BE IN LOVE with the ones you love and let them know

Ever spend more time reading the directions, memorizing the rules, learning the background than you do playing the game? If life is about moments then why do we do that? It's important to know the way, but one day, years will go by and the only thing we will have is the fact that we are "subject matter experts" on life having never lived. A sad state of affairs, an easy trap to fall in. I vow to live my moments, create my moment, share my moments. I vow to live without regrets as much as possible. I implore you to do the same. record them in not only your mind, but in the minds of those you love. Have them remember you with laughs and not regrets.

Chapstick and Winter Hats = Bane

I don't even know where to begin because, on the surface it seems absurd. However, my frustration is so genuine that I can't deny its huge importance in my complex mind (wink, wink). Have you ever misplaced the remote for days only to watch the re-runs of MASH for 4 hours before you get in your car and run to the nearest Walmart to buy another? How many times have you done this? How many will you do it? How many remotes are you wiling to buy before your hair begins to fall out and you strangle the person who keeps putting it in weird places like the window sill or behind a potted plant or in the sock drawer or under the grapes in the fridge??!! Perhaps you aren't the remote-crutch type. Maybe its the mail box key for you that provokes the post office to believe you are dead because your mail has not been picked up in two and a half weeks. Maybe for you it is the lunch that you leave on the counter every day instead of taking it to work.
Well, for me, it is my son and chapstick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you sense my frustration. He will have a tube on Monday only to nonchalantly tell me on Wednesday that someone broke into the house while we were at basketball practice and stole it out of his room in the designated area!!AARRRGGGHHH!!! Can you believe this "frack-a-nackle bull"???!! When he said this I really wanted to kick the legs out from under his chair and just walk away! Why you may be asking does this bother me so? Those of you with bottomless pockets may not understand but I must spend $8 a month on Chapstick which is $96 a year on top of how much I spend on winter hats!
Winter hats (let me breathe first)...OK, this little boy will leave the house with a very nice, warm hat. Will he come home with it? Oh no! Like being in the middle of winter in a snow storm or the pouring rain doesn't remind him that hey, my head is cold!! Unbelievable! Hat 1 gone, week 1 down. Week 2 I say little boy please put your hat in either your back pack or your sleeve. Well, week 2 down, hat 2 gone!! Well you just wont have a hat, but the ice pelting him on the head makes me sad for him and off I go to buy a few more hats!! GONE! GONE! GONE!!! At some point I can't tell if its his hat and chapstick handicap that is driving me crazy or the fact that he doesn't seem to care, that bugs me to no end! Either way, the stupid hats and the dumb chapsticks are the bane of my existence. Next time I'll tell you about Nicky's shoes that make me want to hurl them across a room with a tribal guttural yell!!
I need a nap.

Sometimes...

There are just some days... Some days when the grass not only looks greener, but smells pretty and shines, butterflies live there that quietly whisper your name while promising you warm chocolate chip cookies. There are some days when your coffee is bitter and your can't decide on lunch. There are some days when even a hug from a sweet faced cheeky little one or a love-y round one can't push the eeyorness of it all away. There are some days when things seem so unfair, not in that day but in your life in general that it chokes you. There are some days when even the right things in your life seems a minute in compensation, for all that is either missing or hasn't happened yet. From afar off you see the waves coming, doubt, self pity, fear, longing, jealously, regret. Oh, but the love of Jesus. No greater love I've found. My advocate, my savior, my love. No GREATER love I've found. I can't stop the flood, the regrets the greener grass, but I will stand on the rock. Let the waves come splash around my ankles, the Lord will always raise up a standard.

side bar

...when removing hair from your upper lip using a depilatory cream, do not, I repeat, do not brush your teeth. Even if you happen (like me) to not touch the cream with your toothbrush, you will inevitably lick your lips and be fooled only for a split second that the mint you taste was only toothpaste. However the burning in your mouth will quickly let you know that you are not only wrong, but stupid!

Am I getting old

There is this thing that happens to all of the blessed folks I know. Growing old. The alternative is not appealing to me. However, the things that come along with it leave something to be desired. Stiff knees. Achy back. Gray hair. Failing memory. Bring them on. I can take those with no problem. A bottle of dye, a few post-its and some Ben-gay, I'm good to go. I'm even looking forward to menopause. Nicky and Xavier are more than enough for me. I have hair growing in places I care not to mention. Is this God's ugly joke on single women? He brings you close in age to your sexual peak, but gives you a beard and mustache to fend off any attractive suitors!!! Abstinence by way of fur!! I'm thinking of becoming a side-show freak. I spend more on wax, creams and other apparatuses than I do on toothpaste! I'm afraid to pray for the hair to stop growing or to go away for fear that my fun loving God will take it from off my head instead of my chin!! I'm afraid of turning into "My aunt with the beard" Lord help me please!

Obama

We did it. Thank you Jesus. Now maybe I can get a cab in this town.

I've been silent for too long. It's 2009!

What is Nicky up to today? Well not today, but here goes...
Mr. Nicky has a habit of saying whatever is on his mind and his mind...lets just say his mind is unlike any other 5 year old you will ever meet. His cute little round face and one little dimple are either hiding behind sarcasm or up front and bright with "little kid" honesty. Both are scary. Once when he was three he saw a picture of one of my friends and asked me if she was a gorilla! After a bout of laughing (a good 5 10 minutes, i'm sure) I said "no, that is my friend". So with complete seriousness, he asked, "well is she dressed like a gorilla?" What can you do with someone like that? More recently he told me that he did not need pajama tops because the hair on his back would keep him warm! He told my sister that his dad had gained weight and now looks like Kung-Fu Panda. To other's he is an "uh-oh" kid, to me, he is a deep sigh of exasperation. What can you say to that dimple?