Random Ramblings...

I feel like I have ADD these days, so I decided that rather than try to write on any one topic, I will just go where ever my thoughts lead me.

Stress Relief…

I went shopping yesterday and bought supplies for the weekend:

 

 The brick dedication ceremony is tomorrow, and I am dedicating today to laundry and baking. I have a few new recipes I am anxious try: Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins, Overnight Pumpkin French Toast, Buttered Toffee Popcorn, Lasagne Soup and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies. My children are going to be happy today. Very, very happy! Those little pumpkins are in my oven right now filling the house with their yummy aroma.

 Cozy Weather…

It has been a truly glorious fall. We have had the kind of weather that makes me want to go buy new sweaters and take my slippers and flannel pj pants out of storage. The kind of weather that makes me wrap myself in a quilt and head out to the front porch with a cup of coffee. After the steamy hot summer we had, I have thoroughly enjoyed these lovely fall days, and I am sad that they are dwindling.

One Saturday morning, after picking Rachel up from cross country practice, I took a drive through Babler State Park, and the trees were delightfully decked out in their fall finery. I haven’t been there in years, and it was kind of nice to take a leisurely ride through the park. I rolled the windows down a bit even though it was cold because it smelled so wonderful…like crisp fall leaves, and I couldn’t resist. I rarely drive just for the sake of driving, and it brought back memories of Sunday drives with my Grandma and Grandpa Fulk. I don’t think I was ever there on a Sunday that didn’t involve a drive after church and lunch. At the time, I thought they were so boring. My grandpa always drove around Olney so slow, and we kids used to tease him that his car sounded like a sewing machine. The only reason we really tolerated Grandpa’s snail-paced Sunday drives is because they almost always ended at the Dairy Queen. I really enjoyed my drive that Saturday morning when I had nowhere to be and nothing pressing on my to-do list. I think I need to do that more often. Rachel reminded me of when I was a kid tooling around town with my Grandpa. She was bored silly, told me it was dumb to “just drive,” and I bribed her by telling her if she would let me drive and stop complaining, I’d stop on the way home and buy her hot chocolate and a donut. It worked. I won’t say she enjoyed it--in fact she put on her headphones, turned on her iPod, and spent most of the drive texting. Oh, and she spent a great deal of time rolling her eyes every time I pulled over on the side of the road to take a picture. I can only imagine what she was texting to her friends. “OMG, like you won’t, like BELIEVE what my lame mother is, like making me do right now!” Oh well. I may have to spend some more time teaching her the art of the Sunday drive! She’ll be thrilled, I just know it. I wanted to take more pictures, but I was afraid if Rachel did much more eye-rolling, her eyes would be stuck in permanent eye-roll position. I know that with her attitude these days, that  might come in handy for her.

 

 

 

Thankful…

Today, I am thankful that after my written meltdown a couple of days ago, I have had some much better days. It might have been so because I had such a busy day at work on Thursday with barely a minute to sit and breathe much less think as well as a day full of errands yesterday. Whatever the reason, I’ll take it!

I am also thankful for a friend of a friend who took time out of her Saturday last week to meet us at Creve Coeur Lake to take pictures for us. She didn't charge me anything, and she is going to give me all of the pictures she took on a CD. I love how they turned out, and I have looked at them so many times over the past few days. My heart is so full looking at these photos. I love all of  the pictures she took, but these two are my favorites:

 

 

 

Here's to a happy, hopefully tears and panic free Saturday! Right now, I have a counter full of baking ingredients shouting my name. 

 

 

Pride and Anxiety. With a Big Dollop of Fear on Top.

For the past 5 months, I have had time to mentally prepare myself for the boys leaving for the Navy. I thought I had prepared myself.

 I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong.

I already wrote a silly, emotional post about Brandon leaving, but that was before he left. I thought writing THAT gave me another step up on the preparation ladder.

I was wrong.

Nothing that I have thought or written about prepared me for how gut wrenching and hard it would be for me giving him that last hug and saying that last I love you and  I am proud of you.

Nothing.

I dropped him off Monday afternoon at the Navy recruiting office, and I thought that would be the hardest part.

I was wrong.

Tuesday morning, I had the great honor and privilege of watching my oldest child be sworn into the US Navy. When I arrived at the Robert A. Young Federal Building in St. Louis, I wasn’t sure what to expect. After going through security, I was directed to the 10^th floor, and there I found Brandon sitting in a chair in a room full of about 20 other recruits who were either watching tv or sleeping. Brandon told me they had been there, just sitting there, since 6:30 AM. It was 9 when I arrived. At 9:30 the first group was called back, and Brandon was part of that group. I was directed to a waiting room along with the other parents who were there. After I read a book for about 20 minutes, we were called into a room across the hall, where I saw this

 

I was surprised by the room…I thought it would be more “official” looking, but it was just a room with a podium at the front flanked by flags on each side. We were told we could take photographs, so I snapped a few.

After they were each sworn in and told, “Congratulations! You are now a member of the United States military,” it was sort of anti-climatic, and everyone began taking pictures.

 The new soldier/sailors were then ushered into an adjoining room to be “processed,” and we once again had to wait. And wait.

 The waiting gave me way too much time to think. I met another couple who was sending their only child off to Army boot camp. I had a wonderful conversation with the dad, who is retired from the Army and used to be a drill sergeant at boot camp. He did his best to assure me that boot camp is harder on moms than on the guys, and he told me that most new recruits end up really enjoying boot camp after the initial toughness of the first week.

I drove home in a much calmer mood than I had been in that morning on my way there when I felt like I needed one of those bags they give you on a plane in case you get sick. That calmness stayed with me throughout most of the day, however, as it wore on, panic began to set in, and I thought of every single little thing that can go wrong while Brandon is at boot camp. I tried to distract myself by playing games and looking for recipes on the internet, but it didn’t work. I was too jittery and too restless to read, and I sat here feeling lonely and worried.

