Oh, and by the way

Maybe you could pray for this weather we are having. Aside from the many livelihoods and homes that are being threatened, my sister is set to have her wedding in Los Cabos in a little over a week. Our family is scheduled to leave on Sunday. As you can see from this picture, it is not looking too good for our travel plans. A category 5 hurricane was not in our plans and will not a lovely wedding make. Plus, no resort means no vacation for me and I really want a vacation. So for all of these reasons, lets think positive sunshiny thoughts and pray for a wind to knock this thing off course. Darn you, Jimena, why do you have to be such a killjoy?

It's All Good

These pictures all have something in common:

Everything in these pictures just feels really good. From sitting on the deck of a sailboat to getting a much needed hug, these things are too good to describe. And I think that I fit in to this category right now. Yesterday I was talking to a friend and that friend said that he could not, with 100% certainty, say that he was "good" and actually mean it. I discussed this with him and I sympathized and empathized with him but I realized that the same is not true for me. I had a sudden epiphany that I am GOOD. This kind of struck me from out of the blue. I have been in the pattern of working TOWARDS good for so long that it kind of crept up on me unexpectedly. Suddenly I AM good, in my soul, and this feels amazing! Yes, it has been a tough year. And yes, I have learned a lot of things the hard way. But my goodness, it feels so nice to come out of the other side and say that I am stronger, more faithful and filled with a deeper joy. It's like a breath of fresh air... or a fresh-from-the oven chocolate chip cookie.

It has been nine months since my husband and I officially separated and I do indeed feel that I have come out of the other side at last. And what I have found is that the grass isn't necessarily greener but it sure feels nice after walking on all those coals to get there. And now, right this minute, I am seeing that there is quite a view to be found on this side as well - if you are in the mind to search for it.

" When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul. "

It is well with me and I feel that deep down. Though the sorrow lasts for the night, joy does eventually come in the morning. Sometimes those night hours are pretty rough though. Sometimes the morning can not come soon enough. But when it does, your whole perspective changes and it feels "less" somehow. Not less important, or less real... just less catastrophic and more acceptable.

And so, to my friend who has seen better days, I know you will read this and I am sorry that you are less than good. I hurt for your hurts but I also rejoice in knowing that you too will rejoice again soon, and very soon. Your admission helped me to see my realization and for that I am glad. My cup has runneth over once more.

Hey Shorty, it's your birthday...

...We're gonna party like it's your birthday!! And we did EXACTLY that. Even though Luke's birthday isn't until next Saturday, his party was this weekend. It was a Handy Manny party. And for those of you who don't know, Handy Manny is not Bob the Builder. Handy Manny is Disney and he is a handy man who speaks some Spanish. He has talking tools and my son LOVES him. Anyway, there were about 30 people there, some of whom drove from the Austin area and we were very thankful for their willingness to travel. There was swimming, hamburgers/hot dogs, ice cream cake and presents. It was a very nice party and thankfully the birthday boy was not ill this year. It was the opposite really, he was the host with the most as he greeted everyone who came in and mixed and mingled throughout the night. He played hard and swam hard and barely had time for his old mommy. Needless to say, he slept well last night and took a long nap today. He was a worn out boy. We spent the better part of today playing with the new toys. Here are some snapshots form the party:

Luke woke form nap to find his kitchen and grill set up in the living room. He "cooked" until the party started.

Test driving the new tricycle.

BIRTHDAY CAKE. It was ice cream cake and he LOVED it.

Opening all the presents. He apparently really loved his Hand Manny lunch box (top rt photo).

Little kids at the party. Luke was the only little one last year so 3 is a big improvement.

Playing with the new toys and sleeping in the new Buzz Lightyear pajamas!!

In Over My Head

So I haven't blogged in a couple of days and that is so not like me. Since I started this whole thing I have been a thrice a week kind of blogger. But this week has flat knocked me on my bum and left me struggling to get back up again. I started back to school and since it has been a good while since I got an education, I find it difficult to get back in to the swing of things. I have done my homework like the dutiful school girl that I am and I have enjoyed 80% of it. But there are other things that have kept me busy this week:

Luke's 2nd Birthday party is on Saturday and we have about 35 guests coming. There are many details to arrange and prepare for and not the least of this is keeping Luke blissfully unaware of his presents and healthy as a horse. Last year he was very sick during his party and I am hoping and praying that history will not be repeating itself.

Also, because I love a good challenge, I decided to start Luke in a toddler bed in the same week that I started school. This was not one of my better decisions. To begin with, he has not been sleeping through the night prior to this experiment and was coming to bed with me every night from about 1:30 on. So there were quite a few obstacles at the start of this thing. But we have persisted and kept on with our routine and our rigid rules and lo and behold, something clicked. He loves his big boy bed and as of last night he was sleeping through the night in it without waking up once. I could not be more proud of my little guy. He is growing up so fast. We went to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate these victories and it was so much fun. I am still having to lay beside his bed at night until he gets to sleep but we will take one battle at a time.

