A Catch-All Post for Catching Up

 I was recently reminded of the existence of this blog and how it's in dire need of an update, so I came to pay it a visit. Did I really begin this blog in 2013? Has it really been seven years? How did I have this much free time! How did I so easily share my thoughts on a random blog with little to no visitors? Also, WHY? 

Life sure has changed lately. Although most of my days drag on, time in general moves quickly; every parent knows this... "the days are slow but the years are fast". I will make an attempt to breathe some life back into A Lot About Living, here we go: 

In no particular order, here are random blurbs about... the past two-ish years?

 And this is me right now:

• I'm a mom times two! I scroll thru pictures on my phone more often than is normal, and whenever I see photos of Emmett without Greyson they just look so unnatural! 

• Shortly after Greyson's birth we lost our beloved Venom. I still carry deep guilt about his death and will carry it with me until the day I die. We talk about him often and have his picture on our fridge. RIP sweet boy.

• We added a white German Shepherd girl to our pack after Venom's passing: Alaska. For a while there I went a little insane caring for a newborn, a kitten, a puppy, and a preschooler who refused to potty train. Life involved cleaning A LOT of poop in those days. 

• We bought a house while I was prego: the news of our house purchase and a new baby all came on the same day to our loved ones. It was not planned too far in advance, and we scrambled together down-payment money in about 4 months. Upon move in, our savings were depleted to just a few hundred dollars. It was a panicky time, but worth it. 

• Philip had a steady, well-paying, local job for 2.5 years: the longest in his oil field career. All good things come to an end, however, and he has been unemployed for almost 3 weeks now. (Here is us waiting until we'd dropped off the kids at Grandma's before busting out the cookies we didn't feel like sharing 😂)

• Cars. Trucks. SUVs. All Wyeth-related vehicles seem to have terrible luck, and I don't think it's preventable. 
• 3 weeks before Grey's birth my RAV4 (Shae) was stolen out of our driveway, along with some personal belongings from our foyer. I was limping around to doctor appointments on a borrowed vehicle for about three months before gritting my teeth and purchasing a VW sedan.  

• Peter the Passat was a great vehicle! I chose cheap and used instead of new and leased, and I was pleasantly surprised. VW cars (especially turbo models) will likely be in my wish-list. During one unfortunate out of town mini-vacation (and right after purchasing new tires! ugh!) a complete moron of a driver backed up HARD into our parked car at a hotel parking lot and totaled it. 

• About 4 months prior to the Peter disaster, Philip's truck (Claire) had some major mechanical breakdowns. We tried trading it in for a new one but every dealership offered insultingly low amounts, so instead we shared Peter until we had enough saved up for repairs, about $4,000! On this side of the struggle, I'm glad we sacrificed and made it work instead of incurring more debt. The Dave Ramsey way, I guess. 

• We financed Holly the Highlander as a replacement for Peter the Passat. Now I feel extra mom-ish everywhere I go; just one step down from a minivan. It's super comfortable and spacey: plenty of room for a GSD, two kids, two adults, and any other nonsense we are transporting. Please, please, please, universe: Send us good car vibes so that nothing unnatural happens to Holly for the next 60 months or so. 

• Emmett started Head Start! I was a nervous, trembling, stuttering wreck on the first day. The school was across town and after getting in my car I had the irrational idea that I'd just wait on the sidewalk for him (newborn baby in tow) until the school day finished. Then Grey started crying (he hates car seats) so I had to grit my teeth and wipe tears from my eyes as I drove home. 
• I had to pull him kicking and screaming (take all of that literally) into the classroom every day for three weeks, (stubborn child) until he got used to it. 
• Grandma taught right across the hall from him and eased my mind a ton, such a blessing! It helped him transition and get used to the new routine as well. 
• Head Start took him from two-word mumbles to five-word sentences in a shocking amount of time! Sadly COVID got in the way after Spring Break, so we've been at home ever since. (remote learning is trash. the teachers are absolute wonderful angels from heaven, but 4 year olds don't learn from screens) 

• We have so far survived 2020 unscathed. Everyone is happy, healthy, and no longer on the verge of locked-up insanity. In the early days of the pandemic we decided that even if we had to social distance, we'd allow visitations to and from 1 other household (my in-laws) because it's just necessary. 

