Thou Shalt Not Procrastinate the Cleaning of your Raingutters

It rained on Saturday.  A lot. I came home from running errands and noticed the rain was running over the edge of the gutters on the front of the house. I came in, and told Lee we should clean those out soon. He agreed, then we both agreed on how bad we hated cleaning out the rain gutters. The day continued, the rain continued off and on, the rain gutter issue was forgotten.

Until Sunday night.

Or Monday morning, if you want to be picky. 12:40 Monday morning, to be exact. Yes, we were asleep at the time. Our 14 year old came bursting into our room to tell us that her room was flooding. We grabbed our robes and dashed downstairs to find a rather pretty waterfall cascading from the base of her window. Behind the glass was abut 8 inches of not so pretty water quickly building up in the window well. We got dressed in record time and Lee took to the gutters to try and clean out the clog that was sending the water over the side of the gutter and into the window well. By default of not wanting to stand on a ladder in the middle of the night in the rain, I was given the job of bailing the window well out.

I honestly can't quite find another life experience equal to jumping into a foot of water in the middle of the night with buckets of water raining down on you from above. It was a full three minutes before I could breath without gasping with shock each time I exhaled--by that time things started to numb. But they never numbed entirely. While I was hoisting buckets of water out of the window well, Lee was gasping from above me where he had to take the downspout off of the gutter, which meant all the water, leaves, and dead bugs came directly into his face, but it diverted the water from the window well. He tried to knock out the clog while the water assaulted him, and then had to put the downspout and gutter back together. Meanwhile, inside, my sister Cindy was shop-vacing the water while Madison used towels to try and soak up even more.

It was about 15 minutes before the window well was empty--then Lee and I sloshed around the house in our now 20 pound Levi's, finding two more downspouts clogged. The window wells closest to them weren't filled to the glass yet, but we're on their way. within about 25 minutes, we were done with the ominous task and came inside, soaking wet and shaking from the cold. The hot shower helped. The hot cocoa helped even more, but I didn't sleep well because I couldn't seem to get warm.

It was an adventure, to say the least, but as I've reflected back on it I found several "tender mercies" that may have made all the difference between an adventure and a disaster:

• Lee's been working nights for months, but he wasn't working Monday night.
• Of all our children, Madison is our lightest sleeper. Had it been one of the other kids, they likely wouldn't have heard the water for quite some time, if at all.
• We had been painting Madi's room earlier in the week and she'd only been sleeping in there for the last few nights. Had she not been sleeping in her room, it would have gone on all night or until it broke the window, and we'd have likely had two other rooms flood because we didn't remedy those other clogs.
• When Madi moved back into her room, she put her bed on the far side of the room instead of under the window where it used to be. Had it been under the window, it would have soaked up the water which would have been difficult, if not impossible, to get out of the mattress.
• My sister, Cindy, has been staying with us and was able to help clean up.
• While it was raining and cold, it wasn't as cold as it could have been in late October.
• Cindy had been using the shop-vac at her new apartment, but brought it back that evening after having had it there for several days.
• Cindy knew how to use the shop vac.

Beyond all that, the fact remains, that had we cleaned out the gutters as we were supposed to (we haven't cleaned them out for two years) or even when I'd thought about doing it, this wouldn't have happened in the first place. We can all say, now, however that we have officially learned that cleaning out rain gutters on a Saturday afternoon is a far better experience than cleaning them out in a rainstorm at night in late October.

Funny how life teaches you things like that.

A lot can Happen in 17 Years

Namely:

