Optimism has a place in this world

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

- Mother Teresa

Lessons I'm learning...

I've often said that a day you learn something is a day not wasted. If that's the case, I'm not wasting my life lately. Here's a summary of what I'm "learning":

1. If patience is a virtue, my children are helping me to be the most virtuous woman on the planet this summer. Lunch time is especially educational for me.

2. Just because someone says you can buy their house doesn't mean the actually get to buy their house even though everybody signed the contract. There are forces at work in the real estate market that are beyond my comprehension. That's okay though. We decided we don't want to buy their house anyway (signed the notice of termination an hour ago-- just waiting on them to sign it) and we really don't like their real estate agent (we figure he'll make the termination difficult and pitch a fit like the arrogant, self-absorbed person he is). He's been extremely rude and condescending to our real estate agent. I like pretty much everybody, but I don't like him. That says something very bad about him. I almost relish the thought of him trying something to cause problems with the termination. If I can handle 35 freshmen in a room or an overbearing coach, I can most certainly handle him with no problem. Bring it on. He has no idea who he's dealing with if he decides to mess with me.

3. Renaissance women are cooler than renaissance men. Here's an example: My real estate agent is a woman of many talents. Her coolest is not that she's working so hard to find us a new home. It's that she makes soap and it's the most amazing soap ever. She has many other talents as well. I'm totally addicted to the soap she calls "Beach Baby." Who would have thought I'd like a soap called "Beach Baby"?

4. When we open our eyes to possibilities and stop getting hung up on what we think in our heads, life goes much smoother.

5. This flow chart sums up so much. I'm going to print it out and put copies in places where I'll see them frequently.

(found by me on http://www.rootsimple.com/ but originally from  Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing)

Now, I'm off for a not so relaxing little vacation. Taking three small children somewhere is never really relaxing. It's easier to stay at home. I'm sending them to Mim's house tomorrow just so I can pack. It's all good though because I'm not going to worry :)

Too Funny

I'm sorry. This may be inappropriate but I just had to share...

Via Piccsy

Movie Monday

You're aware that I don't like television much and that movies aren't really my thing. I prefer books. Books are like movies you control inside your head. Much better than someone else's idea of how things should be.

I've been trying to limit my children's exposure to television this summer and feel pretty good about our progress. However, I'm not completely heartless. They like to watch things. My solution has been books made into videos and movie Monday. Books on video is pretty self-explanatory concept. Movie Monday means that if they were good, we've watched a movie every Monday. It hasn't always gone smoothly. Generally, someone is unhappy about the choice or I find myself bored out of my mind, but overall, it's gone well.

A and L both agreed on last Monday's movie choice though. It was a miracle. My husband was hesitant but then I pointed out the very short length of the "movie" and we both agreed it was a good choice because we were running late. I had no problems with the actual "movie." Why? Because both of my daughters got terribly excited and wanted to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." It was the original cartoon version which I love and, well, it was Christmas and you know how I feel about that. It warms my heart to know that I'm spreading the joy of year round Christmas planning to my children. Monday's movie choice wasn't just a miracle. It was a Christmas miracle.

Long live Christmas in July! And in every other month!

The Pirate Series Part 1 or How to Build a Pirate Ship

My husband, L, and M got lost in Lowes one Saturday. A and myself were simultaneously getting lost in Hobby Lobby. To each his or her own! While in Lowes, they found little kits to build stuff and ended up with two wooden pirate ship kits for A and L.

One afternoon, they finally found time to put them together. Note that all girls were wearing dresses during the construction process. Me too but I'm behind the camera. Of course, you could have guessed I was wearing a dress. I'm me!

Note the intent looks of concentration and my husband's snazzy French Club t-shirt. Concentration is important when small children are hammering close to your fingers.

 The wood was surprisingly hard even though the holes were pre-drilled. My husband eventually ended up getting his drill to drill the holes better. The drill bits are still on the table. I wish they weren't. Hint, hint, my darling husband.

M couldn't help build the ships but she could certainly sit in her chair and offer screams of encouragement while gnawing on a plastic hammer. It made her feel like she was a part of the action.

The Beaver

My husband's grandparents are elderly and all of them are still alive. That's a strange thing for me because most of mine are not. He's blessed in ways he doesn't even understand. It's like the line from the Joni Mitchell song, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone..." I know what I had because it's mostly gone.