• Philip still likes hunting: he spends a lot of money on guns. 

• I still like couponing: I spend a little money on a hoard of laundry detergent products. (If you don't understand that obsession, that's okay because neither do I)
• To be fair, I also spend a considerable amount of money on books, kindle books, Audible, and Funko Pops. It evens out.

• We now have two nephews! Gohan is just 1 month and 1 day younger than Greyson, I hope that they grow to be close friends all their lives. Gohan's younger brother Anakin just turned 1 month, he is itty bitty scary small, but that's just because my babies were huge at birth. The jokes about needing a girl in the family are getting old: I love being a boy mom and I'm ok if it stays that way. 

And lastly: life with boys. 

Life with boys is chaotic. It's one loud, messy, sticky, fast moving tornado. My home is in constant state of disarray: books, toys, Hot Wheels, Dinotrux, sippy cups, crackers, crumbs, diapers, dog hair, lone socks, LEGO, markers, magnets, boxes, blankets, shoes... everywhere, all the time, in every nook and cranny. These kids are like little machines with megaphones and charged up batteries. They are in constant motion, sometimes even in sleep. Time doesn't stand still for kids; quite the opposite. They race against it, always learning, always exploring, always moving forward. 

It's surprising, really. Even on days where I'm and my most un-mom-est, when the TV is on for hours and I feed cereal and lunchables... they learn. They find something new that can be built with empty boxes, or learn how to push stools to climb on something higher and more dangerous. They find new places to hide, new words to surprise me with, new ways to make us happy. 

I love my boys. Emmett with his big-brother, always-helpful attitude that just wants to have fun... Greyson the dauntless baby-turned-toddler giving it all to keep up. I love to see them interact, I love how caring comes naturally to Emmett, I love how fearless Greyson is growing up to be. I love that I can still find matching clothes for them. I love how  they climb on mom and dad whenever we sit still. I love hearing the pitter-patter of running feet on the floor above. 

This morning I woke up and gave myself an hour to read my current book before getting out of bed (I've just started the Divergent series). I didn't know I'd end up blogging today, but I found a quote in the book and I highlighted it. 

"If my entire life is like this, loud laughter and bold action and the kind of exhaustion you feel after a hard but satisfying day, I will be content." 

I've decided it's the perfect fit for my life. It's not always exhausting, it's not always loud, it isn't always even fun... but it's a lot of living and a little love in the little world that is our home, and I will forever be content with it. 

Lessons Learned at Walnut Ridge

Day we moved in, March 15 2014.

Today marks the last day we will be calling Apartment 406 our home. Soon after this post I will begin the long and tedious job of packing the remainder of our belongings into boxes so they can be ready tomorrow morning when friends and family will help us move into what will be our new home for the next 15 months.
I have mixed feelings about this place. As soon as we are settled into our new apartment I am ready to type out a most unflattering 1-star review on every apartment website I can find about this place: Our water heater breaking our first day here, our cars broken into 3 times in 6 months, the upstairs toilet leaking all over me and not getting fixed for 3 days, the incorrect dishwasher installation which flooded our kitchen and living room and took 2 weeks to fix, the neighbors who played awful music so loud our bedroom mirror rattled all night, the police getting called 3 times in one night and the apartment night duty still refusing to do anything about it, the stray cat who took refuge in our back porch and never left, the dryer vent being so full of years worth of lint it caused our dryer to overheat and break twice, and the limitless supply of roaches crawling all over the place no matter how much Raid I sprayed will definitely be mentioned in my review.

