Today my baby turned seven. Seven! I’ve mentioned before that I take a picture of them on their birthdays so today started out with a trip to the portrait studio. Unlike a few years ago when she refused to smile, today’s session went great. She is such a cute kid. Since we live in a really small area I didn’t think about having to make an appointment at the studio and after a few minutes of talking her into it, the girl working there scheduled us for first thing today. I thought ahead for Jake and schedule his appointment while we were there. Alice picked the pictures we bought and made a quick list of who to send them to.

We walked around the mall, stopping to buy perfume for me (and scored a free gift – which I think I’ll send to a friend of mine) and giving the kids a ride on the carousel that is inside the mall. For some reason I thought it would be at least five bucks a kid (I think the only other carousel like this I’ve seen in San Francisco – so I was definitely expecting a high price) so when it was $1.75 each, I was pleasantly surprised. Other then my baby growing up, today was a first for Jake too. He rode the carousel by himself. Sure he’s almost five and very athletic and handles himself well, but Mom was reluctant to let go until today. He was inches above the ‘you have to be this tall’ sign so I let him go alone.

I need a new digital camera – though this picture looks pretty dang awesome!

And what a great time he had! With no Mom or Dad standing up next to him just in case. He did have a belt on so I felt better, though I didn’t notice that and it was the woman in charge who put it on him.

Alice looked alternately like she was having a great time and looking bored. She opted to sit in a chair, she sat facing backward – she had a view of Jake and the whole thing rocked so she had fun. She’s definitely the more cautious kid.

Slightly Bored

Hanging on because man this thing goes fast

Okay it’s cool

They loved the carousel and we definitely plan on doing it again. I was surprised at how busy it was considering the mall just opened within an hour of us being there.

The rule in our family is your birthday = you get to pick what we do, where we eat, what we eat, etc. We started the day with pictures and a carousel ride, moved on to shopping and the aquarium and ended with a movie. We did buy a few things at the craft store and grabbed something from the aquarium, but technically no gifts were given. We are doing experiences this year and Alice declared that today was “the best” so mission accomplished.

I feel like I’m at the moment in my life where I am questioning everything. I turned 30 this past June and for a moment I was thinking “have I done enough so far?” I’ve always had goals – I had a well laid out plan of what my 20s were going to be like: college, grad school, what I wanted to do. Then I veered major off course and got married, had kids and moved a handful of times.

I still haven’t finished college and I really want to. I still want to go to grad school. I still want the things I wanted when I was 16 and had my life planned out.

So what is it going to take to get there? One thing that holds me back from finishing college is algebra. Yep, one lousy algebra class! I’ve never loved math so I took the math classes I figured I would need back when I first started college. Then I transferred to the Univ of Wyoming and they wouldn’t accept the credits which meant I had to take algebra. Nevermind that I also took other math classes at UW – algebra seemed to be holding me back. I ignored that for the two years I was there and took other classes that did count. Well that and going to school online, that holds me back too. That’s tough for me since it is just way too easy to get distracted. But I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a class!

So then I transferred again – and I still needed algebra. I still need algebra. I’m looking to take it independent study so I can just get it out of the way – not from the school I will graduate from but from a community college, to save on cash. Yep, paying out of pocket for college does change things! Once I get that class done I will get back to school and just do it. We are moving again in the spring so I could be left in the dark and not be able to get started until the summer but at this point I’m going to try to start in the spring.

Plus my brother is going through lots of life changes and he’s going back to school. He’s two years younger then me and the program he’s going to do will have him done in two years. He’s excited and school for him starts in a few weeks. And I’m so close to being done I’ve already said I need to graduate before him.

And working online is changing for me. I have some decisions to make and need to be consistent now that one big problem has been knocked out of the water. It’s amazing how one thing can trip you up so bad for so long!

I hung up all of our family pictures yesterday. I it made me smile to wake up and see familiar faces staring back at me. Today feels like one of those days when you say “once this is done, then I’ll do that” – when really, “that” is what should be done first and it’s just avoidance.

I’m going to hang one more thing and get to work. The “that” needs to be taken care of today.

Sorry for no moving update – how about a picture of our new place to make up for it?

We are in military housing this time around and it’s nice. We have a fenced in yard, really nice neighbors and a pool! The community center has a work out area and more, but we haven’t checked it out beyond the pool. We have a four bedroom that is quite a bit smaller then our last home and, it has to be said, if I complain about a large home and how much it takes to clean it up – remind me not to.

