a cold day, a bad dog

Tomorrow the high is 2 degrees F. School is cancelled tomorrow. Which means time for me to get creative and come up with some around-the-house projects for 6 busy hands. I do have a massage scheduled tomorrow morning that I was so looking forward to. I think I'll take a movie pass again. Not only will they get to stay home, but also watch a movie on a school day. Double bonus.

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I hate my dog- Jake. Call me evil, a dog-hater, a communist, whatever. That's fine. I still hate him. We went to the hardware store all together (we're looking into finishing a room in the basement) and when we get home, guess what I find? Oh I'm so mad I can hardly type about it. Jake peed on my pillow!!! GROSS! It was on the floor, the pillow, I mean. I'm not sure if he jumped on the bed and knocked it off then peed on it or it was already on the floor. So I take it downstairs and throw it in the wash. Then I talk to Emi again about taking him out. He's such a whimp though you open the door for him and he feels the cold air and runs up to his bed. And THEN, I flip the light on in the toy room. Oh no..that's....!!!JAKE!!! poop in the toyroom. I seriously threaten for the 109th time to put that dog on craigslist. All the children hate me and tell me so. Why am I the bad guy? Is it so wrong to not want dog poop and pee all over my house? This is what he does when it's cold outside. He refuses to go out then when we leave, he takes care of business in the house. Well guess who's getting THROWN out in the snow 3 times a day? That's right, Jake, YOU ARE (just in case you're reading this). I don't care if it's 18 below. You ruined my night and turned my children against me. No more chances!

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Okay, I'm better. Accounting class is great. I love it, actually. A fun challenge. I think I may have been an accountant in another life. It's also helping me with my quickbooks consulting. Not that I do a ton of it, but a few hours with different businesses here and there. But it's helpful to have the foundations of accounting because often the questions people ask me are more along the lines of accounting than technical things with quickbooks.

Sunday night

One of my simple pleasures in winter is being able to put the kids to bed at 7:30, just because it's dark out. Emily's onto this and doesn't fall for it anymore, but she likes to read at night anyway. It's the other two that are a work-out and luckily can't tell time yet. I think they need more sleep in the winter anyway. And there's something about Sunday, between 3 hours of church and all this family togetherness, that makes them a little more unruly than other days of the week. So sometimes by 6:30, I'm ready to turn my "mommy" hat in for the night and put them all to bed. Tonight Taylor and I both had meetings at church from 6-7 so we let them watch "Veggie Tales" which is a rare treat around our house to let them watch anything on Sunday. Emily's almost 11 so I do leave her in charge from time to time, and they usually watch a movie so there's not much to fight about. When we came home we had scripture study and put them to bed.

Taylor and I had a talk the other night. It's time to put more effort into our marraige. We go through marital hi's and low's and lately it's been a low. Nothing bad really, or nothing any other marraige probably doesn't go through from time to time. We're just sort of living parallell lives but not really connecting. But we agreed that we do want to make things better and the past few days they have been better. Here's a thought. I've been reading through some different marraige books and I came across something that clicked. When we feel like communication has broken down in our marraige, we try to be better communicators. But communication isn't the problem. It's being in love. That's the feeling we've lost, not our ability to communicate. If we can rekindle the feelings of love for eachother, better communication happens. A great marraige isn't built on great communication but great love. That's paraphrasing, but it made sense. Because sometimes I feel like we forgot how to talk to eachother or we don't have much to say but I think it's because neeed to be "in love" again, not necessarily become better communicators. And it's just all the little stuff, like being thoughtful, respectful, doing kind things, saying nice and positive things. It's hard, marraige is. It takes a lot of effort and pride-swallowing. It's interesting that most love stories are about falling in love, but not about the next 60+ years of staying in love. That's where the real effort and lasting love are. Taylor and I are sealed together forever and I want to make our marraige the best it can be.

