A fresh bunch of nothing

As I sit here this morning, kicking myself for letting my blog go outdated... I can't think of what to write! Even after a glance through my latest pictures... still nothing.

Looking around the room - I get Mr. Noodle (nah), Ben on the computer (nope), a tipped over deck chair (nice), rain outside (blech), half eaten cheerios (abandoned on the table - who left them there?), coffee that's getting cold... I'll be right back - gotta get a new cup.

Is this what they call writers block?

I'll be back later.

chew on this:

Happy Birthday to Jake!

While we usually tend to go a bit overboard for birthday parties in the Dudley household, we reigned it in this year. With three kids' birthdays to celebrate each year amongst constant kid activities, throwing parties has become a little more difficult! I didn't want his 3rd birthday to go unrecognized, but our schedule simply wouldn't allow for a blow-out - HOWEVER, we did manage to squeeze in a little party Monday night in between all the chaos. He had a great time!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACOB!

The Cake:

Happy Boy!

The big breath before the blow:

Chaos! :-)

Watching the 'hampster' cruise around:

THANK YOU ALL!!

A friend of mine, on several occasions, has commented on how we always have something going on here at the Dudley household. And she's not talking about events to attend or places to be - she is talking about the other weird random 'stuff' we always have going on in our lives. And you know what? She's RIGHT!

Aside from the many odd happenings that are out of our control - like the beaver dam mess, our misadventures in grass planting, our slumber party blunders, our 2 year old tyrant (well, he's sort of in my control - but whatever)... you get the idea - I do have to admit that we bring SOME of the mayhem upon ourselves. Yeah there, I said it.

Yet another example:





YUP. That's right. We have chicks. And we're not talking 1 or 2... we're talking TWENTY FIVE! A. I thought some would die (nope) and B. I thought it would take a while for them to get big (nope). Our original goal was to get a group of hens established for eggs, I'm thinking 6-8 would be perfect. However, when you buy chicks at the local farm store - guess what? - they're not sexed! So you just get a random bunch of who knows what. (We probably got 25 dudes with my luck). So anyway, with the salesman telling us to get 50 (right), 25 seemed pretty manageable.

And while 25 teeny tiny twerps in a tub was A-OK last week - believe it or not - they're already starting to get crowded. They're growing like weeds!

Tune in next week for another episode of craziness when we attempt to build our own CHICKEN COOP.

Till then...

Luck. What is it?

Luck.

I was thinking about it this morning. With it being March and all, and with me needing a little LUCK today, it's on my mind.

I wish I was Irish.

Other than randomly finding 20 bucks on the street, winning the lottery or not getting pulled over for speeding, I think luck is often overrated. That's right I said it. I know plenty of people who think of others as lucky of unlucky, attributing life's successes and failures to luck - but what is that really saying? People don't get jobs, catch fly balls, receive promotions, school acceptances, roles in plays, good grades, and opportunities in general because they're lucky.

And outside of the random favorable (or not) occurrence, luck boils down to this:

Choices.

When I think about most of my good or bad fortune , I can trace it back to a series of choices I had to make to get the end result. Working hard vs. wasting time. Taking chances vs. playing it safe. Going above and beyond vs. doing only what's required. Being responsible vs. being spontaneous. Doing what's right vs. doing what's easy.

And while I firmly believe a person mostly controls their own destiny , there's still the small percentage of times when the unexpected THING happens - good or bad. And because of that small percentage, I find myself sitting here, crossing my fingers, wishing on stars and eating Lucky Charms.

I'm hoping for a semi-random positive occurrence today.

Chi-ca-go... Chi-ca-go

Yesterday marked the last day of our Spring Break. We didn't really have anything planned, but we all had the itch to do something, so we made a spur-of-the-moment trip to Chicago for a few days. While the drive is just about at the maximum length I can tolerate with kids (about 5 hours), it wasn't too bad - and the whole trip turned out to be a lot of fun.

First, we hit a waterpark hotel for our first day & night. Since our break was so early, the waterpark was basically deserted, so we had no lines and all the space we wanted - super!


On Day 2, we stopped at the Fire Zone where the boys explored a real fire truck, ambulance, hydrants, hoses, etc. They loved it!

Next stop: LEGOLAND! The kids had a blast constructing and reconstructing lego vehicles, and racing them on the lego track.

Can you tell which vehicle I built?

We caught a 4-D movie


We hailed a cab
(and the entire time Jacob kept shouting, "WHO IS DRIVING THIS?!?!")


Next Stop: Sears Tower!


We finished the 2nd day with an authentic Chicago-Style Pizza down the street from our hotel. The kids thought it was really fun to walk in the city. The only down side was the pizza took about 45 minutes to bake. Ugh. The kids were a little wild while waiting!

After a little more walking around in the city the next morning, we wrapped up our stay with a visit to the Shedd Aquarium. Unfortunately I forgot my camera in the car, so I have no pictures of it! The kids really liked watching the sharks and searching for all the little creatures in each tank. We even saw a scuba diver in one of the tanks for feeding time - that was pretty cool. There were SO many exhibits to see, Will claimed he felt sea sick by the end - I kind of did too!

The boys are excited to head back for another trip to see and do more of what Chi-town has to offer. First on their list: PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!!! Yup - they were BEGGING to ride on a bus or train. Oh Joy! Till then...

