Flash 55 Friday

Games

You did it again!
I wasn't expecting
to feel your tap,
while I had a mouthful
of toothpaste rendering
me mute.
I caught the note of pleasure
in your voice and listened
to the peels of laughter
and bubbling giggles
coming from your room.
Now I have the "cheese touch"
Until unsuspecting, I tag you!



Ever since we watched "Diary of a Whimpey Kid" the other night my middle child Sam has been terrorizing me with the "cheese touch". He manages to tag me when I'm washing my face, or putting contacts in, etc. in other words when he has enough time to run before I can tag him back. I find myself looking over my shoulder quite a bit, and being the one who has the "cheese touch" is worth it when I hear him laughing to himself in the other room :) Have an awesome weekend........

Birthday Girl

Today is my daughter Grace's eighth birthday! The above picture was taken by my bestie when we were vacationing up north. It really displays her spirit and vitality towards life. Her spirit is well captured on her face. When she was a toddler she was such a peanut but she could scamper up great big slides at the park and zoom down to the bottom fearless. She's still adventurous but now I notice small fears creeping in, like the fear of storms, and the dark. I was eight too when my "summer of worry" started. We had moved into our new house and just down the railroad tracks a few blocks was a river and my middle brother and his friends would fish there all day long and I was always worried they were going to drown. I would run down the tracks a few times a day to spy on them and make sure they were ok. I just about drove my mother nuts that summer. She still reminds me of it now and then, but now we laugh at the memory. My daughter has requested tacos for dinner, and cake and ice cream of course. My oldest son's two best buddies will be there too as she has grown up with them and they are like big brother's to her. Grace shares this day with her Auntie Julie, and I must give a shout out to Julie not just for her birthday but for loosing 25 plus pnds. on Weight Watchers. She looks and feels great! You go girl! My husband took our two youngest to meet their teacher's today. Each teacher meets with the student and parents for a half hour to discuss the upcoming school year. Our children attend a parochial school and both have awesome teacher's this year. We are very blessed with our children's education. Two weeks from today is the first day of school. I'm trying to use what I have learned from my program and apply it to the upcoming year. I have some limitations such as I am the only parent available at night, and I have to do a lot of schedule flipping to accomodate sports and activities but in the past I was so overwhelmed that I felt like I was treading water, and barely keeping above the surface. I have now learned to say "no". This can be hard to say when you are a people pleaser. I've also learned not to feel guilty because I'm a full time working mom. My family depends on two incomes plus I carry all the insurance. I used to struggle with guilt about working for years, but my best friend said to me, "I look at it this way, my husband and I are partners, and working helps me do my part in the partnership". Yes, Leener I remember when you said that to me. Families aren't cheap even when you cut out extra's and at the rate my kids are growing even Goodwill is starting to get expensive (lol) but seriously I think I now realize that I have spent a great portion of my life justifying, apologizing, feeling guilty, and the bottom line is it's nobody's business but mine and my husband's. I don't have to explain anything to anybody but him. How freeing is that? I like working, I like helping people. Sure there are days when I'm drowning in paperwork and red tape but all in all I don't mind working. It is a partnership. I will get out what I put into it. I wish I could have all that time back that I wasted being concerned by what other people thought but at least I don't have to fall victim to what I think other people think is important. I admire mother's whether they work at home or outside of the house. Motherhood isn't for sissies. It requires dedication, trial and error, flying by the seat of your pants, playing fixer, healer, and judge. But it shouldn't require an explanation if you do the best with what you have. Did my kids miss out without me being at home all the time? I don't know, and I'm not going to dwell on it. I have a busy year fast approaching and for once instead of just trying to survive it, I would like to live it, enjoy it, and be in the midst of it, chaos or not. So I guess we can't stay fearless forever but once in a while it doesn't hurt to have a little fearlessness in our attitude. The above picture doesn't need an explanation it's pure in the best of forms. Sometimes we just need to throw our arms into the air and embrace life as it comes. Happy Birthday my sweet, sweet shmoopsy poo.....I love U!

Some very cool things......