While Chris was in school and we were in Montana for all those months all of our stuff were in storage. When Chris and a friend went to pack everything up, in the biggest moving truck we could get, we ended up leaving a lot of stuff. 🙁 We had to leave a shelving unit we used in the garage, one I had in the closet in the craft room, a big desk of Chris’ (we had it for at least four years), a ladder we only owned for a couple of months and maybe I forgot something else. I can’t believe we had to leave that desk! It was huge though and very heavy – and after unloading the truck there was no way we could have kept it. There was some settling in the truck, like boxes got squished and such, but the stuff we left would have never fit.

I’m over having left all of that stuff now – but when we first got to TX I was very upset. We just bought that ladder! We used it only to paint the house and that was it. And the shelves – okay the garage ones, fine, but the ones I used in the closet! Those were a gift from my Dad a few years ago. I even cut them to make them fit. They are sold at any hardware store but if we couldn’t pack them before, is it worth buying again?

That’s the trouble with the military and moving yourself – you have to pack it all up and hope it all fits. I guess we just assumed all of it would. And not only would it not fit in the moving truck but this new place doesn’t have the right layout for a few things – the desk, no idea where that would have gone! Hindsight- I should have gone through our stuff before moving. I could have donated more then we did, we could have left something (the ladder and shelves!) at the house to stay with the house. At least then we could have still owned it. As it was everything was left in the storage unit which meant the owners got to sell or use the items for themselves.

We are mostly unpacked, just have four or five boxes still in the garage, but still need to hang things on the walls and finish rearranging. I moved a bookcase, the couch and coffee table yesterday. Chris is gone again at a school so I have a couple of weeks to get things finished up. My goal is to have every room basically done, the kitchen better organized (I do miss all the cupboards I had!), and at least one room will have pictures hung up. Once I get a room done I’ll share pictures.

Kelly of WAHMTalkRadio has been blogging over at WAHM 2.0 on the Sparkplugging blog network. I didn’t read Sparkplugging very much before the name change (the site was previously emomsathome) but with all the news about the name change, I’m a reader now. Of course I read the Craft Boom blog too.

Kelly posted a Blog Reader Challenge and one of the questions is:

How often do you like to change the look of your blog?

Once I find a theme I like, I tend to stick with it for quite a long while. The problem I have is the code and being able to do the technical work by myself. I have a test blog that is loaded with all the free themes I like to use, then once I decide on one I’ll tweak it until I am satisfied. Of course considering I’ve been working on tweaking a theme for a few months now, I know it’s easier on me to find someone else to do a theme for me.

The current theme I have was done by Shannon at PHAT Mommy Designs. I don’t think she is taking any clients at this time, but I love what she did. I sent her a photo from istockphotos and told her what I wanted, and that was that! She also did the theme I am using over at my weight loss blog. I love that theme, I can see myself using that for a long time. When I was pregnant last year, Shannon changed the header to say “gaining” – it was a cute header and she did it very quickly.

The theme at my craft podcast was tweaked by FreshNets. I really love the magazine style theme for that site. I was walked through the customization and was also taught how to tweak various things on the blog. I love how easy it was to learn and how comfortable I feel making changes. I won’t be changing that theme any time soon!

I’ve been working on changing a free theme for this blog for a few months now. It’s the polaroid theme – yep, the very popular polaroid theme. The one that once I had been tweaking it for a month or so, I was seeing everywhere. It’s like when you like a certain kind of car or a friend gets pregnant – suddenly everyone is pregnant and driving that car! I stopped tweaking that theme and am going to look for a designer to work with soon.

We got home last night after driving almost 1600 miles over three days. The kids and I left Saturday to start the drive since we figured it would take longer with four kids. We drove for eight hours that day, then another seven on Sunday, before we got to the town we were meeting my brother. Oh – I’ve had two of my nephews since we moved to TX and this was when we gave them back.

My brother figured we would meet about halfway – he drove through Wyoming and Colorado while I drove through Texas. Yeah, this is a huge state. 🙂 He went farther then I did though so his halfway was off a bit. Yesterday my kids and I made it home in one day – we didn’t stop as often as the other two days and I was so glad to get home.

I have a lot to do now – other then the standard cleaning up and laundry, we have two birthdays coming up, Chris is traveling for his job, homeschool starting and we still need to finish unpacking and putting the house together. I’m hoping to get a lot done while Chris is gone – I’d like the rooms finished and pictures hung up. But for now, let’s start with today. 🙂

photo credit: bobu