For today, the little things

Although my energy hasn't returned, I had a rare bout of motivation today. I was able to clean more than I have cleaned since we have lived here. Even more rare Grant told me that the house looked "GREAT", and he thanked me for doing it! When I was working out everyday and in great shape the house was an afterthought to me. Now that I am here all the time I have time to clean and organize. The energy would be helpful, but I would rather have motivation if I had to choose anyway. As these recent days have been dragging by I have drawn my focus onto little things, that some people probably wouldn't even notice.
*I love watermelon, but not as much as I do now that I watched Kara cut it. Remember those little number cubes for counting in math when we were in kindergarten and first grade? It is as small and as perfectly shaped as that. Every bite is perfect size. To keep it crisp and fresh drain the watermelon juice off of the watermelon for as long as it lasts.
* Do you ever notice the more things you get rid of the more free you feel? I went through our things before we moved from our old house to here (the home we care take for while we are building our home). We eliminated about 75% of what we owned. It felt good. Once we got here, I watched as our things still seemed to bog us down. So, I have slowly been eliminating more things. Every time I pick something up I ask myself, " Do I need this, is it special in some way that nothing else could replace, if I lost this would I even realize I had lost it?" If I answer no, then into the trash, or off to donations it goes. I hope to go through our storage out back and do the same here in the next month.
* Ted and I are getting ready to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary on Tuesday and in October we will have been together for 11 years! I still feel that I married the best man for me and I am so excited to be building our dream home together. We got our church newsletter in the mail and found that even though we were married in that church with that minister and my husband and his family were all members there at that time, we did not make it under the anniversary's. I'm kind of bummed.
* Jake really lies a lot lately. He says that he is scared of Mommy- but he says it to me. I say, "So, you are lying to Mommy because you are scared of Mommy?" "What do you think Mommy is going to do??" I repeat over and over so he gets it and Grant does it as well- there is a rule in this house that I feel strongly about.
"Bad things might happen, but tell me the truth right away so I can help you fix it or show you how do do it differently the next time, but if you lie to Mommy you will be punished. Your punishment will always we worse when you lie to me!"
Grant will say, "Just tell Mommy the truth Jake, you won't get in trouble, just tell her....tell her, awww, now you are going to get in trouble, why didn't you just tell her Jake?" And Jake just stands there with his lying face on. He isn't even a good liar.
* We sent our final request to the builder today and once he adjusts it we have to make all of the smaller choices like, windows, cabinets, flooring, etc. All I can think about is the boys room and the tree house of all tree houses I plan on building them.
* I had to get a tetanus shot today from all the injuries- none related; that I sustained after a days work of my cleaning job and trimming trees and yard clean-up. Dang I forgot how annoyingly painful your arm gets from those!
* I started cleaning carpets tonight. I started with the ones the farthest from the boys and blocked it all off. I will have to do a lot of planning to clean all of these carpets, move furniture, dry the carpets, and keep the kids off of them until they are dry.
Wow this blog entry sure is amazingly interesting (sar.) I just was really emptying out my brain before bed.

Updates

I was going to write, but I just don't feel like it tonight. I am so tired these days. I don't even workout anymore. I haven't been to the YMCA in almost 2 months! I feel muffled, slushy, slow-motion: like every movement I make is inside a jello mold. I can't remember anything either. I started to think I was getting early onset Alzheimer's it is so bad. I'm not sure when it all started, all I care about is how fast it will leave. It popped in here like an uninvited stranger. I went to the doctor because I felt less tired than this before the discovery that I had to have that radical hysterectomy due to that evil stuff. He decided that we had to rule out depression and anxiety for now considering all of the stress we are under. Yet, I feel that if this is depression/anxiety were going to begin would have hit as soon as we started this process: last October. I suffer from Chronic Depression anyway and have dealt with it since I was 12 or 13. I know what helps and what doesn't. It is those times in your life when you are unable to do the things you need to help yourself get out of your depression, you fall the deepest. Simple things: sleep regularly, eat regularly, exercise, focus more on those around you than yourself, provide order and regularity to your life, strategically place people in your life who don't give up on you even when you have had a bad three months, six months, or even a year....
Well, with that being said, the doctor would like to see me back in a month to see if I have been able to rule out the possibility that it could be anxiety and depression. I simply do not know if it is for once so am going to do my best to force myself into the very things I want to avoid right now. I think it is a vital experiment- if it isn't simply my depression and anxiety- then we need to do that scan I never had done. The one I was never told I needed until much later. Lets not wait any longer and see.
So, I will simply start with baby steps of sleeping more, eating better, doing more yoga and relaxation/meditation, I will start with a slow one mile walk, keep focusing all of my energy on the boys and Ted and all of my other family and friends who don't give up on me just because I may not be chipper all of the time.
Well, I didn't think I wanted to write tonight but the keys of this keyboard became a shoulder that I may lean on and I decided that I wanted to share this part of my life with my readers as well as the happy and silly times.
Love and Blessings, and thanks for reading my blog, it means so much to me that people care what I have to say. I honestly thank you.

