She bought me oranges roses and some…

I love my sister. Even when her heart is broken, she extends act of kindness to other. For example, just a few days ago while feeling lonely she went garden shopping. As she’s there she give me a call and as we talk she tells me about the amazing sale going on. Then she asks me what I would be interested in. I tell her I’d love some orange or yellow roses, or vegetables for my garden.

A few hours later she shows up at the door, walks me to the trunk of her car and tells me to pick one of the 3 flower bushes (except the purple one) she has in her trunk. I pick the lighter orange one and then she hands me two tomato plants too. I ask her how much I owe her and she says, “Nothing” and she meant it. To pay her would offend her.

I know my sister is struggling financially it was very sweet of her to do. Now when I look at my orange roses I think of m y sister and how much I love her.

Sometimes Its Okay To Sit Back and Relax

If ever there is a day like today when I don’t have to do anything, nothing at all, I feel guilty and lazy. Why is it that I feel guilty? Is it possible to have a day off. A day like today when I really don’t have anything that needs to be done (other than taking care of my kids and cooking for us). I don’t have assignments to do. I don’t have to take the kids anywhere. I don’t have to pay bills or go to work… I can do whatever I choose to do. Today I chose to tend to my vegetable garden. This is a garden I love but have little time to tend to so I took pleasure in doing so today. When the sun barely began to beat down on my back I choose to come inside. I was done. I’ve washed a few loads of laundry but the folding still needs to be done. Instead of folding it today I have left it on the sofa to do tomorrow. Sure I did dishes too, but I chose to. I didn’t have too. During lunch I chose to allow my family and myself to eat in front of the television to watch tv and eat. I told myself when lunch was done I and the girls would sit down, relax and watch tv for the rest of the day, but when I sat down to do it I began to feel guilty. I am always trying to catch up with all the work I have to do. How can I sit back and watch tv? There are people that never ever get a break. I am fortunate to have a break so…. shouldn’t I enjoy it? Why do I feel so guilty? Why am I on the computer right now trying to catch up? Shouldn’t I be on the sofa with my kids spending time with them as we watch tv. Sure we could do something educational and productive but we do this almost every day of the week. Doesn’t a person need to give their mind and body a break so they can keep going when needed. Maybe the reason I came down with a cold that took me forever to recover from was because I didn’t take a break… I’m thinking to much about it. I just need to go take a break.

He Wants Me To Help Him dye His Hair

My husband has been complaining about his balding and gray hair for sometime now, but it wasn’t until he found out strangers thought he was in his forties that he began to want to dye his hair. I told him these are teenagers and teenagers can’t tell a 30 year old from a 40 year old. Still he’s obsessed with this. He thinks he wont be able to find a job as a pilot if he looks older than he is. So, yesterday while shopping at Kroger they had a manager special section filled with items 75% off. He happened to stumble upon it before I did and he asked me to come over and I did. There in baskets there were plenty of hair dying kits for women. I pointed that out to him, “These are for woman”. He said, “Hair is hair. Right?” I said, “I don’t know. I don’t die my hair”. He said, “But you have in the past”. I said, “In high school… once”. I went to high school almost 15 years ago. Despite my lack of knowledge of hair dying he still expected me to know more than him, but I had no idea. Fortunately, two women in front of us knew more than us and they suggested a box or two to try.

At home that evening, he asked me to help him dye his hair. I hesitated. I feared making him look like a fool again. He said I was tramatized and he smiled. He was referring to a time when he and I were younger and I was trying to find a way to save money everywhere, including haircuts. So we bought a hair clipping kit and I spent several months cutting his hair the best I could, except the best wasn’t good enough. His hair was often uneven and… not so pretty. One day he came home with a nice hair cut and before I could say anything he told me his military boss told him he needed to get a professional haircut. He felt bad and I was so embarrassed. That’s when I gave up trying to cut his hair. Now he wants me to dye his hair. I don’t want him to dye his hair. I like his gray hair. And I definetly don’t want to make him look worse than he thinks he looks helping him do it. Still he’s my husband and he’s asked me for help. That is what I will do. Wish me luck!

We Made Good Use Of The Picture Frames

Today, I decided it was time to get down and crafty so the girls, my husband and I began to help the girls frame their artwork with the new used frames we bought at the resale shop the other day. Take a look at the picture below.

This is only the beginning. We have many frames to fill. The best part about it all, my daughters really appreciate and enjoy having their artwork framed.  Oh! I almost forgot to mention… all of the art was made with recycled/reusued gift boxes, gift wrap, or recycled printing paper. I made sure to point this out to my daughters.

More art work we did this month!

