And it's blogging!

Had to take a writing break during Spring Break, y'all. I was busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest (or, conversely, busier than a one-armed paper-hanger). It was all of my own doing, though, and it was all fun stuff. As I have fondly pointed out several times to various people, it wasn't simply having the kids around all day every day that wore me out. It was the punishing schedule o' fun which I, myself, had devised.

We made one overnight trip and three day trips over the course of the ten days the kids were off school. The first weekend we all went up to Oklahoma City. Robert and the older kids went to the state high school basketball tournament at the fairgrounds while Eliza and I did some shopping. That evening we had dinner in Bricktown, followed by a carriage ride. We stayed the night at the downtown Sheraton. The next day we went to the OKC Zoo and then Robert left from there to go back to work and the kids and I headed home.

Day trip #1 was a visit to Norman where we saw both the Little River Zoo and the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History -- well, part of it. We arrived late in the day, not long before closing time, so we really only had a chance to see the kids' favorite exhibit (dinosaurs/prehistoric animals). Since we're members, though, it wasn't a big deal as it means we didn't pay for tickets only to see 1/4 of the museum. Day trip #2 was the Orr Family Farm in Moore, followed by a road trip up to Pops Diner & Soda Ranch where we tried a number of different types of soda. (And also where Eliza spewed, Exorcist-style, all over herself and me. Fun!) Our third and final destination, on the last day of vacation, was Arbuckle Wilderness. We landed there on a perfect day to go -- partly cloudy and cool enough that the animals were out in force, mugging unwary passersby for food pellets.

If all of that wasn't enough we also did three theme days at home. These were days when our snacks, games, activities, videos and books all revolved around a particular theme. First up was Beach Day. I cleaned up and filled the sandbox and the kids had a seashell hunt in it. They wore their swim suits all day, ate cereal out of buckets and lots more. Next was Pirate Day, complete with a treasure hunt for a "real" treasure chest filled with booty (golden dollars, shiny beaded necklaces and gold- and silver-wrapped candies). Lastly there was China Day, for which Robert took the older kids (Eliza was home recovering from her sickness) to lunch at a Chinese restaurant, which they'd never tried before.

All in all I'd have to say that the theme days were more work! With the trips all I had to do was get everyone dressed, throw them in the car and drive to the location. The theme days required a lot of prep and setup and involvement (not to mention clean up!) from me. And we didn't even get to do everything I had planned. I still have crafts and activities and an entire theme day (Space Day) which we didn't have time to do. We did have a lot of fun so I will probably be doing more theme days over the summer; however, I'm going to go a lot easier on the schedule. I'm thinking maybe one a week would be manageable. I'd actually like to try to go even heavier on the saturation for the particular day and bring in some more educational elements. Another thing I'll do is try to have a lot of prep done ahead of time. Our packed schedule didn't really allow me to get anything ready beforehand so a lot of our day was wasted while I got things together.

At any rate, I think Spring Break was a resounding success. I wanted to look back on the week and not feel as though we'd wasted our vacation doing the same boring crap we do every other day, and I think I achieved that. It seemed like a nice, long holiday, too, rather than the days all blending together and seeming to zoom by. We didn't go any further than 100 miles from home but I think the kids would agree it was a fun ten days and I now have a blueprint for future school vacations when we won't be traveling.

In closing, please be sure to check out our pictures from the week. Just click the slideshow over on the left to be taken to the Picasa album.

Hang with me! We're busy, busy this week with all our Spring Break plans. Will be around more often as the vacation starts to wind down.

It was a week in the making but I finally sorted it all out. Here is our schedule for Spring Break this year.

3/13: Date Night - Kids to Kidz Night Out @ Nazarene Church.

3/14: Oklahoma City. Some family members to state HS basketball tournament. Dinner in Bricktown, followed by carriage ride. Stay night at downtown Sheraton.

3/15: Oklahoma City Zoo.

3/16: Beach Day. Activities include wearing swim suits all day, beach ball games, making paper plate fish and sand art, playing in the sandbox, a seashell hunt (in sandbox), and beach bingo. Food will be blue Jell-O cups with gummy fish, Sand Cake, cereal eaten out of buckets and fishy snack mix (with Goldfish, gummies, etc.) - all eaten sitting on beach towels! We will also watch some ocean-themed DVDs to be determined and read some books on the subject.

3/17: Little River Zoo and Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in Norman.

3/18: Pirate Day. Activities are wearing pirate hats and pirate tattoos, hunting for a treasure chest (which will be filled with candy and golden dollars) and playing with a pirate-themed mini sandbox (plus a few other things may be added later). So far the only food planned is drumsticks; will add some other things we can eat with our hands and maybe a fun dessert. We will be viewing The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything and perhaps something else, as well, and reading pirate books.

3/19: Arbuckle Wilderness and picnic by Turner Falls.

3/20: China Day. Activities will be a chopstick competition, as well as making Chinese bracelets, signs and suncatchers. We will have lunch at a Chinese restaurant, since the kids have never been. We'll read some books and watch some videos (Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat, Ni-Hao Kai Lan).

3/21: Orr Family Farm in Oklahoma City.

3/22: Space Day. Activities include making an Alka-Seltzer rocket, some sand art pictures and abstract planet Earth art using crayon shavings, plus Pop Goes the Planet (popping balloons using the sun and a magnifying glass). Food hasn't been determined yet but I do have space-themed paper plates to eat from, and we will watch Space Buddies and read space-related books.

