Bunny Ears

I am typing this using the new blogger settings. It's a little strange, like being in a large white room where the floor and the wall are indiscernible from each other. Sometimes, while I am typing, I wonder if I should be more careful with my grammar and spelling. I am usually writing these while at work. I think of something and type it up in between answering telephone calls and depositing thousands of dollars into their bank accounts. I simply don't have the time to edit myself.

Today is a beautiful day here in Texas. It is a beautiful 88 degrees, my office window is open, the front patio at work is covered in caterpillars. Thousands of caterpillars are venturing onto the concrete wall, the concrete slab, making their way to God knows where. Does this mean we will have thousands of butterflies before winter? Hmm, I wonder.

Okay, I went searching my computer to find a picture of a flower that grows outside my office and instead I found THIS AWESOME PICTURE of my littlest tying her shoes for the first time. How cool is that? What a Cutie Pie!

I have nothing planned this weekend, it is a welcomed break. My every weekend in October is completely booked. Wherever you are, I hope you have a fabulous weekend. :) :) :)

Sally

When my youngest was younger, she wanted to be called Sally. All her dolls and even a cat or two were christened "Sally". I took her with me to the grocery counter to order her Birthday cake and when the nice lady behind the counter asked what name we wanted on the cake, I looked at my youngest expecting her to give her name and instead, out comes "Sally". So Sally it was.

When I was about the same age, I wanted to be called Cindy. Too many episodes of the Brady Bunch. No one in my family would oblige. This is, no doubt, why I am all mucked up as an adult, yes?

My oldest used to carry around an imaginary friend named Robin in the palm of her hand; and at times wanted to be called Robin herself.

I can't recall my middlest wanting to be called by someone else's name, but she did ask to be called by her middle name when she was about ten years old. It stuck. Sort of. I actually use both of her names interchangeably and often, both, in the same breath. Making me sound like I have four daughters instead of three, or much like a crazy person.

Cows

I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

—Walt Whitman

Pretty in Pink

I blindly selected a picture from my pic folder to write about. My youngest was six years old. She was showing signs of OCD and her school counselor recommended she try a team sport. The counselor was married to a football coach, her son was a football coach and perhaps team sports was the miracle solution for all her problems and thought it would help. So we went and signed up for soccer and got all the lovely accoutrements that come with the gig. Doesn't everyone get pink knee pads, pink cleats, and a pink soccer ball?



She enjoyed it for a little while, but mostly she liked to sit on the sidelines and talk and laugh and make new friends. We finished out the season, which came with a lovely lime green jersey, but she didn't want to sign up for another season.  As for the OCD, well it didn't really help but she seems to have outgrown it for the most part.

She has really grown this past year from a young girl into a tween. I was never sure what that word really meant, I thought it was an advertising word. I get it now. She is only ten, but she is developing already and has the mindset of a teenager. She is in a very In Between stage of her adolescence.

She has a lot of changes coming toward her and although I am by her side, I know that she has to learn to deal with things on her own. I'm hoping I've given her the foundation to get through it all as unscathed as possible.

Limbo

Sometimes I wish I would've had the courage to write about my daily experience after finding out about the cancerous invasion of my body. I found a blog in the stratosphere where a woman did have the courage and although our experience wasn't exactly the same, it is as close as I've found.
http://cervicalcancergirl.blogspot.com/

I sat the other night and read her experience from beginning to end and although it was several years ago for her, it was so very familiar to me. I cried for myself and I cried for her. One of the things about something like this is that people want you to be okay and think that because the cancer is gone (whatever that means) that you are well. The lasting effects from the radiation and chemo are ongoing. It isn't something we feel comfortable talking about all the time, but it is always there.

I am thankful that my family was complete before getting sick.

I find out October 12th if the cancer remains gone. I am trying to be patient about finding out. I've got places to go and people to see and that is the one hurdle that is holding me up.

