P.S. I Love You

Last week I spent the whole week with Jason and the younger three kids in Greenville. We came back on Saturday and spent the weekend as a family until Monday. Monday morning Jason went back to Greenville and Stephie headed off to camp. I have to admit, I was a bit depressed on Monday. After spending all week with Jason it hurt to have to say goodbye, and after being apart from Stephie for the week I wasn't ready to say goodbye again!
I decided it was time to treat myself! What better way to cheer up a depressed spirit than to go out and rent some chick flicks! Knowing Jason would not be around in the evenings and there is hardly a good thing on TV these days...I rented 3 new movies. The three movies were as follows: Definitely Maybe, P.S. I Love You, and Fools Gold.
Tuesday night I watched Definitely Maybe. The movie was okay. Nothing great, nothing really bad, just a movie and I guess escape from reality. Sort of disappointing but at least I didn't pay to see it in the theater.
Wednesday night I watched P.S. I Love You! Wow! I totally LOVED this movie! I cried and cried and laughed and just got wrapped up in this great love story! Not near as sad as The Notebook but still a great movie. If Jason will endure it I might just make him watch it once he gets home this weekend!
Thursday night will be Fools Gold but Jason will be home to watch that one with me, yay! I think there will be enough action in it and maybe a little love to keep us both entertained.
Anyway, I just wanted to let all you hopeless romantics (like me) know that P.S I Love You is a Great movie! Go out and rent it and then bring some Kleenex and be prepared to cry!
What is it about me that makes me love a movie that makes me cry? When I was younger my all time favorite movie (and still is to this day) was/is Dead Poets Society. I used to watch that movie and cry every single time. When those boys stood on their desks at the end and said, "Oh captain, my captain!" Ohhh, tears every time. My older sister used to torture me and sit with the remote on rewind just to hear them say, "Oh captain, my captain" and watch the tears continue! Inspirational! Ahhhh!
Now I sit at home all alone and watch the movies that make those tears come again. And what makes me like them so much? I think it must be therapeutic or something! I don't know! What I do know is that it felt good to be swept away, sucked into another time, another love story and cry for the hurts of other people! It made me wish so badly that my Jason was home and sitting on the couch with me to kiss away the tears once the movie was over! Ahhhh, love it is a beautiful thing! With all it's raw honesty, hurts, laughs, and comforts. It's what every girl dreams about from the time she is 4!
It was a great evening! Me, my glass of wine, and 2 hours worth of crying while I watched a movie! What more could a girl ask for? Besides knowing that my hubby is coming home in less than 24 hours! Yay!
But really, go rent that movie!
I loved it so much I had to blog about it! :-)

Allergies

Life has been so crazy lately. Remember my post about being so busy this summer? Well it has come to fruition and we have been crazy busy. First Jason's mom and sisters family came to visit and stay with us for about 4 days. It was crazy having an extra 7 people in the house but we survived. After they left we got a visit from some friends of our from Florida. We had a GREAT time with all our company but it has just kept us busy.
Unfortunately, in the middle of all of this business Ethan broke out with the worst case of hives I have ever seen. The poor guy was miserable and I was just beside myself because nothing we were doing to help him was helping. We finally took him to an allergist who switched his medications and did some blood work to test for things that may have caused the outbreak. The nurse called me today and informed me that he has the following allergies and should avoid these things until our Doctor appointment next week:
Any kind of nut
Grass
Eggs
Corn
Dog and Cat Dander
Soybeans
Fire ant bites
Oh and they are prescribing an epi pen just to be on the safe side because nut allergies can sometime be dangerous. YIKES! We have an appointment to go in next week and talk with the Doctor more to figure out what this all means and how it will affect our lives. I don't know what we are going to do though, this is the kid that lives off of Peanut Butter and Jelly along with eggs for breakfast and lunch. I guess the egg allergy is not that bad but I won't know more until next week. Just crazy ya'all, really crazy!
Hopefully we won't have to make any drastic changes since he has been eating, corn, eggs, and peanut butter for the past week and has yet to have another reaction. But I will keep you updated. I have never had to deal with food allergies before....not looking forward to this next "adventure"!

