The Forsythia is blooming!

I love forsythia. There is nothing that screams "Spring is arriving!" quite like those bright yellow blooms, even if there is still snow on the ground. Blooming forsythia has always signified for me that winter is finally coming to an end, and I think that is why I love them so much. I mean, how can you not love something that looks like a bright ray of sunshine on an otherwise dreary winter landscape?

Tony does not share my love of them. I wish that I could have a row of them along the back of our fence, so that I can gaze upon them as I am in my kitchen doing dishes or cooking. I've begged and pleaded over the years for Tony to let me plant some, and he just won't give in. I sometimes wish I'd known before we were married how he feels about them because it may have been a deal breaker. (I kid!)

We actually did once live in a house with forsythia in the yard. A whole row of them. It was the house we moved into just before Brandon was born. The day we looked at the house was a sunny yet cold Sunday in March, and while I loved the house and the neighborhood, what sucked me in for good was the row of forsythia across the back fence. The backyard was huge, so there were lots of forsythia, and they were in full, glorious bloom.

A few weeks later when me moved into the house, the forsythia had finished showing off it's beautiful spring sunshiney-ness. But, I envisioned the following spring, when I would happily take pictures of our baby plopped on a blanket in front of those blooming bushes. So, imagine my surprise when one day not long after we had moved in, I came home from work, got out of my car, and heard a chainsaw in my backyard. I went through the gate wondering what the heck Tony was doing back there. There wasn't even a tree back there, so I couldn't imagine what he was doing with a chainsaw. I didn't know we even owned a chainsaw.

Well, I soon discovered that he had gone to Home Quarters and purchased a chainsaw that very day so he could cut down the forsythia bushes! After I stopped in my tracks just inside the gate and stared at him in stunned silence for a few moments, those raging pregnancy hormones that course through a woman's body when she is 8 months pregnant became raging pregnancy hormones on steriods. I started screaming at him, "What the HELLLLLLLL are you DOING??"

That is when I found out my husband hates forsythia as much as I love it. I wondered then and still do, how in the world can you hate something so cheerful? I also wondered what all of our new neighbors thought of me. It was a beautiful April day, lots of people were out in their yards, and here is this hugely pregnant woman shouting curse words at her husband. I think that is the one and only time in my life I have stood out in my yard screaming and cursing. Not one of my finer moments, that's for sure.

Anyway, since I don't have forsythias in my own yard, once I notice them blooming, I usually drive around looking for them. On Monday, I was on my way home from work and noticed a row of them on a hill in someone's front yard. So yesterday, I took my camera to work with me so I could stop and take a picture on my way home. It's not a very good photo, but since it was in someone's front yard, I didn't want to get too close. I didn't want the homeowner to look out the window and wonder why some crazy lady was taking pictures of their house.



Notice the little hyacinths blooming underneath the forsythia.

I also noticed this week that the neighbor behind us has some new forsythia bushes along the side of their house. So, I can stand at my kitchen window and enjoy their bushes. I still wish I had some of my own. I wonder what my husband would do if I just went to a nursery, bought some and planted them? I wonder if he would dare to again cut down my forsythia...

Doing as I Say, Not as I Do

This is not my usual random post of nothingness, nor is it a “dancing in the rain” post. It’s about something that happened this week that truly stopped me in my tracks and made me think about myself in a way that I really haven’t before. So I guess it is a good thing I am going to write about, but also a strange thing.

Of course, it will take a story to get to my point. I could just get straight to the point, but the point wouldn’t make much sense without the story that leads up to the point. I will say before I get started though that this little situation was kind of turning point for me in a way. There have been way too many times in my life when someone has said something to me that was so cutting that I haven’t forgotten the harsh words. I am not going to list them all here, so don’t worry. But, at times in my life when things aren’t going so well and I’m feeling bad about myself, I sometimes conjur up those hurtful things as if they are proof that I am right for feeling bad about myself.

