The Bittersweet of Back to School

Tomorrow is the first day of school...I don't know if moms are still doing this, but for as long as I can remember there has been a back to school coffee gathering where collective sighs of relief, or snotty noses being blown can be heard. The sighs of relief seem to outnumber the snotty noses ten to one. Summer vacation is long. Personally, I would rather have year round school and three week breaks every three months or so. But no one asked me. I also have to admit that there were times in the past when I was more than ready for school to start so I could get on with whatever it was that I thought was more important than spending time with my girsl, and my sighs could be heard loud and clear, too.

But not this year. It's snotty nose time for me. My daughter, Tianna, who it seems just yesterday was in preschool pressing her hand prints on construction paper to make special cards for me, is now going to middle school. Middle school...She is growing up into a young lady who will want to spend more and more time with friends and less and less time with me.

And Nicole, who is going into fourth grade, but still enjoys a long cuddle at bedtime, and I am not in such a hurry to get to bed myself because those days are numbered also. She came into my room this morning and I had coffee in bed while we watched some TV together. She wanted to know how to make and upload a video that she had heard about on the Disney channel, and instead of "later, later" we looked it up on the spot, plugged in the video camera to charge the battery and she happily went off to pick her wardrobe and rehearse her son. I imagine I will be the camera man, except maybe not. Matt's girlfriend Carolyn was a film major at Ithaca and if she is here (and I think she will be Wed/Thur.) can shoot it and put it together for her.

So I am sad. Sad the summer is over. It is full of good memories:

• Hiking at Zion National Park, which some of us liked better than others...


• A triathlon in South Carolina.


• Two wonderful weeks at the lake in Virginia with lots of water tubing and even some water skiing.


• Time with Matt and Carolyn.


• Tianna playing on the All Star Softball team.


• Having my mom with us.


• Playing with the kittens.


• Long evening talks with my friend Katy who came to Va. We saw lots of shooting stars!


• My visit with my elementary school friend in CA.


• And so much more...
  

But now it's back to school, and while routine is nice, I will miss the time we have together. I guess I need to go blow my nose

Peace.

What Makes Birthdays Special...

What makes birthdays special? When you hit middle age, or twenty nine and several years of holding, the list is simple...

• Spending it with friends and family. Son Matt and girlfriend Carolyn in photo. There were nine of us, including my mom, Tianna, Nicole and my mom.


• Not having to cook, but not spending a small fortune on a meal, either. We boated to this great place and ate dockside and watched the sun set.


• Stopped on the way home for ice cream. YUM!


• Slept in till almost ten...


• Was just simply lazy (relaxed).


• Realized that Matt and Carolyn were also with us at the lake for Howie's birthday in May.


• Still have my dad living who I share my birthday with. He turned 80 today.


• Don't feel any older. Hope I don't act any older either :)

Peace.

Happy Travels...

Just a quick update...and yes, this is even worse than Dunkin' Donuts...I just did lots of grocery shopping at WalMart, which is about 24 miles away from the lake house. No, there isn't anything closer except an albeit well-0stocked but extremely overpriced convenience store connected to a gas station about six miles from the house, so we save that for dire emergencies.

I did decide just for the heck of it to pull into the Bedford County Visitors Bureau parking lot to see if by chance they had wireless, and OBVIOUSLY they do! Yipee. Of course that means that this was somewhat pre-meditated blogging, as I brought the computer along.

The ride was long, and Tianna and her friend Blair decided to make the most of it by sleeping, a good idea, as the car was overfull. In addition to the two of them, we had Nicole and a friend, Howie driving, me scrunched in front and my mother sharing the back row with the older girls. Oh, we did bring the dog and our two unconfined cats as well. We had to take roll call every time we made a pit stop.

Howie's older sister and her two grandchildren (fine for her, but shocking for me when I realized that made me a great aunt), a funny, wonderful friend from college and her eleven year old daughter and Matt and Carolyn are also either already here or on the way.

