Career Advice

My oldest daughter asked me the other day why do people at school keep telling her she can be anything she wants to be when she grows up.  I explained to her that not that long ago, women did not have all that many choices when it came to career.  I guess we've done a fairly good job of moving past that because in her 9 year old mind, in response to all these grown ups trying to be sure she knew she was a woman and people should be able to hear her roar, she was like, "duh." 

So my 4 almost 5 year old says she wants to be a cowgirl when she grows up.  Awesome.  And a cute cowgirl she would be.

Old News

Yea!  It's summer!  (cause school it out here).  However, I am not prepared to do a summer post quite yet, so I will fill you in on some old news.  I think it was last week, we had a really bad hail storm, the worst I've ever seen.  Not so bad in size but very destructive in quantity and velocity. 

Of course the first thing I did was to grab my camera. 



The is the view out our front door.  Because it had been hot outside, the cold hail mixed with the warm ground made a very dense fog/steam effect.  It was kinda cool.

You might not know it to look at it, but this is our driveway.  (going off to the left)

It's kinda hard to see in this picture, but the hail stripped our poor Crape Myrtle of most of it's leaves.

And the aftermath.  There is supposed to be a sidewalk here.  The hail brought down with it lots and lots and lots of leaves.  The air was thick with a fresh pine smell.  As my kids said, it smelled like Christmas.  It did.  You could even smell it from inside. 

Our driveway was a MESS.

And this is our driveway after I spent about 45 minutes blowing it off.  This wasn't like blowing dry fall leaves.  These were heavy, wet, green leaves.  The poor blower could only handle so much before I had to help it out with the rake. 

The End of an Era

I have been becoming more and more aware lately that my little kids are growing up and I am on the verge of not having any little kids anymore.  And I can do nothing to stop it. 

Part of that is probably due to the fact that my youngest will start kindergarten in the fall.  And then I'll be all alone.  I was trying to explain it to my husband the other night.  For the past almost 10 years, my life, my job, has been about caring for at least one little one here at our home.  10 years is a pretty long time to have one job.  I've never had any other job that has lasted that long (neither has my husband for that matter).  And in just 2-1/2 short months, my job will be changing.  I'm not sure what it will entail, but I know it'll be different.  And they will be different. 

I feel like I am living that Subaru commercial where the dad leans in the car window to give, what we first see as a little girl, maybe 4 or 5, the car keys and instructs her on how to drive safely. Then they cut to the next frame and you see that the little girl is actually a teen ager and that the little girl is just how the dad still thinks of his daughter, illustrating how fast they grow up.

Today, my youngest graduated from preschool.  She's done with little kid school.  In the fall is big kid school.  I don't know what I'm going to do when she graduates from real school!!

They will all be big kids.  I know some of you with teens are probably laughing at me because comparatively speaking, mine are still little. But they are not little like they used to be.  They are not babies.  They don't need me like they used to.  Only one still calls me "mommy."  My oldest (who is only finishing up 3rd grade) has already set out "guidelines" of things I can do in public and things I cannot.  I try to respect these guidelines.  Right now she still wants me around, I just have to try to make sure we can keep it that way.  At least 2 out of the 3 will still hold my hand.

So, for now, I am trying to cherish the little things, like the way my 4 year old likes to tell me the same stories over and over again that make no sense and how my 7 year old literally races into a room when she has something to say, or how my 9 year old talks nonstop even when it seems obvious to me that I can't possibly hear her, she's still talking.   And how every time I leave the house, even if it's just for an hour long exercise class, they all want "huggies" before I go.  So, I'm try to cherish these things from my little ones... while I still can and hope that somehow, a little bit of this will last forever.

And no, this is not enough to make me want to have another baby. 

My 4 year old (in the middle) with 2 of her good friends from preschool and church at their school graduation party.

Bad Words and Cute Kids

There are some words that might kids are not allowed to say...
Of course, there are your regular, run of the mill cuss words that everyone knows that kids (or adults for that matter) shouldn't say.  I don't need to tell you what they are, right?  Well, I'm not.  If you don't know, then... I don't know what.
But in addition to those, there are a few words/phrases that my kids are not allowed to say.  These are not "bad" words in and of themselves, it's the meaning behind them coming from a kid that drives me crazy.

"No fair"-  I'm gonna say it.  Life is not fair.  In the words of a sign I saw hanging in Zaxby's, "Put your big girl panties on and deal with it."

"That's boring"- I'll admit.  I can sometimes be bored.  But I don't have to be.  And neither do my kids.  And honestly, the times I've heard my kids say this is not really because whatever they are referring to is even actually boring.  It's because they are lazily not even trying to appreciate it.  I want to teach them to try to appreciate most things in life, to think about things, not just expect to be wowed. 

"I don't care"-  This phrase just sounds rude to me.  Why don't you care?  You should care.  Care. 


I know there is at least one more, but I can't think of it right now.  I'll do an amendment to this post if it comes to me.

This picture shows 2 of my kids NOT saying inappropriate things.  And it's cute.

Happy Birthday

Happy 7th Birthday (last weekend) to my sweet girl! 

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

I think most people see us as a family with all girls and think it must be all pink and princesses and tea parties at our house.

I'm here to say, not so. 

Our girls have taken to after dinner wrestling matches.  Two girls wrestle while the third judges.  After a couple of minutes, the judge will declare a winner and then those two will fight. 

Now, probably because they are girls, 6 out of 10 times, the wrestling match ends in tears, but it's all good fun.  And besides, I'd like to see a boy try to wrestle in a long skirt.  That takes talent!

My 7 and 4 year old wrestling.

The Curse of the King Size Bed

When we first got married my husband wanted a king sized bed. I did not. For some reason, I wanted to be close to my husband and at the very least be able to tell he was in the bed with me. That was 11 years ago. We now have a king bed. We've had it for a few years now. I will never go back. I can admit it. He was right, I was wrong. We should have gotten a king from the get go. It's the best of both worlds; close when you wanna be, space when you don't.

However, there is a drawback. I've gotten so used to our nice, big bed that now, when we travel, unless we are blessed with a hotel or family member that has king bed (and we rarely are), I can't sleep. There's just not enough room. A queen doesn't work like it used to.

We recently traveled to Texas for my brother in laws wedding.  We stayed in a pretty nice hotel.  However, whenever we stay with our kids in a hotel, we usually get one of those rooms with 2 beds and neither is a king.  At least they were queens.  So it wasn't horrible.  But it wasn't wonderful either.  And I was tired, so you would think I would have been able to sleep anywhere.  No so. 
And a full size bed... well, I won't even try that anymore. When faced with a double bed, we would rather opt for separate rooms. My husband, bless him, says he can't sleep without me and would be willing to give it a try. I just can't. Double beds were not made for regular size people. I don't know where the term "double" came from but it's not double anything.

So, we (I) are under the curse of the king size bed. It always makes coming home after a vacation a little more sweet.