Journal Entry: My day

This morning we did a baby swap. I watched Natalie's baby boy this morning while they went to the temple, and then some time she'll watch Abby. I woke up 5 minutes before they were supposed to be dropping him off, which doesn't surprise me. They were dropping him off early, well early for us (8:00am). However, I was able to get up and open the house windows and have Andrew start making waffles (yum... they were good, we put cinnamon and vanilla in it smelled and tasted delicious) before they dropped him off. Tate, the boy i was watching, doesn't like leaving his mommy. He was sure great once he got over it-- which only took a whole minute and a half. Andrew liked having a a little boy around and i think was secretly hoping to convince me to have another one (before you think it, NO, this is not a baby announcement, i do NOT want another one just yet), but i think Andrew enjoyed it. It's also fun to give the kids barrel rides-- which they loved.

We spent all morning outside, playing fetch with Maddie. Shoveling rocks out of the way to build small plots for a garden, picking up dog poop and putting in a drip system for our garden. PLUS, Andrew was nice and let me plant some flower seeds to outline our grass with (I'd been begging to do this and he kept telling me no, he finally gave in :) ya).

(Side note, a lady who did a class on gardening a few weeks ago in our ward said to plant things on the east side as that gets the best sun in the morning. Well... there was a lot of things i didn't agree with that she taught... a LOT, but then there were some good things too. She taught to plant on the east side which i would normally agree with but i don't for my house. BECAUSE, ever since she mentioned that, i started to look at where my lawn gets the sun in the morning and it is NOT the east side. It's because the east side has a fence and a house that keeps it shaded. The best place for me is the north fence because it gets the morning sun, just FYI for all you Maricopians. you have to take into account fences and two story houses!)

So we're doing 6- 5ft by 5ft plots along the fence. And Andrew's already got the drip system in place, now i just need to start digging all those useless rocks they put in the back yard. (Rant:) Seriously, why do you ONLY put rocks in the back yard? what purpose does that serve? they're not even river rocks, they're sharp! not even a desert tree? or a bush? or even leave a pre-existing cactus??? no. just a ton of open rocky land that you can't walk on because it hurts your feet even through flip flops. you can't stick patio furniture on it, you can't do anything. it's a waste of space and land! good thing we took care of that and put in grass and trees... now we're working on a garden. my back aches for the shoveling of rocks, but I'm sure it's good for me. I didn't do a lot of shoveling today, i mainly watched out for the kids. Plus we only have 1 shovel and it was being shared between Andrew doing the drip system and i shoveling rocks.

Abby got in the way of the wheel barrow a few times. (Abby + wheelbarrow + being tired = crying and a few bumps and bruises = frustrated mom and dad who try and watch out for her and keep her out of the way but still manage to run into her some how). and i was walking backwards with the wheelbarrow and fell into the fire pit-- don't worry i was graceful, but now there's an indentation in the fire pit cover of my butt.

Then... we started to look a little pink so i came in side and made the kids come inside too. Poor little Tate is soooooo pale, I'm surprise he was sun burnt already. Had lunch, (gaucamole sandwich: gaucamole, mayo, red onion, tomato, mozzarella cheese and turkey yumm... ) kids were full from yogurt, string cheese, dehydrated apples, crackers and who knows what else, so they missed out on sandwiches. Kissed andrew good bye and he drove off to work.

Parents picked up Tate (I'd watch him again, he was good) ten minutes after Andrew left. I like the Malan's. I hope we can become better friends, plus i hear they play a hard core nurtz... and i need to get myself in some of that action. 10 minutes after that, a boy from our ward and our neighbor came over to play. i don't know why they come over...? we have no boys... they torture the cat till i tell them to stop, they play fetch with Maddie for a whole minute... and then they want to play with the drum set, the piano, Abby's dolls, Abby's easy bake and our Halloween wigs....? I tell them if they come over they have to play with Abby, but they don't really want to. It makes it sad because Abby really wants to play with them and Abby's really not too clingy to them either, but they could care less for her. They don't even want her in the same room. Yet still, she cries when they leave.

I practiced playing hymns from the easy hymn book (one of my goals for the year to play more piano. so far i can play almost anything decently well out of the easy hymn book) while the boys un-rhythmically play the drums and make the cat cry and scream and Abby of course is knocking on the door trying to let them let her in. And i of course am yelling at them to let her in.

Then all of the sudden it hits me. I got a call from Sara asking to make dinner for a sister in the ward yesterday evening. I texted her back saying i would but never received anything back to confirm. (Sara said she did text me back to confirm but i never got it. :( my phone SUCKS. it's having serious issues lately. for example it's a touch screen, but the touch isn't quite on, so I've accidentally deleted ppl on facebook while looking at facebook on my phone. and it's said that some messages I've sent have failed, but the other side got them. no one can hear me when i speak. and some times i go for days without being able to send or receive calls or texts... until i realize there's an issue, turn off my phone then turn it back on and all of the sudden i have a million missed calls and a million msgs. ugh!) So i called Sara to see if i was still doing dinner. I was. That meant i had 2 hours to get dinner on because for some reason people here eat at FIVE THIRTY! so early! i like having a 6:30 or 7:30 dinner, gives me time to cook and enjoy my afternoon.

