Annie Valentine

Have you ever had a week where you said the D-Word (dam#), and then whether you meant to or not it kind of started pouring out of your mouth every time you stubbed your toe or dropped the salt or realized 30 seconds too late that there was no toilet paper?

This was one of those weeks.

I did not have a lovely morning. My not lovely morning came on the tail of a terrible night’s half-sleep, the kind of night where you’re upset at your husband so you try not to touch him all night long, then end up never falling into a deep sleep because every time you do you accidentally brush his leg with your disloyal wandering foot and quickly surface long enough to fight the urge to cuddle up next to him…it was that kind of night.

My day was full of all sorts of obnoxious mishaps, including forgetting my wallet and identification and not realizing it until I got to the Ramstein gate. If you depend on money and ID for every transaction and interaction, this is a serious problem–especially when you’re out of gas.

Of course, I had to call Jason who had to chaperone me all over base while I kept him from his important work with obnoxiously necessary errands.

But the real low light came when I dropped Georgia off at pre-school co-op. This week belonged to one of the most lovely, delightful girls I’ve ever met. The kind that is wholesome and pure and only has pictures of Jesus up, the kind of woman I hope to someday become-ish. Mostly, she’s a girl I really want to be friends with.

This was the first chance we’ve had to kind of get to know each other. We visited about our families and the curriculum and basic mommy-speak before I bid her farewell, feeling super good that I’d maybe made myself a new friend. The kids all headed over to see me out the door and I smiled and went to shut the door when…

BAM!!

I slammed my thumb in the door. This was almost instantaneously followed by…

“DAMN!!” That’s right, straight from the horse’s mouth.

I don’t know which thing horrified her more, my bleeding thumb or my foul language. Really? I just met this girl, I like her. I want to be her friend. And that’s her first real impression of me?

Damn.

She did promise not to tell anyone, so we’ll just keep my dirty language between us.

Last year my dearest, darlingest friend Rebecca and I organized a wild project called The Mrs. Claus Affair. We realized there were a number of amazing wives and mothers who are left behind at overseas assignments here in Germany while their spouses are stuck in a far away deployment. They are so good about care packages for others, but come Christmas morning these amazing women routinely find themselves empty-handed next to the Christmas tree. Many of our soldiers and service members simply don’t have easy access to shopping and shipping. They work long, grueling hours. We realized there was a great little opportunity here to help everyone out.

Enter Mrs. Claus.  

We did a fabulous fundraiser, thanks to some awesome photographers–Geneva Chugg who just finished my family photos, and Sharma Shumate who is such a talented girl in every single aspect of her life–and had local people from our Ramstein area submit names of women who would be husbandless on Christmas morning.

Our goals were simple:

1. Provide something personal to place under their tree–not a gift card or cash–to be opened on Christmas morning. Something nice.

2. Keep the donations and participants anonymous.

3. Make Christmas a little better and brighter for someone who is far from home and far from family.

We had a number of deployed men submit their wives’ names, including a detailed description of their likes and dislikes. Then we took our fundraiser money and spent about $75 on each one of our 20 or so women. We kind of rocked the gift packages.

It was amazing. We delivered their gifts the week before Christmas and I kid you not, it was incredible. I hugged and cried and celebrated on doorsteps with women who were literally speechless that someone had remembered them, had remembered their sacrifice, had recognized just how hard it is to be on this side of the coin. These ladies are special. They must be remembered. They must!

My friend has moved and I’m not going to be able to do the fund raiser this year. However, after talking to my girlfriend Hollee I realized that The Mrs. Claus Affair can still reach out to others, we’re just going to modify our packaging.

So. If you would like to be part of The Mrs. Claus Affair this year, please email me and I will hook you up to adopt someone from the Ramstein Military Community who will be alone for Christmas. You can be part of this magical Christmas event. This year it will be a little different, so here are the instructions.

1. Send me your contact information

2. I will assign you the name of a wife that is going solo this Christmas, including her mailing address plus contact information for a close friend or relative who can tell you something about her.