That being said, his grandparents are not in perfect health and memory issues are starting to become a problem. Last April, we had an egg hunt with one side of his family and his grandparents (the oldest, least healthy set) decided to go shopping for all their great-grandchildren. There was an odd assortment of balloons, 14 foot long jump ropes, cheap Easter baskets, and stuffed animals. Stuffed animals are fairly common around Easter but the grandparents had apparently wandered off the Easter aisle at some point during their shopping excursion and found animal toys that they mistook for stuffed animals for children. I realized it quickly when a few of the adults were assigned the task of distributing the bags of randomness. So, my children ended up with two pet toys. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't know the exact location of the strange squeaking black and white skunk-like blanket toy M was given, but I believe it may still be in the trunk of my car. My other girls ended up with a beaver that also squeaks when pressed on the stomach. This is the beaver toy.

As strange as this may be, the toy actually helps with a game L made up a few weeks before receiving the beaver. She calls the game "Beaver Dam." It involves her and sometimes A hiding in a corner or tight spot, barricading themselves in, and periodically yelling, "I see a beaver. Hide!" or something along those lines.

Well, what do you know? The beaver doesn't have to be imaginary anymore and he squeaks! In a pinch, he also wears a doll dress and gets to play with the other dolls in their room. What could have been a sad, chewed upon life in a dog's mouth has turned into a warm, cozy life as a beloved toy. Weird how things work out sometimes, isn't it?

Where I've Been a.k.a. Why Madame Hester is (a little bit) Crazy and (very) Tired

I disappeared for a while, but I have a great excuse. Well, it's more like excuses. Anyway, here we go. You know that I hate to clean. You know that I love to cook. You know that I have three children. When you combine all those things, you get the predicament I was in last week and a bit the week before that.


I've talked a little about my spirituality but not my church. I won't give a ton of details or try to justify anything because chances are good that it wouldn't make any sense to you. Suffice to say, between July 9 and July 17, I went to church sixteen times. With three children. And a husband who didn't sit with us all the time. The wee-est (I think I made up a word!) of my children is very wiggly and very loud. We took away her pacifier during all waking hours on July 8. Whose dumb idea was that? Oh, wait. It was mine. Bad move on my part. I caved a little as the week progressed and gave her the pacifier when she got way, way, way too loud. She wasn't bad, just loud. And she sings! But it's really more like screaming. Where I go to church, services last as long as they last. That could be an hour and a half or more. Not knowing when it will end makes one lose heart a little bit when the screaming, I mean singing, gets too loud. The end is never in sight at times like that.


In addition to the marathon number of church services which occurred morning and evening, there was lots of going to eat lunch with people from church, sometimes at houses and sometimes at restaurants. We feel that it brings the church closer together when we spend time fellowshipping together outside of church. We don't have Sunday school or youth group or anything like that so this is it. Of course, you can probably guess that one of the houses was mine.


Now, on one level, that's not a bad thing for me. I love to cook and (modestly lowering her head) I'm really good at it. I'm also fabulous at planning meals that are balanced in nutrition, color, content, and required refrigerator space while being mindful of the fact that everything has to be ready three hours before mealtime but still taste good when it's time to eat. I'm a pro. The problem is my house. It's never clean. 3 children + hatred of cleaning = perpetually messy house. I half-heartedly started cleaning the week before revival but I didn't get anywhere significant on the road to a clean house. My husband and I also became minorly obsessed with the idea of packing, not actual packing mind you, just the idea of packing. That's another post for another day though. Suffice to say, it distracted us.


So, the actual cleaning didn't start until Saturday, July 9. People were coming to my house on Thursday, July 14. For normal people, that would have been plenty of time to clean and prepare food for an unknown number of people. I'm not normal people. My husband is a real trooper though. We're in this together, 100 %. I came up with the idea of working on cleaning and prep work for 30 minutes to 1 hour at three key times of the day, morning, afternoon, and after we got back from church in the evening. I also created a food prep schedule that would help me to get it all done at the appropriate time.


We did surprisingly well. I didn't feel a hint of despair until Wednesday afternoon around 3 o'clock. My mother-in-law had my girls so that what we cleaned stayed clean. I was in the kitchen cooking up a storm and my husband was cleaning. We had been working the previous days according to my plan and some progress was evident. Then, I looked at the clock and saw what time it was. I went in search of my husband and found him in our bathroom scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. There was still so much to be done and he was scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush! Chances weren't even good that anyone would go into our bathroom. It needed to be sort of clean and presentable but not spotless. Inside, I freaked out. Outside, I remained calm, gave my husband some advice and went to make brownies.