Sigh. And I get to go through this all over again in 2 weeks.

I don’t think I’ll be as worried about Justin, though. I have sooo very many worries about Brandon. He’s always had a difficult time making friends and middle school and high school were not good years for him. I want the Navy to be really awesome for him. I want it to be something that makes him feel proud of himself…GOOD about himself. Better than he has ever felt about himself. I want it to be life changing in a great way. I am so afraid, though, that it’s going to end up being one more thing that makes him feel like crap. I worry that he will be teased and will end up regretting that he joined the Navy. I worry that he won’t be able to “hack” it, and he will be discharged and sent home. I feel so protective of him right now, more protective than I have ever felt, and the thought of him being away for so long, experiencing God knows what, quite honestly scares the shit out of me.

 Sigh. Again.

I had thought/hoped that the anticipation of him leaving would be the worst part of the whole thing, but it’s not. I had thought/hoped that once he was gone, my stomach knots would unclench and I would settle in and get used to it and relax. But, I am feeling worse with each passing hour. My stomach is upset. I’ve had a headache for 2 days. I can’t sleep. I have no one to tell these things. Who isn’t going to think I’ve gone over the edge if I tell them those things??? I feel so silly for feeling this way, but I don’t remember a time when I have felt so incredibly anxious. It’s going to be hard not knowing what is going on with him for 8 weeks. So hard! I don’t know how I’m going to make it to be honest.

Sigh. Again.

I am trying to focus on how wonderful so many people are being to me right now. All of my co-workers text me to see how I am doing, and give me a hug when I get to work. Tuesday morning, all of my aunts, my cousin and my sister texted me early in the morning to see how I was holding up. They also texted me throughout the day, and last night, one of my aunts texted me again to see how I was doing. I text them back and say I am fine because if I told them the truth about how I  am REALLY feeling, they'd probably call the men in white coats. Unfortunately, my mother has been strangely silent, but I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.

Sigh. AGAIN.

I am getting too carried away, so I am going to stop. I pray that in 9 weeks, I will read this and laugh at my silliness. For now, I’m going to hold onto this image of  Brandon. When I first arrived Tuesday morning, he had an exhausted, deer-in-the-headlights-oh-shit-what-have-I-done look on his face. I had a difficult time even looking at him after that because I wanted to grab him by the arm and drag him away. Thankfully, once the swearing in was over, he was all smiles. I love this picture of him, and I printed a copy of it to carry in my purse.

 

 

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn...

There is a season…

 Most of the time, I welcome the change of seasons with wide-open arms. I delight in nothing more than I delight in a cold, drab winter turning to a cheerful, warm, colorful spring. I look forward to rainy spring days evolving into glorious, flower-strewn sunshiny summer days. I literally wallow in joyful bliss when late summer oppressive heat and humidity flows into the glorious gift of a cool, crisp, brightly-colored blue-skied fall. The only season change I do not like, at all, is fall turning into winter. I have no flowery descriptive words to describe that change other than these words: I hate winter. HATE it. Not a big revelation to anyone who knows me.

So, how ironic it is that the seasons of my life are undergoing a major transition just as we are heading into my most dreaded season. Maybe I would be handling the idea of the boys going off to Navy boot camp much better if they were going in the spring or summer. Maybe I would be ecstatic if they were leaving on the cusp of fall.

Yeah, those are the things I’ve been telling myself.

Honestly, these changes that are about to be would be difficult no matter what time of the year they were happening. I know my nest is only going to be half empty, but I already know that I am not going to make a good empty nester.

I’m going to be blunt. I am dreading the coming days and weeks.

I know, as parents, the real, most important job we have is to raise our children into productive, happy adults. The fun we have along the way is really just icing on the cake, isn’t it?

My mind knows that, but my heart these days hasn’t really agreed with me.

These days, my heart has traveled back in time to 1991 when I first gazed upon the precious face of the baby in my arms who was looking at me with an amazing wide-eyed wonder that matched my own.

These days, my heart has swiftly traveled back in time to the many fun years I enjoyed when my kids were little and each day flowed sweetly into another…when the years with my children were spread out endlessly before me…when the thought of my boys joining the United States Navy was not even the briefest flicker in my mind.

These days, my heart has traveled back to days when Brandon and I spent every waking moment together before Justin, and then Lauren and then Rachel came along and joined the Carlson family…days when my knees were scraped from crawling around making sidewalk chalk masterpieces on the driveway and my hair was soaked after he chased me around the yard with his toy fire hydrant that hooked up to our hose. Days when I slung him on my hip and we danced around the living room over and over to Achy Breaky Heart, his favorite song when he was three. Days of snuggling on the couch and watching  Disney and Winnie the Pooh videos. Days and nights of cuddling him on my lap and reading books like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Green Eggs and Ham." Days of swinging him at the park while he threw his head back and squealed with joy.

Those  are days that are so very clear in MY mind, yet are not in his mind at all because he was too little to remember them. And I doubt he would want me to remind him of those days anyway. So, I remember them by my lonesome little self.

 
Now, in just a few short days (4 to be exact) he will be gone. I am so proud that he chose to do this. But, while I am proud, I am so nervous and worried…with a stomach full of knots. I pray that he thoroughly loves being in the Navy. I worry about whether or not he can handle the physical aspect of boot camp. I worry about whether he will “fit in” and makes some friends. Most of all, I worry about the things that I assume most parents worry about when their child joins the military:  Will he stay safe? What hardships is he going to have to endure? Will he experience things that will damage him, physically or mentally.

 Mixed up with all of the worries there is excitement for the adventures and experiences he is going to have. There are also the prayers…prayers that we have provided for him the most important things a parent can provide for their children—a loving home that he will look forward to returning to. A good foundation that will ensure that he makes good decisions when he is out on his own.