I will post a blog and some pictures from the birthday party, that is a promise. And in case you are wondering... the binki thing has gone really well. He has successfully transitioned from having that thing all day, everyday, to only having it when he sleeps. He has even adjusted to putting it under his pillow when he wakes up. Miracles can and do happen. Next step, potty training. But I think we will hold off on that one for a bit. At least until after my Mexico trip. Did I mention Mexico? My entire family and I are headed to Cabo San Lucas next Sunday, for a week, to watch my sister get married on the beach. No babies will be on board so I am anxious for a real vacation. Hope everyone is well.

What's with today, today?

Well, 2 BIG things happened today. This:

And this:

After I woke up last night with Luke standing beside my bed, I decided it was time for him to transition to a "big boy" bed. This was about safety more than anything else because I spent Sunday night awake from the hours of 12:45 and 4:15 am trying to fight my son in an effort to get him to sleep in his bed all night. I hope I am winning by degrees. I have the puffy eyes and fatigue to show for it... if nothing else. But I think: if at first you don't suceed, try try again.

As for my first day of school... all I can say is that it was a wake up call. I sat through my 2 hours and 45 minutes of College Algebra only to have the fact that I haven't taken a math course in nine years blatantly pointed out to me. I was lost for abotu a third of the class and then I miraculously found my bearings right before I started a panic attack. No clear prognosis on how the semester will turn out for me but I will be that little engine that could. And I will chugg, chugg, chugg away. So, to summarize, my first day back in school was both fun and horrendous. Interesting.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

As I have mentioned several times before, I am a pretty big square - as in, not what you'd call "cool". Now, I think I am pretty fun and awesome but I live within my own naive little bubble. For this reason I have not had the life experiences that would be considered "normal" for a high school student, college student or young adult. I have followed my p's and q's and remained a straight and steadfast arrow. While some could consider this an embarrassing admonition, I am pretty pleased with this fact. It takes some considerable self-control and one very loud and obnoxious conscience to make it through this life with such pointy corners.

But alas, all good things must come to an end... and my reign as the Mrs. Goody 2 Shoes has officially ended. This weekend I hosted a lingerie shower for my sister and then accompanied her and her and a group of wild ladies out on the town for a bachelorette party. This is not my scene and I was completely oblivious to the "going out" dressing code, etiquette and general "goings on". But I watched and learned and had a pretty darn good time. Rest assured that this square stayed true to her self and kept a low key party profile. I left in the same state I was in when I arrived.

Here are some pictures from the night. Don't worry, they are all PG. And the wigs were my sister's idea. I think it was a good one. She definently celebrated her last days of singledom in style. Much love sista!

Rock-a-bye Baby

OK, it's time for ANOTHER confession. Gosh, I write so many of these, it seems, that I feel as though my closets are full of skeletons. Well, the thing is... I have forever professed as to what kind of mother I would be and what i would and would not allow. You know how it goes, you see a mother in the store with her child throwing a tantrum and you say to yourself, "when I have kids, they will not do that". Over the years I had collected several of these "will nevers" and made a mental checklist of the kind of parent I would NEVER, EVER be.

but life is funny and God has a serious sense of humor sometimes, because my parenting plans leave me eating humble pie on a regular basis. The current case in point is the bedtime struggle my son and I are now having. in my younger days of all-knowing wisdom, I vowed to NEVER let my child sleep in the bed with me because that is such a hard habit to break. Well, that last part certainly is true. And I know this because I have completely failed at the first part of that statement. I have become the parent that lets her child come to the bed with her when he wakes up in the middle of the night. And lo and behold, he now wakes up in the middle of the night, EVERY night. Thus, the bad habit is officially born. And now, realizing my mistake, after countless nights of getting slapped in the face, I am ready to face this head on.

So now we are working on two things: Luke putting himself to sleep at night and staying in his bed all night. Much easier said than done. So far this week, a new bed time routine has been instituted, I have had to endure heart-breaking calls for "mommy" on the baby monitor, I have slept on the floor of his room to hold his hand through the bars, and walked in to check on him only to find that he had crawled out of the crib. It has been a rough week in these regards.

BUT... last night Luke put himself to sleep with relatively little fuss. Our next step is moving in to a big boy toddler bed. We went and picked out some new sheets and comforters yesterday to get ready for the big switch. More on that as the story develops, I'm sure. So... this is the bed I've made for myself and now i am sleeping in it. Or actually, not sleeping in it as luck would have it. Not for long though, not for long.

