i kind of wish i hadn't let Presley eat that chocolate for breakfast.
I am having a really hard time getting started today. 
I wish i had a mental health doctor, and that the one i loved hadn't moved to kc.
i think i need to up my dose of prozac and i am considering doing this on my own without the advice of a doctor, because i don't have a doc.
i was hoping to take the kids to the library today.  i really want to get some audio books to load up onto my ipod so i can listen to them while i sew. i was watching TV on my computer while i sewed, but  that slowed me down considerably.
i hope presley has a sugar crash soon so we can all go back to bed.

my feelings on kc vs topeka...
Reasons to move to KC wil be marked with KC, Reasons to stay in Topeka will be marked with T

KC=get a bigger house
KC=ben really wants to get back to the metro to be closer to his friends, and to be more in Hot Topic's radar
KC=diaper service business would increase which means more $
T=I don't think i could handle the increased work load, maybe i could if i get my meds balanced...
KC=Closer to my KC friends
T= would have to leave my Topeka friends
T=LOVE LOVE LOVE my topeka church!!!!
KC= doing diaper service in topeka is kind of a waste--only 1 customer
T=the city is too big and i get lost easily
T=i like our small town
T-our library is AMAAAAAZZZZING
T= i do not want to go through moving!!! 
T= i do not want to have to sell our house!!

my feelings on my business are as mixed as anything.  on one hand, i would love to grow and grow and earn a lot of money, but on the other hand, my depression is really getting the best of me and i am not doing any of the things i need to do!  AND, my kids have been watching sooo much TV lately!  i really feel like a horrible mother because i havn't been reading to them hardly at all, and just letting them kind of do whatever they want.  I really think i am failing them.  This is a big reason why I want to hire a seamstress. 

here is a list of the sewing i need to get done:
1 baby carrier for melody:  it is cut out--well not the padding, but the fabric is all cut out.
a big stack of diapers for my cousin,
a big basket of diapers fo my cousin that just need to be topstitched
80 fitted diapers for my bff stoaf who is due in about 19 weeks
stock my etsy with fitteds, pads and wetbags
carriers for this summer's car shows.
plus i want to make some packs of all the stuff i can make and send it out to different stores to see if they would be interested in carrying any of my wares.  But that would result in a bigger stack of things that need to get sewn, so i really don't know if i want to do that.....  haha

so you see, what i really need is to hire a seamstress.  we figured it up and we can afford to pay someone $2.25 /$2.50 per diaper and if they get 100 done in a month, they get a $100 bonus.  Each diaper takes about 20 minutes to sew, give or take.  So, an extra $325 a month, not too bad.

And Emily, you and vanessa are the only people who read my page, so please don't think i am asking you to do it!  i mean, the work is yours if you want it, but i was planning on out-sourcing the work.  haha, i wish i had more livejournal friends! 


I would also like to focus more on the diaper service.  with this chance of us moving back to KC within the next couple months,, i know the service business would explode.  of course that would mean work, which i don't know if i am up for.  i am such a loser...
and some of that work would be sewing--covers, wipes and wetbags for the customers. bleeeehhhhhhhhh. 


i think i really need to call a doctor, even if it is only for a short time here in topeka.....

ok enough of this pity party!

but we went to church anyway! so i took the kids out to eat at mc donald's. that was a painful experience--for me, not them! the playplace was soooo busy with big kids who love to scream.

i still have a ton of fitted diapers to sew, and i would be doing that if katie werent so needy right now. i am definately nursing at the keyboard.

so i just got back from getting my driver's lisence. first i took the kids to get some lunch and on the way to the DMV, they both fell asleep.  so i had to carry katie and push presley in the stroller, both asleep, and when i finally got to the desk, guess what?  i didnt have everything i needed.  So i put them both still asleep, back in the car, drove home and got my passport and drove back.  when i got back to the DMV to try again, they both woke up, which was a little easier since presley could walk and i could push katie with BOTH hands.  Got my DL and when we were getting back in the car, it started to POUR down rain.  i am still wet!  I thought i deserved a sonic drink b/c of all my productive and hard work, and it was happy hour, after all.

