1. A home
2. My children
3. Fall weather
4. Quiet
5. This moment
I am sure there will be many days when finding something to be grateful for will be hard. Let’s be honest, most of us are selfish people and if things aren’t going our way, life sucks. I admit that I can be that way quite often. I hope this listing will help me to see that I have things pretty darn good. I can’t imagine going without food and clothing for my children, or electricity etc. I was talking to a friend the other day about sponsoring needy families for the holidays. This is the time of year when churches and other various groups get together and find people to give to. I was immediately struck by the thought that it was sad we had to get a “church referral” to find these people. I was humbled by the realization that I should know needy people, I should have these people in my life on a daily basis, that we shouldn’t have to get a referral during Christmas time, that we should make an effort to reach these people in our communities all of the time. I remember being one of these people. I was a single mother, going to school and working. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to worry and to be grateful for what I did have, to be grateful for the future…
So Colette Reardon took the kids to the Mom’s club halloween event this morning. I hope she behaved herself. I hear the kids had fun though. Colelette was nice enough to drop the kids back off at the house before her 1 pm bingo game and date with some guy named Fred from the Liberty Auxiliary club. She also said she needed to run by the pharmacy before bingo. Thanks Colette!
Someone challenged me today, not directly but they told me of how they journal 5 things they are grateful for everyday. Therefore I will attempt to begin my first installment of…The Gratitudes.
1. My Husband, he tries to be the best he can every day and that motivates me.
2. Quiet time in the evening, alone time, down time, whatever you want to call it, I like it.
3. My bible.
4. Friends.
5. Finding joy in writing again.
These are my top five tonight, I am going to try and do this on a daily basis. My list may repeat itself, but I want to find that place of gratefulness. It seems like we get so caught up in finding the negative in life, what we can change, what we can do differently etc. This makes me stop and think about what is important in life, what matters at the end of the day. I want to practice appreciation and gratefulness on a daily basis. If this motivates you, leave me your feedback and tell me what you are grateful for…
Here are a few of our fall photos. Above is my Dad and second mom, they came up to visit from Bolivar so we made them sit for a picture! Come on back anytime Grandma and Grandpa.
Today we went to the pumpkin patch, Emerie was thrilled with the animals and Owen tried to nuzzle up to a goat. They found their pumpkins in what was left of a quickly rotting patch. I think they had been picked through, this was out third attempt to visit, both times before it rained. We had a good time and the kids came home and took a good nap. I can’t believe fall is coming to and end soon. Wow.
We had a great one. I had to work Friday night but woke up early to go to a leadership meeting at Starbucks. The coffee was good and set the tone for the rest of the day. Oh yeah, got a chance to see Ross Lewis, pictured below. He came down from Des Moines Friday night to see Van Halen and spent the night with us after the show. Stephan may have gone with, but he had the kids, they usually prefer the purple dinosaur fair over the big hair metal bands, but Ross had no problem going it alone, being a die hard fan.
On my way home Saturday morning I saw a garage sale at a church near our home. It was to benefit the Liberty Lions Club, I admittedly don’t have the foggiest idea what they are, or what they do, but they sell their junk cheap, and I was game. I bought two bedside lamps, simple things that really made our room feel cozier. The lamps had no wear and tear, new shades, small brownish red, rustic looking, $0.50 a piece. The other item I bought; not really a “cozy” piece. It is an antique bedpan, I love antiques, so I caved, and for $0.50 it was not hard. I just do not know what purpose it will serve. I really can’t display it in the kitchen with most of my other antiques, and there isn’t room in the bathroom. Here pictured is Mesha and Owen, (in his holloween costume) playing catch the ball in the bedpan right after Mesha had returned home from diving. Earlier I wasn’t feeling my best, kind of tired and let’s just be honest, lazy. I wanted to blog this after climbing into bed and couldn’t find my power adapter. I looked at Stephan with my best “pity me” eyes and asked him if he would go and look in the living room for it, he gave his best, “you are f.o.s.” raised eyebrow look and went. He came back in a few minutes and stated that it wasn’t in there, he said, “Are you sure it isn’t by the bed?” I said, “No, see I looked”, then he shouts out, “It’s right there…in your bedpan!” The bedpan was next to my bed, for some unknown reason, and I had put the power cord in there, probably to transport it upstairs with a handful of things. So for now it is a power adapter storage unit.
