ask if we are going to take something home for the others...they want to make sure the others are not left out of all the fun.

Here's the thing..... what I have learned about this kid chatter....we are doing an okay job as parents...you know why?

Even though we have all these stresses in our life.....the kids...

.. their chatter has not changed, their giggles and laughter have not changed...they have continued going on as though nothing is wrong...as they should be.

...and for that reason I say kudos to us!

These job troubles, financial stresses, and school things do not concern them...these are mom and dad things...adult things....not kid things. When I see parents carry these stresses down to their children I cringe. They understand money is a little tight right now so we can't do some of those extra things but they don't need grand details of everything.

What a short amount of time we have in our life span to be care free...to have the most eventful event in our day involve a kid burping the alphabet in class...or being able to spend a family dinner discussing how Santa can make it around the world in one night.

As a parent you are always worried if you are doing the right thing, setting the right example, saying the right thing.

I hope this an example that we are doing something right.  We are providing an environment where they can just be kids and I would not want it to be any other way.

So amidst all my self appointed parental failures...

...at least we get a gold star for this one!

Epic Meltdown of 2011

I think I have expressed before that I have a hard time expressing my emotions. I am not a boo-hoo kinda girl, I don't cry at the drop of a hat, and I can honestly say overly emotional people make me uncomfortable. I express my vulnerability in silence and usually if I am silent it is because I am feeling one or all of the above emotions in the list that I posted above.

I hit a wall last Tuesday night....I have hit a lot of walls lately...but this time I felt like the crash test dummies traveling 100mph towards a brick wall.....I was racing towards this wall and I knew as soon as I hit this wall there would be an explosion heard around the Brand household and it would soon be labeled for future reference as, "The day mom lost it!"

....I hit that wall and there was an explosion...the mother of all explosions.....

(This picture is a dramatic reenactment of, "The day mom lost it!")

There was events leading up to this day. They were small things that were compounding on to the bigger things....

Tuesday night...the twins pulled an adolescent brain fart moment  ... it set me off ...they were at ground zero of my explosion....

(This picture is a dramatic interpretation of the twins appearance after my nuclear explosion)

and then I turned my attention to my husband because I figured at this point I mine as well finish what I started and I didn't want him to feel left out of of the, "The day mom lost it" event.

(This picture is a dramatic interpretation of Adrian being down wind of my explosion)

I let everything go......everything I had pent up inside me radiated from every pore in my body.

The only one that avoided the singe of my fire was the youngest because lets face it she is still young enough that she is not accountable for her brain fart moments. She sat blissfully downstairs eating fruit snacks and watching cartoons. Anyways, she would have interrupted my epic meltdown by asking questions like, "Do I look pretty today?" and "Is this a good time to ask if I can add something to my Christmas wish list?"

When it was over and I had nothing left in me.....I felt my shoulders relax.....I felt my jaw relax....

.....all that fogginess in my head had cleared......

We talked it out, we hugged it out, and "I Love You" was said in the end.

These are the issues that arise when you are part of that thing called a "FAMILY"...

In fact Erma Bombeck says it best:

The family.  We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.  ~Erma Bombeck

I suppose that common thread is love. Love allows me to have epic meltdowns, love allows me to feel safe enough to let go and express what I am feeling.....Love allows me to cry, and be angry.... but they also know....

 .....that at the end of the night when everyone goes off to bed, without a shadow of doubt...

...I love them ....and I love this strange little tribe that I call...

my Family!





Saturday Web Favorites

I am bored....

It is cold and snowy outside.....

I am making my husband watch chick flicks with me...well, he has moved on to the computer but he is in the same room that chick flicks are being shown....

My children have also left the room and I am positive they are sneaking Halloween candy but I am lounging comfortably on the couch and I don't want to move....

I am also eating some Halloween candy....

I want a big mug of hot cocoa but I am to lazy to get up and make it.......

I did fold laundry, put away my Halloween decorations, and put Thanksgiving decorations up, so don't think I have not done anything today...but in reality that is all I am probably doing today?!....

I have browsed the world wide web...well, Facebook and Pinterest... and really that is 2 hours of browsing alone.....

Anyways I want to share what I found.....because I am bored and my husband is already being subjected to chick flicks and I don't think he wants to look at home decor and decorating ideas...he can only handle so much....in fact, I think he was watching sports and now he has moved on to video games where he can blow up things....

So if you are bored....enjoy!......I wonder if I could talk the children into making me hot cocoa?

 Never occurred to me to use a fitted sheet to cover a box spring instead of using a bed skirts because lets face it bed skirts are a pain in the A**!

 How adorable for a girls room...love the stripes on the ceiling!

 Hang a wreath on a cabinet and don't ruin the cabinet. Hang a command strip upside down then tie a bow to your wreath.

 Find a map with the locations of where you met, married, and now live with your significant other and then frame it.

