I have an overactive imagination. I always have. I have to be careful what I watch or read, because it’s very easy for my mind to get carried away and before I know it, I’m in over my head.

A few weeks ago I discovered reddit. There’s a subreddit there called AskReddit, and you can go on and ask a question and random people from the internet will answer you. It’s much more anonymous than other social media outlets. The questions vary greatly from things like, “What’s the best joke you’ve ever heard?” to “What’s the worse way you could possibly die?” Last night I ran across one that asked what was the creepiest or most mysterious thing you had every experienced. I clicked on it and followed a rabbit trail I had no intention of following. For about a half hour I scrolled through story after story of peoples’ strange experiences. I’m sure a lot of them were lies, and many were alcohol or drug induced. Some seemed easily explainable and some were just downright creepy. There was one where a girl woke up in the morning from camping and was scrolling through her phone only to find pictures of herself sleeping in her tent. Another one was a man in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization, when he hears the sound of something approaching, turns around, and sees a man on a unicycle ride right past him. Some talked about how they were almost kidnapped as children. Others talked about strange noises in their houses, odd animals in the shadows, or strange lights in the sky.

When I looked up from my phone I realized that it was way past when I should have been in bed. It also occurred to me that reading those stories was probably the stupidest thing I could have done right before bedtime, especially when I was home alone. My imagination started running wild and I heard sounds that weren’t there, and suspicious shadows creeping up the walls. But, I’m a grown up and it’s silly to be nervous in my perfectly safe house, so I took a deep breath, turned off my lights, and hopped into bed. As I pulled the covers up to my neck, I chided myself for being so ridiculous.

And at that exact moment my closet door swung open with a loud, menacing screech. I jumped out of bed and screamed. I looked around for something to use as a weapon to ward off whatever monster had been hiding in the depths, and as my heart pounded and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, Molly nonchalantly walked out of the closet. Apparently I had closed the closet door, unaware that she had been napping in there. My heart was beating so fast as relief flooded my body. She had given me quite a startle and it took awhile to calm myself down enough to fall asleep!

Apparently Baby E was ‘helping’ with some painting today. Oops!

Is there anything better about childhood than building a fort?!?!

I took no pictures today. Besides my work colleagues, I saw no one. Even the cat has been hiding this evening. So, I really have nothing very interesting to report. Oh, my husband put a desk in the ‘spare’ bedroom. The desk is huge. Massive, really. It takes up most of the room. I’m currently sitting in a glider that’s too short, and lifting my arms up high to the desk to type this. Did I mention the desk is huge? It is.

The report I got said Baby E took a tumble today on a sidewalk and scraped his knee up pretty bad. Apparently he keeps forgetting about it until he tries to stand up from being down on the floor. He puts his knee to the ground and then remembers his injury. Poor kid. 😦

There was a $.03 late fee on my electricity bill this month, which is strange because we pay it automatically. Also, I got a note from my town that I have 72 hours to mow my lawn or I get a fine. My lawn is literally 5′ x 10′. 72 hours is kind of silly, they could at least give me a weekend to get it done. Umm… we work during the week. (Also, I don’t know how to turn on the lawnmower, so there’s that.) My brother in law said he would do it for me. He’s awesome. 🙂

This desk is massive.

If I stretch my arms across it, they go just past the halfway mark. I have short arms, but still.

It’s bedtime now. Goodnight!

I’ve had ample opportunity in the past several weeks to spend quite a bit of time by myself. I’m not one to enjoy being completely alone, especially for long periods of time, but it has certainly been an interesting experience. I’ve learned a lot about myself…

1. If given the opportunity, I will forgo dinner and eat frosted donettes. This is not a good thing. But it’s a think, apparently.
2. Even though I won’t cook myself dinner, I will cook… for absolutely no one and then put it in the fridge for when someone finally comes home.
3. I’ll watch and re-watch the same things over and over again. What? I’ve watched this episode of Downton Abby last week? Oh well, I’ll just watch it again.
4. I find myself sneaking into the kids’ room and staring at their empty beds.
5. I like to listen to the frogs in the marsh behind my house.
6. I barricade the front door if I know Tim isn’t coming home. After all, I’d need warning and time to arm myself should I have an intruder. 🙂
7. I talk to the cat… a lot.
8. I talk to myself… a lot.
9. I stay up way too late (probably because I’m cooking for all those invisible guests.)
10. I have every intention of watching a movie I’ve never seen, but you know…  see #3.

It’s no surprise with our hectic schedules that Tim and I getting time together is pretty scarce. Our evenings are nonexistent and our weekends are usually filled with all the things that didn’t get accomplished during the week. We try to spend as much time with the kids as possible, and that often means we forgo time for just the two of us.

As a nice gift, my sister in law and her husband offered to watch the kids today so that we could go out. We haven’t been out in ages, and at first we couldn’t decide what to do, but finally came around to going to a movie. We chose Wonder Woman and went to our local theater, which we hadn’t been to in years. After the movie, we grabbed some sushi to go, brought it back to the house, and ate a quick dinner before grabbing the kids this evening.