 
I am feeling quite weepy now, so I am going to end this. I guess Part 2 of this will come in a few weeks when Justin is ready to leave. I’ve had almost 5 months to prepare for these days, and I started to believe I would be okay when the time actually arrived. I knew it would be hard, but I really had no inkling of just how emotional and hard it really would be.

Goodbye, Summer...Hello, Fall

Goodbye, summer…

This will likely be the first (and last!) time I say this:

I am glad summer is over.

I will probably be paid back for those words tenfold in the next few months when Mother Nature dumps on me the worst, coldest, snowiest, iciest winter ever. But I don’t care. Right now, at this moment, I am glad summer is over, for lots of reasons that don’t really matter. I’m ready to move on to a new season, and I love the clear, crisp days of fall with their bright blue skies and mild temperatures.

I actually “celebrated” the last day of summer for the first time ever. I was ready to say, “Adios!” to pots of droopy sad flowers and brown crunchy grass and mosquito bites and 110 degree days and $300 plus electric bills. On the last day of summer, I drove to one of my favorite places—Theis Farm—and I bought a big bag of peaches and a big bag of apples and a couple of pumpkins. I came home and said a fond fare-thee-well to summer by baking a peach upside down cake and covering it with homemade vanilla ice cream and homemade caramel sauce with cinnamon. Oh my heavens…that dessert was a perfectly yummy last hurrah before I began filling my house with the aromas of apples and pumpkins and simmering pots of soup.

 Which brings me to Hello, fall…

Cooler days have settled upon us. I am so grateful for that as a couple of weeks ago, our air conditioner decided that it needs a rest from the summer heat. I don’t blame it one bit--*I* need a rest from the summer heat. I am quite thankful that it chose a cooler time to go on sabbatical rather than a couple of weeks ago when it was still near 100 degrees every day.

The first day of fall was Lauren’s birthday, and she wanted to spend it baking cookies. What better way to spend the first day of fall, huh? She had a basketball game that afternoon, and she wanted to take cookies to her team. She gave a little tug at my heartstrings when she told me, “When we were little, you always made cupcakes if we had a game on our birthday, and I’m kind of sad you don’t do that anymore.”

I did do that. On one of her birthdays, I made cupcakes that looked like basketballs. I remember several birthdays of Justin’s and Rachel’s when the big day fell on gameday, and I decorated cupcakes to look like baseballs. While I don’t miss sitting on metal bleachers in the sweltering sun, I do miss baking those cupcakes. One year, instead of giving the cupcakes red baseball stitching, I used bright pink for Rachel’s birthday. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that the kids miss that, too. It seemed like such a little thing at the time, but I have found that little things are often the biggest things of all.

So on Lauren’s birthday, she had her good friend Mary over to bake cookies. I admit, I cringed a bit when she told me Saturday morning that was how she wanted to spend her day. I was home mostly alone all day on Friday, and Saturday morning as well, which meant my house was pretty clean. My kitchen was sparkling and immaculate, which so rarely happens.

 

The thought of Lauren baking was not a pleasant one as she is a very messy cook. I bit back my initial reaction of “oh, Hell NO you aren’t baking today!” put on a happy face and told her I thought that was a fabulous idea. The smile on her face when she said “Really?” was worth any mess I knew would ensue. Mary came over, they baked two batches of chocolate chip cookies, they made a mess that mostly I cleaned up, but they had a blast, and it was worth it.

Other than cookie baking, on the first days of fall, I turned my pots of sad petunias into pots of autumn splendor. Not really, but I like that word…splendor. It just has a nice ring to it. My pots may not be splendorous, but they certainly look better now than they did when they were spilling over with yucky brown plants.

 

 

Now, they look like this

 

 

I also bought some mums. I love these orange mums. Usually, I buy yellow and red mums, but this color just jumped out at me. I've never seen it before. It's called Outrageous Orange. How could I pass those up?

 

 

 

I really got carried away. I've never planted so many flowers in the fall. Normally, I just buy a few pots of mums and put them on the porch surrounded by a few pumpkins. This year though, maybe because my summer flowers were such a bust and didn't do well in the heat and drought, I couldn't stop myself. I bought some pansies and small ferns for hanging baskets on the porch. I love pansies but rarely plant them. It gets too hot here, and they don't usually last long. I can't wait to see how these pots look in a few weeks.

 

 

 

I even planted the hanging pots on each side of the garage door with some new life. At the nursery, I saw a plant I'd never seen before called Japanese Fern. I love it, and it looks like it will end up bushy and trailing over the pot. I added the orange flowers for some color. I've never planted those either, and I'm not even sure what they are called. They caught my eye because they look so cheerful.

 

 







The inside of my house is just as decked out as the porch, but I didn't even wait for fall to bring out the fall decorations. Every year, I end up loving my decorations and take pictures so that NEXT year, I will be able to recreate it all. Then, NEXT year arrives, I look at the pictures, and mostly do everything totally different. This year was no exception. I guess since I love decorating for fall, I am always on the lookout for something new. This year, thanks to Pinterest, I had all sorts of new ideas. Unfortunately, my house isn’t big enough to incorporate them all. Neither  is my budget. This though, was something I saw on Pinterest that I knew I had to do. I thought it was so clever, and cheap too. Cheap and clever. Two of my favorite words.

I spent less than three bucks, and I love it. All it cost me was 88 cents for a bag of split peas, 88 cents for a bag of dried red beans, and $1.50 for a bag of popcorn.