Interactive Modern Art

We took the kids to the CU faculty art show today. They all took turns sitting on this chair that started flapping it's wings when someone sat in it. Not sure of the deeper meaning, but they had fun dreaming about a flying chair anyway.
Taylor and I went to the y for a workout then when we came home I had a bowl of icecream.

I'm not still not liking the color

Olivia said it looks like playdough. I'm such a do-it-yourself-er but I think the realm of hair is something I should leave to the professionals from here on out.

I am really liking my accounting class. I like the mental challenge and I feel pretty ept with it. I've had a lot of experience with quickbooks, and running the office so a lot of what I'm learning totally makes sense.

Today is a beautiful day. Taylor and Evan and I went to Boulder and walked up the Chataqua park trail a little ways. It's in the 60's I think and I even soaked up a few rays while Evan played at the park.

my hair

I died my hair today. It was not what I had in mind. Emily said it looks Mexican, whatever that means. It was supposed to be golden blonde but its more like strawberry blonde.

Evan's new pet

Evan got a Venus fly trap today.  He named him "Fifi Jacob Workman". But he said we can call him Fifi for short.  He's scouring the backyard for dead bugs at the moment to feed Fifi.

Evan and me at the park

my dream, interpreted by me

I had a dream the other night. Most dreams don't make any sense to me but after some reflection I knew exactly what this one meant. In my dream, Evan was holding a newborn. I found him holding the baby over the balcony in our house. In my dream I didn't know who the baby was. I ran to catch the baby, which I did, just in time. Evan was upset that I caught it. I was upset he tried to drop it. What I now understand is this: Evan is growing up and I need to let him. The baby in the dream was his baby years, he's letting go of them and I'm not ready. He turned 5 in December and when Emily was 5 I treated her as a much older child, because I had another baby to baby, same with Olivia. But Evan's my last and I'm having a hard time coming to terms with that. Sometimes I think if life were simpler and I didn't do all the things I do for Taylor's office, not to mention the stress, then I might just have another one. It just doesn't seem practical right now. I mean, like anything in life, the stresses and workload ebb and flow, but mostly it seems to much to ad a baby in the mix.

on success

I think most of us, including myself, have a mistaken idea of success. I'm not sure what it is but there seems to be this innate desire in us that our homes, our spouses, and our children all radiate success. And when they don't we feel like failures. When our children are ornery or take wrong turns, we feel we've failed. When we go through financial difficulty, we feel we've failed. When we have difficulty in a relationship, it seems like failure. While some difficulties in life may be completely of our own making, I think others are designed specifically for us. Even a gift from God. God knows each of us better than we know ourselves. If we are to overcome our weaknesses and develop talents and strengths, we must be tested and tried and do things that are hard. Sometimes very hard. But in the end, after the trial has passed, often we can see the hand of God in our lives and how the difficulty or hardship has helped us become a better person. And much of the time we are growing and learning are times of difficulty, but not failure. Success comes from a lifetime of patiently learning from our hardships, developing faith in the Lord, and becoming better from our challenges.

Its Friday night

Evan's rollerblading, we're doing puzzles and playing bopit.
Today I : painted, worked on payroll tax forms (mostly done), went swimming with Evan,  did some office bookkeeping, made dinner.

Wall of paintings

I did all these little ones on top last night.  Or started on them anyway.  I'm cranking them out now that I have my own saw.
Taylor's back so all is right with the world again.  The kids are used to having him around a lot so when he leaved its a really big deal.

Wood panels

I just made these cute little wood panels. They're all primed, sanded, and ready to be painted. I threw some color on because I don't like painting on white. But they're kinda cool like that too.
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I started my accounting class today.  I think Edward from Twilight was sitting next to me. Same hair and polished look. The instructor rambled on way too much about way too little. Hopefully that was not what the rest of class will be like.
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Taylor comes home tonight. I've tried calling several times today but I'm guessing his phone is dead. Which doesn't surprise me. He's not really a cell phone kind of guy. Or a watch guy or a calendar guy. But that's ok because he has me and I'm all of the above.

