Words truly do hurt...

Dear friends,

I feel it is vitally important to share with you my experience this weekend, something I did that evidently hurt feelings, feelings that I cannot repair.  Sadly I was unaware the magnitude of my words until the end of my very long Monday.  I know words hurt!  I explain to my children all the time how long it takes to repair the wounds that one comment can create.  I wish I had listened to my own words.  Below is my story, please take heed dear friends.

My sweet husband and I decided we would FINALLY take on the task of redoing our kitchen.  Nothing major, no walls being knocked out or anything.  But paint, cabinets, flooring (well I guess it's major to a family of five with two working parents (one with a new job), just starting the school year (with one kid in his senior year), four dogs and 2.5 cows.  Come to think of it we might be slightly crazy. 

Anyway, as we excitedly pick paint colors and talk of what's to come I start to get carried away (what woman doesn't).  I start talking "what if's?" and "could we do this?" and "what about's?".  Well as my sweet husband nodded and continued to tape of walls for paint and I rambled on and on and that my friends is when IT happened. 

(deep breath)

Me ~ "You know I wish we could get a stove/oven and get rid of our wall oven.  It would be bigger and we could create more storage in it's place."

Sweet Husband ~ "Babe, we JUST replaced the fridge that died in the middle of night.  That's not gonna happen right now!"

I agreed, understood and life went on.  We finished the painting (with the help of my momma) and it looks bright and beautiful and I love it and I started dreaming of the next step, the cabinets.

Monday morning, came and went and as I drove home I realized I was excited to come home to cook dinner in my freshly painted kitchen.  Odd how such a small change can make such a big difference. 

I came in, changed clothes, turned on the oven, started the dishwasher, put in a load of clothes and THAT'S when I smelt it.  Something toxic, chemical, awful!  I looked inside, surely something had fallen and was burning in there but no.  I turned it off, opened the window and called my sweet,  tired guy.  "Almost home, I'll look when I get there."  Like that's what he wants to do at the end of a long day. 

He checks it out, turns it back on and in minutes the smell starts again.  He turns it off and looks at me.  "Guess you get you stove/oven with a storage on the wall now".

That my friends is when I realized with utmost certainty that even if you are UN-FOND of someone(thing) you should NEVER talk bad about them(it) unless you are TRULY ready to replace them(it). 

*sigh*

...cause baby YOU'RE a Firework!

Every year the Fourth of July celebration in my town is HUGE!  It's my absolute favorite day of the year to live in my town (and I've lived here every single day of my 3mmpf years).  Everyone is out, everyone is celebrating, everyone is sweating their butt off!  But there is such a huge sense of community.  Even though there are thousands of people lining the street to watch the parade it feels small town.  Snow cones, donuts and coffee being consumed, fans being handed out, firetrucks, horses and youth groups.  Young and old all come out to sit in the sweltering sun to celebrate this amazing day.  And nothing dampens the spirit, not the heat or the sun even some rain.  Nothing stops people from coming out in droves to support the community.  I could never be out of town on the fourth and I can't imagine spending it anywhere else!  I hope your fourth is spent with family, friends, fabulous food and fun festivities! 

Just say NO!!

What are we doing with our kids today?  Everything is select ball, competitive dance, private lessons, etc.  Whatever happened to just playing ball?  Just dancing?  Sometimes I just want to go back to June and the Beav, I know things weren't really perfect but they sure looked easier! 

Everyone wants their kid to be the best, to be the star.  It's human nature and quite frankly I believe that anyone who says otherwise is in complete denial.  Don't get me wrong, I'm right there with them.  I sink way to much money into competitive dance so that I can hopefully watch my daughter at the end of an 18 hour day receive a cheap trophy that will clutter her room.  In 20 years will she look back fondly on all those hours we spent together or will she only remember that five minutes before she went on the floor we were both in tears over something as stupid as the right shade of glitter. 

Why does everything have to be bigger and badder?  (You know bad as in the good bad.)  Bigger is not always better.  Why are children receiving iPads as Christmas gifts?  Do we believe that spending thousands of dollars on our children will make them love us more?  Is it guilt because we are so busy we don't actually spend time with our kids?  I watch parents have lunch with their kids at school and they are on the phone the whole time.  Is this the new quality time?  Again, I fully admit I am always plugged into my iPhone and am a textaholic.  So I guess I need to ask myself, "Self, is that costing you a relationship with your kids?  Your husband?  Your friends?"  The answer is most likely, yes.

Why are we as a society putting ourselves either in debt or jeopardy of going into debt for STUFF?  For private dance lessons, pitching lessons, voice lessons, the list just goes on.  Let's face reality people, 95% of our children will not grow up to be any sort of pro athlete or the next American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance winner. 

What if 10 of us banded together and just said No?  Twenty of us?  What if we all decided we want a simple life.  We want backyard BBQ's, pick up football games, marathon games of Monopoly.  Simple dance lessons instead of weekends taken over by hairspray, glitter and tears. 

