You know you're loved when...

You know you're loved when your three and a half year old gives you multitudes of spontaneous kisses throughout your day. You know you're REALLY loved when said three and a half year old plants a dozen or so on your backside at the grocery checkout and then exclaims joyfully, "Mommy! I'm kissing your bum-bum!" in between puckers.

You know you're a dork when you say to said three and a half year old in front of the 19 year old bag boy, "You're supposed to kiss Mommy on my cheeks--well,...uh...on my other cheeks."

Growing pains--in the neck

I painted a ceiling yesterday. I don't recommend painting a ceiling. It makes you dizzy and covers your face and hair with itty bitty dots of paint. It hurts your neck and your back. It takes a long time. Heed my advice: don't paint a ceiling if you can avoid it. I, unfortunately, could avoid it no more. The ceiling in question is in our sun room that serves as a play room for the boys. This room has not been painted since before Boogah (that's our nickname and the official Internet codename for our oldest son) was born almost 7 years ago. Since that time, we've had a small leak and some subsequent water damage, which culminated in peeling paint. I have artfully managed to ignore that peeling paint for, oh, a mere three years or so. When the peeling paint started to fall on the play room floor about a year ago, I thought to myself, "I really should fix that or get it fixed." However, I had no idea how one fixes that situation, and we don't have the money to hire a painter. (Not to mention my experience with trying to find contractors and handymen--not successful. But that's a rant for another post.) Not having a solution, I just chose to ostrich it (a.k.a. bury my head in the sand and hope it goes away). I've done a lot of ostriching with things in this house, heck, what am I saying? I ostrich most things in my life. Can we say 'repressed anger over dead-beat dad?' Lately, however, I've been trying to overcome my ostriching ways. I've been trying to make some changes. I'm trying to grow. Basically, I'm on a re-decorating kick. Interior decorating is one of my favorite things. I'm a total HGTV junky. Decorating shows are my crack. No one quite understands my addiction. My husband just shakes his head and walks away, leaving me to enjoy whichever flamboyant male designer has me under his spell at the time. However, just watching the shows is not enough. When I'm feeling especially bored with the humdrum, or I'm jumping out of my skin, needing a change, I start to redecorate. I'm like a molting snake, shedding the old environment, starting over again with something (somewhat) new. If I don't molt, if I don't have change, I become quite unhappy. And since I can't, in this hellish real estate market, sell my house for big bucks and buy a bigger, newer, better one, I change what I can in the one I have. I have a limited budget, so most of my decorating projects are a work in progress. And I don't have much patience, so I usually start on the next project before the previous one is complete. This summer I have redecorated my sitting room/office (which, long ago, was once a tiny dining room) and my dining room (which, long ago, used to be a large, unused formal living room). I've repainted both rooms, hung new window treatments, bought new chairs, recovered the seats of old chairs, bought artwork, re-purposed old artwork, spray painted frames and lamps, etc., etc., etc. And I'm still not done with either room. I have too many ideas spinning in my head and not enough time or money to complete them. Plus, I suddenly decided to stop ostriching the playroom ceiling and repaint and redecorate that room, too. The ceiling is somewhat fixed--another word of advice: spackle is NOT what you use repair a 14 inches worth of peeling, cracking, water damaged ceiling--and it is painted. The walls are painted, too. And I am tired and sore, but I feel good. I feel like I'm slowly updating and transforming this place. I feel like I'm slowly lifting my head out of the sand and shedding an old part of me that I really don't need anymore. I feel like I'm preparing for
fresh, new experiences by refreshing my home. Maybe I'm doing more than fixing a peeling
ceiling. Maybe I'm really fixing me, one room at a time.

Positively Giddy

After walking around in a complete funk for most of Thursday, I did a complete 360, true to my mood swinging M.O., and was positively giddy yesterday. Literally, I walked around with a bounce in my step. Me - a bounce! I usually barely have the energy for a slow, dragging shuffle. The reason for this major shift in demeanor? Great news today via Facebook. Again with the Facebook! What is it with this marvel of modern Internet? Facebook is like my new fairy Godmother, granting me joy with each friend request and message on my 'wall.' Today I received a friend request AND a message from one of my bestest BFF's from high school. I say BFF because in high school I really thought we'd be friends forever. Our senior year, we were inseparable. We did everything together -- partly because I had no dates or boyfriends in high school, but mostly because she was great and one of those people that I just clicked with right away. I've only had a handful of people like that in my life, my husband being one. I remember when I first met this high school BFF. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, she said made me laugh. She couldn't say anything without me doubling over in fits of giggles. I suspect this must have been slightly annoying to her, since she wasn't cracking jokes all the time. If it weren't for this funny friend, I think my high school experience would've been pretty lame (well, I guess I should say slightly more lame - did I mention that I never had a date?!) This friend went to parties, and she actually HAD parties at her house when her parents went out of town. Cool! This friend was a lifeguard at her neighborhood pool during the summer. Score! I got to hang out at a pool all day yet had no pressure to have to save a life! Oh how the memories came flooding back when I heard from her yesterday! Memories of lying to our parents and sneaking out to a party thrown by college kids; memories of running from a party through backyards--in bare feet in winter-- back to her house when the 'cops busted' the party. OK, so when I look back through my mom glasses, I can see that this BFF may not have been the best influence all the time, but I sure did have a hell of a lot of fun for those last couple of years of high school.