3. Prepare a personal Christmas gift to send her, wrapped and ready to go under the tree. We will have a letter for you to include in your package explaining a little about The Mrs. Claus Affair. Packages will ship directly from you to your assigned military support family member. 

4. MAIL PACKAGES BY THANKSGIVING. You must send it Priority and it must go out by Thanksgiving or it very likely won’t make it by Christmas, no matter what the post office tells you.

So let’s make this year’s Christmas season something special. Adopt one of Mrs. Claus’ girlfriends today!

Send emails to: themrsclausaffair@gmail.com and I will personally hook you up with someone who could use the love and support your family has to offer. 

Friends! Please post this to facebook and anywhere else you can think of, let’s see how many families we can help this year. There’s a FB button right under this post. Go on, do it!

Much love from Me and Mrs. Claus!

We are not that family who dresses up in a theme with coordinating costumes for Halloween. I’ve dreamed of being that family, I’ve even attempted to be that family. But in 10 years of having children we have never, ever successfully been That Family.

Until now. This year, for one brief night with just a few small exceptions, we were almost that family.

I would like to thank the world for its overzealous Halloween marketing. On September 21st I walked through the American Shopping Center here on base and noticed that all the costumes were pretty much picked over and gone. Then I realized I only had 10 days until Halloween and totally freaked out.

I literally ran out to the car, drove home as fast as I could, and furiously started sewing June and Georgia’s costumes.

Three days later with two mostly finished costumes I realized I was a month early.

I then procrastinated until the night of the branch Halloween party to make Jason’s coordinating costume, which included the massacre of Owl (observe the world’s most thrown together wolf costume). When Rex found the destroyed remains of his beloved bird’s carcass in the office, I’m ashamed to admit that I let him think it was the dog’s fault. He never noticed that it might have actually been the wolf.

The four of us were Little Red Riding Hood, her cousin Little Bo Peep, the Wolf in Grandma’s impressively massive night dress, and the woodcutter who forgot to bring an axe.

Let the record state that I do not usually go for a costume that is so impressively unattractive. No one at church recognized me, who knew I’d make such an ugly dude? Jason couldn’t really look me in the face all night long.

I also need to point out that Rex is the dude from Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and that he made his Thinking Cap and Steve the monkey’s talking device himself.  Harrison is, of course, a Newsie.

I have to say, Halloween itself was so much fun this year. Our amazing friends from Switzerland–you can find out all about them here at Moxi Blog–brought their kids and we had fabulous fall weather while we swept the last of the candy from base. It was a wild and fun fall weekend, I’m so grateful to have friends that will step in and treat us like family.

Here’s the fashion parade. I used fabric from my bins, including vintage gingham from my grandmother for both girls’ costumes and made every darn piece myself. The total price this year for Halloween costumes? Under $20. Boo-yeah.

And don’t ask me about making that blasted hoop skirt for June. Biggest headache of the century. I can’t wait till those girls start sewing for themselves.

Last week I had an important self-realization: I like to pray about me.

When it comes to my relationship with Heavenly Father I am really good at asking for things and complaining about things and suggesting things and basically, covering all my personal bases over and over again. And sometimes I’ll pray for my kids and Jason but really, even those prayers are usually please-don’t-let-anyone-throw-up-because-I-can’t-stand-the-smell, and please-help-me-find-that-$40-so-Jason-doesn’t-kill-me oriented.

Last week we had a few sets of missionaries over for dinner. They are seriously the sweetest kids ever, and one of the duos hasn’t seen Americans in over a year. I made them a massive feast of Cafe Rio knock-off chicken salads in deep fried tortilla shells, and I was feeling bad that I forgot the creamy cilantro dressing until they freaked out at seeing Hidden Valley Ranch for the first time in over a year.

After dinner we were laughing and visiting and gabbing about life like long lost cousins, and they started talking about their mission president, President Schwartz. He’s the German in charge of all the mormon missionaries in the greater Frankfurt region of I don’t know what. He’s got about 270ish young men and young women under his umbrella and handles it with a good mix of charity and humor.

