Welcome baby

Today my grandson was born. He is my second grandchild, and joins his sister, now two. They are both beautiful. My daughter and her husband are beginning a stage of life that is amazing and wonderful. I look back on when I was this age, and my children were still all in the nest and we were the center of each other's universes. It was so much FUN. And i knew exactly who I was and why I was alive.

I wish for my daughter the happiness and completeness that a family can bring. I wish for her to enjoy it, to breathe it, to savor it. I wish for her to have FUN, and to live IN every moment she gets with them.

From My Heart to Yours

Happy Valentine's Day

Gratitude is the Best Attitude

It's been awhile since I've posted, but with Thanksgiving coming up, I felt moved to share. It's been a rocky year for myself & my family - I won't go into detail, but the "high" points (sarcasm) follow - Last posting mentioned the loss of family members; they left three teen-age daughters behind who are trying to find their way. I was unemployed for 3 months. My brother's marriage broke up, and he's left the state. I've loved deeply this year, but can't seem to maintain a healthy relationship with the man...dork...victim? I'm struggling with deep depression, enhanced by "empty nest" syndrome - my boys flew the nest. And for the first time, due to some weird circumstances, my family is headed toward one of those holiday dinners everyone dreads. You know - the one's from the sitcoms. I swear, our family holiday dinners have all been warm and relatively stress free. We're gonna make up for it this year.

Empty nest is no joke, by the way. "Get a hobby! You'll feel better!" All the articles say stuff like that. Then I finally found one that, after all the cliches, mentioned that SOME people have a harder time. Single women. People with a history of depression. People with "other issues". Yes, I'm all of the above. These people experience feelings of grief, and loss. No kidding. GRIEF and LOSS are -very- good words to describe it. My kids live in town. I see them regularly. They are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing at this time in their lives. They are in school. GREAT guys. Not their fault. But wow - was I hit hard.

Time for the gratitude. My three children are thriving in their lives and I am part of those lives, if more peripherally than I am accustomed to. My granddaughter is healthy, charming, and I get a good "baby fix" in once or twice a week. (She has just learned to wave...cutest. thing. ever.) I acquired a stable job with good job security, benefits, and (omg) paid leave. I am not making much, but the security is heartwarming. I feel fulfilled and useful in my position, and I like and respect the people I work with. Also, I am lucky to have loved and been loved in return, even though we're both too messed up and stubborn to be able to make things work.

There is a blog I read regularly that I'm going to steal some words from "...the holiday reminds me that gratitude without humility and charity is no better than gloating." I like this - it's a reminder to me that being thankful for what we have isn't enough, that as humans we are fulfilled by giving back. I'm going to try to be charitable and giving to the members of my family who are being less than gracious. I'm going to continue to be supportive and positive with my children in their independence, though my heart aches at being alone (thank God for the dog). I'm spending the afternoon on Thanksgiving with the man I love and can't get along with - we're going to serve food at a local homeless shelter.

JFK said, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." It's easy to feel less than generous when you're having a hard time, but I am going to continue to remind myself to be more charitable, humble, gracious, and generous in my thoughts and actions towards others.

My picture today is the one I currently have on my computer desktop at work - It's Van Gogh's "The Olive Trees". I work in a somewhat stressful environment and I find the colors soothing, and I have always loved VanGogh's firm but flowing lines.

Thank you for reading, and I wish a warm and happy Thanksgiving to you.

Seize the Daylight

Happy Winter Solstice! Hooray for increasing daylight! I drove in this morning in the low light of 9am and admired the frosty trees and cool blue sky. I noticed the hilltops were brown, not white- must have been some wind up high. The snow is pretty but dry, doesn't agree with the builders of snowmen and snowforts or the cross country skiiers.

See that guy in the foreground of the amazing picture up top? That's my son, the older one. I love this picture, not only because he is in it, but because it's so beautiful.

Love and water

I said I loved you; it's not true.
Such long swift tides stir not a landlocked sea.
- Rupert Brooke

My youngest turned 18 yesterday. We're having a party for him tonight - guess what he wants for dinner? You got it - pizza.

He's hard to get gifts for these days because his toys get more expensive- wants things like trucks and muscle cars, which I'm not buying for him. I did, however, head to Nordstrom in Anchorage and purchase some very nice cologne for him (he likes to smell good and I've had enough of that Axe he bathes in). In the fancy bag with his man-cologne I also put one of those boxes you store Hotwheels in - you know, the one that looks like a wheel? That and two Mustangs (Hotwheels!). He's gotten a new Hotwheels car or two every birthday/Christmas and I know he's saved a few of them.

I also got him some polar-fleece sheets. Yep, he's getting sheets for his birthday. (Awww Mom!) No really, he'll love them. This kid is a 6'5" basketball jock, eats like a horse, smells like a man, can fix anything...and he loves warm fuzzy things. And puppies. And monkeys. So yes, he's getting warm fuzzy polar fleece sheets. I couldn't afford a monkey.

He's the last of my kids at home, still in the nest but poised for flight. When he heads out into the world my laundry load will be dramatically reduced, grocery store trips less frequent, fridge less full. We'll stay close, but the house will feel empty and I'll miss the little day to day goofyhead moments.