In the craziness of life, it is so easy to  neglect some of the most important things in our lives, but making time to invest in a marriage is absolutely critical. I don’t want to be that couple in twenty years, when our kids have moved out, and we look at each other and wonder who that stranger is. Tim’s my best friend and I am his. We plan to keep it that way. 🙂

All is right in our little world, our whole family under the same roof. I listened as Tim put the kids to bed this evening (a task I happily relinquished for a few quiet moments) and I heard them babbling away at him, each vying for his attention. And since I’ve barely seen my husband in nearly two weeks, I’m going to turn off the computer, find a movie we can both agree on, and probably pass out on the couch about 15 minutes in. 🙂

It’s been raining for the better part of forever, but this evening we finally got blue skies and nice weather so I took the kids down to the beach and the farmers market. We played in the sand, ate kettle corn, and listened to a story at the mobile library. Oh, and the kids checked in on their rock and noticed that it was still there. Maybe they ‘hid’ it too well. If it’s still there in a few days, we’ll have to move it.

We came home for a quick dinner and then it was off to bed, with promises that Daddy would be home by the time they wake up in the morning. They haven’t seen him in two weeks, so I know they are going to be excited!

The kids and I went for a walk this evening at a little fish pond park and the boardwalk near our house. While we were walking around the ponds we found one of those rocks that people have been decorating and leaving in our area. The kids were excited to hold it and quickly started scouring the ground for more as we walked. They didn’t find anymore, but they did rehide the one they had so that someone else could find it. 

We also stopped at the local candy store for some much needed jelly Bean sustenance before heading home for dinner and bedtime. 

About ten minutes after Baby E fell asleep tonight he woke up wimpering for me, so I got him from his bed and we curled up in my bed and both fell fast sleep. When I woke up it was dark outside and he was sleeping peacefully next to me. What a great end to my day! 

This guy is as stubborn as he is cute, with a scream that can break glass and a craving for donuts that is matched only by his love of lollipops. If it were up to him, he’d never wear clothes and he would live in the bathtub. He wants to do everything himself, but heaven knows we don’t have time for that. He downs chicken noodle soup, oatmeal, and pasta like we haven’t fed him in weeks and at dinner time he requires both a cup of almond milk and a cup of water. He’s impossible to put to bed, uses his head like a weapon, and refused to climb the stairs if you aren’t holding his hands. He gives kisses when you frown, gets upset if you rearrange furniture, and insists on trying on everyone else’s clothes but his own. He’s two, but claims he’s five and will hear nothing to the contrary. He responds to Goobs and calls himself a toddler, not a baby. He’s my baby, my little handsome man. 

I had never heard of Osmo before my children received one for Christmas from my sister. I’m embarrassed to say I finally took it out of the box today to see what it was. There wasn’t much information on the packaging, but I got all the pieces out and set it up. Then I went to the website and followed the instructions. It works with our iPad.

I have only set up one of the games so far, The Masterpiece game, but it allows you to look at the screen and simultaneously draw on a piece of paper. The iPad screen displays your photo or image as an outline, and you trace the lines. Because you attach a mirror contraption right to your iPad, it allows what you are drawing to be placed on the screen at the same time, so it really is like tracing, except you are watching the screen, not your hand.

That might be the worst description possible, but maybe you get the idea!

I tried it out on a couple of photos I had on my iPad of the kids and I thought the results were pretty fun.

When the kids got home from their grandparents’ house, I let them have a go at it. Big E lost interest pretty quickly, but C worked on various images that are provided within the app. She seemed to enjoy doing the animal pictures the most.

This thing really is a fun little contraption and I am looking forward to trying out the other games that came along with it!

Oh, and I am very excited that my kids are back home now. It was a long week without them (I had them one day for fireworks), and I missed them so much. Welcome home, my loves!

I bought new bed sheets the other day.

This may seem insignificant, but if you know me and my husband pretty well, you know that we don’t typically spend money on brand new things for ourselves. We spend money on food (way more than we should), and we spend money on the kids, but very little on ourselves. Most of what we own has been gifted to us through the years, and we tend to use things until they are worn out.

It’s not that we don’t like nice things, it’s that when it comes down to it, if I am standing in a store looking at a potential purchase, my mind wanders to the things that money could/should be used for if we don’t make said purchase. Every once in awhile we will be impulsive, but most of the time the item gets put back, with the idea we will get it in the near future. We never do.

The kids were away on Saturday, and I was running errands, and I came across a cute sheet set at the store and I ignored the inner monologue that constantly runs in my head. I threw them in the cart.

It’s a silly thing to make note of, really, but it’s very quiet in my house and I’m sitting on my bed staring at the cute new bedsheets, feeling like they spruced up the room and made my bedroom just a little more cozy.  🙂

So here’s to an impulse purchase now and again, especially one that isn’t for the kids! 🙂