Simple Math

What is the maximum capacity of a midsize van/SUV? 8
How many does a large dining table seat comfortably? 8
What do you get when you add [(1+4)+(1+2)]+1?
More than you can fit in an 8 passenger van.

What do you get when you have 2 lines in a 1st Response test? A big belly.
I haven't told the kids yet. I know they will all be thrilled. Maybe the youngest two boys won't be, but I think they will.

So far, that is the only thing I know about my future. We are still planning on being at the reunion.

Mikey is getting baptized today and G-ma and -pa Skembo are here to be part of it.

I had a garage sale yesterday and came up with $150 more than I had, and a little less bulk to find somewhere to put. It was a great day for a garage sale, but we are in a lousy location. We wanted to start it on Friday night, but it rained for exactly 20 minutes. Just enough to deter us and any potential buyers.


Janika out.

One Year

I have been married for one full year. It is nothing short of a miracle. It has been a bumpy ride. Matt and I never went through anything like this. We always had a steady income--and consistent wastefullness. We rarely disagreed (out loud). We always knew what was coming next. Maybe that is why it didn't last. Our relationship was safe and eventless. Our trials were minimal. Yes there were military separations, but I liked those. It may be that adversity is key to a lasting and successful marriage.

Sunday was Father's day, and our anniversary. Nothing worked out the way we wanted it to all weekend. We got Lexi and Mikey back to their mom in the late afternoon and sat down for some alone time. His home teaching companion called and said that one of the ladies on his route was escaping from her ex-husband who found out where she lived--again--and was beating her up.

We did manage to take some time for each other. I do love being in my honey's arms. We didn't give each other a single, tangible thing. I didn't even make a nice dinner for us. We had leftovers. Mike loved it even better last night than he did the night before. We had some sparkling red grape juice that I had bought last month for a picinic that never happened on account of rain.

Our projected June 15th miracle has results yet to be determined. We had actually set a date last month, but were not as specific about it as we thought we needed to be. But both 15th's produced the same results. I will not discuss them because I have noticed that every time I post something positive or talk about it, it falls through. Suffice to say, we have no job and no money--only hope. But we do have hope--that's something.

Being with my kids

I love having my kids around. I was grumpy at them yesterday and/because I never did anything with them but it is so wonderful to have them around. We did watch a movie last night. All the kids had seen Over the Hedge, but we hadn't. I slept through the middle of it, so I missed what Mike said was the best part. Then we read scriptures together, which we have done every night that the kids have been here. Mike and I are better at remembering when it is not just for us we have to remember.

The day before, I spent a few hours online with the kids. Separate rooms, same world...of Warcraft. Emylie and Claire created a new character on their dad's accout on my realm (shadow council) so that we could play together. I am a gnome mage and level 22. I helped them kill things and complete quests and managed to help them get to level 7. Claire freaked out because I took her to Shimmer Ridge where the trolls are level 9 when she was level 5. I told her all she had to do was stay back and loot corpses. She got the shimmerweed she needed for her quest, but she didn't want to play after that. She did die once, but when I was going through that area for the first time, I was a level 10 and got myself killed about 20 times.

Yes, you are still reading Janika's blog. I have thrown away 3 days, one hour and 18 minutes of my life for a game--and I'm not finnished. One of our visiting managers talked to me at length on my last day of work because she plays too. Everybody was laughing at us all day, because neither of us seem like the type of people who would do that. It is my husband's fault. He made me make a character. I like that I can play with the kids, even though this week was the first time I had, but we have been able to talk about it together for months.

It is too hot in TX to spend much time outside in the summer unless you have easy access to a pool. So we will play World of Warcraft.

I did a little family history work yesterday because dad asked a question about some of the information I had sent him. There was a big mistake somewhere and I had to fix it. I will be going to the temple today for the Stake Relief Society trip and do some family names--maybe they will do some of the ones I have as well. Tomorrow I will probably go again, and a couple of my guy friends from the ward are going to do the inititories on the male names that dad sent for whom Isaac and the youth here did the baptisms.

