You know you're super hormonal when...

I probably just scared off any guys that thought about reading this post.

Today I watch The Incredibles with my kids. If you haven't seen it, you can read the summary on imdb here. I've seen this movie several times. I owned it before I was even pregnant for the first time. It's not like I didn't know what was going to happen. But from the very beginning, I was getting all weepy and holding back tears. This happened pretty much through the whole thing, but especially whenever the kids were in danger. Yeah, teh hormones. I haz them bad.

I'm so frustrated by my seeming lack of ability to get things done. I have a big batch of peach applesauce I need to make. It's going to taste amazing. You know, when I do it, and I need to before the peaches go bad. But I have to clean the kitchen better than I have been. Which is to say, I need to do more than just dishes. Every time I start to make some sort of solid plan for anything (not just applesauce, but trying to incorporate any sort of routine into our lives), it's like my brain starts switching through radio stations. I haven't made a meal plan in I don't even know how long. All areas of my life are being affected at this point. Well, that isn't a hard thing considering that I really only have one area of my life.

I don't like the medication route, but I'm trying it because I don't know what else to do. So far it hasn't helped at all. So that's encouraging.

I'm not sure what else to write about tonight. My kids are still up, and they need to go to bed. I need to put them to bed. *sigh* Why does putting kids to bed have to be so hard? Okay, I have nothing else to relate right now.

Doing Things

I should be asleep. I stay up way too late virtually every night. I can't even really say why I do it except that I find so many things I want to read on the internet, and I fall into a worm hole that immediately spits me out four hours later. But really! I only read a couple of blogs! Okay, so that part isn't true. Don't you know that no one has discovered worm holes yet? Seriously, don't talk to people about that part. I don't need that kind of media buzzing around here. My house just isn't drop in ready.

Speaking of which, I've been struggling so much with my house lately, and I haven't been able to understand it. I finally feel like I have a handle on my depression. And well, I think I have for a while now. However, I am still so chronically disorganized and a mess. A hot mess. I'm tired of having stuff everywhere, but I just can't force my arms and legs to move about and do something about it. I can read about organizing and cleaning and that kind of stuff all day long. And I have. Well, figuratively. Most of my day is spent feeding three little boys with bottomless pits for stomachs.

Anyway, my sister mentioned that she might possibly have ADHD, and she sent me an online questionnaire about it. I took it and scored pretty high. So I talked to my counselor and my psychiatrist (two of the reasons I have a handle on my depression now), and they're like, oh yeah, it does sound like you probably have that. So it's kind of nice to know that there's a reason for this kind of 'doing' paralysis. I didn't really know it was a thing that happened to other people. And of course, it's other things, too. I won't bother typing it all out because is that really necessary? Let's just say I have a lot of the symptoms. But now I have to approach the 'doing' things from a different way. I have to change my thought patterns and learn new coping skills. And I hate it. It's annoying. It would be a lot easier if I could just be normal, right? But it also feels like a breakthrough for me because I feel like maybe my life can be different, and I can get my crap together. Because I really really need to get my crap together.

Dog Days of Summer

Let me tell you something about me. 

I am a sucker.

Seriously. My husband has been wanting another dog for a long time- long before Buddy died. I have not wanted another dog for a long time, and in fact, I told him I didn't want anymore dogs after our dogs died. I wanted to get some goats and chickens. I said this often enough that Ben started telling everyone that this was my desire. To complete strangers, he would say, "When my dogs die, Mommy wants goats and chickens." This is how much I decided not to get any more dogs.

I love dogs. I think they're great, but what I don't like is cleaning up after them. I don't like the hair everywhere, invading every part of my life. I don't like the stinky farts. I don't like cleaning up poop in the yard. I don't like realizing we've run out of dog food and having to make a special trip to get some. I don't like barking or slobbering or noses in my butt. 

Buddy spent a lot of his life with his eyes closed

But(t). I am weak. My loves are stronger than the don't likes. Annie has been clingy for a while. Since about a month before Buddy died, she's been following me all around the house and just parking herself wherever I am. It sounds kind of annoying, but it's comforting to me to have her around. She's so much calmer than she used to be, and she's so loving. She's been lonely since Buddy's been gone. She's had some separation anxiety, and it shows because she's been raiding the trash can when we leave. She doesn't leave evidence inside if she can avoid it, but I always find the trash outside, which is one of my don't likes. It's tough to lose part of your family, though. I know she's probably stressed because she doesn't understand why he never came back. 