Funny - my mom was gone this summer and I sure missed her. I'm 44 and I've found there are still moments when you just need your mom. Being my kid's mom is the best job I've ever had, and now they're these amazing grown-up people that still like to hang out with me now & then, like I like to hang with my mom. How cool is that?

10 cats and a cardigan, please

Ah, love. Be prepared for a resuming of late night posting, as I appear to be single again. I am home, Friday night, listening to "Great Opera Duets" (cranked), drinking my SECOND light beer and swapping back and forth between Jane Austen and Saul Bellow. How bad is it? I attempt to sing with the opera duets.

I took a good shot at dating, but I think I doomed myself before I started - Long Distance (though same state). Said gentleman has the means to get me there and get himself here regularly and obliged readily, but it's just not that easy. And that's all I'll say on that subject (heave sigh of relief now, please).

So, back to my evening. At first I thought, "geez, all I need is about 10 cats...", but I realized that I am enjoying being alone. Fridays can be difficult, as my boys are usually out - tonight they're at their Dad's house. He likes to have them up to his girlfriend's big house and cook them steak. It hurts my feelings they have a good time at the big jerk's girlfriend's house, because he really is a big jerk, but I can't tell them that, not cool. One of those situations where I'm homework, chores, and telling them to do all the things they should be doing and their Dad is funtime steak dinners. Wait...I might be venting...where was I?

Ah yeah - evenings at home, alone. Sometimes they're therapeutic. And I freaking LOVE certain opera pieces. Voices soaring, weaving in and out of each other, no idea what they're saying but the feel of the song transmits meaning- Joy, sadness, ecstasy, passion, pleading, huge expressions of emotion, a conversation in music. Yes, I'm a dork.

So, I'm patching my heart up, immersing my head in music, comfortably on my own. I don't fuckin' need anybody.

But, *tiny voice* I want somebody.

If they're grown up, what does that make me?

My oldest son is doing the "moving out" thing. He's 19 and remarkably mature in some ways, remarkably and adorably naive in others. While one part of me is encouraging his independence (shoo! Out of the nest...fly!), the other half of me loves that I can still be his mom. Of course, now it's 'advising him' not telling him what to do!

It's nice to be needed. It's also kind of cool when your kids realize a: you're human, and b: sometimes you really do know what you're talking about because you've been there, done that.

By the way, speaking of being way grown up - my lovely daughter and her husband have decided to make me a g...gr.....grandmother! Come February-ish, I'm going to have to get used to that name. While I do not look or feel like a g..gr..grandmother, I'm ecstatic that such a happy, joyous, miraculous thing is going on in my daughter and I can't -wait- to spoil that child rotten.

However, never, ever forget (say it): I'm 26 in my head.

A legacy of sillies

So this morning I was running late, and zipped into the kitchen to grab some breakfast for the road: a banana, a yogurt, and a ziploc bag of mini-wheats. Hey, don't judge me, that's fairly well rounded. As I ripped open the new box of cereal something in the box made me stop and breathe, 'OOHH!'

My 19 yr old son (the older one) rounds the corner to the kitchen, all six beautiful feet of him, and stares at me, puzzled. 'What, Mom?'

My eyes alight, I hold up the treasure from the cereal box: a Star Trek flashlight thingy that LOOKS LIKE A COM BADGE. *cue heavenly music* I haven't been this thrilled with a box toy since I found the light-saber spoon in my younger son's Frosted Flakes.

Now this kid, er young man, is a tall, lean blond with a friendly face. He's a biker/skier/runner/hiker without an ounce of body fat on him. He's currently dressed in spandex or lycra or something like that - a form fitting, nicely put together ensemble of red & black including helmet and sunglasses. He looks like, well, a real bicyclist - you know, the serious ride-350-miles-for-the-hell-of-it kind. And that's exactly what he is. So this athletic stud stares at the thing I'm holding up in his face and...he giggles. At me or the toy, I don't know, but he giggled and I giggled, we giggled together.

That's what I love about my kids (well one of many things). I -LOVE- their sense of humor. These big tall men (the younger is 6'5") are funny as all get out. One day I made dinner with peas as a side. My younger son is picky about veggies (at least he eats them now, when he was a li'l guy he avoided anything green, unlike his brother who was and is a total health food nut). He moaned about the peas, I said something like "eat them!" and silence ensued. I was at the computer while he finished his dinner and soon I felt his presence behind me. I turned and he was standing there, holding out his plate. It was still full of peas, but they'd been herded into the shape of a frowny face. I busted up laughing, relayed the story to some friends online, and from then on when they asked about my kids, they'd ask how 'Frowny-Peas' was doing.

When they were little guys, they were always doing interesting and funny things. They were 3 & 5 when I let them play with spices & stuff in the kitchen. There were like little mad-scientists. Next thing I knew they were trying to make a bomb in the heater vent using baking soda and curry powder (hey, it smells powerful). I couldn't get the aroma of curry out of my house for weeks. The older one took up calling the younger one "butthead" briefly till we told him he couldn't say that - so he made up his own word, something like "pingkonk" which he used for quite awhile when perturbed. I have pictures of them running around with balloons shoved up their shirts and down their pants - they looked like hunchbacks with huge badonkadonks, it was hysterical.

One day, as I collapsed in giggles at some antic, I asked 'Where did you get those sillies?' My youngest pointed at me and said, 'We got them from YOU!'

It's the highest compliment I've ever received.