Summer plans

We are still unclear on a lot of what will be happening for the summer. We are 5 days away from a miracle and are anxious to see the results of it. This much we know:

In the next two weeks, I will be packing up my house and leaving it. Mike will be moving into a local appartment so that he can work at his new job (whatever it may be) and develop his business project. I will take all 6 kids up to Missouri, where we will meet my mom and stay in her new house in Hardin and help fix it up if needed. Of course, it is only 30 min-1hr from Far West where Mike's parents live. we will be there two weeks. I will leave Mikey and Lexi to stay as long as they and Grandmas S want. July 3rd, Mom and I will go to Utah together from there with the other kids. I'm not exactly sure what will happen from there. I want to go to Nevada to visit as well.

When I have done all of that I can, I will go back to MO to let the kids run around wild on 5 and 40 acres until the end of July. Then, Matt had planned to take the kids to Branson this summer, so rather than take them all the way back to TX, I can meet him there.

In the meantime, Mike will be working and finding a place for us to live on the eastern side of Dallas (we are on the west now) so we can be closer to Lexi and Mikey and be able to see them more often, as well as allow them to be involved in weekday church activities. It will also be closer for getting to Matt, and he wants to move to eastern Dallas himself. He will not move for about a year, but we will all be one, big, happy, centrally located family. Won't that be nice?

Isaac is back from scout camp, the other three kids are here, and I had my last day of work on Friday. It feels like home again. But now I have two weeks to pack it up and get out of here.

Mikey is getting baptized on Sunday, June 24th at 7pm. We would have done it Saturday, but Grandpa Skembo could not have made it that day. He is excited. I am glad, too because it probably would not have happened if Mike had gone to Iraq.

The four kids are with Grandma Carruthers still, except for Isaac, who I had to pick up last Saturday so he would be able to go to scout camp. Tragically, he is the only one from the ward who is going, but there are some people from the other ward that he knows. I had Mike take him at 3:30 Monday morning, since I had to work that day, but I should have just done it myself because it ended up that I had to go and sign a form that we had missed. I guess I was really nervous about Isaac's first year of camp--which is really out of character for me--because I kept waking up, and after I got back from sending him off, I had really wierd dreams about him (and about not being able to go back to sleep before I had to go to work, but I woke up and realized it was a dream.)

Mike is on his way to Scout camp now because they wrangled him into being an adult leader for the second half of the week. It is less than two hours away, but he left at rush hour, so we'll see.

This week, so far was pretty nice. Lexi and Mikey stayed the weekend and left this morning (Wednesday). We played board games, played together at the park and watched a few movies. Yesterday was our first really hot day--yes, I'm still in Texas--and the kids really wanted to go swimming, but we had already spent our swimming allotment. They asked me what friends I had with a pool. My good friend, Arren Quigley just got called to be Mikey's primary teacher and he asked me if she had a swimming pool. Since she lives in an appartment complex, I took a shot at it.

Mike was getting home from his job interview about that time so we all spent the evening in the pool. Arren, her husband Scott, his brother James and his two sons had a great time. We got hungry by 9:00 and decided to pool our food resources for a bbq at our house. Then we watched Emma, with Gwennyth Paltro. The kids were asleep early on, Scott complained about the lack of shooting or sword fights--even though the young Obi Wan was in it--Mike enjoyed it but prefered to complain for Scott's sake.

There's more to say, but I don't want to keep MaryAnne from her homework after a long day in a mail truck.

A Date

Random tidbit, the drought in Texas is over. (It never felt like a drought to me.) In the entire month of May there were a total of nine days without rain in the Dallas area. That does not mean there were 9 sunny days.

Therefore, my plans to go on a picinic with my husband on Memorial day (a re-enactment of our first meeting one year ago) were foiled.

I was supposed to go out with my husband last night as well, but he got an email invite from a president of a publishing, marketing, and distribution company he has been working with. He and another friend are putting together a magazine for car enthusiasts. I was really disappointed about cancelling our plans, but I want him to seize every opportunity. He didn't get home until almost 11 and I made him stay awake until 1 so I could talk to him. I have a lot on my mind lately, but I don't often get to express it.

For a month now, I have been trying to explain that we need to set a date for getting positive word on a job and pray about it. He has insisted that the "We pray in our time and the Lord answers in his." He was opposed to setting a demand like that on the Lord. I insisted that that was the entire premise of the church missionary program, and it was doctrinally sound to reqest specific answers at a specific time.

So, finally, last night we set a date and prayed about it. We'd like to ask everyone to do the same on our behalf. We have asked that Mike be gainfully employed in his chosen carreer field--have confirmation of it, at least, by June 15th. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

If our prayer is answered in our time, the kids and I will see you all at the beginning of July.