And then it will be back to school, fun's over. Well, at least until the following weekend when we take off to Tulsa for a couple days for Eliza's birthday. :)

I am getting so tired of being "that person." You know the one -- the one who always has some crisis or another coming up. The one who can't get anything done without there being some problem. The one who's always got something to bitch about, or stress about. I know people are tired of hearing about it. Believe me, it's nothing compared to how tired I am of talking about and reporting it. I just want to be a normal family; a family with no weird job situations, no uncertainty about where we'll be living or working six months from now. A family with two cars that are ours and that work and that we pay for every month and then don't have to think about much outside of that. Really, shouldn't two people of our advanced ages be pretty much settled by now? Why are we always with the drama? It makes me start wondering how much of it is truly bad luck and how much of it is actually self-inflicted. I can't tell any more. We are obviously doing some things wrong, but is it ALL our fault? Do we really have a black (or at least dark gray) cloud following us? Or are we just useless at being grownups?

(If you are unaware of the back story regarding our Dodge van, check out the category "Why Dodge Sucks" in the pull-down menu on the left. Also realize that the most recent problems we had with it are not recorded there so the situation is even worse than what's been written here.)

I would like to take this opportunity to announce our salvation from automobile Hell. We've been redeemed, we've seen the light and now walk in the ways of our Asian brethren, who have a tendency to eat weird shit with tentacles and eyeballs but know how to make a damned fine car, praise Jesus and hallelujah.

Thanks to some inspired and determined work on behalf of my husband, the following things happened in the space of two days last weekend:

*Robert visited the local Nissan dealership and they cut him the deal of the century, taking both his trashed Oldsmobile Alero (Trade-in value: $100. Pay-off: $1900) and the non-working van (on which was owed $400 just for the labor it had taken to figure out they didn't know how to fix it) and giving him an '07 Nissan Sentra in trade. Folks, they paid off the Alero and the repair ticket on the van, which they are towing down here to auction. All told we, for all intents and purposes, were given over $4000 for the van....the van which does not currently run and may, quite possibly, never run again. Robert's payments on the Sentra are actually about $70 less than what he was paying on his previous car and both our crappy cars are now someone else's problem.

*Next, we located a Honda Odyssey at the Carmax in Tulsa. The price was more than fair and included tag, title and tax. Robert went up to look at it on Saturday and bought it on the spot. And, get this: they financed us at a 4% better interest rate than we'd have paid if we'd used the Capital One check we intended to use! The van is very nice. It's got leather and an in-dash touchscreen GPS system. It does have a little over 60k miles on it but 60k on a Honda is like 20k on an American-made car. I can put another 100k on it if I want to and it shouldn't give me a bit of trouble.

And so, just like that, our car woes are over. It's been a long time coming. We sold my 4Runner in the summer of 2005. I was without a vehicle (this would qualify as a woe) for nine months. Then we got the van and had consistent problems with it (approximately every 2-3 months) for the entire time we've owned it. So I've been toasting my feet over the pit of vehicular Hades for close to four years now. My friends and family got sick of hearing about it. I'm sure everyone online got sick of hearing about it. You can be assured that, no matter how sick of it anyone else was, their disgust paled in comparison to how sick and freaking tired I was of it all. And now, poof. It's over. I can walk out the door at any time I wish and go where I need to go. My vehicle will start and it will take me where I want to go and, most likely, will not die in intersections (or anywhere else). I'm a free woman, and not only that, it's a pretty nice set of wheels, too. You know.....for a mini van.

Some might wonder about the wisdom of making this deal. You see, we will still be paying for the van for quite some time to come. Fortunately we are blessed in that the source of the loan for the van has given us low payments and exceedingly generous terms. But it is still a payment we have to make every month on a vehicle we no longer possess. So let's look at our two other options for a moment.

I miss California all the time; it's pretty much a constant. However, I miss it more at certain times than others. After just having returned from a trip out there I'm good for a while. It's not that I don't miss it (or wouldn't go back immediately if given the chance); it's just I've had a taste of it and can get by on that for a while. The further away from my most recent trip I get, the more I start missing it. At around the 3-4 month mark it starts becoming a daily thought, rather than my being able to go for days or a week or more without thinking much about it. Then I get to a point where I start seeing familiar places in California in my head -- usually without bidding. I'll be going about my business and, suddenly, my parents' living room will pop into my head, or a picture of driving down the highway between Atascadero and Paso Robles (which I do a LOT when I'm out there), or some other location or activity. It has been a little over three months since I was last there and I know I'm reaching that point again because I just had a flash of the inside of Albertson's (where I do my grocery shopping in Atascadero) and then one of the town's main street outside of Albertson's.

The really crummy part is it's going to be another thee months before we get out there. I fully intended to go for spring break this month but, typically, it's not going to happen. All I can do is hold out for summer and hope I have enough going on here to keep me semi-distracted until then. I would love it if we could stay even a little longer than we normally do but I have to figure out, number one, how to cut costs so it's more affordable and, number two, how to do this without driving my dad crazy. There's always the option of Robert and I taking the kids away for a few days to give my dad a break, but then we run into the problem of incurring more expense that way. Perhaps I can come up with something, though. It would be nice to be there four weeks, with Robert coming out to join us for two weeks right around the middle of the trip. Heck, if he did that we'd actually see him more in those four weeks than we do in any given normal four-week period in Oklahoma. (That's really sad.)

Until then I'll be here imagining myself in the place I love.