We are eating, talking, laughing, reading, visiting and relaxing (Yes, I DO know how to do that). We went to the Cliffs yesterday, aptly named where there are low, medium and high levels to jump or flip from. Nicole is annoyed because she believed Tianna's friend when she said she would pay her ten bucks to go off the high ledge,and I am waiting for Matt to cause me maternal heart failure when he does an inverted flip of some kind...

It is a blessing and joy to spend time hanging out with friends and family. And my mother is SO pleased the dog came along.

Peace!

Tandem Tattoos (and other ramblings...)

Actually, the post title should have been "trio tattoos" because I got one too, but my photographic assistants missed the photo opp...oh well!

And I am going to let you in on something...it's not really a secret, because I have mentioned it a fair amount, but I would really like to get a real tattoo. I would get the Jesus fish, somewhere relatively inconspicuous, like on my derriere somewhere between below where it would be obscured by the bottom of a bathing suit and where there would be ample fat pad padding so it wouldn't hurt so much. But there are two, or maybe three problems with this...

1. I don't really want my girls to emulate my example. Who knows, they could choose a spider walking up the left arm (as did Nicole in this photo).

2. My husband is a dermatologist and takes these things off and frowns every time I mention it.

3. I am chicken.

So for the time being we will stick with tattoos of the temporary variety. Much easier, and less expensive to remove (no, your health insurance will NOT cover this...)

We did make it to the water park yesterday, FINALLY, and Tianna decided she didn't want to go in. Oh well. Nicole and I swam and slid. Then we did the tattoo thing, went on to mini golf and ended the evening with a few games at the arcade that resulted in more small junk. No, treasures, trinkets...the kind that are ordered from Oriental Trader for every carnival and arcade known to human kind.

I thought maybe I would do some laundry (we are out of clean dry socks, which could be a problem for our final day at the parks....wet stinky feet would be yucky and uncomfortable, and blisters would also stink, and since I am hoping to stay for several hours flip flops wouldn't be in our best interest, my feet got sore after wearing them for ten minutes) but the change machine was broken. Sounds like another Wal Mart run to me...which I did do this morning. I also picked up a couple of extra rain ponchos (at 87 cents apiece, rather than the $4 at the park...) and decided when the heavens part this afternoon, I will surprise another family with a gift of ponchos when they most need it and least expect it.

Tianna has decided she doesn't like going on trips and didn't fail to communicate that when things weren't going her way (like when I said "no" to popsicles for $2.50 apiece after mini golf). It made me think about the financial fine line of going on vacation. Yes, vacations are money pits. But there are ways to be good stewards, which I am all for. But admittedly sometimes I cross that line and become a bit of a (I hate this word) cheapskate. So today, as we embark on our last day at the park, I am going to try to walk that fine line between reasonable and unreasonable. It is 9:05 and my goal was to be at the park when it opened at nine, so I am hoping this translates as reasonable and the extra little bit of sleep pays off.

I'll let you know if I succeed or not!

Post Softball Summer

Well, softball is over. Our girls got wallopped 21-2 on Friday evening, but played some respectable softball to meet the South Columbia team in the District 13 Final on Friday night. There was no question who was the finer greased softball machine, but it was great to see the girls be able to make it to the championship game. The opposing team is coached by Gary Grozier, who is a guidance counselor at Danville HS. Personally, I love the guy; I think he is a saint. He was Matt's guidance counselor through his stormy HS years and never gave up advocating for him and believing in him. He is just an incredibly positive guy who always sees the cup half full. I have a lot of respect for the guy, and even more after seeing what a job he has done coaching his girls.

But now that softball is over, there are a few things this means:

• My ice cream eating days at Hunter's are over, since I could only rationalize doing so as post game celebration or sorrow.
• Tianna no longer is banned from swimming on game days, since there are no more game days.
• We can go on vacation as a family.
• My dinner menu will consist of more than chicken fingers, soda and french fries, not to mention candy.
• My hearing may return to normal since there won't be any more softball cheer screaming.
• I can put away my baseball/softball earrings till next spring.
• I won't put quite as many miles on my car...BUT

• I will miss the joy and pleasure of hanging out with the team and team parents who are proud of their girls for playing hard and being part of a team experience.

Good Luck, South Columbia, you are a great team, and I hope you win states!