A Decade

Ten years ago today I left Texas and moved back to Kansas to be a Greenwood County girl for the rest of my life.  I remember leaving College Station and I began to get a bit teary eyed.  Wesley glanced over at me and instantly got mad.

"Nope.  Not gonna have it.  I just spent two years on the phone with you every night, listening to you bitch about how much you wanted to leave.  You're not gonna cry now."

Although I was taken aback, I knew he was right.  I was done with Texas.

When I moved here we lived in a house we now affectionately refer to as the 'snake house', although that's another story for another day.  Wesley was the quintessential bachelor and thus had NOTHING in this house besides his clothes.  No food, no cleaning supplies, nothing.

The next morning I drove to the nearest Walmart 45 minutes away from our little house in the hills armed with a shopping list a mile long and his checkbook.  I filled that shopping cart to the gills with all the essentials for our new life as we played house.  Food, cleaning supplies, toiletries and the like.  Every item on my list was something I would consider 'essential'.

On the drive back home I kept noticing the ditches were filled with the most beautiful orange lilies.  I pulled that old chevy feed pickup over and picked a huge bouquet that I then balanced precariously on the mountain of supplies I'd stacked in the passenger seat of the single cab pickup.

Upon returning to the house I worked feverishly to create some semblance of a home.  Cleaning was towards the top of the list - especially the kitchen.  I found a mason jar in a cabinet, arranged the ditch lilies and placed them front and center in the middle of the kitchen table.

It was official.  I was the perfect housewife.  Wes would come home, see his beautifully clean house, eat a gourmet meal courtesy of Hamburger Helper and undoubtedly ooh and aaahhh over the flowers that I'd so lovingly picked for him.  This day was perfect start to our perfect little life.  Everything was PERFECT, I tell ya.

I made supper and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And nearly two hours after he'd said, he finally walked through the door.  Now, I was no stranger to this lifestyle having grown up in a ranching family, but I was always the one WITH my dad... not the one waiting on him.  Turns out, it is terribly frustrating.  Who knew?

When he walked through the door I was a bit disappointed that he didn't scan the room to notice how much time and effort I'd put into cleaning and arranging things nicely.  He walked into the kitchen, grabbed the store receipt off the counter and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the total.

"$323???  WHAT IN THE WORLD DID YOU BUY?!"

It was then that he started to scan the room, trying to find the gold plated accessories I surely must have purchased that might justify such an expense.  It was then that he noticed the ditch lilies.  The lilies that I lovingly picked and arranged.  The lilies that were supposed to serve as icing on the cake; the cherry on top; the crowning jewel of my master homemaking skills.  This was supposed to be the beginning of our most perfect little life together and instead things were headed downhill rather quickly.

I remember him shooting daggers as he stared at the bouquet.  "How much did THOSE cost?"

***

Things are a bit different these days.  I don't drive a feed pickup as often anymore.  The perfect housewife/perfect life thing went out the window loooong ago.  I can cook more than Hamburger Helper these days, but the kids enjoy it so it's not totally off the menu.  Now, every time I drive down the road in early summer and see the familiar orange lilies lining the ditches I get nostalgic.  We get a laugh and still tease each other every time the kids or I pick a bouquet of wildflowers and I make a pretty arrangement for the kitchen table.  "How much did THOSE cost?"

Marching Into Summer

It seems we blinked and now we're suddenly in the middle of summer.  Although, our too-smart-for-his-own-good six year old will remind me that 'technically it is not summer yet, Mom'.  Touché, kiddo.  I've not posted lately, and for a plethora of good reasons. 

1. I had a baby.  Again.  A little girl this time, named Reese.  For those of you keeping track this makes four kids in a little over six years.  It is rather intense at times, but we would not have it any other way.  

