Embracing Change

Have you ever known someone who doesn't appreciate change? I think I go in and out of that. Or perhaps I don't like some changes but enjoy others. Who knows? I realized "change is in the air" last night when ALL THREE of my kids were gone. Austin, of course, has moved out. Paige seems to be out every night with her friends. And Trent was at a sleep-over. I realize I have a few more years with Paige (and more than a few with Trent), but the "little kid" days are over and I really don't like it. I LOVED that part of my life. How fun it is to have little ones around and I often felt it was my "purpose in life" to be their mom. And now....they jump on the first opportunity to leave this house. hahahaha.......


BUT, God is good. He never lets the fun run out! SOOOOoooooo....when I was policing Paisley the other day (poorly policing I might add), I had to laugh when I found the following situation taking place. Do you remember when your kids were little and they would do something naughty but you had to turn your head and laugh?

I've concluded that my "little kid" days are actually ALIVE AND WELL. And they don't seem to be ending anytime soon. :) So when you come to my house and you need to use the bathroom, you need to turn around and find the toilet paper on the back of the tank!

Julie and Julia

Alert! Alert! Alert! ..............................

I have a new favorite movie! Have you seen Julie and Julia? If you haven't, you MUST. Be forwarned, it is a chick flick...but it is soooo good! It is light and sweet and entertaining! But one of the things I love THE MOST about this movie is the things it has inspired me to do. Rather, it has inspired me to add a few things to the ol' bucket list!

Here are a few additions:

1. I want to learn how to do a little french cooking. And I think I need to take a look at The Joy of Cooking!

2. I want to wear pearls while I cook. (humor me)

3. I want to have dinner on a roof top in the city...and I'm not talking the City of Avon.

4. I want to have a large sit-down dinner party for a group of friends........

to mention a few. PLUS, it stars Meryl Streep who is one of my most favorite actresses (and you can now add Amy Adams to that list) and the story revolves around blogging. That being said, this movie is a MUST-SEE!

So, what else is new?

Many days of rain. Okay, that's not so new but this is that type of rain that comes with a really freaky sky and then a major storm blows in and out in a matter of minutes. We received a call from my father-in-law that John and Karen's old development in Westlake got hit hard. In his words, "it looks like a war zone." We rode out to see......and he was right. Trees down everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. There were trees on houses and trees on cars, trees blocking streets and trees on power lines.

I had to go outside to get a picture of the sky because it was that weird. (Not bad for the storm princess, right dad?)

When I turned around to go back into the house after taking the pictures, I got a sweet surprise!

Hope you have lots of sweet faces looking your way today!

Well, Hello Sunshine!

I have been away from this blog for sooo long. I kind of miss it. So, I've decided to try again. It really is a good way for me to write down our day to day life happenings, to keep a record and well....to vent.

We lost our dog Charlie a few weeks ago. It really was such a sad time. We had him for almost 17 years. He will be missed, every day. Fortunately, we have added an ankle-biter to our household. HER name is Paisley. I capitalize the word "her," because I constantly refer to her as a boy. Old habits..... Here is our Paisley.

Paisley is now 10 weeks old and 4 1/2 lbs. She should gain 3 or 4 more lbs. Paige wanted a "purse dog" so Paisley fit the desciption. One of the best things about Paisley is that each morning she greets each family member with hugs and kisses. And trust me, sometimes it is the ONLY thing that gets you through the day while she is biting, chewing on our belongings and having accidents!

AND she even managed to crack the one person in this family who prides himself on being anything but a softee!


Welcome little Paisley!

A New Kind of Normal

Well, Hello....Again! I admit, it has been way too long since I have blogged. Sometimes, real life is enough. Recreating it on a blog would just be overwhelming. In the past few months, many changes have taken place around our house. Some of them are rather significant, so it has taken up much more of my time.

To begin with, Paige is now schooling at home. She is attending OHVA (Ohio Virtual Academy) and is really happy. Finally! Trust me, we have heard ALL the negative comments about virtual schooling. Why is it that people are slow to pat you on the back and quick to condemn? Hhhmmm.... Human nature, I am guessing. Anyways, I have been pretty impressed with this system. I didn't really know much about virtual schooling at first. But now that we are participating, you can see how this is such a good thing for many students. Not only are there students with disabilities, but there are amazing athletes, young mothers and yes, disciplinary problems as well. It takes all kinds to make up the world. But the flexability has been wonderful for Paige. She is able to take her acting and voice classes, work out at the Y and is considering adding in some guitar lessons.