 While I have been enjoying the cooler first days of fall, I am also feeling a bit down. My life is changing along with the seasons, and I am not sure I am up for or ready for the changes that are coming. I can only remember one time in my life when I have been more apprehensive about what the future holds for me, and it’s not a good feeling at all. I have tried, but I can’t seem to put my feelings into words on this subject. My marriage is changing, the boys are leaving…some days, I feel like it’s all too much at once. Too much change. Change is supposed to be a good thing, and I do have faith that in the long run, the changes we are going through now will end up in very good places. That is what is keeping me going right now

 I will end this post with a list of joyful simplicities since I haven’t done that for a while:

Finding the first bags of pumpkin coffee at the grocery store.

Turning this

 

 

into a crock pot full of homemade applesauce. Oh, it was so delicious! I’ve always wanted to make it, but I never have. It was yummy warmed up and poured over pancakes, and the kids told me I can't ever buy applesauce again because it's too good.

Discovering a pile of sugar pie pumpkins at Schnucks. They are sitting on my counter ready to be baked into all sorts of yummy pumpkin-y treats.

New glasses

 

 

 Last year just after Thanksgiving, I bought these glasses. When they were delivered, I was in the midst of decorating for Christmas, and I so I packed them away. I forgot about them until a few weeks ago when I was unpacking my fall decorations. What a surprise! I love them. At the same time, I bought this little dish. I think I could have a new addiction, to amber glass. Thank goodness I have no room to store more dishes. I love dishes, especially old dishes, but that's a topic for another time.

I started knitting a new scarf. A couple of years ago, I knitted this really wonderful twirly scarf. I love it, and I decided to make the same one in a colorful yarn. I do hate winter, but I love scarves. Especially scarves I knit myself. :-) Another addiction. Maybe that should be my next blog post--Crazy Things Rose is Addicted To.

 Last week, I went to a bead show for the first time. Holy Moly…it was so overwhelming, and I was almost high on bling. I was smart and took cash and left my debit card at home. I did buy some beads, and I am anxious to get started on creating something with them. And, I was proud of myself because I didn't even spend all of the money I took. Not even half of it! I know, what's wrong with me?

 

 

Nothing says "fall" quite like a cross country meet on a beautiful Saturday morning.

 

 

Enjoying a rainy day. Yeah, something else I don’t typically write, especially when it is dreary and chilly on my day off. But today, I have enjoyed it. The kids slept in because they are on fall break, I got a ton of laundry done, I watched a movie, and I baked a batch of brownies. I had planned on going for a long bike ride on the Katy Trail, so I was pretty disappointed when thunder and a downpour woke me this morning, but I decided to make the best of it. I haven’t left the house or even gotten out of my sweatshirt and pajama pants.

Oh, and best of all, I’ve had some uninterrupted time to sit down and write. It seems the more I take the time to write, the more I seem to have to write about, and I’ve got a whole list of topics I’m looking forward to writing about. J

 

October (My most clever title ever, right?)

I’m taking on a project this month that I feel kind of strange, yet strangely good about.

October is most commonly known as breast cancer awareness month, and everywhere one looks, there is a sea of pink. Everywhere, we are bombarded with everything from pink grocery bags to pink kitchen gadgets to pink wine bottle labels. This year, I keep hearing about pink light bulbs to put in your outdoor lights. What most people don’t know however is that it is also pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, signed into being by Ronald Reagan in 1988.

It’s no secret to anyone that I have experienced four miscarriages. They were many years ago, and I don’t think of those babies as much as I used to. I don’t often talk about what I went through, but there are times at work, especially this time of year, that thoughts of them are just right there, the memories and details as clear as if they happened only last week. Fall has always been the time I think of them the most--my first loss happened Labor Day weekend, the second was late in September a few years later, the third happened on New Year’s Eve, but I had gotten pregnant in September, and the fourth…well, that baby was due on Halloween.

Back then, I didn’t know about Share, I had no support whatsoever, and I had nothing tangible to remember those babies by. I had no ultrasound photos, no nothing. Not even a card because no one sent me one. I went on with my life like I was expected to do. I had more kids like I was expected to do. I was happy, and if thoughts of sadness found their way too close, I quickly pushed them away. Not only did I push them away, but I thought I must really be crazy for  still having those thoughts.

What I didn’t expect when I began volunteering at Share years later was how forcefully some of those long-buried feelings would come rushing back at me and that I would no longer be able to easily push them away. The first few months I spent at Share were rough, and I often drove home in tears, wondering how I would be able to go back. They were rough, but healing--healing in ways I never realized I needed to be healed. Part of that healing was realizing that I really wasn't crazy, that almost every other woman who had lost a baby, no matter  how far along in pregnancy, had most of the same feelings I had experienced. Something else I learned in those early months so many years after my miscarriages is that grieving cannot be avoided. Whether you do it at the time, or years later, you have to eventually do it; there is no way around it.

 Not long after I began volunteering at Share, I spent the day with a huge group of women preparing the newsletter to be mailed. It was mid-October, and the newsletter was the holiday edition. A few articles caught my eye, and after everyone left, I began reading. I was so intrigued by the different ways parents memorialized their baby, even babies who had died in the first trimester. The thought had never crossed my mind to do something tangible in remembrance of my miscarried babies.

In the many years since those long ago early days at Share, I have become very passionate about helping grieving parents come up with unique and meaningful ways to memorialize their babies, and I even teach a workshop on the topic. Whenever a parent calls to talk who has had an early loss, I always ask them if they have done anything special to memorialize their baby and try to give them ideas. One of my favorite things about my job is the memorial/burial service for miscarried babies that we do four times each year in collaboration with one of our local funeral homes. It is so touching to see the outpouring of support these families have, and the ceremony always leaves me with a warm feeling in my heart as I go about the rest of my day.

While I still haven’t done much to memorialize my own little ones, the love I have for them shines through in the things I help others do. I kind of feel at times like I am doing these things for myself as well as the parents I help, and I often wonder who is really being helped…me or them?

