Momedy Sketch: Goodbyeeeeeee Julllllllllllyyyyyyyy or 10 Big Things That Happened This Month.

(****please to be reading the above title in the voice of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber when he says Goodbye my LOOOOOVE to that chick at the airport. Thank you).

(Ella on one of the many rides she fearlessly went on alone at age 3. she can’t be my kid)
OK so yeah.. I have written so many blog posts this year. No really. I have. I just haven’t posted most of them. They’ve been written though. Short and sweet. Lengthy and heartfelt. Fearless and angry. Tons of em. They are sitting in my drafts folder. But I dunno. Once I get them out of my system I just don’t have the energy or the desire to put them out anywhere else. I’ve been unusually non-sharey this year I guess. Anyway. It’s been a weird, weird year in lots of ways. But gosh I miss my blog. I really miss it being all about my family with too many photos of us wearing matching clothing and often silly shallow updates. I miss the levity of it all. The relative simplicity.
Lately I’ve been having all the thoughts. Most of which I’m not sharing with very many people and some thoughts which I’m not sharing with anyone at all. And that’s good and important but it’s also isolating. I’ve felt so disconnected and out of it in every way lately. Physically this year has been a challenge. Preparing to make a major move is isolating too (as discussed here in my last post) and changing my thinking in so many fundamental ways has all conspired to make me feel as though I don’t even remember the person I was a few months ago.   It’s weird and surreal and kind of out of body. But blogging has always made me feel…more like me, it’s comforting and grounding and so in celebration of this last crazy month I’m just going to channel my old self and post an old style blog post. Hella heavy on the photos, light on the…well whatever it is that I am about now and just…go with it.
Without Further Ado: 10 or whatever number I get to Things that happened in July.
According to my picture files:
1. Not to be a downer but let’s start at the very beginning. I totaled my van on the 1st of July. It was a ridiculous silly accident in an empty parking lot at low speed which happily only involved me and one of the concrete bases of the light poles. But sadly, our van was written off. (Two years ago in July someone else wrote off our van. July is no good for us vis a vis, vans. ) I escaped serious injury but I have been in considerable pain for a solid month due to the air bag deploying. I have short legs and I sit close to the wheel. I was hit hard. Yada yada. My face was messed up, my wrist was messed up, my knee was messed up my rib was probably broken (it still hurts like the dickens to breathe some days). I was bruised in every conceivable place from my knees to my forehead. All this to say: PSA: Airbags save lives but they are not a joke. Pay attention when you are driving in parking lots and don’t let little kids sit in the front. Also PSA Part 2: for burns and cuts and abrasions don’t bother with triple antibiotic creams and stuff. Just go straight for the essential oils. Day 1in the gorey montage below is the injury right after it happened. I had applied frankincense and lavender while I was waiting for medical attention. It eased the pain immediately. Then I saw the Dr. and I don’t know if it was the trauma of the accident or what the heck but swear I forgot about the miracle of essential oils for the next week until I started violently puking from all the pain meds (not good fun with a mashed up torso and ribs lemmetellya).
At that point I was like…oohhhhhhh…yeahhhh the “oyels” as Ella calls them! So I started taking them and feeling instantly better. They worked really well on my muscular pain but here’s a nice little visual for how well they worked on the outside. The abrasion on my wrist had become sooo sore and looked infected. (It’s a really awkward spot to have a wound). I stopped using the neosporin and put a few drops of frankincense on it. Oh my word. That was not soothing. It felt like a thousand hot needles at first. After several minutes of that torture the pain eased and the healing began. Cue choirs of heavenly angels. People! There’s a reason the wise men brought baby Jesus Frankincense. That stuff is the bomb.com. Like yeah…it’s miraculous.
Sorry these pics are totes gross but I think they are quite compelling.

This is what it looked like one week after I started applying frankincense and lavender once a day. So yeah…essential oils. Freaking miraculous. Don’t forget about those.

