postaday

Let’s Play a Game

 

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” ~ Richard Bach

“Let’s play a game”

Generally in my house, that phrase holds within in a realm of possibilities. With three kids and a husband who all have a slightly vicious competitive streak, playing games can be a fun family past time or a declaration of war.

If I am playing with my husband, it is on the XBox. I will be honest-I suck at video games. I was never a true “gamer” nor did I ever attempt to be, but my husband loves his Call of Duty games and so, I will try to oblige him by playing with him. It usually ends with me almost throwing the controller while yelling “I don’t give a damn. It’s just a GAME!!!” while he fusses at me for not trying hard enough. I mean, jeez…I grew up on Nintendo and Atari. All these new fangled buttons on the XBox controller gets me flustered.

With my kids, I play on the Wii. We play MarioKart or bowling and yes, I still suck at these games, too. I will play a few rounds of MarioKart but after that, I am gamed out. My hand eye coordination is just not there. The girls aren’t so interested in playing video games, but if I ask them to play with me, they will. Or if they want to play and ask me to join, I will.

Now, board and card games are a completely different story for me. I will play some board and games and I will kick your booty. At least, I will try my damnedest. Monoploy? I will bankrupt you with hotels. Uno? I will make you lose a turn or draw cards. Checkers? King me! I love the old school games where you have to actually speak with each other to play the game. Pushing a few buttons on a controller is far less satisfying to me than knowing I will collect $2500 from you in rent because you landed on Park Place and I have hotels all over that bitch and that will bankrupt you and I will win. (Maybe that is where they get that competitive streak!)

Participation in their lives is important. Showing my husband that yes, I will at least try to play a game with him tells him I care about what he does. Showing my kids that yes, you can beat me at a game and the world will not end helps them see that playing for fun is acceptable and not everything has to be about who wins. And letting my kids in on the fun that I had growing up playing board and card games is so fulfilling. I feel as though I am teaching them secret skills that their friends might not ever learn given the current youth obsession with everything digital and/or electronic.

Quality time with family is important. Taking time out of your day or week to really spend time with your family is paramount to building and maintaining those strong bonds. A family dinner, followed by a family game. Or movie. Or outing. But doing things together…THAT is what is important. THAT is what my kids will remember.

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” ~Michael J. Fox

Respite

In the vastness of this land

I walked alone

Broken

Battered

Bruised

Stumbling over obstacles as I searched for meaning in the dust

Your heart’s fire was a beacon

Your soul’s light was a signal

Calling to my starving spirit

Beckoning me home

Your warmth a comfort

Your touch nourishment

Your words the water to satisfy my thirst

I found what I was searching for in the dry, unforgiving dust

With you, I am alive

With you, I flourish

 

Failure is Okay

“Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.” ~Mia Hamm
This is a hard topic. I know there are harder topics out there…but this is hard.

Parenting is hard. I love my kids. I would bend over backwards for them, kill for them, die for them. I love how intelligent they are. They have this way of just knowing, even if I don’t say anything, if I am having a bad day or feeling a bit down. But this current situation is hard and it hurts and I feel, as a mother, as though I have failed my son.

My son. My son is a smart, funny, compassionate, sweet, adorable, goofy, distracted, geeky, nerdy but in a cute way, suffering from ADD teenager. Honestly he is so much more than that, but I am not here to wax poetic about how amazing my kid is (which he is). My son is dealing with some school stuff that we have all been struggling with since the first day, honestly. As a parent, it is my job to push him, to challenge him, to make sure he understands how to follow through with his responsibilities. Follow through at school is such a struggle for him. With his ADD, medicine might help…or it might turn him into a zombie with no appetite again and that is the last thing we need. But he gets distracted. forgets things. Loses track of when items are due. No amount of organization attempts have really helped him. School meetings, action plans, parent/teacher conferences…nothing seems to help.

We did home based online school for a while. At his request, I re-enrolled him into public school as he missed the social aspect of it. We were confident after his semester in a home school situation, with his grades up, he would be great in public school. We were wrong. He has struggled since the beginning. And we are facing a bitter truth: this won’t be the year he passes this grade level. At least, that is what it is looking like.

Failure is a bitter pill to swallow. Thinking back over everything that could have been done as a parent, and realizing you did everything you could only to end up with the outcome you were dreading and trying to prevent is a very frustrating experience. And as defeated as I feel, I can only imagine how defeated my son must feel. This directly affects HIM. In the past, I would simply make the decision I thought best for him and be done with it. As his father and I are divorced, and as my kids live with me, I would make that ultimate decision and not accept feedback from his father or anything else. But I need support on this. I need back up. I need to know I am not the only one frustrated with this situation and I am not the only one grasping at straws trying to help my son. So I made that hard phone call to his father, who is well aware of our son’s struggles, and I am dreading his response.