• 2 miscarriages
• 4 rounds of bed rest
• 4 live births
• 3 of them were premature births
• 1 of them resulted in a 1 month NICU stay
• 5 years (cumulative) of raising Lee's  niece, Lindsy
• 6 surgeries (3 mine, 2 Lindsy's, and 1 Lee)
• 3 Grandparents passed away
• Each of us lost a sibling tragically
• Lee's parent's moved to Lousiana
• 3 visits to Lousiana--2 as a family one Lee went himself
• My parents moved to Milford and back again
• 5 of my siblings and 1 of Lee's siblings got married
• Planned and paid for Lindsy's wedding
• 5 baby blessings (4 of ours, 1 of Lindsy's)
• 4 children baptized
• 8 places of residence
• 13 family members have lived with us at one time or another
• 4 elderly people lived in our home for paid 24 hour care
• 2 miserable trips to disneyland
• 1 awesome trip to Europe
• 4 fabulous trips to Costa Rica
• 3 Cruises (two together, one writing one for me)
• 2 Grandkids, sorta (Lindsy's boys)
• Built 4 Assisted living Centers
• Managed 7 Assisted living Centers
• 65 or so love letters
• 40 or so chickens
• 2 dogs
• 3 cats
• 2 goats
• 15 cumulative years of kid's orthidontics
• 2 5K races
• Half a dozen fights
• 3 failed business ventures
• 12 thriving business ventures
• 17 cars
• 1 flood
• 3 car accidents
• Thousands of hugs and kisses
• Every place on the financial spectrum from broke to wealthy
• 1 college graduation (his)
• 11 published novels (mine)
• 80 birthday celebrations
• 17 christmas mornings together
• Too many falling outs with family members, most of them recovered from
• 3 beds (ours, not the kids)
• 4 painful betrayals from people we loved 
• About 1,000 jars of canned peaches
• 6 or so spiritual crisis
• 6 or so re-conversions
• 400 or so pounds gained and/or lost
• 1 deep freezer
• 1000 utterings (at least) of "What would I do without you?"

Reflecting on the Year

A year can be a funny thing. It can seem like an eternity if someone you love is ill, and go by at lightening speed if you forget to sit back and enjoy it now and again. A child can change into a whole new person--go from gurgling to talking, toddling to a full on run. Their hair color can change, they can double in size and go from 6 diapers a day to training pants (well, unless your the world's worst potty trainer, than it takes a little longer than a year).

Today I came to work, opened the bills, started making phone calls, updated the accounts, requested an insurance certificate, printed some new file labels and created three new vendor files. That's when it hit me--a year ago, I didn't know how to do any of that. A year ago I was getting ready to take over the books for our company which, back then, I still referred to as Lee's company. I was not learning how to apply vendor credits because I wanted to, I was learning how to do it because we were scared to death about what the next few months held for us and our family. We couldn't afford an office manager, and I had the time...sort of.

So I took a Quickbooks class, and cried at least once a week on the way home. I didn't WANT to do this! It wasn't fair. My youngest was finally in school all day, I could be a real writer, I could keep up on the housework, I could read every day. On March 24th, I went to work and kept crying on the way home; drowning in my own self-pity.

I resented it for a long time. I didn't know what I was doing, and what I did do wasn't done well. I wouldn't say I'm a perfectionist, I just like to do everything right :-) and numbers have never been my friend. The situation also put me 'in the know' of where things really were. It wasn't good but I realized how much of the burden Lee'd been shouldering on his own, realizing that because I didn't understand how the buisness worked, I didn't have any way of really understanding the issues we were facing. We were involved in a lawsuit, we weren't making any money, we were in disputes with a landlord, and I wasn't very good at my job. It was a heavy load to help carry and I longed to not be so aware.

For awhile I whined about every little thing I had to do in order to make sure Lee realized this was a sacrifice. We kept waiting for things to turn around...and waited...and waited. In August we had a long discussion about whether the company was even viable to keep going, but we'd put so much into it and we still had the lawsuit to contend with--quitting wasn't an option, and I don't say that in a romantic "Aren't we heroic" kind of way, I mean we really didn't have an option. It was at least paying the legal fees.

In September a key employee in our Vegas office quit without notice. I cried some more. I thought there was no way we could do this without him. We interviewed and hired a woman we thought would be prefect--she quit after two days. I went to Vegas again. I missed my deadline with my latest book. We called our second choice and I did my best to train her, but held my breath. During training we'd realized that we had a huge number of jobs that hadn't been billed--and the companies had filed bankrupcy since then. We were out $30,000.00 and still had never recieved a paycheck. It was dark, ugly, and really discouraging. I was six weeks past my deadline before I turned in Devil's food cake and I wondered how on earth I was supposed make all this work? It had been 6 months and I was still trying to figure out what I was supposed to do.

