Dog Sitting

Meet Samantha. She is a slightly overweight, quirky, affectionate 5 year old chocolate lab. Her social skills and walking skills need a little work, but otherwise she is the perfect doggy. I thought I'd be a regular ole Caesar Milan dog owner, but Sam is exposing all my "negative energy" as the Whisperer would describe it. When it comes to the Myer Briggs test, I am a true middle-of-the-roader thinking/feeling gal, and I have been reminded many times of that fact this week as a pet sitter. 

Ellie styling Sam's hair... an almost daily occurrence this week.

Sam and "his" stylist. Ellie can't get over the fact that this girl dog has a "boy" name. I promise we haven't taught her that. Also take note of Ellie's outfit. Jake and the Neverland Pirates is her current favorite show and Izzy the girl pirate wears a pink top and purple tights. You will find Ellie in this outfit twice a week.

I'm not saying this was Sam, but someone chewed this poor little fairy's feet off. It very well could have been Molly the beagle who was visiting over Easter weekend. Come to think of it, it was probably Molly. Sam would have eaten her whole if she was really interested.  This fairy was promoted to Queen of the Fairy Garden.

Sam puts up with constant touching of the face, tail, ears, eyebrows and lashes all day. She plops herself down everywhere we go. Spooning is one of her favorite pastimes and most of us are happy to oblige. Bella's skin is a little intolerant of Sammy's coat, but even she will put up with the occasional hive just to be near Sam. This dog can sniff out a tennis ball no matter where it is hidden. I didn't realize we had 3 stray tennis balls in our house until she became obsessed with it. I feared each time that I'd find a scorpion or lizard where she sniffed and pawed, but all three times it was a tennis ball. Sam has weaseled her way out of her crate at night and into our bedroom (with the help of her temporary mom and her big brown eyes).

Me date.

I know I just posted, but I have an entire hour (or so) to do what I please.

Objective: Skype with a friend
Plan:
- feed the kids
-explain to them that I'm going on a friend date, that they need to pretend I'm not home, and need to direct all questions and conversation to their father or each other, unless of course there's blood or fire
-have kids do chores
-have kids shower
-kids eat dessert on their own
-kids pick a Netflix movie to watch
-dad puts kids to bed

Although dad hasn't come home from the hospital yet, the plan is going perfectly and kids are happily watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua. My friend needed to reschedule due to a nasty cold and I'm tempted to join the kids in laughter with some mindless doggy talking TV. It occurs to me that my they are old enough and self sufficient enough that we could execute this exact plan every so often so that I could have a date with myself. What would I do?

In a less exhausting month I'd probably sew a little. I'd like to sew more, it's just a pain in the rear to get it all out for an hours worth of sewing just to have to clean it all up again. Whenever I say I want to live in less than 500 square feet of space on at least 10 acres, please remind me that I need more space for sewing and books. Tonight I really just want to tuck the kids in bed all peaceable, take a shower, and read in bed. The only issue is that my current reading material makes my brain work extra hard. I'm reading my first ever Shakespeare play. How I got through K-12 and was never exposed to such rich literature is beyond me, but that's besides the point.

Guess who just rolled up?? Yes, my dear husband. Must hop off to tackle him with a hug and kiss.

Hummus

A small tub of hummus on sale in our area is about $3. Our littlest can put away a small tub of hummus in two sittings all on her own. We can easily eat a tub of hummus a day everyday of the week. My thrifty self couldn't justify spending all that money on something we eat fairly regularly, so I hopped over to Sprouts and bought sesame seeds for tahini, some garbanzo beans, and ground cumin. For an hour I labored over my stove top and my 2 cup mini food processor. The result was a beautifully crafted original hummus that I was quite pleased with. Ellie, she can't stand to touch it. What the hay, man? It tastes, in my opinion, no different from the stuff you buy in a tub at the grocery store. 

