Dear God,

Please smile on me today.

I know that I was the biggest pain in my mother's butt. Boy, I was hell on wheels. I admit that now. Somehow, she made it through my difficult teen years and seems to be okay today. I applaud her and appreciate her and love her. She endured a lot. Of course, my brother didn't help matters much but that's a different story.

So, what's the deal? I thought I paid my dues with Danielle but you said, "no". Then there was Brandilyn. Oh yeah, I was SURE that I had finally paid back for my bad with that one. However, you said "no". Then, heaven help us all, you blessed me with Brian. Holy crap, that was a real zinger and there was no doubt in my mind that I was fiinally paid up for my bad. So, here you are today with that fatherly look in your eye informing me that the answer is, once again, "no".

What the heck? Now I get Robbie. I honestly thought you blessed me with him because you felt sorry for me with all the others. Well, my bad, I second guessed you all wrong! Man, I'm not getting this. Please just give me a hint of how I can fix my bad and turn this around. I know that you never give us more than we can handle but, with all due respect, are you sure about this?

I'll be patiently waiting on my knees by my bed for your answer tonight.

All my love,
Me

Oh, and P.S., thank you for those chocolate covered almonds today. They were pretty yummy.

Good Day

Today WAS a good day. I never started my car. I never left the hill. That, in and of itself, makes it a good day.

Robbie and Skip left this morning for the high adventure activity (rafting and some other manly stuff) so that just left me and the twins for today and tomorrow. Court and I were working on Girl's Camp stuff - getting our stuff together so that we are good to go. Jacob was bored with that whole deal so he became really annoying. I finally said, "Hey, Jacob, if you won't want to be nice why don't you go outside and rake horse poop into piles." (I was pretty sure he would instantly turn nice).

Wrong! The door shut and I asked Court where Jake had gone. "Um, Mom, he went out to rake horse poop."

"Oh, so he doesn't want to be nice to us?"

"Guess not." (shoulders shrug).

About like three hours later Jacob came strolling in for lunch. We all hung out for the rest of the afternoon, made a fabbie dinner with tofu and some oven fried potatoes and settled down for a movie together.

I love low key days like this. Got a lot accomplished. Nothing to write home about (well, blogging isn't really writing home, is it?) but just nice simple fun.

Oh, and when I went out to feed horses this evening? Yeah, horse poop - nice piles with sweet looking rake marks. Yup, all good!

Puzzlement

Every year at Christmas I still hang on to a few traditions. Besides the big Christmas boxes and buying (probably more than I should) gifts for my family, I still send out around 100 Christmas cards with our family picture (which is always a point of contention in our home) and I bake several different kinds of cookies and distribute plates of cookies to my neighbors. I always purchase plates after Christmas (cheap) to use to following year because that's just the way I roll.

Today something kind of funny happened. I was in the kitchen doing kitchen things and Courtney came walking in with one of the plates I had used this year with two baskets of cherries on it. I gave her the "wtf" look and she said that some lady (very old lady) drove up and handed them to her and told her that they were for us. By the description of the car, it wasn't too difficult to figure out who this was.

But June? Really? Are you returning my plate in June? This is the same woman that I approached at the parade and said, "well, there's my neighbor! How are you guys doing?" She then turned to Skip and said, "Tim, (she had him confused with someone else) that woman on the horse said that I was her neighbor. Do you know who she is?" Skip patiently reminded her that we were the Weltz's and we lived just up the road from her. Right, of course.

Okay, so how does a woman who has no clue who I am remember that that was the plate that I sent cookies on in December?

Well . . . the cherries are delicious!

Right Now

Right now, right here I have so much on my mind that it seems crazy!

• Spent the afternoon putting together hand outs and such for my girls at Girl's Camp. Really wondering if they will even BEGIN to appreciate the effort that goes into this. Never mind, I know the answer. They are teenagers.
• Got to go to drill practice tonight. Totally in love with drill. Starting to understand how hard it's going to be and how much work it's going to take to get me up to speed with the rest of the team. Wondering if I'm spending too much time thinking and doing this new activity of mine. Then again, I'm at a point in my life where I'm beginning to do more to develop "me". I actually quite like it.
• The bills are stacking up again. It makes me feel panicky. I hate the bills so therefore they are here to tease and taunt me. It's the one chore in all the world that would be the first one I'd give up if my magical genie were to appear today and ask what he can take care of for me.
• Got another activity with my Activity Day Girls tomorrow. As usual, I've done practically nil to prepare. Why do I procrastinate like this? Who the heck knows. Needless to say, I'm a little anxious as to how I'm going to pull this off.
• I finished one really huge big section of my herbal school and now I'm supposed to be flying through the next section. I haven't even opened the book. What the heck is wrong with me? Hmmm, could I possibly be spending too much time on drill and these other activities?
• Brian and Meg are coming out next week and it just dawned on me that it's Fourth of July already. Yikes! I'm so excited to see my boy.

So there it is. All listed out neat and tidy. Of course, there are other issues on my mind. I just can't really talk about them here. It just feels a little overwhelming at the moment. I want to step out of my life for a short moment and catch my breath. Maybe I'll just go take another yoga class . . .

Bead Dough

I started reading this book "Transforming the Difficult Child".  I was pretty resistant to reading it initially but now have really gotten into it.  I'm loving putting some of the tools that are given into practice with the twins.  It's amazing how things are working out.  It seems to be taking the nagging out of my parenting techniques.  Imagine that!