As an aside Ella would come to me every day as this was healing to ask me if the mouth owie ate the apple owie yet. At first I was like…what the what you strange little kid but check it out. There is totally an apple up closest to my hand and if you look sideways that other big chunk of grossness looks just like a little pac man mouth. No? She’s so creative and weird that one.
2. We have been working pretty much non-stop on getting our house fixed up. Still. Yep. Painful process. Mostly it sucks that we are getting this house just the way I want it just in time to leave it. Life is just really stupid sometimes. Anyway, somebody better pay decent money for this house because it’s jolly cute now. Getting cuter every day. Pictures to come. Trrrrust me. Also? The whole process of getting one’s house fixed up? Not for the impatient. Also not for the recently injured. Also not for the prone to be foul of mouth. I have sworn more this month than my entire life put together and I’ve always been a potty mouth so that’s just alarming. And I shall say no more about that at this juncture. Lest I swear.
My darling Cindi’s summer Sayer project this year was helping us to turn the disaster area that remained after we cut the tree down last year into the firepit oasis of our dreams. All in one day. And she threw in a gazebo redo while she was at it. How much cuteness? The only problem with all this is having to leave it. And Cindi. How can I leave Cindi? Cindi will simply have to come with. That’s what.

3. ALL 4 of my big kids went to soccer camp this month.   They had fun and we are broke. They are now extremely skilled at soccer. Benj even got to play on the all star team. Watch for them at the next World Cup. Or I want my money back.

4. We had our last (we think) July 4th as residents of the US. It was low key on account of being all beaten up from that July 1st accident but we had some friends over and made the most of it. The kids made a very patriotic trifle all by themselves and Ella fell asleep during the fireworks. This is Ella’s reaction to fear. Cover head with blanket, go to sleep. I am considering terrorizing her on a nightly basis.

That night we had some kids sleeping over and orchestrated some sparkler art. This was harder to make happen then you might imagine. A few of Gabe’s friends might be emotionally scarred from this experience.

4. Gracie went to her first YW Camp. I have no photos of that. On account of the fact that I was not there. (Quiet cheer). Hey! Did you know there are people who absolutely ADORE and actually volunteer for girl’s camp even when they are not obligated to attend. I have lots of happy memories from when I was obligated to attend but am not that other kind of person. Anyway happily there are quite a few nice people like that and they made sure our Gracie had a happy and healthy and altogether epic time and for that I am very grateful.
5. We went on one last (?? noooo) utterly blissful trip to Lake Michigan. My sister Shona swung into town just before we left and we finally got to show her a nice WARM time. She usually comes in December and was here for the entire polar vortex debacle (yet to be chronicled here) so she earned a lovely Lake Michigan trip. We stayed in an awesome house on a private beach and just dug in the sand, and floated on the lake, and had bonfires and s’mores on the beach, napped, read and just thoroughly enjoyed being together. We had very sketchy internet/phone connection. It was perfection. Today Benj said, “when can we go back to that house. all my troubles went away there”. Indeed. You know how I’m always harping about a desert island with just my family? This is what I’m saying. Total isolation. It’s a great thing. Here was my nice big bed and here was the view from that nice big bed. I enjoyed that nice big bed.

And this beautiful deck

And all that soft warm sand



The famous five. I do rather love them.
Nothing brings siblings together like sand. Well that and ganging up on their parents.

Family portrait attempt number 1…the shadowy Sayers

family portrait attempt number 2

Sayers in Silhouette..

All five playing together…they did this a lot. No fighting just chilling and laughing and loving each other and have I mentioned that I WANT TO RAISE MY KIDS ON A DESERTED ISLAND with no phones and/or internet yet?


Beach art by Gracie
6. Then we went to Chicago for a couple of days (we stopped for lunch in St. Joseph on the way) Ella was very excited to see an “Ariel boat” and explored this beautiful ship.