After high school, we both went our separate ways. She went to college out of state. I went to college in state. We made new friends and had different experiences, and our contact during winter and summer breaks became less and less frequent. By our senior years of college, we'd pretty much lost touch. We'd become different people with different lives and just didn't 'click' anymore. We tried to stay in touch, but it just didn't seem real anymore, so we accepted it, sadly, and moved on. I mourned the loss of our friendship, but I looked back fondly on her as one of those significant people in my life. One that helped to shape who I am today, and I was grateful for the short time we were friends. As that e-mail that has circulated through cyberspace since the Internet was known as 'cyberspace' states, "some friends are in your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime." I'd accepted that this friend was for, apparently, just a season, not for a lifetime, but she was definitely in my life for a reason. That I knew for sure.

When my husband and I moved back to my hometown almost nine years ago, it was hard for me. Not only does this town hold a lot of my childhood 'baggage,' but it also held a lot of memories of my crazy antics with this special high school friend, who I still missed every now and then. I ended up moving to the area of town where I went to highschool (though I swore I wouldn't), so during my suburban mom life, I travel around our 'old stomping grounds' on a daily basis. Throughout the years, I'd often see a place that held a memory, and I would wonder what happened to my friend and feel a little sad that we'd let our friendship slip away. But I didn't dwell on it. I would just go about my mini-van driving day. However, yesterday, it all changed. Yesterday I got the Facebook message. I got the message that said, "It's me, do you remember? Sorry I've lost touch." A message that said, "I've moved back to town with my husband and son!" A message that, well, made me positively giddy. A message I didn't think would ever come because I figured I was the only one who ever moved back here. But she. is. back! And I'm blown away by that fact.

We'll see how things go from this point on. I'm sure we'll have a getting reacquainted period, since we have many years and experiences between who we were then and who we are today. I'm sure just because we're living in the same town once more doesn't necessarily mean that we'll be inseparable again. We still lead our own lives, the lives we've been creating since we tossed our caps in the air almost twenty years (ahem! feel free NOT to do the math) ago. But, I'm excited to see how this next, unexpected chapter unfolds. If nothing else, this has shown me that anything is possible. It has shown me that if someone is in your life for a reason, then they are in your life for a lifetime, too. They helped make you. They are the building blocks of who you are, and if they move back to town, too, well then, that's just an added bonus!

Feeling grumpy, think I'll start a blog

I'm writing my first post to my new 'mommy blog' on a day when I am at my most tired and irritable. Probably not the best day to introduce myself to The Internet. So, Internet, please forgive me if I'm not in a 'sparkly butterfly' type of mood today but, rather, what my husband likes to call my 'shit kitten' mood instead. I've tried to bump up the mood with coffee. Didn't work, still tired and even crankier. With a workout at the gym. Didn't work, I yawned my way through 30 minutes on the elliptical and had one of the personal trainers actually ask me if I was ok as I 'pumped some iron' on the weight machine. (Ok, so I was really just sitting there, on the machine, staring and yawning instead of actually lifting any weight.) I even tried to boost the energy level and the mood by taking the boys to the mall to meet a friend for lunch. Didn't work. I marched them home after repeated unsuccessful requests for them to stop tickling and smacking each other at the lunch table and to stop with the plastic sword fights in the middle of the toy store. They got a lovely version of my now (in)famous, "If you'd listen the first time I tell you something, then..." speech, which always seems to come out when I'm at my most impatient.

So nothing I tried popped the grump bubble I've encased myself in today until I heard from an old friend on Facebook who lives nearby but who I don't really see that often. Everything happens for a reason people. I firmly believe that, and hearing from this friend today is no exception. She asked me a question about preschools and then we started to catch up a bit via instant message. I learned that this friend, who by the way is so upbeat and positive and has five, yes that's right I said FIVE boys ranging in age from 16 down to 2, has just received the final paperwork needed in order to adopt a baby girl from Kyrazigstan (ok, I so have no idea how to spell that, but you get the idea-- somewhere far away where there are orphaned babies)! I was blown away and to a certain extent given some perspective on my day and my attitude. Here I am all tired and grumpy and impatient with my TWO children, and here she is adopting a child who needs a loving family and stable home when she is raising FIVE (did I mention there are FIVE) boys already!! Well, I feel like a big ol' meany now. Thank goodness their are people like my friend out there in the world to balance out the whiney lame asses like me. Maybe I'll go read my kids a book or something 'good parent-like' now.