Did you know this?

Check this out! I just recently found out about this nifty little tidbit of information and of course, I had to share it with you.

Okay, so you probably already know this, but can honestly say that if I would have know about this, I could have saved getting totally irritated on many occasions at my hubby.

We both have our own vehicles that we drive on a regular basis. I, like many moms, drive the mini van (go ahead Tim...get your jab in now!) and Andy drives his car. On the weekends, we usually take the van and he will drive. I always try to plan the gas tank to be low close to the weekend, just so that he'll fill it up instead of me.(oh, not really....okay, just sometimes) Anyway...when you drive a different car most of the time, when it comes time to fill up, he would always ask me what side the gas tank was on.

So I'm not the most patient person in the world, and I'd get a little testy and say..."the left...still...just like the last time you put gas in the van" Geesh...how many times do I have to tell him. (that really sounds "not nice" surely I don't really sound like that, do I?)

Anyway...look what a learned while co-piloting the church van on our recent ski trip!


Do you see it?

Right above the F to indicate whether or not you have gas...(my engine was off at the time of this picture...I do happen to have a full tank!) See that little arrow and the words "Fuel Door" oh my gosh...that arrow tells you what side the gas tank is on. How cool is that!

Really, I honestly never knew that!

I'd love to know how many of you knew that before reading this post and I love even more to hear from someone, okay anyone, who didn't know this either!

Happy Wednesday!

The lessons you learn from laundry!

Last Friday was a typical day here at the Sullivan house. Maggie was at school and Max and I where hangin' out, listening and dancing to blog music while we cleaned around the house (he's my favorite cleaning buddy.)

The morning flew by and it was time to pick Maggie up.....some days 11:00 am comes really fast. I threw in a load of laundry and Max and I headed out the door to pick her up.

Got home, made lunch (the girl is starving at 11:15), made a few phone calls and then remembered the laundry. Transferred it from washer to dryer and went on my merry way.

I used to use Dreft for all the clothes when the kids were babies. I think I used it well into the toddler size clothes, but then there was this day when I said, "Gosh this stuff is expensive. My people don't have sensitive skin. I'm going to try to use regular detergent for their clothes too!" And I have been using the regular stuff ever since.
My normal laundry routine is this, parents clothes one day, kids clothes the next day, towels the next, bed linens the next. Every once in a while, more often than not, the routine gets out of whack. Last Friday was an out-of-whack laundry day!

The load that I threw in was a mixture of parent stuff, kids stuff and cleaning rags. I just put it all in together. No big deal....it will all get clean! I was in a hurry...the laundry had to get done....put it all in!

When I opened the dryer to get the stuff out, after a few hundred buzzes by the very annoying machine, I noticed something red and black ALL OVER EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE OF CLOTHING! OH MY GOSH! WHAT IS IT?

I immediately went threw the entire basket looking for a marker, crayon, ANYTHING that could have caused this, then started to panic a little looking at Andy's work slacks, dress shirts and Maggie's brand-new Gymboree school outfits! Ruined, because I was in a hurry!

I asked the kids if they remembered anything in their pockets (I didn't want to make it sound like it was a big deal, and I made sure they knew that they wouldn't get in trouble, but that I just needed to know what the "stuff" was!) I was searching for a confession from someone.

No one confessed!

Surely it had to be crayon! A crayon must have been in a pocket, otherwise I would have noticed it when I transferred from washer to dryer. If it was crayon, then nothing happened during the wash cycle, but with the heat of the dryer it melted and the covered the entire dryer and its contents. Makes sense right?! I think so!

I got on the Crayola website and found out how to remove the stains from fresh and heat set fabrics. I also found out how the clean the dryer! Thanks Crayola for all the help! Good ol' WD-40!

I didn't get all of the stains out, but I did get a LOT of it out!

I also realize that I had been lacking in the part of my of my job description that calls for me not to just do the laundry, but also to check all the pockets before hand! I just don't like that part!

And you thought this story was over.....oh wait, theres more!

As I interrogated the entire household agian, (including Charlie the dog) looking for someone or something to solve the laundry mystery. I began to recall the situation.

Thursday, the very day before the mysterious item was put threw the wash, I vaguely remember picking up a purple crayon in the drive-way. I think I must have put it in the pocket of my jean shorts, while I was multi-tasking. Those very same shorts where also in the load!

Is a purple crayon made up of red and dark-blue-blackish colored wax? I think it must be!

And I think it was in my pocket! I was the one who left the crayon in her pocket! It was me!

This is my official apology to my family! I was wrong! Do you still love me? Do you want to get a maid to do all future laundry duties? I won't be that upset if you do!

Test of Patience

Yesterday afternoon, Maggie and I both had dentist appointments. My parents were coming over to keep Max while we went.

The afternoon got a little hectic when the power went off as I was fixing lunch. I soon found out that over half of our town was also out including the dentist office. This could cause a few problems in my afternoon schedule. The dentist office soon called me on my cell phone (which they had to use their cell phones to call from....how did we ever manage before that?) to say that they would have to reschedule us at a later time. Okay fine, no big deal.

It wasn't 10 minutes later and the power came back on (it was off for about 1 1/2 hours total) and I got a call back from the dentist office to see if we could still come in, only just about an hour later than our original appointment time. Sure, my parents were here hangin' out....we would be there!

I should have know right then. It wasn't going to go as well as it did on Maggie first trip to the dentist. Remember how well she did.