Which brings me to my project for the month of October. Someone who is prominent in the online world of helping grieving families has set up what she calls “Capture Your Grief” in honor of pregnancy and infant loss awareness. The idea is to take a photograph each day for the entire month and post it on a special facebook page that she set up just for this purpose. She posted a list of topics on her blog—suggestions for what to take photographs of for 31 days. Many of the topics don’t really seem relevant to me now, but I decided to take part in it anyway. I really don’t want to share what I take pictures of on the facebook page, so I decided to post them here.

Sooo….here is my picture, a day late, from day 1, of the sunrise on October 1, 2012. That was right up my alley since I love watching the sunrise and I often take pictures of it anyway. Unfortunately, yesterday was gray and gloomy, so there wasn’t a pretty sunrise. I took a picture anyway

 

 

And I loved it. Then, about 20 minutes later, I happened to glance out the kitchen window, and there must have been a small opening in the clouds and the sun was illuminating the trees.

 

I love that photo, and I see so many things when I look at it. For one, we have been hearing that the fall color would not amount to much this year due to the extremely hot, dry summer. Yet here are these beautiful golden trees right outside my kitchen window; they are the only trees in our neighborhood that have really changed color yet. The other thing I couldn’t help but be aware of is the juxtaposition of those bright, golden trees against the gray, ominous sky. It almost seemed perfect for the beginning of this project; it made me think of how even in the midst of grief, there are bright spots, even though they are often hard to notice.

 I can honestly say I no longer grieve the loss of those four babies. I do think of them, yes. I do wonder how different my life would have been if they wouldn’t have graced it for the short time they did. When I look back upon that time of my life, it is hard to believe I survived it. I look back now and think of the numerous gifts I feel I was given by their brief presence. They changed me in ways I would never have imagined years ago. At the time, I only saw the negative changes—the anger and jealousy I felt when I had never in my life been an angry or jealous person; the loss of innocence that I wanted to have back; the loss of joy and happiness that I just knew would never be mine again; the fear that permeated every aspect of my being. So many negative things that I couldn’t envision myself ever getting past. Yet I have. I read somewhere years ago that time doesn’t heal all wounds, it only teaches a person to live with them. I believe that with all of my heart and soul. I look at the years since my losses as a gift of time…time that has enabled me to see not only the negative ways I changed, but also the positive and good ways my life changed that I would never have imagined. While I used to think I must be nuts for always remembering those babies after so many years, I have now come to accept that I will always remember, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. So much of who I am is because of them, and I accept that.

That is why I decided to take part in Carly Marie’s Capture your Grief project.And like I said at the beginning, I feel strange about it, yet strangely good. I don’t know how many days I will capture, but I’m looking forward to trying most of the ideas. And I am curious where it will take me and how I will interpret her suggestions for each day.  

 

 

These are the Moments

The idea for this post has been lazily rolling around in my head for a few weeks now. I’ve tried to write it more than once, but I can never seem to find the right words to say what I want to say. I hate when that happens because I can’t get the thoughts out of my brain, and I need to.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving to work and feeling a little down. For some reason, my morning drive to work has become the time when I stew and fret and think about things that are weighing heavily on my heart and mind and soul. I’ve tried all sorts of tricks in an effort to make myself stop doing this--I have tried leaving home a few minutes earlier and driving the more scenic, relaxing way to work on the river road. I’ve armed myself with stacks of CD’s with upbeat songs. I have begun listening to a St. Louis radio station called Joy! that plays Christian pop music. I’ve even resorted to listening to the morning show on the station my kids listen in an attempt to get in a few laughs on my drive to work. For some reason, none of those things have worked, and I end up spending my drive to work feeling sad and out of sorts, and that is really not a fun way to begin my day. Thankfully, my commute to work is less than 30 minutes, and thankfully, I don’t go through this same process on my way home. I wish I knew what it is about that morning drive that makes me think the thoughts I think and feel the way I do.

 

Okay, back to the day I mentioned. I was driving to work, feeling down and wishing I had someone to call to distract me because I felt myself on the verge of tears. I had a meeting that morning, and I didn’t want to arrive at work looking like I’d been crying, and I was channel surfing the radio when I heard an old song that I used to love—“These are the Moments” by Edwin McCain. I have no idea why I left the radio on that station that morning but I did, and I remembered when the kids were little and it was one of my favorite songs. I loved it so much back then that I even made a scrapbook page with “These are the Moments” as the title. Back then, that sappy song that was meant to be a love song, always made me think how very lucky I was. It made me think that I really did have everything I’d always wanted, and I especially loved the line “and I could not ask for more.” My life was far from perfect and we had our stresses and worries just like everyone else, but I knew—knew without a doubt--that the good things we had far outnumbered and overshadowed the not so good things. I was happy and content and grateful—so incredibly grateful--for all that I had.

 

However, listening to it that morning depressed the hell out of me. I felt the tears threatening to let loose, and as I put my finger on a button intending to switch radio stations, this line from the song grabbed my attention:

 

Right here at this moment, is right where I’m meant to be

Now that gave my mind some food for over-thinking thought!

 
I am not going to write all of the thoughts I had the rest of my drive to work because it would take me forever, depress me even more, and all of the random thoughts that raced through my mind that morning aren’t really the point of any of this. The point is where those thoughts ended up. It ended up once again making me feel like I am a schmuck for being down and depressed about anything, that I should be happy with what I have instead of pining for what I don’t.

I have a framed card that sits on my desk at work. I bought it years ago, not because I wanted to send it to anyone, but because I like the saying on it. Above a bunch of colorful, handpainted flowers, it says “If you wait to be happy, you’ll be happy never. If you are happy NOW, you’ll be happy forever.” Hearing that old song on a morning when I was feeling very down for lots of different reasons reminded me in a way to try to be happy and embrace whatever moments I am given, no matter what those moments bring. Which of course reminded me of why I originally started writing this blog 2 years ago.

