My Plate Overfloweth!

I have always been one to try to put to much on my plate. In high school the first summer I could work I had two jobs. I worked at Taco Bell (funny right?) during the day and then at Pizza and Pastries (a pizza parlor/bakery shop) at night and Saturdays and then continued to work there once school started back up again.

In college I did the same thing, worked and went to school. Then came marriage and things slowed down quite a bit, but then they started picking back up. When I was in LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) school between work and school there was a time where I was either working at my regular job, doing clinicals or going to school for 73 days straight at a minimum of 8 hours a day, including Sundays. I still have that calendar and it makes me tired all over again just looking at it. Once I graduated it slowed back down again, once again it didn't last.

I decided to go back to school to get my RN (Registered Nurse License). In the middle of school we moved, adopted Gavin, I was called to be in the Young Women's Presidency in my ward, and I was still working. I was still trying to be a wife, keep my house up and spend what little time I had with Gavin and Cody.  I was never home and when I was most of my time was spent studying. I remember one night I was studying and Gavin was old enough to walk, but not talk to well and he walked over to me on the couch and closed my nursing book and held his arms out for me to pick him up. I had obviously taken on too much at that point, but there wasn't much I could do about it except keep on trudging through it.

Since then we have adopted two more kids and I was able to stay home the majority of the time. I went from working full time to regular part time and now I just work when I'm needed, but I feel like I have more responsibilities to do than ever before. I use to have this misconception that stay at home mom's had all the time in the world to do whatever they wanted and maybe some do, but I don't personally know any of them. Being on the other side of the spectrum I now know how demanding it is. Before I just had work, a church calling and that was about it for the most part.

In the last couple of months I have piled way to much on my plate and it is running over! I am working occasionally, but at Dr. Quinton's I am the only RN there and I'm also the Infection Control officer. We recently had Triple AHC (The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care) come inspect our surgical center. I had to know the Nursing and Infection Control manuals (over 400 pages) inside and out and also make sure that they were all up to date with all the new current Medicare, OSHA, CDC, etc. standards. I spent 4 1/2 hours one day reading manuals while my kids ran a muck.  My house was a mess and the kids ate cold cereal for breakfast and lunch that day and I didn't even get showered, but I had a deadline to meet and it was Monday night. I had no choice.

I'm on the PTO board and am in charge of the Viperwear (the schools logo clothing) which shouldn't be that hard, but we are switching companies so I have been over to the new company multiple times and on the phone more than than trying to get our new order form correct and making sure all the shirts look right.

And I volunteered (I need to say no) to get some donations of coats for kids at our school who can't afford them. I spent an entire afternoon callling every department store in town talking to managers about what I need to do to get them and even more days going to said stores to fill out their donations forms with the triplets in tow.

I am in charge of 8 year old cub scouts so I spend every Wednesday night with them and the next afternoon recording what they did and planning the next activity.

I was asked to teach Relief Society (which I don't like doing, it stresses me out!), but I said "yes" then on the day that I also had to teach Cody and I were asked to say the prayers in sacrament meeting. Not a big deal on in a typical month, but it was just one more thing that I didn't want to do, but did anyway.

I also was asked to help with the fundraisers for the East Idaho Aquarium that is coming to town next summer and guess what I said, "yes".

My Plate Overfloweth and it's effecting all other aspects in my life.

My house is messy more than it's clean.

We went to the cabin with Cody's family the last weekend in September and I just got the games, movies, etc out of it last weekend (Nov. 15th) and only because I was going to get groceries and needed extra room because I hadn't been for over 2 weeks...not like me.

I then came home and put my groceries away without cleaning my refrigerator first and organizing my cupboards before adding new food to it...not like me.

I found a library book of Gavin's in a stack of unopened mail, school papers, etc on my counter that was overdue by a week or two...not like me.

Cody's HVAC Journeyman's lisence needed renewed by Oct. 31st. I forgot about it until Nov. 12th and ended up paying a late fee so the price went from $75 to $110...not like me.

I have been extra snappy with my hubby and kids...not like me.

In the mean time I added another little boy to our family and three toddlers are exhausting to say the least. It has been a busy crazy month and my to do list continues to grow, but the good news is I'm getting it crossed off little by little and am now crossing off more a day than I'm adding. I'm happy to say that I just crossed off one more thing off my to do list because my blog is now officially caught up and my wonderful husband crossed off every single thing on his Honey-Do list today and started doing things he could do off of mine. I love that man, he is what keeps me going. His encouraging notes and his love notes that he leaves me almost on a daily basis keep me going.

