Dashing through the snow...

Well, I do not have a one-horse open sleigh, or even a horse for that matter, nor has the weather been all that friendly to being outside.  For any reason.  The wind is gone, and for that I am extremely grateful.  It also proves the point that my house needs more isolation.  However, I am just stating a fact, not complaining.  I am very thankful that I had a house to give me shelter, even if it wasn’t as cozy as I would like.  But snuggled down under the blankies it really wasn’t so bad.
Last Sunday I took the boys to go see The Hobbit after Gadget had to return home.  Wow, it has been like 30 years since I read that book & I was surprised at what I did and did not remember.  And of course, they’ve changed the story a bit for Hollywood.  Overall, I thought it was a very good story, and the boys super-enjoyed it.  I had NO IDEA they were making it into parts though, so imagine my surprise when it ended with Smog waking up… Oh that might be a spoiler if you’ve not gone to see it. Sorry.
Last night started my 4 day weekend, yea!  I wrapped presents, watched TV and read LOTR.  The boys were at dad’s house, getting some grampa time, and being warmer, I am sure.  So the DVR got cleaned off a bit, which is always a good thing, presents are under the tree, save the 1 that I am having trouble with because the clay doesn’t want to stay together, and I read (well fell asleep trying!) more out of the Lord of the Rings.  I am afraid it will take me forever, but I have finished The Fellowship and started the Two Towers.  For those of you that don’t know, it’s actually like 6 books all together so to call it a trilogy isn’t really accurate.  Just the movie is.  And I am pleased that it is far more engaging for me at 40+ than it was when I was 14.  I guess that is the way of the world.  Having the movie has really helped it to come alive in my head.  Normally, I prefer reading the book first, but this is one time when I’m glad I had broken that rule.  I introduced the boys to the movie a couple months ago & they fell in love with it.  I’m sure we’ll need to watch it a few more times before it all really starts making sense to them.  I won’t mind.
Gadget comes down today, and due to some bad weather & family sickness, we will be having the combined Thanksgiving & Christmas tomorrow, 12/23, instead of today.  I’ve spoken briefly with Kelli & am delighted to hear she is feeling better. I am saddened that she has been laid off (again) but knowing that she is super-smart & a wonderful woman, I know it will not be long before she sets out on a new adventure.  After Dad’s house, we will make the trek up to Battle Creek for Gadget’s gramma’s celebration, some time with friends, and some time with all the kids.  It should be quite exciting & entertaining.  I hope they all like their gifts!
Well, I must get busy and see if I can fix a clay plane before fetching my sprouts.  Merry Christmas to all, and in Christ’s name I wish you the most blessed holiday.  Don’t forget to squeeze all your loved ones extra tight.

June 2011 Flickr Upload

I suppose that June makes up for the light picture month of May.  This is was the month we went on vacation, and Gadget let us borrow his cabin to do it.  We spent a wonderful week in upstate Michigan & had several park adventures to boot.  There were MANY here, so the full feed is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/81154606@N00/ but I have several in this post, so thanks if you make it all the way to the end!

010 Sporting his new helmet so he can go on Warren’s Ride this year…This thing is pretty awesome,  it has a built-in sun visor ala Star Wars blast shield style!

My new helmet that my baby found for me at Lifecycle in KZoo

008 with his new helmet too.

010 on the street carnie ride we found.  008 was petrified & crying almost the whole time until he was on the ground.  I felt so bad for him.

What he really wanted to win at the carnie

Some sidewalk art I found on the porch.  I thought it was so cute!

Kalamazoo Air Zoo – Awesome place to take kids!

Gartlett’s Corners breakfast.  It is phenomenal.  Corner of M37 & 55, it’s worth the drive….

Crystal Mountain Ski resort.  They have a really cool slalom ride you can do in the summer.

008 & my feet.  Love it….

Gadget & Ben.  Two of my favorite guy-folk.  I was so thankful he was able to join us for a couple of days.

Getting drinks on the terrace after the slalom rides.  Not the best picture of any of us, but it is the best picture.

Making hobo dinners.  They actually turned out not so good.  We learned a bit how to make them better next time.

Put-Putting in Traverse City…Pirate’s Cove

Go-carting at the cove.  One of my favorites!

The water slide.  Gadget got a bit wet after I said he wouldn’t.  We had to go buy shorts after.  It was actually pretty chilly.

