Quick Update From a Thoroughly Haggered Woman

You're going to have to forgive my blogging habits this summer.

You see, I totally underestimated what it would take to take care of a household on my own. The laundry, the floors, the cooking; so many things I haven't had to worry my pretty little head about for eons, like:

1) my kids spilling stuff on the floor, I used to be like, "no biggie, I run a cloth over it and then the maid will mop later"

2) my kids putting practically clean clothes into the hampers-now I'm pulling stuff out like crazy to cut down on the constant stream of laundry.

3) my trash-now I've got different bins-compost, recycles, trashy trash and a designated trash day with the compost and recyclables being picked up every other week. And if I have extra trash I have to either leave it until the following week or pay extra! Never thought about these things before-I used to just stick whatever I wanted into the hall and it would disappear like magic.

4) finger prints and dirty floors as far as the eye can see.

The really bad thing about ending my overseas life with a good maid is that I want my house clean, I'm used to my house clean-I don't want to live in a sty. I even had to iron this week (gasp!). I got so used to having my shorts and jeans pressed that I had to do it. Previously my "iron" was better known as my dryer. I could probably count the number of times I have ironed in my life on one hand.

I know I'll adjust. (right?) It's got to be harder during summer as well (right?). I've got the kids home all day wanting to be entertained, there's the lawn that needs tended to, and Guapo's back in Brazil for 2 1/2 weeks. So, it can only get easier when school starts, fall comes, and Guapo's here. (right? please, please, please tell me I'm right)

Anyway. Review time.

Much Appreciated Help

Last week we had our first visitors. Guapo's brother and his two oldest boys came out to visit us for a few days just to help around the house and the yard. How awesome is that? And help they did. The biggest job they tackled was the garage which had become a veritable dump. It got to the point where I just opened the garage door from the inside of the house and would huck my garbage onto the quickly growing pile of trash and cardboard. No room for cars, bikes or anything-just trash.

Here's a before with the brothers working on taking down some of the cupboards:

The Home Depot truck they rented to take the trash to the dump (we didn't have any rope to hold stuff on, so they used some wrapping ribbon)

And my car that they used to haul the cardboard:

Here are the "afters", notice both cars parked in the garage and we have room for bikes and such:

Much, much better!

For fun they boys and the kids fished for crawfish in the lake.

Juan Carlos (7 yrs old), who is all about hunting, fishing and catching his own "meat" to feed on these days, begged to eat the crawfish that they caught. In order to realize his dream (and those of the other kids, whom he had gotten excited about his plan), Guapo made them each commit to eat a certain number of crawfish and then he prepared them for them. (I know, disgusting)

We had several left over (imagine that) that Guapo's brother cleverly lined up in the fridge and freezer with their little faces looking right at me to freak me out when I opened the doors. Thank you, Estefano.

Sixteen Days


On our Gaupo family blog, someone posted a survey asking how long it would be until the wimpy "Brazilians" posted about how cold it was here.

The correct answer was "sixteen days". The 4th of July was FREEZING here-in the 50's and it rained the entire night. The kids were sure they saw snow flurries about every five minutes. That didn't stop the die hards of my parents' neighborhood-they had the grill going under a tent and they were lighting stuff off until we just couldn't take it any longer.

I only took one photo because I didn't want to have my camera out in the rain:

More House Photos

Here's our loft area that we turned into an office space. I love it-so peaceful:

And, we now have patio furniture to enjoy the beautiful evenings here (except for the rare nights like the 4th):

All in All

Despite all of the work and the utter lack of free time to play piano and read to my hearts content, I am loving being here. This is the first time in our almost 14 years of marriage that we have moved somewhere "permanently"-we always knew in the seven other places that it would be for a relatively short period of time- and this feels like it's just too good to be true. I love the house, the neighborhood, being near family, the close proximity to schools, shopping, church, and recreational activities, the running trails and the mountains.

But again, I apologize for being a bad blog friend. I will get my act together at some point and be visiting you all shortly. ;) And I know I need a new header-but at this point I don't know what to put there. I don't want it to be a picture of a vacuum cleaner or a heap of dirty laundry, but that would be fairly representative of my new life. I've got to come up with something better.

Just as soon as I sweep the floors (again!) and fold a load of laundry...