I'm sorry if some of these posts today were downers,but this is my life and I'm not going to sugar coat things. I'm just keeping it real!

P.S. I did 11 posts today so keep reading!

Catching Fire Premier

Chelsea LOVES premiers and makes sure that the rest of us have a good time too. She bought us all tickets and matching shirts, that she designed herself, the beginning of October. The day of the premier her and Nikkie were at the theater in below freezing temperatures to make sure that we had good seats.

 I stopped by after taking Gavin to school and found them in the tent drinking hot cocoa and putting hand and foot warmers in their gloves and boots

Chelsea showing off her home for the day

 All 17 of us!

Front Row: Tammy, Nikkie, Chelsea, Rachel, Gina and Ashely

Back row: Lindsey, Jessica, me, Heather, Rhonda, Jamie, Liz, Jenni, Melanie, Dezi, Cassie and Amanda

 Being silly

 Nikkie, Chelsea, myself and Rhonda

 Ashely, Melanie, Jessica, Tammy, Rhonda and myself

Back: Gina and Nikkie

 Tammy, Ashley, Melanie

 Rhonda, Rachel and I

Jennie, Heather and Liz

It was a double feature. We watched Hunger Games at 5:15pm, had a 25 minute break and then Catching Fire started at 8pm. After the show the majority of us, 13 of the 17, went to Shari's for dinner. When we were all ready to go we found out that all of our food was paid for by a couple of men that were there the same time we were. They even covered the tip, for 13 of us, we couldn't believe it. We have a lot of paying it forward to do now! Thank you mystery men!

P.S. A few of these pictures were stolen borrowed from Nikkie and Chelsea's Facebook pages ; )

11-21-13

First Snow

  We were so surprised to wake up to snow and excited there was so much of it.  The kids were all dressed in their snow clothes and outside before 8 am and by 8:30 those cute little faces had me bundled up and pulling them on a sled behind the 4 wheeler. I'm so glad it was on a Saturday not a school day so we could enjoy all of it.

 The Littles

 First snow angels of the season

 Gavin taught Mason how to make them too. Foster wasn't really interested in laying in the snow.

 Chloe

 We made it up and down most of the streets in the neighborhood before the kids got cold and wanted to head back home. Foster was on the sled with Gavin but jumped off as soon as we got home.

 The boys with the help of daddy built a snowman

It even had a real corn cob pipe!

11-16-13

Life of Fry

 I love the surprises that my boys leave me in their pockets. I just hope I keep finding things like this and not snakes, etc.

 Two of Gavin's favorite things 

He loves his straw glasses and has since we got them. He also loves his "fire pajamas" that Grandma Fry got him a long time ago. He rapidly grew into them and is rapidly growing out of them.

 My mom, sister Karen, sister-in-law Erin and I made these birthday boards. We found the idea on pinterest but decided to stain them instead of paint them. These are the reason my mom needed vinyl and I had to go to Porter's! (read here for the full story)

 My handsome hard working man

We surprised him at lunch one day. He is working on the new Melalueca building south of town and it is HUGE!!

 The kids had a "hair hockey" tournament one morning. I had to literally drag Gavin out of bed almost everyday this week for school and then Saturday came and I was so excited because we were going to be able to sleep in, but they decided that getting up before 7 am on a Saturday morning was a great idea. The good thing about it was we made all four of them crawl in bed with us for Saturday snuggles. It only lasted for about 10 min but it was still fun.

 It was Chloe against Mason with Gavin and Foster keeping score

 Gavin has had these batman pajamas for years and he absolutely loves them. They are about 2 sizes too small. I have even set them aside to pack up for Mason multiple times when doing laundry, but he keeps asking for them. It's not hurting anything letting him wear too small of pajamas so I keep putting them in his drawer. Hopefully they will wear out before his 16th birthday so he will stop wearing them.

 Chloe put herself down for a nap

 Bedtime Stories

Only daddy can read Skippy Jon Jones because he has the best accent for the job.

Gavin has been learning about pilgrims and indians at school. His indian name is Golden Eagle. He has been so excited about all of it and telling me all about the first Thanksgiving. He finally got to wear his feathers home and he was so excited!

 Golden Eagle

 Chloe dresses herself almost everyday. She loves her pink sunglasses and her pink jacket. Pink is her all time favorite color.

