Day 2

Day 2- the meaning behind your blog name

I had another blog before this one and it was titled "The Meager Family" but when my husband at the time left me, I was always reminded when I read the title of that blog that we weren't a family anymore.  I changed my last name back to Sadlier and started a new blog (this one of course).  Amber and Co. was for me and my kids because the last thing I wanted after my divorce was pity, and I rarely referred to myself as a single mom.  If I'd named the blog "Amber and kids" it was pretty much screaming that I didn't have a husband and I didn't want to focus on that fact because being single did not define who I was, who I am, and who I will always be.

In the past few weeks I've added this saying to the right of my blog title:

If you've read my previous blog entries you know that I've planned my future several times and several ways and found myself "lost" every time.  And I've found a better way, plain and simple :)

Day 1

Day 1- A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself

Here are two pictures.  One with my girls, one with my Adam



I'm washed out in this one, so it hides the wrinkles :)
Seritta on the right, Camilla on the left



Me and Adam

• My favorite interesting fact about me is my birthday.  I love my birthday.  It's February 29th, which is Leap Year so I only get a birthday once every four years.  Of course I celebrate every year because I love birthdays!
• I'm a Pisces.  I don't know much about the Zodiac but I do like the Pisces profile :)
• I've survived bites from a black widow spider and a brown recluse.  I have a really cool scar from my brown recluse bite.
• I started menopause at the age of 27 (TMI, I know)
• I have more than 30 pairs of shoes, and at least two thirds of them are heels.  I would be happy wearing heels every day of the week if my arthritis would allow it.
• I have the body of a 70 year old between my arthritis, ulcers, and hot flashes.
• I would die without my cell phone.
• I would rather spend a week with teenagers than adults.
• I'm on my 3rd marriage.  That may not be interesting to some people, but considering my religion and my stance on families, I think it's very interesting.
• Shopping, chocolate, and girl gripe sessions make me happy.  Like, really truly happy.
• Even though I have pretty low self esteem, I'm also sorta stuck on myself.  I love having brown hair and brown eyes and skin that tans instead of burns.  I love being tall enough that a good pair of stilettos puts be as tall as half of the men in this town.  I complain about myself often (stretch marks, baby flab, gray hair, breakouts, etc.) but really, I love who I am at least half of the time and usually remember that I have my own personal value that no one has but me.
• I often live in the past and allow others to rule my life.
• I don't deserve my  husband.  Some might say this is an opinion, but it's my blog and I say it's a fact.  He's way too good for me, but I'm keeping him anyway!
• I have a birthmark in my eye that makes it look like that eye (can't remember which one) is always bloodshot, and a scar under my right nostril where I cut myself shaving when I was 6.
• I'm way too excited about the MAD DASH I'm helping to head up this fall.  It's a huge blessing that a grade school friend got me involved in and I love her for it.

30 Days of blogging intro

I've toyed with the idea of the 30 days of blogging challenge that everyone is talking about and I've decided to try it.  It may end up being like the November Facebook challenge where you're supposed to put something you're thankful for as your status every day in November up to Thanksgiving Day.  There were 24 days and I fizzled at day 19.
I've found several lists and they're all different, so I played eeny meeny miney mo and ended up with this one, which I will most definitely "improve" on a few of the questions.  (day 12- write a poem to someone I love?  Um, no.)