Annie and Chris' shoe

I think about all the times I was just so fed up with the dogs while Chris was in Iraq, and I was just ready to post an ad on Craigslist and get rid of them. My ever shrinking (at the time) soft spot for them always won out. Well, that and my sense of responsibility as a pet owner. It was really hard to take care of them and three kids two and under at the same time. I'm glad I didn't snap and find new homes for them. 

Chris was looking at the dogs on the Boise Humane Society's website yesterday and telling me about the different dogs he liked, so of course, I had to pull up the site to look to. Then we looked at the Canyon County Animal Shelter's site, which is closer to home. Both shelters had a Basset Hound, even though that's not necessarily what we were looking for in a dog (Buddy was also a Basset Hound). We decided among the many other errands I had to run that we'd go to the closer shelter to see some dogs, partially to keep the kids happy while we were out. I didn't really have any intention of bringing home a dog yet.

The first dog we looked at was the Basset, Duke. He was so cute, and his coloring was the same as Buddy's. He was very playful with the kids. He exuded the Basset Hound personality. He did the regal derp, which happens almost every time a Basset is paying attention to something. It looks like this, and it's funny every time.

Photo credit: The Daily Puppy

At one point Chris called him buddy (which is his default name for all dogs and children), and I actually got a little misty eyed. Then we looked at a Rhodesian Ridgeback, General Lee. He seemed to be well tempered, but when we took him outside, he immediately ran around and found a spot to pee, and he did pee for what felt like ten minutes. Then he ran to find another spot and pooped. Then he ran to another spot and pooped again. Then he ran to another spot and pooped again. He finally came over to us for a bribe of a dog bone. He was nice, but....maybe it wasn't the best time for him to shine. I didn't feel any sparks. Then we looked at a cute little boxer mix, Tioga. She was sweet and unfortunately formerly abused. She was only a year and a half, but you could tell she'd had a litter of puppies already. The girl helping us with the dogs told us they knew her history back to when she was a year old, so they knew she'd had the puppies before she was a year old. She was very timid among my boisterous boys. I think she would have been swallowed by the chaos in my house. 

Sometime during this, while Logan, Ben, and I were waiting outside for Chris and Bruce to bring out another dog, Logan found a very muddy puddle and took a fall right onto his back. Thankfully, it was only up to his shirt, but he was soooo muddy. And it was hilarious to him, of course. Then he spent the rest of the time trying to get me to pick him up, which I eventually without thinking did.

We looked at some puppies, but I definitely knew I did not want a puppy. They're cute, but they're so much work. Maybe someday, but for now, no. Mostly, I wanted all the dogs to have happy homes. It's sad to see so many sweet dogs destined to be euthanized. It's so so so sad. We left without a dog, but Chris was giving me the "I really want a dog face" in the car. I thought about how lonely Annie was. But I also thought about cleaning up dog hair and picking up poop because I'm usually the one who does both. I thought about how empty it seems without two dogs around. So I made Chris a deal. We would have rotating schedules of scooping poop. He agreed to it, we turned around, and we took this guy home.

Derping regally requires a lot of sleeping in between, preferably on the furniture when the big people aren't looking

His first act of business as the new Basset Hound of the house was to steal Chris' cheeseburger when he was tending to the kids (I was out running the rest of my errands). He is seriously so much like Buddy. 

Fee Fi Foe Fum

I sat here trying to think of an accompanying phrase to the title here, but I'm drawing up blanks. You will find that the Bekah that exists here before you now is missing at least half of the brain she had when she last posted a year and a half ago. Chris might argue that I never had a whole brain in the beginning.

Seriously, yall. I cannot believe I have not posted to my blog in a year and a half. I mean, how have you all been spending your lives without knowing what I'm doing all the time?! Oh yeah, I think I'm related to or friends with all of my readers, so... you see me on facebook. But in the off chance you are a reader that I don't know personally (for one thing, I love you- I'll just get that out of the way now), I know that this year and a half of silence has been devastating for you. I'm so sorry.