 I love this idea....a family tree with portraits of all your family.

 I wish I sewed. These were on pioneer woman earlier this week, they were made by someone she knows and I think they are adorable.

 Instead of a shadow box make a jar with all your vacation mementos.

 I love this kitchen!

 This is what my imaginary guest room would look like in that imaginary home I would have by the ocean.

 This is my imaginary house in the South and Paula Deen and I would be in the kitchen making things with lots of butter and drinking sweet tea.

 My imaginary back patio looks exactly like this in my head.

 I have a bathroom the size of most bathrooms on a R.V. so a bathroom like this makes me drool out of the corner of my mouth.

Christmas is coming......hence the snow currently covering my front lawn...I like this mantle. 

 A perfect playroom.

I want one of these and no children would be allowed, I think of this as my playroom....NO CHILDREN ALLOWED!

....So, what happened next?

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia

~E.L. Doctorow

Blogging...basically an online journal, that is exposed to the world. I write to share my life with  family, friends, and whoever randomly comes across it. I enjoy writing and almost 7,000 hits on my blog in a year and a half.. either others enjoy reading it or maybe they are just checking in to see what is up with the crazy lady? However, I forget that people who are not necessarily in my everyday life don't get the conclusion to some stories...the outcome of my random life events.

 I was stopped by someone at school, a text from a friend,  a lady in our church, and a posted message by someone I don't know who reads my blog...all of them wondering...Did your husband find work?.....Did your conflict at church get resolved?...Are you moving to Texas? The funniest one was a professor that stopped me and said he had talked about blogs in one of his class discussions and he used my blog ( I gave him the link sometime ago)  as an example of different style blogs (immediately I apologized for all grammatical errors and asked him not to silently correct my blog with a red pen)...anyways he asked questions about nursing school.

So here we go...an update on my crazy life:

(A)...job update......Adrian had a few job offers all at once about a month ago and we decided to go with a local company, here in town. It is a start up company that got a contract with a local government army facility. It was steady work through the winter and it made the most sense for us. However, typical government bureaucracy has stalled the contract and the owner had to contract with other companies that  have not paid...that means we got no paycheck last Friday...and still have no paycheck as of a week later. Adrian found another job this week...we had no choice.. and  he will start on Monday. I am hoping the paycheck comes through sometime this next week or legal action will begin?! ...I don't want to think about the amount of money we have made in the last 3 months, I am not sure how we have done it......I  am tired, Adrian is tired...I am not sure when the last time is I slept through the night.... but I know with every ounce in my body that this will pass and we will make it through....maybe with a few more gray hairs and few more dark circles under my eyes. I also have some amazing people in my life who have helped me through this stress, talked me through this stress, just listened to me stress...thank you to those people.

(B) Church issue resolved.....A half hearted apology made by the gentleman? ...a lot of people wondering how Adrian kept his cool and supporting him...life moves on...I have bigger things to worry about.

(C) We are not moving to Texas tomorrow...it is an option...and option we have to explore. We have a lot options to explore. So... no.... not today or tomorrow........it eases my mind to have options and this point anything that eases my mind is good thing. ......seriously people if I lived in Texas I would have my RN by now..."sigh".....I have heard Austin is lovely!!!! It is something Adrian and I would have to really have to think about and would not make a decision like that lightly.

The kids are good and doing well in school......school for me is going great and I should have straight A's again......I am dreaming of my Caribbean cruise in March.....Christmas is around the corner so that means I can turn my house into a winter wonderland which makes me happy all the way to my soul, I love Christmas....My mom is coming for Thanksgiving and she does not know it yet but she will be helping me turn my house into that winter wonderland.. ...see lots of good things happen whether they are small everyday things or bigger things amidst all the chaos that I call my life.

Thanks for reading...thanks for being concerned.....thanks for dealing with all my grammatical errors....thanks for viewing my ramblings and rants, and letting me show off pictures of my children.

Thanks for letting me share the good, the bad, and ugly parts of my life with you.......

Another Halloween Has Come and Gone.

Halloween is over, now it is time to move on to the next holiday. Here is a few pics I took of the girls before they headed out to collect vast amounts of candy that they will be eating well into next year.

Princess Poo Poo showing of her glittery high-tops.

All in pink, her favorite color!

Seriously this girl thinks she is a princess everyday, and I love that about her!

The twins did not want to go trick or treating and then changed their mind at the last minute so Cheyenne put together a nerd outfit which I think she regretted later because there is no make-up involved with being  a nerd and putting on make-up is some of the best parts of Halloween.

Kaitlynn put together a witch outfit.

Oh my goodness she is growing into a beautiful young woman.

Kaitlynn's pet spider

Showing Cheyenne the pet spider....AAAACK!

"giggle"

AAACKKK!.....again

"Mom, please stop taking pictures!"

Forever Sister's!