30 Days of Blogging challenge

day 1- recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself

day 2- the meaning behind your blog name

day 3- a picture of you as a child

day 4- a habit that you wish you didn’t have

day 5- a picture of somewhere you’ve been

day 6- favorite super hero and why

day 7- a picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on you

day 8- short term goals for this month and why

day 9- something you’re proud of in the past few days

day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad

day 11- write a bucket list of things you want to do before you die

day 12- write a poem to someone you love

day 13- your 5 favorite books and why

day 14- a picture of you and your family

day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play

day 16- a picture of yourself

day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have

day 19- write about a sweet memory from your past

day 20- write a letter to someone

day 21-a picture of something that makes you happy

day 22- what makes you different from everyone else

day 23- something you crave a lot

day 24- post your favorite quote or verse of scripture and why

day 25- what I would find in your bag

day 26- list 10 things that you are thankful for

day 27- my day job verses my passion

day 28- cruise a thesaurus and pick out 10 words you like the sound of

day 29 - favorite tv shows and why you like them

day 30 - movies you can watch again and again

No more love notes, Mom

Because I suck at being a mother, I try to make up for it from time to time by leaving notes in the kids lunches that say I love you and have a good day.  This morning as Iwas making Adam's lunch, he looked at me with the look that says "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but...." and said (like he was walking on eggshells) "Mom, could you not put notes in my lunch?  It's really embarrassing." 
I pretended that he hadn't just broken my heart, smiled and said "Sure, I don't want you embarrassed!" then he sighed in relief and went to get ready for school. 
My baby boy is embarrassed by me.  Crap.  I just realized I'm not cool.

My life is better than yours. For reals.

Check out the title of my post!  I'm not joking when I say this is the most syrupy sappy and sickeningly annoying post ever.  I could stop there, but I sorta feel that anyone so rude as to say that out loud should at least explain why their life is the best.  So, here I go.
My life is the best because.... well, pretty much for the same reason most women think they have the best life.

The day I met George.

Lets start off with my family.  I'm not going into the feelings I have for my husband because if you follow my blog at all, you've heard plenty about him, being that we're newlyweds and all.  If you've not been following, you can read about how he was worth breaking all of the rules in an earlier post.  Now that I've said that I won't go into my feelings, I WILL give some examples.  I think of the things I get my feelings hurt over and I feel like a hag (The husband isn't allowed to call me that, because it's what he calls his ex-wife.  To him I'm The Bag).  Yesterday I said something and he looked at me, made a stupid face and said "nehnehnehneh..." with his tongue sticking out like a child.  (I would have said blahblahblah but I'm a girl).  It was 7 pm and he'd just had one of those days where he was up at 3 am for work and walked through the door at 6:45 that night and here he was teasing with me instead of being a bump on a log as I'm sure I would have been after working all day.  When he does silly childish things like that I call it "Rig mode George" because he's still winding down from work and has spent his day with stupid childish family-less boys who joke and make fun of each other.  So, he was still rig mode George.  And I pouted.  He spoils me and on the rare occasion he makes me feel stupid , I know he didn't mean to. 

Our 5 month anniversary was last week.  I wrote on his Facebook wall that I love him and happy 5 months.  He never replied.  He checks FB on his phone every day and jumps on there occasionally at home but really, the man is gone 15-16 hours a day... I think the last thing on his mind is commenting on a post.  But he didn't and I checked every day for a comment until I finally got mad, commented for him, and then deleted the whole thing.  Childish?  Oh ya.

I thought he might kill me for bringing home Mutt #2 right before Christmas.  But he didn't.  And he's helping train the annoying thing.  Not many men would do that with a huge puppy they didn't want in a 3 bedroom house with 8 people and one dog already.

Basically I have the best husband ever.  He's being patient with his super high mantainance moody hormonal menopausal wife and loving me with all of my faults (and there are A LOT!)

Seritta and Adam

My children.  I have the best teenage daughters by far.  I couldn't ask for better.  And the craziest boys.  The oldest is so serious (it even says so in my sidebar to the right so it must be true) and the twins are crazy and wild and break things and fart and burp and, well you've heard all about them already.  Vanessa is just Vanessa and I love her so much because she is who she is and she loves me even when she shouldn't.
The dogs.  Jack is a human trapped in a dogs body.  I swear he understands English.  Bobo is adorable.  And annoying.  And he's also learning very fast.  And we love them :)
The house.  I love my house.  I had a hard time at first, knowing George lived here with Stephanie.  But then I realized it was never their home.  She didn't change anything when they moved in... not the hideous wallpaper in the bathroom, the depressing green paint in the kitchen, the grandma curtains all over the house.  She even left the tacky plastic on the stairs.  But I am making it our house with our big backyard where the boys play and the girls and I jump on the trampoline in the rain and huge master bedroom that houses 3 girls.  Since I moved in, the curtains (I made new ones for the bay window) and stair plastic are gone, the wallpaper in the bathroom is halfway off, the carpet is being replaced.  And in 5 months this house is more mine than it ever was hers.

