Thanksgiving?

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds. ~Theodore Roosevelt

I realize that the day of Thanksgiving has come and gone for all of us, but I have been thinking about that day a lot since then.  I sit back and reflect on many different things.

We spent the day gathering with my Mom's extended family, the Verhulst relation.  My Aunt Shirley was in charge of the festivities and because they are all getting older and the family is rather large we have been, for many years already, going out to eat instead of making somebody slave over a stove and deal with dishes and too much cleaning up later.  And I don't know about you but I'm always up for an old fashion or two when having my Thanksgiving meal so I looked forward to it and afterwards we were all invited to her house to bullshit and catch up.

This year at Thanksgiving however, there was a bit of a dark cloud hanging over us, or at least I couldn't stop thinking about it.  One of my cousins, who is quite a few years older than me, but none the less has made an influence on me over the years whether she knows it or not, had recently been diagnosed with Lou Gehrigs disease and anybody who is familiar with this disease knows prognosis is never very good.  It breaks my heart really and it angers me all at the same time.  One of those situations once again in life where I question God's reasoning and have to analyze why?

My cousin Donna is by far one of the kindest and most sincere people I have ever known in my life!  Seriously, I don't  think there is a mean bone in her body.  She has focused her life on family as long as I know her...family and FAITH..and this is how she is repaid?  Where is the sense in that?

I've heard the saying many times already in life "God won't give you more than you can handle" but I can't even begin to comprehend how you handle this.  And I am upset with myself because our time went so fast on Thanksgiving and between watching Luke and making sure he was behaving at the restaurant and eating and the idea that I seriously didn't realize she wasn't going to be at my Aunt Shirley's afterwards, I didn't make a point of going over to talk to her and let her know how I felt and how much she has influenced me and how I've always thought she was such a wonderful person, mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, etc.

Oh I still will, I made a vow that I will.  I'm not sure what I will say, but I need to let her know how much I care about her and all of them.  A card is going out in the mail tomorrow.  I will likely make a meal to bring over.  I have to do something to show I care or it will kill me.  I know how little things can go a long way in life.

Man life sure does work in mysterious and crappy ways.  It was hard to be thankful and to be positive and I'm a positive person most of the time. 

Once again God has thrown a curveball to help remind me to appreciate all of the little things, the things way too many people take for granted.

I will always be thankful for my family, my friends, a gorgeous sunrise in the morning, a good song on the radio, clothes on my children's back, a roof over my head, a good cup of coffee, a messy house full of toys, a dog who begs for affection and a faith in the Lord to make sense of it all...and a lot more.

Who Will It Be?

So, I am not a faithful TV watcher.  Originally the idea of getting a DVR box for our family seemed ridiculous to me.  I mean seriously, I hardly have time to sit down and watch TV when I want to, how would I ever get a chance to sit down and watch shows that I had recorded days before?  After having the box for a while now I take it all back though, I love my DVR, and our kids love it even more!!!

I can truthfully say, I still don't use it all that much, as the only show I really try to faithfully watch is Dancing With The Stars.  I have also learned over time, that I like to keep the peace in my house, so I rarely fight for the TV and am content with recording DWTS and watching it the following day or two to see what happened.  However...I am super pumped for tonight...because not only is the season finale on BUT Jeff has to bowl tonight which means I can actually watch the finale live tonight and not have to wait for a different day.  Major excited!!!!

I don't know how many of you watch this show but I tell you, I am at a loss as to who I am rooting for at this point.

Ricki and Derek?  Man!  I would root for this couple simply because Derek is part of it.  I know...he's like major jailbait to me and all but when he dances it is something to watch for sure.  His charisma and personality are contagious and I find myself standing up in the middle of my living room doing the rumba, cha cha cha and what not when the mood strikes me.  But seriously, Ricki Lake is deserving of the mirror ball trophy.  She has overcome some huge obstacles in her lifetime and has the determination to win for sure.  The only thing that would make me not want them to win is the fact that Derek wins almost every season he is on and it would be nice to see somebody else win for a change.

