Long before I started blogging, my daughter would share with one of her favorite blogs, Moments That Define Life and the {listable life} feature. Today, I am at my 30-day mark of blogging, and I am ready to jump in and give it a try:

5 Things I Would Do If Money Were No Object

1. Add a Bathroom

I love our house. It is on the smaller side, but it is located in a wonderful neighborhood. There are nine people in the house; there is one bathroom. I’m not complaining (much) because having one bathroom has challenged me to be the most organized mom, especially in the morning…on school days. So adding a bathroom, maybe with double sinks, would certainly be on my list.

2. Pimp My Ride

I need to be able to transport 9 people from Point A to Point B. I am also a practical person (read that to mean I do not have a money tree in the backyard). So for the last 12 years, my “mom” vehicle has been the Ford Econoline Van. It is a spacious, utilitarian 15 passenger van. Don’t get me wrong; owning the big van makes me the popular mom for hauling the WHOLE team to soccer games.  However, if money were no object, I would want to transport my family in style (or as much style as a 15 passenger van can provide). I’m talking plush, heated and cooled seats, individual TVs in the ceiling, mini coolers for keeping drinks and snacks cold, and a kickass sound system to bump the Toy Story 3 soundtrack.

3. Start a Foundation for Adoptive Families

There are hundreds of Adoption Foundations and resources out there. Sadly, with a lack of funding, their helpfulness is limited. I would love to start a foundation that can provide more than a list of resources; I want a foundation that can cover the costs of things families cannot afford or insurance companies refuse to cover (special needs camps, housekeeping services, mother’s helpers, or treatments that are labeled experimental). These are things that, at one point or another in my life, would have benefited our family immensely.

4. Interior House Painting

Years of parenting highly reactive kids have taken a toll on my walls. In a busy house, walls seem to be the one thing that just gets overlooked. I have the cans of paint, but lack the time or energy to paint. If money were no object, I would absolutely splurge on having professional painters come in to paint my walls. I may even take the family on a weekend mini-vacation to give the paint time to dry.

5. A Vacation Alone with My Husband

We married in college. Broke and busy with classes, we skipped the honeymoon saying we would take one after graduation. Graduate School. Children. Dream deferred. Oh we have had evenings away from the children for dinners and movies, but our motley crew can take the average babysitter to task. Our kids’ cute smiles and witty knock-knock jokes are a cover for the havoc they can wreak on a babysitter team (yes, we usually hire two – a tag-team so to speak). With no regard to money, I would hire a team of sitters and take a vacation ALONE with the guy who has made the last 27 years of my life amazing…my husband.

Linking up with…

I recently splurged on a DSLR camera (well actually, I split the cost with my daughter and son-in-law). The day I got the camera, I spent over an hour taking pictures of a garlic bulb so I could try out the different settings.

The camera is nothing short of amazing; it was wonderful investment.

Sadly, the camera has also brought me shockingly close to reality.

The other day, I took pictures of my kids eating ice cream in our dining room. No big deal. When I later uploaded the pictures to my computer, I was disgusted by what I saw in these innocent photos…paint-chipped walls, a ketchup splatter (on the wall), and fingerprints all around the light switch.

Have I really let my house slide into such a mess?

I put “painting the dining room” on my March to-do list. I then offered one of my kids $5 to wipe down the dining room walls.

Also added to my to-do list: purchase and learn to use Adobe Photoshop to edit out my housekeeping failures…just in case the above two things don’t happen.

I watch the Gossip Girl.

My oldest daughter got me hooked about three years ago. I watched one episode, mid-season. One word: smitten. The next day, I bought all the previous seasons and was caught up within a week.

I know I throw the CW’s viewer demographics off.  But… I love the show.

Love it for a few reasons:

-there are just a few characters, which actually look different from each other, so I can keep them all straight. I am usually trying to watch a TV show while doing another mom thing (cooking, laundry, mom stuff). Shows with detailed or complex story lines and characters that all look alike are hard for me to follow.

-the show is full of pretty things: fashion, food, and travel. It is like a mini-Pinterest board. Even though I can’t afford these pretty things, I sure love the eye candy.

-So.Much.Drama.  My life as a mom has very little drama (chaotic & busy does not equal drama). So I just love a show with so many “OH NO he/she didn’t” moments.

I wish my life was so simple that I could say I am going to watch the Gossip Girl tonight…and actually sit down to watch the show at the actual time it is on.

Never will happen.

So I download it and play catch up on one of those nights when I could use a good dose of drama.

…and now you know my dirty little secret.

I met a foster mom at the park yesterday. She was a parenting champ. She said she and her husband were almost empty nesters and they felt this was their calling. They had no plans of adopting the children they fostered, just wanted to ride into retirement surrounded by kids. She said I just “don’t feel like I’m ready to be done parenting.”

Foster parents are beyond amazing. I see a foster parent very much like I see an ER doctor. The foster parent and the ER doctor both come into an unknown situation, assess the damages, and make a plan to help. And they are expected to do all this with compassion and understanding. The difference is an ER doctor goes home at the end of his shift, and over time, may have learned how to leave his work at the hospital. Not true for a foster parent. The foster parents I know care for their foster children as their own; in such a short period of time, they develop a deep love and attachment for their foster kids.

I could never be a foster parent.

And for one reason only.

I could not work towards a foster child’s reunification with the biological parents, especially if those parents were neglectful or abusive. Yet, foster parents must stay neutral with regard to the birth parents and be cooperative in their dealings with them, despite seeing the harm they have inflicted upon the child. Nope. Couldn’t do it. Call me unforgiving, but I believe you only get one shot at parenting…there are no do-overs.

Kudos to foster care parents, I admire your strength and fortitude. Thank you for saving so many lives…without the medical degree.

Last week, we brought awareness to stopping the use of the “R” word.

It appears we just replaced the “R” word, with a new word: Autistic.

The following clip shows the ignorance [the clip is a Red Band clip so language is not censored]

Begin watching at the 3:31 mark…prepare to be upset: