the facebook dilemma

 I like most people have a facebook account and I have a whole lot of friends, maybe not a whole lot to you, but a lot to me.
Some "friends" are people I went to high school with.
Some "friends" are family members.
Some "friends" are fellow bloggers.
Some "friends" are neighbors.
Some "friends" are people I have worked with at various jobs.
Some "friends" are students I taught or teachers I taught with.
Some "friends" are people I went to college with or met while I was in school.
Some "friends" are people I go to church with.
Some "friends" are people I use to go to church with.
Some "friends" are people I don't have a category for.
Some "friends" are people I see regularly and are my "real" friends.
Combined I have quite a few friends on facebook and because friends can read what you post and do I feel like I need to edit myself and I don't use facebook for all that facebook could be since all my so called "friends" would see, like my mom.
A friend of mine, she has a 100 friend rule and she edits her friends periodically because over 100 friends is too many friends and unnecessary for her.
I totally agree with her and want to do that, but I can't.  I think I have been wanting to edit friends for months, yet I still haven't.
There are quite a few students of mine I could edit and they would not know the difference, yet I find it interesting to see what they are doing every now and then especially now since they are graduating from college, getting married, having kids of their own, etc.
Also, there is a part of me that feels good having 300 friends, especially on days when I feel lonely or down, though I know not all of these 300 hundred friends are real friends, the numbers make me feel popular.
Then there is the nosy part of me that likes to see what is going on in other people's lives and wouldn't get to do that if i edited 2/3 of my friends, because most of my true friends don't post that often, what would i read?  where would i get my entertainment from?
Then there is the whole issue of hurting someone's feelings, if i un-friend  you then you might notice, be offended and for some people on my friend list this could blow up and get ugly.
So I am left with a dilemma, I don't want to miss out on the fun, but I would like to be more of myself and have some social networking freedom.  

yea for progress

sadly it has been almost a month since the great re-arrange in our house began and I am almost finished getting everything either put away or thrown out.   the new playroom/den/whatever looks nice, it doesn't have a pile in the corner waiting to be gone through, almost everything has a home.
oh it feels so good to have things organized and with everything with a home so the house won't look like a bomb went off on it.
so one room in the house is coming together, now I just have to get the other 7 rooms to fall into place too.

will i really. . .

look back at these days and miss them?
I was driving to Walmart this morning for groceries and was thinking of how others have been telling me that one day I will look back fondly of these days when the kids are this age and this period of my life and miss it.
"They," whoever that really is, says that your memory is selective and poor at best which would explain why I would look back at these days fondly.
Seriously?
After a night when Lily got up every 2 hours and a hectic morning of trying to get stuff done when all the kids wanted to do was trash the place doesn't make much of a case for this stage in life with high stress and personal time and space being extremely limited

But then the kids do something cute or sweet or just something that melts your heart and you never want them to grow older until they take the box of legos, dump them out on the floor and just walk away.

.

we're under attack

Lance yelled for Jeff and told him that there was a wasp in Lily's room. 
Well one wasp multiplied into many in a matter of minutes. 
While Jeff was looking for something to kill the one wasp, I discovered an additional two wasps in the window and three or four trying to get in.  We looked in our bedroom window and discovered one wasp in that window.  We headed outside, Jeff out the back and the kids and I out the front and noticed that wasps were swarming the house, especially the north-west side of the house.  We went back in the house to discover that in Lily's room there were four wasps and in our bedroom window there were three, for a total of 7 wasps.  It is November, what on Earth?
Fortunately we have plastic on the windows to keep the cold air which kept the wasps from getting to us.  We had to help my mom with some yard work and when we returned I discovered that there are three wasps in each window now, so one somehow got away.
I used the google and discovered the wasp chaos was mating- great, more wasps, as if we don't already have a wasp problem.   Today's wasp invasion just gives me one more reason why we desperately need new windows.

a day of trains

Today we went to the Transportation Museum and had a blast looks at all the trains, Lance was in heaven.  They also had a model train exhibit which both kids enjoyed and couldn't get enough of. 
We also went to the Fresh Market and hit the jackpot since it was Thanksgiving sampling day, oh they had some good food, if I had money I would order their Thanksgiving dinner, it was delicious, and I am very picky.  Good times, okay so maybe November isn't so bad after all.

not fan of november

I dislike November, I really do.
It gets dark early, which is noticeable because the time just changed and every evening it get darker earlier and earlier, which I dislike, i love the sun.
It gets colder, I am a spring and summer girl.
The germs seem to come out and play.
We spend more time indoors because I am not acclimated to the colder weather yet and can't handle the colder air, by January, I will be outside no matter what, but now I am a chicken.
We have the least amount of money and get behind on the bills, this is the third year in a row that we have no money and unfortunately we are at the mercy of our customers who don't seem to be buying.  Most money that comes into the shop gets turned around for inventory for Christmas because Christmas makes us or breaks us.  We have been barely treading water and right now we are drowning and praying that Christmas will get us out of the water.