I'm back!

Oh dear friends, we have had such a good week! My parents were here and we took the kids to Disney World for 3 days. This was the first time we have attempted to take all 4 kids and do more than just one park and multiple days. The kids did great but I must say, you could tell they were tired on the 2nd and 3rd day as compared to the first.

My dad was able to go on some roller coasters and despite my own fears he did great! I was so worried about him and his heart. I don't care if the Dr. said he can go on roller coasters, he just had a heart attack! But he was fine! Nicholas got to go on Rock and Roller Coaster which goes upside down. (see above for picture). Check out this picture....Stephie was scared out of her mind, I was giggling like a little girl, Jason looks worried and Nicholas seems to just be enjoying the ride! How ingenious is Disney to take pictures of you while riding and then sell them to you! As if the park doesn't make enough money on you! Brilliant! :-)

After Disney, Jason went back to work and my parents and I just hung out around home. It sounds boring but really it was just so nice to relax, sleep in, and do nothing. My mom and the girls made some cookies one day, we went grocery shopping another day and my parents took me to Sam's (since I no longer have a membership). We never went into Savannah or to the beach but we still had a great time. To be honest, after 3 days at Disney, my parents were slightly worn out! :-)

After my parents left on Friday Jason got back home from Greenville and we just had the best weekend ever! Again we did a lot of nothing and it felt great! Jason did go out and buy a new weed eater and hedge trimmer. He had a lot of fun destroying the bushes in the front of our house. I must say, it does look so much better! Hedging was way over due and now we can rake all the old leaves and stuff out and put down some pine mulch. Everyone in the south uses Pine straw and I honestly just hate it! So I'm excited! Maybe I will post before and after pictures!

So now we have a down week with no company and I am so excited! We might go spend some time up in Greenville with Jason but Stephie isn't that excited about those prospects. Being 12 just doesn't mesh well with our traveling summer plans! :-( We have offered to let her bring a friend with though, so maybe we will get in her good graces once again! :-)

Hope you are all having a good week and a great start to summer! Thanks for checking in on me! :-)

Busy, Busy, Busy

I would like to apologize for not writing in a while but seriously, life has just been busy. As much as I am looking forward to the summer and getting some down time from school, I look at the calendar and already it is starting to fill up.
Last weekend was GREAT, Lexi had a birthday party to go to and the whole family was invited. The kids had a great time playing outside in the water and in the inflatable bouncy house, while the adults got to hang out and just relax. After that, Jason's friend Dave came in for the night so we ended up leaving Stephie to baby sit while we went downtown to Savannah Smiles. We didn't get home until 2am which made for an early Sunday morning. None the less, we made it to church just fine and then Jason put new shocks on the Suburban.
Last night I picked Stephie up from school and then went into Savannah to do some swim suit shopping. Let me just say one word for that....DEPRESSING! Then we went to Olive Garden, sat down at the table where the waiter said, "would you like a free sample of some wine". I looked at him and thought, "I am sitting here with 5 kids, no husband and I've been swimsuit shopping, what do you think?" But I just politely said, "yes" and then ordered a glass to go along with dinner. Ahhhhh! :-)
Tonight Lexi has Gymnastics and I also need to get to Wal-Mart
Tomorrow night I am going to make Tye Dye shirts so that we can all wear matching shirts while walking around the Magic Kingdom. Before you laugh and make fun of us for being the dorky family with matching shirts, ask me about our last trip to Disney and how we lost a kid! Not going to happen this time when we all have matching Tye Dye shirts on!
Thursday I am driving into Hilton Head and getting my hair cut and colored. That pretty much takes up most of my day and won't leave much for anything until Thursday evening when Jason gets home and then we need to pack!
Friday we pick Stephie up from school, my parents from the airport and then head on down to Orlando. Once in Orlando we will be in Disney World until Monday when we drive home sometime in the afternoon. My parents are staying until the 31rst at which point I think Dave is going to come back up and spend the weekend with us again. After that Jason's parents are probably coming to visit along with his sister, brother in law and 4 boys! YIKES! I could keep going but I'll save more June and July plans for a later post!
Summer hasn't even started and yet I already see it slipping away!
Busy, busy, busy!

