Straight from the Depths of Hell

I saw this scurry across our driveway this afternoon. It was nearly an inch long and completely unafraid of me. Apparently it is a cow ant. I used an entire can of wasp spray trying to kill it.

Clark’s Talents

 

So last week, in an attempt to maintain my sanity, the kids got to go to Bible Art Camp, which was sponsored by the church that also sponsors their preschool. Meredith loved it (she also really doesn’t seem to get that school is primarily for learning and not for hanging out with friends). This picture of her showed up in the local newspaper:

 

Clark, on the other hand, had a rough time getting excited about it. He’s always been kind of a home-body, even when he was just a baby. When I was trying to convince him to go on the second day, he said, “Mom, they want me to paint! I don’t like painting! They want me to sing. That is not one of my talents.” He’s got it pretty rough.

Re-Booting…

Soooooo…yeah. If you take a look at the post just below this one, it says March 8. Without a year. That would be March 8 of last year. I think I kind of burned out on the personal blogging thing and then life got crazy and then I felt massive amounts of guilt for neglecting my poor little family blog and then life got crazier. And then…I started hearing the “inner blogging voice” again! During this whole time, I stayed active posting on Facebook, but I realized there were things that weren’t conducive to the Facebook format. I also realized that while Facebook has a record of all my memories during my blogging breakdown, I don’t know if they can be salvaged and that’s kind of been my journal for the last year and a half. So much has gone down in the last little while and I need to have a better record of it.

There’s no way I can possibly go back and blog about everything, so I’m just starting over. Hi. I’m Kate. But you probably know that. Since March of 2010, this is what’s gone on in our lives:

Clark lost a whole bunch of teeth, our crazy cat Charlie ran away, we got a new cat named Willow, Meredith turned 3, Sam’s mom and brother came to visit, we had a really, really, really hot and hellish barbecue with our friends and family for Sam and Meredith’s birthdays, I cleaned the church all by myself because I love my husband that much (and because I wanted a family shopping day in Lafayette), the kids and I went to New York City for two days and made banana splits with Kelly Ripa and stayed in a posh hotel and ate room service at the expense of Electrolux, I called Aaron Mangum at the butt crack of dawn on the day I left for New York City because I had the most unbelievable toothache, seriously on par with back labor with a side dish of Pitocin, and discovered I had an abscessed tooth, I got another abscessed tooth 2 weeks later in New Orleans (ironically enough while I was with the Mangums for Youth Conference), I got two root canals for my abscessed teeth, our hot water heater leaked onto our oven and we had to replace the water heater and the electrical panel of our oven and we still have a water stain on our kitchen ceiling (all of this happened last June and July, by the way–it was awesome).  I was released from the Young Women’s Presidency at church and Clark started Kindergarten, Meredith started preschool, Clark started playing soccer (I’m using the term “playing” loosely here), something possessed me to get a haircut at Fantastic Sams where a surly hairdresser (again, using the term “hairdresser” loosely here) gave me the Layers from Hell. Sara and I went to Des Moines to see the Better Homes and Gardens Test Kitchens and we won their blogger cook-off. We turned in our manuscript for our book, Meredith got strep throat on Thanksgiving day, I got called to be the Primary President in our ward, we had Christmas here in Louisiana, I quit tutoring, Clark turned 6, I flew to Utah with Sara (well, not with her–I met up with her there) and stayed with my faraway BFF Adriann while we shot a cover for LDS Living magazine. Three weeks later, I was back in Utah to celebrate the launch of our book, then I was back again in another two weeks for more book signings. Because we’re insane, we got a little doggy named Mala. She looks like a Wookiee. Sam spent a week in the hospital with a very diseased gallbladder–a good time was had by all! Clark ended his first year of school as one of two kids in his class who never got a behavior mark (he was sure to inform his teacher that he was plenty naughty at home). Sara and I went to Scottsdale at the end of May for a Thermador event, then the day after we got home from that, Sam, the kids, and I drove to Houston and then flew to Seattle for 9 days. After a book signing in Houston, we came back to Louisiana and then I flew to Idaho to speak with Sara at the BYU-Idaho Business Summit. We haven’t gone anywhere since and I’m okay with that.

So yeah, that’s our year-and-a-half in a nutshell! But I’m back, baby. And on WordPress, so change your feeds and bookmarks (that is if anyone is still reading…)