Looked at that house... it is PRETTY cool. In fact, there are features of it that are awesome. The living and dining areas are pretty open, new carpet, new everything. It was an Ugly House that was bought and renovated, so it's very cool. The bathrooms are beautiful, and the dishwasher (wolf whistle). The backyard has a concrete patio area, hello Indy 500 in the Fisher Price cars, and then a pretty big yard with trees and just cool. All fenced. 4 bedrooms, although 3 of them are pretty small. It doesn't have a basement, which is a bummer, but the garage should be easy to convert for Richy's office/studio.

It's at the top of our price range, which is okay, but might be a little tricky to qualify for... you can't really explain providence on an application. We think we can figure it out though, and make up some documents which look good. (When I say make up, I do not mean fabricate, I mean compose documents explaining our various sources o' income)

This is where I always get nervous. I like this place, and I hate rejection. The MOG is consulting with the Good Lord, and then depending on the GL's answer, we will put a deposit down and just see if we qualify. In the meantime, we drove by a couple of the other houses on the list, and they are all pretty scary. So I might be canceling some appointments.

---

There's a pile of laundry staring at me
At least, it would be if laundry could see

But laundry cannot

and so, it can rot

As I sit here composing with glee

The house search began in earnest again today, due to our landlord planning on selling this place. We could buy it, but we don't like it that much.

You may recall me looking for a house several months ago, and toying with the idea of buying... we decided we aren't ready to buy, and there weren't any houses big enough and cheap enough for 4 adults and 3 kids on this side of KC. If we wanted to move further north, there are some amazing places... colonial 5 and 6 bedrooms and such. Not practical with the amount of time the MOG spends at the HOP. So there you go.

Anyways, renewed the search -oh, and Daniel decided to move in with some friends in April, so that made it a little easier to look. So, I was forced to make phone calls, because someone thinks I need a breakthrough when it comes to talking on the phone and refused to make the calls himself, and we are seeing 2 houses this weekend, so far. There are always going to be cons, but if we find a place with a dishwasher, I might be willing to share a bedroom with all 3 of my kids. I.need.a.dishwasher.

This is the one we're looking at tomorrow. I want to marry this kitchen.

Attempted to get a haircut today... the beauty school was not cutting hair, since all the stylists-in-training were in classes. I can only think that's a good thing. I am also in the market to go back blonde, since it was strongly requested by the board of directors. Therefore, at some point in the near future, I will put myself back in the hands of House of Heavilin.

The way I figure it, me and my mama have been frying our hair blonde with (well, not Mama so much anymore) products from Sally's, and about 80% of the time, we get it how we want it, in the end. So, maybe it's pink for a day. Big deal. We just act like that's what we were going for and go about our business. The only people who give us the double-take are cosmetology types.
So, what I'm thinking is that these students should do fine. If they nail it, then maybe I will get to start having awesome color-y hair for a fraction of what I would be paying elsewhere. So there you go.

After spending a pitiable chunk of my two hours looking for an amateur to practice on my hair, I gave up and went to Sonic. Had a Reese's blast and read my book for a while, and then went to Target to buy a teakettle. I used to love Target a lot more. These days it seems too pricey. After chilling there for a good while, I responded to the frantic texts asking when I was coming back and came home.

Sat down and found a large smear of chocolate on my shirt. From Sonic. Nice.

In other news, my dad and I used to listen to opera and get a good laugh out of Faust.... where Faust has sold his soul and is languishing in hell, and singing loudly about it, and all around him there are people screaming. In retrospect, I guess it's not a funny opera. Anyways. It sounds kinda like that around here. I didn't get the notice that today was National Shriek All Day Day. I will make a note for the future.

Do you have more cash than you know what to do with? It's stressful being fabulously wealthy, isn't it? Well, just lie back and relax. You will soon be 350 dollars poorer, and you will feel so much better.

The Mind Relaxer.
This is the mental relaxation spa that combines biorhythmic sound and light patterns to remove outside distractions, helping you improve attention and focus, reduce anxiety and stress, and recover quickly from jet lag. The spa includes a pair of glasses that have 12 white LEDs embedded into the inside face, surrounding your orbital lobes with an array of gentle, pleasing light.

Both the glasses and the included earbuds attach to the control unit, which houses all 18 sound and light programs; the lights and the soundscapes are set to match four frequencies--beta, alpha, theta, and delta--which oscillate between 1-30 Hz to help improve concentration, induce varying levels of relaxation, or achieve a deep state of meditation. Each program lasts up to 25 minutes. Includes carrying case.

4-1/2" L x 3-3/4" W x 1-1/2" H. (4 oz.)