Snuggling with Foster

 I wish I didn't have to blot him out. He has the prettiest eyes!

 Chloe in her true form

 Foster loves Gavin and is his little sidekick whenever he is home. Foster fell asleep watching Gavin playing a game.

 For Gavin's date night he wanted to go to Wendy's for a frostee, but we ended up ordering dinner too because it was about that time of night. He played with his new car for about 10 minutes before he even touched his food. I just sat there and watched him and talked to him. I love having one on one time with my kids. After we ate our Frostee ice cream cones he wanted to go to Toys R Us to look around. We spent the majority of the time at the Skylander and Infinity portals seeing what each figure would do.

 The kiddos after a good day at church!

 Somebody forgot their pants

 The kids are into glasses lately. Mason calls these goggles his "boggles"

 I saw this on Pinterest and had to try it out. My kids are hungry ALL THE TIME! I can be cleaning up after they just had two helpings each at breakfast and they will tell me they're hungry. I couldn't ever get anything done because I felt like I spent all morning feeding them, then it would be time for lunch and naps where I still couldn't get anything done because I would need to finally shower for the day.

I started this and let me just say it is a life saver! It gives them a variety of foods plus when they come tell me they are hungry while I am in the middle of laundry, dishes, etc I can just send them to the table. They are happy and I am happy, everyone is happy!!

I keep changing the food in it so they don't get sick of the same thing. Some of the things I put in it are strawberries, rapsberries, blueberries, grapes, apple slices, banana slices, carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, cheese slices, pickle slices, raisins, cranberries, different kinds of crackers, peanuts, kiwi's, oranges, and even mini marshmallows.

 Gavin learned how to make french toast and even got a little egg on his face.

 My stylists doing my hair

Gavin wanted me to take a picture. He and Foster were laughing because the sun coming in the window was making their ears "glow".

Other happenings:

We had new family pics taken on Nov. 2nd and should be getting the disk any day now. Super excited for them. We have already had a sneak preview and sent a list of the ones we want. Can't wait!

The taxidermied mahi mahi is now in our possession after Paul and Erin put it on the roof of our camper. We are plotting how to get it back to them. 

Our friends the Vodas moved out of our ward and neighborhood. It was fun helping them get moved and settled into their new house, but it was sad having them leave. 

There are never ending pranks going on in the neighborhood. They have mostly involved numerous bags of leaves lately.

I was recently dubbed the "Smoke Alarm Hero". To read more about it click here.

 

My Week

This week consisted of being late to work, spilling betadine, having my basement flood, our neighborhood getting burglarized and being involved in a hit and run and all before Thursday!

Here's the scoop:

Monday- I had to be to work at 6 am in Rexburg. I don't work very often anymore so I'm a little out of practice with setting my alarm these days. I had set my alarm for 5:09 am and remember thinking in my head that gives me plenty of time. That morning it goes off and I think in my head, "I have time to hit the snooze once" and I do. I get up head to the bathroom and turn the heater on to make the bathroom extra cozy while I shower. While I'm waiting for it to warm up I hop on Facebook to see what's been going on since I have been out of it with strep for the past couple of days.

It's 5:40 and I'm stepping into the shower. Cody comes in to see if I'm OK and then is asking me about work etc. and kind of getting on my nerves because I'm still a little sick, I don't like being quizzed so much in the morning and he has the bathroom door open and it letting all my warm air out. He asks me if I'm going to work and I said "yes" even though I'm thinking "why else would I be up and getting in the shower before 6 am and then he says, "Aren't you suppose to be there at 6?" BAM!! It hits me! I am suppose to be there at 6 and I usually leave my house no later than 5:20am, the same time I finally crawled out of bed!!

I'm now standing there trying to decide if I have time to shower, but then convince myself it doesn't matter if I have time I HAVE to shower because I have been sick and sleeping in my own stench all weekend. I jump in the shower and plan out in my head how I'm going to interview my patient and  get my O.R. ready for surgery by 7am in less than an hour. I get dressed, throw on some makeup and head out the door with wet hair (thank goodness we wear surgical caps!).

I get to work 35 minutes late and am rushing to get ready in time when this happens:

 

That's betadine and it stains, bad!

At this point all I can do it laugh because....well because what else can I do about it. Lane, a CRNA, walks in as I'm taking this picture to send to my hubby (who just sent me a text asking me how my morning was going). We decided to have a little fun with the situation.