The hearts Valentine cards for my daughters’ friends where homemade with recycled paper and then colored with crayons by my girls. They loved this project. The picture with the seeds are our homemade seedling pots out of newspaper, halfway filled with soil, added seeds and then I took a picture before we put more dirt in. So far so good. We’ve seen a few, especially the soybeans (not in the picture) take root.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

I Didn’t Realize

I didn’t realize it has been this long since I last posted. I have been so mentally and physically preoccupied that Goria’s Place was in the farthest part of my minds these past few weeks. It wasn’t on purpose. It was an accident. Many things have slipped my mind lately. This happens when I’m overwhelmed for whatever reason. This time it seems my personal issues are slipping back and exercise or not there is only so much I can do to fight it, so despite the fact that today was a very very good day, the past few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions, self doubt and self hatred and then one day just happy and filled with hope. My husband and I were discussing late last night if I should go back to counceling since earlier that evening I experienced a panic attack. I wont go into details… to be honest I’m still uncomfortable with sharing too much online, but I will share this….the cost of co-payments and month insurance payments make it very difficult to get help even when I realize I need and want it. Isn’t that ironic?

Health insurance is there to help us in times of illness and instead…. I find myself avoiding doctors because I can’t afford to unless it’s an emergency. It sucks. It really really really sucks, but I keep telling myself at least my family has someone with a job and through that we can have insurance. I tell myself at least we aren’t like Haiti were they don’t even have clean water or enough doctors to help the ill. I tell myself at least we can feed our children. There are people here and all over the world who can’t feed their children. It breaks my heart.

So today was a good day and here I am and my children at the dining room table cutting out pictures from magazines I gave them to make collages and mosaics. They enjoy this type of craft the most and it’s easy for me to show them. All it takes is there imagination, some scissors, glue and recyclable material. If only parenting could always be that easy. Eventually I plan to gather several of their crafts and other artwork and frame it, but as always I’m a procrastinator. I need to learn to do crafty things as soon as I think of them or it will be months before they happen if at all. On my list this week: buy picture frames at resale shops to frame art work- my daughter inspired me to finally do this for reals when she told me in a round about way as a seven year old can that our house is dull. She even suggested drawing some pictures so we could hang them on the wall so they wouldn’t be so white. Poor girl. She is stuck with a mom who doesn’t have a knack for home decor. The second thing I plan to do this week is to make homemade seedling pots for our garden. Third I need to post my Squidoo blessing, and then do all the my usual stuff I do for work and home. Will I get these done……we’ll see.

These Are Our Kids Not Yours

My husband’s family thinks we are strange because we wont post pictures of our kids on the internet. They made it a point to tell us that if someone really wanted to steal our identity or get pictures of our kids they could easily do it. They used Google map as an example of technology anyone could use to get a clear picture of  this house (we were at my mother-in-laws at the time) if they wanted to.

I’ll admit they’re right to a certain point, but my question/point is (though I chose not to argue with them instead I am venting now), why make it easier for the criminals. Does the accessibility of Google and other technology mean we should just allow criminals and perverts to invade our lives. In that case, why not just leave our front door open, or leave my purse with all my family’s identification in an open car or better yet why not hand the crooks and perverts our IDs and keys to our home so they can come in and go as they please. Why not just donate our belongings to the thieves. After all they can snatch it from us behind our backs and sometimes in front of our faces with a gun applied any time they want. If someone really wanted to they could find out what kind of family I have reading through my blogs, picking up on hints here and there. Does this mean I should just give up and post an entry with all our identification? No!

Just because technology makes it easy for perverts and crooks to get a hold of our personal and private lives a lot easier than before doesn’t mean we should just give up and put our guards down. We must still do what we can to protect our children and ourselves. We must fight against crime, because there is crime out there. I’m not making this up and I’m not paranoid either. Ask any police officers and criminal investigators and they will tell you its the truth. They must live with seeing it everyday. They are the ones that deal with it all so that the rest of us can live our happy naive lives in safety/denial.

Will we always win the fight against crime? No, but at least we know we tried, at least we know we made a strong effort to fight back. At least we know that if we go down we go down fighting. They can’t always win either and they don’t.

Does this mean posting pictures of my children on the internet puts my children in danger? Probably not, but the way I see it why take a chance. Does this mean not posting pictures of my kids will keep them out of danger? This is not predictable either, but to me it seems like the most logical step right now is to not post their pictures, at least while they’re young. When they’re older I may post their baby pictures online. Maybe months from now I’ll change my mind and go crazy with pictures of my family online. So many people do it, but if and when I or my husband do it it will be on our terms when we choose to and feel it is appropriate, not because everyone else is doing it or judging us for not doing it

In the end the internet is our universal social gathering. Maybe the best thing to do for my children is display as many pictures of my children as I can so that they are so recognizable to everyone around the world no one will try anything against them, like the guy that gives his social security number to everyone so no one can steal his identity because his identity is so well-known no one can steal it without getting caught.

