Sundays and the Mysterious Smell!

It's Sunday morning and the devil is at our house like he is every Sunday morning. Cohen, the 4 y.o. wants to play playstation instead of getting ready for church, Taegan, the 3 y.o. is having a mental breakdown over which dress to wear. I'm not even gonna talk about how long it took her to pick out shoes once she finally picked a dress. My 13 y.o. niece Tiara, who spent the night with us like she does almost every weekend, is still asleep and I cannot get her to get up and get in the shower. Jason, the husband, is wondering if we can be out the door in 20 minutes, and I haven't even had my shower yet! To make a long story short, Jason and the kids left for Sunday school while I finished getting ready and enjoyed my diet Mtn. Dew in peace. While enjoying that rare peaceful moment I get a whiff of this indescribable smell that I have been smelling off and on for about three days. I make a mental note to self to go back through the house when I get home from church to see if I can track down the air poison!

Sunday school, children's church, and regular church all go well. Great message, praises to God, and no major meltdowns from the kids. Although Cohen did make not one, but two little girls cry before we get out of the church parking lot. He loves to tackle! Taegan is getting tired and just wants to go eat lunch. Off we go on our usual Sunday lunch outing. We eat at a local restaurant with the preacher and his family and usually about 15 other friends from church. This is always a blessed time of fellowship with other Christian families whom we love dearly. Both the kids were absolute angels through the meal. No fighting, screaming, or throwing food. Thank you Lord!
So we return home and I resume my quest to find THE SMELL. I checked all of the usual offending odor origins. It wasn't the diaper pails anymore since we are now diaper free in my house! It wasn't underneath the 4 y.o. boy's bed. He has a habit of bringing outdoor "friends" (e.g. lizards, frogs, bugs) to live with us in a shoe box underneath his bed. Keep in mind he very rarely tells me when he does this and he almost always forgets about them. Needless to say, we have our own pet cemetery behind our house. That's another blog in it's self! Anyway, that wasn't the offending smell.....this time. It wasn't even one of the many fermented juice sippy cups that I often find lurking under or behind something. I know, I know, Martha Stewart would be very disappointed in my house keeping skills! But hey, I do the best I can considering I work full time, have two toddlers, have a small hairbow business, and am married to a football/basketball coach(which renders me a single parent during those seasons). I looked and smelled everywhere, and still could not figure out what in world that smell was! In the meantime, my lovely husband did what any helpful husband would do. Instead of helping me pinpoint the smell he proceeded to spray a whole can of orange scented lysol throughout the house. Fabulous! Now my house smells like orange scented poo!
After the aerosol fog cleared and I could breathe again I continued my quest. In my bedroom I saw Cohen's sleeping bag neatly rolled up in the corner. I assumed Jason had rolled it up from where the kids "camped out" in our room last weekend. As I approached the sleeping bag I could tell the smell was getting stronger. I was actually afraid to open the stupid sleeping bag! Turns out I had a right to be afraid and should not have unrolled it at all, but should've taken it straight to the firepit and torched it. Apparently, eight days ago my precious son spilled a whole cup of milk on his cute spiderman sleeping bag and didn't want to get in trouble. So, he rolled the sloppy, milk soaked, fleece and vinyl sleeping bag up into a nice, neat roll and stood it up in the corner. OMG! Just thinking about it makes me gag! Now remember, I am a surgical nurse. So I see infected pus filled wounds and bloody body parts all the time. Whatever this particular mold was had lots of hair and I am pretty sure it had legs and a heartbeat and smelled worse than ANYTHING I have ever smelled! After a couple of shrieks/screams and more than a couple dry heaves, my husband came to my rescue and took the newly living sleeping bag for a good disinfecting. Meanwhile both my children are laughing their heads off at my reaction to THE GROWTH! So, I did what any good mother would do...I told them both if they spilled anything on sheets, furniture, etc... and left it again without telling me or daddy that the germs could not be washed out, no matter how much soap and water we used, and that the germs would rot our skin off. Take that Martha Stewart!
We return to church for night services without incident. Back at home we are all tired from another typical Sunday. We all get in our pajamas and curl up on the couch for an episode of Dora the Explorer before bedtime. With Cohen on one leg and Taegan on the other, Cohen hugs me and says he is sorry for acting bad and he loves me. This prompts Taegan to hug me and tell me she loves me more than Cohen does. At that moment all was right with the world and I felt truly blessed! I can't think of anything in this world that a hug and an I love you won't make better.

Goodbyes

Those of you who know me know my family has had to say enough goodbyes this year. My mother died suddenly in April. Then three weeks later my dad passed as well. It has been the hardest and most eye opening time of my life. I miss them so much everyday and it's very hard to explain to my three and four year olds where "mamaw and papaw" are. I tell them they are in heaven with God, but sometimes the questions that come along with that are impossible to answer on a toddler level. Yet, in this time of grieve and a deep longing just to talk to them one last time, has come a greater appreciation for the small things in life that I used to take for granted everyday. On my long drives to work I take a second and take in the splendor of a beautiful sunrise instead of cursing under my breath at traffic. Or, I stay in the kids' rooms an extra five minutes just to watch their little faces light up as they tell me a story or sing me an extra song, when before I just wanted them to go to bed so I could have some "me" time. Through this loss, I have learned that God is the great comforter and that tomorrow is not guaranteed. I try to let everyone I know how much I love them and appreciate them. For all of you who have stood by me and supported me thus far, thank you! Your love and kindness and the grace of God has kept me from losing my sanity. Also, I wanted to ask everyone to pray for Dr. John Franklin's family this week. He is a plastic surgeon that I work with who was killed in a tragic car accident yesterday. He has two sons and three grandchildren who need all the love they can get. He will be missed not only in the medical community, but as a friend and a brother in Christ. See you on the other side Dr. Franklin! Tell Mom, Dad, and Bridget I said hello and we miss them more than words can say! That meeting in air will be sooo sweet!

Got gas?

O.k. I am totally new to this blogging thing, so I will try not to rant too much this go-around. I just want to know where has all the gas gone? I realize my family and I do live in a VERY rural area, but come on... I went to five, yes five different gas stations this morning and they were all completely out of gas! At the sixth gas station they did have the premium gas that now costs a gazillion dollars a gallon! To my disgust, I paid the cashier a crisp twenty dollar bill for 4.5 gallons of gas-UGGGH! Seriously, if one small (category 2) hurricane is going to cause this much trouble with our economy what in the world is going to happen if something MAJOR happens. It's all really scary to me. My husband, the high school economy teacher, tells me this is a simple supply and demand issue. He says that "IKE" threatened the supply, people panicked, and the demand went up immediately, all causing gas prices to rise. I understand all that, but IKE wasn't near as bad as predicted and we have all that "emergency" stockpiled oil here in the US. So can anyone tell me what the problem is? And really, is Sand Mountain going to get a gas delivery anytime in the near future? O.k. now that I got all of that out of my system I would like to say that I am very thankful to the good Lord above that IKE was not as bad as predicted, that he allowed my family and myself to see another glorious day, and that the sixth gas station did at least have SOME gas! To those of you reading this, please pray for the safety and comfort all of those who were directly affected by IKE .

Karri