Our little ray of sunshine, baby Reese

2. We've been busy.  Like, legitimately busy.  (Refer to reason #1)  When I still had my office job I would roll my eyes when one particular man would stop by MULTIPLE TIMES A WEEK to tell me just how busy he was.  He'd take 45 minutes listing out all the busy things that kept him so busy and that's why he had to be leaving soon because he was so busy with the busy work.  Since then I've come to the conclusion that the number of times someone claims to be busy is often inversely proportional to the actual busyness of the very busy person.  I often wondered if he bragged incessantly because he was trying to convince his audience how awesome he was, or if he was just trying to fool himself.  

One of the house projects that kept me busy for a few naptimes - 

sliding shelves in almost all of our lower kitchen cabinets.  

I highly recommend this feature.  It's been a game changer for us.

3. We're not that exciting.  Seriously.  Who wants to read a blog solely about ways we've been beating the summer heat?  For your information, we beat the awful heat last week by reading books in our underwear as well as sorting and wrapping coins to take to the bank.  It made for a great lesson on the value of different coins, discussion about pictures of presidents, buildings and especially state symbols on the quarters.  I highly recommend if you're looking for activities that are out of the box (while you relax in a refrigerated box).  

4. A little mystery in life is a good thing.  You don't need to know every little thing we do around here (see reason #3).  I like to touch base every few weeks to document happenings around here, especially since this blog serves as a crappy replacement for our children's baby books.  

I'm glad someone laughs at my jokes.

 5. I told myself that I couldn't do something fun like write a blog until I finished several items on my to-do list.  Thanks, Mom, for ruining my life with this rule from my childhood that I cannot seem to shake.  I finally finished writing thank you's for all the thoughtful new baby gifts and foods and thus could write a blog without feeling a massive load of guilt.  (Actually, I ran out of thank you cards so it's more of a 'pause' on my guilt until I run to town and purchase more.)

A screenshot of a typical conversation with my mother. 

We keep it real with the tough love around here. 

Now that I'm out of reasons why I DIDN'T write a blog, here's the actual meat of the blog.

And more pictures of cute kids.  Because I know why you keep coming back to read.

There are many periods when we only see my husband for a few minutes each evening or else the kids would go days without seeing him.  Last week during many evenings we played in the wheat field and each kiddo took a turn in the swather with him.  This wheat was purposefully planted to be swathed and baled, not combined.

I absolutely love this picture of my husband, son #2 and his great grandpa.  John turned his feed cap backwards and asked his great grandpa if he could turn his cap backwards too, and look like a silly dude.  We all got such a laugh out of them looking so goofy.  Simple laughs are the best.

 When it is not hotter than blazes outside we try to walk a few miles in the morning.  I consider this to be my 'alone time' as the kids like to run ahead of me by a few hundred yards at times and I'm left to enjoy the quiet as I push the stroller with Reese.

If these kids learn nothing else from their childhood, they will know how to skip rocks.  Kenyon is especially good at it, and also good at casting when fishing from all the side arm throwing practice.  This makes it difficult to get him to throw a baseball correctly, but a challenge we're working on.  I'd love to have photos of the boys playing t-ball to share but I'm helping coach their team again this summer.  I enjoy working with the herd of kids, and I figure I should serve my time volunteering before our summers get crazy in a few years with the addition of 4-H livestock.  (Assuming the kids hold this currently level of enthusiasm to show livestock when they join 4-H in a few short years.)  

What a fun week this was... kind of.  During this week the men worked calves out in the pastures and I took them lunch every day.  Making a meal every day for a dozen people with a one month old baby is a special kind of pressure.  Then Kenyon fell off the top of a stock trailer one day and needed his head glued shut and then the next day John contracted e coli and spent four days in the hospital.  Good times, good times...

There were several storms that moved through our area a few weeks ago.  Also, a friend from church gave us a pair of mudboots that Kathryn finally grew into and I allowed her to wear.  She felt it was her absolute duty to test out the mudboots in each and every single mud puddle within one square mile of our house.  Well done, child.

So there you have it.  A little slice of our lives during the past few weeks.  Heaven only knows what adventures we'll embark upon before it's time to write the next blog!