A Philosophical Moment

Wow What a weekend the Brunner people had. Ever feel like there is a dark cloud just hanging over your house. Our entire family has been rocked by this cloud for 3 weekends straight now. Sad because this last weekend we celebrated Easter. To my husband and I, not so much but Jesus, church, salvation, all newer terms in our home. I’ve always been a believer in my core but did I practice? No. Did I live my life in accordance with biblical teaching and expectations? No. For some reason that surpasses all my understand, 2 years ago I had an attack of conscious and realized that by letting the kids ‘choose religion’ I was in fact, screwing up. I can’t believe how long it took me to figure this out and how blinding the jerk was when I finally put the thoughts together. Talk about listening to the whisper of Jesus. I finally got it.

So we are now churched and I still struggle some. I struggle with the community sense that comes with church. I love the people, well most of them. Like me, every single solitary person on the planet struggles and those struggles take different forms. What makes me nuts are all the wonderful ladies engage me in conversation most likely because we have kids the same age and are also about the same ages ourselves, and their biggest problem is the pink heels the chose to wear Easter Sunday didn’t quite match the pink in the dress. WOW. I wish I had your problems. I realize though that those gals are the ones who need the most prayer because I believe 2 painful things:

1. They’re longing to ‘have it all together’….the total package, perfect kids, perfect marriage, perfect life (and heels) or make people believe they do. I mean face who wants to be a wreck and wear it on their shirt like a badge!?
2. They’re in pain. They are reaching out to me for a connection. To fill something or to feel something.

I now have my kids in a weekly program of fun, entertaining bible study and I help out with kitchen detail to feed the volunteers (mentioned in a previous post). What I am not though is a fully active, willing participant of the events that make this church a church! I still feel on the fringe of things. I don’t want everyone to be my BFF and I don’t want spotlight or anything like that. In fact I want the opposite; I want to blend, blend, blend. I am new to bible teachings so perhaps once again I am missing the boat entirely. My involvement or lack thereof is setting an example for my children. I know that. What I really struggle with is how to maintain who I am, what makes me, me in all of this while allowing Jesus to guide me, the holy spirit to whisper to me the things I seek. HOW DO YOU DO THIS!?

Do you ladies share my struggle? In truth this is a short post. I am loaded with questions of this nature and it is a constant struggle. It keeps me up at night.

Brunner Add...Off's???

Well it didn’t work out. That there is the cutest dog I’ve ever seen in my life I think but he made me nuts. He was healthy and sweet but he misses his mama something awful. At least all night anyway. People I hate to be callous but I raised 2 babies through the screaming period and I have no desire to do it again. I felt sorry for him but just resented him something terrible. The first problem was he was taken from his mama about 2 weeks too early. Weaning too soon is bad for puppies. I have never raised a puppy so I’m thinking ‘oh Karen, just love him through it’. My pitcher ‘o love emptied quickly after day 4. 

Here’s a summary of how the week went with the new puppy Opie.

Day 1: Isn’t he just the cutest thing? I will need everyone’s help making this a smooth transition from his mama to our house. Might be in for a rough night but only 1 or 2

Day 2: He’s cute but he don’t like to sleep at all!!! Maybe take the advice of my many dog loving friends and put a t-shirt of Jackson’s in the crate with him; bring him comfort.

Day 3: Someone else is going to have to take puppy out tonight. I was a zombie at work today and need more rest than I am getting. Now this is a partnership; all of us are Opie’s humans.

Day 4: Determination kicked in. I was going to raise this puppy to be a good, well rounded, pooping and peeing OUTSIDE member of this family if it kills me. Sleep deprivation is not an excuse.

Day 5: Someone better help me either sleep or train that dog!

Day 6 and 7 were hideous and only get worse from here. I got ZERO help with the dog, called in sick on day b/c I was literally sick from no sleep. I am not an old lady but I am no spring chicken either it seems. I need my rest too. Of all the animals to be dumped in my lap to care for and raise this was the worst example of being dog-slapped I’d ever experienced.

I learned this:

1. Don’t take the dog to the vet unless you are sure you are keeping it. $105 later I have one major regret.
2. Warn the kids of the helping thing and force it. If they do not help it just won’t work; plain and simple
3. Dogs are worse than toddlers without diapers. They just GO without warning.
4. Hubby’s who’d not proven to know what to do with dogs should not be allowed to bring them home because they are cute.
5. Get a dog who’s 3 and trained.