Am I paranoid?

Let me first start off by saying, I am not the type of mom who goes around snooping through my kids stuff. Stephanie has a Facebook account and when we set that up, the rule was that I had to have access to it and I was allowed to check on it from time to time. Just to make sure I know who her friends are and what she is doing online. Ok?

All that said, yesterday she got a message while I was by the computer and she saw that it said LOL and said, I know what that is, don’t open it, so I didn’t. Of course the way she was so quick to say, don’t open it, got my curiosity up.

After she went to bed I logged back into her account to check her Facebook messages. She had written to a girl from Siloam and all it said was, “Hey! Do you sat, blowed, burned or tried? Just curious?” Me being the paranoid mom that I am instantly thought of drugs or something. I know that Stephie is a good girl but I was starting to wonder what she was doing or knew about.

So I sent out some text messages to ask my friends if they knew these terms or if I should be concerned. No one knew but wanted an update once I got it figured out.

Well I got inpatient waiting for her friend to write back so I could figure it out and just asked Stephanie today. What she meant to type was “Hey! Do you SAY blowed, burned or tried?” I guess that when someone says something to you that is a slam the kids around will say, BLOWED! or TRIED! Anyway, it is just middle school slang for a slam! Ok, now I feel stupid! But hey, I am not naïve enough to think none of my children will never get curious or want to try things and I just don’t want to be the stupid parent that never saw it coming, you know?

Anyway, so that is what it meant and thank god that is all it meant!

Ever have one of those "shower moments"

We all know that as humans we are "creatures of habit". Everyday people get up and take the same route to work, stop at their same favorite coffee stop, order the same thing they ordered for the past year and do things exactly the same as we did before. I know life isn't the same day after day but for some reason we find comfort in routine and the "sameness" (not sure this is a word) of each day. All that said, I also have a routine for when I take a shower. You know how it is. Get the water ready, step in, first shampoo, then shave, then conditioner, while the conditioner sits, wash face and then body. Rinse conditioner, get out. Pretty simple, but I do it the same every single day.
So yesterday I was in the shower, the face wash bottle was empty finally so I grabbed the new bottle I had placed on the tub ledge. The new bottle was packaged differently so I stopped and looked at it for a bit. Decided to see if they had reduced the amount in the bottle (hate when they do that) and just did a quick comparison. I then washed my face and suddenly realized I couldn't remember if I had put conditioner in my hair or not.
Please tell me I am not the only one who has done this? I mean, if I had put conditioner in my hair I would have done like 2 minutes ago, how could I forget? I honestly had no idea though! It was like taking that 2 minute "reading break" had thrown off my groove and now I was lost! Ha-ha! I finally took a strand of hair and stuck it in the water to see if it turned silky smooth or was still needing conditioner. Of course I already had conditioner on my hair....I had just forgot! Duh! This does not seem like a good sign as I am only 30 "something" and will only be getting older and more forgetful! OYE!

An essay about the "Invisible Mom"

I AM NOT THE ONE WHO WROTE THIS. I GOT IT AS AN E-MAIL AND SINCE MOTHER'S DAY IS LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY, I THOUGHT I WOULD POST THIS ON MY BLOG. ENJOY! :-)

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!


One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:

'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'


In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work. No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building as fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.' I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.
You're doing a Great Job! You are appreciated...even if no-one tells you that you are! Being a mom is amazing, even on the days that you feel invisible!