I realize that in saying all this I am asking myself to stop obsessing over the latest Michael Kors bag (it's so BEAUtiful!) and the suede boots that match my Alma Matter's school colors (cause I really need them right?  But they are SO cute!).  But if we could all just step back for just a minute, maybe a season, what could we accomplish?  Could we hear the stories our grandparents would love to tell us of the good ole days but we are always too busy to sit down and listen?  Could we learn something new about our children, our spouse, ourselves?  The options are endless if we all just say NO!

Did you already say NO?  Post a comment and tell me how.

Quality family time, dadgummit!

When I was growing up we rented a beach house every year, the same beach house.  It became 'ours', I loved it!  My dad was a workaholic banker who didn't know the meaning of 'banker's hours'.  So this was heaven to him, to take his girls and run away for a week.  As soon as we got there mom had to clean, forget that it had already been cleaned, she had to clean again!  And we had to unload the two car fulls of (excuse my language) CRAP that we toted up.  We would finally be ready to "vacation" just in time for dinner and no quickie dinner for this family it was full out dinner complete with dishes.  Finally, finally we were done and my sister and I would put on our suits and get ready to run out the door and down to the beach when dad would yell from the other room.  "Are we ready for a family walk on the beach?"    Don't get me wrong, we appreciated that our parents took us to the beach each year but neither of us wanted to walk on the beach with our parental units.  We wanted to walk on the beach looking cool scoping out cute boys.  But nooooo we had to wait for the dishes to be done and then we all had to walk out on the beach for some "Quality family time, dadgummit!"  Now I know that this phrase is not in the dictionary due to the fact that as far as I know my dad basically invented it but if it was I believe this is how it would be listed.

Quality Family Time, Dadgummit! - Time spent with one's family albeit under duress and huge embarrassment to the children.  Most often heard yelled by the parental units while on vacation (see Disney World) and Sunday afternoon walks.

The latter is what brought about today's post.  I, being the rebellious daughter I was, hated, hated  quality family time!  It was always, always  a big huge hot mess!  It started with good intentions but always ended up with frustrations, tears, embarrassments and guilt.  But, like all good parents we forget what we swore "we would NEVER do" and I frequently torture, guilt and bribe my children to spend quality family time with me.  Well today it was decided by someone (though the instigator chooses to remain silent and no it was not me!) that a family walk with dogs would be good fun on this beautiful Sunday afternoon.  So while the Jolly Green Giant and the Princess hopped on their bikes, my sweet husband took one of the puppies and the...hmmm...has he been named yet?  I don't think so.  Well henceforth the middle child shall be known as the Author.  The Author  took the other puppy (again I am well aware that these 70 lb. beasts are no longer puppies but that is what they were grouped as when they were brought home and shall be named that forever.)  I hooked up the last leash to my sweet  furry hysterectomy baby (story for another time) and off we went.

All started out a little rocky in that the Author has a broken arm and puppy #1 was not behaving as well as she should have which made her hard to handle with two good hands forget having one in a cast.  So sweet husband takes both puppies and we are now walking along like a proper family.  Picture it will you?  A beautiful family (it's my dream we can be beautiful) walking/riding along on a sunny Sunday afternoon with their faithful furry friends in tow.  Let's sit on that butterfly moment for just a second shall we? 

Moving on...cut to "let's go (through the stretch of overgrowth that hasn't been properly maintained but always makes for a fun and interesting walk) tourist route home.  And that would be when "Quality Family Time, Dadgummit" started: 

• Issue #1: The Princess can't get her bike to move properly across the cracked sidewalk with tufts of grass sticking up. 
• Issue #2: The Jolly Green Giant  is behind the Princess and is annoyed by her slow pace for bike riding. 
• Issue #3:  The Author is once again losing control of Puppy #1 due to her excitement over the tall grass. 
• Issue #4:  The Queen (yup that's right I get a name too!) was not aware that the walk was going to take such a turn and is wearing cute sparkly flip flops that are not meant for traipsing through knee high grass with goodness knows what lurking just inchs from her feet. 
• Issue #5:  The furry hysterectomy baby was trying to hop through the grass like she does (I believe she's part bunny) and was having such a hard time she decided to just cop a squat. 

So we pass the huge patch of overgrowth and the Princess takes off at which time the Jolly Green Giant  aka Dudley Doo Right is yelling at her to slow down for us.  My frustrated husband tells him to just go catch up with her and for them to head home.  And just as we are settling in to a nice calm walk...we hear a thump and the Author is down, crumpled on the ground holding his knee, blood oozing from his bottom lip, broken arm protected by a huge cast and the culprit that brought upon such horror...sitting beside him panting, drooling, licking her pet and feeling rather pleased I would assume.  My defeated husband takes back control of both puppies, I wrap my arm around the author and we limp home. 

