Following

Okay readers...I need a favor. As you will see on my blog on the right at the top, there is a follower button. If you read my blog, will you please click on the follow button? That lets me, and others, know who likes reading my blog! I have a site meter and I know I have A LOT of people that read my blog and I soooooo appreciate it, but I would really love to see those people click on my followers button! So, if you would humor me I would be so appreciative!

Also, feel free to leave any comments on here...I love comments! I think it could actually stimulate conversations and that is what I really, really want! Let's talk!

Thank you so much to those who read my blog! I've had a lot of positive feedback and I love writing it!

Home Alone?

I was just reading an article on about.com on when is a good time to leave your child home alone. That is a difficult question...at least for me it is. I was raised in a small town in a different time. I was a latch key kid from the time I was 7. I would go home from school and color or play until my mom got home. Now I have kids of my own. I live in the city, not a small town and I'm terrified to leave my kids home alone.

It seems that for a lot of parents the magic number is 12. Some parents start leaving their kids for short periods of time before 12 to get them used to being home alone and following the rules and then when they are 12, if they show some responsibility for themselves, they can stay home. Some kids start babysitting when they are 12. If they haven't been staying home, how are they responsible enough to babysit other kids?

I can't even trust my kids to behave when I'm in the shower, how can I trust them to behave when I'm not in the house? Maybe that would help them to start showing some maturity, if I left them home to fend for themselves for little bits at a time.

Which leads me to a conversation I had with my daughter and my mom the other night. I have been way to lax with my kids and not expecting too much from them in the way of chores. I have been doing the catch up and I've noticed lately, my kids are becoming more and more lazy. Well, I've decided it's time to quit compensating for their laziness and making them step up. I started cooking when I was about 8 years old. My mom could trust me to start dinner, like putting water on to boil for spaghetti or whatever and she would finish it when she got home. My kids made cookies this week and I had to stand over them and supervise everything they did. That's when it hit me they really need to be stepping up and I need to be letting them. I find that it's easier if I just do it, but not only am I doing a disservice to me by carrying all of the load, I am doing a disservice to them. They aren't learning how to be productive humans and they are lazy. I don't want lazy kids...I want hardworking responsible kids. So, from now on, I will be cracking the whip at my house!

Hometown Goodness!

Last year, a few people from my hometown were talking...we should have a get together! Well, it didn't happen and it didn't happen. Then one day a few months ago, one of those friends asked me, "Are we ever going to have that get together before it gets too hot?" So, I took it upon myself to plan it. I'm kinda bossy that way! I picked the date and the place and sent out an invitation on facebook (I love facebook!!!) and we were off. Yesterday was that hometown get together. What fun we had! We even had some wind strong enough to blow the chips off my plate just to remind us of home!

I was definitely reminded that memory really is the first thing to go as you get older. I couldn't remember who hardly anyone was, and I realized as I started talking to people, neither could they! haha! There was a lot of What year did you graduate? Who are your parents? Do you have brothers or sisters that graduated with me? Who did you live by? That's the thing about small towns. You are known by your parents, relatives and who you lived next to.

It was fun to catch up on everyone's lives and to tell stories from when we were young. There were people from all different graduating classes there, which made it so fun! Thankfully my kids aren't shy like I was because they were able to make friends as well and had a blast!!

When I left the park yesterday, I was feeling a little bit homesick. Even though we all complain about that little town and the idiosyncrasies of the people that live there, when it comes down to it, we love that town. Most of our stories were full of fun and mischief. Wondering where classmates and friends are that we haven't seen or heard from in years. Remembering how naive we all were in the grand scheme of things. We are all connected to that town and each other. I miss the sense of community there. Where you drive down the road and everyone you pass waves at you. When you walk into a store, everyone knows your name. When you're a kid, everyone keeps an eye out for you and if you screw up, you better know that your parents are gonna know about it before you get home! The County Fair, 4th of July BBQ at the park and Pioneer Days. Even though very few of us still live there in that tiny, windy town, we all must love it and miss it or we wouldn't want to see what's up with it and the people. Some of the lyrics of Justin Moore's song Small Town USA really fit our town.