Under Construction

I apologize that my blog is in the middle of a trial and error redesign session. I am fully aware that it looks dumb. I don't have the time to fix it right now. Keep checking back eventually I will have a better edited and more visually pleasing blog coming soon.
cheers

Pee

I can't breathe without coughing
I can't cough without sneezing
I can't sneeze without snot
I even used the netti pot
I can't drink enough green honey tea
and now...
I can't stop going pee

Blueberries

Have you ever picked blueberries? Have you ever seen the crazy parallels blueberries have to our lives?.... yes, I did say blueberries! OK sit back and let your mind think less literally and more symbolically for a moment:
There is a giant blueberry patch out there. You begin to walk down each aisle trying to find the best place for you to settle down and harvest blueberries. The first one you are drawn to seems too small so you move onward. The second one you are drawn to is filled with too many unripe berries, so you keep moving. The third one you are drawn to looks perfect and as you set down your bucket to pick those perfect blueberries, you realize that the whole backside of the plant is filled with a web and rotting berries. No one wants to stick their hand through a web to pull out the berries so they turn bad before they can be harvested. You are tempted to stay, but you move on anyway. The next bush you are drawn to is perfect. It is filled with clumps of ripe berries. The bush is currently in the shade while the others were being scorched by the 93 degree sun. The time is now. You set down your bucket, sit on your knees and begin to grab the clumps of ripe berries this bush has to offer. You learn your first lesson. As you were grabbing all of the largest clumps of berries, pulling off your best berries, and tossing them into the bucket to see that among those clusters of beautiful ripe berries there were tiny, unripened, berries that had now been also picked too early. You thought you were grabbing the best so you quickly grabbed without looking, and now those little berries won't have a chance to grow. Your first lesson was this:
Don't ever let your carelessness halt the growth of another.
You continued to pick your berries with more hesitance and grace than before to make sure that you didn't make a mistake like the last one. Instead of grabbing and pulling the berries off by clumps, you begin to pull them off a few at a time and holding them inside your hands until your hands are so full you must empty them into the bucket. This seemed to be working when on the third attempt your arm hits a branch and you fall backwards. You instinctually reach out to catch yourself from falling when all of your blueberries in both hands fall into the tall grass below. Your first thought is frustration at all the work that went to waste, then your second thought is all the blueberries that hit the ground would be impossible to find and that you must just move on without them. Those blueberries will have to be wasted.

You learned your second lesson:
Don't ever overfill your hands so much that you are not able to handle the load carefully. My Grandfather, whom I used to get to pick blueberries with, used to tell me that one should choose a couple of things to do. Do them well-better than to try and carry "too many loads" and do a poor job at all of the things one is attempting.
So you continue to pick your blueberries with even more hesitance and grace with growing wisdom. Things are making more sense and starting to flow with ease like the ease that comes with age.
As you continue to pick the berries careful to not overfill your hands you pop one into your mouth because it seems to look like the most delicious berry you have seen yet. The bitterness fills your mouth as you wish you could just spit it back out on the ground. You swallow your mistake and try and figure out the reason why the most visually perfect berry had the most bitter taste. The thought consumes you and you are drawn back to the thought of the bushes you had past in the very beginning when you were trying to find your first bush. You were quick to judge. You begin to walk backwards, the first bush you come to is the bush with the webs and rotten berries on the one side, yet all the perfect berries on the other side. You grab a berry and taste the sweet and sour taste of the blueberry. There were wonderful berries this bush had to offer, just because the one side was less than desirable, it did not determine the glory of the berries on the other side.