Me and Kelly, the kids stepmom,
 Ice skating.  Those are
Vanessa's fingers

Even the ex's.  My ex's love my kids.  No absent fathers, no withholding child support.  They are of course, ex's and I have plenty of animosity over the marriages but thats over with and as far as ex's go, they aren't bad.  Camilla and Jarom's stepmom is just like a sister.
I could go on forever really.  My job and my boss.  I love my job.  George's job with 26 weeks off a year.  My family here within 10 minutes of me.  My friends who are like family.  My in-laws who love me. 
So as the title of my post says, my life is better than it's ever been and I wouldn't want anyone else's.

Behold Your Little Ones

During church today I kept thinking about an incident that happened in my house a month or so ago and when I can't get something out of my head, it ends up in my journal.  Since I don't have a journal right now (I haven't written in one since I left California) this story goes in the blog.
It's been five months since my family of four became a family of 8 and we're starting to figure each other out and really act like a family.  I've mentioned in a previous post that describes all of my children how I worry about Vanessa and I clashing. 
I'm not sure if "clash" is the right word.  To put it in plain english, daddy's princess has been spoiled.  She has never been expected to abide by the same rules as the other kids and she's always been treated like a small child, I've seen it with both George and her biological mother.  She sometimes ignores us, once in a great while lies to us, and cries when she's told to do simple things.
She's not a bad child, she's very loving and usually sweet.  She helps me and often plays quietly in her room.  She's so beautiful and innocent most of the time but she's been treated like a 4 year old since her parents divorced and I can't expect her to change overnight and start acting like a 7 year old when it's never been asked of her.  She's trying, and she's getting better and growing up.
This post isn't to bash my 7 year old, in fact it's just the opposite.  I don't think she knows (I hope she doesn't) how frustrated I get at times.  I know she's trying, and I know she gets frustrated with me as well.
Back to the incident I mentioned at the beginnning of this post.  I generally don't yell at the children.  Ok, that's a lie.  I am a yeller and I do yell at the children but it's usually all of them, and not individually singling any of them out.  One day I was frustrated over some of the crap George's ex wife has left (really, crap that she didn't want that now we have to get rid of) and some of the things she's put me through.  She's been unkind and unfair and put me in situations I didn't deserve.  On this day, George was getting rid of her leftover junk and it did absolutely nothing to help my mood.  I was making dinner and trying not to look at the things George was carrying up the stairs and out to the trash but my sweet Vanessa felt the need to tell me what he had in every trip.  I asked her to stop.  She ignored me.  I told her she'd said enough, stop now.  She ignored me again.  I told her very sternly to stop again.  Of course, she didn't.
I finally hollered (not an all out yell, but definitely not a soft motherly voice) "Vanessa!  Stop it!"
She looked up at me and with her little chin quivering, walked to the table and quietly started to cry.
When George tired to comfort her I turned on him, telling him it wasn't his job to make it better when I was disciplining her.  He told me she was crying and I very rudely said "A lesson is being learned.  Next time she won't ignore me."
Five minutes later I hugged her, told her it wasn't nice of me to yell, and that she wasn't to ignore me again.  She headed off to play in her room.
That night we called all of the kids down for scriptures and while they were gathering, George and I went back and forth about something (I have no idea what it was), me telling him he was wrong and him telling me he was right.  We were teasing each other, joking about whatever it was and trying to convince the kids to take sides when Vanessa bounded down the stairs, jumped into my lap, looked at her daddy and hollered "I'm with mom!  I'm ALWAYS with mom!"  Then she put her arms around my neck and smiled her sweet smile at me.

