About
Why bother?
That’s what I had thought since the first time someone mentioned having a blog. Me and every other stay at home mom with a sense of humor or an opinion or an “angle” and a computer can “have our blogs.” It started seeming kinda cliche. It might be, but theres no shame in being someone who “likes writing.” I think its nice when people say they “like writing”. It’s a nice thing to like… so lets be cliche.
A few years went by and my perspective changed when I realized my attitude was pretty negative about writing. And that only happened after I began the process of forcing myself to search for “good things” in my life, and to write them down. I realized that in doing this I had transformed the writing process for myself. Since my preteen years I had filled journal upon journal with complete rubbish. Negativity. Drama. Hurt. Anger. I think I developed a habit of recording bad events and looking back I know there were some positives I had left out, but the negative things clearly forced me to my diaries more than the positive. For the first time in my life I began going to my journal with only the GOODS! When you begin to train yourself in this way, before you know it, it’s your brain’s first instinct to fire in the direction of appreciation…of thankfulness.
Before I knew what had happened, I was seeing the world with new eyes and the thought of having a blog became more appealing than ever! I suddenly had material I wanted to share, that seemed worth sharing. Pick up the newspaper and ingest all the negativity you want. I’m gonna do my best to keep this little cove on the interweb a place for every woman who has ever wondered if “they got the wrong lady” when she had found herself knee deep in the role of mother and housewife (either/or). For every woman who has ever heard the voice of inadequacy questioning every third move in this child rearing mess she’s gotten herself into. For every woman who has ever needed to feel empowered and uplifted and encouraged in the most important role she’ll ever play. For every mistake you’ve made. For every tear, every broken dish, every pissed bed.
This blog is devoted to finding the beauty in the explosive and often times volatile situation we’ve found ourselves in. Hold on tight. Bring a roll of paper towels. Make sure everyone is buckled. At times, you may want to look away. It won’t always be pretty. But it’ll be worth it. Welcome.
Chris is my loving and super tuff husband. Flynn and Iris are our 8 year old wonder twins. Micah is awesome and he’s 6. Owen is our favorite real life crazy person and he’s almost 4.
What are you gonna find here?
I like to feed them kinda healthy things…which mostly means I do a lot of experimenting in the kitchen. I’ll record bits of that here n there.
I also have this subdued fashiony side of myself that is basically the little girl with 4 bros who grew up beaming with excitement when a bag of hand me downs was dropped off for our “little bit poor but super rich in character” family. I knew I could disappear into my room for hours with that black garbage bag, observing each piece of clothing carefully and giving it my review, sometimes only after trying it on… maybe a number of times. My favorites were the donations from my great Aunt Nancy. She had her dresses handmade back in the 50’s. It’s her fault, for being fabulous. So mostly it lead to a thrifting adult woman with a closet that has doubled as a vintage clothing store that she happens to shop at all the time. The Bleecker Street Boutique was my realization that I didn’t actually have any kind of attachment to these collected items… it was more of an insistence on surrounding myself with beautiful things…and especially not letting them sit in some crumby basement full of moth infested donations. A salvager of beauty, if you will. Upon realizing this, I knew I was more of a channel… just collecting and redistributing where appreciated. My humble business failed once in a local farmers market, after two years of some of the funnest girl time I’ve ever known… but I’ve got at least 4-5 more failures left in me. Especially with the regular encouragement and backing if my 8 year old daughter Iris who continuously reconfirms how excited she is to “be my partner”. So be prepared to be periodically bombarded with the progress and lessons of phase two…The Bleecker Street Boutique revisited.
I school the kids at home, not because I’m good at it but because its something I’ve always dreamed of doing and last year, after a foul three weeks at our local, inner city elementary school I yanked em and began living the dream! (not actually as dreamlike as I’d expected) I’ve heard people say that kids that are being bullied just need to man up and do “I don’t know what”…but it’s a different story when your kids are the ones coming home crying everyday and you’re starting to feel like a tired cheerleader trying to convince a losing team that they’re actually winning. The bad job that I feel like I did this year schooling at home is 10 x’s more valuable than any public school education received in a mental state of stress and fear. Definitely considering some public schools in the future, but for now this feels okay.
We live in the city, but don’t necessarily want to “blah blah blah” I’ve given up complaining about our starter home that we haven’t been able to sell for two years now. Who cares!? We enjoy a super full, wildly colorful, loving existence in a more grandiose dwelling than most of the world knows. I’ve fallen in love with the feeling of “too many people” in our humble abode. We all get to be closer! And that sounds about perfect to me.