A lot of people called it prison when I was growin' up,
But these are my roots and this is what I love.
'Cause everyone knows me and I know them
And I believe that's the way we're supposed to live
I wouldn't trade one single day in Smalltown USA.

When I left yesterday, I walked away feeling a sense of pride about where I'm from and made some new friends. None of us may be able to live there again due to the economy, but we are all connected because of it! Thanks to those that came yesterday and I hope those that didn't will be able to make it next time!!

Enough Frogs Already!

Yesterday was kind of a strange day for me. I had to have the "no, I'm not going to date you" talk with 3 separate men. Two of them I have had the talk with already...a few times. Apparently they think if they keep trying eventually I will give in...sorry, not going to happen. I've changed too much over the last year for that. The third guy was a stalker in the making. He actually was pretty scary and he totally freaked out my sister...of course she has had a super scary stalker so she has a slightly different perspective on it.

This guy I started talking to online on Monday evening. By Tuesday he was calling me gorgeous, beautiful, sweetie and acting like I was his girlfriend. He is obsessed with my job, constantly asking me questions about it. He could even listen to me work and would send me text messages about what was going on...creepy! He wanted to meet right after work on Tuesday. I told him I had to get home for my kids. "Oh, ok. How about tomorrow?" Hello??? Did you not hear me? Yesterday he was telling me I was hot...ummmmm...we haven't even met yet! How in the world does he know if I'm hot or not? Most people might say thanks, but that is just weird. I told him we were not going to happen. One word response....ok.

On another note, I have two dates coming up so we shall see what happens!

I know we all have to kiss a few frogs before we meet our prince (not that I'm kissing all of these guys), but how many frogs do I have to go through?

Growing Up

I have discovered that as much as I love my quiet and alone time or one on one time with my kids, I am having a hard time learning to be okay with my kids growing up and having lives of their own.

A couple months ago my son went on his first boy scout camp out. It was overnight in the desert and I had no contact with him. It about drove me crazy! I was so worried about snakes, him getting lost, getting hurt, blah, blah, blah. Even though his leaders are amazing, I was very happy when he was home safe and sound where I could see exactly what he was doing.

The last two weekends my daughter has gone to sleepovers. The first one wasn't very far away. If something happened I was just 2 minutes away. The second one was 2 hrs away and I was a nervous wreck! Even though I was able to talk to her on the phone several times, I was still worried about her safety and worried about her being good, showing her manners and making good decisions. I was so happy when I could see her little face and know she was okay. She missed me too...she has given me about 10 hugs since she got home! :) Good to know she is still at an age where she likes to be with her mom.

What am I going to do when my kids are teenagers and start driving, dating, going to parties? Will my heart be able to take worrying about them so much? Will they make the right decisions about drugs, drinking and sex? Will they drive safely and not be reckless or text and drive? Will they pick good friends? Good friends are so important so they can all help each other make the right decisions.

Growing up isn't just hard for kids, it's hard for parents too!

Who Needs to See?

My daughter has been complaining for the last few months about not being able to see the board in school. I finally took her to the eye doctor last week and surprise...she needs glasses. She is near sighted. We then went and picked out some super cute glasses for her. The lady at the store was so nice and put a rush on them so she could have her glasses sooner rather than later...although I'm not sure what a rush order is for them. She said it would be 3-4 days, it has now been a week. My daughter is very disappointed that they aren't here yet. That is quite the opposite of the way that I was when I was a kid.

