I started Spring Cleaning a month early in hopes that maybe my efforts to eliminate clutter would spur warmer weather to show up.  I am aware that this is not possible….nature will do what nature will do regardless of my actions unless of course we are discussing my carbon footprint and Antarctica’s Ice Shelves but that’s for another day.

Anyway…Spring Cleaning is underway.  And I’m fortunate enough to have my mom in town to help me “get my house in order” which clearly means many things these days.   She’s been busy organizing book shelves, sorting toys, cleaning junk drawers, and rehabbing my pantry.  She does this while I display my excellent supervisory skills.   And let me tell you…they are excellent.

We are starting our second week of her two week visit and we have lots of fun stuff in store like cleaning out a linen closest (!), organizing my craft room (!), and other actual fun things like heading out to a Spring Training game.  Good times!

I have found in life that there are times where you experience something that alters your life but you don’t realize it until after the fact.  And then there are times where you experience something that you know that once it’s done…no, once it even starts…..your life will never be the same.

I wonder which is better.  Sometimes ignorance is definitely bliss.  Other times consciously opting for change is the one thing that spurs us to be something better or find something new. And sometimes…well sometimes life just happens.

Life…it is happening in Jaelene Nation.  Truth be told, life has been throwing curve balls at me for almost two years.  When I sit here and I look backwards at that I still don’t know how to wrap my brain around the past two years of my life.  It’s been two-fold really.  It started with work. “In this economy” became our new mission statement.  A company of lots of people with lots of work and lots of space became a company with very few people with very little work and very little space. But I still have a job and considering how many people I’ve sat across from to tell them they don’t have a job – I’m grateful daily.

And then life started throwing curve balls at my life.  Like my real life….the life that I consider private yet special enough to share bits of here and there. Little strands that we accidentally left hanging around started getting pulled.  This happens to everyone I think and usually you just mend a little and move on.  This time though….the mending didn’t work.  Instead more strands of the life we have woven together came loose and it all unraveled.  It unraveled until the two of us, Mr. Jaelene Nation and I, sat together with all the little threads of our life in a heap between the two of us.  And as I tend to do in these times, I fell silent. There isn’t much to say. There is no explanation. It just is.

So life is changing.  Living arrangements are changing.  We find ourselves being one of those modern couples where the kids are here and then they are there.  Like all their friends. There are lots of things that don’t change though.  Like that I love Mr. Jaelene Nation.  And that he loves me. And that we are both sad that we ended up sitting alone with all the unraveled pieces of the life we worked so hard at.  Unfortunately as it turned out we were weaving two entirely different lives.  But in there are some of the most wonderful and happy times of my life that I shared with someone who will always be my friend. And in there are three lovely children.  Those things, as it turns out, never come undone.

So now I have no idea what path I am on.  I have no idea what the fabric of my life will look like in a few months let alone a few days.  I have learned a few things though….like I have friends that would do anything for me, I had friends that would not or could not, my parents are amazing, but mostly that as long as I have myself I am never really alone.

Guess what? Despite my best efforts to ignore, skip, evade and downright curse my birthday it showed up anyway. As it turns out it was a good thing it showed up because I had a really fun time this year!

My girlfriends came over and we had an awesome Hello Kitty birthday party.

We had a true girls night – we dressed up in silly girl clothes, told dumb jokes, ate cake, and danced to an awesome bday play list. All we needed to do was make some prank calls and tp a neighbors house and we’d be acting our age.

I got lots of nice gifts for my birthday but the best part was the part where I realized how fortunate I am to have a group of friends that are fun, caring and a constant source of support for me. And also? Thanks Mom and Dad. I have thoroughly enjoyed being alive.

When people find out things aren’t going right they say stuff like “At least you have your health” or “It could be worse!” which is just a weird way of saying “I have no idea what I should say right now!” So the other day someone was all “Well that’s life – it ebbs and flows”.

So I was thinking about that….like what does that even really mean? I know what it literally means, especially in terms of high tide and low tide but how does that even translate to some sort of explanation/statement regarding someone’s life not being all peachy keen? So is it high tide when it sucks or is it low tide? I mean high tide bangs you up a little but it’s more fun- the waves are fun and you can surf. Low tide is mild and provides lovely wet sand for castle making but it’s a little boring.