i feel very alone today.  I am feeling like an emotional black hole, where people keep taking and taking and nobody is giving. I need some love in my love tank. And on top of that, I am paranoid that nobody likes me.  I hate when I get like that b/c i know it's not true...  i just miss the days when i was young and i had nothing to do or take care of.  i could just call my friends and talk and do stuff with them.  Now, all my friends have little kids too and no time to talk, much less hang out. 

Just as well, I guess.  I am swamped again this week.  I would like to sell some of my diapers and mama cloth at the lee's summit green fest.  it's a festival within driving distance from me, and it's for green businesses.  perfect for me :)

my cousin just found out she is having a boy!  he's due in january.  I am passing allmy baby equipment to her, so i'm glad she is having a boy b/c all the gear is boy-colored from Presley.  Very good news:  she is going to do a baby registry with me!!!  She is going to use me to get all her diapering stuff.  I am sooooooo excited to do a baby registry for her!!  It's going to be amazing!

since it has been so long.

i have really been swamped with things these past few weeks.  Last week especially though.  I was getting ready for a vendor booth i was having at the Greaserama car show this weekend.  I was going to try my hand at selling things to the general public.  I decided that i was going to make a bunch of baby carriers to sell b/c at every car show, I see people getting so tired b/c they are lugging their baby around.  Car shows are a really fun family event, so I was hoping that there would be enough families to warrant me spending a lot of time sewing baby carriers.  I ended up selling 3 so that was really good!  I wanted to make more carriers but I ran out of time, so I decided to bring some of my diapering things and mama coth, and see how they would do.  I ended up selling 3 pads, a set of nursing bra pads, 2 "I Spy" games, a one-size fitted diaper, a prefold and 4 snappis.  Yay!  I am really surprised at how well everything did.  I used my earnings to buy 2 sweet old bikes, one for me and one for ben.  If i figure out how to hide the pictures, I can post those later.

Man, I just have so much to update on, it would take me years.  I suppose I should try and break things up a bit.  I figured out how to check my email from my phone...now if I just had the internet on my phone and I could post to livejournal too. 

I miss you.  Yes, you.  we havn't talked in forever.

The kids got a new bed, so we have all been sleeping better.  Ben was soooo ready to get katie out of the bed.  I felt really bad b/c he was so tired every morning from getting kicked in the side and scratched in the face.  So my great friend wendee found us a bunk bed on craigslist, and her rad husband went and got it and brought it over and set it up.  Presley loves his top bunk!  Ben loves his adult-only bed and Katie is doing great on the bottom bunk.  I have a moniter by my head so if she cries in the night I can go lay with her and nurse her back to sleep.  Sometimes I wake up and go back to my bed, but a lot of the time i just stay in there.  Co-sleeping is great, just not in mom and dad's bed! lol  I stay up waaaaay too late so usually when I hear her stir, I am still up sewing and crafing.

I had a really productive night last night though.  I stayed up until almost 2 drafting patterns for things and figuring how many things I can get out of a 2-yard cut.  So far I have cut out a mama pad bag, 2 regular pads, 2 heavy pads, 1 pantyliner, 2 overnight/postpartum pad, 2 wipes, 1 pair of nursing pads, and 3 fitteds, one med, large and XL.  I still have at least 1/2 a yard of the fabric left so I'd like to get a large wetbag and a mei tai body peice, but i doubt that is going to happen.  If i had another 1/2 yard, I could probably get those, plus some diaper cuts for some covers.  So let's say to get all the things I want out of a length of fabric, I need to get 2.5 yards and that's only if it is girly fabric.  I wouldn't need to make mama pads out of anything boyish.

