Where the hell have you been?

This is a question I have been hearing a lot lately. I don’t really have one particular reason for my online and occasional real life absence. It’s been a lot of things, really. Mike is graduating in 3 weeks from high school. So you know that means lots of planning, invitations, mailings, and a lot of talking to people I don’t like, but it’s a small town and I have to be nice. Mike’s track season for him, Mel’s hand bell concert schedule (she performed with the Erie Jr Phil a few weeks ago). Melanie had a wickedly twisted break up with her first love, that took a while with lot’s o’ drama (not hers, just him pulling her chain and his family). Our giant burmese python died the Saturday before Easter. We buried him in the yard and planted a purple rhodi in his honor. Joshua has a new schedule at work that is driving him and I both a little nutty. Lindy (don’t think I’ve mentioned her before, but she is my mother’s sister, the cool one) and I have started a business. Designing and sewing clothing, handbags, wallets, baby items, jewelry, etc. This is the first week since February that I have not been at one or more of my machines on a daily basis. We are putting together an online store that will hopefully be up and running in a few weeks.

My calendar for this week is also full. An honors banquet tonight, where both M & M are getting recognized for something (I am hoping a scholarship for Mike, keep your fingers crossed), tomorrow Mike is getting his tattoo from Johnny at Karma Tattoo. Since Mike’s 18th bday was on mother’s day….we gave him his tat for his birthday and he is giving me a small one for mother’s day. Not your typical mother’s day fare, but I have never been the typical mother, either. Thursday is actually a down day which can prep me for Friday when I am chaperoning Mel’s Accelerated Bio class to the Cleveland Zoo. Saturday, the Guitar and Strings concert is being held in the Albion Boro Park. G&S is an informal music club at Northwestern. All the kids are pretty talented. Melanie and her friend, Melanie, have written a song and will be performing it in a 6-7song set. I am WILDLY excited to throw down a blanket, and listen to some awesome music. The concert starts at 1 if you want to join us. Bring a picnic and chill with the cool kids on Saturday!

I am sure I have left out a lot of detail but this is a quick and dirty version of why I have been MIA for the last few months.

Peace!

Advice needed from mothers of young ones

As my children have grown older, their interests have gone from power rangers and barney to IPods, cell phones, and xbox…I am mostly ok with that. But I think I am losing my connection to what little kids like.

My dearest friend, Christine, is having her son’s 6th birthday party this Saturday. Billy is a great kid and very much a part of you family. Since he and his sister were born (Ana is 4), all of their gifts from me have been handmade (don’t conjure up images of Ralphie and Aunt Clara’s gift, I am MUCH cooler than that).

So Billy’s party is less than a week away and I spent today crocheting this:

I was pretty impressed with myself considering it took less than 4 full hours to complete. Then my 17 year old son walks in the room and asks who it’s for, I say Billy’s birthday. So my son proceeds to tell me Billy is too old for a dinosaur and I should think about a trip to ToysR Us. I was heartbroken.

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

My Christmas Wishes

For reasons far to heavy to explain, I am not a religious person, but Christmas does call to my more spiritual side.  I think it has to do with the fact that for the most part, people are nicer to each other.  People talk to one another.  It’s the one time of year that people look up from their busy lives and see what is beyond their nose and wish perfect strangers a happy holiday.

My Christmas wishes seem simplistic and small but here they are:

I wish for my daughter true love and happiness.  I wish for Melanie’s continued ability to be herself and still give to another.  She is my shining light.

I wish for my son the courage to tread his own way, be it here in little Albion or out in the big world.  Mike dances to the beat of his own drum and asks permission from no one.   I admire that.  He is my courage when I have none.

I wish for my husband safe journeys at work and to always return to us safe.  The weather can be a harsh mistress this time of year.  He is my friend, my love, my protector.  I love him more everyday.

I wish for my sisters and bother the ability to overcome our mental demons.  We cannot control what has been given to us, but we can command it’s healing.

I wish for my mother the chance to see life without Eyore’s raincloud over her.

I wish for my 2 closest friends to find peace in their homes, and to remember that there are highs and lows like waves in every marriage.  Just because you are in a low does not mean a high isn’t just around the corner.

I wish for the safe return of our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters serving in the military.

Merry Christmas Eve

B

The Beginning and the End

Starting next week, my son will be a senior in high school.  He is registered for college classes (Gannon) on Tues and Thur as part of a federal grant given to the school to facilitate courses for high school AND college credit.  He has his books, his favorite (expensive) pens, he is ready.  I am not.

Starting next week, my best friend, Christine, will be sending her oldest child to kindergarten.  Billy is a very bright little boy, with a vocabulary way beyond his 5 years.  He did pre-school last year, so he knows the ins and outs of classtime.  Billy is ready for Kindergarten.  Christine is not.

It amazes me how our paths can be so similar and yet so very different.

