The sun is shining!

My boys are getting along!

(Of course, Keegan is away at soccer camp with dad and his soccer team.)

I have nothing on my agenda for days.

Except to scrap.

I miss scrapping.

More than anything I miss the friendship that it brings.

I have a scrap room.

I rarely use it.

It is seriously in need of a days worth of cleaning and discarding.

I really only like to scrap with friends.

I have great scrapping friends.

Wednesday is the summer scrapping day and i am hoping to catch up on all of my books and all of my friends.

Starting tomorrow.

I am good at some things...

I had a list of things that I am not so good at. But I am done with that. There are also things that I am good at. Like yesterday. Yesterday my son had his 5th grade moving up ceremony. The teachers asked if I would be in charge of it. Knowing my propensity to not saying no, of course, I said, "yes, sure, I would love to!" Well, maybe love is a bit strong of a word. Or, maybe not.

The night before I lost it. Yelled at Keegan. (Though to be honest he had been pushing my buttons all day, as only 12.5 year olds can do.) I fell down on the bed in tears. What if I totally screwed it up?

See...I had asked for help. If you read the list of things that I don't do that ranks right up there. The problem is that the woman in charge of getting help had some other family things on her plate and dropped the ball. Oy! There is a reason that I don't ask for help. Sometimes it's just easier to do it myself, ya know?

So anyways. By the time we got done yesterday it was gorgeous! So many different people stopped by to comment. I look back at the near disasters and the few times that I wanted to strangle one of the moms who took my idea and wanted to change it to her way! (Not that she bothered to come to any planning meetings or even ask my input before she changed it! Tho i have to admit I went back behind her and fixed everything that she changed!) Some of the cupcakes tipped over in a moms car. We found a few of the programs that somehow printed the inside upside down. But all was good. In the end it looked great! I even overheard one of the moms say that if you needed a party planned or decorated for just call me up.

So I am good at some things. And I do know that . For now I will just revel in no longer having to cut out and decorate 85 shooting stars. School is nearly done. I just have 5th grade pool party, a soccer tournament, field day, volunteer luncheon and the end of the year assembly! Here we go...

things I just am not good at

So I was doing the (dreaded) dishes the other night and realized that there are some things that I am just not good at. So I started to think:

Dishes: don't get me wrong, I am good at washing them, they come out clean, I am terrible at getting them started. If I don't fill the sink while cooking they can wait a few days.

Being on time. Really? I always have the best of intentions. I am never really late. Like those people that make you wait an extra half hour...mine is always just 2-5 minutes depending on where I am going, but it drives me crazy!

Cleaning. Pretty much hate it! Showers? Ugh! Toilets? Come on now! There are 4 boys in my house! Who would be good at it?

Asking for help. I normally wouldn't admit this about myself, but being that it's a big pet peeve of my husband, I thought that I would mention it.

Saying "I'm sorry". Ok. I really have to clarify this one. There are times when i say, "I'm sorry" that aren't really necessary. But there are times when I should say, "I'm sorry" and I just get my back up and get angry instead. How can it be my fault? But this is when I should say it the most and I don't.

Don't get me wrong. I am good at many things too. Sometimes I just have to admit that there are traits that I lack. Maybe it will motivate me to get up on my horse and fix these things that I don't really like.

The end of the year brings so many different things. Dread for summer....what will these boys do together all summer without killing each other? Hope for summer... will it please pretty please be warm? But right now it's just a bit of anxiousness. (makin' up words too)

So my middle will be moving on to middle school. My baby will finish kindergarten and be gone all day next year. My oldest will be a teenager. I am trying to put together the program for the 5th grade moving up ceremony. It's going slowly. I am currently supposed to be cuttting out 85 stars and their shooting tails. THe tails are done, the stars not so much. But if I finish them it will actually happen.

I am not really ready for this next independent stage. I know that they grow up and I am ok with that. There are just some stages that hit you more than others. This year is big for everyone. I turned 40. My sister is moving to CO tomorrow to live with her boyfriend and finish school. Konley will be 11 and moves to middle school. Keegan will be a teenager at the top of middle school. And Jack will be 6 and moving on to all day school, where I will have to make his lunch every morning and not see him again until he gets off the bus at nearly 4 o'clock. My mom has a big bday (she doesn't want it to happen so I won't post the number). We have our 15th anniversary.