My girl doesn't go-with-the-flow very well. Sadly, I think she gets that from me. We like to have a plan and stick to it. When the plan changes, it gets us all out of whack.

Anyway, we get to our appointment and she started to cry. She didn't want to go first. "Oh, that's fine honey, Mommy will go first and you can watch, so you can remember exactly what happens at the dentist."

Then her turn came. She started screaming and then kicking. She totally refused to even get on my lap. I was so frustrated. I was angry. I was embarrassed. I wasn't patient.

I always pray for patience. I pray for help staying calm in these type of situations. I pray that I do and say the right things, so I don't screw this kid up even more than I already have. I did not pray at that very moment. And I should have!

I was still upset about the entire situation last night, more about my behavior than hers. She's only 5! I forget that. My reaction to her behavior made me realize that I wasn't acting my age. I'm 30 years her senior and I need to act like it.

In praying about it more last night I've come to this conclusion. I will continue to pray for patience and God will continue to give me difficult situations to try and use what I am learning. Maybe someday, I'll get it.

I don't want to miss this!

As I was on the phone with my friend Kristin the other day, I was yelling at the kids to give me a minute, telling them that I would be right with them when I got off the phone. Kristin's kids are in high school and she just chuckled when I kept apologizing to her because the kids were interrupting me. I think I said something like, "Oh, well when my kids are bigger like yours....and she stopped me dead in my tracks. She said she would go back to "this time" in a second if she could and then she told me to listen to this song.

OMG! Thanks for the eye-opener Kristin. I really need to try and remember to stop rushing the time away and to enjoy every moment right now. I don't want to miss this!

Bountiful Blessings

So today started pretty well. We did our normal routine stuff. Got up, made beds, got juice and COFFEE! Got a load of laundry in the wash, checked email…since it is spring break…we didn’t have to rush to get to school, but we did have a little guy coming over for the day so we were watching for him. Dax is Max’s little friend (isn’t it cute, Max and Dax…I’m sure their Sunday School and soon-to-be pre-school teachers LOVE the rhyming names) and Dax is also the son of my good friend Marci over at Finding Joy in the Journey…anyway…Marci is out-of-town spending time with her very ill father so we were planning to have Dax the rest of the week while his Daddy was at work. No big deal…the boys play great together and we love having Dax over. Everyone was playing so nice…but I had to run a few errands so we piled in the van to head to the post office. When we got back the kiddos played outside for a little bit, until we got pretty chilly and we came in to warm up. This is when the day started going down hill.

Max wasn’t really acting like himself and he has had this “cold” thing for about a week now. I felt his head and he seemed warm…I went the got the thermometer and checked his temp 100.8….not big deal except that my kid NEVER gets a fever. I honestly think he has only had one other fever…and it was low grade too. Anyway, I remembered last night he said that his ear hurt….OH YEAH…you know where I’m going with this don’t you. So, I called the Dr. (of course, he’s not in today, so I got the nurse practitioner) they could get me in @ 11:45 (that was in 15 minutes)….call my friend Pinky to see if I could bring Dax to her…we dropped him off there, got to the Dr…..DOUBLE EAR INFECTION…poor guy…I’m feeling bad, cause I probably should have taken him last week…anyway, we go to CVS to get drugs, go back to Pinky’s house to get Dax and then take everyone back to my house hoping that Max and Dax would both rest.

Driving down our street, Max pukes all over the car….not just 1 time, but 4 times. I need to remind you that I don’t do puke. It totally makes me want to puke…as I’m striping Max’s clothes off I’m calling Pinky back and begging her for help with Dax. I didn’t want Dax getting something from Max (are you staying with me, I know the name thing is getting confusing) so she drove over and picked Dax up and is keeping him the rest of the day. I know what you are thinking, so its a little puke…this is my motherly duty…deal with it. Then….as I’m trying to get the puke cleaned off Max and get him into some P.J.’s, the phone rings. Normally I would just let it ring, but I noticed on caller id it said CVS. I picked it up and they told me that they had given me the wrong medicine and that I needed to bring it back. WHAT? I was SO mad. I know it wasn’t the lady on the phones fault, but I totally hung up on her…well, I said I would be back sometime and hung up…my boy was cold for goodness sake. It just seemed like everything that happened in that 2 hour period was bad. But that is when you learn life lessons, right?!

I was totally trying to stay positive, even thought I felt like crying….I felt as though I was letting Marci down for not being able to take care of Dax, and I was feeling like a horrible mother for not getting my baby to the doctor sooner and even worse for letting him play outside this morning in the wind. I was just feeling like a failure, but I remembered a devotion from the other day that reads,

“It is not wrong to need help and ask for it. However, it is wrong to need help and be too proud to ask for it.”

For some reason that popped into my head…I had already called on Pinky to help with Dax and then I called my wonderful father-in-law…who just happens to live next door, and bless his heart, he ran the medicine back up to CVS for me, got the right stuff, brought over some Sprite for Max, and cleaned out the puke in the car seat too. WOW! Then my another girlfriend called and came and took Maggie to play at her house, so the house would be quite and Max could rest.

I am crying right now, just writing this and thinking about how blessed I am and how so many people, people I know and lots that I don’t know, don’t have family or friends close to them to call on crazy days like today. I am so blessed with the support of family and friends. So a big THANKS to all of you who helped me out today! Oh and Pinky, I owe you big time…need a new little something pink?!

Anyway, Max is sleeping now and has a dose of antibiotics in him…Maggie is off playing with friends and I am just feeling very blessed to have such great people in my life.