We bought a house a few months ago. No shocker there. Three and a half months and much labor later, we look like we don’t clean up after ourselves. Rest assured, dear neighbors, this will all be better. Someday. First things first, we’re getting a lawn mower. I’m beyond excited. We have a push mower that I’d used up until about a month ago, when baby #5 decided it was time I stop spending 5 hours a week mowing our hills. Or rather, it is quite possible that my body was the one who made that decision. Either way, our lawn is now a month long, thankfully a dry month, but pathetic and driving me nuts all the same. Come Thursday, hopefully I can ride around in style on our new (to us) riding lawn mower. So excited. But the pipes laying in the yard? They’ll be gone eventually, I’m promised. The trees will be trimmed when the things that are louder stop screaming. We really are accomplishing something here. The kids toys will likely be there for many years to come, though. Who needs flowers when you have colorful trikes and scooters everywhere, right? Ugh. Maybe next year.
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We may have hot water come the weekend. Maybe. You just never hold your breath on these things; they have a way of not working out often enough. But the gas company comes Friday to test Blaine’s work and a hot shower is nearly tangible from there. All the water pipes are replaced and every faucet is functioning – things I will not take for granted for a very long time, I’m thinking.

My newest realization: we bought a house in a great location. Love it. But when two of my four dear children get carsick on the curves on the way into town, I’m starting to wonder. I’ve started to carry a clean outfit for one dear child everywhere we go, since that one is less than capable of hitting the bucket completely – but we have a bucket I can throw into the backseat with deadly aim these days even when driving. I’m not certain how my van smells these days, but my guess is someone else could tell me better than I. I doubt it’s pretty. If you ever ride with me, be forewarned. You start to hear coughing, you’ve got about 2 minutes before a bucket flies through the air at the noisy one, all the windows go down in an attempt to cool the cougher off and ward off the inevitable – but it never works. Lunch always comes back to visit a second time. If we show up to something and you smell something fishy, pretend it’s someone else, please. I try. I’ve started carrying wipes again, but you can only do so much. It’s not contagious, I promise. And for the record, this is all Blaine’s fault. They did not inherit this trait from me.