Price: $349.95

Imagine me kicking back on the couch with this bad boy. I'd just strap on my relaxation goggles and melt away.

A pile of unfolded towels lays at my feet, where Brynn is drawing with a Sharpie on the hardwood floors. As the biorhythms surround me, Toby would climb on top of the refrigerator and rain debris onto his brother, who would become overstimulated and begin poking himself in the forehead with a spoon and screaming.

My husband, who did not have biorhythmic goggles, would become greatly alarmed and maybe even come upstairs from his basement office to offer some management suggestions. But I, I would be in bliss. And when I took off my goggles, I would be so relaxed I would probably just not even mind the mess and chaos. I would just have grace and ease. See?

You know the kicker on this one? Comes with carrying case. Sign me UP.

Shannon2-24 said...
ms. smartypants,
is it better to buy a house with a yard that will fill with falling pine needles or leaves?

or perhaps a combination?

please note: pine needles in WA may be larger and heavier than TX ones

Ms Smartypants seriously doubts that anything in Washington, or any other "state", is bigger and or heavier than anything in Texas, unless you are referring to your fruits and nut crowd. It is better to buy a house in Texas.


Anonymous said...
Ms. Smartypants,

Can sleep talking be controlled? Maybe brought down to a minimum? Or is that what duct tape is for?

This is one of those rare cases where the Bible allows for immediate divorce. Sleep talking, or Neil Diamond collections.

Anonymous said...
Who is that Phillip guy?

The scope of this question, to quote our President, is “beyond my pay grade.” The sheer number of Phillips is too vast to comprehend, although most noteworthy may be Phillip Head, of screwdriver fame.

Josh said...
What is really inside of a black hole?

Let’s hope cream filling.

Viking Granny!!!! said...
How long before architects begin planning for double the amount of women bathrooms in all public facilities?

This is very, very unlikely to ever happen. That would be customer service. More customers means less time to converse with your coworkers and text your friends and family.

Viking Granny!!!! said...
When will we get tired of standing around and start speaking up and taking over the empty bathroom down the hall.....?

I have seen that breaking point in many a woman, over time. It all comes down to which is worse, your bladder exploding or having to walk the sticky and suspicious grounds of the men’s room.

Anonymous said...
Smartypants,
How do you handle a whiny baby who won't even let you go to the restroom at church? He screams when I give him to Beth so that she puts his face over the stall to look at me while I am in there? He just keeps screaming at me.

Signed 
Frustrated in Cut n Shoot
Give him to Georgia. Even if he is 2 hours old, she will feed him some cake. (If you are Georgia, then give him some cake)

Anonymous said...
Dear MSP - 
will you actually post replies to these questions or are you just teasing us?
You tell me, dear reader. You tell me.

Today, I will not be posting some deep insight, for two reasons.
1. Nothing comes to mind
2. It is 70 degrees and we are getting out of this house.

That makes it a perfect opportunity for.... Ms. Smartypants!
Ms. Smartypants is your greatly helpful semi-annual advice columnist. Submit your entertaining questions of a general nature today through Monday, and Smarty will answer you on Monday sometime. Dig deep! You know you have an entertaining question in there somewhere.

Marriage is all about compromise. You start to figure out after a while that some people are always going to take naps, and some people are always going to leave the vacuum cord laying around. Really, you are never going to celebrate these things, unless maybe one of you almost dies and from then on every time you see the vacuum cord you will be seized with thankfulness and clutch the cable to your heaving bosom. So, exceptions. But for the most part, you will kinda roll your eyes and deal with one's idiosyncrasies the way you choose to deal. 

Then there are the Big Two. These are the fights every married couple has, at least after a while, and one is money and the other one is not something I talk about on a family blog. These fights come and go, in cycles and progressively get better or worse. 

Then there are the little nitpicky things that still irritate you after almost 13 years, like the way that one chews a ham and cheese sandwich, or how some people never notice the floor needs to be swept until the linoleum is hidden. 

Or, the temperature in the car on roadtrips. I like to be warm. I especially like to be warm when it is snowing outside. Richy likes to run the air conditioner in the van year round. He claims he is unable to breathe otherwise. I, respectfully, think this is a load of hooey.  So we battle back and forth, one turning the knob towards the blue, the other towards the red. I put on a sweater, sighing heavily. He gasps and cracks open his window. I put my hood on, rubbing my arms to try to maintain circulation. He makes strangled sounds. Can we do this for 12 hours on a trip? We can do this for 12 years. It is probably never going to change. 

I write this from the corner of the good couch, which I won by being the most stubborn, or at least the loudest. He is napping on the old futon. 

As I get perfected in love, I'm sure I will get a lot, lot better at compromise. In the meantime, I can't think of anyone in the world I'd rather fight with. 