We hit the ferris wheel and other rides went on a boat tour around navy pier. Some (like Ella) enjoyed the ferris wheel more than others…(Like Aaron)
The next day we went to the museum of natural history. Which was pretty amazing. The dinosaur’s name is Sue and she was pretty chill.
7.Aaron and the kids departed since Gracie had to get back to girls camp and he had to get back to work…and Shona and I remained for some girl time. We stayed in a very cool historical hotel with an amazing view

and had an incredible dinner in a very high location (at first I felt pretty wobbly and hysterical every time the light of an aircraft hove into sight but after a while I just could not get over the insane views and did not want to ever leave)... We also saw the Blue Man Group, shopped, did the architectural boat tour and ate deep dish pizza at Giordanos and midnight. Then we took the longest (but surprisingly scenic) train road home. It was great.


Thanks for taking a detour to America between Paris and South Africa Shona xo
8.We also finally got passport pics and all that for the kids this month
Oh yeah in case you were wondering about that whole “we’re moving to Africa” thing. We ARE still moving to Africa. We were planning to be outies mid August but MY passport is hung up and now the kids need visas before we go (rather than when we get there since they considerately just changed a law to make it so) so this passport procurement is not as last minute as it may seem….and yeah we have pretty much no idea how long it is going to take for us to get out of here but lately we are figuring that everything takes significantly longer than one might think even in one’s most pessimistic prediction. Still! We are hoping sooner rather than later and signing on for Fall soccer while we wait. (yay.)
Bee Tee Dubs…It costs a FORTUNE to do anything with 5 kids. Passports not withstanding. PSA: don’t have kids if you aren’t a millionaire. Or something. Two things. Ella’s passport pic looks uncannily like mine at the same age. No I can’t find it, don’t even ask me that. Just trust me on this. Uncannily. Also unbeknownst to us by waiting until Benj’s 16th bday to get his passport he could get the adult version and now he has it for 5 extra years AND he got to sign it himself. Booyah.

9. Speaking of 16th bdays….

We finished off the month well on July 28th with Benj and Gabe hitting sometimes sweet 16 and frequently fabulous 14 respectively. Yes that’s 16 as in ALLOWED TO DRIVE and 14…um as in Gabey baby is now 14 and if he was in Idaho he’d be allowed to drive and WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? (Other than that Idaho is even more cray than one might think). Does this make me an old person or something because seriously I am still 15 in my mind and maturity level so if so that’s just messed up man. Look….even they can’t cope with this reality. (Hashtag so excited to be blowing out their candles for mommy’s photo while all their friends look on.)

Here’s the humiliating bedhead let’s compare sizes picture which you can tell they love so so much… because I had horrible pregnancies and long labours and sometimes a kid needs to just make up for that once a year…you know?

10. Pretty sure I messed up the numbers up there somewhere but let’s pretend I didn’t cos this is a nice one to end on. So!!! As if July 28th wasn’t already so stinking cool and we weren’t efficient enough at birthday celebrating in this family. (2 boys are the same day, both girls with the same digits, Ella sharing her grandpa’s bday and Finny on Cinco de Mayo just hrs after my mom’s birthday). My baby sister Thalia went and had herself her first baby on the VERY SAME DAY! How cool is that?! Way cool that’s how. So now we have 3 of the most gorgeous people on the planet born July 28th. She had this epic labour and I kept thinking….14 years ago I was doing what she is doing. 16 years ago I was doing it for the first time too…it was pretty amazing. Considering 16 years ago she was about the same age Benjamin is now. Actually she was a year younger. OMG. Save us all.
Welcome to the world beautiful little Amelia. Oh how I love you already! It physically pains me not to be there to squish you and huff your newborn smell and fuss over your mommy..but soon I hope!

Good grief. Pretty sure not one person is going to make it all the way through this thing (if it actually ever posts at all) but that’s totally ok. I’m glad to have done some sort of round up. July had lots of good moments. I am so happy I did this. I know it sounds silly but I really am! I do feel more connected and grounded and Snaphappy Kirsty Oversharer Non-Editor ish already. It’s now well into August and I feel like August is going to be awesome.