Now that I’ve probably totally lost you and/or thoroughly depressed you/and or made you think I need to seek therapy, I will tell my story.

A few days ago, I read something that a Facebook friend posted that made me cringe, and made me think so much of myself that I had to respond to her, even though she is not someone I normally interact with on FB. And as I was writing to her, something happened…it was a proverbial “light bulb” moment…as I was trying to boost her up, I thought to myself, “why the hell don’t I take my own advice that I am so freely doling out to someone else?”

So here’s what she wrote about. This gal is someone who while I don’t really know her well, I really admire her. She is very overweight, and she recently had some kind of gastric surgery, a sleeve, no idea what that is, but she has lost 60 pounds. She still has a long way to go, probably over 100 pounds still to lose, but she is doing a great job. She is working out, she posts pictures of herself periodically, and when I look at her photos, it is easy to see that she is so proud of how far she has come. It seems like she has a good support system of family and friends cheering her on.

Last Friday, she posted about how she and her family went out to eat, and some woman driving too fast in the parking lot nearly ran over her children. She shouted something to the woman, and of course, the woman yelled something nasty back. She called her a fat bitch.

A few days later, she posted an anti-bullying message that has been going around FB as her status. The first line of it was something like “the person you just called fat may have struggled to lose 30 pounds.” There was more, but the point of her post was how much that nasty woman in the parking lot calling her a fat bitch had affected her. She wrote:
I've felt fat ever since. I can't believe the effect it had on me, even though I know she was an ugly person on the inside. I feel like the almost 60 lbs I've lost are 60 lbs I've gained.

I don’t know this person well at all. But I wanted to cry for her when I read that. She has been doing so well, and is so inspiring to those who DO know her well, and to think that some random person who doesn’t even know her could make such a scathing remark that would now make her feel like she hasn’t accomplished anything at all…well, it pissed me off and made me feel the need to respond to her, even though I have never before responded to her on FB.

I wrote how I totally understood how she was feeling, that I am also a person who takes things people say to me way too much to heart. I wish that I didn’t, but I do, even when my brain is telling me that I shouldn’t. I have always wished I was the kind of person who could laugh, think to myself “bitch” and let nasty comments roll off my back, but I am not. I never will be, so I have just learned ways to live with that unwelcome and hated part of myself over the years. But, like I said in the beginning of this post, I struggle with it. It’s probably one of my greatest struggles. There are so many times I have been unable to get some nasty remark out of my head. And like I also said, they all come rushing in like a tidal wave and drown out anything good that I may feel about myself.

I didn’t tell her all of that, but I started telling her about something I have done for several years to help combat my self-hate feelings of insecurity.

Several years ago, someone from the Share boards wrote something to me that is one of those things that often creeps into my mind and threatens to destroy whatever tiny little bit of self esteem I do have. I’m not going to write it here, because it doesn’t matter what words she said. What matters is the feeling she evoked with her words. I did not know her in person. She knew absolutely nothing about me. Nothing. She knew nothing about the kind of person or friend or mom that I am. She knew nothing about how much of my heart and soul and tears I put into my job. She knew nothing about me at all. And while we had butted heads in the past, it didn’t affect me so profoundly until she made it personal and said some very hurtful things to me about the person she perceived me to be. And I am embarrassed to say that I let her hateful words affect me. I have no idea why.

I remember sitting in my boss’s office in tears (not an uncommon thing to happen by the way! LOL). That day, she told me that what I needed to do was start a “Warm Fuzzy” file…a file of emails, cards, notes, anything else I received thanking me or praising me for what I had done, or just anything that made me feel good and loved and cared about. She said that whenever someone said something to me that was hurtful or unkind or ungrateful, I needed to get that file out and read everything that was in it so that I could put the focus back where it should be…on all of the people who appreciate me and love me rather than on the folks who are Negative Nellies who probably wouldn’t be pleased by anything.