At the cherry store.  Yummy!

We took a foggy drive to the lake one day.  Ended up in Manistee and got new books and stopped at a coffee shop.

My mom has this same shot of my younger brother Eric, at Dutch Village in Holland.  I couldn’t resist!

010 took mine too!

008 playing in the shoe-house

This thing was pretty cool, we all liked it!
Miles on the car – wow!  That was when we got back.

Park in Westfield, we could do obstacle courses.
010 and his dad at Warren’s Ride.

008 and Gadget at Warren’s Ride.

More obstacle courses….

Goofing off & having fun!

See the full gallery on Posterous

See the full gallery on Posterous

Do you believe in magic?

In a young girl's heart?  Oh, what a great song! Click here to hear the song...  Somewhere, I think we lost our amazing ability to be artists; songwriters.  Now, so much of everything is made in the studio & just well, manufactured.  It's a shame I think...

So not much has happened since the last time I wrote...I did not drive up to Battle Creek last weekend, Gadget had to work Saturday.  That was unusual.  At the new plant he's not suppose to have to do overtime anymore. And he does again this Saturday.  But I don't care.  I'm going to go up & see him anyway.  He didn't really ask me to, I just want to.  Maybe I should have waited to see if he would have.  I never know what the right answer is.

We had our WES girl's Christmas party at the log cabin show house this past Wednesday.  That was  a lot of fun.  It really gives me a chance to put faces to the names & voices.  It's funny how without that there is not the same connection as when you do have the visual.  They are super sweet women & oh my the food is delicious!  They even liked my cards for the white elephant game, and they got "stolen"! I couldn't believe it!  I was thinking of making up a little package of them for the other girls that were wanting some.

I'm now the Service Manager at work.  It's OK.  But it means I'm in charge of the oldy moldy tickets.  The ones that linger & no one can get fixed.  I don't have to fix them, just find someone who will.  So I'm in charge of the customer satisfaction piece. And the productivity/performance part.  Making sure we schedule enough time for each task and that we have the right person doing it.  It's hard getting extracted from the actual doing part.  But it is slowly happening.

And we're getting a new phone system.  It was installed last night.  I'm nervous & scared to death.  I hate phones.  Well, they scare me. I'm always pushing the wrong buttons and I can't ever remember how to do certain functions.  So it should be interesting this AM.  But overall, I think it will be better for us.  Better able to control how the calls flow in & get them assistance.  And maybe reduce stress a bit for the staff too.  I'll keep you posted...

Christmas shopping is nearly done  011 wants money for a new laptop, 009 wants Legos & DS games.  Money for the nephew.  Gift cards for everyone else.  Well, I'm getting cigars & some whisky for Gadget, and probably making him a  little something, C I have no idea what to get, S is getting a mini album of her Europe trip this summer as well as a replacement bottle of champagne.  That's a long story...D I'm trying to get a metal print of him doing the DRE at Mugello Italy track.  It's gonna be really cool, I think.  So I also need to get for his Mom and Gramma but have no clue!  I'll keep you posted on that too...

Let's try to remember though, I realize this is supposed to be "the most wonderful time of the year" it is not for a lot of people.  That there is a lot of pain and sadness that surfaces as well.  Suicide rates actually increase during the holidays.  If we can all be that loving hand & heart of Christ, who knows who's life it could make a difference in?

Well, the munchkins are up & in the shower so I suppose I need to go start getting ready so I can pack & whatnot too!

May 2011 Flickr Upload

Apparently May was a slow picture volume month!  It was the end of school, and the start of summer.  009 was in fourth grade and here in Indiana, they have an Indiana History class, where of course, they learn all about Indiana.  His class did a program on all the famous people from Indiana, and he was chosen to be James Dean.  He had to research about his life, and I helped him create his poster board.  I think he did a pretty bang-up job! It was awesome to get to go to this during the day and watch it. It is one of the hardest things about being a working mom is still finding the time during the workday to be mom.
007, with one of his art projects on display in the hallway.