I would really like to move back to KC.  I am just afraid that Topeka is never going to catch on to the cloth diapering experience.  I have become an "affiliate" of the Learning for Life center, which is the place where people go for yoga, herb lessons, natural healing, that kind of thing.  I have to pay them a small monthly fee, and they do some advertising for me, which includes a monthly email (which i write fresh each month), a monthly open-house for people to come look/try/buy and a discounted rate if I decide to rent the yoga room to have some cloth diapering/baby wearing classes.  The owner of the center, already lets my AP group meet there every monday for sewing group, free of charge.  I think they like all the young energy we bring.  All of us really help to liven up the place :)  And after we leave, they teach yoga and all the people are kind of buzzed.  It's interesteing.  I'm not sure how much of that kind of thing I believe in...how much of it is Biblical, but I can say that it feels good to be around certain people.  Call it energy or whatever... 

Ben's parents are some of those people I really like to be around.  I just love going to their house, or when they come over.  Kay really inspires me to be a better wife, and....yeah, I am kind of at a loss for words to describe how much  I love those people.  I am really blessed to have great in-laws, and someday I am going to tel them just how much I appreciate the way they raised their son.  My husband is such a wonderful man....i'm at a loss for words again.  But they truly raised a wonderful man who I love so much.  I feel so bad for some of my friends who get talked down to by their husbands because my husband never does that.  We have really great communication and I always feel good when I am around him.  He makes me feel like a lady.

Well I guess that is enough for now..  I have kind of maxed out my brain, and I have a lot i need to get done today.  I got pulled over last night while driving my 59 fury, b/c I had one headlight out.  I also didn't have turn signals, brake lights, seat belts (for me...we installed them for the kids' car seats) proof of insurance, or a drivers lisence in the state of kansas.  I have lived here for 2 years and have never gotten my new lisence.  Would you take two little kids into the DMV???  Well I guess i have to today.  Gotta' get that done so that I can take it to the court house and get my ticket taken care of.  Oh, BTW, the only thing i got a ticket for was the DL, all the rest of the stuff got warnings.  That's not even mentioning when Ben pulled over to help me and the cop went ahead and inspected his vehicle, seeing that he didn't have signals or brake lights either.  Sigh.  I would really rather that cops were out busting the meth-cooking criminals rather than the families who have a headlight out. 

gotta get busy! 

i feel pretty productive right now.  i woke up and unloaded the dishes and loaded the dirty ones from last night.  i folded a load of clothes and i mowed both the front and back yards.  I got katie down for a nap and right now i am feeding my kids some yummy taco dip for lunch.  i wish i could be this productive every day!  

while i was mowing i was thinking about my friends, and how so much of my life is like high-school.  why cant we all just grow up and be friends with everyone?  

let's not talk badly about people in front of our children.
let's treat our mothers and grandmothers with the utmost respect
let's set ourselves up for success by doing the hard work ahead of time 
 

*warning kind of scattered again... 

i just got done watching one of my favorite shows online.  almost all  of my shows play online.  why dont i just cancel cable?  it would save us like 50 bucks a month.

the season finale of ER is this thursday so i will probably cancel it after that.  wait, american idol isnt over for a couple more weeks, so i will do it right after then.  excuses excuses excuses.....

we really want to save money and retire wealthy.  we are supposed to be investing and saving for the kids' college. i REALLY want to give my kids what my dad gave me when he died--he didnt leave any bad debt behind, in fact he left us enough money to get out of debt ourselves as well as start a retirement fund.  i really want to honor that and try and live the way he lived with money.  

i am a giver--i loooooove to give stuff away.  i would rather give away everything i have than keep it for myself.  i love to give until it hurts. i got that from my mom. she has no savings, but she has supported many missionaries!   she is starting financial peace university tho, so i am really happy for her about that. 

but seriously, when do i ever have time to watch tv?  i only got to watch that show just now b/c i am not unloading the dishwasher or doing the millions of other chores that need to be done around here.  not to mention sewing!  i could sew a ton of stuff right now. i have really been trying to make and sell some of my diaper stuff, which is going pretty well, but could be going better if i would just get my etsy cart stocked.  (this is another important thing i should be doing rather than watch tv!)  

