Beauty For Ashes

I just read a blog about crutches and it made me think that maybe I ought to ponder on that a bit more.  You know how you go through life and this little sense of frustration follows you?  Okay, maybe you don’t experience it, but lets say, hypothetically you do.  Anyway, you know it starts out as a little sense of frustration and then it blossoms into this ginormous bush filled with the fruit of frustration.  Well, I’m there.  So, in light of that, I thought maybe it is time to take a page from this blog I just read and face my excuses and crutches…the reasons why I don’t do (fill in the blank).

My house needs to be cleaned - Okay, so this is a really difficult one for me because, my house always needs to be cleaned,  The crutch is this, if my house is messy, my mind cannot concentrate on those things I want to accomplish to be successful.

I need to have a plan - when have I ever been a planner and worse yet, my best work is done without a plan.

I’m scared - when am I not scared.  Take Hawaii for example.  I love the water, I enjoy body surfing, I would like to learn to surf for real.  When we went to Hawaii several years ago, the only thing I could think of when I was playing in the waves was “today I’m going to die because a sharks going to bite me”.  Yet, on the outside I was smiling and having a wonderful time because I don’t want my childrent to see how lillylivered I am.  See pride may not be a good thing in general but it serves it’s purpose when you don’t want to be seen as a ninny.

Today I am going to live without excuse and accomplish what I want to accomplish.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  I’m not confindent(she says with a chigrined smile) however, I am going to complete one piece of artwork, clean my bedroom and get packed for our trip.  That’s it.  That’s what I’m going to do.

Well, very nearly anyway.  He was sitting behind me as T and I enjoyed THE BEST sushi we have ever had at Kazu in Studio City, California.  My philosophy when it comes to celebrities is duel.  On one had, they are just people who live a life they choose to be rather public and dog gone it, why would I, who am also just a person want to pander and pant all over them.  Let them live a normal life for pete’s sake.  On the other hand, it was George Clooney!  So I tried very discretely to get a good look at him.  I went to the bathroom just to walk by him and see if T was right.  Yep, it was George.  It was all we could do to carry on a conversation because of that deep, sexy voice as it floated to our table beaconing us to eaves drop like some celebrity hungry fools.  Oooh, my sensibilities to “just let them live a normal life for pete’s sake” where trampled by that crazy desire to go plunk my giddy self at his table and ask millions of questions all while staring into his smoldering eyes.  Damn my inability to hear well in places where there is more than one person speaking.  He must have been funny because the ladies he was with were laughing.  T and I left Kazu overcome by a desire to giggle like a couple of love sick school girls (sorry honey, couldn’t think of a better way to say it.).   It was as if he is part Siren and the sound of his voice seduces those around him into glazed eyes filled adoration only to have his hold diminish as distance is put between his victim and the sound of his booming voice.  By the time we reached our car, we were laughing at our new experience and all our big talk about not idolizing anyone.  But still, I had dinner with George Clooney. 

Being a human being is an interesting thing isn’t it?  I have been pondering on communication quite a lot over the last several months.  Some of my thoughts have been centered around how frusterating it is to be misunderstood and how difficult it is to find the words to straighten the misunderstanding out.  I’ve also been thinking aobut how interesting it is that as people we want to be unique and loved for our uniqueness.  We want to be loved for who we are in our hearts yet, we put on a little show and then get hurt because no one really knows us.  We don’t show our true face to the world for numbers of reasons, the main one I think, being rejection. 

Why do I bring this up?  Well,  T and I are having an issue with one of our children that we could use some help with.  The help we could use really needs to come from people we don’t know but who interact with our child.  Strangers, if you will.  The hitch, no one will speak the truth because they don’t want to look bad, hurt our feelings, you fill in the blank.  I get that, I do that.  The remedy, open your mouth and speak.  I know, easier said than done.

I just think it’s interesting.  As a people, we could just open our mouths and speak I wonder what connections could be made that we never would have dreamed. 