My heart nearly broke.  This child had every reason in the world to be angry with me.  Just a few hours earlier I had been harsh, to put it nicely.  But to her I was deserving of forgiveness and love.  While I had mulled over the situation the rest of the afternoon, feeling really bad for reacting the way I did but also feeling just a little justified in disciplining her, she had forgiven, forgotten and loved me still.  I realized that she truly was meant to be mine.  I'm not here to replace her mother and I never will, but I have her 50% of the time, and during that time she's mine to love, and to mother, and to protect.
Christ has told us to "Behold" our little ones.  According to Webster, to behold is to "See with attention; lay eyes on; perceive by sight or have the power to perceive by sight".  Not to glance at them breifly or occasionally take notice of them, but to behold, to watch and truly see them.  And when we watch them, we learn from them, just as I learned from Vanessa that day of forgiveness and unconditional love.  I believe she's here to teach me and that I have more lessons to learn from her than she has to learn from me.

“And he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them.
“And when he had done this he wept. …
“And he spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones” (3 Nephi 17:21–23).

Bobo means stupid in Spanish

A few days before Christmas I took the girls to Walmart to pick up a few groceries.  Much to George's suprise (and chagrin) we came home with this:


How can you resist those eyes?  I couldn't :)

At the time we got him (about 2 weeks ago now) he was an 8 week old Great Pyreneese/Black Lab/Jack Russel mix.  In the last two weeks he's been anything from cute and adorable to annoying and frustrating.  Housetraining... ugh.  When he's with just me, he does fine, but with the kids.... my, oh my!  I very nearly took him to the pound the other day (after very nearly killing him for pottying in my bathroom) but decided to list him in the paper instead and when my anger subsided I ended up giving him just one more week.  Jack hates him, the kids love him, I have a love/hate relationship with him and George, even after saying NO when he saw me walk through the door with him, has simply fallen in love.

George with Jack and Bobo



He's cutest when he's sleeping. (The puppy... not the man)

 The kids and I decided to name him Coal being that we got him at Christmastime and all but then we thought if we let George name him, he'd be more likely to let us keep him :)  Aren't we sneaky?  Unfortunately it backfired a bit because he gave the poor thing a hideous name.  BOBO.  Google translate has a list of words that Bobo would mean in English and here it is:

fool
silly
stupid
booby
idiot
sucker
boob
moron
ninny
dolt
sap
dunce
goof
half-wit
mutt
mug
gawk
loony
dumbbell
nincompoop
noddy
saphead
yo-yo
noodle
Simple Simon
juggins
numbhead
lemon
ninny-hammer

I sometimes wonder why we even gave him a name because when George calls him it's "Hey Stupid!" or "Come here Dumdum!".  Somehow, I find myself smiling whenever I hear him call the new puppy, and I seem to fall in love with George a little bit more when I see him sleeping with "the baby" on his lap or catch them playing together.  I have to admit though, I'm more than a little bit scared of how George will react when he sees my phone charger.



My first thought was, too bad he didn't get electrocuted.



He had to go to jail after the assault on the phone cord



14 days is too long, and not long enough :-(

One day and my love will be home for two whole weeks.  This happens every month.  He works for 14 days and is off for 14 days.  For the two weeks he's off we have all 6 kids and it's like heaven and for the two weeks he's working it's just Adam and I and it gets lonely.  Today is December 19th, and since tomorrow is his last day on, that means he'll be home for Christmas and New Years.  Yay! 
I love spending time with him and I'm pretty sure he likes spending time with me, which is good because we have the rest of our lives (and longer) to spend with each other.  He's so amazing.  I don't know what I'd do or where I'd be without him.  We're figuring each other out, having less tension, and learning to share our lives and our children.  I'm so excited to have our entire family together for the Christmas Holiday.  Last time the kids were here and George was off we started getting ready, but we still have so much to do once they come back, and only a few days before Christmas!


Seritta and Camilla decorating the tree



I love this picture of Jarom



It was fun making the graham cracker village with the family



Adam helping set up for Trees for Charity



Apparently Seritta thought the icing was for eating, not decorating.

The title of this post is "14 days is too long, and not long enough".  Doesn't make much sense until you understand our living situation.  The 14 days I have with the entire family is not nearly long enough, and the 14 days they're gone is just way too long.