The Cherry on Top

12 hours of classes at Lone Star College: $650.00
6 textbooks from Chegg.com: $220.00
4 notebooks for keeping diligent notes: $10.00
Starting a new adventure at 28 years old: PRICELESS


This is my last week of glorious summer freedom and as such I am trying to make the most of it. Unfortunately it has been raining so far and we have not gotten to do too terribly much. However, I DID go on a job interview yesterday. After I drove to one location, found out it was the wrong one, then drove another fifteen minutes to the right one... I found out within five minutes that I was ineligible for the job because it was with the college and I am a student there. Major bummer. For inexplicable reasons I cried as soon as I closed the door to my car and looked pathetic sobbing and driving. I treated myself to some Chipotle, because that makes any situation better, and pulled it together. My back up plan is now in full effect... substitute teaching. And to be honest, I think it is a GOOD plan. So, like Johnson and Johnson says, no more tears for this big baby.

And so, in a mere 6 days I will be entering the halls of one Lone Star College as "the old lady" in a sea of eighteen year olds for a freshman level College Algebra class. That part is not too exciting- the old lady part, that is - and I do not intend to be very social. No time. I am a serious student, with serious learning to do. As it turns out, some things don't change that much. I have been, and will always be, the nerdy girl on the front row, taking diligent notes and raising her hand with the answers. That is who I am and I can not wait to get my "thinking cap" back on.

Let's Go to the Hop

The Soc Hop that is. My aunt, who shall remain nameless, recently celebrated her 50th birthday. And her family threw her a 50's themed birthday party where costumes were much appreciated. Needless to say, my family was all about it. You say costumes, and we come running. My mom actually spent the better part of two days making, buying and coordinating things for our outfits. I will say that the finsihed product, and the party itself, were pretty rockin'. We ate burgers and fries and some ice cream sundaes and floats. Of course there were also plenty of party games, karaoke and dancing. Here are some pictures from the party to give you some idea of how fun it was. Please note that the "cigarettes" beign smoked in the pictures were of the candy variety and were used as props to increase the overall vibe of the fifties. No actual cigarettes were used in the making of this party.

Slip Slidin' Away

I have been gone for a few days to Flint, TX with my mom and my son. What is in Flint,TX? I'm glad you asked. And I certainly don't blame you for asking since it isn't even on any Texas road maps. But, what lies in the heart of Flint, TX is a wonderful little time share resort called The Villages. My parents are part of the time share universe and as such, they get to stay at the resorts all over Texas and I get to reap the benefits of that. So on my hiatus from school, work and anything else but motherhood, we decided to get int he car and take a little trip. The Villages is actually very nice. It has a great swimming pool for kids and also an indoor water park that Luke went nuts over. The outdoor pool was really shallow and full of fun sprays and fountains.

By the way, he is NOT drowning in the picture on the right. This is my boy, swimming by himself.

They made everyone in the child section wear life jackets and we were not sure how that would go over with Luke. He has a few life saving devices at home that he REFUSES to wear. But I guess if you dangle a big enough carrot...

There were the standard sprays and pouring buckets and water guns for the kids to play with along with some tunnels, stairs and rope bridges.

But the most fun was the water slides. There were three for the children blue (the long one), orange (the fast one) and green (the open one). We were told right off the bat that the parents could not ride the slides with the children so Luke would have to brave it alone. We sent him down that first slide and watched him go round and round, smiling the whole way, and ending at the bottom ready to do it again. It was really great to see him do these amazingly brave things and to get to see the sheer joy on his face at being able to do "big boy" things all by himself.

By the end of the day he was laying on his stomach headed down the water slide, feet first, and looking up at me and saying "bye bye" as he went down the slide. I am so glad that we went. I sense that there will be many more trips in the future.

Baby Bye, Bye, Bye

So this weekend was the trip to Dallas to see the Skaggs family. I was very excited the whole way up there, which made the four hour trek seem that much longer. But they welcomed me, finally, with open arms and a nice taco salad dinner. I managed to stay up until the wee hours of the night talking and laughing and discussing trivial things. In short, I had a blast. I almost didn't want it to end. And then on Sunday morning, they had me fill in with them for nursery duty in a class full of fifteen 18 month olds. It was not my cup of tea and it left me anxious to get back to my own, singular, toddler at home. However, my time with Sara made me realize how much I miss the people that really know me. I got to talk about everything from high school to divorce with her and it felt so natural. It is safe to say that I need to make more trips to Dallas. Although next time I am seriously considering flying. On Saturday Sara and I took her daughter to the Dallas Aquarium. Despite the crowds of people and the overwhelming fish smell we had a lot of fun. That family has to be full of the nicest, sweetest, most genuine people I know. And also some of the quirkiest. Saturday night we stayed up late playing Cattan. I am relatively new at the game and so I was pretty confused at the beginning. It didn't help that the Skaggs' had their own home-made board that took up the whole dining room table and none of the cards or pieces from the original game. We were using decks of playing cards and Popsicle sticks. It was the most entertaining game of Cattan I am certain to have. Thank you Skaggs family for hosting my stay and for sharing your bed and for all the laughs and discussions. I will never think of Boston's the same way... or ponies.