Then we have Rob Kardashian and Cheryl Burke.  To be perfectly honest, I am NOT a fan of the Kardashian family whatsoever and am not caught up in all the Hollywood hoopla they are a part of, it makes me quite sick to my stomach most of the time......BUT Rob has definitely caught my eye this season.  At first I didn't think too much of him but I really think he has grown as a dancer and turned from a sloppy looking young spoiled rich kid to one hot, sexy looking spoiled rich kid.  Ha ha.  Seriously, he is "exciting" to watch and out of the all the dancers left he has grown the most I think.

And then we have JR Martinez and Karina (I won't even attempt to spell her last name).  JR is a war veteran who drove over a landmine and was burnt over a large percentage of his body.  Not only does he have the war veteran respect going for him, but he is truthfully a hero and appears to be one of the most optimistic, inspirational people we've ever seen on this show.  My only concern is that, unlike Rob who has gotten better each week, JR started off real strong but has had a few rough weeks lately and that could factor in.

So, who will it be????  There have been sooooo many good moments this year for all of them.

JR's salute to the veterans on this performance was by far the most touching dance I have ever seen performed on this show and brought tears to my eyes!!!

And these sexy rumbas and costumes really get a middle-aged, married woman like me worked up (little does Jeff know how much DWTS works in his benefit....).

All I know is I am FIRED UP!  I cannot wait to see all of their freestyles tonight (some of the craziest, most energetic dances in past seasons) and don't any of you think to call me tonight...I WILL NOT ANSWER MY PHONE!!!

May the best dancers win!!!

New Beginnings

Jeremiah 29:11-12 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then, you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you."

For the last almost 12 years I have been wearing the  Customer Service Representative hat at my job at Times Printing Company here in my home town of Random Lake and to say it has been a great experience as a whole wouldn't be giving it enough credit. 

Oh my goodness the last 12 years have been great!  I have met a ton of wonderful people.  Not just the co-workers I have been blessed to meet and share life stories with, but also the customers I have been corresponding with, who in some cases I have been dealing with the entire time I've been there.  A lot of them have become an extended part of my family and people that I wholeheartedly love with my heart.

But as we all know, life is ever changing and things don't always stay the same, and that is why last week I decided to take a new direction on this journey called "life" and call it quits on what has been a good "run".  I prefer to go out on a good note and at what I believe to the be the "top of my game".

Oh, I know, you're all probably wondering what the heck am I going to try now, but anybody close to me can likely figure it out.  Yep, you guessed it, I am going to work on the dairy farm full time alongside the hubby.  Something I knew 15 years ago when I married Jeff was likely to happen.

My explanation as to why I would make such a change is simple.  I have sat back and seen my husband struggle every single day since his Dad passed away and despite the help I've been giving him between my job and taking care of the kids I simply refuse to sit back and watch him do this anymore by himself.

It will be a life change for me, for our family, but one that was always expected and in all honesty, one that over time will likely be the best thing we ever did for each other.  Am I scared?  Of course I am.  Can I do it?  Of course I can!!!  I already help at the farm quite often now and am not going into this blind obviously, so I know what I'm getting myself into. 

At the ripe young age of 39 I have already learned a lot.  I have learned that nothing can replace the time you spend with your family and I have lost too many people I love already to take that time for granted and I'm not going to waste the opportunity to have more time with my husband and my kids who can be with us at any given time they want at the farm.  I look forward to summer now when they are off of school and they can hang out with us.

I have also learned that way too many people pour all of the energy into their career, trying to make millions of dollars for this thing and that thing, only to find out later that those material things aren't really what they needed in the first place but the love and quality time that they missed out on was and it's now too late to get it back.

I don't want to be that person that wakes up one day with regrets like that.  I don't want to be that person who wishes she had spent more time with her kids instead of traveling here or there for work.  I don't want to be that person who sat back and didn't follow her heart and didn't follow her "gut" and go for it.

So I'm not gonna be her........