One thing they were saying about him that really caught me off guard is how incredible his prayers are. He is known for regularly praying for his missionaries one…by…one. Over 250 of them. He remembers and knows them all. His wife told one of the elders that sometimes he doesn’t come to bed until 4:00 am because it takes him so long to get through his prayers.

All I could do was think of my pitiful personal and totally selfish attempts at communication with God. Lame. My prayers are so lame. Huge, miserable epiphany.

I’m the young women’s president in our little branch and I was lecturing the girls earlier this month on Christlike service and how easy it is to find ten minute pockets to help others out by lending hand at home or at school. Since I do laundry and cook and clean and teach and sew dolly clothes and mostly devote all my time to the welfare of the small people who live here, I considered my service bases covered. (See what I mean? I totally assumed I was above reproach, how lame.) I didn’t even stop to think that maybe I could find an extra ten minutes to step outside the box and offer something better to the universe than scrambled eggs.

I have now realized that I’m a praying narcissist and that this is a perfect opportunity for me to multi-task my Better Soul efforts and step up my game.

My goal has been that for one week I would only pray for other people, and I’d make it a good substantial prayer. No more, “Please help me not eat chocolate,” or “Please don’t let the clothes in the washing machine sour tonight because I’m too lazy to go down and change them,” or “Please help the ambulances get those crash victims out of the road so I can get to my appointment on time.” From now on only Good Will Toward Men prayers, at least for a week.

And the only reason I’m admitting all this is because I have had the best five days ever. No words to describe it except to say that somehow by not praying for myself I’ve seen more little and big blessings in my daily schedule during this one week than the last few months put together. It’s been amazing.

(And yes, I feel a little bit like Phoebe because I really was looking forward to doing something good with no rewards.)

So this weekend I borrowed a kid from my girlfriend Christy to see what it would be like to have five children instead of only four. Things have been far too calm and quiet around here lately and I’m concerned by the level of compliance our kids have been displaying the past few weeks. It’s just not normal.

Nothing like Getting a New Kid to shake things up.

Darling Spencer is five. He has just started kindergarten and the thing that makes him hot property around here is his ability to play with almost everyone (this excludes Georgia who spent the weekend informing him that he is NOT part of our family and Miss Annie is NOT his mommy). Truly, he was the easiest kid ever to have around because we pretended like he was one of the rest of them. The best way to babysit is to offer the visiting kid no special exceptions, and no fewer hugs than anyone else in the family.

However, by 2 o’clock on Saturday he was finally starting to wilt. He’d eaten a peanut butter sandwich for lunch (a first), been dragged to the horse barn, the soccer fields and the commissary, and had taken all the teasing and the yelling that comes with a day in our minivan in stride. The kid was a trooper.

But there comes a time when a little kid far from home needs something extra to get him through all the crazy (if anyone here ever babysits my kids for the weekend and they get a little homesick and emotional, please offer them some Diet Coke and sing them a drunk sailor song, it works every time).

Spencer needed Apple Juice.

We were sitting at Harry’s soccer game and I was prepared for an afternoon bout of low blood sugar with crackers and craisins and Capri Suns (and yes, we had an impromptu lesson in the car on the letter “c” where I acted like I purposely planned the menu to coordinate) so when Spencer started to frown and drag his feet I immediately offered him a Capri Sun packet. Sugar, you know. Miracle drug.

“No,” he said, “I don’t drink those. Only apple juice.”

And then I thought back on the day and realized that the boy really hadn’t had a drop to drink since we’d left the house. He was probably on the verge of being dehydrated. I tried to peer pressure him into some juice with phrases like “everybody’s doing it” and “it will make you feel sooo good” and “I’ll buy you a pony that doesn’t poop if you just drink some juice” but he crossed his ankles, put his chin down and settled in for a royal standoff.

I know when I’ve been beat.

“Dang it,” I said to Jason who was sitting next to me watching the game. “I really hate this, I don’t want to miss another one of Harrison’s games but I’ve got to go get Spencer some Apple Juice.” I placed the rejected box of Capri Suns down next to me and reached for my keys.