 

before

I got Brynn's hair cut today. I know, GASP. First haircut ever.

Part of me is sentimental, like, oh, it's her baby hair and I should never ever cut it and if we look like a) those kids getting slapped at Walmart or b) that fundamentalist Mormon sect in Texas, that's okay. Because it's her baby hair.

The other part of me is like, this kid looks scrungy. Let's do some stuff. In fact, I wish I could cut it and dye it and perm it and straighten it, like my own personal Hair Care Baby Doll™. But I just stop it right there, because you can't do that to real live babies even though it probably wouldn't hurt them.

SO anyways, I decided to go for it. She was happy and excited about the idea, until she got up in the chair. Then the famous Clark scowl came out and she was crying and arching her back and sliding out of the chair and drama drama and all the staff was coming around and trying to read her books and tell her how pretty she was and she was not having it.

Finally one of the ladies brought her candy, which I am so not about bribing with candy. But it worked. Bean just went to her happy place and completely zoned out for the rest of the haircut.

 

straight

 

curly

We got a little card with her curls in it, and if I think about it too much, I will cry. Again.

Saying goodbye to you
but not really
goodbye to who you are now, to me

the beauty is, I get to say hello
right away
to who you are becoming

Today was our long awaited appointment with the Nutrition department. Now, around here, there's not much fat. The Clark boys and Daddy are pretty skinny, so Bean and I do our part at holding up the family fat averages. R2 is definitely the skinniest. He has, and has always had, little skinny twig arms. A couple of months ago, he got sick for a few days and lost about 4 pounds. When you are 46 inches tall, 36 pounds is too small. So we made an appointment, and then the plague came and we had to cancel. So we finally made it today.

The lady charted his height and weight, and showed me way at the bottom, where he ranked in the percentile. (Uh, yeah, that's why I brought him here) Then she had me try to describe his eating patterns, and my brain just shut down. I have been having his school keep a food diary for a MONTH, and I just blanked out. I kinda stuttered around with peanut butter and pediasure and eventually I remembered what he usually eats, until it got to what did we have for dinner.

I could probably tell you what my phone number was in 4th grade, and I could not remember what we had for dinner. I had to backtrack through what we did after dinner, to dinnertime, and there it was. Ham and biscuits. Biscuits I found in an online recipe that is a ripoff of Cracker Barrel. Mmm. Anyways.

So she gets out a food pyramid chart, which is something I have always ignored out of a distaste for government involvement in my daily life. Food pyramids and dogging on bottled water, and most environmental recommendations I ignore, because they feel like Big Brother. I digress.

So she basically said I am already doing great, but to try to incorporate every group in lunch and dinner. I was all like, oh, easy! I always read "Eat 14 cups of grain a day, and 6 cups of milk" and so on, and I was like well, heck no. For one thing, who eats that much stuff? And another thing. Who measures their food? I barely have time to put peanut butter and jelly on before some little person is gnawing on my leg.

We also have to go get a powder called Polycose or something like that, which is a glucose polymer, and mix it in with any liquid he drinks. Oh, and he has to stop drinking so much water. Whoda thunk? He needs to be using higher calorie drinks for his liquid intake. I'll get the boy some Coca-Cola. (that is a joke)

I bet I could get to 300 easy if I did this diet.

I never really intend to take a day off. I just wait to blog until it no longer seems practical to put something up. So I'm sorry I skipped Friday, for anyone who cared. :)

We will  lead our first prayer set on Thursday. Now, if you don't know about IHOP, and where I live, it's the home of the International House of Prayer.They have, among other things, a televised prayer room that has continuous prayer and worship, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It never stops. (side note: if you have not subscribed to the prayer room, it costs $10 a month and it's worth it. go to http://www.theprayerroom.tv and try it out) 

There is also a secondary prayer room (the JPR, or Justice Prayer Room), in another building. I think they eventually plan to have 5, with differing focuses ( I know it's foci, but that looks so weird). So, this second prayer room - I don't know what the purpose is, exactly, but it is where new worship leaders play sometimes and kinda practice the methods. Sometimes, they get moved to the GPR (Global Prayer Room), which is the televised one. We get to start leading sets in the JPR this week, I think 3 times a week.

It will be great, and an opportunity for the 3/5 of Radiant that is in KC to play together. I will also be singing, if we get childcare, and that is making me a little nervous, because there is a certain way things are done around here, and I'm not that well-versed in it. So, I might get fired. 

In other news, I finally gave in and let Richy cut Toby's hair. I was afraid that a)he would have a giant head and b)he would look like a 6 year old.  Neither happened, and he is even cuter, if that is possible. So, win-win.