Oh shoe
how thankful I have been
you kept my foot safe
time and time again

I wore you on my left
you surrounded my foot whole
but I’m now in a terrible state
mom saw the rip in your sole

I tried to repair you
with tape of the duct
but temporary it was
now your finally defunct

she says you’re no good now
in the trash you must go
I tried to protest
but she gave a firm, “no”.

he’s still in fine condition
I plead, speaking of your twin
you can’t wear just one shoe, she replied
put them in the trash bin.

so here I sit shoeless
but I won’t shed a tear
I’ll miss you, favorite shoe
but she’s made herself clear

new shoes I will get soon
but none will compare
to the comfort of the way you wore
my foot with such care.

For Gabriel
Love, Mom
I’m sorry we had to throw out your favorite shoes.

Posted by Kait

As you may know from the posts below, we recently went a few states over to visit some friends. Here is my first post about the trip.

Fishing. If you’ve done it before, you’ll know it’s fun. You get to get dirty, fall in the lake, touch slimy fish that dig their razor-sharp fins into your hand…oh yeah. It’s a blast. Okay, first of all let me explain where the Graham Crackers live.

They live in a trailer. Yes, they and their 5 kids live in a trailer. Mr. Graham Cracker is a pilot-in-training. They recently moved away from where we live. They live in a camping trailer park. Behind the park is a lake. More like a ginormous puddle for how clean it is, but a lake.

There are a couple different types of fish in this lake, of of them were these little fish called craupys or something. They’re the ones with razor sharp fins that dig into your palm. Ouch. I had it happen to me. We would purposefully catch the craupys or whatever to lure in and catch the bass. You can eat bass, and I heard it taste good. In fact, Mr. Graham Cracker caught 2 bass the morning we got there by accident. He was just fishing for the little fish. He felt a tug and started to pull in the little fish when a huge bass came and grabbed the little fish. I don’t know how he caught the other one. In the end I know that they ate bass, and most of them loved it.

But anyway, the Graham Cracker kids, Guys and Boy, were very excited to catch a bass, and wanted me to catch the little fish, put them in a bucket, and then go catch the big fish: the bass. Sounded like a good idea to me. The little fish are pretty east to catch. I had caught 3 in less then an hour, I know that’s a pretty long time, but half the time I was moving to a different part of the lake or untangling Boys line which repeatedly got caught in the tree. But anyway, the last fish I caught was impossible to get off the hook because of the way it went in. So we decided to just go ahead and use it for bait.

Guys came back to watch us and Boy helped me get the fish in the ‘right’ spot. The fish was gone in 2 seconds. The bass snapped the line and took it with him, the bobber floating behind him. That’s how he got the name Bobby. He next decided to steal my second fish, and my third was probably eaten by him, too, but I can’t be sure because he managed to get off the hook. All in all we had a pretty good time fishing. Guys came often to watch me, and Boy stood by me the whole time, giving me pointers, like try casting it out half a centimeter to the left(great advice by the way). Dad ended up fishing, too.

We had tons of fun that day, and even though we didn’t get to eat any fish, Dad wasn’t lucky either, I had a lot of fun with the Graham youngsters. Here are some random pictures.

…was not what you’d call a good night.  There was crying, coughing, snot, and very little sleep.  Today I’m running on fumes but it’s okay.  Jesse and Ben, my two up-all-nights, are smiling and playing right now. It’s so cute how Jesse’s tired eyes light up at Ben’s silly antics. 

And that almost makes me forget how exhausted I am.

But only for a minute.

I think naps are definitely in order.  At least for me.

This picture is of hangers.  Empty hangers.  Lots of empty hangers

I used to have a piece of clothing on each one of these but over the last few months, and today, I’ve been de-clothing my closet. 

I have a tendancy to hang on to every piece of clothing, even stuff I don’t like, because I might like it someday, or somebody said it looked good on me once, or I may find a shirt to match it, or blablablablabla…

I am finding that I can justify almost any stupid thing I do.

Let’s get real. I only have a few outfits that I really like.  So why do I feel the need to keep things I won’t ever wear again just in case I might wear them again? 

I know.  It makes absolutely zero sense.