And then, finally, the change began to take place. The new employee was AMAZING. She was diligent and detailed oriented and anything she didn't know, she figured out. As she got settled she took over billing, and found dozens of jobs that hadn't been billed but, unlike the ones I'd found, they still could be billed. We collected on these jobs and found ourselves in the black for the first time in months. The economy, though nothing like it had once been, stablized in Vegas a little bit and we realized that a lot of our competition hadn't made it through the year. We felt horrible for them, knowing what it felt like to lose your business, but it left more of the market share. Our salesman in Vegas never gave up, even when he wasn't pulling any commissions, and he hit the ground running now that there was work again. I didn't have to negotiate extentions on the bills anymore and in January Lee got his first paycheck from the company he'd owned for a year and a half.

Today he asked me a question about the attorney bill--something I take care of without discussing with him because it raises so many ugly feelings. I told him it wasn't too bad and not to worry about it. He looked at me and said "Gosh, you take really good care of me, don't you?"

He left to run some errands and I reflected on that statement and realized how much had happened in the last year. I went through my own process of accepting my role, and Lee went through his processes of pushing forward and making this work. But we did it together and it brought us together and while I was given a bird's eye view of the burden he's been lugging around, he got an up front seat to the sacrifices I was making too. I came to understand what he meant when he was venting about something, and he came to understand how necessary my writing time was and worked hard to give it to me because he could see how hard I was working to do my part. My kids have learned a new level of independance and they've learned that they are an essential part of our family. We need them to be responsible, and they've risen to the challenge.

It's been a hard year, one of the hardest we've faced in our marriage, but we made it! We'll celebrate our 17 year wedding anniversary in a few weeks. I have officially been married to Lee longer than I lived without knowing him. I can see this last year as a gift to us, a means of drawing us together in a common goal and remembering that we are people and partners and parents and really, truly, very best friends.

Would I wish for the hard things we've trudged through this year? No, and yet maybe I prayed it into life all those times I prayed for the Lord's help in keeping my family strong, in helping me support my husband, and in asking that He help me overcome my weaknesses. Either way, I can look back and be grateful for what I've learned, how I've stretched myself, and where we are now. That is something I'd have never imagined a year ago.

I was at a bookgroup a few weeks ago, talking about individual gifts we all discover about ourselves throughout our lives. One of the women said "And don't you think it's our trials that lead us to those discoveries?" I had never thought about it like that, but I've pondered on that theory a lot since then. I learned to cook because I was tired of Tuna Helper. I learned to write because I was on bedrest and falling victim to depression and self-pity. I learned patience because I had toddlers that didn't understand things the first time. I learned faith when I had nothing left within myself to push me forward and needed to believe in Him.

Yes, a year can be an amazing journey, and each time one ends, another is just beginning. I wonder what the next year will hold...

A Morning with Me, Myself, and I

As some of you know, I went back to work in April--April 1st to be exact. It's been . . . an adjustment after several years of wearing my jammies all day. My current boss frowns on such casual attire, which is a bummer, he's also liable to interrupt my evenings with talk of work and he makes me iron his shirts. The upside is that he sometimes runs kids in the afternoon so that I can finish something up and it's understood that I can yell back if he gets out of hand. I'm also hopeful that the fact we're sleeping together will open up some promotional opportunities in the future. Unfortuantely, everyone knows we're sleeping together and so I can't blackmail him with it. Them's the breaks for working with your husband, I suppose.

Back in January I blogged about my employment qualifications. I specifically mentioned that I had none--other than writing novels which there isn't a huge section for in the Help Wanted section. Apparently that blog post infiltrated the nether-regions of Karma and by February I was feeling the pressure that I needed to be bringing home a paycheck. Why? Because the last year has not been economically kind to the Kilpacks.