Opie is now back in the care of his mother at the house that hosted the fish fry. I am not sure if they were upset with us or not but they did say ‘if it doesn’t work out, bring him on back’ and that’s what we did. The kids are upset and I miss his presence too but we can’t raise a dog like this. Not successfully. Opie is a living creature that has needs that we are responsible for filling. If we can’t do that, we need not have a pooch then. 

Oh and another lesson learned. If you get a puppy, middle name him/her Mayhem. You will use that name before you reach the 2 week mark!!

  

 I love him to pieces, but from the view in someone else’s window.

Using the Ole Noodle

I’ve gotten into the habit recently of planning meals. I have a love/hate relationship with menu planning. I love what it does for me which is keep me organized, keep me ahead of the dance that used to exist; the one where I say ‘what do you guys want for dinner’ and receive no reply. Then I make something not knowing for sure what everyone wants only to find everyone’s grumping about the food prepared and digging through the fridge an hour later. This way you can look ahead and see what’s coming up so if you want to make adjustments you can!! The stinker in the whole deal is I can’t slack as much as I’d like. I have to shop on a Saturday after payday b/c that’s how it works in my house. If I don’t have my list ready I am buying stuff hoping I remember the menu plan and get all the items I need. The major bonus to this is that I save money. It’s not a huge massive chunk of change but over time it all adds up.

As a result of planning I’ve also learned what a time saver it can be to make a freeze food ahead of time. This has been a good and a bad thing too….I’m a yin/yan if you have not already noticed. THE GOOD NEWS is that on Sloppy Joe Thursday, I only have to take the frozen meat block out of the fridge, toss it in a crock, add some H2o and voila! When I come home from work the sweet smell of our main course has penetrated the fabric in our house. All I have to make is sides. WOO HOO. The bummer is that I usually spend one entire afternoon every 2 weeks or so making tons and tons of food. 

The good news …ah COME ON, you HAD to see that coming…the good news is I’ve been able to incorporate Meredith in this. IT’s a fun training, if you will. My mom never cooked with me. I think part of the problem was we were poor and you couldn’t mess too much with the food you had. If I cooked and blew it, you either ate questionable food or nothing at all because there was only so much to go around. So the food preparation I do I either learned on my own, from friends or online. God bless the internet because lord only knows where I’d be without it. 

It was a proud moment for me because I was able to teach Meredith to make homemade noodles. It was such a mess and so much fun. She felt big. She needs this. The poor dear girl is 9 and she’s short, really short and petite. She can’t reach the stove buttons yet and that’s my rule. When you can turn the oven timer on, you can run the stove. She’s not even close and very unhappy about it. But on the noodle extravaganza day she was happy as a clam. Here are some pictures.

 

I froze these puppies; made 3 batches and they turned out great! Thaw them completely; do not do what I do with the Joes and toss in a frozen brick. It turns in to one hot mess with noodles.

My recipe for noodles is dreadfully simple. This makes one batch; I double it because the Brunner’s are some noodle eaters!!

1 C Flour

2 eggs

Pinch of salt

Mix all together and roll out to your desired thickness and cut with a noodle cutter. That’s it and that’s all. How wonderful is that!

Got other frozen pasta ideas pah-lease share with me. My family loves pasta but I grow nervous when the freezer is introduced.

The Truth about Fiction

In an earlier post, I moaned and groaned about being confronted by a person who felt it was wrong to sell children on Santa, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy because how can you expect kids to believe in Jesus when these things are fake. Along with a friend of mine we stumbled onto Dr. Dobson’s site where this very issue is addressed. Read more about that here.

    ** Easter 2010, 9 and 7 years old**

The flip side of this is explaining to an asking child what’s real and what’s not. Well I stumbled onto a Gem here. I’ve got to credit my friend Sara for this. She does not have a blog (that I know of) nor does she take a stand on either side of the issue. She is for her kids being kids. I’ve realized for a few years now that I am on borrowed time as it relates to these magical holiday figures and I don’t want it to end, but they will wise up and start asking the difficult questions.

I have 2 scenarios for you. Mix and match however you will but I will say these worked. One for me personally and another b/c it was published on the internet and you know, everything on the internet is true. ;-)

 ** I mean WHEN ELSE will you see a kid make this face!!** (Christmas 2012, 8 years old)

 Meredith watched Tooth Fairy 2 and asks me after ‘Mom is the tooth fairy real?’ I asked her what she thought and she simply stated she wanted the truth. I told her that the truth was within her. What did she feel? Did she feel the tooth fairy was real? Did the tooth fairy leave stuff under her pillow whenever a tooth? Do you like that the tooth fairy comes? That 3^rd question did it for her because absolutely YES!! They LOVE the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny AND SANTA!!!! So if you stop believing, you stop getting. So it’s not an answer to the question but it is a way to look at the situation and decide for yourself what you do and don’t believe. To my pastor’s wife I say this is also a valuable lesson learned that Jesus teaches us using Santa, EB and TF. I have to start abbreviating because I am tired of typing out those words. She’s will trying to ask the question where she can pin me down but she won’t. I’m more clever than her only because I’m older. She will exceed my cleverness soon because she too has a gift for clever.

