Gratitude Wednesday

With the events of last week still fresh in my mind, and the Seabrook Christmas preparations in full swing, I decided to take a moment to voice my gratitude.

1. I’m grateful for my husband who always knows what I need, whether it’s a hug, a break from the daily grind or whatever new bit of fascinating technology I’m currently drooling over.

2. I’m grateful for my eldest son who every Wednesday at noon gives me advice on plot holes or social media or computer issues.

3. I’m grateful for my youngest son, who makes my coffee before he heads off to work each morning and ensures there’s enough there to get me through the day.

4. I’m grateful for my family and our 2009 trip to Cuba. Not only was it the first time I’d ever been to a vacation resort, but it was the first time since I was a kid that my parents and siblings got together for a family vacation. I’m also grateful for this trip because it was the last vacation I would ever be able to take with my dad and I still cherish those wonderful moments we shared.

5. I’m grateful for the chance to spend more time with my mom. Having worked all of my adult life, visits with my parents were always rushed and fraught with stressors from a stressful day job. Now that I’m focused on writing full time, I call her every day or two, and manage to slip out of the house at least a couple of times a week to visit her and catch up on all the latest news.

6. I’m grateful for the bountiful table we are fortunate to have this Christmas and pray that others less fortunate have a local food bank in their area to supply their needs, as we have in our small town.  If you haven’t yet done so, please donate.

7. I’m grateful for my many online friends, who come into my virtual house every day and share their life with me. It makes this huge world almost tiny and intimate, and I get to experience life through your eyes.

8. I’m grateful for the upcoming year. It always feels like a fresh start with infinite possibilities. May 2013 bring each one of you good health, much happiness, and fulfill your cherished dreams.

From my house to yours, may your holidays be filled with laughter and joy.

So now tell me, what are you grateful for today?

Back To School…

This is a big year in our house.  The last of our little birds has started her senior year.   That pic up there is her first day of Kindergarten, and her first day of 12th grade. 

We went through this with my son five years ago, but this one is hitting me a little more nostalgically.  I think because the first time around I knew we still had one coming up through the ranks.  Now, everything is the “last time”. 

We had the last start up pep rally last week.  This is her last marching season in the band for the football games.  She made the theater production troupe this year, so this will be the last of all that.

I remember graduating and thinking that those friends would be forever, so when she and her friends talk about the hook ups they will make on college breaks and when my daughter gets leave (she’s going into the Navy), I get a little sad.  I’ve seen some of these kids since Kindergarten, and I know how they will drift apart once they aren’t together every day.

This picture below was from her first grade class, where she made a new best friend, Kenzie.  My daughter is the one looking like she’s eating her purple Scooby Doo backpack.  Kenzie is on the left looking shy and sweet.

This is them a few weeks ago, as I took them on our annual girls day school clothes shopping spree for the very last time!

They are young women now.  About to go off into the big world after this last crazy year.  That’s amazing to me.

I think it’s going to be a roller coaster of a year!!

What are your back to school experiences like?

 

The End of Summer

For our family, this week is the official last week of summer. I frankly can’t believe it is August and the summer is almost over. It seems the older my kids get, the busier we are and the shorter summer becomes. While I’m ready to get back into some semblance of a routine, here are a few things I have enjoyed about this summer:

Snickers at Lake with Friends

1. House full of kids. We’ve had an unusually high amount of sleepovers at our house this summer. From teenaged boys crashed in the basement after hours of ping-pong and video games to girls dancing overhead in my daughter’s room. I love that the kids gather at our house, even though it means I’m usually low on food and never seem to know what day of the week it is. I hope next summer is exactly the same.

2. A weeklong family vacation. We spent a week, just the four of us, in Colorado this summer. It’s not often that we go away just as a family and I love our time together. The kids get along because they don’t have anyone else to talk to. My kids count the years until we don’t have to do this again, while my husband and I tearfully count how few years are left of having the kids under our roof.

Hershey at Lake with Friends

3. Group vacations. We took several multi-family vacations this year. From our baseball tournament in Florida to our week at the lake with friends and several weekend hops, we have spent a lot of time in the company of our dear friends. The kids enjoy traveling with friends and there’s nothing better than sharing memories with others.

I had hoped to get a lot of work accomplished this summer, but I can’t seem to finish a thought, much less a manuscript. I hope your summer has been as wonderful and not as hectic as mine. If you have a moment, I’d love to hear about your summer, too.

The family that lies together, stays sane together!

I’m often quite oblivious to what’s going on around me. Perhaps it’s because I spend so much time in my own imagination. So it should come as no surprise that when my family lies to me— in the name of protecting my sensitive sensibilities— I’m totally oblivious to their deceit.

One Saturday evening, my man and I splurged on a couple of mega-size chocolate bars, and with our treats in hand, sat down to watch TV. My man finished his bar, but I only ate half of mine, so I wrapped up the remains and set it on the end table beside my chair.

On the following Monday, I returned home from the day job, ravenous with hunger. While supper cooked, I decided to alleviate my hunger by scarfing down the rest of my bar. But the bar was gone.

I searched the floor, under the table, under my chair. Nothing, nada, zilch. Not even a piece of the wrapper in the garbage. The only explanation was that my man or boy had found it, consumed it, then hidden the evidence of their crime, which was in truth, odd behaviour for them both. Although I’ve been known to raid their stashes, they never touch mine. But I digress…

The inquisition was on. When my man and boy arrived home from work, they both denied eating the bar. My man suggested I’d woken in the middle of the night, done the deed myself, then forgotten it by morning.

Huh? I’ve never sleepwalked in my life.

The next night after work, too hungry to wait for supper to cook—yes, there’s a pattern here—I widened my search and again found nothing. Perplexed, I emailed our oldest son. Had he dropped in while we were all at work? His answer…a definite no.

Over the next few nights, still fixated on the missing chocolate bar, I searched the house and quizzed my family. But they stuck to the sleepwalking story.

The following Thursday, I headed downstairs for potatoes and opened the cold room door. A mousetrap, along with a poor dead mouse, was on the floor between me and the potatoes.

I closed the door and went back upstairs to cook rice.

Later, my man and boy confessed they’d conspired to keep silent to protect me from myself. They knew me well enough to know that a mouse in the house would bring out my latent crazy gene. If I’d known about the mouse, I’d have had them tearing apart the house until they found the poor frightened creature.

Instead, they quietly resolved the issue, setting traps and determining how the mouse gained access to the house so they could prevent it from happening again.

Has your family ever lied to you to protect you from a similar truth? Or do they man-up, tell you the facts, then live with your craziness?

Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and my website.

I want to be as good a person as my dog thinks I am…

My best friend in Dallas lost one of her best friends this week.  Her sweet dog, Roxie had to be put down because of a bleeding tumor that was causing her to go down fast, and with alot of pain.   My friend is struggling with Roxie’s absence, and it got me thinking about our furry family members and how important they are in our lives.  So I thought I’d do a little tribute to them, and invite you to do the same with yours.

Here is Roxie in better days, and what a sweetheart she was…

They have another dog, a golden retriever, Gracie, who is blissfully ignorant about most things in life…lol…but is also full of sweetness and love and thinks she’s a lapdog.  And also thinks she belongs on a pool float with a drink…

Here’s my old lady dog, Ruby, who lives for Sonic runs so that she can snatch tater tots.

   

So tell me about your babies!!!!   

And dear sweet Roxie…I will miss you dearly.  Hope you’re having fun up there with Josie and Honey.  

RIP sweet girl.