Seeking Imperfection

Sometimes the longer you stay away, the harder it is to come back. You aren't sure what to say about where you've been, so you just keep quiet. But then the longer you are quiet, the harder it becomes to figure out what to say, and you start thinking you'll have to have some sort of exciting post about what you've been up to all of this time. I have nothing really exciting to say other than I'm still out here.

Around the time of my last post, we had some computer trouble, were on a trip to visit my family, and I got a summer cold. That was the initial reason for being away for a bit. Then I was almost done with summer camp, and concentrated on that. Then, the week after summer camp ended, all of my inlaws went away to Disney for a week, and I had a 3 year old who was wondering where "vacation" was and why they all went without her. We tried to do some fun things with her, but we also enjoyed having the house to ourselves and it was hard to go back when they came home.

Paige and I have been doing the Unplugged Projects every week, but I've been very frustrated when I try to take pictures of our activities. I have a hard time getting a decent photo. I know I'm not the best photographer in the world, but it seems like every one I take you wouldn't be able to see what was going on in the picture. Then I started to wonder if I should bother posting about our activities when you couldn't see anything. I have been reading about how "good blogs" all have pictures, and I know I like it when blogs have pictures, so I guess I convinced myself that if I couldn't post a good picture, I shouldn't bother. Roland thinks that the problem is half that I need more practice taking pictures and half that I need a better camera. So I think I'm going to treat myself to a new camera - any suggestions?

The housing situation isn't much better, and we've all gotten a bit burned out. Due to an increase in salary from getting my Master's degree this spring, I was able to get preapproved for a mortgage again, but we weren't approved for the place we were interested in because it was a town house. We found another house we liked but it had multiple bids and we didn't get it. That one hit me pretty hard - Paige had gone with us to see the place and had picked out her room. We've seen two more that we were interested in, but both had multiple bids, and we just can't win a bidding war. I'm just so done with this.

I have spent a lot of this week setting up my classroom and attending meetings and whatnot. School for teachers starts on Tuesday, and then the kids come back on Wed the 3rd. I feel bad because I'm feeling very burnt out and the year hasn't even started yet.

I guess that's where I've been most of the last month - in burn out. I love reading and commenting on everyone's blogs, but often feel like I've got nothing great going on here to post about. Guess I've been a bit in pity party mode! I have to keep reminding myself that I'm blogging for me. I love comments and having you all visit, but that I should be writing for me, and not to put so much pressure on myself about what I write and what my pictures look like, etc. I am so good at getting stressed out about things that are supposed to be fun! So, in an attempt to deal with burn out, I'm trying to learn to relax and just let go of what I can't control. I'm a bit of a control freak, so this is going to be hard. :)

Nice to "see" you all again!

Ok, so this is technically my 100th post, and no, this isn't a big list of things about me. This is in fact my Unplugged Project for this week. I will try to get to that big list over the next couple of days - we just got home from a long weekend with my family on Cape Cod, so I'm using that as an excuse for not doing the list, and also for having kind of a simple Unplugged Project this week.


We did symmetrical paintings - putting paint on one side of a piece of paper, folding it over, and then having the paint on both sides. I folded a piece of paper and told her to paint on only one side of the fold. Paige thought it was pretty funny to try and paint on the other side of the "line." I would keep shooing her back to the "right" side of the fold. She thought this was funny. She also ended up painting herself quite a bit during this project, hence the naked artist look.



We put some paint down and I let her finger paint a little, and then we folded it, smooshed it flat, and opened it up.

It is a pretty simple project, but she seemed to think it was pretty cool.


Then Friday night we went to visit my family, and while at the beach, Paige told me that she was making a "flat sandcastle." Isn't it nice when they come up with ideas that just happen to fit the theme all on their own?

First, I'd like to thank all of you for your wonderful comments when I was feeling a bit down the other day. Things are going slightly better this week, and we may have found a way to get back in the housing game. This is such a stressful thing!

Secondly, my next post is my 100th! I can't believe it. Can I really think of 100 things about myself?

Ok, now on to your regularly scheduled Thursday List....

I think I could definitely use a canvas of happiness right about now.

Another yummy looking trifle. I wish someone in this family liked pudding besides just me, as most trifles seem to include pudding.

I'm always interested in finding out the benefits of imperfection.

Well, I guess I'm better late than never this week. I had a stressful week and had a hard time coming up with an idea I was happy with for the Unplugged theme of glass this past week. So tonight after dinner, we did one of Paige's favorite projects - we made "stained glass" suncatchers by sticking different colored tissue paper to contact paper, and then hanging it in the window. Paige actually prefers when we use glue and stick the tissue paper to wax paper, and when I said we were going to make suncatchers, she asked me where the glue was. But I told her we were going to use sticky paper, and she actually agreed fairly easily.