“Oh,” Jason said, “Want me to do it for you?” Sweet apple juice, yes.

“Thank you! Yes, just get me an apple juice for Spencer and a water for Harrison, okay?” He was already halfway down the field, off to save the day. My hero.

Fast forward forty minutes. Spencer is now rolling around on the benches moaning for juice, unable to speak legibly or lift his head (except to yell at Rex every two minutes for  accidentally/purposely touching his coat), and I’m pretty sure we’re in the final stages of thirst before rigamortis sets in. Obviously Jason went to Canada to get juice.

With five minutes left in the game I finally see Jason walking around the field. My hero.

He walks up, reaches into a grocery sack and pulls out…

A Box of Capri Suns.

“I thought these would be better, they’re cheap and everyone can drink them.”

GAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

And yes, I’m ashamed to say that I might have huffed and puffed and blowed smoke right there on the soccer field in front of our friends, which was totally unacceptable and out of line. It was so nice of him to go for me and I was mostly ungrateful and rude when he gave me the twin box of Capri Suns that Spencer, once again, refused to touch.

Saturdays. Let it snow already.

Today I am supposed to be wandering around Greece and buying a great knock-off purse for the fall. But no. Instead I am listening to Strawberry Shortcake entertain Georgia while I get up the courage to go gut the fridges (because yes, there are two of them).

You would think that finding out on Thursday that alllllll the laundry I’d spent the week catching up on, the shiny floors that were meant to collect dust, the sparkly dress I have yet to wear and the forms I had to sign just to pull my kids out of elementary school for a family vacation would mean a total and complete shattering of my general joy and happiness.

And yet I woke up yesterday morning in my own bed, on my own birthday, and I could see that the sun might actually make it’s way through the stuffed up skies and perhaps–just maybe–shed a little light on my birthday. So I did what every smart birthday girl does: I pulled on my favorite leggings, opted to leave my bra on the dresser, did not fix my unruly mop but let it air dry before stuffing it under my favorite hat, popped in my go-to earrings, boots and new Pashmina scarf my girlfriend Audra had her husband send all the way from Turkey (seriously, how could the day go wrong?), and I let my husband and kids whisk me away for Plan B.

It was the best day ever.

Honestly, how can I complain about missing Italy when I spent the day in Belgium and Luxembourg doing one of my favorite things ever: wandering through a flea market looking at old junk.

We drove an hour and a half to Arlon, Belgium and spent a good two hours winding through the streets at one of the best flea markets I’ve ever seen. Lots of little stuff, old stuff, junky stuff etc. We always give the kids 2 euro a piece to spend and it kept them mostly entertained. I was on the hunt for one thing; a really great door knocker to put in my house someday.

Here’s the photo parade. Jason let me meander at whatever pace I wanted and kept the kids out of my way.

Rex has been looking for “Steve” for his Halloween costume. He’s going to be the dude from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. 

Loved this guy. I have a thing for Organ Grinders and he was fabulous. The girls gave him some change and danced to “Rock Around the Clock.”

And yes, Georgia looks very…not cute. It was my birthday and she surprised me by “dressing herself.” We just roll with it around here. Harry came home with 2 euro in his pocket because he couldn’t find anything we could agree on. This is his can-I-please-buy-an-old-rusty-knife-I-promise-I-won’t-stab-my-sister look.

I wandered into this little shop that was playing the most enchanting french music and this little darling teapot asked to go home with me. They wanted 20 euro for it, I bought it for 10. It was kind of one of those moments when I had to pinch myself that we live here. I can still hear the music and smell the antiques…

I love watching people at these places, then taking stalker-like photos of them while I pretend to delete something from my camera.

Accordians. They were everywhere.

I would really like to load a photo of my kids waiting for me so you can see how miserable they were. The pic won’t stick but suffice it to say it was not all fun and games while Mother rummaged.

We looked down the last stretch of vendors and the kids were literally melting and trying to pee in the street. But in two hours I hadn’t seen a single door knocker that I wanted, I couldn’t go back. So they parked at the top of the hill and I quickly skipped down through the vendors…and there it was. Waiting for me. And the photo won’t load. Gah.