You learn your next lesson:
We are quick to judge a place, group, person, etc. by the visual ascetic's it has to offer, but will it be bitter and will we wish we could just spit and run once we realize it? Will we have passed up the valuable people, places, groups, etc, in our lives because they didn't "look" like what we thought we wanted? If we go back and accept them for their individual flaws, will we find the beauty they hold for us and the world?
You think about the bush you passed before the last one. The unripe berries may have seemed unusable to you so you walked past them. You looked down and the weeds around the roots of the bush were overgrown. You reached down and pulled the weeds out by your hands, so that they could get more of the water and nutrients that they needed to grow. While they had no berries to offer, they could teach you something.

You learned your next lesson:
There are people we pass in our lives that are underdeveloped: (children, uneducated, poor, ailing, loss of faith), while we may feel as if there is nothing we can do, maybe there is. In this case you lifted them up. You gave them nutrients to ripen.
Finally you decide that you must go back to the very first bush you past as you entered the blueberry patch. It was "too small" you thought and you didn't even try to see if it had berries to offer. As you approach the bush you see more berries than any of the other bushes. They are ripe and healthy. It is bountiful and ready to be harvested. There was nothing wrong with this bush except for your judgement of its size.

Here is you last and final lesson:
When we start out in our lives, we think we know what we are aiming for. We want something huge and grand. We want something like a masterpiece. All the small things in our paths seem too little for our attention. We keep walking past and learn through our mistakes that we don't belong where we are going and that our place is really the one we past up long ago. We thought we were going somewhere else. We come back to this "smaller" place of belonging and achievement and find that it has the most beautiful, bountiful, sweet, and glorious gifts to offer. This place, this bush, was meant to be ours all along. We are meant to be right here. It isn't that we shouldn't keep an eye on the other bushes and the health and bounty of our own, but we cannot eliminate the simplicity of the idea that our glory could be right here and right now in this tiny little bush.

What Size!?

I was in a store at the mall looking for a long white dress suitable for bible school so I could dress it up to the Egyptian theme when a saleswoman quickly approached me. I had my hands on the perfect dress, I thought, but I just needed to find the right size. I moved faster as she grew closer and closer. Darn it, I didn't find my size and it was perfect. She says in an almost degrading tone, ma'am, these clothes over here in this section would fit you better. I looked up to see that I was standing in the 14-21 sized clothes and she was directing me to the juniors! I was caught in quite an interesting situation. I was irritated that she was so offended that I had found a dress that I had liked in the 14-21 sized clothes and asked if she could find me that dress in the juniors, making sure to say "juniors" in the exact same tone she had used with me to tell me that the clothes in another section would fit me better.

She couldn't find the dress, I knew she wouldn't be able to. The juniors dresses barely cover your butt. The cleavage would show, it would be too tight....basically they make most of the juniors dresses totally inappropriate!

I was thinking while I drove home from the mall. What if I had been shopping in the juniors and a rude employee redirected me to an area she thought suited me better. What if she took me to the sizes 14-21? It wouldn't be any different than the assumption she made by taking me to the juniors. Society will always find it okay to tell someone they are smaller than they think they are, that they are too skinny, that they shouldn't be wearing misses, 14-21 women's, 0r clothes made for the women with curves. Yet, if someone were to tell a customer the complete opposite, it would be completely unacceptable. "Oh, ma'am you would find more clothes suitable for your larger body in this plus size section hidden here in the back of the store, the junior size is much too small for you and we put that in the front of the store so that we can make the rest of the population believe that the majority of society fits into the sizes of teenagers." Would it ever be okay to tell someone they look beautiful because they don't fit into those tiny little doll clothes? If I ever had a store I would put mannequins in the front window like this: A plus size mom next to her junior sized daughter, with a misses sized mom next to a plus sized daughter. They would look smashing hot and beautiful. By the way, I don't think I will go back to that store. I am not a junior. I would like to look and dress my age. I am thinking that reasons, such as these are possibly the answer to the question of why I hate shopping so much. I did finally figure my outfit out and I was proud of myself. I basically held it all together with staples and safety pins. I think it turned out beautiful.

