Journey's End...FINALLY

Dear Diary,

It is 1 AM. We are home. The kids are in their own beds. Mr. Bloomers passed out on the couch whilst I took a quick trip up the street to pick up our mail from a friend's front porch. Need to sort dirty laundry and start washing before bed, but I wanted to record a few thoughts first.

Notes to self:

1. Get mail after unloading next time, before Mr. Bloomers passes out lest I be left to unload seven people's worth of trip stuff by myself. (To his defense, Mr. Bloomers has to be at work in the morning so I didn't try to wake him.)

2. Check the Artist's hands before entering the vehicle at all times, lest she pile up drinks from various restaurants along the way and spill them about her area.

3. Avoid Ohio at all costs. It is a desolate land filled with smokestacks and a shocking lack of civilized shopping. Tried for TWO HOURS to locate a Best Buy, Toys R US, Target, Walmart, or KMart along I-90 in order to buy something to do before I poked my own eyeballs out for sheer boredom. Kids were climbing the walls with the insanity of hours and hours in the car and all I wanted was a Redbox, or store to buy a movie or sticker book, or Nintendo DS or something, and there was NOTHING!! Even took the road to Toledo. Saw a sign for Toledo Pride. What?!?

4. Friendly's is yummy. And Friendly.

5. I would not have made a very good pioneer.

6. Erie, PA is actually not the middle of nowhere. They have real hotels and restaurants there. Good thing since we got stranded there in a snowstorm.

7. Kids think you are the coolest mom ever if you feed them 4 pints of delicious ice cream, a bag of chips, and cookies for dinner while watching a movie and then take them swimming, especially when staying unexpectedly in a hotel. But if you do that, and allow them to eat Krispy Kremes right after breakfast, one or more of them may end up carsick.

8. Going to the mall the day after Christmas is insanity, especially when going for the mall playground rather than the shopping...with five kids.

9. People in Boston are crazy drivers. Like Mexico City. Almost. Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but it is bad.

10. Driving nearly 2200 miles in six days with five kids indicates either bravery or stupidity. I'm not sure which.

I'm glad we went. It was well worth the effort. But I am so grateful to not have another day in the car ahead of us tomorrow! It's great to be home.

Love,
Kristin

The Most Memorable Christmas Ever

Dear Diary,

This was one of the best Christmases ever! Christmas Eve day we wrapped the kids in a huge gift bag meant for bicyles and delivered them on Mr. Bloomer's parents' front door...in Acton, MA (a mere thousand miles away, give or take).

Mr. Bloomer's parents are on a service mission for the church, volunteering their time and paying their own way to help New Englanders with employment skills. As devoted grandparents of thirty-three grandchildren, leaving their home and family in Utah to come to Boston has been a great sacrifice.

Sure, Christmas morning in the Hampton Inn wasn't entirely traditional. I can't remember any other Christmas with hotel waffles for breakfast and an evening swim in the hotel pool. But Santa found his way to our stockings here, and we so enjoyed sharing this precious time with Grama and Grampa. Our party of nine stayed cozy, dividing our time between a king studio suite hotel room and an itty bitty missionary apartment. We did make a mall excursion today to get a change of scenery. And wow! That turned out to be quite an adventure.

I really admire Mr. Bloomer's parents for being out here doing the work they are doing. I think it has been difficult and sometimes very frustrating, yet they have done as they have been asked, serving when it wasn't easy. I am thrilled that our family could find a small way to send them the message that we love them and we're proud of them. Seeing their surprised and overjoyed faces when they realized who was in the bag was one of the best moments our family has ever had together. The kids will never forget this Christmas, and neither will I.

Love,
Kristin

Call for addresses

I just ordered Christmas cards for the second time in my life and they'll be ready for pick-up this afternoon. Yeah! And I drafted quite a letter yesterday to send along with it.

If you would like your own card and you think I might not have your address, please send it ASAP to mindthemommy@gmail.com, or my other gmail account if you have that email addy already.

If you received our first card sent in 2006, but know you have moved since then, please be sure to send your updated address. I do have the file with the addresses we sent last time (when I was pregnant with Max!).

Merry Christmas in advance!

Service Project Update

So...things are getting there. By end of day Saturday the main floor should be in great shape...including finally finishing with the Christmas decorations. Kitchen and sunroom are totally rescued and the family room is decent. Laundry is getting folded and put away. And my "friend" is feeling better...she even made dinner every night this week!

By the way, apparently I wasn't transparent enough in my previous post. I'd like to say that I am so together as to currently possess the wherewithall to be rescuing another struggling mother; however, to boldly confess without mincing words:

I am my own service project.

And I just needed a creative mind game to get out of a little funk I'd fallen into.

Fortuneately for me, it's working.

Service Project

So I know this mom of five kids whose home looks like a serious warzone. I know her well enough to know that her home doesn't always appear in dire need of a surprise visit from the folks at Clean House. But it sure looks like that today.

This friend of mine had been balancing everything amazingly well until a few weeks ago. She was caring for the home, the kids, and herself and feeling pretty good about all of it. Then Halloween hit, and everything started to slide. She held it together long enough to host a large gathering in her home, and then it all fell apart.

I really understand how quickly things can unravel. So being the charitable soul I am, I will be helping her pull things back together within the next week and a half before her older kids are out of school for Christmas break. We'll focus on one room a day and move through them all till its peaceful and calm once again (well, as calm as it can be with five wild creatures in residence).

Oh, and I'll be caring for her sick kiddos too, since three of the five are down for the count...and she reports the other two are extra-grumpy. Fun times.

Wish me luck!

26.2

Marathon. I'm registered.

Hope to C-U there!

Why is flushing such a difficult skill to master?

Seriously. My children are brilliant and talented. Really, they are. Darling and adorable too. But yet, the habit of regularly flushing after using the loo seems to continually evade them. At least some of them.

Which might explain not one, but TWO overflowed toilets tonight. Yucky water. Yucky smells. Just pure yuckiness. Not the soothing just-before-bed activity I had scheduled for this evening.


Which prompted me to draft this note:

My Dearest Santa,

I have been a very good girl this year. I have prepared hundreds of meals, washed a Mt. Rushmore's worth of laundry, dried gallons of tears, read a landfill's worth of books, and given heaps of loves and kisses to the five amazing children in my constant care. In addition to all of that happy service, I even changed approximately 3.5 million diapers.

Of course, I didn't do those good deeds simply to earn brownie points, but if it turns out that I have enough banked in my account with you, would you please have some of your elves install toilets with automatic flushing sensors in our three restrooms on Christmas Eve? I would be forever grateful.

Sincerely,
The Mommy