Her and I will make a trip to the grocery store sometime this week to buy a tub of hummus. When I bring it home, the store bought stuff with come out of the container and replaced with the homemade stuff. When she starts scooping it out by the spoonfuls and eats it like ice cream, I will point a stiff finger and exclaim loudly "HA! THAT'S THE HOMEMADE STUFF!" to which she will likely start turning her nose upward to the sky while the corner of her lips turn downward in pure hummus-snooty disgust. Or, if I'm lucky, she simply won't believe me and continue eating her store bought goodness. The End. 

If I were an animal, I might be a sloth.

Yesterday I bought a book and spent 5 of my awake hours reading it in its entirety. Today I stared at the mound of citrus sitting on our kitchen counter for an unspeakable amount of time, allowing the sight to bring me tremendous pleasure in knowing that we can feed our kids nutritious food on a very tight budget. I laid in bed reading the news from 2p-3p, got up and made delicious boba smoothies for me and the kids, hooked up my new and utterly amazing birthday hammock in the backyard, then fell asleep in it for half an hour. We read and played on the floor at the public library for 2 hours. The world (and by world I mean my extremely limited exposure to it, so basically America) seems to toil endlessly to get ahead. Apparently, I am becoming polarized and fighting the trend. I’m even happily accepting my “extra” weight, calling my post children body a soft place to rest a weary head. Tis the season to delve into childhood and embrace it wholly… room temperature coffee and all. At what other time in my life will I be able to so freely behave like a child discovering her world for the first time and get away with it? Grandmahood? I sure as heck hope so.

There’s so much I’d like to write about and so little time to form my thoughts into written words. Throughout my day I think of sentences or beautiful ideas to journal about, but by the time I get to a pen and paper or the computer, I blank.

Bella will start a formal writing course next year and I am psyched to be learning alongside her. In my opinion, it is what my education lacked most. Everyone, no matter what profession you choose, needs to be able to represent themselves through spoken and written words. Written words need formal teaching; there’s no faking your way to well written. I wish I could. I am super self-conscious about misspelled words and run-on sentences and missed punctuation and all sorts of other writing things.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said these words to my kids: “Don’t say you’re not good at something. You get good at things with practice.”

So, I’m going to practice writing.

Like, intensively. Maybe. If I can stick with it.

If you’re lucky (or unlucky), you will get to hear my thoughts via the blog. But sometimes I will write in my journal or on scrap paper or on the white board. Sometimes I will speak my words and visualize them. I don’t really have any short term vision with this whole process (or with much of anything really, I’m more of a big picture thinker), but in 10 years or so I’d like to sit down and let words flow out of me like water from a faucet. Do you know why I don’t blog often? It takes me FOR.EV.ER. to write even the shortest of blogs. And, I think about my audience constantly and how it might fall on their ears (er, eyes), which is ridiculously hard to do when you’ve got an audience greater than 1 and you’re not even sure who is reading your blog to begin with.

Anyway. I need a memoir of the good and the gritty of raising up a family, so I think the blog is a great place to practice writing.  

Since I’m still wide awake (nap in hammock, member?) I think I’ll go and organize some bookshelves like a total geek. Don’t judge. 

Christmas 2013

Part of our Christmas, wildly out of order. I haven't tried uploading my iPhone photos to our HP desktop for fear that the world will stop revolving, but the photos you're missing are those of our Christmas/Mom's Bday in Tucson. There was cake, there were presents, there were 4 children and 4 chihuahuas, there was laughter. Our December was packed to the brim with family and old friends and we are grateful to be making memories in our new home with them.

Ellie is in love with TY's Beanie Boos. She acquired quite the collection on Christmas.

Besitos (kisses)  for cousin in Tacoma, WA on Christmas morning via FaceTime.
Gotta love technology.

The littlest speaking quietly to her newest babies.

Christmas Eve nap before the festivities begin. Does life get any sweeter than a babe peacefully sleeping? 

Our sweet girl on Christmas morning. She is really into drawing, sewing, and knitting this year.  

Jacob eager to play with his new toys. Have you seen those perplexus mazes? That toy kept my men folk mighty busy.

                                                 

My heart.

Christmas morning hike up the mountains.