Why is it that so many of us women only focus on the people who cut us down rather than those who lift us up? I wish I had the answer to that.

Anyway…as I was writing to her about the Warm Fuzzy file I keep, and how it really does help me on bad days, and how she is doing an amazing job at getting herself healthy and she needs to focus on that instead of some random bitchy woman, that was when I had my light bulb moment and wondered why I could so easily tell someone else to not let a nasty comment affect her when I can’t do that myself? I started feeling so fortunate that I have had way more positive, supportive uplifting people in my life than negative bitchy people. And if you are reading this, you are one of the good ones!

And THEN…a funny thing happened. The person who said the nasty thing that ended with me in tears in my boss’s office replied. I didn’t even know she was FB friends with the person I was responding to. And she wrote that my Warm Fuzzy file was a great idea, that she needed to try it. And I had to restrain myself from writing back something to the effect of “you are the bitch that said something nasty that sent me to my boss’s office in tears and made me start my Warm Fuzzy file!”

And then I had another revelation. For several years, I have let this person’s nasty comment hang over me, affect me, and she had no clue. She obviously had forgotten it when I hadn’t. And I thought to myself/berated myself…how can I have let this one person have such power and control over me and how I feel about myself? And that led me to thinking about the other things said to me that have had a similar effect, some of them dating back to when I was a kid. I thought about how the person who said whatever it was has long forgotten it…how it has NO effect on their life whatsoever, so why should I let it have an effect on MINE? I shouldn’t!!

Why can’t my aging memory that makes me forget why I walked upstairs make me forget mean things that were said to me years ago?

Anyway, I felt ridiculous and embarrassed for myself. And I made a pact with myself. The next time I start focusing on some nasty off hand comment that someone made to me years or weeks ago, I’m going to mentally think of my Warm Fuzzy file if I can’t physically look through it. I copied and pasted what I posted to my FB friend into a word document and printed it off. I think I will put a copy of it in my wallet so that when I start letting negative people get me down, I can read what I wrote to her. And hopefully, it will inspire/encourage me to take my own advice.

This post is going to be about a whole lot of nothing. But what's new, most of them are, aren't they?

First of all, it is amazing what a little sunshine and a little retail therapy can do for a person. The sun was shining today, and it was 60 degrees. The sun and warmth was so welcome after the past few crummy rainy cold weeks we have had. I want nothing more than to purge winter from my life, and days like today make it seem like spring really is on it's way. I can't wait to sit out on my porch in the mornings and drink coffee.

I started my "tulip watch" today. Last spring, we planted a whole lot of tulips in the yard. Tony got them at the zoo once they had already bloomed, so I have no idea what color any them are. We planted them in the beds in front of our porch and around the mailbox. I've started checking daily to see how much the little green shoots have grown. You know what they say about a watched pot never boiling...well, a watched tulip doesn't grow. While I would like for them to sprout several inches each day, they don't. How dare them.

Today, I took a picture. And I decided that I am only going to do a tulip check on Fridays from now on. Here is what they look like today:

Onto the next random thing. I normally listen to what my kids call "OLD" music. Not "classic," like I call it, but OLD. As in wow, that was popular HOW many years ago? And you still LIKE it, Mom??? I try to tell them that someday, when they are OLD, they will fondly listen to the music they like now, and their kids will make fun of them the way they make fun of me. I tell them that The Black Eyed Peas will be their Eagles. They don't buy it, they roll their eyes, look at me and say, "who are the Eagles?"

Today, I shocked the heck out of my think-they-are-hip high schoolers. I bought a Katie Perry CD. I never buy CDs. Ever. I can't even remember the last CD I bought because it's been years. I made the mistake of taking my new CD with me when I went to pick up my kids from track practice, and they saw the CD case. And then laughed at me because:

*NO one buys CDs anymore. The truly hip with it people download from iTunes onto their iPods.

*I haven't joined the 21st century yet since I don't own an iPod.