Who they are

I am sitting here on this rainy Sunday morning and traditionally I find Sunday's to be sad. It began with my family growing past the ages where all of my cousins and aunts and uncle would meet at Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch after sunday school and church. The Sunday gatherings withered away and ended. We all grew up. Grandpa passed away. As I grew older pieces of me began to fall away like leaves fall away from a tree in autumn. Until one day I found myself long past the Sunday family gatherings, without a church family, in a different town, my husband at work, my kids running circles around me and a lingering loneliness that nothing like a Sunday could bring. I was a naked and bare tree with roots growing deep. It was then I decided that I had to start going to church if not simply for that one hour the kids would be in a nursery, but for the possibility that I could begin my own traditions and begin to grow my leaves back. If the boys are ever going to stand in the shade of my leaves and the comfort of a tradition of their own I have to start them. I missed my life so badly that I forgot that I was instrumental and often souly responsible for who they will be and the memories and the love they have for their childhood. I want them to have something to aim for when they too have their own families and potentially find themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon longing for the days of their own childhood. I find it funny that two of the most valuable places in this town to me are places I avoided for so long. If the boys hadn't been born I might still be avoiding them. The YMCA and the church I belong to become solid standing grounds for me out of a desperation. I would love to say that I wanted to be healthy so I began going to the YMCA. Yet, to this day I laugh that I got myself to start going daily by telling myself that they had a nursery and I had one hour without the boys if I went. I told myself I could sit in the locker room if I just went. I started going and I began walking, then running, then lifting, then pilates, step class, the boys started classes, and funny enough...I have never just sat in the locker room! I told myself the same about church. I didn't have to listen or get involved, I just needed to go. I didn't attended for long before I started teaching Sunday school and helping with the youth, etc. I would love to say I am a better person and I wanted something better for my children initially, but to be completely honest they came into my life to teach me something too. We don't just have kids and raise them into wonderful people. The relationship goes both ways. Our children help us see the things that no one else has or ever will be able to teach us. I'm learning everyday. My job is to do the best I can. I have grown my leaves back and I provide shade and protection even on rainy Sunday's like today. I know there will be some times when a storm plows thru and strips me bare, but, I now know how to get them back... and I am happy to say that I thank God for who they are...If not for them I would still be bare.

Here's a Twist

My kind husband offered to let me go on a vacation for a few days, just to get away because I haven't been away- (from my kids) for more than a night or so since they were born. This has happened for a few reasons:

1) I am a homebody- I actually find home much more comfortable than any other place in this world...but right now I am slightly "homeless". Yes, I am fully aware than "home is where your heart is". That means that my home is inside an alternate and imaginary body of mine running down a gravel road somewhere alongside a cornfield and I need to go find it!

2) I don't really trust anyone with my kids- no one should be offended by that, I hardly trust myself!

3) Every time I go away on a vacation the kids go with and it really just means that I am doing the things I do at home somewhere else...and I find that annoying.

4) Ted can't ever seem to find the time to get work off for just us.

5) And to be completely honest if your husband told you that you should go away for awhile on vacation- no matter how well meaning they are- tell me you wouldn't get a little offended?

Since I have dedicated the last six years to staying at home, I really don't have anywhere to go that won't seem awkward. I don't have any money because we are building a home. My best friend would go with me, but she has three kids to take care of and who will watch them while we go "get away"?

So, I was thinking, you know what sounds fun to me? If they all had to leave and I got to be at home by myself! I could shower. I could eat all of my own food. I could watch whatever I wanted on TV. I could do it on the couch in my underwear if I wanted to! Antisocial me would actually love it! I could crank the music up too loud, I could drive too fast, I could go for a run and maybe, just maybe I might run into that imaginary body of mine running down that gravel road next to a cornfield somewhere and I could finally say, "I'M HOME!"