All of this coming, ironically, from the very quiet, speak avoiding person that I am…

We all had cabin fever last night and even though it was snowing and cold, we decided to head out of the house.  Our usual destination when cabin fever strikes in the winter is Barnes and Noble.  It’s close, it has coffee, it has lots and lots of books…perfect!  We always hang out in the children’s section as we peruse through the billions of books.  C and M have favorites they like to read through so sitting at the little round table in the children’s section really is the best way for them to have access to everything they are interested in reading.  T and I pull up an adult chair and peruse through the stacks of magazines and books that we grabbed on our way to the childrens section. 

Last night was nice.  The kids enjoyed their time and I enjoyed bugging C.  We shared a bench and I just couldn’t keep my hands off him.  Even at 7, he is so darned cute!  As he read, I periodically reached over and poked a rib or tickled a chin.  He finally looked at me with a twinkle and a frown and said, “Mom, you are really bugging me, stop it”.  Which meant do it some more, please!  Or at least that is what I heard.  I tried to refrain but just couldn’t keep my hands off his cuteness.  With exasperation, he put his book down, turned to face me and gave me a big fat kiss right on the cheek and said, “please stop, I’m trying to read”.  I stopped but it was hard cause I really wanted another big, fat, sloppy kiss right on my cheek!

We get a snow day today.  Yeah!  My class was cancelled and my kiddies get to stay home.  I decided to let them sleep in so while they were snoozing Abbie and I went out to shovel the sidewalk.  Okay, Abbie just chewed on a pinecone while shoveled.  It took me about 1/2 hour and sweat was pouring off me by the time I was through.  Toward the end of my shoveling, I heard a little voice call out to me.  M was worried that I had left her all alone and was looking high and low.  Of course her worry was put to rest when I told her that she wasn’t going to go to school today.  “So, we get to sled all day today?” she said.  I told her that yes indeed, she could sled off and on all day today.  We have quite a  hill going in the front yard, only to be enhanced by all the snow storms building off the Pacific just waiting to dump beautiful, fluffy white stuff on the mountain and maybe bless us Bendites with some of the extra.  It’s lovely and fun. 

I have a whole list of things to do today since I’m not going anywhere.  I know I’ll probably only accomplish one or two things but I can still dream.  Here’s my list.

Sled with the kids
Do some metal craft
Order some metal supplies so I can complete this lovely bracelet I’m drooling over
Finish reorganizing my closet (we got a new bedroom set so I need to put all my stuff away)
Tidy the house
Vacume everything within reach (Abbie is a wonderful dog but her hair is driving me bananas) 
Make Hot Chocolate
make some phone calls

I could go on but I think I’d better end with that and get started on my list!  Can’t wait!

I think I’m done trying to find clever titles for my blog entries and so I’ll just throw one up there that has some validity to what I might happen to say on this given day.  Hmmm.

My children are well, mostly.  We went to the doc this morning and he declared that they looked much better.  The one little hitch for my sweet and courageous girl is that she has a nasty thrush infection in her mouth from the adult doses of antibiotics she has been on for the last week and a half. I have been pushing the yogurt but she, like me really doesn’t like yogurt so getting her to consume it always seems to involve funny faces and sometimes tears.  I’m tired of tears. 

Anyway,  back to my title.  Well,  M, my sweet daughter has a competitive streak.  She likes sports and games and she is good at them all.  Last year my Dad taught her how to play cribbage.  This year for Christmas, my husband and M got a cribbage board.  I have never seen a nine year old play like she does.  I think I already mentioned at the top of the paragraph that M is very competitive right?  Well,  she gets down and dirty with her daddy, smack talking and everything.  Not only that, apparently she has the moves to back up her talk.  She regularly kicks her daddy’s butt.  Well, a couple of days ago, her grandpa challenged her to a game.  I guess she kicked his butt too.  When we went to pick her up from his house, he made sure to let us know, with pride in his voice, that his granddaughter is a cribbage genius.  He also told us, with pride in his voice, that she is a stinker when she plays. 

We laughed. 