 Soooo…on that note, I’m going to write about a few “moments” I’ve had lately that I have tried to embrace and think about in a positive way. I’ve had many “moments” this past week alone:

Lightbulb moments.

Bittersweet moments.
Whack myself on the head because I’m an idiot moment
Feel good moments.
Feel like crap moments.
Eye-opening moments
Proud moments

For once, I am not going to write about the feeling like crap moments, or the whack myself on the head because I’m an idiot moment. I’m turning over a new leaf. At least for today anyway.

I’m only going to talk about the good moments because I am making myself let them overshadow the crappy ones.

 First, there is this one, definitely a bittersweet moment:

 Seeing my baby girl all dressed up for her first high school dance.

 

 

 

Rachel really surprised me. Before we went homecoming dress shopping, I just knew she was going to pick out some icky dress cut down to here and up to there that form fit her body. I just knew we were going to end up in a fight in the middle of Macy’s or Deb or wherever she found the awful dress that she just HAD to have. I just knew that our shopping expedition would involve tears. Not only from Rachel, but from me, too. Frankly, I was dreading it and wishing that Lauren would talk her out of going to homecoming by telling her it is lame or something.

 Thankfully, I was wrong, and I liked nearly every dress she tried on, and we had so much fun shopping and trying on dresses and shoes and jewelry. She didn’t buy the dress that was my favorite, but I think she looked beautiful in the one she chose. She wanted high heels, I didn’t. She could barely stand in them, much less walk, and I envisioned her breaking an ankle. She wanted jewelry I didn’t really care for…but in the end, it all came together beautifully, she looked beautiful, and I was misty eyed when she was ready to leave for the dance. She noticed and said “Oh my GOD mom, why are you crying?” in that horrified/OMG you are so stupid way that teenagers can be pros at. I pretended it was an allergy attack along with a bug that flew into my eye. She bought it. I think.

We went to take pictures with her friends at a park, and it was so much fun. They climbed on the playground equipment and wanted to swing. They ran through wet grass in their bare feet, high heels tossed aside, to the soccer field.

 

 

All of us moms who spent too much money in the salon cringed and wondered what those expensive up dos were going to look like after they ran around the park and what their pedicures would look like after running around like barefoot little heathens,

 

 

 

but the girls didn’t care. One girl told her mom to “chill out! My hair will be fine!” So we embraced the moment and took pictures of them sliding down slides and swinging on swings and playing on the monkey bars.

 

 

When it was time to head to the dance, they all put their shoes back on and primped in front of car windows, checking hair they supposedly didn’t care about and applying fresh coats of lip gloss.

I drove home smiling through tears. It was definitely a bittersweet moment.  While I love that my little girl is growing up, I hate that my little girl is growing up. It seems like just yesterday I was walking into her first day of kindergarten (I cried then too! Shocking, I know!), and now, I’m taking photographs of her ready to go to her first high school dance.

The next morning, I snapped this picture, and I love it!

 

 

Just 12 hours before, she was trying to be a grown up in a sparkly dress and dangly earrings and high heels she could barely walk in, and she came home and fell asleep with her blanket that she has had since before she was born. When I saw her like that this morning, I cried again.

 I cry way too much, I know. I sometimes wonder how I will make it through my children’s weddings.

A lightbulb moment….

Rachel has a friend that I cannot stand. Let me say that again…I CANNOT stand this girl. Unfortunately, she lives across the street. And even more unfortunately, she is Rachel’s best friend. She spends a great deal of time at my house, and while she is always nice, she doesn’t treat Rachel very nicely, and I don’t understand why Rachel puts up with her. I’ve tried to talk to Rachel about how to treat friends, and how to expect to be treated by friends. She gets it, and she has other friends that I really do like. But this particular girl just gets under my skin, and there are times that when she is in my house that I can barely let myself look at her. Don’t get me wrong…I am nice to her. I bake cookies and make jewelry and play games with her and Rachel when she is here. I just don’t like her. Tony thinks I shouldn’t let her be here so much, but I like being able to keep my eye on them, so I suck it up and make the best of it. Rachel told me a few weeks ago that Lindsay really likes me, so I guess I must be a damn fine actress.

Of course, since Rachel and Lindsay are best friends, Rachel wanted her to get ready for homecoming at our house. I said that was fine, but wouldn’t Lindsay’s mom want to help her get ready, and she laughed and said Lindsay’s mom doesn’t care about stuff like that. Okay.

Lindsay came over early in the afternoon and wanted to go with us to the salon while Rachel had her hair done. I am not good with hair, so I decided as a treat, I would let her have her hair curled and pinned up. When we got home, the girls had about an hour to get ready before we needed to leave to go to their friend Katie’s house for pictures. The upstairs bathroom was a mess of makeup and shoes and jewelry. I told Rachel I’d help with her make up if she wanted me to, but otherwise, I was steering clear of the whole production. About 20 minutes before it was time to go, Rachel yelled that Lindsay needed my help because she was having a “hair emergency!” LOL And she was. Lindsay has a lot of hair that is naturally wavy. She had decided to just let it be wavy, put up the top, and then I was going to curl some tendrils around her face. Well, 20 minutes before departure time, Lindsay decided to straighten her hair, and she totally made a mess of it and was in tears, begging me to fix it. I tried, I really did. I plugged in my curling iron and used that and the flat iron to try to give her some soft waves. It took FOREVER because her hair is so thick, and as I worked, I tried to calm her down because by that point, she was saying she wasn’t going to go to homecoming. I kept telling her she looked really pretty, her hair would be fine by the time I was finished with it…all while thinking, “I suck at hair, that’s why I took Rachel to the salon, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with teenage tears over hair!”