Yes, this is coming from a farmers daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter

Today is the first day of the rest of....today

Sorry I always have to mess up cliches.

Tonight we go to the regional school board meeting for the final step in getting the kids into Macomb schools. Since both schools passed the proposal, it is simply a paperwork and notary process. After this meeting we will be able to get our deed to the property, go to the bank to get our loan, finalize and send in our blueprints, prepare the ground, the house will be delivered and finished on site, and if all goes as planned we should have a new home sometime between October and December. I just realized I don't have a babysitter for tonight's meeting.... Ummmm, gotta go.

A hint into my state of mind

Lately I have been cleaning for a woman once a week. She pays me what she can. Sometimes I think she pays me more than I deserve. She is an old friend of mine. Today as I was cleaning her house and while cleaning the basement carpet it occurred to me that I was enjoying myself. I have had such dreams and aspirations in my life and remember being younger with such a passion for grand adventures. I wanted to be a psychologist for individuals with physical disabilities and combine it with adaptive skiing, much like people use horses for individuals with physical disabilities. Then I went to college and wanted to be a doctor so I became a pre-med major. I was so bored in chemistry, stupid biology- (of which no human biology was discussed!), calculus, zoology, microbiology and I sat studying myself into a deep depression. I came to a quick realization that this overwork would never end and I would never get to be the mother, wife, runner, friend or family member that I ever had dreamed of being. I quit college for awhile and just worked as an EMT at the hospital. I was so depressed and confused about my future. When I did go back to school, I tried various classes hoping to find a new love, although medicine and human biology, anatomy and physiology were amazingly intriguing to me...I had a hard time moving on to anything that I found more interesting than medicine or the human body! I worked as an EMT for WIU's Emergency Medical Service throughout my college career and never felt more confident than when running an emergency call. Put me in a group of people at a social gathering and I may have a panic attack but tell me I have to save this person's life and I was as smooth as butter. I tried RPTA to see if I could somehow work with adaptive recreation, I tried writing to see if I could actually hear anyone other than my own mother tell me I had a talent for writing, but I eventually settled on the health sciences, (which were called community health education back then). I was under the assumption that health education meant that I would be able to teach health. Since I was helping train the other Emergency Medical Members of WIU EMS and I was a CPR instructor as well as employed as an EMT/ Ambulance driver and ER Tech at the hospital I thought I might be able to teach what I knew. That's a big NO! I have found that you can do about five things with my degree:

#1) Sell your soul to the devil and work as a pharmaceutical rep

#2) Sign up for the Peace Corps (yeah, not related, but they take anyone)

#3) work for the health department

#4) Go back to school and admit that your degree is pointless without a masters and get one.

#5) Claim you are a health expert and write for magazines or online sites....shady- like I said- do a whole lot of things I couldn't and wouldn't do.

I worked so hard to finally get my degree in 2006 after starting college in 1998 and taking that break due to depression and misdirection...I still feel so much regret. Now everywhere I look in the paper I see jobs I know I would be great for but you must have a masters to have them. I feel as if my bachelors is now equal to a high school diploma. I worked so hard. I finished school after getting married, losing a baby, practically living in the hospital for both of my first two pregnancies, having Grant, being a stay-at-home nursing mother to Grant and having a husband who worked impossible shifts as a police officer the whole time. I was going to night classes. It was so hard. Now I have society telling me that all of that was not good enough. I wish instead of extra degrees, one would have to take a proficiency exam for the job they were pursuing. I am confident that my obsession with learning medical information everyday, reading my subscription to The New England Journal of Medicine, and simply my passion for health, medicine and nutrition would help me get an amazing score at any job I would try pursuing.

Yet, as I stood in the basement cleaning today my mind began talking back to me. "You REALLY ARE enjoying this? You are going to settle for being a cleaning lady?" My other rational and non-judgemental side replied, "yep, I'm going to be content with this job." I can see I am making a difference in the life of someone who needs me right now, and that is all I really want anyway. I wanted to feel needed."

