All the same and a little bit different

Well the house is STILL for sale. I am still sick of cleaning and showings.

The kids are still stressed and worried about the move, getting on each others nerves and driving me crazy.
OK. that would most likely be happening anyway!

We still don't have our little house on the Prairie, nor do we know where the kids will go to school.

So, really there is nothing new to write about.

But life is always new. There are flowers in the backyard. The birds are nesting in the trees next door. Teresa learned to whistle. Catherine has weaned (there is another post in that one). Carlo now loves math and wants to do math work sheet every day after school. Francis won top prize at the regional tournament for Destination Imagination. (Where they work in teams to solve creative problems.)

Everywhere I look there is newness. Life is happening around me everywhere. I can't keep myself locked in my house cleaning, worrying and stressing about the future. I need to get out, breath the air, see the flowers, live the new life that is there for me.

Going Crazy

I am so sick of showing my house, of cleaning my house, of eating out, or eating sitting on the play room floor.

Yes, we are eating in the play room so that we do not get the new carpet dirty. That is went we eat at home because a lot of the time we are having showings around dinner time.

At first it was exciting, now it is stressful and irritating.

I guess we are all learning perseverance. That is a good thing, but like most good learning, it hurts a little. (Or a lot)

Cupboards of my soul

We had an amazing stager come to help us with our house. She is the daughter of a friend of mine and has just finished her two year programme for home staging and window design. We were her first clients and I have to say she was great. Her ideas were very helpful, but she was also able to work around the beautiful craziness that is our family. She even figure out how to make sure every kid still has a set of drawers and a bed but the two bedrooms don't look like an over crowed kids furniture store.

So now our house looks perfect. If anyone walks into our house they will think, "Wow, these people have it all together, they must have a perfect life." Well that is the idea really.

But if they looked into the cupboards they would see the real story. The mess is just hiding. It all looks prefect but the dirty laundry, unwashed dishes and garbage are there under the surface.

And I know that my soul is looking about the same. On the surface I look pretty good. I go to mass every week, some times more. I have religious art in my home, and a rosary dangling form my rear view mirror. I even know where to find a bible in my home. But honestly I am full of "mess and clutter" I keep my jealousy, and judgement like bits of ugly china that I can get ride of. I have doubt and a lack of faith growing like that mould that keeps coming back in the corner of the windows. And my desire to keep control in my hands and not God's is what keeps it all stuffed in the cupboard nicely locked away so I never have to show it to anyone or admitted that I am not as perfect as I want others to think that I am.

In the end I know that I am all right, not because I am prefect or in control. But because I am flawed and out of control and God is loving and merciful.

Open House

It was a weird thing having our first open house. We all worked so hard to get the house perfect. Beyond perfect. It looked like a magazine. Better then it has ever looked. That was a lot of stress but at least I was in control.

And then I handed over the keys and ran away. I had lost all control. The most I could do was drive by  few times and look at the lawn signs.
 
Oh yeah, and pray and trust. I almost forgot about those two.

Out with the old

It has been a long time since I have blogged. The irony is that the reason for the long brake is that we have been so busy that I have not had time to blog, but have lots to blog about. So I am going to go back in time. (insert time travel music).

We got new carpets! When we moved into our townhouse almost six years ago the carpet were disgusting. Stained, old and generally gross. We had no money and a few messy children and so we decided to wait and replace them latter. Well now we have less money and more messy children but we replaced them to make the house look better to sell. Francis was totally bummed when he realised that we will were basically buying carpets for someone else. (I was a little too).

The night before the big bay I let the kids draw on the old carpet. That was fun!

Here is all our furnurture stacked on the play room. Also fun!

Here is the new carpet. I love it, I think that next time I will not wait to replace the gross flooring until I have more money and less messy kids. 'Cause let be honest, that day will most likely never come.

Lazy Lady Workout

It's raining today. It rains almost every day here. That is one of the reasons I want to move. Money and family are much bigger reasons but the rain can get me down. 
Because of the rain I did not want to go out of a walk.

OK, I should really be honest. It is not just the rain. I am lazy.

Catherine shortly before the flour blizzard...

 I am so lazy that instead of getting Catherine ready and walking with her four block to the grocery store I am going to make my own buns! From scratch.  Yes, in my mind this is easier and more fun. I know, crazy. I get that a lot.




And you know what else, I got a bit of a work out kneading the dough.

Sugar Bugs

Yesterday the kids had dentist appointments. I thought I was so smart booking all of them at the same time. We are there anyway, lets just get them all done. In many ways it was great. Because we had all the bookings, we also had all of the waiting room to ourselves. They put on some cartoons and the kids settled onto the couch for a bonus screen time. (The normal rule is not screens on a weekday). But cartoons can only go so far, and after an hour the troops were getting bored. 

Then the doomed news came! A cavity! Now, this really should not have come as a surprise. I have not been the best mother to my kids teeth. If they brush their teeth once a day I am happy, and truth be told, the faster I can get it done, the faster I can get them into bed. Bed always seems more important somehow. The fact that we have gotten this far without a major cavity is obviously a combination of luck, God's grace and good genetics. But now it is here. The dark hole is eating its way deeper and deeper. And I don't mean the cavity in Carlo's back molar. I mean the guilt. I am clearly a horrible mother. Words like lazy, dirty and neglectful were running through my mind. Obviously I did not breastfeed him long enough, or maybe it was too long. As a middle child my neglect has doomed him to a life of ill health that has started as a cavity but of course end in heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's and probably drug addiction and it will all be my fault! 
You know, this kneejerk guilt shows itself the same way in my spiritual life. I either cost along. Happy to do the bare minimum. Go to Mass on Sundays, sing a few "Jesus loves me" songs and feel like I am a holy lady. But then something happens. Somehow God poke His head into my life and shows me His love, and what I need to do to be a happier, healthier person. Instead of being thankful, and encouraged I feel guilty and start thinking about all the things I "should" do better, the times I've messed up and all that I have not done. This is not what God (or the dental hygienist) are thinking! 
Sometimes we mess up, or get cavities. But just like teeth, our souls are fixable. It is not that we are bad, we just might need to brush (pray) a bit more, and forgive ourselves when we mess up.