Now, we're okay, as in we're not behind on anything and don't anticipate that we will be. Right now, we have our needs met, but the next six months is going to be interesting. In July 2008 we bought a Window covering buisness in Vegas. We spent several weeks doing our due diligience, we felt we had really found a great company--and we did find a great company--however the seller was not honest in his financial reports. Within 90 days we were facing collections on debts we had no idea existed and a month after that we found ourselves embroiled in a lawsuit. Anyone that's been watching the economic crash and burn (who hasn't?) has likely heard that Las Vegas has been hit hard, very hard. After a ten years unprecidented period of growth, construction has all but stopped and jobs have dried up, sending people out of Vegas in droves. Those things do not bode well for a company whose market is made up of people buying new or upgraded window coverings. Lee has jumped in with both feet to keep the buisness going amid all the arrows being slung our way, and he's done an amazing job. While other window covering companies are folding left and right, we've managed to stay afloat. We've lost some key employees, but we've held on to some absolute gems who are putting everything they have into making this work. In January we opened an Ogden, Utah location. We mostly wanted to keep our administration closer to home so that Lee didn't have to spend so much money and time commuting to Vegas, but we also started selling blinds out of that location. We hired a bookeeper and crossed our fingers that things would improve.

Come April, however, we had to look at more ways to cut our overhead. What we needed was someone to work for free, that had a vested interest in the company, and knew how to do basic account. Well, that person didn't exist--but two out of three ain't bad. I can work for free and I very much want the company to do well. The accounting part was the sticking pin, so I took a Quickbooks class and six weeks into the job I kinda almost sorta know what I'm doing. It's really worked out well despite my feeling sorry for myself that I can no longer live in my jammies.

It's been hard to fit this 25 hour a week job into everything else I do. I find I'm running from one thing to the next without much time to take a breath. Today, however, I have a morning to myself, at home, with no one but my dishwasher to keep me company. I have to take a couple kids in for doctor appointments in an hour, which means I won't be going in to work until after the appointment, which means I got to read a couple blogs and take twenty minutes to post something to my own.

Heaven.

It's my hope that within a few more weeks I'll be caught up at 'the office' and that life will settle into a new, though brimming, schedule. It's my hope that within a few more weeks I will now and then get an hour to sit and blog. It's my hope that within a few more weeks I will feel like I'm really making a marked contribution to the company (Did I mention the computer I crashed? The fact that I don't know how to use excel? My propensity to be rather snappy with the boss?) It's my hope that I will find a way to fit writing, exercise, editing, and cooking back into my life at some point.

For now, I'm glad I can do what I can do. I'm glad that working for my husband gives me the flexibility I need to be a mom and a writer as well, and I'm glad to have another thirty minutes of blesses peace and quiet in which to ponder the blessings in my life. I am blessed with work, blessed with ability, blessed with comfort, proseperity, and enough wisdom to see that despite the struggles, we're going to be just fine, one way or another.

So, anyway, if you've wondered where I've been, that's where, and if you're looking for window coverings, I'm hoping to have our new website up in another week or two so stay tuned.

And I Married Him Anyway

Lemon Tart contest runs until January 30, click HERE for the post

Before I thought of Lee as my husband, I thought of him as the cute-guy-with-the-mullet-that-passed-the-sacrament-and-wore-the-pink-tie. We ended up in the same weight training class my sophomore year. He was a senior. We flirted--well, I flirted, he bench pressed--and giggled--okay, I giggled, he laughed at the wacky things I would say--but eventually we decided to go on an actual date.

It was the night of what was supposed to be Lee's high-school graduation. He'd found out a week earlier that he wasn't graduating. He was .25 credits short in English but they hadn't caught it in time for him to make it up. Sorry. Never mind that his counselor had told him a year earlier that he would never amount to anything and he may as well drop out. He didn't drop out, but now he wasn't graduating all the same. My sister was graduating that night too and we were SUPPOSED to go to the graduation and sit in the audience with my parents. But from the very start I knew that it would be incredibly easy for me to say I simply didn't see them there and sat somewhere else. This was before cell phones, and graduation was at the Huntsman Center. It wasn't a stretch. And so we didn't go to the graduation ceremony (please don't tell my parents or my sister) First of all, who wants to watch all their friends graduate when they've been cut out of it? And second, we were stupid teenagers. Instead of attending the graduation we broke into a cabin up little cottonwood canyon. We thought it was Lee's friend's uncle--which of course made it okay--but in a quirky twist of weird fate, it turned out to belong to the counselor in our bishopric, a point I learned a year later when we went up there for a Young Womens planning night. Creepy.