** And this face, proud of the lost tooth and what is to come in the AM** (Summer 2006)

The 2^nd thought is spill it in all its glory to your kids. Tell them everything. Here is a letter I found online that touched me. What a beautiful way to find out about the Secret of these 3 wonderful beings. I found out about these 3 and about being adopted all in one fail-swoop by my brother. He was mad at me over something. I thought my parents were going to massacre him right then and there. I was 5. So I read this letter and think about how neat a way to find out something that could potentially shape the latter years of childhood. Go to this link to find the letter. Tell me your thoughts? Do you have another clever ideas regarding this topic!?

Brunner Add-Ons

So, our hamster died. I am not sure what her name was because we never fully agreed upon a name. I like the ham- names that are more like puns such as canned ham..smoked ham..shaved ham. Meredith wanted to name her fluffles. So she ended up being called ‘the hamster’. She lived to escape. She escaped out of that cage more times than I can recall. She always went to the same part of our basement (yes she is in the basement, so the living area is not impacted at all by the little scoundrel) so she was easy-ish to retrieve. The cage is about 3 foot off the ground and so jury-rigged I am not sure how she keeps getting out, but I tell her each time that one of these days your last jump will be your last jump.

Sure enough, that jump was 2 weeks ago. Ham was found dead; peaceful but dead.

Upon discovering Ham, my husband asks me ‘can we take a break from pets for a while?’ I don’t bring home pets for me, I do that for the kids. I want them to experience things and I want them to develop a love for animals and a sense of responsibility for another being; an extension of our family which they can have complete responsibility for. So as you probably suspected or experienced, I always end up with the clean-up of the cages, regular feedings and water refills. I don’t mind because I know ‘I’ll take care of it’ always turns into another of mom’s many jobs (hence the blogs name!)……
I do have a point here, I promise. I want to emphasize that I was specifically asked to NOT bring more animals into the house. I will comply as asked.

So 2 days later, hubby and Jackson go to a friend’s house for a fish fry. I opted to not go and kept Meredith with me. I was a grumpy old cuss and I just wanted to spend some time in the kitchen making items to freeze for the next 2 weeks and teach Meredith some of the things I know about the kitchen. I get a text message from the hubby and it’s a picture of Jackson with this puppy. I’m like ‘aww..cute’ and as a joke I text back ‘I would like to hug him; can he live here!?’ thinking the response would look something like this ‘$%^&*&^%$^&*(‘. I get back a ‘Na’ reply which concerned me.

I don’t know my hubby to be a softy when it comes to animals but this reply was weird. So I am not sure how to respond because how do you communicate that you are standing in the kitchen up to your ear lobes in homemade noodles with a girl sporting an expression that pleads for the puppy coming home idea to be true. So I didn’t reply. 30 minutes later I get a call and I ask if he is bringing home the puppy and he says yes.

Holy Poo!!

Okay so I can’t bring home a caged rodent which I exclusively care for but he can bring home a barking, eating, pooping machine! WOW!! Strange turn of events. Meredith, needless to say was ecstatic. She let out a scream that would peel paint! I just could not wrap my head around this at all and then I saw the puppy.

Holy Poo!

Cute doesn’t even begin to describe this creature. He’s cute! He’s a beagle and weighs in at 3 pounds. CUTE!!! His favorite things are leaves, sticks and my feet.  His name is Opie.

Stay tuned as well tell tales of the new pooch.

