Today was rough

I hate days mixed with joy and sorrow. This is life. I just wish they were all filled with joy but alas, they are not.

Happy 10th Birthday Emma Faith

This girl has been waiting to turn double digits since she was 2. I have been holding off A LOT of grown-up girlie things until now. Double digits is when I told Emma that we would talk about things like; shaving her legs, getting high lights in her hair , wearing make-up, and other girlie products that are now fair game. I didn't think this number would come so quickly and her dad and I keep saying, "Emma why did you have to go and head into the double digits?" "Why couldn't you just stay put in those lower numbers?" She of course gives us the roll of the eyes and pssh Dad , pssh Mom look.
Well it's here, she is 10. Now what? We are entering into a whole new territory and you all might think I am being a bit dramatic but everybody who's ever been a parent knows these years go by rather quickly and before you know it....she will be an official ...... dare I say it......TEENAGER!!!!
But let's not rush things here, for now she gets to shave her legs. One baby step at a time.

Bug O Rama 2008

I love this show. I feel so happy to just be surrounded by hundreds of old VW's that I could stay there forever. It really is the greatest(for me). Sharing this love with my best friend is even better. The drive down and back was so rainy and green and beautiful. I felt like I was in another country. Truly we live by some of the most beautiful scenery. When we got there we were worried that it would be rainy there as well but it wasn't . It was the best weather I have ever experienced at a Bug O Rama. Usually it is so hot and you get so sun burned but this year it was perfect. Not too hot , not too cold. We found a few items for my bug that were good finds at the swap meet and they have already been put on. I decided on the color I want to paint my bug while I was there. I still have to save some money for that but I am pretty sure I am going to go with the green that was the color of my mom and dads VW back in the 70's. It was great to catch up with our very good friends Jason and Tasha and also to get to know some new friends. Another great memory that I am so grateful for.

I am going back with a vengance

I registered for my fall classes this morning and I will be taking a very full load of 4 classes. Yikes!! I only have 7 classes total that I need to graduate from TMCC and then on to UNR for thier ECE program. Hopefully if all goes well and I pass all these last 7 classes I will be graduated this time next year. I am excited about that but I know it's a long road ahead with lots of papers, reading, studying with interruptions, time away from social things I would rather be doing and just general stuff that you sacrifice to be a student. The pay off is worth it. I am going to need the money being as how my kids are entering double digit numbers rather quickly and soon to be eating us out of house and home.
I will enjoy this summer so much more knowing what I have ahead and how much work next year will entail. I am glad that although I am registered and set to go I have a few months still of leisurely living.

"Your Decisions Determine Your Destiny"

I wrote this blog all the way back in January and then for some reason never posted it. I was cleaning out my drafts box and thought, huh...those were some interesting thoughts. If I were to have one of those fancy voting things on my blog I would ask how many of you write and re write your blog and then publish, have drafts waiting the in the wings, never draft or save anything just go straight to publishing? Can I take a vote on this one without the fancy doo hickie voting thing?

This used to be the slogan of the church I attended many moons ago, "Your decisions determine your destiny." I used to buy that so wholeheartedly. I used to think that this was doctrine. There were so many slogans that I lived by back then not really even giving a second thought to what they really meant. I am not the same young girl that I was back then. I no longer just take slogans like that at face value. I have become in many ways a closet cynic. I try to pretend to be the eternal optimist but I have seen more real life in the last few years that can't be explained away by a slogan, and I am no longer so quick to fall for the band-aid answer that used to come my way by every Christian known to man or to me. The friend who is diagnosed with a terminal illness, did her decisions determine her destiny? The person who married a person that she thought was "the one" and he turned out to be a bastard who left her right after giving birth to her third son, did her decisions determine her destiny? The person who's spouse just chucked it all for a night on the town did HER decisions determine HER destiny? I THINK NOT!!! There is pain there that is caused by nothing other than the fall of man. Not something that was intended, even by God Himself, but none the less their reality. I can no longer swallow the pat answer, the band-aid. I want reality. I want the unknown. I want truth. Slogans are a thing of the past to cover up the fact that really none of us know more than the rest and no catchy phrase is ever going to change that.
Do you have an old slogan/phrase from the past that really bugs you?

Goodbye Sue Leishman

I will miss you. Your fight was one of the strongest, most courageous fights I have ever seen. Much like your life you were brave and against all odds so strong for others. Your fight for life was inspiring and made me so grateful for every breath of my own.The few deep conversations that we shared will stay with me forever. What you had to overcome in your lifetime is truly a testimony of God's hand of love, goodness ,and grace and your own strength and courage. I am happy for you on this day that you are no longer in pain, you have no more suffering, no more tears to wipe dry, no more haunting memories. I am happy for you that on this day you have seen the eyes of the one who knows you, our Precious Lord Jesus. What a happy day for you. I will miss you.

Andria's Graduated

I am so happy for my friend Andria who tonight graduated from Nursing School. She made her way through this education with a pregnancy and birth of a child, with many financial hardships, with an overwhelming amount of doubters from those closest to her. She is amazing. She is one of my heroes. Here's to you Andria. Way to go!!