I don’t do conflict well.

Failure is scary. It hurts, stings, reminds you of your fallibility and that sometimes, things don’t always work out the way we want them to. I refuse to look at this as a dead end, though, This is not the end for my son. He has many years of school, mistakes, proud moments, failures, and successes left to him. My job, as his parent, is to encourage and support him through all of these moments. His failures are not my failures and his successes are not my successes. But I can love him through all of it and that is the best, as his mom and biggest cheerleader, that I can do.

 

“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” C. S. Lewis

Praise Nature and Pass the Technology

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

The weekend was pleasant enough, but Sunday was the best day by far. The day was filled with friends, simple entertainment, and nature.

Nature is my church. Nature is where my heart and spirit soar free, flying through the fresh air, dancing in and out through the foliage, splashing in the rushing waters of the rivers and lakes, dashing through the warm fingers of sunlight and the cool shadows of the leaves and trees. Nature is my zen, my happy place, my nirvana. It is in nature that I worship. We spent hours at the park, scrabbling around near the river, walking the paths near the mill, enjoying each other’s company. It was easy to forget the call of the world beyond. It was easy to drown out the unpleasantness from the previous week, letting go of all of the cares of the world and just simply BE.

I did things that frightened me. Not that they were dangerous or risky, unless you call falling in cool water on a hot day a risk. I’m not young anymore. My abilities to balance aren’t what they used to be. We walked an old rock wall near an old mill whose site was turned into a park. (That’s me in the front) I had to have great balance and the butterflies in my stomach were immensely busy fluttering, but I swallowed my fears and walked the wall. And then another. But that time, my husband held my hand, to reassure himself as well as me that I was safe, secure, and looked after.

balancing

This photo was taken by a friend. I’m in the front.

I took pictures of the old train trestle and tracks.

We enjoyed the interesting and colorful urban art that was on the cement stanchions and walls.

I saw my kids run and play and climb and be kids. We had a good time, a good day, and we plan on going back and doing more of the same with other added activities, like kayaking and maybe even a picnic.

Other than the use of my phone to take the pictures, I didn’t post to facebook. I didn’t tweet my photos. I recorded the memories, as I should, and put my phone back in my pocket to enjoy the moment. This time was too precious to miss.

My husband often says, when he is angry and impatient with a business, his time is precious. Truth be told, all of our time is precious. No one’s time is less costly than anothers. And the time we miss with our family and friends, the time we give to facebook and instagram and our phones and texting and tweeting…all of that time is time we will never get back. Technology has become a time-suck, a sneaky villain that wriggles in under the guise of helpfulness and takes bites out of our lives that we barely pay attention to, all the while complaining that there isn’t enough time in the day to do A, B, and C. Yet, the irony is if we paid half as much attention to what we really need to do as we do to our phones and facebook and technology, then we would probably get everything we need to do done.

I still love technology, don’t get me wrong. I love my phone, my tablet, my laptop. They all serve their purposes quite well. They keep me in contact with my friends, family, and coworkers. They help me to stay abreast of news. They entertain me when I am sick in bed, having insomnia, or stuck watching a tv show picked by my kids that makes me want to shove pencils in my eyes. But I am seeing more and more a need to take a step back from it so I can get back to what really matters in life. Because the less attention I pay to the time I spend with technology, the more I am giving up time with friends and loved ones. I have to feed what is important. I have to know when enough technology is enough.

Family is important.

Friends are important.

Worshiping nature is important.

Technology can wait.

“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”
― Vincent van Gogh

Life Gets In The Way of Good Intentions

“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Yesterday was a complete cluster-fuck. I had zero time to carve out for blogging, my daughter had her end of the year chorus concert, work was I N S A N E…I am still exhausted. BUT, Everything I needed to complete for work was done. I met my deadlines.

I had every intention of hammering out a blog for my post a day challenge. I had every intention of writing some well thought out, meaningful, insightful piece and I just couldn’t. I didn’t have the time. I didn’t have the energy. I didn’t have the words to properly convey everything I wanted to, despite having this window open and staring at me during my teeny tiny moments of freedom I did manage to sneak.

An empty page. A frazzled brain. That is all I accomplished with my blog yesterday. I am okay with that, though. I’m a mom. An office manager. A wife. An assistant, a shipping coordinator, and event planner and so many other things. And yesterday, I did all of those things. At once. My busy life got in the way of my good intentions. Even after my day was almost complete, I still had to let personal things slide because the day was just too short to try and accomplish anything else. I fell into bed, wiped out, put on something soothing to listen to  so I could sleep while my husband watched Mountain Men and drifted off into his own needed rest. It was just one of those days.