And in other news, we are entering the count down to Luke's 2nd birthday. It rained this morning and we stayed in our pj's until after nap. At that time I decided to get dressed and get out of the house. So we went to Toys R' Us to buy a birthday present for "the boy" (that is what he calls himself). I knew that I wanted a Radio Flyer tricycle and I had even tracked down the one I wanted to that particular store. So I found it and pulled it down from the shelf and placed Luke on it for a trial run. He couldn't quite get the hang of the pedals but he loved it none-the-less. After a few minutes of steering it into everything imaginable, I asked him to get off so that I could put the trike in the basket. Crying immediately ensued. We managed to calm down and then I let him sit on the trike in the back of the basket while I continued shopping. When he had to get off at the register for the checker to scan the thing, more crying ensued followed by sobs of "mine". I guess he thought she was stealing it or something. Anyway, we made it outside where I had to put the trike in the back and there was even more crying until I mentioned food and a movie. He watched his movie in the car and forgot all about the treasure in the back of the car. On the plus side, i know he likes the present. On the negative side, I have to hide the thing for the next three weeks in order to prevent another melt down.

And lastly, today began the great binki (pacifier) phase out in our home. Luke is highly attached to his binki and always has been.

At one point he even had to sleep with 3 of them, one for his mouth and one in each hand. As he is nearing two, it seems appropriate to say good bye to the binki. However, I am not a fan of the cold turkey method and so we are doing this in phases. Phase one, which started today, involves using the binki only at nap time, bed time and in the car (thank you, Skaggs). So this morning Luke was asked to leave his binki in his bed when he woke up and he willingly did so. We did pretty good for our first day. There was a sketchy period of time right before lunch when he wanted the binki bad enough to lay in the bed for a while. But that, too, passed and we made it through day one. Incidentally, all of the trike sobbing was made worse by the fact that we did not bring the binki and did not have it for the melt-down. However, I was so proud of that little guy for being able to do without his most trusty of comforts. I know many adults who would not have handled losing their small comforts so easily. Look out 2, we are knocking on your door!

The Final Countdown...

Well, this was the very last of the competitions for this season and I felt that it ended with a bang. It was obvious who the producers of the show wanted to win and they made no attempt to hide that fact. However, I happen to agree with them so I did not mind. I was eating sushi and picking up my son while the show aired and my parents DVR only picked up the second hour. So I had to watch the first hour, today, on the Internet. So my viewing may have been a little limited. But none the less, I have an opinion on what I saw and I want to share it with you. Here are my rankings of last night's performances:

7. The Group Number by Wade Robson. This was not my favorite Wade routine by a long shot and I thought the premise was a little cheesy but the dancing was good. My eye as drawn to Jeanine and Evan for some reason though.

6. The Kayla and Evan Jive number. I didn't mind the country song or the western wear. I thought the dance was cute, but not very intense for a finale. I liked Evan and I was glad he got that audience cheer. I am tired of the judges' obvious favoritism and their willingness to burn Evan at the stake to get their way.

5. The Jeanine and Kayla Contemporary piece. Interesting concept and they looked beautiful. Having them side by side, I found that I was drawn to Jeanine more. Her moves were bigger and fuller I think. I do believe that Kayla is a graceful and technical dancer but I can not take my eyes off of Jeanine. Neither can Nygel, in a very creepy and pervy way.

4. The Nasty Boys Hip Hop number with Evan and Brandon. It seemed like the moves were challenging and well danced. True, Brandon was better - but not by the huge margin the judges made it out to be. I thought Evan was good and he kept up - his moves just weren't as well executed. And stupid remarks from the judges bout Evan not being "nasty". Who cares? Is Brandon all that nasty either? No.

3. Brandon and Kayla's Broadway routine. Finally a stellar Broadway number for the season. It was very fun to watch and I thought those dancers were perfect for the moves they were given. I watched this one several times and found it flawless on both parts.

2. Brandon and Jeanine's Paso Doble number. Very dramatic and very well executed. These are two dancers that are so fun to watch and they are so into their routines and characters that you truly get invested in the entertainment of it.

1. Jeanine and Evan's Jazz piece. I really liked the story here and I could see it in the movement. I thought it combined good technique and challenging moves with a fun story and good characters. It was for sure my favorite.

So... here is how I hope it would go:

Winner: Jeanine, 2nd: Brandon, 3rd: Evan and 4th: Kayla.

But... here is how I think it will go:

Winner: Jeanine, 2nd: Evan, 3rd: Brandon and 4th: Kayla. However, if Evan gets the popular vote then he could take it. He has quite the following. He is this season's Benji. I have loved him from the start but he should not win.