I think I’ve had enough of cartoons to last me for the next 10 years.  Sponge Bob is not a favorite, in fact, I cannot stand to be in the same room as him when he is on TV.  Kim Possible is great fun but, alas, she is not on the tele as often as I would like. 

Why am I ranting about cartoons you ask?  Well,  even though the sky is blue, blue, blue and we have snow on the ground, the sledding hill is calling our names and the crisp air is beckoning to me, I’m on Mommy duty.  My children are sick.  One has pneumonia and the other is quickly heading that direction.  Because they feel yucky, my duty as a Mommy is to indulge them which means…all the cartoons you can stomache.  In exchange, I get to sit and snuggle with them while they watch.  I think I’m the richest Mommy in the world.  Snuggles are better than chocolate and because my children are growing up, they come fewer and fare between.  Don’t get me wrong, I would exchange all the snuggles in the world if they were never sick again.  Since it appears that that exchange is not going to happen, I’ll enjoy the snuggles and the fact that they just want Mommy….and cartoons.

:0)

It’s been another good day.

1. My camera is back in my hands, fixed and ready to play.  It focuses now and the wierd sound it was making is gone.  Even better, the repair was covered under warranty so I didn’t have to pay for anything but shipping.  Oh, to make beautiful pictures again…..it’s a good thing.

2. I learned how to hammer out copper alloys today and yes, even though it brought tears to my eyes in a bad way, I did smack my finger doing it and ended up with a blood blister.  My first ouch doing something fun.  I’m sure theres many more to come but I count them all joy because they are evidence of creative fun.

3. My teacher was very impressed with my beveled edge.  It took be quite a while to get the hang of filing a beveled edge but alas, I think I’ve got it

4.  I learned to use a jewelers saw to cut through copper alloy and only broke 4 saw blades doing it.  Okay that was 4 more blades than I had hoped to break but none the less, I did get my three irregularly shaped holes cut in the bitty piece of metal

5.  My kids are happy

6.  After coming home from class, my brain felt like it might melt and I felt a nap calling me sooooo,I took a cat nap, like a cat, in the warm sun for an hour and feel pretty refreshed.  I do hope I can sleep tonight now.

 It has been a very good day.

or should I say, “Oh, My Gosh!  It’s crazy already”. 

This is the last week of school.  I am very excited to have my kids home for the summer.  We’ve got grand plans but….and this is the oh my gosh part…..that will have to wait until after Grandma and Granpa come.  In the mean time, I have 3 pages of things we need to get done between now and next Friday.  Thankfully, I am sane enough, barely, to prioritize them and I think the list, as long as it is, is doable. 

We are planning to head to Portland to celebrate M’s 9th birthday.  Her best friend moved to PDX and M is missing her so bad that we thought it would be fun to pick M’s friend up for the weekend and go do all the fun Portlandy things we haven’t gotten to do in years.  M wants to go to the zoo for sure and from there we aren’t sure what we will do.  We have many things to choose from.  It’s going to be so fun. 

 We will come home on Sunday and then Monday, M’s actual bday, will be celebrated with Grandparents from Nevada and here.  It should be interesting and if the truth be told, after the last time the Nevada Grandma visited, I am a bit nervous and defensive.  I am determined to make it a pleasant time for all, so there. 

For now, I will leave you with some pictures of M singing in her final choir concert and both M & C testing for their orange belt in Taekwando.  Enjoy.

 

 

 

Until next time.

If you were to get, say, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppy what what would you name it? 

We have some friends that have one and they have named him “Willy”.  He is the cutest thing you ever saw.  His face is so sweet and he loves to have the kids chase him.  When they get disinterested with the chasing he runs over, stands in front of them and says “boof” is a deep, whispery short little bark.  Not loud at all but just wanting to make it clear that he would like to play thank you vey much.

No we are not thinking of adding to our brood.  I don’t think any dog on the planet could match our dear, sweet Abbie.  She has stolen my heart!  She would probably accept a sister or brother readily but I could not accept the extra hair but I must say I love, love, love Pembroke Welsh Corgis.