Yesterday I did manage to reconnect with a friend I haven’t spoken to in a while. We made plans to try and get together for lunch at some point. She had reached out through Facebook, stating she had been a bad friend because of her absence in my life. I told her life gets in the way. And from there we made plans. But it is true. Life gets in the way. We get so caught up in our own shit, so consumed by it that we walk around, missing out on the people and the crazy, chaotic, wonderful things that surround us. We lose ourselves in the mire of everyday normality, forgetting that variety and experiences are the spice of life and in order to do that, we have to actually LIVE. We have to stop the zombie-esque shuffle from one task to the next and actually get out of our comfort zone and experience new things, meet new people, feel new emotions. We have to start living intentionally and making the most of what we have.

So, step by step, I am going to start to try living intentionally. This is not a “Resolution”, but merely an attempt at being more present in my own life. This will lead to me being more present in others lives, ie kids, husband, friends.

Life goals.

The struggle is real.

“Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make us.”
― Richie Norton

 

A Lesson In Courtesy

“Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.” Theodore Roosevelt
My husband and I had a last minute date night last night. We were fortunate enough to be gifted some amazing tickets to see the Brave play the Phillies and the seats were amazing. Well…they would have been amazing had the seat stealers actually moved back to where they were supposed to sit. No matter. We sat just a few seats down and the seats were still amazing. We were in left field, in the home run ball zone, and my husband was beyond tickled. It was an amazing night, the weather was perfect, and all we had to pay for was the parking and our food and drink and souvenirs.

And then they sat down. A group of young, beautiful people. Who were, for a lack of better words, shitty drunk. High pitched voices of the women pierced our ears, disturbing the quiet murmuring of the crowds around us. Incessant drunken conversation that stemmed around the procuring of more alcohol. Knees hitting chairs, loud and unnecessary chatter…honestly it reminded me of that scene from Mean Girls. All of the vapid, meaningless name dropping of the camera men to try and get on tv since the game was televised combined with the drunken yammering was enough to kill the mood for us. My husband moved us. Twice. (No worries…unfortunately for the Braves the stands weren’t filled so we weren’t taking anyone’s seats.) We managed to get far enough away from the drunkards to satisfy my husband.

As we sat back in our newly acquired seats, we were able to relax and watch the game. We held hands, kissed, talked about the players and the obvious mistakes in the plays. We marveled at the perfection of the weather and the night, how amazing it would be to do this again as a date night and how much fun the kids would have going to a game. The look on my husbands face as he watched the game was priceless. And to think, all of his happiness at being at Turner Field could have been taken away by a handful of discourteous attendees. I took a picture of the back of their heads and ranted on instagram about them.

obnoxious ballgame people

“Thank you, drunk and obnoxious attendees of tonight’s Braves game. Because of your ridiculous and incessant prattle, we had to actually leave our seats. Just because you are young doesn’t give you the license to drink irresponsibly, talk loudly for the ENTIRE section to hear, and detract from the entire experience around you. Be wary of how you present yourselves in public, for you never know if the people you irritate are the ones looking at your resumes.”

And then I thought of all the times my behavior may have been seen as discourteous or rude. Instead of washing myself in all of the guilty feelings and wallowing in my ignorance, I took a step back and thought about something my dad has always said. ‘Where their rights begin, yours end.’ It has taken a long time for me to know what that means to me and how to apply it in my life. I can’t expect people to do what I want them to do all of the time. I’m not their keeper nor am I their mother and if what they are doing is bothering me, I have a choice on how to handle it. I can either speak up and make my discomfort known, which can lead to arguments when alcohol is involved, OR I can make the choice to remove myself from the situation. Last night, my husband made that choice to remove us both from an uncomfortable situation without causing a scene or making a fuss. And for that I am grateful. I am grateful that his courteous behavior removed from the company of discourteous people.

Life really is what you make of it. You can roll with it, rage against it, or remain stagnant and allow it to over take you. Last night, we rolled with it. Last night we learned more life lessons.  And last night was a good lesson on how to handle rude behavior without even saying a word.

“Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.” John Wanamaker

Alarm Clocks and Power Outages

“If age teaches you anything, then one of its lessons is certainly not to hurry if you’re already late….”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

Let’s face it. No one likes Mondays. For the majority of the population, Monday mornings mean an end to a much needed weekend, a start to a long hard week at work, going back to school…basically unpleasantness. Monday mornings can signify unpleasantness.