We also went and saw the movie “Gone Baby Gone.” It was a great movie, Ben Affleck did and excellent job with directing this movie and Casey Affleck is wonderful in this film. I really never liked Ben Affleck that well as an actor, but his little brother really does an amazing job. I will say I absolutely hated the ending. I will not spoil it completely, but I will say this; I go to the movies to escape reality. I see way too much reality at work. I work with kids and see more than most people ever want to see with regard to misfortune and children. If am going to the movies I want to leave happy and feeling like I am a better person for having seen the film. I didn’t feel that way last night. The movie had a great plot, was very suspenseful, and had lots of unexpected twists and turns, it kept me literally on the edge of my seat. After going through all those emotions during a movie I want to leave on a high note. You won’t leave feeling that way from this movie. And in the words of Forest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”
I am writing too much. Gotta go, getting up early for a debriefing breakfast at work about our conference a few weeks ago in Atlanta. Joy.
Had some teenagers over again this weekend. Mesha had her posse of girl gamers in for an all-nighter. I got a few good pictures of them. I really enjoy having a place they can all come to and feel comfortable hanging out together. When I was her age home was the last place I wanted to be. I was always out “hanging out” with friends getting into trouble and being up to mostly no good. I think it is important for kids to feel good at home. I know she whines about being disciplined, she rolls her eyes about our comments, and mainly just gripes about anything we do, but the thing I really know well is that this behavior is the nature of the beast. I know that deep inside she likes the discipline, and is glad we have the time to comment on her behavior. I think she knows we are proud of her and the big decisions she makes. Even though she farts out loud and burps at the table, we get mad at her and tell her to be polite, even though she acts like a big goof ball, we love her, and are committed to her becoming a great young person who loves and respects herself.
She is a busy girl, and high school is so much harder than it used to be. Mesha is a diver and runs cross country, she plays viola in the symphonic orchestra, and is active in her church youth group. All these things keep her busy but nothing makes me prouder than how she tries to impact the lives of her friends. She really cares about them and tells me she prays for them every night. She has a few that she keeps on her prayer list and some that she specifically seeks out to befriend because she knows they are atheists. I think it is cool that she doesn’t judge them. Sometimes it can be hard to figure out your spiritual life at a young age and it can be easier to judge than to approach peers with love and understanding.
She went out with us on our “date night” tonight. We don’t get to spend much time with just her these days so it was nice. We had a good time, we had dinner and a movie. She is such a funny girl, I’m blessed to be her mom.
Things have changed just a tiny bit since I was in high-school. I went to the mall with my daughter tonight to do some clothes shopping, whew. I felt like the main character in a skit from Saturday Night Live about “Mom Jeans.” I wasn’t wearing jeans but I didn’t need them to feel completely lost in a new generation.
First, the mannequins, they were, hmm, how should I put this, how about compromising. They are posed in really strange ways. The mannequins when I was a kid were pretty standard, pretty virtuous, pretty…plain, I guess the clothes had to be cool to look good on a pale bisque-ivory woman with pointy fingers, bumpy skin and coarse blonde hair. The mannequins of today could sell a cardboard box, they look like supermodels, in the flesh, dipped in paraffin and set on the department store floor. They come in all positions, crossed legs, legs open, standing, sitting, cat-walking, mostly nude in lingerie. All skin tones, mostly bronze and only one body type, scary skinny. It’s no wonder girls these days have body image problems. I was just beginning to wonder what Mesha thought when she told me she thought they looked constipated, leave it to Mesha miss out on the obvious, not that I cared in this situation.
The most disconcerting event of the evening was my experience at a popular teenage clothing chain. We shopped there for awhile, browsing the $50 hoodies and the $25 thin graphic tees. Mesha decided on a few things, totaled the price in her head, then rethought her purchases. There were two girls running the store, one very smooth talking young gal who was obviously training the other not so smooth, awkward teen girl. She was doing her best to try and tell us about various, “good-deals” and help out other customers while folding inventory and trying not to make eye contact. From time to time you could hear hear yell out, “Kayleeeeee”, what I finally decided was the trainers name, a wide-eyed plea for help with who knows what perplexing retail conundrum. When Mesha finally decided on a sweatshirt and two camis we proceeded to check-out. The “trainee” was left to attend to our purchases, she was polite, asking if we found everything we were looking for, half-heartedly engaging us while she proceeded to ring up our items. Her trainer came back and forth to help her mash different buttons on the keyboard, at one point her trainer actually said, “Ok, push F12, now F10, F8, ok now push F10 again, ok now F8.” As the final scene of our evening unfolded, Mesha gave the gal $75 after hearing her total of $73.77, she pushes a button, the drawer flings open, she stares at the screen with a complete look of disbelief, slowly she yells out from the register, “Kayleeeeeeee.” For a fleeting moment I think I am going to ask her what the problem is because I am almost 98% sure that I can help her with it, then I reconsider, I tell myself that there is no way, no possible way that she doesn’t know how…Kaylee walks up, the girl tells her that the screen doesn’t show her how much change to give…and thank the Almighty God in heaven, Kaylee points out that the receipt prints out in black and white exactly how much change to return to us…Kaylee, we salute you…and all your teenage friends across America who don’t know how to make change.