Be Still My Soul

Another one. I'm having fun with the hymns. Once you realized there's only a few chords, they're all pretty easy.

Come Ye Children of the Lord

I'm posting this because, like I say in the video, I play to my kids most nights and I thought I'd post a few songs on my blog.

Sunday musings

It is Sunday and it is quiet at my house. These two things do not usually go hand in hand. But I'm enjoying it. I am currently hiding from my children with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I'm eating the last of it. Yum.
Taylor left for a CE course in Seattle so it's just me and the kids for 4 days.
I have been working on my St. George paintings some more. I am liking the way they are turning out.
My parents moved back to Saudi last week. Not that it really matters for me, they still come visit twice a year at least from wherever they are. They were living in Houston for 6 months or so. Now they're in Al-Kohbar. I'd like to go and visit sometime but the tickets are so darn expensive and I'd have to fly Kandy (Taylor's mom) out to watch the kids..but maybe someday.
Taylor and I went on a date last night. This is noteworthy because we hardly ever go. We went to Basil Flats and had some salad and a humus bowl. It was pretty good. Taylor's still trying to loose a few pounds (hence the salad), which by the way, he has faithfully been going to the gym. It's funny we can never finish a conversation with the kids around yet when we go out alone, we can't think of a whole lot to say. Unless it's about work, which there's always that. Maybe we should go out more. Probably. After dinner we went to the hardware store. Hot, I know. We looked at cabinet ideas for his office. Also romantic. I think what I'm saying here is we need a little more romance in the marraige. Or at least I do, I don't think he thinks we do.

My baby dinosaur

At sandstone today

The snow melted but we're having fun anyway

Finally a day that's not bitter cold. Actually it's sunny and nice out. We were just here yesterday and it was a winter wonderland now there's barely any snow left.

I almost got asked out

This is funny. I was at a cardio class at the Y today and I started talking to a girl in the class that I see from time to time. She said a couple of months ago she was at the Y with her husband and his friend. Apparently I said hi to her and the friend who was with them started asking her about me. The only times I've seen her I've been by myself or dropping Evan off at school and she assumed I was single. So she told him she thought I was single and he asks her to find out what she can about me. I didn't run into her for a while after that then recently she found me through a mutual friend on facebook and she found out that yes, I am married. I had to laugh. OK, it's a little flattering. But I'm sure glad she figured that out and told him so before he asked me out. That would've been awkward.

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We're at the library today

I got a James Taylor book for guitar. Evan is happily playing with the train. And its about 2 degrees outside.

I liked this talk. 

Longs Peak from Airport Road

I worked on this yesterday.
Taylor is determined to loose 20 pounds so we've been going to the gym every night as a family.  He's already lost 7. The Y has a kids club the kids like going to while Taylor and I work out.
Its bitter cold here. 

Another work in progress

Working on this tonight

Painting

This is another painting I did from the same picture. I've done 3 from the same photo. I silver leafed the frame which was fun. Now I'm working on some red rock paintings from St. George.

This is Olivia's dollhouse in progress

A New Year

I'm not great with new year's resolutions. I do better with smaller goals, like one day. I can, for example, set a goal of being really patient with my kids for a day and occasionally pull it off. I mean I can set a year long goal but I have to address it one day at a time. One of my goals is to set goals every week and check back at the end of the week to see how I did. I could use my blog for this.
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My parents came and left the 30th to 31st. We had a little b-day party for my mom since her bday is on the 31st. We got our first snow while they were here so we didn't go anywhere because its been too cold. But we just visited and had a nice time.
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Feeling unconquerable with my new miter saw, I made doll houses for all the children. Even Evan because when he saw how cool the girls hoyses were he had to have one. They were simply constructed out of sheets of Masonite and provided hours if entertainment. They cost about $4 a piece to build.