So, we go to this cabin and . . .FAST FORWARD . . . decided it was time to go home--the graduation ceremony had been over for about an hour. I put the leftover hot dogs and root beer in a bag (he's said I could HAVE it--is that sweet or what?) It was May, and there was still a lot of snow on the ground. There was a foot path that wound around some cabins up to the parking lot, but it was kinda long so Lee suggested we just go up the hill.

I say, "But I'm in a dress and I paid $9 at Payless for these white leather (i.e. plastic) boots with the cut out stars and the rhinestones on them that don't have any traction."

He says, "I'll help you, we'll be fine."

Then he holds my hand, and dang but I was happy to walk through three foot snow drifts in my traction-free cut out boots if I got to hold his hand. So we start up--and it's not too bad. The snow is frozen so I manage to stay on top of the crust and every time I slide he held on a little tighter. So far, this was totally working for me.

We're almost half way up and the snow drops down to where it melted away from the trunk of a huge pine tree. We're right next to the branches, but have about ten feet of no snow until the drift starts up again.

And then we hear the growl.

Not a small little whimpering growl that says "You're bigger than me and I'm scared" this was a low, long, deep growl that says "Dinner."

We both freeze and then we take off--except that Lee actually moves while I spin in place on wet soggy pine needles, holding tight to the bag of hot dogs and root beer. Somehow he lets go of my hand, which was nice in that it allows me to use that hand to help claw my way over the frozen snow drift, but bad in the sense that he'd totally abandoned me. I'm stepping on my skirt, clutching the bag and still getting no traction. Lee has now reached the top and yells down "Hurry."

So I pull up the skirt of my dress, drop the bag in hopes that the bear will find hot dogs ample substitute for my calves, and punch it. I sink in the snow this time--which was rather cold on my bare legs now exposed due to the fact that I've had to hike my skirt all the way up to move my legs, the snow is pouring into my star cut out boots but I claw, crawl my way up to the top where Lee is waiting for me.

The look on his face when I reach him clues me in to the fact that my skirt is cinched around my waist. I drop it, then he looks me in the face. "I thought you were right behind me."

"Whatever--you got to the top and yelled for me to hurry when I hadn't moved a foot! I'm in a skirt and stupid boots, for cryin out loud, you coulda helped me a little."

"Well, I knew one of us might need to go for help."

We're half an hour from "help", and the bear would be picking his teeth with my ribs by the time Lee got back to me. But his comment reminds both of us that we were running from something so we hurry to the car, get in and lock the doors. We drive a quarter mile before I make him stop so I can empty the snow out of my boots. My skirt is soaked, I'm freezing, AND I lost the hot dogs. I'm not a happy starry-eyed 16 year old anymore. Good thing we'd taken care of the kissing at the cabin cause I wasn't in any mood for it anymore.

But then he reaches across the emergency brake, takes my hand, and with his other hand turns up the MC Hammer Tape. I feel my desire not to kiss this guy fading as MC croons in the background. It's hammer go hammer MC hammer yo hammer and the rest can go and play, Can't touch this.

How can a girl hold her resolve in a situation like that?

"Are you okay?" he asks with those melty blue eyes.

I nod.

"Do you want to go out next week so I can make it up to you?"

I nod again. "A Drive-in, maybe?"

And the rest, as they say is history.

(Disclaimer--I in no way mean to condone not-graduating from high school, breaking and entering, pre-marital partial nudity, lying to family members, being alone with a cute guy in a cabin, or littering. I would also like to point out that Lee worthily served a mission six months after this, we married in the temple and it is now perfectly okay that he sees me half naked. And no, we never found out what was in that tree--we did go to the drive-in though.)