*sigh*

oh but in great news:  my cousin is pregnant!!

 tuesday morning i woke up and peed on an early-response stick.  i left the bathroom and turned on my computer.  then i went back in the bathroom and the stick was negative!  wahoo!  katie is only 10 mos old.  I have been recently thinking about how much I like having only 2 kids and I really dont want to have another kid until katie is like 4.  so then i go to my livejournal and simplemama is showing her early response stick with a very faint little line.  that got me thinking that i wonder if my stick had a faint little line.  so i go back to the bathroom and get the stick out of the trash.  what do you know.  a faint little line.  NO WAY.  so i called emily and wendee and got an appt. at the doc for a blood test.  got some blood drawn and went to wendee's house to sew.  freaked out all day long that holy crap, i am going to have ANOTHER baby!!  then wed morning, the doc calls with the result of my bloodwork and it is negative.  WHAT??  so i go in and they do a urine test.  Also negative.  

so what happened?  was it a faulty test?  or did the zygote fail to implant?  i dont know, but it was crazy. i have definately experienced a loss.  i cried and cried and then just tried to remember how happy i have been with having only 2 babies, blah blah blah.  

so today i have been better--kind of getting back to my normal life, remembering that i like having only 2 kids, trying to forget about the baby that almost was, and just move on.  it is all i can do not to crawl in bed and never get up.  i just keep telling myself that it was a faulty test, that there was never a baby...b/c if i think about the dead zygote, i just get so depressed.  whatever.  

GOD, YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF MY WHOLE LIFE!!!!!  YOU WILL NEVER GIVE ME MORE THAN I CAN HANDLE AND YOU WILL NEVER SET ME UP TO FAIL.  YOUR TIMING FOR EVERYTHING IS PERFECT AND I COMPLETELY TRUST IN YOU!!!!!  Amen.

 well we definately need a new roof on the house.  we also bought a wii and i bought a ton of fabric to be used in making diapers to sell.  so i should be getting that money back *fingers crossed*  that's pretty much it.  

oh, but i want to get rid of presley's crib and get him a big bed that will fit me too so that i can lay down with him as he falls asleep. 

 today i planned to take the kids to the mall for lunch with Ben.  I left the house early planning on swinging by Joannes to use my 50% coupon on some flannel--they get their shipment on thursdays.  but when i got there I noticed that all the flannel was $2 again!  That was the price last week and i stocked up a little then, but holy crap--2 weeks in a row!??  so i started piling all the new flannel in my cart!!  poor presley was starting to get squished but oh well!  i had like 147 bolts ready to go!  I had to wait a little bit so i was starting to get nervous that we would be late for lunch with Daddy.  Presley was acting out a little bit.  Like, he climbed out of the cart with one leg and said "I'm peddaling!" 

so i'm standing there getting my 289 bolts of flannel cut when I hear one of my babies start to fill their diaper.  It was Presley and it sounded bubbly.  I told Pat to just keep cutting the same number of yards and I was going to go change his diaper.  I start to push the cart away, when I see a brown puddle on the floor.  oh my...  so i checked his pants and sure enough, he had all these wet, brown spots down his legs.  and she still had like 93 bolts left to cut!  so i just stood there waiting, while Presley said things like "we cant roll through the poop!"  and "I got poop on  the floor!"  the ladies around us just kept cracking up at us.  haha. laugh away.  then he started blowing air on katie's head so that her hair moved.  He blew on her hair so much that he started coughing...he coughed so hard that he started puking!  i grabbed the wetbag and cought most of it inside.  oh my word. 