Our parent's doggies love to visit us too! Maggie May (on the left) and Molly (right) are such wonderful doggies. 

Our little Lukey! Love that face. 

Luke fits right in to our stair step kiddos. Bella 9, Jacob 7, Luke 5, Ellie 3. It warms my heart to watch them all play together. 

Our Sister getting some Ellie love.

McCormick Stillman Railroad Park to ride trains, look at lights and mini trains, and eat ice cream:) PS the kids aren't super tall, my sister is just miniature. 

Our favorite spot to take photos on our hike, in case you didn't recognize it. 

More trains.

3 trips to McCormick Stillman Railroad Park. We've had an unusually warm winter, but there were a few "cold" nights. We still ate ice cream:)

Christmas Eve at Albert's Aunt Laurie's house. I wish I had taken more photos. Albert's Grandma Naomi is one of the sweetest, most hilarious ladies alive.

Christmas Story. 

A very special treat to spend Christmas eve and day with Grandma Donna and Grandpa Emilio. Since infancy, the children have loved reading in their Grandma's lap. 

Christmas Morning! I can't get over their sweetness. Precious little people. 

Christmas photo shoot. We live very close to the McDowell Mountains and are blessed to have views like these everyday.

A New Computer

Our sweet old Mac died after a great 5 year run. There's only so much the Mayo laptop doctors and duct tape can do to prolong its life. Our archaic Dell filled in beautifully for the last couple months for the kid's school work and the occasional photo upload, but with memory smaller than my own brain's capacity (22gb) I was pretty limited. Still, there's no real good excuse for not posting the occasional hello here.
I'd like to welcome the new addition to our electronic family: an HP TouchSmart all-in-one desktop. This is the best part... for a low price of 237 buckaroos!! What?!
It was a floor model marked down from $829 to $537 with an additional 10% off since it was missing the manual. It rang up at $261 to the manager's and our surprise. As Albert and I enthusiastically high five each other in the middle of Sam's Club with 3 very confused children at our side, the manager continues to knock the price down by honoring the 10% discount. Triple score. And happy dance ensues.

So, what have the Gutierri been up to? Here's a quick top 5.

1) Settling in. Hallelujah! It takes me time to warm up to change and we have had a whole mess of it this year so you can only imagine how un-normal I felt. It's the simple things like being able to walk around in the dark in our rental without stubbing my toe every 6 inches that puts this woman at ease.

2) Visit from The Picker Family! Jen and her most wonderful husband and children spent four days with us this month. The details and pics of their visit will come in another post. Their visit was food for my soul, food I've been snacking on since they've left. My heart is so happy.

3) Bella is officially in double digits... how that happened, Lord only knows. I look away for a moment and she's grown a foot. I have a ten year old. TEN. Let that sink in for a moment. Ten. We always have some sort of New Year's Eve celebrations for her birthday and this year we had Karen and Greg Hintermeister from Rochester join us. Their youngest son and Bella were classmates in Rochester so Karen and I got to know each other a little while volunteering at school. They were here for a short getaway and graciously took time out of their trip to spend an evening with us. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them and look forward to their next trip out to the Valley!

4) Jacob turned 8! We're driving down to Tucson for the Gem and Mineral Show next weekend... a birthday dream he's had for the last 4 years. This show is the largest of its kind in the world and a rock hound's dream. It is an event I looked forward to as a child and now get to share with my kiddos...very excited.

5) I think we've found our new church home. I joined a women's Bible study and that's darn near close to signing in ink in Krista language. The Messages on Sundays are clear, concise, on point, challenging, simple, and completely Jesus focused. There are plenty of weathered faces, pudgy little faces, and everything in between. The worship is gripping and diverse. The church offers so much to young and growing families; not a necessity, but a very welcomed benefit, especially during our Residency years.

6) Because it is probably the most best thing to ever happen to Scottsdale ever in the history of ever... Blimpie's at Scottsdale Pavillion now serves (drumroll please)..... EEGEE'S!!!!!! Excuse me while I thank God for bringing the best things to my new home.

The End.