We stayed up late that night, got up early the next day, and pulled it off. If you ignore the basement where we just closed the doors, our house was cleaner than it has been in a really long time. It made me feel so happy that I wanted to cry. It's over now and everything's slowly falling into disrepair even though we've straightened and cleaned a bit here and there since Thursday. I'm going to make a good 30 minute effort this evening to regain some control. We'll see how that goes. Perhaps I can make everyone help and it will go well.


The menu for the day was super simple, not my normal labor intensive insanity. I made:
-boeuf bourguignon (in the crock pot without the red wine 'cause it was the church crowd (including four preachers) and that would have been weird)
-buttered egg noodles (to go with the boeuf bourguignon)
-pizza style pasta salad (my own recipe and my newest favorite pasta salad-- I could eat it every day and I have since Thursday because I made way too much!)
-salad bar (lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes even though I dislike them because I'm the hostess with most-est, bacon bits, feta cheese, croutons, etc.)
-sandwich bar (good bread--Italian and wheat, turkey, ham, chicken, swiss, cheddar, provolone, condiments including pickles because little Miss L loves pickles, etc.)
-fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries, and grapes that we went to the grocery store twice to buy)
-tea, lemonade, and water
-praline brownies (my recipe-- TO DIE FOR!)
-cherries in the snow (a fantastic concoction of angel food cake, a cream cheese whipped cream mixture, and cherry pie topping-- I like this and there's no chocolate in it-- that says a lot about the quality of this dessert)
-cheesecake (because I make the best cheesecake in case you were unaware of that fact-- every time I make it, people ask me for the recipe-- people who think they don't like cheesecake usually like my cheesecake)


That's all but it was more than enough. I have a philosophy of feeding people. I want there to be so much food that everyone can have as much as they want and there will still be leftovers at the end. I always make double and triple batches of things so that that happens. Of course, sometimes I get carried away and my family has to eat pasta salad for one meal a day for five days before we're able to finish it off. Do you know the strange part? When I ate the last of it for lunch today, I felt sad that it was all gone. Shouldn't I be tired of it by now? No, because it's that good!


As I close this very long post, I'd like to leave you with a fuzzy picture and a story. It's a picture of my favorite thing I cleaned-- the mantle over my fireplace. When I put away my Christmas decorations last year, I never put my regular stuff back on the mantle. I was tired of it and was trying to think of a new way to arrange it and some new things to add to the mix. Having an empty mantle and three children was too tempting though. If there was something we didn't want them to get, we put it on the mantle. If there was something that got torn up and needing mending, we put it on the mantle. A new item that had no home, the mantle could hold it until we figured it out! But we never did. I was a mess and it made me sad. So, one day early last week, I spent my half hour in the afternoon cleaning it off and later in the week, I put some stuff up there on purpose, not to get it out of the reach of grubby handed Hester girls. It was some old stuff, some newer, pictures finally put in frames, silhouettes printed out, treasures from all over.

The elephants are from my cousin-in-law's trip to Africa a few months ago. The blue vase/pitcher on the left is from France. The vase on the right was made by a hippie wandering around the southwest making pottery for a living and given to me by a hippie friend of mine who was on a similar soul searching quest but with weaving instead of pottery. Almost everything up there has a story of some sort. I think that's why it makes me happy. My Christmas tree is very similar with ornaments filled with memories and stories. Of course, the mantle will be an absolute pain in the neck to dust but I don't do that very often so it's all good.

The why of making stuff

Here's a quote from Eunny Jang, a knitwear designer and editor of Interweave Knits.

"...I do think a lot about this handmade life we lead as knitters, people who make usable things out of sticks and string. It's an extraordinary thing in a larger culture that praises speed and disposability—our craft is methodical, meditative, thoughtful. Its gratification is delayed. But we do it for the joy of making wonderful things with our own hands, adding usefulness and beauty to the world with every stitch."

This has been food for thought for me over the last week. I wish I truly had a handmade life instead of the real one based so much on store bought items.

How needing shoes leads to making lemonade

A needed a new pair of Crocs. They're an essential summer shoe here in the Hester household (for the girls anyway) and her feet had grown quite a bit since last year's pair. Crocs are the perfect shoe for summer activities in my opinion because they don't smell when your feet sweat in them and they're perfect for jumping in puddles, digging in the dirt, etc. I can throw them in the sink, scrub them, and VOILA! They're as good as new.

