rainydayinalmostmay…

So yeah, it’s been a ROUGH while at our house… What better than a bullet post to count the highlights? 
– I started having these completely debilitating cluster migraines. It seems to have subsided now, which professionals oddly call “the remission period”, which freaks me out a bit more than the clustery ice-pick-stabbing head spasms do. 
– Yes, I did read the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. I did like them. Sorry if that’s offensive, as it has apparently been to some. 
– In relation to the last point, I would like to point out that as a result my husband and I had a “hard limits/soft limits” discussion- and I listed my #1 hard limit to be his family. Oh. Yes. I. Did. 
– I also went and saw Blue Like Jazz, which was amazing. I think the hype it has gotten from the Sherwood pastor is EXACTLY what is wrong with the Christian church mentality, and why so many people are turned off by the idea of Christianity or being a Christian, or believing that Christians can be cool people who understand things and could be potential friends. 
– Judgement is ridiculous. 
– Genny had a raging 104 fever for two days, ended up being thrown out of one urgent care clinic (no, I’m not kidding. Cuz apparently that’s what the medical industry deems appropriate for kids with delusions and raging fevers.) and was diagnosed with Strep/Scarlet fever at another. 
– Her throat never hurt. 
– In the second ER, she sat crying in my lap begging for my hand to be against her forehead. Her head was so hot that it literally HURT to keep my palm there, and there was a red welt on my palm (which felt very much like a burn) which stayed for 3 days and still burns occasionally. Have NEVER had that happen and still it seems absurd. 
– Our beautiful Amanda graduated from Basic Training on Thursday. We couldn’t be there due to the expensive of silly things like attorneys, court fees, etc. It killed me to miss it for reasons I’ll some day talk about… It hurt us all I think. Genny the most, as she feels like she’s ruining everything… Which she isn’t. It sucks to be her, these days. 
– that being said, we are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO proud of Amanda, and will not miss her AIT graduation in San Antonio! Somehow we’ll be there. 
– I am at the end of my rope with homeschool. It just isn’t a great fit for us. But schooling at an actual school isn’t a great fit for Gen. Next step? We’ve applied at an online school and will find out if we get in within the next couple of weeks I guess. 
– Finally got the nearly $1000 bill for my husband to get those three stitches in his leg that day he accidentally stabbed himself. I just don’t understand the medical industry at all… Until then, living in actual fear over what the scarlet fever one will be… 
– I bought my husband tickets for he and a friend to go to this ridiculous MARVEL movie Marathon this Thursday. He is so excited that last night he drempt he was the Hulk. 
– Tomorrow is May. Maybe it’s the spring all around us, (finally), or maybe it’s something else. All I know is, we’re almost done with school and I feel somewhat encouraged by life. Optimistic that we’re better for what this year has been like so far and good is yet to come… 
– My son deploys to Afghanistan soon. It was supposed to be tomorrow, but it’s now moved to Mother’s Day. 
– I got out of the house for a lovely lunch, with a girl friend, on Saturday. Got to also see a couple of movies. The Lucky One and The Five Year Engagement…  Being a BIG Segel, Blunt and Apatow fan i LOVED the second one. LOVED LOVED LOVED it… As for the first one, it was good. It was kind of an ill-timed film to see, for a mom whose kid is going off to war. I totally want to say “that aside, I loved it”, but I can’t really “that aside”. 
– While Gen was down with SF, and I was clustering here and there- i got completely sucked into the world of Downton Abbey. *SWOON* 
What’s going on with you????
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Happy happy, joy joy, relief…

 Am I the only one who is breathing a sigh of relief that the holiday cluster is over?
Man oh man…

When Gen came to live with us, and we did our attachment therapy, we were told to make holiday traditions and make them STAND OUT.
Was this beneficial advice? Sure… When baskets of candy, and gift bags the size of a small refrigerator contained gifts that didn’t cost the same as a cheap car…

Now, well, with Christmas followed by Valentines day, then her birthday, then Easter (always near her birthday), plus the need for new spring/summer clothes- it’s exhausting…
And this year, with all of the legal stuff, we’ve had to get creative…

For example, instead of throwing a birthday party, we simply allowed her to invite one person to go to dinner and bowling. Other friends tagged along, (paying for themselves) and the bowling alley (who we paid NOTHING extra to) awesomely announced her birthday, autographed a vintage pin for her and made it special.

For her birthday gifts we shopped major sales (MAJOR) and were able to get her a new iPod (which she desperately needed) and a kindle (complete with 108 books) for what a party alone would have cost.

Then came easter. When we hadn’t a penny more, we stressed.
how do we make it special?
how do we make her feel like she isn’t paying a high price for this?
Introducing the less than $40 easter basket complete with BRAND NEW Converse, bath products, hair accessories, manicure items, DVD’s, loads of candy, gum and facial stuff. {95% of which was all “needs” anyway, added bonus}

The likes of which will never, ever be done again, I assure you. It was our frugal miracle, for sure…

And now, now we’re set until September when our family anniversary rolls around.

Happy us, free for another day of the evil parental guilt that nags at us, making us question if we’re “scarring her” further… The time and the legal stuff hasn’t hurt her during this difficult time when she needed to know nothing would change.