First, headache is gone. When they finally leave I feel like doing cartwheels because it just feels so good to be pain free. The refrigerator is in my kitchen as we speak. My hubby called and said it looks great, so that's a "cool" thing to come home to! And of course the weather is not cool! Another day of high humidity, dew point, and temps. with storms tonight. Which means my daughter will be trying to crawl under my skin since she has this new found terror of storms. The boys like their father just sleep right on through them but Gracie panicks. A friend asked me the other day what I thought were some of the best benefits from AA. I had a million answers but one that sticks out in my mind is that I now have the ability to be genuinely happy for someone else. I was a pretty envious person when good things happened to people other than myself and now I find myself grinning ear to ear in sincere happiness at the good fortunes of others. I also smile and laugh way more than I used to. An inside roar has been replaces with a quiet peace. Do I still have problems? yep, do I still need to tackle character defects, and make ammends? Yep, but that quiet feeling is constant even when my life gets a little more than crazy. A hole has been filled. A piece of the puzzle that was missing for so long has been found. I have said this before and I'll say it again, but this program has been like waking up in the middle of my life. I woke up, had this great life, looked at God, and God said, "Here take responsibility and start living this life". I wanted this life I have (accept for the alcoholism) but I didn't want to take ownership of it. I was too overwhelmed. Besides I didn't deserve a better life. What? There it is the magic link to much joy: Self Worth! Last night Grace, Sam and myself watched the movie :Diary of a Whimpey Kid". Sam loves the book and I found the movie hilarious! But what I could appreciate the most was the message of not buying into what society tells us we have to be, just be yourself and let people like you for who you are, not what you are trying to be. If you haven't seen the movie, I can tell you adults like it as much as the kids do. So go get the movie, pop some corn, and settle down for a trip from the past...or present whichever way you want to look at it.......

Monday Madness......

Madness my peeps because I have another severe headache. I have suffered with headaches since I was 17. I have to take a beta-blocker twice a day and have migraine medication when it gets bad. Well guess who didn't get her's refilled and had to suffer most of the weekend? yep, me, so the most I could do was dull it enough to go about my day. And mother nature is hot, humid, and steamy which really makes my temples pound. So I called the pharmacy this morning and I'll pick it up on lunch. At Saturday's meeting my sponsor presented me with my six month chip. She's an awesome lady who always gives me enough rope to hang myself, then reels me in and gives me a soft place to land. We enjoy working together and she will celebrate 21 years this Saturday. It's an honor to have her by my side during this journey. After the meeting I was taking with a lady who remembers the first night I walked through those doors. I told her I remember her saying to me, "I wish you could feel how awesome I feel", and now I've experienced some of that awesomeness too! We had a young lady who was there for her first time on Saturday. She was wide eyed and just trying to take it all in. I wish there was a way to give new comers a sneak peek into the future, so they could see the promises at work. It would keep them coming back. After I got home on Saturday, I gave my coin to my husband. For walking these first six months with me. It's been a series of ups and downs, but even on it's worst day it's no where near what it was last year at this time. My two youngest and I went shopping for school shoes and supplies. They were very excited about the shoes. Grace wanted the black Converse high tops that only came in boys sizes but settled on pink Converse tennies as she thought they were a bit more girly. Sam picked out some awesome shoes, and we managed to survive the nuthouse Target was and finished with school supplies. We finished the evening at my bestie's house with a delicious dinner. And after a few snags, we are finally getting the frig. tomorrow. We had a call on Friday that we might have to wait for 3 or more weeks, but they were able to give us the floor model and deliver even earlier than what was scheduled. Thank goodness because the current frig. is really just hanging on by a thread. My oldest has finished his job at the fair. He had a blast and is very darkly tanned. I think he is looking forward to sleeping in on Tues, and we all are just trying to survive this heat. Since we have no control over it, I'm trying to focus on other things, like my daughter's upcoming birthday, and registering them for school tomorrow. So Monday is full of madness, mainly my madness at this stupid headache but it's also filled with good things, and isn't that the way life should be? Balanced.......