starting off the week

Yep its Monday , and this week is off to a crazy start ~ tonight , Andy's team advanced in the playoffs even further, they are 1 game away from the championship & Andy was picked for the all star team! YAY! In other news.. Doug is off this week but seems to have a serious problem with youtube .... its like an addiction, give him some mt dew and youtube and he is a happy for hours ! Alex is suffering his first real heartbreak, wow , I have forgotten how it feels to be 14 and have your heart crushed... Aaron has a new obsession with fishing, there is a tremendous farm pond that we have access to and the fish there are monsters! He would fish from dawn to dark if he was allowed to . He has gotten to the point of being without bait, and still throwing out his line... hoping the fish will just bite on the hook. What a crazy beginning to a crazy week....

Go Warsaw Warriors!!

Things I Think About

At 2am , I'm sleepless yet again ... so as I sit and let my mind idle , I have decided to jot down a list of things I wonder about or think about often ... very random ...

• if you knew your friend was being cheated on by his/her spouse , would you tell them?
• why do people work so hard on making their lives *look* good when they are miserable? this one really bothers me, its like living a lie...
• religion is incredibly powerful - good & evil -
• who are we to judge Michael Jackson?
• where are parents these days? society has gone mad...
• why does have Alex have seizures? ( medically speaking I know ) I am looking for a deeper understanding
• forgiveness is difficult, painful , and beautiful
• I need to go back to school
• is it possible to be satisfied? or are we as people always striving for something *more *?
• if you don't have trust, you have nothing
• how do you tell an adult to stop whining, and feeling sorry for themselves?
• why do I feel so guilty every night while I'm laying in bed, mentally paging through the days activities and feeling like I missed those moments with the boys , that I can't have back!
• why are the words * I'm sorry * so difficult to say and mean
• why is adoption so difficult ? yet we as a society will give back someones kids that is verbally , emotionally , and physically abusive.

well that's just a sampling of what flys through my mind constantly, I'll try to catch some zzzz's , as its almost 3 AM .

Just Breathe

Summer is flying by , July is creeping ever closer, so many things I want to do . I get myself into a summer frenzy and become oblivious to what makes summer so magical. Today walking past my flower bed I noticed they had gone stark wild! That old adage stop and smell the flowers came to mind immediately , it was a subtle subconscious reminder to relax , live in the moment . I'm making a concerted effort to slow down , lower my expectations and live each moment completely and wholly. Now if I could only fit a few more hours into the day.....

Fathers Day

Ok, so I'm a little late posting on the subject of fathers day but I had excellent reasons, honestly. The boys and I conspired to kidnap Doug for the day , doing things that Doug likes to do. Soooo. We woke him up early Sunday morning and made him shower and throw some clothes on , jump in the car and drive us to an unknown destination. I hid the GPS in my lap and turned down the volume so he couldn't hear, but kept it to where I was sure I knew where we were headed. Our destination was Hocking Hills State Park, its amazing , really that's not quite strong enough of a word and one day isn't nearly enough to take it all in, we will be going back ...soon~! We were climbing through rocks, up the hills, through the caves, playing in waterfalls.... it was entirely to much fun , and believe me, I never thought I'd enjoy all that hiking but it was extraordinary! I'll post some of the better pics , and if you want to see more head over to my facebook ;o) oh yeah.... andy has a completely cheesy smile, he really doesn't normally look like his teeth are like horse teeth... LOL

Mr Coon

I'm working on how to say no but in the meantime .... a man I work with found this little guy next to his mama who had been hit on the road , and of course Mr Coon ended up with us! He is shy, not to trusting just yet, but was eager to eat Alex's leftover shrimp. He will let you pick him up and pet him , just don't startle him or he tends to nip. I don't know what my long term plan is for him yet, but darn he is cute!

Growth

As I have mentioned before in my posts , Alex had a friend, a classmate , that took his own life this past Decemeber. When his funeral and viewing were taking place, Alex refused to go. I didn't push . I made sure we talked about it, he attended some counseling sessions to help him make sense of what happened. I was never sure that I had made the right decision to not take Alex to the viewing and funeral. Tonight , on the way to bowling leagues , Alex said he would like to visit the cemetary his friend has been buried in. We agreed after his league that we would stop and look for his burial. After a little searching we came across a beautiful white cross with his friends name etched in it, surrounded by flowers , a baseball, an actual picture, and an angel holding a marker next to a soccer ball. The note said "all who visit please sign the ball" . There were no words needed from Alex, I saw every emotion he had kept inside for so long cross his face, he held the soccer ball, studied the baseball, read and reread the poem on the cross and writings on the ball, he wept from the depths of his soul . Quietly he said goodbye to his friend, on his own terms , in the privacy of a wooded cemetary , he signed the ball with shaking hands , promising to bring back the guitar magazine his friend had wanted to borrow only days before his freinds death. Tonight I saw Alex grow in unmeasurable depths of character, loyalty, compassion and spirituality. It was without doubt the most touching , soul wrenching experience in my 15 years of motherhood.