A Parental Dilema

I love the church I attend. It’s fun for the parents, fun for the kids for the kids and I learn so much. I grew up in a different faith so the refreshing perspective of this church is wonderful!!!! On Wednesday evenings there is a program for 3 years through 5^th grade. It’s also a wonderful program without 150 kids in attendance each and every week. But leave it to me to have a problem. It’s not a problem with the program it’s a problem with the other children. I arrive at the church early as I am a coordinator to feed the volunteers who teach the kids. This responsibility is new to me this year so there’s been some

Bumps but overall it’s been wonderful. I’ve met so many people and eaten some very tasty treats. While I am in the kitchen making sure the food is fresh, presentable, the crummies are attended to and the drink pitcher is full, my son is playing in the sanctuary usually with a ball of sorts. He gets wild, he is an 11 year old with ADHD so I have to check in on him a lot to make sure nothing is damaged or broken. As the parents and their children arrive the activity in the sanctuary increases to where I have to check in more frequently. If I find the activity is in a bad place and I am no able to send them outside, I confiscate whatever is causing the riff-raff, usually it’s a ball of sorts. I should note our church used to be a winery. I know, right!? But it’s beautiful building that’s been transformed to be a wonderful place. There is a large 10,000 square foot room with all the chairs removed to accommodate the kids, that’s our sanctuary.

So, moving on to about 2 months ago. There was a leadership meeting to discuss lesson’s learned, building needs, needs of the children etc. What came out of the meeting was to keep the children under-control during the dinner hour. Fine, works for me and I understand their concern. What I didn’t know is there were some kids who were sneaking away and getting into storage bins taking items and either taking them home or playing with them. I gathered my kiddos and talked to them about these items because I want to know if they are involved. They are not and I believe them. The thing about these kids is they can’t lie. They try but it doesn’t work and it never has. They either start crying immediately or they circle back and confess their wrong doing. I then explained that I 100% believe them but felt it was only fair to cover the items to reinforce doing the right thing. 2 things we have to remember are:

1. Set an example by doing good, doing the right thing
2. It’s fun at church but it’s still God’s house, treat it as such

So my kids have been very good. I mean it. I am no one of those mothers who is oblivious to the antics of my children. They can be very stinky and mischievous and when they do they are disciplined appropriately. Overall though I don’t have to get on them that much especially in public. With an ADHD boy this has been a monumental task and we don’t always hit the mark but we teach as much as we can and correct what he is capable of understanding. But they are good kids.

Well flash forward to last night. When it all went to pot for me was when the other children carried on in such a way that they never heard anything about this email and the request to correct our behavior. So my kids are looking at me like ‘why can they do it but I can’t. I have an answer to that question but as active and busy kiddos my answer would leave me resentful. They did resent me. I had to punish my poor son last week because he yet again, refused to eat the food the volunteer served. So I grounded him from an activity. He spent the night crying off and on just sad and mad at me. My goal is to help him see that food is food, it’s not always our favorite thing or even good for that matter or we’d rather have something else. But unless it’s squid or raw buffalo meat, you give it a shot or eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s a respect thing and your goal is to fuel your body to get you through the evening ready to learn and have fun, not to enjoy a nice sit down meal at someone else’s expense.

So this leaves me second guessing my behavior toward my kids. I am torn and find myself asking about the fairness in all of this. I hold my kids to a high standard and 95% of the time they are compliant. Perhaps they are all messed up because of me and I just don’t see it, I don’t know. Am I conveying my quandary? I don’t want them to behave in the way the other kids do, but it makes the discipline piece of this very hard for me. Do you ever find yourself in the same predicament?? How do you handle or cope or explain this??? To the kids?? To anyone around who would take witness to this??

Even in this post I feel I waver back and forth not knowing what the right thing is and there is no formula. Parenting is tough and often painful and you never really truly know if you’ve made the right decision on many issues. Tossing out there for a lesson in experience. What was yours!?

Dirty Water

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers! Swim through this site; you will LOVE IT!

My family bought a house about 5 years ago that had a koi fish pond in the back yard. The thing is huge..HUGE. Measuring 16x20 foot and a few foot deep it boasts of lilies that flower an assortment of colors, cattails that bloom beautifully, frogs which sing and make babies (science, if you’re a Brunner child), and gunk. Lots and lots of gunk. So you say, clean the pond out Karen! Easy peasy! Well not so much. This thing sat unnoticed, unloved and uncleaned for about 3 years before we showed up. Short of draining and starting completely over which means plant life and wildlife, you have to spend a chunk of change to chemically treat this pond. So at a loss for what to do b/c we’d like to preserve the pond but are not sure what to do!? How does this relate to Gratatuesday?? I am grateful to God for this beautiful mess that is currently springing back to life. I am not the only one. Check this out.

This is the result of Jackson enjoying the great outdoors….LAST FALL! The ball is split and stuck on the lillies.

Here is the other reason; the instinct to have life beyond oneself.  To keep things clean and appropriate, there are 2 there...one is beneath the water. 

Before you picture me and then picture the sewer I speak of, check this out. In all it's glory, it’s just beautiful!!!!