 In the end, her hair looked pretty, she put on her makeup, and we were finally ready to race out the door, only 15 minutes later than we should have been. Lindsay quickly ran across the street so her mom could see her and take pictures, and she was back less than 2 minutes later saying her mom was asleep, woke up, told her she looked good, then went  back to sleep. That’s when my attitude toward Lindsay softened a bit, and I felt sorry for her. Lindsay is her mom’s only daughter, it was her first high school dance, and while I was frantically helping her get ready, she was sleeping and didn’t even care if she took pictures. Lindsay spent the night after the dance and was here all day on Sunday until dinner, and when she left, she gave me a hug and thanked me. I felt like a terrible person, kind of like the Grinch when his heart grew three sizes in one day. I decided right then and there that I am going to try harder to be nice to her for real and not just fake it.

A feel-good moment…

Two weeks ago, I had a brief and lovely glimpse of sisterly love between my girls when they decided it would be fun to go to school dressed as twins. I thought maybe it was twin day, part of spirit week, and they said no, they just wanted to do it for fun. AND, it was Lauren’s idea! Of course, I had to snap a photo.

 

I had warm fuzzy feelings about it all day. The next day, they spent the 45 minutes before they left for school yelling and calling each other names like idiot and quitter and loser. So much for sisterly love, but I am so glad I captured the moment the day before.

A proud moment…maybe 2…

Six years ago, I was dragged kicking and screaming and protesting into teaching a workshop on a very difficult, heavy topic at the training workshop we hold twice each year. I have never ever EVER enjoyed public speaking. Shocking I know since often, I start talking and can’t shut up. But the thought of standing up in front of people and talking, trying to actually TEACH them something…well, the thought of it made me want to throw up. As time has gone on, I have gotten better, and even a bit comfortable (notice I said a BIT!), but I still had butterflies for a couple of days before, especially after someone gave me a scathing evaluation 3 years ago.

 That training workshop was this past weekend, at the end of a crazy busy work week for me, and by Thursday night, I was so exhausted that I didn’t even pull out my notes to go over them, even though I had to teach Friday afternoon. I haven’t looked at the evaluations yet, and I was a tiny bit nervous, but I think I did better than I have ever done. Saturday afternoon, I teach a different workshop, on a more fun topic (if there can be any

“fun” topic in a conference that is teaching people how to best care for those who experience the death of a baby). Again, I was on a roll. When I was finished, my co-worker Jenn said to me “Wow! That’s the 3^rd time I’ve heard you give that talk, and you were AWESOME!” Later, at the end of the day, Jenn and another co-worker and I went to the hotel bar for a glass of wine, and as we clinked wine glasses, she said, “To Rose who I think has found her niche!”

I would not go quite that far, but I did feel really, really good about both of my workshops, for probably the first time ever. And the good feelings didn’t end there. Yesterday, my boss was there all day for the first time all weekend. She was there for about 2 hours Friday morning and about 3 hours Saturday morning, and that was it. Yesterday, I was almost embarrassed a few times by how much she was bragging about me to the participants. I am not sure what brought that all on since so often I feel like she is disappointed with what I do. While I was sort of uncomfortable being put on the spot like that, it was sort of nice, too.

Another strange thing happened over the weekend, more than once. My boss recently announced her retirement, so everyone is all abuzz about it. Two different people who teach workshops at training, who I haven’t seen since March, had all kinds of questions for me of course, and they both asked me if I would be taking over for her. I said no way, I have no desire to do so, and I told them both what kind of person our board wants to hire. They both seemed surprised and said that they just assumed that when she retired, I would take over, which surprised ME that they thought that.

 I could write more about this weekend, but I will save that for another time. So many little things happened that gave me much to ponder and think about, but I am done now!

So there it is. Or there they are…some dancing in the rain moments.

I have done a great deal of thinking the past few weeks, since the morning I was so depressed and heard “These are the Moments” on the radio. I have thought back on a few times when my life was in turmoil and I felt like it was never going to be the same again. Looking back on those times, I was right in my prediction, and my life wasn’t ever the same. However, after most all of those times, my life eventually became better. Much better. I only wish I had a crystal ball that I could gaze into so that I could know that better, brighter days are ahead. Since that is not possible, for now, I am going to keep trying my best to live in the moment, pay attention to the good moments while trying to ignore and downplay the bad ones, and most of all, try to have  faith that the good, touching, life-is-sweet moments are greater in number than the wow, things-really-suck moments.

Life

It’s only 7 am, and I have an entire glorious, totally alone day stretched out before me. I’ve already thrown a load of laundry in the washer, I made myself a veggie and cheese omelet, I’m working on my third cup of coffee, the house is clean.

 

And did I mention I have this entire day to myself?

 

I don’t plan on turning on the tv, or the radio, or anything that makes noise. Well, the washer and dryer make noise, but those are down in the basement, so I won’t hear them. Today, I plan on knitting, reading, painting my toenails, making myself a yummy salad for lunch, doing some more reading. Oh, and writing of course! I am working on a blog post for the Share blog about the importance of celebrating joyful simplicities when you are grieving, and I have several ideas of things I want to write about for this blog swimming around in my head, so I may get started on some of those as well. I may even take a nap and make a batch of homemade ice cream. I am also planning on getting out some of my fall decorations. I don’t usually do that until the end of September, but I am more than ready to leave this summer in the dust. Bring on pumpkins and mums and apple spice scented candles (which by the way, is already burning on my kitchen counter). I’m tired of droopy petunias and shriveled up hostas and crispy brown grass.

 

When I woke up early this morning, before the sun was even beginning to lighten the sky, I had a few moments of feeling depressed, or maybe sad is a better word, that I was looking so forward to a quiet day by myself. I felt sad that my life has come to this point, where I look forward to a quiet holiday spent alone. There was a time when Labor Day meant barbeques and swimming with neighbors and friends and kids everywhere. Then, we began to spend Labor Day weekend in Virginia Beach. We did briefly toy with the idea of going to Virginia Beach this weekend, but Tony and the kids have some other running trips planned for this fall, so that was one reason we decided not to go. It would have been nice to have one last family vacation before the boys leave for the Navy, but Justin couldn’t have gotten off work anyway.