Obviously, I am alive. Thankfully, my family is, too. So I won't bore you with what's been going on for the last year and a half. Things are the same except the boys have all gotten bigger. Well, they've all grown developmentally, too. I guess not all of our family is still with us. Our sweet stinky Basset Hound, Buddy, had to be put down about a month ago. He was seven and a half years old. His health problems had accumulated to the point of him not being able to see, hear, or hardly smell, and he had a huge ruptured cyst on his side that was quickly on its way to infection. Even if we had managed to get that one healed up, another one had started growing on his back, and he had so many other problems. It was still a difficult decision to make. I feel bad that we lied to Ben and told him Buddy died on his own, but he didn't. We didn't want Ben to think that we killed his dog for no reason. He's not quite old enough to grasp the concept of putting an animal out of its misery. We'll tell him when he's older and he understands, though. I don't like keeping things like that from him.

This year, I've gotten really into my garden. I tried gardening a few years ago, and it was an utter failure. My dogs lay in the garden beds all over the plants. Buddy liked to eat the plants. I had false morning glory growing up all over everything and pulling it down. Oh, and I'm terrible at watering plants sufficiently. It was a spectacular failure. Every year since then (well, except the year Chris was gone), I've planned on putting up a fence to keep dogs and kids out of the garden when I'm not out there. I finally did it. It's a cheap crappy wire fence, but it works. I built it with me own two hands. Then I discovered that my garden beds were completely overrun with ants. I tore out the old rotting wooden beds and built new ones out of cedar pickets like so: http://ana-white.com/2010/05/hack-natural-rustic-cedar-raised-beds.html. Although, mine aren't quite as gorgeous because this was actually my first ever successful wood building project. They get the job done, though. I also attached pvc hoop frames like this: http://groworganic.com/organic-gardening/articles/how-to-make-a-hoophouse-on-a-raised-bed.

As far as the ants go- I was able to plant and everything in one bed without them totally getting in the way or me getting bitten too much. The other bed was really bad, though. I couldn't stick a spade in the dirt without an eruption of ants overwhelming everything. I ordered some very expensive organic broad spectrum pesticide and sprayed the crap out of the bed. It worked very nicely, and I was able to finish filling the bed the rest of the way and plant. As of right now, ants are back again, but I'm not as worried about it now. I do have a few more things to plant in that bed, but I don't think the ants will be back in full force by the time I plant them. Maintaining the plants doesn't require disruption of the soil, so the ants won't be a problem if they get really bad again. Well, not until next year, anyway. Mostly, I am grateful that we don't have fire ants here. That would cause a real problem. What I need, though, is some sort of beneficial insect that eats ants. I can't do the pesticide often because it'll kill all the good bugs like the ton of black beetles I have hanging out in there. Also, when all the insects are killed in an area, it's prime space for more ants to move in because there's no competition. I seriously don't know how to win against those things. I'm going to be in trouble if they start farming aphids on my plants.

I've also solved my poor watering problem with a drip irrigation system. It took a lot of time and effort to set it up and numerous trips to Home Depot, but it's keeping the plants alive and happy, so that's good. I still have to put up a couple of trellises (made of pvc) and start training my tomatoes to climb them. Oh, and I need to get some stuff for a cage for my zucchinis. I hope I actually get some produce out of my garden this year. I will be so bummed if I put all this work in for nothing.

As far as everything else goes, I am full of demotivation. I could be on a demotivational poster. You wouldn't even need a caption. Just me with a frizzy ponytail and sweat pants. I find it very difficult to do anything that I am not interested in doing. It sounds lazy, but I don't think I'm lazy. I have to clothe, feed, and generally care for three children. I spend a lot of time doing something. And these things I'm not interested in doing are things that I want to do. Like cleaning. But it doesn't happen unless someone is coming over, and then it's really done just hastily right before they get here. It's a problem that I hope to solve at some point. I need a clean house, like, for reals.

Hopefully, I will remember to post more often. Remembering is the key word. I hardly ever think of my blog when I'm on the computer anymore. So we'll see.