And 009 also won several awards for Math and Reading that year.  I was so proud of him & I was glad again, that I could get the time away from work to see it.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Gift wrap idea

A friend of mine needed a new coffee maker, so I guess you can guess what is inside….  At work, we receive a lot of paper packing material, it is usually as wide, if not wider than standard wrapping paper.  And it’s perforated so that’s cool too.  I really like the blank canvas that it is and have done this sort of thing many times.  I feel better because I am repurposing “trash”, I get to sketch, and I get to make it more personal to the person who receives it.  And it is sort of retro cool too!  And let’s not forget all the money you save by not buying expensive (or as much) wrapping paper!  With the holidays coming up, before you toss out that packaging, stop to think for just a  moment how you can transform it into something beautiful…

Pondering the journey

I’ll warn you, this post is long.  And not for the faint of heart.  So if you don’t have time, or if you don’t have the courage to listen to me moping and whining & trying to unravel this yarnball a bit, then I would suggest turning around right now, and don’t look back! You have been warned!

So I'm driving back from Battle Creek after visiting Gadget (yup, that is his call sign.  Found that out when we went flying with a friend of his a few weeks back.  Boy, does it ever really fit him well! And I think I like that better than just EE as that describes him so much more fully) for the weekend and am just wondering if I can find a technology that will allow me to talk and have it convert it to text. When I am driving, is when I do most of my thinking.  It gives me the ability, the space, to try to work out all of these thoughts and issues in my head.  Things I want to write about, but typing takes so long, as I think so much faster.  Or I forget by the time I sit down to post to the blog.  Which, I’m sorry to say; I’ve not been very good at lately.  So if this would work, that would be really, really cool!  But overall, I have to say I’m pretty frustrated with it so far, as it will only go so long & then stop, it doesn’t understand a lot of my words, and some of the sentences come out very funny, or not at all. 

Gadget had to go into work today, he wasn’t scheduled too, but then on Wednesday he had to stay 4 hours over, and then was told that he’d have to go in 4 hours on Sunday, which turned into a full shift on Sunday.  So I just left the apartment but I don’t really want to go. Although I have to admit, this is the first weekend since he’s moved back, that I’ve not cried on the way home from leaving.  Maybe I am getting used to it.  Maybe it was just because it was still new that I cried. Maybe it just had to become a part of the routine. 

We tried to breakfast together this morning, but I didn’t feel good last night & it carried over to today.  So mostly he ate, and I tried not to look at food & sort of dozed off a couple of times.  I felt awful for doing that.  He was trying so hard to take care of me.  I did manage to eat about 10 bites of oatmeal and I had an apple at the apartment earlier.  And it all stayed down, so that was good.  So when we got done, I laid down for a nap & he got ready to go to work.  It was hard to have him leave.  And I went to whole weekend without telling him I loved him.  That made me feel horrible.  I mean, I know he knows.  I really try to show him more than tell him.  But I think overall I’m more mushy gushy than he is.  Sometimes I will say it and he will not say it back.  It is hard, but then I have to remember that I’m saying it for me, not to hear it back.  And sometimes he does and that just makes my heart soar. 

So as I’m driving I realize that it has been almost a year since I first expected him to ask me to marry him.  We were on our way home for Christmas, and we stopped at Coldwater to get a present for C, and I was kneeling down looking at some holsters and he mentioned that he had saved back a present for me so I would have one to open.  And for whatever reason this feeling, a mixture of excitement and nervousness & chills, came over me that I was just so sure it was going to be a ring. But it wasn’t.  It was a pair of beautiful pajamas.  Then later on Valentine's Day; when we had been together for a year, how very disappointed I was because I thought for sure he would do it then.  We had gone to Charley Creek Inn for dinner, I had excused myself to go to the restroom & when I came back he was fidgeting with something in his pocket.  He pulled out this black velvet covered box, and my heart just jumped into my throat, I couldn’t think or breathe.  And it struck me that it was the wrong size.  And when I opened it, I remember being so very disappointed to find earrings, instead of a ring for my finger.  And then I’m trying to contain that feeling so that he wouldn’t see, or know.  I love those earrings, and wear them frequently.  They are also a reminder of what I was thinking, and then I kick myself every time that I would have the nerve to think he would do that.  Who am I to think that anyone is ever going to want to marry me?

And it’s not like we haven’t had many different talks about it how he feels over the past few months as we’ve been working through this move & all the changes it brings. Like not being sure whether he wants to be dad again, and what all the right answers are to his questions on what he really wants to do in his life, and what he wants in his life.  Sometimes it makes me feel like I am more of interference than anything.  I know he likes his solitude & being with me would not bring more of that. He is just so used to being on his own; doing things by himself that he really doesn’t know how to do it with someone else.  I get that. 