I had told her she could use her scissors to cut the tissue paper, as she loves to cut, but she eventually ended up just tearing some of the tissue and sticking it on the paper. I also got out some leftover glitter I had from when we did our Discovery Bottles, and she was happy to stick that on the paper too.

I stuck it in the window, which is also "glass" and took a quick picture. It was getting late, so most of my pictures are a little dark, but you get the idea.

Things are not going well.

In March we discovered that our landlord was selling our house and we needed to be out by May 15th.

We found a house we liked, and put in an offer. The bank was involved with the house and had to approve our offer. We found out it could be awhile. So we waited, and waited.

Memorial Weekend we had a marathon cleaning and packing session, filling a POD with most of our belongings. We had to leave several pieces of furniture behind, and we threw away quite a bit. We'd become overrun with clutter, and the whole process was very emotional.

Afterward, we moved into the third floor apartment of my sister-in-law's home and waited for the bank.

Last week the bank came back with a counter offer - $70,000 over what the owners had listed it for. We don't have that. The house isn't worth that.

This past Saturday we went out and found a new place we like. We were getting ready to make an offer today, when the mortgage guy calls and says there's a problem. Seems he was looking at our file and needed to update it because it's been a few months. The market is changing, he says, and he's not sure we'll still be approved for a mortgage. A few hours later we find out we aren't approved - but we would be if I made a couple thousand more a year.

I feel like doors are being slammed in my face wherever I turn and I don't know why. I've been telling Paige that we are looking for our new house, that we are going to find her a room (she didn't have her own room before) that we can decorate with Ariel. She's been excited to find it and excited to get her toys out of the Pod.

I think she'd be fine living here with her family, but she doesn't understand why if we are in our new place, why we can't get her things. I just keep telling her the new house isn't ready yet. After I hung up with the mortgage guy tonight I broke down into tears - sobs, actually. I feel like a failure as a mother. I shouldn't have told her I'd find her own room. I can't take care of my family. These are some of the fears that I choked out to Michelle while I cried.

I know I should be grateful. We are all together. We are healthy, we are happy, we have a roof over our heads, even if it isn't the one we imagined. I know I am very lucky to have family who could and did help us out. But it is still hard, and I keep fighting back tears whenever I think about it. I'm not sure what's going to happen to us.

I've heard of gratitude journals, where you jot down something you are grateful for that day, large or small. I've also seen this done on several blogs. I've also seen a few blogs post lists of things that makes the blogger happy. I've been thinking for awhile that I would like to start making some happy/grateful posts. I wonder if I'll be better about typing these things up then I would be about writing them in a notebook. We shall see.

In any event, here's the first thing I am grateful for. I am grateful for this little girl who came upstairs while Momma was sobbing. I am grateful for this little girl who sat in my lap with her Taggie blanket and Brown Bear, hugging me while I cried. I am grateful for this little girl who told me I was going to be ok.



I love you so much, my beautiful little girlie. I am so happy and grateful to have you with me.

Last week I didn't have any links for my list, and I asked anyone who likes my lists to put a link for me to look at in the comments section. Chrissy did me one better - a whole post of links!

This week I've only got a couple:

I love the idea of being a Book Experiencer but I really love the penguin cookies in this post!

This soap making project looks like fun - I've always wanted to try making soap.

If anyone has any fun links this week, please put them in the comments section so I can check them out!

When I saw the theme of this week's Unplugged Project was stone, I thought right away of a garden stone., a project I've been wanting to do with Paige. However, this week was too busy for me to get to the store to get the supplies. I'm hoping to do this eventually, though!

This week was busy, so I almost thought that I wouldn't get to do a project this week, when I had an idea. Paige and I played a game inspired by one of her favorite cartoons, Charlie and Lola.

In one episode of Charlie and Lola, "It Is Actually My Party," Lola makes all the boys at Charlie's birthday party play a game called, "Musical Statues."* So I asked Paige if she'd like to try it, and we gave it a shot. Musical statues is kind of a variation of musical chairs. You turn on some music, and the players dance. Then you randomly pause the music, and everyone has to freeze like a...well, like a statue of course. I happened to actually find rules for this game online, (scroll down) and it says that if a player moves, he or she is out. You continue to play until one person is left.

It was too hard to try and control the music and take a picture of her, so after we played I asked her to stand like a statue so I could take her picture. It came out a bit dark, but you get the idea.



*The link for the episode that Musical Statues is in plays the story, but oddly enough omits the part I'm talking about. Oh well.