In the mean time my husband and I continue to choose to keep my kids pictures and names off the internet. These are our kids and no one else’s. We know what is best for our kids. We are after all their parents. Other parent’s can choose to do with their kids what they see fit and for those people who have never had kids but feel they know better……until you have kids I love you, but you can’t possible understand.

Magnetic Love Notes

Yesterday, I read a note on the fridge made with magnetic words that read “she real funny and me want body”.  It made me smile. My husband had to have left that note sometime between the day before or yesterday early afternoon. I was tempted to call him at work, but knew it was rush hour and he would be busy. I will have to wait and let him know I got the message.

I love it when he leaves me these notes. It tempts me to buy more of these magnetic words. The ones we have now I received a few years ago in the mail from Dove. I had them packed away until this year when I just grabbed them and placed on the fridge. Before I knew it he was leaving me messages. Then I left messages back. Unfortunately, for some reason we just stopped leaving each other messages for a few weeks. Maybe it was because we were limited on magnetic words and said all we could say with them. He must have finally thought of something new to say this time. Now it is my turn.

Saturday Was a Long Rewarding Day

The day began early in the morning. We should have prepared the night before, but as always we didn’t. Instead our morning began in chaos. I kept telling my kids to hurry and my husband and I were too tired to know what we were doing. Still we made it on time to the pool and registered for the swim meet. It was as busy and as crowded and as hot as we were told it would be. Had it not been for a few nice parents and their wonderful tent we would not have had any shade. Despite the heat (yes we used sunblock lotion banana Boat Kids for my girls and Neutrogena Pure and Free Baby for my baby) and the long day, my husband and I came home super proud parents.

We told both our girls it was up to them if they wanted to compete. My youngest wasn’t sure, but at the last minute she decided yes. The registration person wrote 18 on her arm and my daughter smiled at me. My other daughter wasn’t on the list. After some time the problem was fixed and she was registered by the coach for 3 races. I was surprised as well as nervous.

I think we waited about 2 hours before my youngest finally had her turn. I stood nervously near by.  I didn’t think she would jump, but she did. In fact she jumped ahead of time. She and my husband had a disagreement. I previously told her she didn’t have to stand on the step. This was allowed for young nonswimmers. She could stand beside and jump. He didn’t know I had told her this so when I moved around to take the picture he told her she had to stand on the step. I waved to help him understand, but before he could she jumped in. One of her swim instructors pulled her out and helped her back up next to the step. Then when the bell rang she jumped in again and swam, held on to the rope, swam, rope, swam, rope, rope and kick, rope and kick and so on. When she got about half way she turned towards where my husband stood earlier (before he walked to the other side of the pool to meet her). When she didn’t see him she began to cry and held on to the rope as tight as she could.

The coach asked me if I wanted him to pull her out. I said, “Yes please!” So he motioned to the other instructor that pulled her out the first time and he went in after her again, but instead of pulling her out, he helped her swim the rest of the way. At the end she was given a ribbon.

Everyone was so nice and cheered. They told her what a great job she did. My husband and I did the same, but we couldn’t help but feel guilty for letting her race so soon. Soon after my youngest was helped out it was my oldest daughter’s turn to go. I was nervous again. I could tell she was nervous too. The bell rang and she went in. Wow! I was shocked. She did great! She was so happy to make 4th place too. Her biggest concern the whole week was that she would be last. We just kept telling her it didn’t matter if she was. All that mattered was that she did her best. She definitely did.

Soon after we had a snack and then we waited again for her second race. It was a hot wait on concrete floor. Her second race was breaststroke. I found it odd that the coaches would sign her up for this when she hadn’t learned this style. Still she jumped in and did her best. Again she did well. She was amazing by her third race. The joy that shined on her face was wonderful. She loved this and I loved that she loved it. By 1pm we were finally done.

We came home tired, but had a birthday party to attend. It was my daughter’s friend’s party who just happened to be our neighbor two house down as well as her classmate. The party was enjoyable. These people were just like us, but a few years older. To think we’ve lived next to each other all these years and this was the first time we had visited their house. All we have shared was an occasional hello or a front yard conversation here and there. They did help me during Ike and came to meet my baby when he was born. Our children have also played together many times before….

We decided later to go out and eat dinner with them. We were the last at the party. We ate Chinese and our kids combined made a mess any restaurant would fear. It isn’t easy eating out with kids, but it was nice to eat out with nice people.