I don’t know. But I do know that when life ebbs and flows you either sink or swim, crap or get off the pot, and maybe even get on the boat before it leaves the shore. And if that doesn’t float your boat because you are feeling under the weather, well just remember not to count your chickens before they hatch.

Just sayin.

I’m watching Star Trek the Next Generation right now.  This has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than I think it would make my dad happy to know this.

As promised I’ve tediously studied every single one of my posts written in 2009 and picked out a few of my favs.  For some reason I never blogged about the fact that I saw Star Trek in the movie theater an absurd amount of times.  This has nothing to do with anything other than I think my dad would appreciate that as well.

Last year I tried to teach Jackson to ride a bike.

Jackson loves me.

Austin totally called me out on being sucky at life

Welcome to America, your weiner is safer here.

I forgot to make Jackson brush his teeth for a whole summer and regretted it.

I lost my kids in the woods. You don’t need to re-read that post. Just know that I lost my kids in the woods and my main argument for finding them was “I JUST GOT THEM MOSTLY POTTY TRAINED” and the desire not to be on the news.

Jackson pulled the fire alarm and Austin’s ability potty in the ocean is called into question.

2009 – a year Colten flew under the blog radar by hiding in the computer room, Jackson was as subtle as a hand grenade, and Austin smiled through it all!

At some point I had decided that I was going to scroll back through my posts for 2009, pick my favs, and post links to them.  Kind of a lazy way of blogging and way to round out the year.  So I’m working on that tonight and pretty soon you’ll see my favs….most of which involve some form of Jackson proving he was put on this earth to vex me.

I started reading through January and found some resolutions I had made just for the purpose of being able to blog about them.  How about I let you know how that went.  I forgot about them.  The end.  They went as follows:

I will stop holding grudges against my neighbors that have perfectly clean garages with all their perfectly oiled and pumped bikes perfectly hanging from their perfect bike hooks with all the washed perfect cars in their perfect garages.  Jerks.  I will continue, however, to hold grudges against neighbors with Busch Light Beer neon signs illuminated in their garages.  A girl needs standards.

Didn’t do that.  I still run by garages that are so organized and clean and I get annoyed.  Says abit more about my garage than theirs.

I will start to implement Change in the Jaelene Nation government.  When I run for re-election in 2047 I don’t want to be behind the eight ball so the time has come to be the government of change.  This means that people can wear red and pink together at certain times and sometimes we will overlook the ocassional foray into Dillards.  But only when there is a sale or you can’t find a parking spot outside Nordstrom.

I kind of did this.  I branched out where I shopped for clothes (hello, recession) and I was more forgiving of people’s mismatched clothes.  Mostly.

Somehow I will go seven days without spending any money.  Now clearly there will be some guidelines here.  Like as long as I have giftcard to Starbucks that was purchased outside the seven days I can still get my Skinny Vanilla Two Pump No Whip Latte on Mon, Wed, Fri.  But I will abstain other than that.  I don’t know why, it just seems like I should try.

Whose dumb idea was that?

I will lose the ten stubborn pounds.  This is real.  When I do this it will be like I never had kids. Except that I did have them and the evidence is in my sanity level.

Done.  Which is good because this was the only thing I actually intended to do.

I will talk to Kate Spade on a daily basis and not just when I need serious advice.  I will develop a better relationship with her and respect all that she has done for me.  I will look at my beautiful Kate Spade Barbie all the time and aspire to have that 3/4 length pink floral jacket.

I did discuss many matters with my Kate Spade Barbie.  This was not done on a daily basis mostly because Colten took over my computer which is where my Barbie is.  I wonder if he talks to her about World of Warcraft.

You read it here first – I will let Mr. Jaelene Nation and the little Mr. Jaelene Nation Jr.’s buy a dog.  It’s 4 against 1 so that kind of wins.  But the dog needs to be a girl.  I need someone to talk to sometimes.

I actually intended to do this as well however it did not happen. I tried, I actually put a lot of effort into this and was not successful.  This is back on my list of things to do however I want a boy dog now.  Because I have a boy name picked out. What can I say? I’m good at picking boy names.