Accept Accountability? I don't want to!

My girlfriend Lezhai posted a link to a blog on my FB page for me called "30 things to stop doing to yourself".  I thought it was a good read so I browsed the site and found several other good thought provoking articles and eventually came across one called "12 ways to get a second chance in life".  It looked interesting to me so I started reading but stopped at number 4 which read:

4. Accept accountability for your current situation.

Either you take accountability for your life or someone else will. And when they do, you’ll become a slave to their ideas and dreams instead of a pioneer of your own.
You are the only one who can directly control the outcome of your life. And no, it won’t always be easy. Every person has a stack of obstacles in front of them. You must take accountability for your situation and overcome these obstacles. Choosing not to is giving up.

For whatever reason this made me uneasy.  I couldn't put a finger on WHY it made me uneasy so I've been sitting here thinking and I realized I just don't like it.  I don't think everyone is responsible for their current situation.  I say this because looking back 2 years ago in my life, December 2009 my husband Steve moved out.  This was not something I chose, however I tried to take responsibility for his choices and it tore me up.  I took blame for everything from gaining too much weight to nagging too much to not praying hard enough or reading enough scriptures, clear back to 9 years earlier when I made the choice to get married without really praying about it.  So what was it?  Was I too fat?  Did I marry the wrong person and the consequences came 9 years later?  At times I find I still wonder what it is and what I did wrong.  I know I made mistakes, and I know I made mistakes that were a big deal and more often than I should have but I don't believe I did anything "bad" enough to end up alone in a place where I knew no one and was suddenly abandoned by the one person I should have been able to depend on 100%. 
I had to realize that I wasn't in that situation because I chose to be or that it was my responsibility.  What it boils down to is that he chose his addictions over his family.  He was given a choice to keep his family and give up an addiction that could ruin the lives of our sons if they became ensnared in it, or leave and take his addiction with him.  He chose the latter.
I can't look back in my life and pinpoint the one mistake or choice I made that placed me the situation I was in because there isn't one.  When I got married I had no idea he had the problem he did.  It took me a whole year to figure it out.  I wanted to help him, I wanted to fix things, and I went to my bishop a year later when I found that I couldn't do it no matter how hard I tried.  My bishop counseled me to stay, through good times and bad, sickness and health, just as I had promised in my wedding vows.  So I stayed.  I went through another 7 years of heartache, finding the problems over and over, struggling with my self esteem, wondering what I did wrong and giving him chance after chance because I knew if I tried, the Lord would pull me through and make everything better.  I followed him to California, sure that once we were in a place where he was happier, with a job that he enjoyed doing, he would lead a better life and be the husband he should have been all along.  He left us 3 months later.
I think if we Accept Accountability for ALL of our situations, we'll end up in a cycle of regret and guilt.  If I choose to blame myself for suddenly becoming single, I would forever question and wonder and have feelings of failure and shame.  And if I choose to believe that I was being punished for marrying him 9 years earlier, then I know I would be too scared to do anything for fear it may not end up the way I want it to, therefore resulting in more guilt for making a "mistake" I didn't know I was making. 
So, I can accept that allowing myself to get up to 172 pounds made him unhappy with the way I looked.  I can accept that I nagged too much, that I was short tempered, and that I made many other little mistakes over our 9 years together, but I will also accept that these things that made him unhappy are not the reason he left.  They aren't the reason we were in a crappy situation.  They didn't help but if it comes down to just one reason, it's that I wasn't good enough for him, which wasn't my fault.  I can accept that how I've handled my life the last two years since then is my responsibility (for the most part) but that I can't make people be nice, I can't make them love me, I can't make them be honest, and I can't keep them from hurting, abandoning, and affecting other peoples lives. 
But I'm so grateful that Steve took his problems and left when he did, because without his choice to walk away, I wouldn't be here in my warm comfortable home, married to the love of my life who makes me feel amazing, and surrounded by my 6 wonderful children.