so finally $118 later, we were outta there!  i had called ben and told him we werent going to be able to make it b/c little man now needed a bath, but presley was still INSISTANT that we go to DADDY'S WORK!  Normally i would just have said NO WAY, we are going home and getting you in the tub!!  we cant go to the mall with crap all over your pants!!  But I've been learning to go with the flow (no pun intended) and get more AP....so i swung by the house and grabbed fresh pants, a stack of wipes, and new sox (because i'm sure his current sox were full of diarreah).  

so off we head down the street to the mall.  we are already late for ben's lunch break, and he wasn't answering his phone, so i didnt know what to do!  i kept texting him and when we pulled into the parking lot i looked in the back seat and noticed.....presley was asleep.

aah.  so now i dont have to worry about cleaning him up at the mall in front of God and everybody.  BUT, the evil, lazy mommy in me was so tempted just to let him continue his much-needed nap.  BUT, i got him out and tried to change him without waking him up.  of course once his booty was bare, he woke right up and started in with the tears. but i quickly made him happy by giving him one of the suckers he gets only as a reward for going potty on the toilet.  He ate that in the tub.  And do you think after he was all cleaned up and dressed, that he was sleepy again???  

NOOOOOO.  so, despite the fact that I have only gotten 4 hours of sleep and that the boy was up at SIX AM!!  we are not taking a nap today.

but on a brighter note, this is all my new fun flannel!!


that is now soaking in an icy bath of vinegar!


oh, and I never told what I used my 50% coupon for! 
I would like to introduce the newest member of the Jones family!!!!!

 

i wish there was a camera on my bedroom celing so that i could randomly take a picture of my family snuggled up together in our little queen sized bed.   i usually nurse katie to sleep about 8:30pm and then around 9:30 or so i try and rock presley to sleep and put him in his bed.  probably 4 nights a week, he does not EVER fall asleep so I eventually ask him if he wants to go lay in "mommy's bed".  he always does, but he knows that katie is already in there so he has to be quiet.  he is so good about it!  i mean, he is 2 and he is so respectful of things.  he is such a great little kid! 

then when he's asleep i get up and go sew or whatever and when i cant hold my eyes open any more, i finally go to bed.  Gotta milk every second of that "alone time!!"  when ben gets home and goes to bed, he just snuggles presley  and scoots him over.  at that point the kids are next to each other, which usually begins to get disasterous sometime in the wee hours.  so presley ends up crawling over to my left side and katie wakes up and nurses on my right side and we all fall back asleep.  At this point, my good night's sleep is over and i wake up about a million times when katie wakes up to nurse or presley kicks me or whatever.  

But then as the sun starts to rise, presley is snuggled up with his hand on my face, and katie has her cheek resting on my bare breast, and ben is facing towards us all with his arm draped over katie and I, and I just lie there, staring at the celing, wishing there was a camera, to capture this incredible moment of love and tenderness between a family of 4, that detatched parents will never know.  I am so blessed.

 my least favorite chore is folding laundry.  which is ironic since i run a cloth diaper service out of my home.  i dont mind folding diapers though because they are all the same shape and it's pretty much repetative.  but i dont like folding family clothes.  there are just too many pieces and parts--some to be hanged, some to go here or there...blah.  and every time i fold clothes i am usually folding like 3 loads at a time (because i have put it off) and then my OCD takes over and I end up covering the whole couch with these little piles and putting it all away usually takes me another 3 days.  If someone randomly shows up or something, the folded piles will either get stacked back in the baskets and set on my bedroom floor, never to be heard from again, or they just get sat on or pushed to the corner of the couch, and after all day of peoples' butts on my clean clothes, i just wind up throwing it all back in the hamper.  i will do anything to get out of folding clothes!  

but i dont mind cleaning the bathroom. i do that while i supervise my kids in the tub.  i try and alternate cleaning with crocheting.  and when the kids are out of the tub and the toys are all back in the bucket, i scrub the tub with the scrub brush as the soapy water drains out.  ta-da an always-sparkling tub!