Over It

Its official , I'm so over it. Yes, I'm referring to baseball. While I'm venting on that one, let me add lack of parenting to the list of things that I'm completely O.V.E.R. Andy's Tournaments have started, we finished the regular season in second place, so we are definitely sitting in a good spot. We played a team tonight that didn't win a single game during the entire season. The coaches, parents are completely and totally off the hook. At one point I wasn't sure we were playing baseball or football. Every call the umpires made had to be contested and dissected, they seriously got out the "rule" book to try and make the case that one of our players bunted incorrectly. Can we please just play the game? I hate hate hate games like that. We have crazy parents sitting in the bleachers screaming that our kids need to suck it up....uhh yeah... classy. The last sentence I'm referring to are Aaron's games. Which are actually 6-7 year old kids , coach pitch. Good Lord, if the parents are acting like complete morons, how do we expect the kids to play with good sportsmanship , and truly enjoy sports? The icing on the cake is that Andy is also playing a game or two with the next league up , the Warsaw team has had a few injuries and called up two players from Andy's normal league to play during their playoffs. Ohhh I can't wait to deal with double the crazies!!

Nextly... I just love using that word, not that I'm even sure its a word. I am utterly peeved that I allowed Alex to stay at his friends house for the night, and his friends mom decided to "go out" that night . She didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning, leaving Alex and his friend alone most of the night. I realize they only live a few doors down, and that they are 14. Would I have consented to this sleep over if I had known she was going to be gone? NO. I would like to think that Alex has a good head on his shoulders.. however, he is 14, hormone's out of control, and itching for independence. I need to mention that this town is full of unsupervised girls and all kinds of access to illegal substances . Enough said on that one. Am I being dramatic? I'd like to think not. I just expect adults to act with some shred of common sense , and decency . God help that little hussy of a mom if Alex had a seizure while on her watch.

OK, if you have actually finished reading this post, thank you for bearing with me while I went off the deep end of an empty swimming pool , hopefully my sanity will return at the end of the baseball season.

ramblings

This has been a topsy turvy week for sure. Coming back from a dreamy week at the beach is always a huge dose of reality in the face, no holds barred! Above and beyond all that, there is a burning subject flickering in my mind. Isn't it amazing how many people you can find online via facebook or myspace just to name a few sites. I'm not the most social person on earth, I have very few really good friends. That's just me, how I am, how I function. I have many people I talk with , or what I consider to be acquaintance's. Somewhere on TV I heard someone say " I will not like you , before I like you " as strange and odd as that sounds I find that phrase fits me pretty well. Not that I'm condoning it . For now , it fits me. So when I log on to my facebook account and see I have a friend request from someone I worked with 5 years ago. I have all these feelings rushing through me, I left that job , which I had for about 10 years , abruptly. I had some HUGE personal issues happening, I am quite sure I didn't treat many people as I should have on my way out , I made some poor decisions , didn't know which way my life was going. Suffice it to say I was lost. I've never been back , and only on rare occasions get an email from one of my then best friends that still works there. I have kept things very bland , not indulging on the personal life etc.
So normally I would just click on Yes , accept . I loved this girl! She had my back many times! But then there is that little devil on my shoulder wondering if her intentions are pure. I admit I've added friends just so I could be nosy and snoop around there pages. As looney as it sounds, I feel if I accept an invite that I'm allowing the person into my personal space , and yes, I have spacial issues. That's putting it mildly. Well my little life has regained its course , 50 miles away , and people from years ago are slowly trickling into my friend request box . I guess its time to suck it up and be a big girl about it.

back to reality

Oh its so hard to get back to reality! The beach was positively magical . We had dolphins swim so closely it felt as if we could reach out and touch them. The boys played in the waves until they were exhausted, we ate until we felt like exploding, laughed until our sides were splitting. Yes... it was a great vacation.....

so far....

Its only been one full day into our vacation and we have boogie boarded, fished, sat in the surf, eaten seafood, and yes those pina colada's I've been talking about. As luck would have it, there was a major issue with the home we had rented so we were upgraded to a 6 bedroom , 5 bath house. It has 5 floors and two huge decks overlooking the ocean that we spent quite a bit of time laying on tonight staring the stars and just being speechless . Nature is amazing!