Winters from my past

Last night it snowed. And snowed.  And snowed some more.  This morning when I headed out to start my vehicle, I found that my sweet husband had cleared a path from the front door of the house to the drivers side door of the Sequoia.  He does little things like this that are not little things to me, and it's all part of why I love him so much. 

I've been thinking of winters in the past, and the memories associated with each one, some good and some not so good.  I'm going to share a few of these memories, mostly for myself to clear my head I suppose. 

I'll start with the first memories that entered my head on the slippery roads this morning, the annoying ones like chopping wood in the freezing cold, slipping and falling on the ice while I carried baby Camilla, and all of my children getting RSV, each on different years. 

Dwelling on the annoying memories brought worse ones, like the Christmas Steve had to work and Adam and I spent Christmas Eve with Ryan's family, feeling out of place.  The car accident near the college which spun us around twice and smashed Camilla's leg between the door and the seat.  The winter in Provo when Steve was unemployed and I made the kids stockings small since all we had to put in them was a bag of candy the bishop brought.  The first divorce, right before Christmas.  The second divorce, 9 years later also right before Christmas.  The year Latrisha's baby died. 

Strangely, with these thoughts in my head, I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that my children are all with me and that my life is what it is.  The bad memories were replaced by sweet, fun, and happy ones.  Christmas two years ago in Fountain Green.  Jan and Annalee under the house with me in below zero temperatures replacing pipes again and again, sometimes in the dark and sometimes early before the sun had warmed the day but always laughing with or at me.  Me and the kids sitting on the cold linoleum in the kitchen with our feet in the air by the woodburner.  Watching Steve roll over and over down the hill we were sledding on and him laughing in the cold snow that he hated more than anything in the world.  Chase dropping our Shih Tzu in the snow and laughing when it disappeared.  Christmas caroling with the missionaries when I was a teenager with Jared and Sariah Hill.  Me and Becky hurrying out of the family room to avoid feeling awkward when we saw the tears in mom's eyes the year dad replaced the synthetic stones in her mothers ring with genuine stones.  Colin pulling his winter hat over his face and down to his neck so he could stick his head in the snow like an ostrich.  New Years Eve with Karl and Tammy in the big family room at mom and dad's watching the ball drop as the clock struck midnight when Karl looked at my dad and with genuine disbelief and said, "Wow, 1995 already.  Can you believe it?"  Colin falling off the roof on Christmas day and breaking his arm and dad getting mad because mom took him to the emergency room.  Mom answering the phone "Merry Christmas" instead of "Hello".  Kevin chucking a can of stain in the family room Christmas night as we watched it explode all over our new gifts.  Colin chasing down whoever was leaving packages on our porch for the 12 days of Christmas (he didn't catch them).  The tree falling over 3 times in the family room with Joan on the ladder.  Finding Stella's letter under the tree that said she loved me, and knowing it was true even though I was awful to her.  That same year we unwrapped and rewrapped our presents so mom wouldn't know, even though I'm sure she did.  Ice skating on the pond behind our house.  Sledding by the highway with Liz Cranney.  Grandma Sadlier giving us gloves for Christmas. The year Granpa Elliott lost our Christmas gifts and found them months later in his top drawer.  Moon boots and snowsuits in the entryway.  Everybody getting leatherbound scriptures for Christmas in the Naples house.  Snowmobiling at the Naples School.  The ugly trees that looked like sagebrush dad would bring home from the book cliffs and mom would turn them so the gaping hole in the middle faced the window, away from the family.  Fudge and peanut brittle in the electric skillet.

A lot of these memories came as I was typing other ones, and most of them are in order of my life, from the most recent to memories from more than 20 years ago.  I may complain about my life and I may find myself resentful and bitter at times just before Christmas but when it comes down to it, I only put a fraction of my past in this post.  I have so much to be thankful for.  So many times that my family has been there making me smile and teaching me lessons that I'll always keep with me.  I'm sure in the next few days I'll post more recent memories of the last 13 years with my kids and the memories we've made together, since this post is mostly about my childhood memories and not theirs.  I love that thinking back over the years I'm finding good memories that overpower the yucky ones :-)