There is so much change going on in my house, I am a little flustered.  Mike’s a senior, counting down the months until he is college bound.  Melanie is in full band competition mode AND she has a new boyfriend.  She went to his house this evening to eat dinner and meet his parents.  She changed her clothes 4 times today in anticipation of the visit.

Joshua is working WAY too many hours, so when he gets home, he is very tired and generally wants a beer a cigarette and the computer.  I am not sleeping again (even with meds), and it’s starting to affect my thinking and coping with all this.

Next week will be difficult for both Christine and I.  I just hope that we can support each other the way we always have, get thru it and laugh about how scared and agitated we were later on.

When words fail…music speaks

One of my daughter’s band friends said that to me a few years ago.  I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but now I am thinking of it all the time.  I freecycled a perfectly working eliptical, and have been using it to complement my running (slow and steady).  Several magazines have said to watch tv whislt you are on the machine.  I find this VERY boring in the sense that we don’t have cable and I don’t watch soaps.  So, my solution is that I have 3 DVD’s of concert footage from Godsmack, Papa Roach, and Live.  So far, they have worked really well.

Throughout my life there have been times I had no words, but I had a song (or a few songs) that put into perspective what I was going thru.  Last October, I had the degrading opportunity to self-admit myself for psychiatric evaluation.  On the drive from one hospital to another (they made me ride in an ambulance), the EMT’s were jammin to KORN.  I asked them to turn it up, they obliged, the entire ambulance was shaking with the music.  That was a words failed moment, and even though I do not know their names…. I thank you.  It really helped me get thru at least a half hour of my journey into hell.

It happens in the happy times, too.  Mark Kohn’s Walking in Memphis is very precious to me.  It was all over the radio the summer I became pregnant with our son.  We spent 2 weeks in Memphis with Joshua’s mom, and from the best I can calculate, that’s where/when I got preggers.

I could name a bunch more, but I thought it would be interesting if anyone else could pop off a few of their favorite tunes and what they mean to them.  Any comments?

 

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

To all the moms, step-mom’s, foster moms, ALL the women who mother us, our families and our pets….Happy Mother’s Day.  If you live in Erie County, PA, there is a Mother’s Day 5k at Beach One at PISP.  You can enter today.  It’s $20 for on person, $30 for a family rate.  The proceeds benefit a local women’s charity (the name of chich escapes me, but you can check our their website www.erie-runnersclub.com.  My son, Mike (who just turned 17 yesterday) will be running with me.  We hope to see you there!

What do you say?

My friend, Bev, lost her husband in a farming accident earlier this week.  He was 46.  Bev and Mark have 2 sons, Adam, and Alan.  I don’t know the details and to be honest, the details do not matter.  I called her, is there anything she needs.  Not yet, she says.  We all went to the viewing last night.  Michael stayed with the Wrestling Team to pay their respects as a team (Adam, a freshman, is on the team) and Joshua, Melanie and I went thru the line.  The home was very busy, Mark has a lot of friends and family.  I see a lot of familiar faces from the community.  We politely wave to each other back and forth.  Melanie is standing between us.  She is drinking in all the sights and sounds of this huge recieving room.  The flowers, the relatives, the crying babies, the old timers who remember Mark as a little child, she is taking it all in.  Just as we approach Bev, Adam, and Alan, I begin to cry.  Bev is so young, the boys are still in high school, they have the farm to look after.  I hug Bev tightly and whisper in her ear that we are here if she needs anything.  I tell the boys the same.  We make our way over to the casket to say goodbye to Mark.  What a gentle man, a husband, a father, a farmer, he was too many things to list.  As Joshua and I say our farewells, Melanie begins to sob.  Deeply, like from down in her gut.  Joshua and I both try to console her, but she needs to just cry.  It finally hit her that Mark wasn’t just my friend’s husband, he was the father of a boy the same age as she.  Melanie managed to calm down after we got home.  I hope that Bev can be the strong woman I know she is and carry on without Mark at her side.

Help me….I’m melting….melting…mel…

She is STILL in her home.  My mother has not left her side since she came home from the hospital except when her own sons were home for spring break.  He had a freakin week off and only manages to see his mother not even 24 hours.  The other one came for a while and went to church then went back to Cleveland…..Just disgusted.  I am trying really hard to stop and try to view this from another perspective, but I can’t.  Tyna throws things at my mom, she even tried to bite when mom was trying to help her from the the floor to her wheelchiar.

This may sounds a little like I am Whining, and in a way, I am, so prep yourself.  I was in the ER twice (Satruday evening and monday) with sever upper abdomial pain and cramping.  I had emergency gall bladder surgery Thurday morning.

 And the twisted sense of obligation I truly believe in coded into your DNA, she will  not get  over to see me before the staples are out. 

 And just when I think it couldn’t get any worse…My mom just called to inform me that the other 2 witches of Eastwick will be here Tuesday.  Can Gall Bladder be infectious?  Just asking.  I am not up for the 1,000 question game from Sissy, the why do you still help your mom Lindy, the broken hip, sister biting Tyna, and finally, my bi-polar she’s always right DNA giver, Susan.