I got my first pair of glasses when I was 4 years old. I hated them and promptly buried them in the backyard. After that my mom was very diligent in watching my every move so I wouldn't try to flush them or something. I HATED wearing glasses, but it wasn't really just the glasses that I hated. I am mostly blind in one eye. I do have a tiny bit of sight in my eye, but I'm mostly blind. When I was younger, they thought I had a lazy eye so they gave me clear glass in one lens of my glasses and coke bottle bottom lens in the other thinking that would "strengthen" the one eye. After a year or more of doing that and it not working, they made me put a patch over my good eye to force my other eye to try and work. I was one bruised and battered kid from walking into walls on a regular basis (and believe me, I didn't need any help with that!).

After several years of this kind of torture, a specialist finally figured out that no matter what I do, it's not going to help. It is a genetic defect, not a lazy eye like they thought. I was finally free of looking like a pirate with a magnified eye that looked twice its size! Apparently there is a surgery I could have to fix my eye, but I would have to learn how to function all over again. I'm too old for that...I've lived with it this long and aside from walking into a few walls that I didn't see because they were on my blind side and not being able to watch a 3D movie, I'm okay with it and thanfully my daughter is okay with wearing glasses!

My Son the Matchmaker

As promised in yesterday's post, I thought I would tell you the story about when my son embarassed me in Walmart. I first have to start at the beginning. A few years ago, my kids decided they didn't want to be without a dad anymore. We were driving down the road one day and they both bombarded me. "Mom, when are you going to get us a new dad?" I then of course had to have a talk with them about finding the right one, we don't want just anyone, he has to be nice and good to me and to them, etc. After I was done, my son said, "Ok, you can try again tomorrow." As I laughed I was thinking I dodged that one pretty good. I was open and as honest as I could be with my then 7 and 5 year old kids.

The next day I had to go to Walmart. The kids and I went into the very busy store. It was packed!! After I did my shopping, we walked up to pay and the lines were down the aisles they were so long. There were A LOT of people around us. I was standing there talking to my kids waiting for my turn to pay, when my so not quiet son yells, "MOM!! We can't go yet! You forgot to buy a husband!!" Everyone around us started cracking up and I wanted to crawl into the floor. I very quietly said, "First of all, we can't buy a husband at Walmart. Second of all, we will talk about this later!" If I can pick a husband out in the store, I'm going to Dillards or Macy's!!

That was not the end of his matchmaking attempts either. A couple of years later we were driving down the freeway and my kids brought up the subject of me finding them a new dad...this actually comes up quite regularly. A pick up drove by and he said, "There's a man you can marry Mom. Oh darn. He's already married," after seeing the woman sitting in the passenger seat. Another time my kids were shopping in Target with my mom and he saw a man by himself shopping. He turned to my mom and said, "Grammy. Mom can marry that guy!" If it wasn't for my mom's quick reflexes he would have actually approached the guy! When the man walked by, my mom said he didn't have any teeth and was about 60 years old! Even when my guy friends come over to visit, both of my kids are jumping around, talking nonstop, asking a million questions and then asking after they leave if I'm going to marry that guy.

If my boy is going to do some matchmaking, we are going to have to work on his choices and skills!

ADD/ADHD

As I have talked about before, my son has ADHD. He is actually on medication for it. There are a lot of people in the world that have this, so really, it's not that big of a deal...unless you are the parent of an ADHD kid. If you are a parent of a kid with this and say it's not big deal, then you are either a)lying or b)a saint! Let me just say, I love my son so much and I am so grateful to have him in my life. He may not have come to me in the typical way, but he was definitely meant to be my son. That said, sometimes he makes me cry, scream, yell, shake my fists, laugh, want to pull my hair out and wonder about the mother's curse. Surely it was my late husband that had the mother's curse for a kid that is so full of energy that within 5 minutes you are exhausted! It definitely wasn't me!! I was a very calm, quiet and shy kid. I know some wouldn't believe that, but I really was!