All in all, I'm glad to be moving out of this complex and into a nicer one, but I still have enough insight to appreciate the valuable lessons we learned over the past year and a half, and just how much Philip and I have grown as individuals and as a family.
Back in March of 2014 this apartment was definitely not our first choice, but it was all we could afford at the time. I remember it took every penny from both of our full-time incomes just to be able to pay for our rent, give the minimum payment on all of our credit cards, fill our gas tanks to halfway once a week, put $40 into savings, and have just enough left over to buy a  bag of dog food and groceries to make sandwiches. I took to extreme couponing, selling old textbooks on Amazon, and taking online surveys for a little extra cash. Phil used his days off to do some work on the side building house decks. Back then, our idea of a fancy date was spending $5 on a couple of Sam's Club hot dogs and sodas, and then taking half an hour to browse around the store carrying a bag of rawhide bones for our dog, for which we had carefully set aside $17. I suppose our priorities were slightly askew... but Venom was like our first son, so you can't blame us too much.

We have come a long way in just 1.5 years. The last of our many credit cards is well on its way to being paid off, we don't have bill collectors calling 10 times a day, we finally have ridiculously expensive health insurance (thanks a lot, Obama), we could afford to take a nice vacation two months ago, we have enough in our emergency fund that buying $1,000 new truck tires was not a big inconvenience, we spoil ourselves by eating out with friends on a weekly basis, we are preparing to move into a more expensive apartment and rely only on Phil's income, and most importantly, we are getting ready to welcome a very special baby into our family... plus all the bills that come along with him, such as mom going into nesting overload and tirelessly shopping for nursery furniture and decor. We have also outgrown most of the hand-me-downs that started us off as a newlywed couple: goodbye saggy old couches, scratched and wobbly side tables, mismatched bedroom furniture, ancient lamps that seemed to breed spider webs, plastic and warped dollar-store plates and cups, Craigslist dining table and chairs, and secondhand washer and dryer units.

I can fully attest our financial progress was due to the blessings of paying a full and honest tithe. Sometimes it was hard to let go of so much money, especially since just one week of tithing could have granted us a month of groceries, or could have paid for me to take a weekend trip and visit my parents in Los Fresnos, or could have purchased a much-needed pair of steel-toed work boots for Philip... but if there was ever ONE thing my husband and I agreed on in our ever-feisty relationship, it was that tithing came first and everything else would fall into place later. And we saw the Lord's promise being fulfilled time and time again, almost on a weekly basis. I sometimes think that it was purely the Lord's hand which kept us from robbing a bank. God helped us in very creative ways: a random $100 HEB gift card from my boss, an extra 4 hours of overtime for Philip, a late birthday card in the mail containing a $50 bill, an unexpected credit line increase just in time to pay for a medical expense, someone offering $20 to use our truck to move furniture, a friend offering to pay for a meal at a restaurant, and our absolute favorite: those months of the year which have 5 Fridays instead of 4, which gave us a whole extra paycheck to catch our breath, splurge on the good deli meat, and get wild enough to go to the movies and buy popcorn AND hot dogs AND a soda.

Early in our marriage, the life of an oilfield wife seemed very daunting. (Philip is an oilfield pipe fitter, in case you don't know). Philip works as a contractor, taking jobs as they come, and unexpectedly getting laid off as the jobs finish, or the project goes over budget, or if he makes a bad enough mistake (which has only happened once), or even something as trivial as an angry foreman having a bad day and firing the first person in his line of sight (which has also happened, unfortunately). It is not uncommon for him to start a new job with a new company 4 or 5 times a year... which makes gathering our W-2 forms during tax season quite the project, and also gives us about 2 to 4 weeks of extreme "in-between-jobs" panic each time it happens. And then, once he does manage to get started, it's the erratic schedule of the jobs themselves. Some are out of town, some are out of state, some are offshore, and some (like now) are overnight, which gives us a very limited amount of time to spend together.

It is because of the experiences with these jobs that I consider us a stronger, more stable family. I have learned how to be less attached, more independent, and to place my complete trust in his ability to provide for us. He, on the other hand, has been brave enough to take all kinds of jobs, work with all kinds of people, in all kinds of places, and trust that I am holding my own back at home, budgeting and getting our bills paid, and not burning down the house by forgetting to clean the lint out of the drier.