Small Town

I was driving to work this morning and came to the stop sign behind an old pick up truck. The bumper sticker in the window of the cab said "My wife says I'm not fun anymore, well, DUH, we're MARRIED now."

I couldn't design a more idiotic bumper sticker if I tried.

Not that I'm a great fan of bumper stickers anyway. I've never had one on my own vehicle. I don't even like the dealer logo being on my car.

Well I wrote all the above days ago and it didn't go anywhere so I'm picking up with my thoughts on a conversation I overheard at work this morning. I come from a pretty rural setting. I work in a small town, the county seat, population 693. I live fifteen minutes up the road in another small town, population 2262. This can be a little misleading because of course everyone is a bit spread out and they aren't included within the city limits. But you get the idea. Small Town. It comes with all the stereotypes you can imagine. Everyone knows everyone and gossip spreads like wildfire. Very conservative thinking, everyone goes to the same churches, so there isn't a lot of diverse opinions on social and political issues.

This can be difficult for people, like me, who have a different background or wander in from somewhere bigger. I don't raise farm animals to show at the County Fair (this is another topic all in itself, the County Fair is Big, HUGE), I don't go to the Baptist church, I don't work at the county courthouse nor the school district. Oh, and let's not forget my biggest transgression: I'm a Democrat.

But here's a tip for those of you who find your way into a small town and don't feel quite like you belong. Everyone has something to offer. Don't look down your nose at the differences, search out the similarities, learn something new, odds are, you'll end up learning something new about yourself.

September 11

There were very touching commercials on the past few weeks, the slogan being something like "what will you do?" - to remember 9/11. Robert DeNiro even chimed in, with his long hair and New Yorkness. It must've really sunk in because Sunday morning, my daughter crawled into bed with me and we flipped a few channels together and settled on a man who used to work in the North Tower telling his story. My youngest was interested so I left it there. It was like so many other stories we've heard over the past ten years. To be honest, I shy away from the 9/11 stories every year. It's all too sad and has been hijacked by conspiracy theorists and politics, and did I mention how sad it is?

This year was different. I let myself take the time with my daughter and my husband to remember. We watched the History Channel's "102 Minutes", which is television coverage as it happened that morning. I had been at the doctor's office with my youngest, getting her three month immunizations.

My husband watches every year. His son died on 9/11. It was years before the new millenium and there was no news coverage when his seven year old died; but as he watched the memorials on Sunday morning, he felt a sense of the whole country mourning with him. He once told me that one of the many hard things about losing his son is that no one talks about him anymore. I imagine people are apprehensive because they don't want to bring up the sadness of it all. But it is sadder to think that people have forgotten.

Fires & Floods

My life has slowed to a snail's pace lately. Everything is rocking and rolling along. The heat here in Texas has reached record proportions, which I don't mind, but the drought is no bueno for anyone. The state is on fire and the skies are filled with smoke. I drove to the doctor Friday and the smoke was so thick it blocked out the sun. The firefighters are tired and over 1400 homes were lost just west of Austin. It's all very sad.




I watched a snippet from the news and a woman had come back to her home after fleeing from the fire. The only thing left was a four foot tall brick wall that had the numbers of her house still attached. The pictures were worse even than the pics of Joplin, MS after the tornadoes. Total devastation.

And I hear the yanks up north are submerged in the water we need here so desperately.

Flying High

I had a dream last night.
I was flying over my hometown elementary school via a handheld glider. Basically, I was holding two handles in the shape of metal triangles in each hand and a wide ribbon of parachute material that was floating me on the breeze. I was talking to someone on the ground, I don't know who. An old friend from childhood walked up with her young daughter and the other person says to her "I always thought you would make something of yourself" (Implied: You obviously haven't and won't accomplish anything since you have moved back to this hole in the wall town).  As I was maneuvering my homemade hand glider back to earth I said "Don't let where you are define who you will become". Then as I was standing in the parking lot of the elementary school a big gust of wind grabbed my sail and blew me back into the sky. I felt so free.