ADHD kids are energetic, so much so it's as if they run on a motor with the throttle wide open! They talk nonstop, even in situations where you really don't want them talking and they talk about everything...I mean EVERYTHING!! They are also loud! It is impossible to keep them quiet and for them to keep secrets. (Someday I will share my favorite story of him embarrassing me in Walmart a few years ago!) If a kid like this has something to say, they are going to say it no matter what. No matter how many times you tell them no, walk away, shush them, tell them they can tell you later, it doesn't matter...they are going to say it! Their maturity levels are usually not up to the same levels as other kids their age. They have bad tempers and will usually pitch fits or have "melt downs" on a regular basis. They have to be told every single day what they need to do...even with routine stuff. They are impulsive. If they want to do something, they will just do it without even thinking about what the consequences could be. They get distracted very easily! My son gave the perfect example of this the other day. We were walking to the park and ran into a friend and her kids on the way. He was trying to tell her about getting hit in they eye with a baseball a couple weeks ago. He was halfway through telling the story, saw the park and ran off...without ever finishing the story! I just had to laugh! (and finish the story!)

Yesterday I needed to get some housecleaning done. So I went into my room to start folding clothes and finish cleaning my bedroom and bathroom. I folded some of the laundry and took the towels and rags into the kitchen. When I got into the kitchen I saw that I needed to do dishes, so I started doing dishes. Then I remembered I needed to sweep and mop the bathroom floor, so I started with that before I finished the dishes. Then as I was sweeping the kitchen floor, I saw that I didn't finish the dishes and didn't wipe down the counters. Ok, this went on and on and I'm pretty sure you get the picture. I think it took me twice as long to clean my house as it normally would because I kept getting distracted!! I got to thinking...does Attention Deficite wear off on people?! I was very frustrated with myself!

Anyway, back to my story (see...another sign that ADD wears off on people), I have also noticed that ADD/ADHD kids, and adults, are very smart! My boy struggles in school and doesn't have good grades, but he is such a stronge visual learner. He can look at something and see how it works and how it's supposed to go together. He also is the kid, that if you lose something, ask him to help you find it because he is the one that is going to. He won't stop until he does! When he went on the scout camping trip he INSISTED on building the fire and wanted to learn right then and there and wouldn't take no for an answer. Thank goodness for a leader that was understanding and taught him how to do it...he learned on the first try and was so proud of himself. He also was the youngest kid on the campout and left all those older boys in the dust on the 5 mile hike! He and I went for a mile run yesterday morning...he left me in the dust! I think he would be awesome at track and I think I might have convinced him of that because he asked if we could keep running. :) That will be good for me for sure! Sometimes when we are coming home from somewhere, I will drop him off a couple blocks away and he will run home just to burn off a tiny bit of his excess energy. How frustrating it must be to have so many thoughts in his head that just go round and round, but his brain won't land on any particular thought for very long.

I am still learning patience and still learning the best way to teach my son how to be a good, decent, honest person. I slip and fall back into my old habits of total and complete frustation, but I'm trying. If you see me falling asleep on my feet or have a look of desperation on my face, now you know why...I'm exhausted trying to keep up and maybe it was a frustrating day for both of us!

Sisters

A while back I wrote a post about men and women being friends. I think those friendships are very important in life, but today I thought I would write about the importance of women friendships. Lets face it...there are some things that men just can't help us with.

I went to a women's dinner the other night. It was so much fun to see friends, to visit with them and eat with them. I had a really great time! The theme of this dinner was circle of sisters. Such an awesome theme...circle, never ending. sisters, friends! At this dinner a survey was passed out, completely anonymous. Some of the questions were tough. A few examples, Have you ever suffered or are suffering from depression? Are you in debt? Have you ever had anorexia/bulemia? Have you ever been abused? There were several in depth questions like this. The answers were either yes, in the past, yes, currently or no. The answers will be tallied soon and the results shared. The purpose of it was to show that we are not alone in our pains and struggles. Somewhere very close by, there is someone else who is struggling or has struggled as well and if we open up our hearts to them we can either be helped or help someone else. It was very profound! A woman that I consider to be a friend spoke to us about how wonderful it is to have so many friends from all different walks of life and have completely different personalities and interests. I agree with her completely. I have always felt that way. When I was in high school I had many friends and they didn't all hang out together, not all of them were friends with each other and yet they all meant something to me.