So all in all, I think we are ready. He has gained enough work experience to accept only the high-paying jobs and provide for us, I have gained the confidence to live on my own when necessary (I can change a flat tire while pregnant, guys. The extra weight actually makes it easier.), and we have both learned to trust the Lord and trust each other to make wise, independent decisions.

Although moving to an apartment complex 1 mile away may not seem such a big deal, I feel a strong sense of accomplishment because this move marks the end of a growth period and the beginning of another, especially since we are on the verge of becoming first-time parents. Goodbye Walnut Ridge, and see you tomorrow Camden Copper Ridge!

At Least It's Crossed Off My Bucket List

This post is over a month late, but I need to record it anyway. In June of 2015 I had the great opportunity to cross off a bucket list item: Go Whitewater Rafting. If we use our brains though, we see that Damaris also happened to be pregnant during June 2015, which was NOT an ideal situation. Thankfully, nothing terrible happened,but the experience is definitely filed away under the "never again" category.

So here's the deal with why it was not a good idea to go rafting while 17 weeks pregnant: 
1) I went from Corpus Christi, TX to Vernal, UT... an altitude change of 5,320 feet. I was fighting to catch my breath while just walking through the airport, plus pregnancy already causes shortness of breath. It was terrible.
2) Utah was HOT. I'm used to hot and humid weather, but I'm always INSIDE a nicely air-conditioned building. It turns out the great outdoors is not air conditioned. It was 105 degrees out there.
3) Because we were traveling, I had little choice but to eat mostly unhealthy foods, which affected my already-delicate blood pressure situation.
4) I was in the awkward stage of pregnancy where I just looked super puffy and overweight, not exactly belly-bumping it yet. I felt like I got a lot of "you're too fat to be doing this" looks, which was probably just my imagination, but I still felt self-conscious.
5) I was too big for the life vest to fit correctly over my stomach, so even though our guide tugged hard on the straps to make it super tight (ouch), it still rode up over my shoulders and hit my chin and allowed for very limited movement overall.
6) I'm positive I didn't take a full "fill-up-your-lungs" breath the entire day. Nobody noticed, but I was constantly on the verge of a panic attack from not being able to breathe correctly.

But here's the deal with why I went whitewater rafting anyway:
1) It was on my bucket list, and I felt that once the baby was born bucket list opportunities would be almost nonexistent.
2) I had never really vacationed in Utah, or in any place with mountains for that matter, and I was interested in the geology.
3) I felt I owed it to my super adventurous husband, who spends the majority of his life working and was extremely excited about this trip.
4) I was stubborn and wanted to prove to myself that I could do anything I wanted, pregnant or not.

And here are some pictures of our adventure:

See the difference between how Phil's vest fit and how mine fit? He didn't mind his at all.

The mountains and rock formations were BEAUTIFUL. I love geology.

Fun fact, I also went to the ER the next day. Apparently I hurt my rotator cuff while paddling. 

This trip felt like a near-death experience to me, but it was a walk in the park for my husband.

Australian News: The Job Down Under

Alright, so to kick off this topic of a life of adventures, here's some news! Last week my hubby got a call from a company he worked for late last year... Remember the one that had him working in New Jersey and had me complaining because I only saw him for 5 days out of the month? Yeah, that one.
Apparently they are big on traveling. Philip was offered a 4 - 6 week job this summer in ... AUSTRALIA! {what gave it away?} He was crazy excited to tell me about it, and I am so excited for him! I am still not over how I didn't get to visit NY in December, so I am stubbornly refusing to stay behind this time.
DAMARIS. IS. GOING. TO. AUSTRALIA. One way or another, I'm coming too. There are a ton of details to hash out, but the plan is for me to fly out after his job finishes and us to vacation there for about a week. I'm super nervous already, and I know a lot of things can change between now and then, but hey... a girl can dream. Dream and plan obsessively.
It looks like I will actually be able to cross off my ultimate bucket list item: snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. Ahhh, can't wait!