I have multiple children though so buying things can be difficult at times. M is small and doesn't care, but A and L expect to be treated fairly. That means that even though L has hand-me-down Crocs from A, I can't leave her out when buying new ones. That's what led me to the discovery that buying Crocs online from the the manufacturer was cheaper than going to Raspberry Row (which A calls "the Croc store"). Crocs.com had free shipping and I found a coupon code online for $15 off.

I had perused the styles and availability beforehand to narrow the choices. Then, I let the girls look. My goal for L was a dressier pair that she could wear with skirts and dresses. She wanted blue crocs. I thought she meant aqua. She meant navy. I was okay with that because it would match more of her clothes. Matching is important to me.

A wanted a dressy pair too. I knew that without asking because she is 100% girl and she only wants to wear skirts and dresses. When I showed her the available colors for the style she picked, she chose pink of course, her favorite color. The shade was called pink lemonade.

In the style of "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake"...

If you say the words pink lemonade, the Hester girls will want to make some. As their Mama searches the kitchen to see if that's possible, the girls will argue about who gets to stand on the stool. When L wins the stool, A will pout. When A pouts, her Mama will sit her on the counter. Seeing A on the counter will make L want up there too. When her Mama puts her on the counter, they'll start to discuss who gets to stir. Success! Mama finds frozen pink lemonade mix. Seeing the pink lemonade mix in the pitcher will remind A and L of how much the love ice. Talking about ice will make Mama declare how much she doesn't like ice. Talking about ice will make Mama start to get water from the refrigerator dispenser. As Mama gets water from the dispenser to make the lemonade, A and L will begin to stir. Seeing A stir will make L want to stir so A will give her a turn. Seeing L stir will make A want to have another turn so L will give her the spoon. Seeing A stir will make L want a turn so A will give her another. (The stirring will go on for a long time. You get the picture. Without a doubt, it was the best stirred lemonade ever.) Seeing the finished lemonade will make A and L declare that their Mama is the best Mama ever. Hearing that will make their Mama love them even more.

Trix are not for kids

I sometimes imagine my life as scenes from a movie. I think about the plot, the developments, dialogue that would make it more interesting.

I had an episode the other day that could have been from a movie. In fact, it would have been more interesting in a real movie than in my real life.

I was in the middle of getting breakfast ready when the phone rang. M's breakfast wasn't ready but I didn't want to listen to her cry while answering the phone so I quickly poured some Trix in a bowl, sat them in front of her, and answered the phone. It was my husband with news from the house hunt front. I sat down on the couch with a good view of M in her seat eating breakfast. As I listened to him talk about comps and short sale contingencies, I watched M throw Trix one by one from her bowl. Her focus was intense as she dropped them. She watched each one land before choosing another to drop.


In a movie, this would have been amusing because you could have seen the scene taking place in my living room and kitchen while hearing a voice over of the phone call. The contrast would have been a wonderful dramatic effect, the seriousness of the conversation juxtaposed with the kitchen destruction which mirrored the internal turmoil surrounding the housing issue.

The Trix were flying but I tried to wait patiently for my husband to finish telling me the news, thinking that it wouldn't be much longer. M starting throwing them farther and farther as I waited. Then, all of a sudden, she had a napkin. I don't know where it came from, but she began to rip it into pieces and drop them on the floor. Rip. Lean over the side. Drop. Watch. Sit up. Repeat. Ah, gravity, you are a wondrous thing.

I watched the scene unfold, unable to do anything, paralyzed by the absurdity of it all, as I listened to my husband spell out the timeline for the current house dilemma and watched M create a widespread disaster on the kitchen floor. At this point, I thought there was no reason to stop him or her. I thought he should finish soon and her mess was already made. He continued. She continued. I felt like laughing. He reached what I decided was a stopping place and I stopped him. I explained the situation, got off the phone a short while later, and went to inspect the damage. This picture is only a small snapshot at the base of her chair.

I found Trix everywhere. The farthest was probably a good ten feet away, maybe more. Some had bounced off the walls and ricocheted under my pie safe. A few made it into the living room. In my haste to answer the phone, I had poured more in the bowl than intended. I didn't realize how much more until I was able to look at them spread out on my kitchen floor. That helped me truly grasp the quantity I had given her. I won't make that mistake again.

I had to leave her in her seat while I cleaned everything up. She cried because I was using the vacuum at one point. She wasn't crying because she was scared. She loves vacuums. She was crying because she was mad she couldn't chase it. It took me almost fifteen minutes to clean up with her making her displeasure known the whole time.

Who said Trix are for kids?  They're wrong, horribly wrong.