In my house, Monday mornings are always a hit or miss. Lately, we, my family and I, have been doing well. We get up on time, get ourselves out the door without much issue, everyone catching the bus or getting to school and work on time. Yesterday was a total miss.

Storms have been pretty prominent in our area and on Sunday night or early Sunday morning, we had a power outage/surge that reset all of the clocks. Now, had this been a weekend, no one would have cared. But no, this happened on a Sunday. At *MY* house.

Roll over, looks at phone (which is on silent so I can sleep): Holy SHIT! It’s 7:30!!!

I jump out of bed, go wake the children. Youngest missed the bus…and is gonna be late. Again. Fuck.

Commence to running around trying to get ready while refereeing two preteen daughters and a teenage son over bathroom rights and how we all need to keep our hands to ourselves (yes…we STILL have to remind them of that).

All kids get ready in record time. Dog is walked and fed. Kids are dressed. Coffee is done.

Get out the door, get youngest to school, sign her in.

Get oldest to school (not late…SCORE!)

Get middle one to school. She swears she is late. I beg to differ. So far, I seem to be the correct individual.

Then it is my turn to sit in traffic. I finally make it to work 45 minutes later than I usually do and the day just seems to snowball into one giant mess.

It’s funny, really. Waking up late can throw your whole day into a tailspin from the moment your feet hit the floor. My routine was disrupted. The kids were arguing. My day at work was long and tedious and I was grumpy about EVERYTHING. I was mad at my husband for being himself, mad at stupid customer service people who weren’t going fast enough for me, mad at co-workers for asking me questions that only I could answer, mad at myself for being a bitch. But it was no one’s fault. No one was to blame for any of it. It was a fluke, a sometimes these things happen situation, the proverbial “Act of God”. (I am in no way  a traditionally religious person, but the turn of phrase seems to fit.) And this one small upset threw off the entire day.

Today is better. Today was an on time day. I even had time to stop for a Starbucks! But yesterday was just bad. Granted, it could have happened on any day, but it didn’t. It happened on a Monday. So I shall be more wary of Mondays having learned this hard lesson. I shall set back up alarms on my phone. I shall make sure the kids have back up alarms as well. I shall lay out my clothes for Monday mornings on Sunday night and make sure everything is set out for the kids as well.

Lessons, even small ones, should never be taken for granted. And yesterday was a hard lesson to learn. Mondays can never be trusted.

“Monday, Monday. Can’t trust that day.” The Mamas & The Papas

Baby Steps

“No, this is not the beginning of a new chapter in my life; this is the beginning of a new book! That first book is already closed, ended, and tossed into the seas; this new book is newly opened, has just begun! Look, it is the first page! And it is a beautiful one!”
― C. JoyBell C.

I will try to start and end these posts with a quote. But no promises.

It’s Monday and I am frantically pounding out these words as I struggle to make all the jumbled mess of half thought through ideas form and congeal to make some sort of sense. I have started and stopped a half dozen different blogs. Each one trying to be something I thought the reader would want rather than what I really want to write. And each time, I stopped writing. Not because I wasn’t interested in what I was writing…strike that. It was because I was too interested in being the kind of writer I thought people wanted. Brilliant, witty, firmly planted in the soil of my convictions, hoping to grow a readership writing about shit I had no business writing about because the experience needed to actually write well about those topics was barely there and not seriously taken.

“Write about what you know” is a phrase I have heard and read so often I am beginning to associate it with the “P” word that I hated so much growing up-“Potential”.  “You have so much POTENTIAL” they would tell me, frowning as they looked at my grades, wondering where my head was. I was an A B C student. I liked A’s…but they were never as important to me as they were to my parents. But that word, potential, was shoved down my throat for my entire school career…potential to get scholarships, potential to letter, potential to be something great…wait…why am I not already “great”? I wasn’t a bad kid. I participated in normal crazy teen aged antics, but I never got myself in so much trouble like some kids I knew. My brother was a track and cross country star and apple of my mothers eye. My sister was a straight A student who could do no wrong. I was the one who didn’t seem to fit anywhere…but I had “potential”.

Today I find myself uttering those same words to my children and I understand a parents frustration, MY parent’s frustration, in knowing how much your child can accomplish only to watch them seemingly waste it on frivolous things. But…I haven’t been a child in almost 20 years so perspectives have changed. But sitting here, I realize something that I never realized before. My fear of not meeting their expectations, my fear of their belief in my “potential” strangled me in a way that only hurt me. And I still do things like this today.

My point is all of this is that I will no longer write so that I might please a set group of readers who have beliefs or expectations about my potential as a writer. I know I am a good writer. Now, I need to do what I love best and actually write.

“There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.”
― John Steinbeck