Happy 8th Birthday Chloe

My Millennium Baby has turned 8.

She is sensitive to happiness and sadness.

She is sweeter than honey and will stick to you if you let her.

She is organized and very clean.

She has got rhythm like it's nobody's business.

She is quiet at first but not for long.

She loves her monkey still(blanket that she's had since being a baby)

She has a silent but deadly sense of humor.

Don't even get her started on impersonations you might never get her to stop.

I love you Lo Lo.

The Park in Vienna

For me there is absolutely nothing better than sitting on a park bench with a cup of joe or a glass of wine depending on the time of day. I love watching the world go by. I am a Frederick field mouse and if I could pick a picture that best describes me in a photographic way it would probably be the one at the top.

If it were not for my fellow journey men and women on this path called life I don't think I would get up from those park benches and experience life. I would let life come to me. I find it so interesting that life does find a way of finding me even when I would prefer to sit still.

Maybe it's the beauty that I hear in silence or that I know so many have sat and thought the very same things and that there truly is nothing new under the sun except for me. There has never been another me.

My eyes see things different.

My ears hear things different.

My voice is unique.

What I say may have been said before but not exactly the same.

That to me is so cool.

Truth

The quote of the day for me, "Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't. With all the tragedies and traumas of this world, wonder what it is that holds us together."
If I told you where this quote came from you would discredit it's truth. So I am not going to tell you where I heard this. It is true. It is something that I wonder. Not for myself but for others. I don't like having to say goodbye prematurely or at all for that matter. It makes me angry, confused, sad, deeply depressed, and weak. I know people who won't ever say goodbye because they dislike goodbyes so much. They will say something like, "See you later" instead.
Still grieving some of the recent sad events that have taken place in the lives of my family and friends. Some of these things are still unfolding even as I type this.Still not sure what to think about what happened to me because of all of this. Some things I just can't wrap my brain around. I try and I try to make sense of things that just don't make sense. I don't like things that don't make sense. I don't like the band-aid answers that we tell ourselves to make everything seem better when it's not.
This I do know, I am not a person who feels lightly. I feel deeply. I am sensitive, more sensitive than I would care to admit. My mom used to say that I always wore my emotions on my sleeve. I would like to think that isn't true anymore and that I have become a good faker, but I don't know that that is a good thing. I am up much later than I would be normally, much later than I care to be, because some thoughts and concerns of others have awakened me to pray. I pray, and I pray and then I cry. I cry because I don't know what to pray anymore.
I cry because I don't like some the situations we have to deal with here on planet earth. The moon is full tonight, or early this morning I should say and it is shining on all the shadows with all it's might. It reminds me of the last full moon that I was up for. It was in Italy. I was crying and alone like I am now. I was not however bloggin, oh no not that night. I was looking out the window and wondering about so much. I was extremely overwhelmed by the feeling of the Presence of my Creator. I was completely taken by His presence and grateful that He should even have a second thought about someone like myself.
All I know is...He loves me. He is amazing. I am not worthy. He makes me whole. He is what holds me together.

My last Mom's Group

This morning marked a significant season in my life coming to a close. I hosted my last mom's group at my house. I have been hosting mommy and me groups from all the way to Carson City days. I started this group because I was completely unhappy with the other moms groups at the time in Carson City. They were all too"type A" for me and I just wasn't going to play the whole, "Oh yeah, well I had my baby potty trained and walking at only 3 months old" game. Nor was I going to pay money to play that social game either. So I solved my own problem, asked Pastors Louie and Peggy if I could have a mom's group on Thursday morning at the church and the rest is history.
Over the years some of my closest friendship relationships have come about because of these mom's groups. I have seen incredibly strong mothers deal with children who have everything from Downs syndrome to ADHD. I have made friends with mom's who had twins and other mom's who would have given anything to have just one more baby. Moms are incredible people and I am extremely grateful for all the wonderful examples of motherhood that I have seen in my life time.
This group also helped fill a very big gap for me because these past almost 10 years I have not been able to be a teacher of lil ones except for with my own and from time to time volunteering at church. I miss teaching lil people. I love lil minds and how they work and that will never change for me. I love how people are who they are even at 3 years old and the only thing that changes between 3 and 30 is faces, and responsibilities but the interests you have at 3 often times trickle all the way into adult hood and this astounds me.
So, needless to say it was a mixed day for me. I am extremely happy to know that the group will go on with the brave and wise leader Erica in the fall but I am sad that this chapter in my life is now over.
Isaiah will be in preschool more on a fuller-time basis next semester, and I will be in school full time finishing up the ECE degree that I started many moons ago. I will be missing out on the coffee talks, the baby's growing, the new siblings coming, and all the fun memories. This makes me sad.
I will forever have a baby romance and will probably drop in from time to time on this group just to get that baby fix but I am moving on to more grown-up pastures. I hope these pastures taste as good as the ones I have been grazin for the last 9 years. Here's to moving on and growing up!!