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Blood, Guts, wounds and yearbook photos- Oh My…

It hasn’t been that long, has it? 
A girl goes off of the blogging grid for just a smidge of time and blogger goes and changes everything… What is this world coming to? I feel like the whole internet changed. Which it kind of did. Doesn’t google own it yet? What’s next, France? maybe Google can buy the US from china. Hmm. anyway… 
So, what’s going on? 
That’s nice… Or, wow, I’m sorry… or Me too... Whichever works for you, please snag it and insert here: 
___________________________________________. 
What’s new with me, you ask? Well… aside from sicknesses, court craziness, expensive legal insanity, plain old regular life insanity, work, birthdays (Mine and Genny’s), anniversary (mine and Chw’s.), puppy surgeries (both Paisley and Emma), puppy follow up emergencies, (again- both) oodles of family drama, car trouble (both mine and Chw’s cars) and a date being set for Lucas’ deployment AFTER he had an episode similar to a heart attack- it’s been a whirlwind. Nay- a tornado. I’m not going to understate… 
But we are here. 
We are alive. 
We are blessed to be exactly where we are. 
We are loved. 
We have AMAZING friends. 
I am thirty six!!! (yes, saying it again. And again. And again) 
36… 
And our dogs are done being hypochondriacs just to scare us… 

Stinkers…

Also, not to brag but my AWESOME husband made me this AWESOME island for my birthday. I adore it, and i love it too! {Note, yes the light fixture is out of place. We have a replacement, it’s just not up yet. See: crazy weeks.}

Also, Also, I was asked to take a quick shot of the adorable Genny for our co-op year book, as we were newcomers. This is the best I could muster. Yes, that IS siding in the back ground, thanks for noticing… (and yes, I am the mom who not-too-long-ago had a photography business… Remember what I said about the evil craziness of march? it’s the best i could do- thus scarring my poor 13 year old for life. I know.) 
Kindly I will spare you the images of my husband’s knee. He decided to stab himself in it, whilst working on an over thought out project. He survived, but has 3 ugly stitches (super deep but not wide) and a fairly unsympathetic wife as, in his shock and immense pain he originally led us to believe he SAWED through his leg. MORAL OF THE STORY: when you lead into an injury story with “sawed off my leg with a power saw” and come to find out, it’s a utility knife wound- i may not be as distraught as you once expected. (disclaimer- he did not lie. He HAD been power sawing and THEN comes in screaming with buckets of blood staining through his jeans. When Gen and I asked if he sawed through his leg, he was in a bit of shock and did answer yes. *eh hem- more than once*… My thoughts at that time were actually “wow, saw wounds are much smoother than I imagined.” hmm…) 
So in a nutshell- I vow to be a better blogger. The end. 
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The brighter side…

Can it really already be March 13? 
That seems crazy to me. Shouldn’t that make Christmas be practically next week, or something? 
So. Do things go in seasons in your world? I don’t mean seasons like the 4 basic annual ones. No, I mean seasons of plenty and seasons of struggle, and that sort of thing. 
Our first mistake, I suspect, was kicking 2011 in the rear on it’s way out- and naively welcoming 2012 with open arms. 
2012 is a manipulative sneak is what it is. 
Ya’ll, I don’t know what life has been like for you but OUR year has been painfully hard- every day- since 1/1. It stinks. It has been wrought with MAJOR family problems, health issues, more family problems, more health issues and now this pesky need for LOTS of money, uber fast. 
As if that wasn’t enough, our sweet puppy has been deathly sick, pretty much monthly. We noticed last night that her ear has this weird, raw/bloody issue, so to the vet I go this morning. Again. 
AND, this morning at our 5:30 a.m. breakfast Chw points out that we don’t have a lawn mower. 
No we don’t… 
Ours died last fall and we just assumed, come spring, we wouldn’t be in dire need of uber amounts of money- and we could just buy one. 
smh… 
In other news, it is Lucas’ birthday! Even though he’s not here- (Germany is SO lucky right now!) we can’t help but keep him in our hearts and thoughts and wish him a happiest of birthdays… I am so dang proud of him, and honestly- none of the other junk matters. These kids of ours make life amazing. 
image courtesy of Kelly Peone Photography
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Ache…

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

GO.

It was a mere gesture of friendly good intention which prompted her to share with me the words. The instruction. 
The way that I, as their mother, do not add up. 
I didn’t take it personal. I jumped up first, criticizing self in mirror, that I needed the words. 
Needed to heed the words. 
Needed to be the words. 
Needed. 
So much more than the loud toned woman, frustrated always. Tired. 
Aches. 
Aches in my bones and my heart, alike. Different. 
Aches from trying so hard to love those previously believed unloveable, only because previous people ached to see themselves and cast these wide eyed children to the wayside. 
Aches, the children, in the way their beginnings began. 
Aches every second of every day for their differences. For their different. For… 
For everything? Possibly. Probably. Rightly so. 
Ache. 
Always. All around. Rounds and rounds for everyone, on everyone because this lonely, self serving world can’t get enough. 
I ache to be the mom they need me to be. 
I ache because I fail. 
I ache because I’m not. Then I try to be, and I forget, and I fail again. 
They deserve better. 
But I’m what they’ve got. 
That’s it. 
Maybe I love them more than they can love. Maybe they gave the tiny bits of all they had to spare to me, heart fragments in hand. 
I took them. 
I chose. 
I choose
I ache. For them. Because of them. With them.

STOP.

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