Now he is living in Battle Creek again, which means one of us driving 2 hours each way each weekend to see each other is another complication I suppose.  But yet those days during the week gives him the space & time he needs.  But then if I’m always going up there, I don’t get the time around my house to do what needs done.  So that gets frustrating.  And his house needs a whole lot of work now.  And now he finally has the time to do it.  D is still living there, and is working 3^rd, Gadget is working 2^nd, so the timing of when they are both awake & he’s able to do the work, doesn’t match up.  And he really wants to get the remodeling done.  So he’s hoping the noise encourages him to move out. 

And I can’t help but think, maybe he’s holding off until D is out of the house & he’s got it remodeled, because then he’d have a place for us to come to and it wouldn’t be the chaos that it is right now.  Between trying to get his house down here rented, finding D a house, having to live in the apartment, and trying to get the house fixed I know it all has him crazy. 

But it is hard to hope.  I want to very badly to hope, and believe that it is going to happen, but it is very scary.  I’m tired of being hurt & disappointed all my life.  And I want it so very badly. It’s scary to think how badly I want it too.  I'm afraid to admit that out loud because of course I don’t want to jinx it & I am very afraid that it's never really going to happen.  So I end up not really knowing what to think or feel. 

Sometimes Cheryl and I talk about how thinking proceeds to doing and so I would really like to know what the right things are to think so that I'm thinking the right things and doing the right things; making smart decisions not just setting myself up for failure. I know that I just need to go on like it's going to happen & I just need to get into the frame of mind. I just keep telling myself that positive thoughts lead to positive actions and that negative thoughts lead to negative actions.  Most of my life has been a negative playlist in my head.  I need to change playlists. 

So every day, practically, since last Christmas, and especially since Valentine’s Day, I've been wondering if today was going to be the day.  When we would go someplace and I think though this would be lovely place for him to ask me and then not be disappointed when it didn’t happen.  It is so hard to admit to the disappointment and still try to tell myself that it's okay if that doesn't really matter and that need to be thankful and grateful for all the blessings I have in my life.  That I have this incredibly awesome man who loves me and that doesn't really need to be anything more than that right now.  Just enjoy where I am right now and be thankful for where I am right now and take my time.

I know that he's trying to make the right decisions, the right choices, for not just himself but also me & the boys.  Yet sometimes that thought gets supplanted with the fear.  The playlist that says “this is so very frustrating because it seems like he is no different from any other man, none of them really want or are willing to be bothered to raise somebody else's children. But we are a package deal and why do I have to wait my whole life without somebody just because I had children with the wrong person. Sometimes I feel like I am being punished for that. That I'm not ever going to be able to have a husband again until the boys are out of school.  It is hard to say that it's okay to wait that long because honestly, I just don't want to.” And then it goes on to say “It just seems like life is never about what I want it's about what everybody else wants. My life & my wants & needs just have to take a back seat to everyone else’s.  That I’m never going to get a turn, what I want doesn’t matter.” It gets so frustrating; makes me so very angry because I like to think that what I want & need do matter, that it is important and that what I want really isn’t asking all that much.

April 2011 Flickr Upload

April was a busy month!  Here’s a glimpse of what it was like…. And here is the full stream….
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81154606@N00/

Ben’s first Science Fair Project.  I’m such a geek, I loved helping him!  He did a 3D Solar System Panel board.

We had to label them so he’d know how to paint them….

Ice cream is always better when it is messy…

Getting the eyeballs checked out…

Palm Sunday, yup we still try to do the branch waving…

Kids put on a great service using puppets…

I’ve gotten away from giving out candy much more in the baskets.  I’ll get them some gum, and we still get peeps, but I do cards & other small toys instead.

Women’s Retreat at Camp Lakeview.  Always the best time!  I decided to play around a bit with my camera because it was such a gorgeous day last year…
Some of my gal pals….Love you ladies!

 
 

Mini Album - Ladies' Retreat

This was the first year that the 4 of us went on the Women’s Retreat through our Church.  It was such a great, powerful experience to spend the weekend with women of faith and see how we are all fragile, yet so very strong.  For Becky,  I just wanted something so very pretty & girly because I thought it just really reflected her personality – bubbly and happy.  Even in the midst of hardship, she was always so full of joy.

See the full gallery on Posterous