Vienna Austria

I think my favorite rooftops in Europe are in Vienna Austria. These are just a few of the several rooftops that caught my eye.

Vienna Austria

My thoughts on this day are mixed. I was so completely exhausted at this point in my travels and emotions were kinda raw and I really did not want to go when we got up that morning. Still, I went and I am glad that I did get to see Vienna. I had forgotten that it is the city of music and all things Mozart and Renaissance. It is absolutely beautiful and our day there was COLD, but still very memorable. I sang outside the opera house and thought to myself, " Mr. Peebles would be proud." Mr. Peebles was my music instructor all through elementary, Jr. High, and High School. In my eighth grade year I started taking private lessons from him and continued all through High School. He had the privilege of studying music in Vienna and had always hoped that some of his students would make it there as well. He had connections to get you there if you wanted and were good enough, I was neither, wanting nor good enough. He did send one of his students there on scholarship, (Mo's ex girlfriend Heather, but that's a blog for another day) but I never had ambitions of being an Opera singer. My voice is much too quiet for that. Anyhew, going there brought back all these emotions about music back to me some of which I am still not so sure I have sorted out yet. Music has always brought joy to my soul. It is an incredible gift given to be able to express yourself in anyway musically and I do not take that for granted. Still, I often wonder how much of this gift has been buried deep, deep down in the sands of life. Will there be a time to rediscover this treasure box ? Do I want to find it again? The emotions and questions it brings to the surface sometimes scare me. I am working through all of that and I am thankful for family, and friends who are along side me for this journey. I thankful for my mom who paid for all those expensive music lessons along the years (even if she does compare me to Trisha Yearwood). I am thankful to have been given the chance to see this spot on the planet.

Zed or really just Isaiah- to me Zay Zay

My lil man Isaiah, formerly known as Zay, or Zay Zay, no longer likes to be called those nicknames. He has informed me this morning that his name is Isaiah or Zed. Dad came up with that other nickname I believe ,and he prefers that over Zay Zay, but still he would really just like to be called Isaiah.
He keeps bringing me dandelions from our lawn. When he brings them to me he says, "Here mom it's your favorite flower." I think this confusion must come in because my favorite flower is yellow but definitely NOT a dandelion. Do I dare tell him that my favorite flower is actually a Sunflower. Heck no!
Do I dare keep calling him Zay Zay even though he would prefer to be called just Isaiah? Heck yes!!
This is my right as his mother and someday when he is towering over both me and the Big Mo, (that's right Moses it will happen) I will still call him Zay Zay.

A memo

Today I saw something that was very funny at first , and then it kinda made me sad. Let me share. I was driving along after picking up Isaiah from preschool, and noticing all the residue left from the rain in all the cars that were passing me by. Those of you that are Reno/Sparks residents should know what I am talking about. Our cars were covered in what almost looked like someone poured a bucket of watered down white paint on them. The Moses thinks it was from the fire recently and leftover atmosphere that was in the rain. A man at the car wash thought it was some kind of acid rain. He was pretty upset that it was so difficult to get off his very new, very expensive looking, BLACK Yukon. That's a story for another day though, what caught my attention and what this blog is actually about is a note or memo if you will ,written in the residue of one of the cars that passed me by. The memo that I saw was written on the front window in plain view for this driver to see it said, " GAME TONIGHT 5:30pm". Now, my mind automatically went to thinking that this must have been a young baseball player who didn't want his very nicely dressed, business looking dad to forget a very important game. Think Rob Williams in the movie, Hook. This is the thought that made me sad. Later, I thought for all I know this guy could be on a baseball team himself and his neighbor is tired of his flaky commitment to the team and didn't want him to forget this game. Still, I think my first reaction or thought is the right one. What do you think?
Also I find it entertaining when people write messages in the dust or dirt of cars. Like, WASH ME or I AM DIRTY. Just the lil things in life that make me laugh and constantly amuse me.

More of Budapest

Some more Images from Budapest

I loved the rooftops in Budapest. They really seemed to have a Russian influence in their buildings and the roof at the top of this blog is one of my favorites. The pic of the buildings were just a street close to Jen's that is a pretty good example of what all the street buildings look like. The image of the gate and flowers is one that I took inside a very, VERY empty beautiful church building on Easter morning. We just happened upon the church on our way to Jen's friends/pastors house and there was not a soul in sight until leaving. One older woman came in right as we were wrapping up our visit in the museum of a church. It really gave me a good idea of what is happening over there in the old world as far as churches are concerned and also a deep sadness. Someone had gone to the trouble of setting up all those beautiful flowers for Easter morning but they were behind a locked gate a very big locked gate. Hanging in the back was Jesus, still on the cross. (Not an image that is unfamiliar to me, As a teen when my family was beginning to come out of Catholicism my parents would fight over wheter Jesus should still be on the cross or not. One would take him off and another would put him back on.) Anyway, the imagery here for me was big because although the church and their display were beautiful that Easter morning, the building was empty. What's it all for if the church is empty?

Finally, the last image is an example of Budapest art. Just kiddin, it could be art though don't ya think?