 I know totally gross right?

Here's some more grossness from another angle

Luckily, the Dr. thought he was in clinic today and not surgery so he ended up being a little late as well so I had time to clean up my betadine mess...

sort of...and get my OR ready and my patient interviewed on time.

Tuesday: We had to have a man come and clean our sewer line out the day before because our neighbors tree roots are growing into it. Tuesday morning after I showered I noticed that all of my shower water was all over the laundry room floor by the drain so we called him to come again. I had to leave to take Foster to court so I had my mother in law come to watch the kids. Her washer is broke and the new one isn't installed yet because my father in law wants to put a board of some sort behind their new washer, so she wanted to do some laundry at my house. I told her that the guy was coming to fix the problem and that she could just leave her laundry here and I would wash it for her while she was at work after the guy had fixed the problem.

Long story short, she did her own laundry anyway and the water that was just in my laundry room was now under my stairs, in my bathroom and in my family room. We had to call another guy to come suck up all the water, deodorize and spray everything for mildew/mold prevention and pull our carpet up again.

 I can't let the kids downstairs now because they jump on the "bubble" of carpet that the fan makes and it's ripping the carpet.

Wednesday: Wednesday night/early Thursday morning three streets of our neighborhood was burglarized. Luckily the police showed up and spooked them away when they were at the neighbors across the cul-de-sac from us. We weren't robbed of any material things, but I feel robbed of the security that I use to feel in our neighborhood. We can't leave our car doors unlocked anymore : (

Thursday: After the round table for scouts I ran over to Albertson's to get some hamburger that was on sale from my mother in law. I had a car in front of me. It pulled out into the road and then realized they were pulling out in front of someone and backed up right into me. I hadn't even moved yet at this point and as soon as she gunned it I knew they were going to hit me because they were coming at me so fast. I put my van in park thinking they would do the same, but as soon as the coast was clear they pulled onto the road. I followed them thinking that they were just getting out of everyone else's way, but quickly discovered they weren't stopping anytime soon.

I called the police and go close enough to get a license plate number and then I kept following them because I didn't want them to get away. I didn't know if there was any damage on my van at this point, but if there was they needed to take care of it. I updated the dispatcher at every turn so that the officer en route would know where to go. They finally stopped at a house in front of an elementary, but I kept going. I didn't know who they were or what they had in their car. I drove to the next corner to the signs to update the officer where I was but I could still see the other car. They sat there with their lights on for a minute and then started driving again. Then they pulled into the garage of the house I was parked at, what are the odds of that?

It ended up being a teenage girl who was going to get milk for her dad. At first she said she didn't know she hit me and then she said she didn't know I was following her and that it was an accident, and then wanted to know how I knew where she lived. 

I told her I understood it was an accident and wasn't mad at her for hitting me, I was mad at her for driving away and that it was illegal. The officer showed up and we looked over my van and other than my license plate being bent up it was OK, thank goodness. The girl told the officer that she didn't learn about hit and run's in driver's ed and he told her that even if she didn't learn about them that it should be common sense to not leave the scene of an accident. 

It all turned out OK, our cars were fine and she learned her lesson so hopefully it won't happen again. I'm just glad that week is over and hope I don't have another one like it for a long time. 

 

Thirty Five and Barely Alive

For my birthday this year I got strep throat again...the fifth time this year and most of them on holidays. I had it in January, over Easter, Fourth of July, right after Cody's birthday and now on my birthday.

I've been told multiple times that I need to get my tonsils out and I know I do, because it's just getting more frequent and it's worse every time I get it, but I know too much. I've been in the operating room and watched them be taken out. I've seen the blood and smelled the cauterized flesh (sorry that's probably a little too much, but it's the truth!). I've also taken care of patients who have just had it and I know it is ten times harder for an adult to have them out than it is for a kid.

To make things even worse, I also have a deviated septum which is just a fancy way of saying that my nostril is occluded on my left side so I might as well get it all over with at once right? One recovery period, one bill, one deductible. So in January after my nephew is born it's all going down. I'm having my tonsils out and my septum fixed. Wish me luck!!

On a happier note I found this on my phone the morning of my birthday. I had almost a dozen Happy Birthday texts from friends and family and then my mom called to sing me Happy Birthday. She actually sent me a text first and I wrote back "That doesn't count" so then she called me and sang to me like she does every birthday. 

I also got this card from my cousin Angie and her new hubby Dan

Funny right? I loved it!