HAPPY FRIDAY!

Best Friend's Little Beast, Daisy May

Resolute -adjective 1. firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose

New Year's Resolutions: (yes. I know it's the 28th. I've been busy.)

1. Stop procrastinating.

2. 30 minutes of Cardio EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! (except maybe Sunday, and every other Monday. hmmm.....and maybe Wednesday too cuz by hump day, I'm exhausted.)

3. Speak to my children in a calm, rational and loving manner at all times instead of the shrill, curse word filled tirade that only makes them laugh at me behind my back. (they think I don't know this but I really #%*&ing do.)

4. Go over my budget and see how many of my NEEDS are actually WANTS and cut them from my life, such as Mississippi Mudslides from Main St. Espresso and DVR. (wait...isn't DVR a need? and Mudslides? Yup. Need. ...Crap.)

5. Um...have a budget.

6. Put 10% of my income into a new & shiny account at the bank entitled "Our Australia Fund" and don't touch any of the money unless the spending of it will directly result in us moving to a house by the beach in Brisbane.

Unless it's for camera equipment cuz what's the point in living by the beach if you can't take pics of yourself in said house to send to your friends in Utah.

In the wintertime.

While they are getting snowed on.

(oh and I really need a new washing machine. I'll need something good to wash the sand out of my underwear.)

7. Keep New Year's Resolutions.

Hiber Nation

Sooooooo....been away for awhile. No. I'm not depressed. No. I haven't been any more busy than usual. No. I haven't been out of town or been thrown in jail. No. I haven't run away to a tropical island with no phones or wi fi. The truth is that it is winter on Planet Vernal and it is just damn COLD. The kinda cold that makes you want to do nothing else but run from your car to your house, jump into your bed without taking off your socks, hoodie, gloves and hat, pull the covers up to your chin, turn on the TV and not move until the next day. And only then if you have to get up and go to work. That has been my life for the past couple of months. I'm cold people! FRIGID! FREEZING! BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

View from my front door

We have been living off of ramen noodles, canned beans and body fat as I will not venture out to the grocery store. I don't wanna go to the basketball game or the movies and I absolutely do NOT want to take my kids sledding. That would involve cold toes, cold fingers, hypothermia and my demise in a snowbank somewhere hidden in the cedars.

There have been some happenings in my world since my last post. Thanksgiving was spent with my sister's family. They came out to Planet Vernal and stayed with me. I LOVE having my nephew and nieces stay with me. Nothing energizes a household more than little ones. They make me laugh out loud and my 7 year old nephew and I hugged and cried like we would never see each other again when they left to go home.

Niece Bobbie, LT, Nephew Iaan, Stella

Niece Sami

Christmas was craziness. Superman was working right up to Christmas Eve. Our car broke down halfway into our trip to the city and we limped into Salt Lake desperate for a car shop that was open. $500 later we were able to drive to a mall where we spent the rest of our money on a few presents for the kids. Needless to say, by the time the big day arrived we were exhausted and stressed. None of it added up to buckets of Christmas cheer.

IZ, Niece Shelby and Twin Brother (isn't he cute?)

LT and her new IPOD

We arrived at Grandma's house on the morning of and I was shocked by the force of nostalgia and grief that hit me as I walked through the door and was not greeted by my Grandpa. For a moment I was overwhelmed with sadness. But excited children, hugs and greetings, soon pulled me out of my funk and I was able to enjoy the moment. That was the most peaceful time of our day. The remainder was spent driving from one end of the valley to the other trying to see everyone while we were in town.

Superman's Daddy. (Yum. Lobster)

We capped off the day by taking the kids to see Avatar. It was amazing. The perfect ending to my day and the good feelings carried over into the next until the car broke down again going home. (sigh).