I'm putting my faith in the Lord as I seem to think He might have a little bit to do with this.

Flashback

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ~Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name

This past Thursday I had the pleasure of attending our local high school musical, West Side Story, with my two older children, Sam and Zach and my mother.  I make a point of attending their musicals every Fall as I think it is a good thing to support and am amazed every year at how talented our local youth can be.

This year however I was even more excited than normal.  See this is the 3rd time our high school has performed this particular musical, with the very first time being when I was a Junior in High School, way back in Fall of 1988.  

Wow!  Crazy that it was that long ago.  I'm not kidding, I think I was able to recite pretty much the entire dialogue and music the other night while I sat there and observed from the audience.  I find it crazy how some things in life I forget almost immediately but others stay in my head for what seems like forever.

Zach was very intrigued by the musical and was asking a lot of questions about it and although he knew I played the part of Anita when we did it, he wanted to find out if anybody else he knew played any of the other parts.  So..with that I got out one of my old photo albums full of high school mementos and pictures and gave him a tour.  I'll admit, I did forget who played some of the other parts and it made me look back in time.

Lisa (Muench) Kelling and I playing the parts of Maria and Anita.

Andy Beger and I as Bernardo & Anita

Multiple people during the dance scene.

Lieutenant Schrank and Officer Krupke talking to the Jets.

Bernardo, Tony (Chris Maleug) and Riff (Joel Hammen) during the "war council".

Members of the Jets, John Morgan, Scott Wetor and Brian Holtz

During the photo album tour I had to stop and wonder where some of these people are now, quite a few of them are still in this area with families of their own now and there is one girl from my class who unfortunately passed away in a car accident a few years ago.  It's sad how life continues to change all the time, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  But each and every day we grow as people and learn from our past, or at least we should.

I look back on my experience in these high school musicals with a huge smile on my face.  Man did we all have fun doing this.  And for some reason, this particular musical brought out a lot of different people for the tryouts than musicals in previous years had so it was awesome to have such an interested and enthusiastic cast to showcase their talents we didn't even know some of them had.  Music was truly my refuge at this time and still is on most days.

I had a sassy character and here I am trying to prove my point that America is the best place to be.

The fight scene between the Jets and the Sharks.

The Office Krupke song.  The kids favorite part of the musical.

More Office Krupke.

My duet with Maria after my boyfriend Bernardo was stabbed and killed

The ending scene when Tony gets shot.

I am thankful that my kids seem to have this same interest in music that I have.  When writing this blog it occured to me that Sam has been in more musicals in her life already than I have.  She has done 5 with Lakeshore Productions already and was also in the Jr. High School musical Annie this past school year.  Kids just seem to have a lot more opportunities now than we did then.

It's time to put my high school photo album back in the closet until the next time one of the kiddos shows interest in what Mom was like years ago.  So far they seem to think I was an okay "teenager" for my time.

And as far as the 2011 version of West Side Story.  It was the BOMB!  Seriously, they did an unbelievable job.  When leaving the theater though my Mom did lean over and whisper in my ear "You were better as Anita", I think she's just biased a tad :)

Shoes

Shoes

-Author Unknown

I am wearing a pair of shoes. They are ugly shoes. Uncomfortable shoes. Each day I wear them, and each day I wish I had another pair. Some days my shoes hurt so bad that I do not think I can take another step. Yet, I continue to wear them.

I get funny looks wearing these shoes. I can tell in others eyes that they are glad they are my shoes and not theirs. They never talk about my shoes.

... To learn how awful my shoes are might make them uncomfortable. To truly understand these shoes you must walk in them. But, once you put them on, you can never take them off.

I now realize that I am not the only one who wears these shoes. There are many pairs in this world. Some women ache daily as they try and walk in them. Some have learned how to walk in them so they don't hurt quite as much. Some have worn the shoes so long that days will go by before they think about how much they hurt.

No woman deserves to wear these shoes. Yet, because of these shoes I am a stronger woman. These shoes have given me the strength to face anything. They have made me who I am.