It’s my anniversary. But apparently, due to our upcoming vacation-that-probably-won’t-happen-and-I-blame-the-president we are celebrating my birthday today. On my wedding anniversary.

I cannot let today sneak by without some kind of parade of sorts, even if it just happens here on my little old blog. Because 14 years is something to jump around about, you know? And he, that man of mine, the one I usually can’t get enough of and choose over our kids every single time (they hate it), he makes me want to buy Hallmark cards, write Hallmark cards, and reinvent the cliche one sappy poem at a time–I will spare you this year’s potentially inappropriate anniversary limerick.

Instead, here is a parade of wedding photos. Best day of my life, hands down. A big massive thank you to our parents and family members for making such a wonderful day happen, it was beautiful and so full of love I still can’t contain the hot spot in my heart when I look at these. This right here was the first day of the rest of my life, finally scanned onto the computer and retouched a bit. Pre-digital photography, you know.

Jason my love, if you ever check my blog and happen upon these photos, thank you. Thank you for the best 14 years of a girl’s life, for every dish you’ve washed and diaper you’ve changed, for hardly ever making me take the trash out and mowing the lawn every week without being asked even when I wanted you to hang out with me instead. Thank you for being the responsible one, the cute one, the guy who still looks great in a pair of jeans going south. I still love the sound of your car pulling into the driveway and still want to fix my makeup before I bring you lunch.

Baby, you are the real deal. Happy anniversary.

You know how sometimes you have days where all you want to do is sit around with a Dr. Pepper 10 and study horse classifieds from across the world? This is that day.

Since we are moving to Vegas next year and will hopefully–someday–in the next ten years or less–move home to what we affectionately refer to as The Back 10 because we can’t think of a fancier name for our Someday Farm in Washington, we have decided it’s probably wise for us to start schooling our kids (and Jason) in Farmish type stuff.

Like horses. Oh yes, we are going to have horses.

This comes as quite a shock to me since as a kid I was potentially the worst horse owner on the face of the planet. My horse kind of hated me. I can’t blame him, you would too if your chubby 13-year-old owner would make you stand still while she took running pot shots at you to try and “master” the art of jumping on your bare back. He was old, he was crotchety, and while he was lovely to look at we made a really, really terrible pair.

This did not stop me from riding him when it suited my social life, but it did stop me from riding him because we loved each other.

But I did get a nice background in basic horsemanship and 4H, something we want our kids to learn. Of course, I paid far more attention to my show outfits than I did to learning to ride my horse (I might have almost plowed down a judge one year in my bareback class but my green pants were wicked). We didn’t get a whole lot of parental support or supervision in the horse department (the costumes, yes) although I’m eternally grateful we were allowed to have the opportunity even if it wasn’t something our parents particularly enjoyed or paid attention to. Their support came in “go feed the horses” lectures and really great western show wear.

But I have recently discovered a secret about my husband: he is dying to learn about horses. This might have something to do with our really cool German neighbor and his horse or the fact that Jason should have been born in a barn. Either way the man is a natural with animal husbandry (he did marry me) and such a worker bee. He is fascinated by just about every aspect of hobby farming that comes up, particularly horses.

And so we are going to start riding lessons at the end of the month for Rex and Jason. We’ve been looking for a good sport for Rex that doesn’t involve balls or running or other people, and when Jason suggested this it was an instant light bulb for both of us. Jason found an excellent barn with an American riding instructor my girlfriend has been using for the past year so we’re going to give it a go and rotate the kids through.

Let me tell you, it’s the perfect distraction from dishes and laundry. I could watch jumper ponies on youtube for hours.

You know how sometimes you use gentle manipulation, like threatening to kill your kid’s fish, in order to get them to obey? Not serious manipulation just the little stuff like, “Well if you’re not willing to empty the trashes then I guess I’d better flush your fish down the toilet.” And because you are mostly good about follow-through (and because your kid is clinically anxious) it always works?

That’s all fine and good, but let me tell you it really stinks when you accidentally KILL THE FISH.