So for now I am going to take pride in taking care of my children, my husband, the home we are caretakers for, the home of my dear friend, and all the other things I hope I can do. If I am not needed, then who am I anyway? I have a role and it serves a purpose. It isn't all that I will do for the rest of my life, but for right now, I am needed right where I am. And I will do my best.

Thank You Jada

(Picture is of Jada and Lucas Sept. 2009- Sorry Lucas :-) You were too cute!)

I have a beautiful well-behaved, obedient (depending on who you ask), and protective boxer lab dog named Jada. I was searching for a dog with all of her qualities and found her in 2001 at the Monmouth pound when she was only four months old. Under pressure from my Grandfather and my fiance at the time, (Ted), I needed a dog to run with during my late night runs and while I lived alone in college. I needed a protective and energetic dog. I have a preference for labs and for boxers so the mix was certainly a perfect fit. The man at the pound called me after I left him a message to tell me that I had described the perfect sweet little feisty puppy he had. She was a little girl. She had a brother, but they had to split them up because they fought too much. He apparently beat her up bad enough that she was quite a flincher and coward at times. She has never gotten along well with other dogs since then. Also he informed me that they had found her and her brother along a road next to their mother who had been hit by a car when they were much smaller. When I went to meet her she ran like a wild nut wagging her whole butt, not her tail (because she didn't have one). Her tail had already been docked. She has always wagged her whole butt or lower half of her body when she gets excited. Her little nub wags. She hasn't changed since our first meeting. She was so excited, but as soon as she saw the cats in the cages in the front of the pound she started to shake and she dropped down almost completely to the floor. She is terrified of cats! I can't blame her, I just can't get too fond of cats myself. She almost climbed up my body to get away from them. I said, "I'll take her, I love her, she is hyper and shy- just like me, she is instantly devoted and instantly terrified of unreasonable things-just like me!" I remember laughing at her running and jumping all over place. To say that Jada was insane would be to say that I am insane....I AM INSANE! But, I have never met a dog more in tune with human emotions and more dedicated to her family.


She only has met two dogs that she hasn't tried to kill: Ozzie, my Grandmothers dog; and Aspen, his brother, who is my mothers dog. She grew up with them from when she was a puppy and with Ozzie being submissive they quickly became best friends. To this day, if you say "Ozzie" she flips out, whines and runs to the door hoping you mean that we will be going back to Grandma's to see Ozzie. When she was little Aspen and her kept their distance because they are both dominate dogs, but now they respect each other enough that they never hurt or fight with the other.


We don't let Grant go outside without Jada, and I usually sit on the deck while they play. Grant was sitting in the hammock swing below the deck when Jada took off and all I heard was Jada attack. I heard another dog barking and howling in pain. As I was taking off down the stairs, Grant passed me coming up, screaming and crying for his dog. I was less concerned for Jada than I was for this stupid other dog that walked right up to Grant in our yard. The dog was much larger than Jada, but she has something in her blood that would never let her stop defending her boy, (Grant or Jake), until the animal was dead. I had to do something or the boys were going to see their dog kill this other dog right in front of them. There wasn't anyone else to take the boys off the deck and inside so they would stop watching the attack. So I grabbed a giant tree branch, and stuck it right in between the two dogs. It gave the other dog a chance to run and as it ran I threw the branch and dived forward to grab Jada as she began to go toward the dog again. The strength Jada has is unbelievable. I saw blood and skin with fur attached to it on the cement but quickly realized it wasn't hers. She quickly ran up the stairs in a panic to find Grant. At first Grant was scared. He didn't understand why she wanted to be so close to him. I explained that she was worried and that the whole thing started because she was so worried about his safety. Grant told me he was just swinging in the chair when he felt a soft fur rub up against him and then the dog was right in front of him, but Jada attacked the dog really fast so he didn't see much of the dog before he started to run up the stairs.


Grant helped me wipe Jada down to make sure she wasn't bleeding. I checked her all over. The only thing was her toenails....they were gone! Since she was on cement when she attacked this dog, she was using her toenails for grip and leverage. I only found one spot with blood on her entire body and it was on one toenail where the toenail was bleeding. I filed them down to make them less jagged and so they wouldn't get caught in the carpet. She was so exhausted she just laid there while I did it. Normally she flips out if anyone tries to touch her toenails!