#2 Wants a New Room

(I don't have the dress winner yet, today's the last day to enter. Come back tomorrow)

*Background: About seven years ago our neighbor was moving. His wife had a tanning bed and since my husband and I were in our mid-twenties and not giving into grown up lives just yet, we bought it, had a 220 put into the guest room downstairs and have used it off and on since then. As the years have passed I've had some moles removed--whether or not it's because of the tanning bed I can't say, but I have fair skin and I've realized it's not a good thing for me. My husband uses it less than me but he's been unwilling to get rid of it. The guest room is a nice room--about 16x16 with a big closet. #2 child moved into her own room a couple years ago, and it's quite small 13x8 with a very small closet. This girl would live at the mall if I'd let her (I won't) and she's turning 12 next week. She's been BEGGING to have the guest room for almost a year. Last night when she asked me, I finally threw my husband under the bus and told her it was 100% up to her Dad and he was the one wanting to keep the tanning bed and that I, in my glorious goodness, would love nothing more than to have her take the guest room--but her villainous father was unrelenting. I suggested she give it a try to convince him. Here's what she sent him in an e-mail (he's out of town for a few days). Oh, and I'm funny about putting my kid's names online so it makes it a bit choppy:


Hey dad!
Well, when i had just turned eight, I had the privilege to move out of the room that #1 ( your first child) shared for several years. Yes it was a big room, but sometimes, when I needed to have my own space, #1 was there and so I could only dream of the day I could finally have my OWN room. Of course I was amazed that I could AT LAST have my VERY OWN room!!!! Yes, I enjoyed every moment of it ( kinda), but about a year or so ago, I realized something. Something that brings me to why I am writing you this.

I need a new room.

Don't get me wrong, I love my room. It's just that room is quite small. And as the years (and months) go by, I have received more stuff. Which doesn't go well with my room. OK it is my fault kinda that I have so much stuff. But the stuff is very important to me. Stuff I want to keep for a long time. And believe me, it's a LOT of stuff. So. . . I was thinking about where I could maybe move my room to. . . And faster than you could say 'supercalifraga--' I GOT IT!!!!! The tanning bed room!!!!! But. . . . . .

Your stupid tanning bed had already taken over that room. My room.

I have thought of possible ways I could somehow, just somehow, get that room. I talked to you and mom about it, but you said ' what will we do with the tanning bed?' I told you to get rid of it, sell it, donate it, move it, BURN IT! Well not the last one, but I was thinking it. Oh and your wife (josi) agrees that we should get rid of it. Haha. Sucks to be you. Just joking.

That room is the PERFECT size for me! It is way spaced and it has a BIG closet!!! Oh I need that too. I think it would be sooooo kewl painting and designing the room. Because it's all up to me. Me. Plus, mom said that she could totally sell the tanning bed on KSL.com! Haha. Yeah so. . . You want that tanning bed. Yes, you do. Well, if you just read on, and yes you have to, you might find out things you didn't know about EVIL tanning beds. Read on, you'll like it. . . .




TANNING BEDS

Just like tanning outside, tanning indoors damages your skin. That's because indoor tanning devices emit ultraviolet rays. Tanning occurs when the skin produces additional pigment (coloring) to protect itself against burn from ultraviolet rays. Overexposure to these rays can cause eye injury, premature wrinkling of the skin, and light-induced skin rashes, and can increase your chances of developing skin cancer. So, are tanning beds bad for you?
Found on: http://www.catalogs.com/info/b2b/are-tanning-beds-bad-for-you.html


most common reason behind the goof up is unawareness. Inadequate knowledge of how much time you should actually spend in the tanning bed leaves many people burnt or charred. In order to gain the best results, most of the people over tan themselves through over exposure to UV or ultraviolet rays emitted by the tanning bed lights. It results in skin cancer or permanent
damage to the skin. The local tanning salons use cheap tanning beds with cheap quality acrylic sheets, which fail to protect the customer from damages.

(this goes on for quite some time--about 2000 words that I'm sparing you)



So what do you think?! I am very proud of myself for doing this. Plus, I missed American Idol to research this, now you KNOW I am serious about this. I really really really really really want a new room! ( and IKEA has really nice designers furniture but for low low low low prices!) So PLEASE email me back! Please!