Okay, so I've implemented the "bead system" into our lives.  Courtney gets pink beads and Jacob gets blue beads.  These beads are like money and they can "spend" their beads at the "store" on the days that they were able to do all their morning responsiblities on their own (brush teeth, get dressed, make beds, take meds etc) without any prompting from the parental units.  The store is a privilege center.  They can purchase a sleepover with a friend, computer time, ipod time etc. etc. etc. (we've even got a bag of chips in the store because that seems to be a big deal for these guys, lol).  So every time I catch them doing good, I chuck a couple of beads their way.  It's amazing how things are turning around. 

Tonight Jacob counted his beads before bedtime and said, "Wow!  I have 75 beads, Mom.  I can buy computer time tomorrow!  I'm excited!!"  I laughed and reminded him that he needs to do his morning deeds on his own in order to earn the privilege to "shop".  "Oh yes.  I know, Mom.  I'm going to show you tomorrow!" 

Anyone who knows anything about my family knows what a little miracle this is! 

Drill

I have a lot of fun things that I do. The older I get the more I realize that I don't want to lose myself so I really strive to keep doing things that make me happy. I don't think I neglect my family (well, except for right before a performance, I've discovered) so I don't think what I'm doing is a bad thing.

I love yoga. I love bicycling. I love (and always have loved) running. I love riding my horses. I love my gardens. And now, I love drill team.

I have only been on this team for like a month. I performed with them at the rodeo a couple of nights ago for the first time and blew it bad at the beginning. Now that that is out of my system, I can settle in and enjoy the ride. Today, we rode in the parade. Please note who's horse is the one out of place. The one dancing around and being naughty. Yup, your's truly.

My friend, Robyn, yelled out from the side "hey, Jody, why is your horse the one with ADD?" Lol. That makes for a funny joke since I have three kids with the same issue!!! Could there be a pattern there somewhere?

Well, needless to say, I'm having a really fun time and am looking forward to performing with these ladies throughout the summer and into the fall.

Random Stuff

Today is Brandilyn's birthday. I love her and think that she's amazing. I'm proud of her and grateful that she has made such a wonderful life for herself with Dave. She's 21! Wow, I can hardly believe that that many years have gone by. It's been a beautiful ride.

Tomorrow is my first performance with the drill team at the rodeo grounds. I'm hecka nervous because I'm so new to the team. I'm really hoping that I can stay present and remember the routine as we are performing.

Tonight I was putting hot curlers in my hair to figure out how I want to wear my hair tomorrow night. Courtney was watching and I had some extra rollers in the set so I put them in her hair. She said, "This reminds me of when my grandma put pink rollers in my hair for church. I slept with them in my hair all night!" It's funny the things that randomly come up. Anyway, we both looked beautiful with no place to go so we just admired each other. Fun.

Robbie is in Idaho with Brian and Brandilyn. Skip is away for a couple of days with work and it's just me and the twins here. It's pretty quiet. Don't know how I feel about that. I actually miss the hustle and bustle that used to be our family (I guess I'm getting older because I can only remember the fun stuff - the "other" stuff is fading quickly, thank heaven).

I fed the twins In-n-Out for dinner. Yeah, I'm losing it for sure. Don't tell and I'm sure I'll forget that it happened. They thought they (or I) had died and they were in heaven.

Jacob Come Lately

Like every morning lately, I got up at 5:30 and woke up Jacob before heading off to the barn to feed horses. Like every morning he made sleepy noises and slowly started moving. Off I went.

I came back up to the house only to find him still sitting on the edge of the bed in his jammies stretching and yawning. When he saw me he said, "I'm hurrying, Mom." (Um, yeah like heck you are). I made breakfast and summonsed him to the kitchen to partake. He was yawning, stretching and extremely distracted (nothing unusual for him). I kept nudging him along saying things like, "come on, Jake, you need to keep moving", "let's keep going, Jake, your bus is gonna be here before you know it", "Jacob, let's stay focused on getting breakfast down." All the while he just kept giving me that "look" like "buzz off, lady."

Sure enough, I looked out the window and there, bigger than life, was Jacob's "buth" (that would be "bus" in Jacob talk) sitting out front.

"Ahem, Jacob, your bus is HERE!!!"

"Oh crap, Mom, what should I do?"

"Grab your clothes. I'll run out there and tell them you are coming."

Off I went. Off he went. I was telling the driver that Jacob was moving slow this morning (yeah, slow doesn't even BEGIN to describe it) and was coming. I looked up and saw Jacob walking out the door with his backpack open and all the contents in danger of spilling out, clothes strewn all over the place as he was attempting to balance everything. I had to refrain from laughing. I hobbled over to help him out, got him in the bus and kissed him good-bye.

He hasn't arrived home from school as of yet, but I'm hoping he managed to get himself dressed on the way to school. Hopefully, tomorrow he gets moving a little faster.

The Not-So-Bad-Pretty-Darn-Good Day

I knew it was going to be a good day right from the get go. I woke up and the sun was shining, the sunrise was gorgeous and I was smiling to myself as I was hobbling down to the barn to feed my darlings (yes, I'm still sporting my walking cast).

I had a killer (that's wonderful in Jode talk) yoga practice this morning and then things just kept humming along right from there. I visited my friend, Jennifer, and she was even gracious enough to allow us to sit in the sun for our visit (I LOVE the sun!!). I jammed home and loaded up Black Horse and took him to the ranch so that Miranda could take her lesson. Ran some errands, snagged Court and took her home and then headed right back to town for a pre-camp meeting with my girls. My girls are awesome (so far). Picked up Black Horse, came home and fed animals and then proceeded to whip up a pretty killer vegan dinner. Oh heck yeah!!!!!

Funny thing is . . . I've been dreading (well, not exactly looking forward to) this day for quite some time. I didn't know how I was going to pull it all off. I was whining because I wasn't gonna have any time in the sun and I so didn't want to face a bunch of attitude ridden 13-14 year old girls.

Guess the joke's on me! This day turned out pretty sweet!