I am a woman who has a child with cancer. I will forever walk in these shoes.

I saw this poem on a Caring Bridge website.  A young family who I know by association, the Dad/Husband's parents were good friends of  my parents growing up and are big drag racers like my brother's family, so they all stayed in touch over the years.  I haven't kept in touch as much but it doesn't mean I don't care.  When I found out that their little boy was diagnosed with a form of childhood cancer before even turning a year old my heart instantly broke for them.
I keep in touch with their happenings via email notifications from their Caring Bridge website and cry a lot when reading the posts.  Sure, some of the posts are good ones and I smile, but some are definitely not and I can only imagine what they are going through on a daily basis.  I think this poem really spells it out for all of us and should for sure make any of us not dealing with this type of crisis in our lives be thankful.

Not only do they have a child with cancer but they are trying their very best to raise three other beautiful children in the most normal environment they can provide despite the circumstances.  I know from raising my own children how difficult it can be on any given day under normal circumstances, it must be extremely hard for them, but they plug along and continue their fight the best they can.

Cancer sucks...period!

I lost my own father to cancer almost 10 years ago and saw him struggle and suffer for quite some time fighting the battle, but even as hard as that was and how unfair it seems to have lost him at the age of 58, I couldn't imagine having to see my child go through this battle and still remain positive for the sake of my other children.

There has got to be a cure, there has got to be more we can do for these innocent and precious little ones.  I don't think I will ever fully understand God's reasoning when he makes these poor little children suffer the way that they do. 

Keep all of these families in your thoughts.  Hug and love your children that much more.  Offer your support and kindness to anybody you may know dealing with this situation, or a similar one, and most of all...don't judge.  Until you have walked in their shoes you really aren't able to.

Talking Toddler

Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes

So, our little Lukas turned three the beginning of October, and although he really didn't say a whole lot before that, it seemed like three was the magic number for him to be okay with learning new words and actually saying them.

Up until this point, we had all kinds of "critics" telling us we should be concerned that he wasn't saying anything, and I will admit at times it made me think I should seek some additional help, but there was that instinct that Jeff and I had that he was just fine and he wasn't talking simply because "he didn't want to."  See, Luke, being the youngest in the family, simply didn't have to talk because everybody else did his talking for him.  He knew that he could get his point across and he completely understood us without having to utter a word.  And there was no doubt his hearing was fine so we didn't panic and let nature take it's course.

Well, within the last month or so he has been turning into a little chatter box.  He still doesn't say long sentences or anything but I truthfully think he is saying two or three new words almost every day and to me there is nothing cuter than listening to a toddler interpret the world around them.

Some of Luke's favorites are:  Daddy, Mama, Doggy Doggy (not Lucy) and a new but rather annoying favorite is Why?  Oh my goodness!  Seriously, if I had $5 for every time he said that word I would have quite a bit of extra spending money.

Others that come out of his mouth a ton are:  Tracty = tractor, boat, uppie = pick me up, cuppy = sippy cup, bale, cow, barm = farm, stop, go, bike, homey = home.  Homey I must say is one of the family favorites.  The first time he said it, I swear it sounded like he was saying "Yo Homey!"  Zach and I were both in the truck driving home from somewhere and all of a sudden he said "Homey" and we both started laughing.

More favorites:  Poop and Pee and apparently he has figured out that cows do a lot of these two things as whenever he starts a conversation about cows those two words come immediately after :)  Truck, cat, ball and the list just keeps going on.

My personal favorite is when he says "Yeah, yeah, yeah."  He says it with a touch of sarcasm as if he knows and he'll get to it right away.  I think he may have picked this up from me as I tend to utter that same response when the two older kids are barking orders at me from the other room to get something for them or help them with homework when I'm obviously in the middle of something else.

And two new ones that he just started saying and I picked up on them when working on puzzles with him this weekend.  When placing pieces in place he would put one piece in the wrong spot and I would correct him and then show him where it should go and he would stop and say, "Oh, oh yeah!" and act as if he knew that and just forgot for a moment.  Two seconds later while deciding where to place a puzzle piece he would stop and go "Hmmmm?"