*I bought a Katie Perry CD. Apparently, Katie Perry is not cool among high schoolers. Only middle schoolers. And I am obviously NOT a middle schooler. THANK God.

*My middle schooler laughed because apparently, we have lots of Katie Perry songs on iTunes, she has them on HER iPod, so what a waste of money for me to buy the CD.

*My middle schooler laughed when I reminded her that I do not have an iPod.

Anyway, I bought a Katie Perry CD today. There is a song on it that I love right now. "Firework." It's been on the radio for a while, but I never paid attention to the lyrics, until last Friday when we went to Lauren's basketball banquet. She wore a skirt because I bribed her with money to wear one. She looked so darn cute that I wanted to cry. We arrived at the country club where the banquet was being held, and I couldn't wait to take pictures. She had (or tried to have!) a fit and told me that I was not going to take pictures. And I told her that I WAS going to take pictures, or the money deal was off. So, this is the first picture. She obviously was not happy, she is stiff as a board, her fist is clenched at her hip like she is ready to punch me in the face, she had the fakest smile I've ever seen....but I took a picture anyway.

We went into the main room, and there were jaws dropping. It was sooo funny. We were early, but there were lots of girls and parents there, most of who came up to Lauren to tell her beautiful she looked, and choruses of "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE WEARING A SKIRT!!" It was cute, yet embarrassing for her I am sure. But, the girls legs have not been seen poking from a skirt or a dress since she was in 2nd grade.

So what does all THAT have to do with Katie Perry??

By the end of the night, THIS was Lauren, dancing and acting silly with her basketball friends to Katie Perry singing "Firework."

I've heard this song on the radio of course, but I never paid much attention to the words. At the banquet, a mom put together a slide show of pictures from the season with a few popular songs in the background. "Firework" was one of them, and I really listened to the words for the first time. Watching my sweet daughter who is so self conscious and shy at times dancing and singing and acting goofy with her friends to this song truly warmed my heart and brought tears to my eyes. The words to this song are exactly how I want my daughters (well, not just my daughters, but all my kids) to feel about themselves...that they are special and irreplaceable and they need to proudly show off what they have.

I tried to post a link to the video, but it didn't work.

One last random thing...months ago, I posted pictures of books in a dumpster.

And I wrote about my 3 year long project...wellllll....drumroll....after so many months of editing after we thought it was finished, this beautiful book finally went off to the printers today for it's final print. NO more editing, we handed them a copy with NO changes, and said PRINT IT.

Someday soon, I will posting a photo of boxes of this book. I am not the kind of person to brag on myself or pat myself on the back, but wow, this is one of my biggest accomplishments in all of my years at Share. So for once, I am patting myself on the back! Take not because it doesn't happen often.

Onto retail therapy....

I went shopping today to begin looking for an outfit to wear to the Angel Ball. Every other year, I procrastinate, wait until a few days before, can't find what I want, and then buy something I don't really like just to have something to wear. So this year, I started early. And I found something I loved at the first store I went to. I'd look much better in the outfit if I weighed 20 pounds less. Can a person lose 20 pounds in a month?

Here is a sneak preview. Hopefully by the time I wear this outfit, I will look better and post some pictures, but don't hold your breath.

This is all enough for now.

Someday...

I will miss this someday, won't I? Someday,my kids will be grown and gone and I just KNOW I will miss the messy piles of crap they leave in their wake. I WILL I WILL I WILL.

I will.

Is that pile really only from 4 kids? Maybe it's from 4 octopuses considering the number of pairs of shoes.

I have a busy work weekend ahead of me. I've been running around like a maniac today trying to finish up laundry and get things in order since I won't be home much this weekend. But that is still the scene that is right inside my front door. While I really wanted to scream at my family like a crazed pmsing woman in need of some serious drugs...I stopped, took a picture, closed my eyes and tried to convince myself that someday, I will miss this pile of crap my children and husband leave just inside my front door each day.