This is why I don’t make resolutions….I rarely intend to actually do them when I make them so what is the point?  There are a few things I’m going to do this year though – not necessarily resolutions but things I’ve had a on my to-do list for awhile and I’d like to move them to my all-done list.  When I do them, you will be the 87th to know unless you are one of my 87 facebook friends….then you’ll know before my blog.

I have not been blogging because:

A) I’ve been busy watching New Moon

B) I’ve been sitting around eating twizzlers and drinking red wine in an attempt to only consume red stuff for the entire winter

C) I’ve been hanging out in my bunker….just in case

E) Because I’m lazy and completely unexciting

If you picked E please go away.

It would be impossible for me to even fill you in on all the happenings in the Nation so instead as a holiday treat I’ve selected a few pictures to tell the story for me.  It reminds me of the kind of book I like to read my kids before bed….the kind with very few words.  There are more than ten pictures so if that is going to bother you don’t scroll down.  I say that because in general that many pictures would annoy me however I’ve opted to make an exception for myself.  That’s why I pay myself the big bucks…to make the tough calls.

So recently…..

Colten turned 11 and became addicted to World of Warcraft. I have learned a lot about Griffin’s in an involuntary way.

We carved pumpkins…..

Austin hid behind a tree instead of playing a leaf at his school play:

Colten danced with a raw turkey for extra credit points at school:

My brother and his wife came to visit us for Thanksgiving and we danced in my living room at midnight once:

Colten ate a giant burger and got his picture on the “wall of fame”

So did Jackson:

Colten had a violin concert

I bought a hat:

Austin danced like a maniac when his class sang Happy Birthday

My Baby turned 6

And being 6 he supervised situations in true boy fashion….while stratching himself like a second baseman:

We were all subjected to the terror of the biggest nerf gun ever

And we also hung out and acted like dorks…..

That’s it folks….now back to the bunker with my twizzlers, wine and Twilight obsession…….

Remember last year when I wanted that pink Prada (stoopid Prada) bag sooooo bad that I tried to start a pyramid scheme to get it? Well it didn’t work.   But if that did work and I had that pink bag the recession might not have happened, ya know?

So based on that, I think we should start a new pyramid scheme all with the purpse of me buying this:

And then the recession will end.

Now get to work.

So I was cyber-window shopping on Who Know Whose website. What, you don’t know? Ya know what? If you don’t know who Who Know Who is then…well then you haven’t been paying attention and shame on you!

So I’m cyber-window shopping last night and OMG I saw the most fab-u-lous bag EVAH!!! The kids were in bed and Mr. Jaelene Nation was out with friends so the only thing I could do was talk to myself about it.  I mean it wouldn’t have been any different if the kids were awake and Mr. Jaelene Nation was home but I like to pretend that the only reason I had to talk to myself was because no one else was here.  Anyway, I was all “hey, copy the picture and post it on your blog” and then I was all “hey, you just posted a picture of HAWT shoes, write something first and then post the fab-u-lous bag”.  Eventually I came around to my 2nd train of thought…except for that The Jaelene has major writers block.

I mean stuff happens every day but it never seems to make its way here.  I blame it on Facebook.  I’m sorry if you aren’t my Facebook friend because lemme tell ya, you are missing stories about Plungers and Disneyland and Sangria so shame on you.  Stop what you are doing right now and friend me!

So due to my writers block I asked the kids what they would write about if they had a blog.

Austin said he would write about Tacos and how he would make tacos every single night of his life. He would also write about Lego’s and how he wishes he could marry a Lego but then it would break.

Jackson would write about how he had throw-up burps all day yesterday.  Dude, that was brutal. He cleared several rooms with his burps.

Colten would write about “stuff”. Now I’m going to take a giant leap here and consult my almost-teenager-to-English translator and guess that means he would write about his birthday and his new cell-phone and how awesome his parents are but it probably means that he would be discussing his World of Warcraft Guild.

So that’s that. I mean we’ve been having fun up in here. My parents came to visit, the kids took a break from school, Scott and I ran a 5k, Austin walked a 5k with his wonderful kindergarten teacher, Austin lost his first 2 teeth, Colten learned how to make balloon animals, Jackson…well Jackson has entertained us with his “high-five” jokes.

And that’s all the news that is fit to print.

The only way these are gonna get cuter is when I slip my feet in to them.