And that my faithful friends is how this family has "Quality Family Time, Dadgummit!" 
Now don't just sit there...go out and create your own memories!  Or better yet...I'd love to hear your very own "Quality Family Time, Dadgummit!" stories!  Don't be shy...you know you wanna share...post a comment!

Did you hear, it's my birthday?

Today is my birthday... ;0). 

But seriously, here is the thing about having a birthday in the time of social networking, you feel so so loved!  To wake up and have 27 emails before nine o'clock in the morning wishing YOU a happy birthday, I mean WOW!  Now some of you may be saying, "Ummm, didn't that always happen to you?".  The answer is NO!!! 

Okay so here's my world of birthday's.  First I'm an August, but you knew that when I so blatantly announced it was my birthday TODAY! (Over it?  okay?)  Well when your an August birthday, there is no school.  Should be a good thing right?  But imagine, all year long everyday hearing on the announcements "Happy birthday so and so!" and then having to sing to so and so or having people tell them ALL DAY LONG.  And then the mom comes in with pizza for lunch and a special treat, blah blah blah.  Don't get me wrong, my mom did it up RIGHT for our birthday's.  Spoiled rotten we were but she's your mom, she's supposed to!  On your Summer birthday you wake up to only your mom being excited for you, dad's already left for work and sister could care less.  No excitement until your actually party which let's admit is only fun for a few years then your over the whole party thing. 

Jump forward about 30ish years and your a mom with three kids, do you really think anyone remembers your birthday?  Ummm, not unless you write it on the board with the schedules in the kitchen were they are sure to see it cause they are hunting for snacks and seeing what fun things we are doing on this hot summer day.  (Now would be the time for me to tell everyone that I made my OWN birthday cake last year but we won't get into that will we sweet husband?  hehe) 

So, your kids see it on the board and they quickly write happy birthday on a piece of paper and present it to you with love and affection.  And you oooh and awe over it like it's a masterpiece, when what you want to say is, "That's so sweet honey!  How long did that take you?  Five seconds?".  Okay so I sound a bit bitter huh?  I'm not, seriously I'm not.  I'm blessed beyond belief.  I cherish the quickly written cards, and the hugs and kisses just cause I wrote 'MOM'S BIRTHDAY' in big block letters on the calendar and the subtle hints that "I sure did enjoy the cake I MADE FOR MYSELF LAST YEAR!" 

But June, July and August birthday people I have good news that I would like to shout from the rooftops!  Summer birthday members we can now be one of 'those' people!  The ones that have tons of people saying "Happy Birthday!" over and over!  And do you know why?  Because you were smart enough to put it on the wall of your Facebook page and you know that this will happen because the other 364 days of the year you write "Happy Birthday so and so!" on your 400 friends walls.  But still when it happens, when you wake up and groggily check your phone (which you don't do holding coffee but that's a post for another time) and you see 27 emails and none of them are Spam, they are all for you!  I mean Wow!  Summer birthday's, this is OUR time to shine, no longer do we have to be sad because no one celebrates our day, we can join in the mass celebration of school year birthdays!  Thank you Facebook for giving us, the Summer birthday's, the chance to be like everyone else!  "sob"  And to my Facebook friends, thank you for taking the time to write on my wall...Oh...there's another ding!  Yea me!

He will do that for us...

Today my husband got like 6 shots so that he could travel to India for business, I don't want him to go, he doesn't want to go, not really.  But he will because he loves this family so much that he will do anything for us even things he doesn't want to do.  He's my hero and I will miss him desperately while he's gone and love him even more when he comes back. 

He's her hero too!

                                                                                                        

A really good family of clowns...

It has been a really rough week in this household but the love and caring for one another is always overflowing, even when we may not completely like each other at every single moment.  (Admit it...you don't always LIKE your family members either...LOVE always...LIKE when we are lucky!)

But today, on our way home from church and the (there went a paycheck) grocery store, I saw the teeniest tiniest turtle in the middle of the road.  And as we passed I pointed it out.  We had two options: 1.  Keep driving home to put up the groceries, eat lunch and go about our day.  2.  Stop and help this defenseless little guy (girl?) who probably wouldn't make it much longer. 

Now admit it...what would you do?  Some days you may keep driving and not think twice and quite frankly that is what I expected on this particular day.  But I was wrong, my sweet husband stopped, put the car in reverse and backed up.  And my beautiful family (like the crowd of clowns we are) all clambered to windows to check on the guy.  My oldest hopped out, showed him to his brother and sister then sat it in a neighbors yard and hopped back in the car.  But that wasn't good enough...not for us or maybe just not today...so he hopped back out and held him in the car so we could take him down to the creek.  In the midst of the "I wanna hold it!" and the "eeewww it peed on the seat!" yelling that was going on in the back of the car were my thoughts of how proud I am of this beautiful family who chose to take the time to save something so small and defenseless.

We are never perfect, we ARE a family of clowns and we screw up often.  But they are mine and I am theirs and for that...I'm forever thankful!