No home improvements at the Ruff House!

Today, after reading my all my favorite home improvement blogs, I realized that I either need to quit reading them on a daily basis or cut myself a little (ok, a lot) of slack.  My favorite bloggers are all sweet young things with 0 - 1 child.  They either blog full time, or only one half of the couple works outside the home.  Steve and I work crazy schedules, we have four kids with their own crazy schedules, and a three year whose nickname should be Destructor.  Oh, and did I mention that neither Steve nor I really have the patience for DIY.  Our home improvement projects tend to result in fights, or that the very least  - a lot of snarkiness.  After realizing all this, the thought that follwoed was something along the lines of  -  I need to start reading blogs written by parents with four kids.  Hmm - I have a blog (yes it is beyond neglected) and I have four kids.  Maybe it's time to start paying a little attention to the blog.

So, here's an example of how things work in my world.   The "carrot" that got me through the my work week was the movie date I had scheduled with Isaac for Friday night.  We were finally going to go see the last Harry Potter.   That afternoon, Steve calls to tell me Isaac is at a friend's house not at home.  I look at the pile of things I still need to do before I leave work, then look at the clock.  Picking up Isaac AND going home for dinner is not going work.  No problem, I think to myself, we'll just pick something up on the way to the theater.  Unfortunately, that stars were not in alignment for that plan was either.  What did happen was that I picked up my boy, we made it to the theater (on time, yay!) and we ended up buying theater food.  That night, I paid $6.00 for movie tickets and over $20 for the crap we ate.  Between the two of us we had a pop,  a slushee, a giant pretzel with cheese, nachos, and a bag of popcorn.  Crap, I tell you.  I went home freaking out about all the empty calories I consumed and all the unnecessary money I spent.  After my little melt down, and pseudo therapy session with Steve (Well, what would you do differently next time?)  I decided to look at it as a memory made with my son.  We never get that many treats at the movies.  He was in movie treat heaven that night.  The fact that we didn't run around like crazy people looking for decent food while trying to make it to the theater on time was a gift.  We got to sit together and talk.  I heard all about Mind Craft (a computer game he's really into) the books he's reading (Yeah, Mom, I didn't finish reading Breaking Dawn, but I did read about the honeymoon, and NO the sex part didn't make me feel uncomfortable.  Why did you think it would?) and school (Did you know that if I get As and Bs in school, I can attend a banquet at the end of 8th grade?).   I had to put on my rose colored glasses and look at the bright side, and when I did - boy was it bright and beautiful. 

I had to remind myself to put those glasses back on this weekend when I looked around my house and saw broken dishes and lampshades, piles and piles of laundry, unmade beds, the water stain on the office ceiling, the missing light fixture from when Sammy broke it by playing with balls in the house,  the new vacuum cleaner that didn't work (I fixed it by the way - yay me!) the cobwebs on the popcorn ceilings that I long to have smoothed out, I could go on.  But, with my new glasses on I saw happy children in a comfortable home, food in the fridge (wine in the wine rack!), and a handsome hubby who loves me, and whom I adore.  Life is good people. Will someone please remind me of that next time I lose it?!