And now.... the REST of the story

Well, I'm sure as you probably guessed..... everything turned out just fine. Will may have been escorting a few foreign dog hairs on his trip home, but other than that he was unscathed - and happy! I have to admit, I was incredibly anxious on my way there to pick him up - I just wanted him back already! And this time, before approaching the property, I took a minute to put on my rose colored glasses.

While I still saw this on the outside,

I tried really hard to see something different on the inside. I kept my head down as I burrowed through the porch to the door, making an effort not to notice anything more than I already had. Inside, I tried to focus on the people living there, NOT the conditions of which they were living. Birthday Boy's mother happily greeted me and answered all of my questions about bedtime, etc with a smile. Two sisters were busy in the kitchen trying to make a 'special surprise' birthday cake for their brother while mom stood guard to block his view - that was pretty sweet. And as I peered in the other room looking for Will, (really trying to ignore the wire pen surrounding the wood stove which was heaped to the top with junk) I was happy to see the Birthday Boy enthusiastically playing with the present we'd brought for him. Will was grinning ear to ear as he repacked his bag to go home. We all exchanged our thank-you's, bid each other good day, and out the door we went. I quizzed Will a bit more after he got in the car, and other than the part where he told me they dined on bacon from a pig that Birthday Boy's dad had shot, it all sounded like a typical slumber party. I slowly backed out of the driveway with my kid and a heavy conscience in tow.

*ugh*

Is it 11:00 am yet?

I've been asking myself that question every ten minutes since 4:00 pm yesterday afternoon when I dropped Will off for a birthday-slumber party. (ugh. it's only 8:20 am)

When Will came home with the invitation last week, he was happy as a clam. He couldn't WAIT to attend his classmate's bowling and birthday party. Since I don't know a lot of families yet outside of sports, I started quizzing Will about the birthday boy. Both Will and Charlie attested that he was a nice boy. *good* After examining the class picture, I verified he appeared clean with combed hair. *good* I called and spoke to his mother on the phone - it went well. *good*, and after I agreed he could go, I also found out his mom volunteers in Will's classroom. *good*. So, I wasn't thinking too much about it until yesterday when I was following my GPS trying to find their house. We headed a few miles out of town where the houses started getting farther and farther apart - mainly a farming area. No biggie. Of course, none of the homesteads had house numbers on them, so as my GPS target came and went with no house in sight, I started to get a little worried. I kept creeping along, and as the nearest house started to come into view, DREAD filled my whole body. At first glance, I saw something like this:


Now, I'm exaggerating a little bit here, but the house to my left - the only house around my 'target' was clearly in disrepair. The siding was falling off, it desperately needed painting, Storm windows were missing, it had rusty chain link fences all over... it was bad. BAD. I kept driving... "That cannot be the house, that cannot be the house", I chanted to myself as I turned around to go by again.

On my second pass... I saw this:

Wonderful. There were like 20 cats perched all over the front of this place. Don't get me wrong, I like cats, but this was ridiculous. They were EVERYWHERE! omg omg omg omg. I pulled into the next driveway (a different house) and sat trying to collect my thoughts. I double checked my GPS, the party invitation, and surrounding area. It had to be it. Since I wasn't pulling into that place if I didn't have to, the only thing left to do was to call the mom - and hopefully she'd laugh at my bad direction following, and reroute me to a cute little house with a picket fence.

Nope.

The conversation went something like this:

ME: "Hi there, I think I'm lost..."
HER: "Are you driving a black van?"
ME: (omg omg omg omg) "Do you have a lot of cats outside?"
HER: "What?"
ME: "Do you have lots of cats outside?"
HER: (laughing) "Ohh hahaha I don't know - probably. It's the white house to your left, blue roof, red truck outside"

OMG.

I turned the van around and started heading towards catland. As I crept closer, I got the full view of the property, and this time... I saw THIS:


OMG! Seriously, what was I going to do???

I couldn't just keep driving - I was just talking to her on the phone! Aggggghhhh!

I pulled in the curvy driveway, wondering how the heck I was going to get back out of the driveway since both sides were barricaded with JUNK. I put the van in park and just sat there. Where's that magic wand when you need it? Think think think! As I started to re-quiz Will in the van (and continued to just sit there), two kids ran out of the house making a beeline for us. Think think think! And before I had time to say Jack Robinson, they'd opened our van doors from the outside (drat!), and started harping for Will to get out.

Will got out, and I trudged behind him carting the present. We approached the side door and walked through a porch area which was heaped top to bottom with junk on both sides. omg. And as we stepped into the kitchen, my heart sank as I saw the inside was no better than the out. Clutter EVERYWHERE. Heaps of clutter. I did a quick scan of my surroundings as I continued to think think think! I could see the sub-floor in parts of the kitchen where the old linoleum was coming off. There were two giant slobbering dogs running around, and one licked me. Blech! I communicated my dislike of licking dogs to the mom and tried to keep a pleasant smile plastered on my face. It was tough. I stalled. I nervously chatted about their bowling plans and reiterated that my cell phone number was in his bag if he needed me (PLEASE NEED ME WILL). She nodded and chatted and happily shoo'd me out the door.

AAAGGGGHHHHHH!

I got back in the van with a pounding heart. Questions flooded my head. Why didn't I do more research before agreeing he could go? They can still be a nice family, right? He'll be okay, right? Do I make up some weird excuse and go back and get him? Will he have fleas when he comes home?

Even though I called and spoke with Will last night while he was bowling, (and he sounded like he was having a great time) I didn't get the greatest sleep last night.

Is it 11:00 am yet?