Ok, I have to post this, please watch. I am not a big one for forwards and things like that but this is extremely amazing, and that is a double adjective. Seriously, watch until the very end. And please, comment your thoughts!
My son is darker skinned than the rest of us, that doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t my husbands child. If you have ever seen my husband you’d know that he is very white, he is the white man’s, white man, and that’s…ok. But I have this friend, and you know who you are, her initials are Tracy Anderson, but we like to call her Anna Nicole:) Anyway, this friend likes to call my son Owen Redcorn, because she thinks I must have my very own Native American masseur and licensed new age healer. John Redcorn is a character from King of the Hill and if you’ve never seen it, go out and rent it, Hank will make you laugh until shite yourself and if you don’t it’s because the show is actually about you. In that case, forget I said anything. But I digress, Owen has a great complexion and we all think he is a super cute guy who must have gotten his coloring from my Granny, Mary Madison, who was a full blooded native american from the Nez Perce tribe. Now, having said all that, I have to tell you what our neighbor Abby said this morning.
Abby came over to play while mommy went to work, so we were having fun playing and doing toddler stuff when out of nowhere Abby asks me, “Is Owen black or white?” Which is funny because I didn’t even realize she knew the difference, but she is a pretty smart cookie so I just went with it and responded, “Owen is white honey.” I typically don’t refer to Caucasian and African America people using the color-wheel, but this is what kids understand, so white it was. Now I’m paranoid, if a toddler can tell that my son looks darker than us what are my neighbors thinking? Am I a real live Nancy Gribble? Do people whisper and assume that there was a “John Redcorn” in my life? I hope not, let’s just call this clearing the record.
Needless to say we had a fun morning and Emerie very much enjoyed Abby. I had to talk Emerie through many difficult sharing episodes but she managed to pull it off. One particular time while she and Abby were having a tea party I held up a little plastic pink cup and said, “Let’s have a toast”, she looked at me intently and said, “No mommy, it’s tea!” I asked her to smile with her cup for a picture, she stated there was no more tea, and said, “The tea party is over!” She pulled her things together and laid over them so we couldn’t enjoy anymore imaginary refreshments. That’s the last time I have a tea party with a toddler!
One last thing, the other night we went out for supper at “The Corner Cafe” in Liberty. Country food, really yummy, not very good for you but great nonetheless. The restaurant has lots of memorabilia on the walls, antiques etc. Well, there is this old Indian man carved out of wood. Owen keeps stretching out his arms to the life like figurine and Stephan casually tells me he is going to take Owen over there to see it. Next thing I know Stephan makes a beeline back over to me, has Owen in his arms and is laughing, I say, “What’s wrong?” to which he replies, “I took him over there and he started calling that thing Daddy”…
You may think it is ridiculous for an old lady to be tormented by the need for a golden retriever flick; but my great Aunt has been afflicted…with the spell of love cast by that adorable canine we all know as “Air Bud.” Up until now she’s really only had eyes for Jack Tripper of “Three’s Company”, she watches it religiously and mourns when it doesn’t air that day. But I think she has found a replacement. I’ve never seen this movie, but apparently I need to, because my great Aunt Geneva can think of nothing else. She was watching animal planet one day and happened to see the movie and she’s been hooked ever since, and I quote; “I just can’t get him(Bud) out of my head.” According to my Mom she has been unable to find the VHS and she wasn’t going to consider moving to a DVD player, it just wasn’t an option. She is in her 80’s and I can understand the desire to stick with what you know. So my mother enlisted me to help find her an “Air Bud” movie on VHS, I didn’t have any luck.
Finally my mom calls, “Well Geneva bought herself a DVD player.” She did this for one reason and one reason only, she had to have her “Air Bud”. I thought this was great because now she could finally find some peace and solace right?…wrong, the Wal-Mart in Bethany MO where they live does not carry Air Bud. So they went to the video store and they didn’t have it to rent either, geez, what does it take to get an old lady her fix anyway. It wasn’t like they were looking for some dark foreign indie film, it’s freakin’ Air Bud for heaven sake, what kind of flippin world are living in right? Once again my mom asked me to see what I could do. So I am thinking, surely I can find it in KC, and I did, the Blockbuster right down the street had it for a measly $14.99, small price to pay for the sanity of an elder.
But, there was a bonus involved…a trade if you will, she would hook me up with some sweet wigs for halloween if I could deliver Air Bud. I got my wigs and she got her Air Bud and the world is at peace again. I just hope she is able to relax and enjoy her movie…I know I am little nervous, the guy at blockbuster said I was opening a can of worms, there are six in the series…