So, out it all went.  While munching on Skittles I went through all the clothes.  I have a large pile to garage sale next week – along with a bunch of hangers.  My closet is much, much lighter and I’m one step closer to being camper living ready.

And those new Skittles Crazy Cores…
Don’t eat the yellow ones.  They taste like how sweat smells.

My kids planted a few peanuts a week ago.  We’d gotten some from a farmer’s market back in December and had a handful left in the baggie.  The boys fed some to the squirrels and ate some themselves.  After all that they planted a couple, to which I thought, “Nothing will grow -it’s just not that simple”.

Low and behold – we have peanut plants. 

Apparently it is that simple.

I remember when I was a kid that my brother made a little ‘farm’ behind our fence and planted apple seeds.  I recall my mom, out of my brother’s ear shot, saying, “nothing is going to grow from those apple seeds.  It isn’t that simple”.  So that was my thinking – though I let my boys apply their master digging and planting skills anyway.

So now we have peanut plants. I have no idea how to grow peanuts, keep the plants healthy, or harvest the end product.  I don’t even know what peanut plants should look like. I assure you, however, that by the time this is all said and done we’ll all know more about peanut farming whether or not we are successful in harvesting any peanuts. 

Cause that’s what we homeschooling folk do.

…I smell like campfire.  It’s one of the few odors that stink and smell good at the same time. 

I popped into the trailer to check on two sleeping kids who weren’t actually sleeping anymore.  The nursling wanted to eat, as always, so here I sit typing with one hand – something I’ve gotten pretty good at over the years.

It stormed today so we took refuge in our friend’s bigger trailer. The sound of the pouring rain pounding on the roof was comfortable.

So we talked and the rain came down and the kids played outside under the awning. 

And then there was mud…

We sat around a campfire last night.   Ben(4) said, “It’s so hot.  My forehead is melting”. 

Caydence, our friend’s little 4 year old said, “Listen to my daddy’s story cause sometimes he says something funny”.
So we did and she was right.

And we laughed.

I’d love to sit and blog about it all but we’re camping. 

I’ll be posting pictures soon.

Today we’re camping.  We’ve got this little camper trailer that the campground owners rent out and we’ve settled into it nicely right across from the friends who are living in a camper. 

It’s really small and we’re really cozy.  Almost too cozy. 

This is just a small taste of what it will be like when we make a camper trailer our permanent home.  A very small taste.

This trailer is less than 30ft we’re guessing.  There are no slide-outs (the one we’re buying is over 40ft with 3 slide-outs). But this small space comfortably sleeps our family of 9 and Ryan cooked a big breakfast for us this morning on the little stove-top.

It’s not ideal but it’s doable.  While we were sitting here eating breakfast, all 9 of us in this very, very small space, we realized that we could live this way if we had to.

Thankfully, we don’t have to.  We’re just vacationing.  But knowing we could feels pretty good.

We’re driving. There are neon green butterflies everywhere. Jesse is fussing. Sam is occupying himself by sticking his fingers in his ears and singing “down, down, down, down, by the sea” over and over again. Gabe is repeatedly asking him to “please stop” but Sam doesn’t hear him because his fingers are in his ears. Joe is trying to sooth Jesse to no avail. Ben is stuck between Joe and the fussing baby and really has to go to the bathroom bad.

No need for high dollar trips to exotic lands. Riding in our car is enough of an adventure for me.

Today we are going on vacation to some friend’s two states over. We haven’t seen them in a few months and we’re excited to hang out with them for the weekend. They live in a travel trailer – paving the way for people like us.

Anyway, we got everybody in the car and then Ryan went back in to grab something. When he returned he said, “Thank God for small blessings. The kids used dish soap in the washer instead of detergent.”
I laughed a little and went into the house. There were, in fact, suds coming out of the dishwasher.

Hmmm.
Sometimes ya just don’t ask.

While Kait and Joe cleaned it up, I contemplated digging the camera out of the loaded car. They were quick though, and I wouldn’t have had enough time to get the camera and snap the picture.
Then we left a half hour late and happy to be on the road.

I’m excited to be on our way. I’m excited to see our friends.

It’s a good day.