Normally 2 hours would be plenty of time... but i had to defrost and wait for the kids to leave, get off of facebook :) etc etc. I wanted to make rye bread rolls so a half hour, broken nails (not that their important, but still! they can hurt!), a pair of scissors and Abby later, i open the bucket to get the grains to grind the wheat and the rye. I grind the grains and start to make the dough only to realize they take 3 hours to make! i made the dough anyways (which as I'm typing, I'm remembering that i forgot to put in the oven to cook. they're still on the stove awaiting my assistance) then decided to make country fried chicken, use the corn on the cob we have, make home made mashed potatoes and gravy with biscuits. I was making it for Abby and i plus a family of 5.5.

I don't know where i get this frame of mind but i have to make sure i cook enough. I feel like if there's not left over's for Andrew to take to work the next day, i have failed. I don't know if i got that from my stay in Italy, or from the Chinese, or just my own philosophy or all three, or two of the three-- who cares. I'm not wasteful because we use it for lunches and dinners the next day, but i feel there should always be left overs to make sure everyone gets the amount of what they wanted. I hate feeling like you wanted more potatoes but there's none left. So i was making a lot of food.

Anyway, i was starting to get everything finished up and was working on the gravy when i decided the packaged gravy was too thin (i like my gravy thick) so i took out some of the cooked gravy and put it in our little salad dressing/mixer container with some flour... closed the lid shook and then POW! gravy exploded ALL over the kitchen!!! And it was HOT. ugh.. PLEASE tell me i am not a moron for doing this! i know i am, because i have done this more than once. each time thinking that it wasn't going to happen this time and each time it explodes. so i took a moment to clean my face off. I however couldn't' tell if my face hurt from the hot gravy or from the sun burn i got from being outside... and i couldn't tell if it was a sun burn or red from the hot gravy. Either way it wasn't bad enough to do anything about it. I decided the gravy was fine how it was and started to mash the potatoes when all of the sudden...

it was 5:32, i was ALMOST done with everything and all of the sudden Abby starts screaming and crying. She yells POOP!!! (which she says when she needs to go or has gone) Lately, she's had some interesting fecal matter and this was no exception. Only this time... some how it managed to completely miss the diaper she was wearing and instead splattered all over the kitchen floor where i was trying to finish up dinner because i was late to drop off the food. her diaper was completely covering her bottom... how the heck did it miss her diaper?? I HAVE NO IDEA! even worse... she didn't think it feel on the floor when it happened because why would she... she's wearing a diaper. and STEPS into the poop which is now on the kitchen floor in multiple places and on abby's feet and hands. All of this very traumatic for her.

So i stop what I'm doing. i change her diaper, because that one obviously didn't work? wiped up the poop off the floor and her, scrubbed my hands. finished the potatoes and had the food at their house by 5:45.

Picked up the mail, and tried to pick up the dog toy i accidentally threw over the fence in a vacant lot yesterday, only to find out someone took it! it was brand new too. gr.. BUT good news is, the house is now foreclosed on and the bank owns it. you're probably wondering why is that good news? well, the Lawton's our friends from Safford have been looking for a house in our neighborhood and like the house behind us, and we want them to live in the house behind us so they're close by-- they're like family for us. and we've been keeping an eye on the house since the neighbors told us they were leaving back in November. so YAY, the bank finally owns it, now hopefully they'll be able to put in an offer to get it.

Came home to find the dogs had eaten butter and other things for dinner off the counter and had to re make potatoes and gravy, heat up the corn on the cob. In the process of doing so, i opened the refrigerator-- normally not a big deal. but i started blowing out eggs since it's march for Easter. the eggs were on top of the fridge and some how got bumped towards the edge. I opened the door and all the eggs i had blown out in seconds were now shattered on the floor i had just swept this morning before they dropped Tate off. ... great. :)

then as i was putting dinner on the table, and Abby has ANOTHER diaper incident? what is the deal?? the diaper is on her correctly!!! not only that but the diaper is just a safety net, she's pretty much potty trained now. ugh. so there was another clean up on aisle 3 (i mean my kitchen) :) thank goodness it was no where near as bad as the one earlier. then went to put something in the sink only to realize that a glass has shattered in the sink. sigh... at least it was controllable being in the sink.

Abby and i ate dinner. Abby loves corn. she would make my grandpa smith so so proud. she can eat an entire corn on the cob, wipe it clean! it's amazing! she'll hardly eat anything but corn on the cob... she'll eat.

Then Andrew writes me to tell me that the days for the 5k run we're doing for Aaron at the end of the month, that he requested off of work were denied (and i already paid to be in the run! grr). also the days off for his family reunion were denied. apparently it is not OK for Andrew to take time off work?... ever? I'm sick of this job. he can't go to church because you have to be privileged to have Sunday's off, he can't take time off work like he's meant to be allowed, he can't have family time.. he can't even go to his own family reunion! so... from here on out, we're praying for a better job. feel free to join in finding a better job. oh and did i mention there's a bomb threat on the trains he works on today?... ya.. "no big deal" he says. they instructed them to "not use cell phones or anything with those frequencies on the trains. and don't touch any packages or bags left on the trains..."

and now... we've come to the end. Abby conked out right after dinner. i caught up on American idol. they kicked off the people i wanted kicked off- yay!

Andrew's home, off to bed. i have to wake up early to pick up fruits and veggies from the co-op i use tomorrow morning.