{About My Almost Domesticated Life}

{About Desi}

My name is Desi, and I am the mulier in domum.

{Which is just a semi-fancy way of saying I am the woman in charge around here.}

That’s my husband, Josh, with me in the picture. He and I have been together for 11 years (as of summer 2013), which seems like a ridiculously large number for what feels like such a short period of time. We met each other working at a fast food restaurant, and while I dated one of the other guys, he spent his time being incredibly, romantically head over heels for me. {You can read his version of the story on my Facebook page here.}   I know that I am incredibly lucky because Josh is the type of husband who makes a girl happy to call herself a wife. ❤ 

Those are my awesome, amazing, frustratingly wonderful children. My oldest daughter is now nine years old and my ‘baby boy’ is five. {Where does the time go?!?} In between those two, we have two sets of twins: a fraternal boy/girl set who are eight, and a fraternal boy/boy set who are six. My husband and I are learning to parent with differing parenting styles, approaches, and expectations, praying for grace, mercy and wisdom  from God for each step of the journey. We were devoted homeschoolers until this last year, when we made the decision to put all six children into public school because of health issues with me and my husband. Before the school year was over, we had decided we will pull them back out and keep them home next year.

I know it piques the curiosity: Here’s the most common answers:

Yes, they were all naturally conceived. No, we didn’t plan them that way, but we were excited, happy, and grateful for each and every one of them. Yes, I delivered them all naturally- only one c-section in the four deliveries, and a successful VBAC afterwards. Yes, we know what causes that, why do you think we have so many? 

About me, personally? The list reads fairly typical: I am a Child of God, a wife to one, a mommy to many. I fill many roles that I struggle to keep from defining me: I am chef, chauffeur, maid, and laundress. I have developed an expertise in emergency first aid, organizing a houseful of toys, making finger-stained walls and bubble-gummed coated floors look presentable, and keeping the peace when tempers run hot.

I am a bibliophile, and enjoy everything from non-fiction to self-help, from epic fantasy to best-sellers. I earn my spending cash {and occasionally pay a bill or two} by working as a ‘professional ghost writer’, where I write about 10,000 words a day that I don’t even get to put my name to, hence the reason I’m so particular about what I write here. In my free personal time, I read {duh}, cross-stitch, garden, chase kids, and work on my novel {which I will finish one of these days!}. 

I spend a great deal of my time devoted to housework and mothering the children, but still have those moments where my artsy brain completely zones out and I, and the children, spend the entire day enticing birds to the garden and decorating the house with chalk paintings. So… I’ve become Almost Domesticated… with a little work left to do. (-;

Ten {Formally} Little Known, but Interesting Tidbits

{That you just may be interested in learning since you’re reading my blog.}

1. I don’t do bugs. {And don’t you dare laugh!} In a house with four boys and two tom-girls, you learn early and learn well your tolerance for things that are decidedly creepy & crawly. My tolerance level? None. 
2. I have an addiction to printing out worksheets and e-books. {Is that possible? Yes, yes it is.} I adore printing things out and organizing them into neat little notebooks. That’s why I am so happy when I discover that my favorite bloggers release new e-books for me to add to my stack of printed-out-awesomeness! It’s one place I spend my money that my husband just doesn’t understand.
3. In general, I don’t do TV. Not that I am against it specifically or anything {and yeah, we own two}, but I am just not interested in it. It’s really hard to concentrate on my favorite books if the TV is running in the background. (-: My weaknesses shows that I watch are slightly embarrassing: My name is Earl, Futurama, The Walking Dead, and Deadly Obsessions. 
4. I play guitar. And, my first question to another person would be ‘what do you play’? I have a Gibson acoustic and a Dime Washburn. I am horrible at reading tableture, and haven’t learned to read sheet music for guitar {although I can to play piano… did I mention I play the piano?} so I like to play songs that are fairly uncomplicated and repetitive- which eliminates most of the children’s songs I know. 
5. I adore, like ‘lurve’, being a little bit crunchy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It started several years ago when I had my second daughter… she was born with extremely sensitive skin, and I had to search for months to find products that would not aggravate her super sensitive skin. When we later found out that she was actually born with cerebral palsy {I know, right? How does a doctor miss that?!?} and a couple of my other children had medical issues, it became even more important to keep chemicals and nasties away from them, both on their delicate skin and in their little tummies. sigh I digress. More on this in the blog. (-:
6. In the same vein, my household keeps kosher. Yep. No pork {Sorry to all you bacon lovers out there!}.We also keep most of the other dietary laws, for both health and religious reasons. We have been kosher for almost four years and I’ve not regretted it for one second!
7. I used to be a smoker. cringe That was a hard phrase to write, mostly because I was never really proud of being one in the first place. One of these days, I will write the story of my quitting journey down for you. {And if you are a smoker and need some encouragement, hit me up! I’m always happy to help!}
8. I am an insomniac. Oh… how I adore sleep, when I can get it but oh how it eludes me. Sad thing is, I adore my early morning quiet time more, so I am working hard on developing a better, more healthful, sleeping pattern. 
9. My favorite colors are brown and grey. I am so boring! Ha! 
10. I tend to be the listener, the advice giver, the ‘therapist’ {as my bestie calls me}. Not that I am not a chatter, but I like to listen as well and have made it a point to develop this aspect of my character. I believe the philosophy that you should listen more than you talk if you want to learn to be wise. (-; {In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise. Proverbs 10:19… it’s one of my life verses and goals!}