Grant wanted to know why Jada always tries to kill dogs she doesn't know when they get near him. I explained it like this,


If we were standing in the house and you were playing, and a man walked in and walked right over to you and I didn't know him....your Daddy and I would attack him. Jada sees the yard and the house and you the same way we do. But, to her, other dogs are like strangers are to us. No strangers better ever touch you, or they will feel just as bad as that dog did as it ran away crying...or maybe even worse!


This isn't the first time that Jada has attacked someone for walking into the yard or the house uninvited. I adopted her to do just that. Sorry if that seems harsh. You would have to understand my history to appreciate that concept. She has protected me and my family for years. She is a dog and they can be unpredictable. I don't allow the boys to corner her or lay on her or get in her face while she is eating. I read her body language well and can tell when she needs her space. Interesting, she seems just like the rest of us... Jake isn't old enough yet to be trusted to treat her nice enough, so I don't let him play with her or bother her.


I have been feeling guilty lately. I sometimes feel I let her down. I look into her eyes and she looks so sad. She doesn't get walks, she sleeps almost all day, she seems so bored, maybe even depressed. I think I should thank her for all that she has done for me in the last nine years. Through running, living alone, moving various times, depression, her being my only companion so many nights when Ted was at the academy and I was sick and pregnant, the times it felt as if she was hugging me after we lost the baby, the constant presence in my life who is ALWAYS happy to see me....I love Jada like a guardian angel. I don't want to look back someday and think, I wish I would have given her more walks, hugs, treats, Frisbee tosses, swims at the lake, runs through the timber.... I think I will try harder. After all she never thinks twice about doing anything for us, it comes to her naturally, it always has.

Karma

My mother is convinced that Grant will name his daughter Karma. As he grows older and he hears my voice saying the various annoying phrases I repeated over and over during his youth, the one he will hear more than any other will probably be "that's Karma my dear, what DID you expect?" Yet, I have made a recent attempt to turn that word into a positive way of saying "you get back the positivity you put into the world." I found a necklace that says "Karma" to remind myself of this concept. I have always struggled with optimism. I have worn it since I bought it. I often reach up and rub it. I bought it while I was with one of the most optimistic and positive friends I've had in my life. Many of us often think of Karma as a negative result or consequence that we endure for doing something wrong/shameful/dishonest, etc. Yet, how often do we see it as a reminder that if we give good we will get good? I had never thought of it that way until I saw the description on the necklace when I bought it.
I was trying to think of the happiest time in my life the other day and I realized to my surprise that it was right after I had to have my uterus, cervix, ovaries, lymph nodes and other tissue removed in the spring of 2009. The scar and the recovery were painful. The fear of cancer was terrifying, yet, as time moved by I quickly made the decision to either change my attitude or let it consume me. For months I was probably the healthiest, in the best shape, the happiest and the most in love with life I had ever been. Of course, like all good things, we lose our appreciation and take it all for granted. Yet, for that time in my life Karma and I interacted like a cause and affect supported by the laws of energy, (energy can be created, but cannot be destroyed...it can only be transfered). Somewhere and somehow my energy was transfered: not destroyed, but transfered. I think I have finally figured out the connection to Karma. It isn't the bad that I do that comes back to bite me...it is the good I do, the happy I feel, the smile I give, the love I feel, the positivity I give away....
Karma just may not be an association with that annoying phrase that Grant hears in his head anymore. Maybe it can be altered to, "See that good you did Grant- it will come back to you- It's Karma you know!" Then maybe Mom will be right and he just may name his daughter "Karma".