It's a big year. Just getting over a lot of humps. God only gives us as much as we can handle. I know this and I can handle it. There just might be a hiccup or tear or two along the way!

again?!?

What happens to your body when you trun 40? Really?!?! Sick? Again? OY! I was sick in February or so. Turn 40? Get it again. I go to Ca and try to sit on the beach....but it was cold. So we went to Grandma & Grandpa's and sat by the pool. 98 degrees and sunny. Don't you think that it would soak this crud right out of me? I did.

We came home. life went back to normal. I still have a stinkin' cough/cold. Jeff went away with friends this last weekend and my life went from crummy to down right scary. Middle of the night headache? What the heck? After the second night of laying on the bathroom floor (after praying to the porcelain god) wondering if i should call 911 cuz my head is going to split out my skull, mom took me to the doctor. Turns out my headache? not normal. Migraine. For 2 days. This warrants shots. One for the migraine, one for the nausea. The nurse comes in and tells me that these are going to hurt. Large needles, painful medicine. She is rather surprised that the pain in my head completely overcomes the pain of the shots or the medicine. Guess I had it bad.

But now I am back. I can lean over without splitting pain. If I sneeze or cough it doesn't make me cry in pain. I can't stand antibiotics, but believe you me I will be finishing them to make sure that every stinkin' little germ is killed and totally eliminated from my head!

turning 40

So....anyone want to tell me how fair it is to plan and pay for a vacation to sunny Southern Ca and to get there and the weather is crappy? REally? How exactly does that work? And to top it all off? Yea...the weather here was great! Keegan has a great tan after this weekend? OY!

We headed down to Ca for my 40th bday. I have issues with birthdays that end in 0. I have kinda been a mess for the last few months. I know that I am not old, but........40 kinda sounds old. So i wanted to be go to Ca and sit on the beach, drinking whatever, reading a book and being in charge of nothing. Nope! Was not to be! The weather never hit over 70. which would have been ok if it had just been sunny, but nope! It was cold and cloudy and windy. Ugh!

I changed my tactic when it came to Mother's Day. I have always wanted it to be just about me. All about me. I am not in charge. Go ask your dad. Why can't you just do this for me? This year? I did for everyone else. There was no breakfast in bed, we had to sit through soccer tryouts, i did the dishes at grandma's. But you know what? It was great! I changed my attitude and it all became about me. About me choosing to be happy instead of crabby. So i thought that I would apply the same attitude towards my bday. Don't get me wrong. it was still my day. I still requested crab for dinner (HUGE KING CRAB legs for dinner! YUM!). We wandered the beach. We had a couples massage in the morning. We spent the day with my sister, Megan and our friend Jen. We went for a drive along the coast. There were no presents. (Jeff gave me an IPod touch before we left as he was afraid of going thru security with it, or it being stolen out of our suitcase.) There was no fanfare. I always expect too much, so having a day where I was expecting nothing, gave me so much more.

I am trying that. I am trying to expect nothing from anyone else but to expect more from myself. Isn't it better to make someone else smile than to expect them to make me smile?

Some things take longer for me than others. I feel like I have to watch what I say. But I am kind of tired of that. Not that I have anything profound. How can you be profound when you can't even fold your socks from last weeks laundry? (I did find out my 12 year old has been rotating 2 pairs of socks cuz he couldn't find any clean ones! Not that he asked me where they might be....which was clean in the basket in my room.)

We are leaving in 2 days. I am turning 40 in 3. It's been a rough couple of months. Turning 40 has truly put me in a bad funk. Unfortunately for Jeff, that bad funk only shows up at home. It is SOOOO hard to always put on that happy face for everyone at pre-school, and school, and baseball and soccer, but.....

So we are leaving. With no plans. We have a hotel. We have a ride to get there. we are on the beach. That's as far as we have gotten. This will not be one of those GO! GO! GO! kind of trips. We do that in our everyday lives so much more than I would like. This will be....how many different books can I finish in a weekend? Will there be enough hammocks for all of us? Anybody hungry yet? Nope? ok. There will be no "mommy....mommy....mommy" It will just be me. And Jeff. And some friends who can make the trip. A book. A beach. And probably a few daquiris. I so need this.