Poor Rex. He worked sooo hard for Dorothy and Sun Ray, and they were the cutest fish in the world. The day we got them he literally spent six hours “getting to know them,” sat by the tank and talked to them and watched them and thought about them and drew pictures for them, kept kicking his siblings out so he and his fish could have “a little privacy.” I love that kid.

And then his mother cleaned the fish tank.

The first time I cleaned it we had no problems; I apparently did it right. The second time I cleaned it I thought to myself, “Gee, I should take a little Dawn to those rocks and scrub them up good. So I did. I poured dish soap all over them and scrubbed off the algae until they were nice and clean, then I put them back in the tank and put the fresh water in. No problem.

Five minutes after I cleaned the tank I googled it and noticed that it did say to never, ever use soap and boil the rocks instead. But whatever, goldfish are hardy, right? And don’t they use Dawn on penguins?

“Mom!” Rex said a few days later, “Something is wrong with Sun Ray! He’s not feeling good, I can tell! He didn’t do his morning dance when we turned on the light!”

Like any good parent I promptly ignored it. Rex told me his fish were sick every single day for five days and I had no idea what to do.

The fish were dead within the week. They died a slow, miserable death and it was seriously depressing. It was like watching a cancer patient. Why didn’t I do something about it? Because I was in denial until the morning I found them floating in the tank.

We meant to have a funeral for the fish. My kids are good at dead animal funerals. I left the back door open last week and a bird flew into the room and promptly died on the carpet. Not sure what to say about that. Not sure why he picked that place. But he must have wanted a grand exit because the kids came home from school, carted him into the woods and had a funeral service for him.

“How’d it go?” I asked Harry when he came stomping inside.

“Not good!” He was huffing mad.

“Why not good? Did you have trouble digging the hole?”

“No! The little kids were so irreverent! I was trying to say a prayer and they kept running in circles and didn’t pay any attention! They were so inappropriate!”

Inappropriate is possibly my favorite parenting word and when I hear one of my children utter it a little spark jumps in my heart, like I’ve succeeded at something.

The goldfish have been sitting in a shoebox outside the house for a week and a half because I can’t bear to flush them and haven’t made the kids go bury them. I know, it’s so inappropriate.

“I hated it.”

That’s right. First words out of her mouth when she got off the bus. Really? Seriously? Is this what I have to look forward to? We hurried home and I gave her a snack before launching into the first-day-of-school play by play. Blood sugar fortification, you know.

“Baby, what happened?”

“Well, there is this girl, Haley, she’s actually six even though I’m only five and, well, she doesn’t like me.”–Welcome to the world, Baby Girl–“Today we were walking in line and I tripped and fell down kind of into her or on top of her, I can’t really remember, but then she was like, ‘Get away from me!’ I felt so bad and I tried to apologize…and then later she told me that my new shoes weren’t as cute as her new shoes and that actually, they were stupid.”

What do you say to that? This is what I have to look forward to? Thirteen years of “she hates my shoes”? I remember spending a ridiculous amount of my childhood trying to get the not-so-nice girls to like me. It gave me stomach aches and anxiety when what I really should have done was ignore them and look for someone who needed a friend. So that’s what I went with.

“Look babe, you do not have to play with people who aren’t kind to you. If she says something that hurts your feelings, just smile and walk away.”

June got a perplexed look on her face. “You mean…like an evil smile?”

Yeah. Add an evil cackle and spit at her while you’re at it. “No! Just a nice smile. A Jesus smile.”

“Oh. Right.”

The next day I was on pins and needles waiting to see what the daily report would be. As soon as June was settled at the table with her snack I approached. “Well? How was today? How was Haley?”

Her happy expression instantly darkened–a little too instantly. “She was mean to me,” sniff “and she said I’m stupid and that…she hates me.”

I’ve known this kid for five years and probably a lot longer than that and I can sniff out a lie from a mile away. “Really? Hmm, well I had better call Ms. Greer right now and talk to her about it.”

June’s wounded expression flattened.”I’m just kidding. We played house and she was the kitty.”

Sooo much to look forward to.