Onto other things.......

We had a visit from one of our most favorite presidents. Let me introduce.........George Washington.

Ha! Today, Trent's class created a wax museum of historical characters. Each child was assigned a character. As you proceed around the "museum," you were to push the button next to each character. The character would then speak, reciting interesting facts about their lives. Did you KNOW that George Washington was THAT good looking?? And might I add, its NOT easy getting a 3rd grade boy to agree to the ponytail!

Another president stopped by: Abe Lincoln (aka. Trent's friend Alex)

And....one of my personal favorites (I bet you cannot tell by the wig): Albert Einstein

I CRACKED UP at this little guy. For some reason, his true personality seemed to fit the character he was assigned. He would stick his tongue out anytime someone tried to take his picture so I snapped a quick photo while he wasn't looking!

Not to be outdone, darling Charlie has taken on some new traits of his own. Charlie is now 15 1/2 years old. Mike and I keep making comments to the kids that he isn't going to be around long. I have stepped in more "little puddles" around the house than I would care to admit. The vet thinks he could be having some kidney failure. He basically has no hearing and the eyesight is starting to go. But, when he comes into the house with a spry step, I cannot think of putting him to sleep yet. Oddly enough, he has become more "clingy" with age. Now, every morning after Mike leaves for work, he has found a new place to relax:

And the guy next to him doesn't seem to mind!

Hopefully, I will see you tomorrow - friends!

Down Memory Lane...........

I received an email from my friend, Chris and few weeks back. I saved the email and today seemed to be the perfect day to blog it! WARNING: Definately for the "Over 40" crowd!

REMEMBER WHEN:

You could hardly see for all the snow? Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go. Pull a chair up to the TV set, 'Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet.'

My mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too.

Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring)-- no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE, and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now...

Flunking gym was not an option, even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.

What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah ... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front step, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes! We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

Considering these economic times maybe it isn't such a bad idea to reflect on the past, realize how good life can be with "a little less" and then SIMPLIFY!

Hugs!

Thankfulness!

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

He's Done.

Well, it has finally happened. I knew this day way coming. I have tried to avoid it. I have pretended as long as possible, trying to be "on guard" at every turn. Yet, in was inevitable. It happened.

Last week, Mike, Trent and I were having dinner. All of a sudden Trent blurts out of nowhere "I don't want to go see Santa anymore." I immediately kicked Mike in the leg. Then he said "I think I have outgrown that. Those are all little kids and it is boring." At this point my heel was digging into Mike's foot. "Okay, I understand that...." I said. It felt difficult speaking over the lump in my throat. The conversation grew into ideas on his list that "I" could buy him. It sunk in that Trent is no longer believing in Santa. We never mentioned whether he believed or not. I never like to break "the truth" during the holiday, so I think we will breech the subject again in a few months. But, I feel sad. My VERY LAST child is no longer a believer. For a few days, it changed things. But, once I was finished feeling sorry for myself, I was able to get back into the holiday spirit!

May I say...thanks to Bakerella (http://www.bakerella.blogspot.com/) for introducing me to cakeballs! More specifically, thank you for introducing me to cakeballs that look like turkeys! I'm pretty proud of my tastey little project. I think it turned out pretty cute!!! Hopefully they will last long enough to be a centerpiece on the table.

More news.....Paige is almost 1/4 through her first year at Lutheran West. She finished her volleyball season last month. Although the team wasn't that strong, I thought Paige played well. Now, she has started cheerleading. She is cheering for the Lutheran West Freshman team. Good Fun!!! Did I mention that one of the best parts of cheerleading is the clothes. Yep, you heard it here first. The girl (I supposed like every other high school girl) is a clothes horse.

Sorry for the long "break." Every once in a while I have to take breaks for myself and I guess that includes blogging. But, I am collected and back!

Have a good one (if you are still reading this blog)!