My allergies are horrible, it is as bad as pollen season since now it is mold and mildew from the fallen leaves and rain.  I have been sinus yucky for weeks now.
I don't like fallen leaves, more specifically the two willow oak trees in my neighbors yard that blow litter our yard and gutters with their thin leaves that are difficult to rake and blow and get everywhere including the house and car.
and that is why I don't like November, well until Thanksgiving, then I like it because it is almost Christmas.  Only a few more weeks to go!

new title, slighty new look

Ever since Lily arrived on the scene, the title, "life with lance" was just not cutting it, adding and the "lily bean too," was just a temporary addition until a new name could develop
so "embracing chaos" fits life so much better especially all that we have gone through in a year:
-the economic downturn which killed our business and put us in a financial blackhole
-the craziness of having two kids, especially one that is speech delayed so everything is a guessing game
and the big one:
-the fire that destroyed our store, our main source of income
the last couple of years has been really tough and i can say I am learning to embrace the chaos, learning to bend, give, and not let life's craziness make me crazy, though some days I feel like I am going crazy
so life with lance is now embracing chaos,
hopefully life will get calmer, though i doubt it!

our fish has 9 lives

We have a little fish, his name is moe-moe and I do believe he is related to cats and has 9 lives.
He doesn't always get fed everyday and I am pretty slack about keeping his water clean, and despite less the perfect living conditions he can survive almost anything Lance does in the name of love.
On numerous occasions Lance has given him crumbs of his snack such as cheerios and cracker crumbs, which doesn't make for clean water and might bother the fish's digestive system, as well as his gills. Also, he has survived numerous taps on the glass from fingers as well as trains, utensils, and anything else that little hands can grab.
Yesterday he survived, or at least so far he has survived the worst attack/attempt at love yet. I was fixing dinner and Lance was watching moe-moe who lives in the dining room. Lance came into the kitchen and told me that moe-moe smelled like poop. I said I know that I needed to clean his bowl and that is just what fish are like. Well being the slacker mom that I am some days had left the kitchen spray cleaner on the china cabinet after last cleaning off the dining room table and in reach of Lance. Lance, I guess didn't like moe-moe's dirty water and smell so he wanted to help clean it up in the way that he knew how. Lance sprayed cleaner into the bowl. I fortunately heard the sound of the spray bottle and immediately scooped out moe-moe with a cup and cleaned out his bowl right away hoping that the cleaning spray hadn't done any damage to the poor guy. So the next day, moe-moe seems to have survived his clash with spray cleaner and has a nice clean bowl to swim in. Then again, maybe there is something natural and not as harsh to the green works cleaners which saved moe-moe from instant chemical death. So at least one life down, who knows how many more are left.

there is not enough time

in the day to get everything done that I want.
Today I am studying for a quiz I have in my graduate class- Research Methods and Applications.
Fun times, fun times, note heavy sarcasm.
I made an 97 on the first quiz so I will be bummed if I do poorly on this one which I feel I may considering I don't know the material as much as I would like, it just wasn't interesting.
So ready for this class to be over with and I am not looking forward to the HUGE project due in a couple of weeks, I just can't get started.

Lily, the adventurer

Lily is so different than Lance, she is my little adventurer. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.
I know that all children are different, and learned in Human Growth and Development that usually two siblings are polar opposites, but my children seem to be from different sides of the universe!
Lily can be a terror! She won't sit in a high chair, she hates to be put in her car seat. She never sits still. She is fearless. She is not afraid of strangers or new places and will walk away from me and doesn't care if I am no longer in sight (Lance always keeps me in view and freaks out if I am not). I thought girls were calmer, laid back, not mine. This morning at the library she was on a mission to pull off as many books off the shelves as humanly possible. In trying to escape from me she ran behind the circulation desk. She is a walking tornado destroying everything in her path. Yesterday afternoon there was a huge crane down the street moving a shed from the back of a truck to someone's yard. Lil' was constantly climbing out of the stroller, trying to walk into the road. and was generally all over the place. I hope this hyperactivity is just a stage and will pass because when she can't fit in the sling anymore I won't be able to take her anywhere in public. Speaking of sling, she is figuring out how to wiggle her way out of it. I wish I knew where she got all of her energy because I could really use some.