Fresh Groomed and Psychotic

Today Grant, Jake and I all finally got our hair cut. I decided to take Jake to get his hair cut at the barber while Ted cut Grant's hair at home. Jake has my hair and Grant has Ted's hair so we have to go about the grooming very differently. Jake sat in the barbers chair, eating sundrops (M&M's without food dyes), and saying, "I wike it, uh-huh, I wike it, yep, I wike it, Mommy- you wike it, huh? You wike it too?" Afterwards I went down the street to see when they could get me in to turn my man unibrow into a couple of female eyebrows and to get a haircut so I could see if any of it was worth saving and not shaving all off! I was almost certain when I got home that Ted would have had Grants head shaved down to a 1 by then. I walked Jake down the back deck steps so he could show off his hair, I then saw a grouchy Grant and even more grouchy Daddy. His Mohawk was gone but it looked terrible. So, I took teary-eyed mc-chocolate face and tried to deal with him myself. Grant whined the whole time about losing his Mohawk and it hurt because it "tickled." I decided that I didn't want to have to do this again anytime soon so I took it down even shorter and trimmed around the ears, sideburns, back of his neck, and the top of his back-(hairy monkey like his Daddy). I finally got his mood to improve by re-routing his thoughts, which I consider myself to be an expert at doing. I started to talk about how he is turning into a ware wolf-something he is almost certain of- seriously- just roll with it b/c he is five. He starts talking about his two sharp teeth (that we all have), how hairy he is (just like his father), how he sees really well in the dark, how fast he is, etc, etc. Then we were done and I was thanking God it was all over.

It was my turn to turn my unidentifiable gendered hair and eyebrows into a hopefully attractive change. I was so happy with the gal who cuts my hair and shapes my eyebrows, I told her I could kiss her. I can't remember the last time I looked into the mirror and felt like I liked what I saw and she made it happen in 20 minutes! She washed, cut, dried, and styled and changed how I felt about myself in such a quick amount of time. WOW! Living in a home full of boys who will grow into men leaves very little room for me to be a girl/woman/female... I would love to know how to do it all in a matter of five minutes a day. I'm sure it will get better when they get older and I am not still taking care of their very basic needs as well as trying to fit mine in also. I always toss mine out due to the sake of time.



So this Coast-to-Coast Biathlon I had spoken of previously requires that Ted and I both do our own amounts of 100 miles running and 200 miles biking before August 9th. It's tough. The boys could easily end up going to the YMCA nursery 2x a day/5 days a week if we are going to get our classes and all of the coast to coast done. Yeah, what was I thinking? I think I was hoping I could find an awesome friend who wanted to watch the boys for us during those times that we felt great about having them as influences on our children while we chose to be so selfish in our endeavours. Yet, oddly enough, all of my friends live 40-60 minutes away. I recently did find a very cool Yoga instructor with children my children's age and her husband loves to run. She wants to get together for diner some night to let the kids play and hang out since we have so much in common. I'm always so sure that people will meet us and then either get bored by us or overwhelmed by us...oh, well...their loss. "We are a lot of fun !" Right Grant! -That is what I told Grant to tell kids as school who said they didn't want to play with him. He had to smile and walk away like he had a great idea for a fun plan in his head though to make the diss work!



K-Enough tonight. I need to get ready for the frog jumping contest tomorrow. Watch out SIDNEY and SABRINA DAVIS!! GRANT and JAKE ANDERSON are coming to....to....make that frog....um... jump....fast....oh and by not even stepping on theirs this year!

Much to say-little motivation

I'm feeling as if the followers may be quite behind on all the day to day going on's in the Anderson House of Fun and Entertainment with hourly shows, possible trips to the ER or at least the EMT bag. I signed us all up for too many things this summer and am now wishing I had someone here to talk me down from that ledge. I did it out of a desperation to get us all out of the house daily and moving. Now we barely make it to Grant and my Yoga class, My Step Class and Wt. Lifting Class, Ted's Wt. Lifting Class, A Coast to Coast Biathlon Ted and I are completing, Summer Reading Program, all my races... although I backed out of a few because they aren't as fun to do alone and they cost so stinking much! Day to Day Demands- (Cooking, Cleaning, Laundry, Kids, and so much more), mowing this huge lawn, house design, family get-togethers, friend get-togethers, A weekly all-day cleaning job I now have for a friend, ....I was going to write more, but honestly, my eyes won't stay open, so it will have to be another time. Cheers!