After the dinner the ladies made beaded bracelets. Each bead represented a sister and the circle of the bracelet represents the circle of sisters. I wasn't able to stay to make the bracelet, but my dear friend made me one. It is beautiful! Every bead is different in color, size and shape because we are all different. None of us are the same. We are all unique and that is what makes us special.

Since the dinner, I have been thinking about my own friendships. I honestly haven't had very many women friends in my adult life. I'm not always the best friend that I can be, but I do love the friends that I have. They all have brought something very special and unique with them. I love them all and I have begun to realize how important it is for me to have women friends. My dear friend has started to have her friends pick which bead on her bracelet represents them the best. What a great idea! I also realized I need more women friends!!!

So, thank you to my sisters for all that you are and all that you do! I love you all!

Happiness

I have been sitting here staring at my computer screen for 20 minutes trying to think of what to write about. My mind is swirling around and around with so many things on my mind, but at the same time it seems blank. I have been thinking about politics, freedom, loneliness, my children, music, how much I need a happy change and many other things. All things that I'm not sure anyone wants to hear about. Sooooo, I will just say what I love and what brings me joy.

I love my kids. The way they laugh and talk. The way their eyes light up when they "get it" whatever "it" might be at the time. I love my family. They are so supportive and loving and they all crack me up! I especially love all my parents and siblings and I love my nieces and nephews as much as I love my own kids. I love my job! I may have moments of whining and complaining, but really, I do love what I do. I love a good rainstorm, with thunder or without. I love the way the earth smells after it rains. It's like it got a good washing and smells so clean and looks clean. I love the smell of roses. They remind me of my grandparents. My grandma loved pink roses and she used to wear rose water and my grandpa grew roses. I LOVE lilacs! I love the different shades of purple in those bunches of flowers and sweet smell they give off. It makes me think of spring in St. Johns. Everyone had lilacs! I love good conversations with good friends. I've had a lot of those lately and it truly brings me joy to be able to share my thoughts and hear their thoughts. I have discovered that I really like to write. I like writing this blog, whether anyone else likes it or not I don't know, but I love writing it. Putting my thoughts out there even though that are jumbled at times. I have been writing privately too and there is something healing about it. I love Arizona sunsets. Especially those that the oranges and pinks are so brilliant, it looks as if the sky is on fire. I love stars. It just reminds me that we really are small in the whole scheme of things and that God has created many worlds and universes. I love going up north and breathing clean air that smells of trees and dirt, not smog and chlorine. I love taking pictures and trying to capture in 1 second what I'm seeing go on around me and trying to tell the story I'm seeing with that one second. I love being inspired and I love when a plan works out. I love beautiful views and seeing what God has created. I love music! Music that makes me want to dance, or smile, or cry, or moves my soul. I love chocolate, cheesecake and mexican food! I love exercising even though I slack off sometimes. I love the feeling of accomplishment. I LOVE hugs and kisses! I love finding ways to turn my sadness into something good. I love babies! They are so sweet and innocent. They don't know what our faults are. They just want to be held and loved. I love my Savior. I may not live the way that I should or be the best example, but I am grateful for Him and to Him. I love to read. There is nothing like getting lost in another world. I love people watching and trying to figure out their life stories as they walk by. I love to laugh, even at myself! Laughter really is the best medicine and even though I love it so much, sometimes I forget to laugh.

Wow, this sure is a lot of happiness and I haven't even scratched the surface! But, I won't bore you anymore. :) I hope you feel inspired to think of what you love and brings you happiness and that you write it down!