 

I decided that rather than feeling sad at the way life has changed and is changing, I’d dust of my seldom-worn Miss Susie Sunshine hat and think instead of the good things about having a day all to myself. I came up with the list above of things that I wouldn’t be able to do if everyone was here.

 

So, here I am, crossing one thing off of my bucket list for the day.

 

This has the potential to be yet another Gloomy Gertrude post, but I will try my very best to spin it into something good before I am finished.

 

As I was planning my day early this morning, I decided that I am not going to spend it on the computer other than for writing. I’m going to pretend that I have no internet service after I get this posted and not waste my day away checking email and playing games on facebook. However, I did want to catch up on some blog reading, so I went to my favorite blog where I read something that gave me the idea for this post. I didn’t actually need an idea because I thought I already knew what I was going to write about. However, this is perfect for the way I have been feeling lately. I just didn’t put my thoughts into words like this.

 The author of the blog has written the past week about her daughter’s struggles with starting kindergarten. She has written about her own struggles with this, too.  On Saturday, she wrote about how she has learned these four principles about life:

 

1.    Life is hard.

2.    You have to go through it.

3.    You learn.

4.    And then, you grow.

 

Amen to all of that.

 

1.    Yes, life is hard. I accept that. I don’t like it, but I accept it.

 

2.    Yes, you have to go through it. You have no choice. I accept that too. I don’t like THAT either. I wish I could be like a caterpillar and go curl up in a cocoon somewhere with a quilt and emerge as a beautiful butterfly ready to bravely face my new world. But, I guess maybe that isn’t so easy, either. I have no idea what a caterpillar goes through in its cocoon…how much pain and turmoil it experiences before it becomes a beautiful butterfly. I guess a caterpillar probably does a huge amount of work inside that insulating cocoon. Maybe that’s what I want…to be able to do my work inside an insulating cocoon, where I don’t have to deal with outside stresses and problems.

3.    You learn. Well, hopefully, you do. The blog author has this to say about learning:

 

And the fear of learning itself? Well, aren't we all afraid of that? As exciting as the world of knowledge and experience is, the magnitude of information--what we don't know and have yet to learn--can make us feel so small and fragile.

 

Those words sum it up perfectly for me. Yes, I am learning. I have learned so much in the past few months about life, about myself, about people I care about. And, yes, I am afraid of some of these new things I have learned. Very much afraid. Some days, I think it’s too much, and yes, much of it has made me feel small and fragile. And alone. Very fragile, and very alone. Those are not very good feelings to have when I am almost 50 years old and wishing and thinking that things in my life could be more settled and secure than they are. Wishing that everything I have worked  for and valued and treasured didn’t feel as if it was slowly slipping through my fingers no matter  how tightly I  clench my fingers together to prevent it. I am even more afraid of what I still have to learn in the future. Will those things bring me to my knees, or will they empower me? I wish I knew.

I will take the blog author’s thoughts about the fear of learning one step further and say that learning can be the hardest part of the whole process. I can accept that life is hard. I can deal with going through it. I am armed with a few “tools” that help me get through each day—I can bake, I can read, I can knit, I can go for a run, I can clean out a closet or a drawer. I can scrub my kitchen floor until it shines. I can do any number of things to get through each moment. It’s much harder and scarier though to think about what I have learned/what I am learning.

 

Which brings me to:

4.    And then, you grow. I don’t think I’m to that part of the process yet. I don’t feel like I am growing. I feel like I am withering like my pots of sun-scorched summer flowers.

 

Wow.

That came out so depressing. Definitely not a “dancing in the rain” post.

 

 I wrote a few weeks ago about how I am feeling guilty for not writing posts full of happy dancing in the rain moments since that was the reason I began writing here. I have come to a sort of peace with that though. I write to help me sort out things in my mind, and the things I’ve written lately have helped me do just that. So I guess in a way, this silly blog is serving its intended purpose. And even though I have often written in a more melancholy way lately, I haven’t forgotten to focus on simple little joyful things, even though it may seem as if I have.

 

In fact, I will end this with a list. J

 

*I have been knitting up a storm.

 In the past month, I have knitted 5 dishcloths and started working on my first ever shawl. There are times when I am ready to toss the thing in the trash because I have ripped out more rows than I actually have on the needle right now, but I am determined to finish it one of these days before it gets chilly. My aunt Saundra gave me the pattern and said she would knit it along with me. Her shawl is finished, and she even dyed her own yarn that she knitted it from.

 

*I have been cooking up a storm.

My kids are loving it. I’ve baked homemade bread and cinnamon rolls and new cookie recipes and new enchilada recipes. My coworkers are loving it, too. I’ve brought lunch for all of us on several occasions when I wanted to try a new salad or soup recipe that I knew no one in my family would eat.

 

*I have been reading up a storm.

I’ve read 5 books this summer. I’ve read 2 Jane Austen books. That doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment, especially because at the beginning of the summer, I downloaded every Jane Austen book onto my Kindle (they were free!) and told myself I was going to read every one of them by the end of the summer. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I hadn’t read Jane Austen since college, and I quickly remembered they take a very long time to read. But, hey! I read two of them! I think I will save the rest for winter reading.

 

*I have been running up a storm.

Okay, so that is a little white lie. I just wanted to keep up the storm theme I had going on. I have been running and walking though, on a pretty regular basis. My dog is loving me for it, and I am starting to enjoy our early morning jaunts. I try to get out by 6, and it does help me feel a little bit more energized for the day ahead.

 

It’s now time for me to get off my computer and go enjoy the day as much as I can.