I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of him right now.  His toddler talk is the sweetest and most honest and pure thing in this world.  Everytime he is playing with toys or going places with us you can just see him taking it all in and soaking every little thing he can up to soon add to his vocabulary.   What a dear and innocent soul.

Funny thing is, he has yet to say Sam or Zach's names.  Every time you ask him to say them or point to their faces in a photo and ask who they are he simply stops, thinks about it and then sticks his tongue between his lips and does a little spit/raspberry with a big smile on his face?!  We find it hilarious, obviously he does too.

The Blues

A certain son of mine has been begging to have his room redone in our house for a while.  I am definitely not the most creative person when it comes to redecorating and what not and Jeff is so darn busy at the farm all the time that if there is anything that needs to be done at our house, yep, you guessed it, I'm the one doing it!  So, the idea of repainting the boy's room has been put off by me on numerous occasions for the simple reason that I just didn't have the time or patience to tackle it over the weekend with everything else I have going on.

Well last weekend I started feeling real guilty for having not done it and I had already purchased new matching comforter sets for their beds and figured it was way overdue.  So, full spead ahead, and with the help of Sam, Zach and Luke (I had hoped he would go down for a nap but that wasn't the case), we proceeded to paint their room.

Zach working on the first wall of his room

Well, I will admit I was extremely optimistic and positive going into the whole ordeal and figured this isn't going to take too long, it's a small room, but by the time we were done I was overly thrilled and relieved.

If there is anything I have learned since becoming a Mom it is that kids often going into "projects" like these with high expectations and good attitudes, but not long into the process they "get tired" or they "get frustrated" and before long you are left to finish the project on your own.  Reminds me a lot of each individual pet we have gotten for our family over the years really.  Thankfully this "pet" only stuck around for the weekend.

Okay, Zach was right, he had a room for the longest time with a girly flower stencil around the top of the walls and he deserved to have a more manly room.

Original walls in their room

I made the mistake however of being too nice to my kids again and let him pick out the color.  I knew when he picked it that it was going to be awful bright when the entire room was painted this color but I thought "What the hell?!  It's a kids's room!!!"  And it does match one of the stripes on their comforter exactly so it works.

It didn't matter if it didn't work really.  Zach had his heart set on this color so I agreed.

For the most part we started off great!  Sam was working on some of the more detailed areas, I was doing edging and Zach was using the extended roller and painting like a crazy man.  We were making good ground.  But then, Zach would drop here, and there, and I would have to stop and wipe it up, and then he would drip again and I would say something, in a polite fashion, asking him to be more careful and to not put too much paint on the roller, and before you knew it he was ticked off and needed to take a break because he couldn't do it good enough for me.  Constructive criticism has never been one of his strong suits.

So, between his attitude problems and Luke trying to get a live and paint loaded device of any kind in his hand when we weren't watching, I was stressing a tad.  Oh yeah and add the dog into the picture.  See she sleeps in that room with the boys at night and seemed to be a bit concerned about what was happening in there.  So on occasion she would walk in, with wet paint on the walls, and I had to kindly turn her ass around and head her back out the door as to not get her happily wagging tail upon the walls.

Luke was instructed on many occasions to stay in this bed.  He didn't always listen.

So, what I thought wasn't going to take us too long, what was going to be a fun and family bonding event, turned somewhat sour.  Oh sure, Zach did come back in and help again, but then Sam would leave to make "very important" text messages to her friends, and then I had to stop and go help at the farm for a while, and then I had to make supper and well, it wasn't a ton of fun.  Not like I had hoped.

One plus to this all, it is complete.  It may not be perfect but overall I think it looks a ton better than it had.  I have one 10 year old son who is more than thrilled and maybe next week we'll actually attempt to put the second bunk up so that Luke and Zach can sleep in bunk beds, up until now Luke has been sleeping on a toddler bed and I think he's ready to move up.

Parenthood...gotta love it!!!