We have four kids. Our “not planned but exceedingly loved” twins, Flynn and Iris, came after two years of shaky marriage. At age 21, we barely had our sea legs when a capsizing sea squall tore through. We learned a lot and tried to build each other up as we muscled through some trying years. Overwhelmed much? Might as well go for #3 (Micah) and #4 (Owen) before we got too smart for all this kid business. I thank myself everyday for how naive and carefree we were. Anyone with more sense about them would have stopped back at the twins. But that wouldn’t be nearly as messy or smelly or wet or beautiful or noisy or joyful or comical or crusty as these four wild people. They are our world.
Lastly I want to introduce my super wonderful high school sweetheart… Mr. Christian Phillip Emanuel Krouse. Frankly, he had me way back there at Philip. We’ve been laughing at each other and at other things for a good 16 years now. He’s a talented musician (literally… guitar, bass, cello, piano, drums…twinkle twinkle on a violin once..) artist, entrepreneur, husband, father and red head. He brings out the best in me. Without him, I wouldn’t be me. What can I say, we grew up together. He’s like a husband who’s also a bro. We could probably have been much more successful by this point in our life if we didn’t enjoy hanging out together so much. He’d work later and I’d…work. But lo, we just wanna putter around the house together and take bike rides with the kids and make up songs about “only important to us” kinda moments and mulch around the dying arborvitaes. There’s no one I’d rather drink wine and fold laundry with than Mr. Krouse. I pinch myself most days when I realize what I have coming through the door at 5 pm. He loves our children with undeniable intention. Never have I known a person who has been more able to recognize the true importance of one action over another and consistently chooses the more important. He doesn’t love children’s books or playgrounds…but they fill up most of his free time. I hope you enjoy the continuous love story of our family…our life.
Thanks for stopping by.
Well, I wrote all that roughly 3 years ago…and a few things have changed.
- We now have 6 kids instead of 4, (11 year old boy-girl twins, 8 year old boy, 6 year old boy, 2 year old boy and 11 day old boy!) because as it turns out…I absolutely love having Christian Phillip Emanuel Krouse’s children and staying around the home, keeping the fire burning…literally…there’s nothing worse than coming home on a winter’s day when no-one has been home to stoke the fire.
- Chris is in the midst of his 3rd year of 4 years of nursing school. From drywall contractor to nurse, in just 4 long, hard, exhausting, painstaking years! Who wouldn’t want to do it! Throw six kids at that situation and I think it might be what they’re calling paradise these days… He is an everyday hero, and somehow he still finds time to take me out to the local brewery here n there for some fish n chips and cold beer. Life is simple and perfect with Mr. Krouse and the one thing that NEVER changes is how extremely smart I was to have stalked him and wore him down into submission way back when I was 14 years old. If I coulda hopped on this train sooner, I woulda!
- I DO NOT school the children at home any longer. They attend our favorite local public school, which we have to open enroll to every year, but thanks to their awesome grades, their perfect attendance and their stelar behavior, they have been welcomed back year after year. They are amazing children and they attend an amazing school. Some women are cut out for homeschool. I am not. And thats OK.
- I always want to write but have little time/energy to do so…but here I am…because really, I love it.
- I no longer deal in vintage clothing but instead have taken up selling really beautiful, hand woven baskets from Ghana. I’m not much of a business woman, but find I am happiest if I have at least a little bit of monetary action going on outside of the home. I mostly sell to people I know or people who find me at our local Farmer’s Market for one of my random “Guest Appearances” I like to consider myself an underground basket dealer…”If you can track me down, maybe I’ll let you buy a basket from me…” but that might just be my way of being OK with NOT growing my business. I just don’t have any more to give to a small business at this time. Someday. Someday.
- I’m not great at editing my writing, because TIME. I barely get the stuff written down, much less perfectly and literately communicated. Again, something to aspire toward. Till that day, a little grace goes a long way, and thanks for your tolerance.
- I’m in the midst of potty training a toddler right now, so send me your prayers, your vibes, your love and ALL tips and pointers and deep breathing exercises that you have.
- I wiped a puddle of milk and cheerios off the table to make room for me and my laptop to update this ABOUT portion…but the rest of my house still has that “Cheerio/milk” filter over it and my four other kids will be coming in the door any minute from school, so this is all I’ve got. Peace be with you.