IZ on the right and two of her best friends

Since then, Superman has been working off and on out-of- state and me and the girls have been hibernating. Sometimes we venture out to forage for food and fresh air but for the most part we spend our days cuddled together in my big bed, watching Bones, talking about school and boys and their latest obsessions and confessions. It's really quite nice. It has not been a choice between spending time with my girls or spending time with my blog but I have missed everyone and it's nice to be back.

Stella on the right and her friends. They aren't wearing coats but it was only 10 degrees when I took this. What these girls won't do for fashion. (eyeroll)

It's still cold here. I think we have another 8 weeks or so of single digits and below zeros but I wanted to check in, poke my head out of the cave and feel the sunshine for a moment. Now I am heading back into the dimness and the warmth and maybe, just maybe you won't see me again until spring.

My big girl, Cleo, peeking out the front window.

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Here Comes the Sun

Picked for me by my precious niece Sami

I've learned that no matter what happens or how hard it seems today,

life goes on

and it will be better tomorrow.

---Maya Angelou

Happy Monday Everyone!!!

Heartbroken

Photo taken October 1974

My grandfather and I

I was 3 years old

My grandfather passed away October 21st 2009 due to complications from Alzheimer's Disease. The last four years have been a long and terrible journey and I am happy for him that it is over. He died peacefully surrounded by his beautiful children, staring into the face of my grandmother who has stood by his side for 65 years.

I wanted him to be released from his suffering so badly but I just can't believe that he is gone from my life and I am heartbroken. I didn't know it was going to hurt this much. I'm not quite sure how to get through it. But I am blessed to have my superman by my side and a HUGE support system in my family, co workers and friends. They have been so wonderful.
I am also thankful for the bonding my mom and I have done over the past few weeks. I feel closer to her now than I have in my life.

I really don't know what to say, my grief is too new and the pain is too much to come up with anything meaningful right now. I just know that I miss him and I love him. He was a wonderful father to me and to IZ. I was priviledged to have the relationship with him that I did. No granddaughter could have asked for better.

I love you, Grandpa. I miss you. I love you....I love you.

Perception

I grew up in a trailer park. There were two entrances to the park and one round oval of a road that went through it. Because each trailer space only had one narrow driveway at the back, most everyone had to park on the road in front of their trailer. So the oval was VERY narrow. It was difficult for two cars to pass each other going in the opposite direction.

I didn't know that we lived in the trailer park because we were poor. I didn't know that people looked down on me or considered me trash. I was never ashamed of where I lived. My friends who lived in regular homes never treated me any different but now that I look back I realize that their parents very obviously did.

Because we lived in a trailer park I was treated to neighbors from ALL walks of life. There was the old couple who lived in the REALLY NICE double wide right at the entrance. They had the nicest yard with actual TREES! My brother and I called them Grandpa and Grandma but in my mind they were the king and queen of the park. Their job was to watch over the children and make sure the parents did their job.

Then there was Mrs. Davidson. She lived in a dark corner lot. She was plump and dark haired and always laughing. Every once in awhile I would be invited into her home to take a piece of candy from the carnival glass candy dish on top of her console TV. Mrs. Davidson kept her blinds closed all the time so it was always dark. But she surrounded herself with fiber optic bric a brac. I don't even know if anyone will remember but an example would be two glass swans sitting on a mirror that represented a pond and out of the center of the pond would shoot a spray of small plastic fibers, like really long toothbrush bristles. They spilled over into the shape of a fountain and light would travel down the fibers and light up at the bottom. So the end of each fiber would have these little tiny balls of light at the end. Like fairy lights. If you touched them they would sway and bounce and the lights would dance. Then all around the fairy lights she would tuck little ceramic elves and flowers and boys and girls and the effect on my seven year old eyes was truly magical.

I would pretend her first name was Althea (at that age, I thought that a very magical name) and her job was to protect the fairies and elves of the kingdom (trailer park). I would imagine that she kept them safe in her darkened living room during the day and at night she would open all her windows and doors and all those dancing lights would zip away and sing and play until morning.

At the opposite entrance to the park was another old woman. I don't know if she was married. I never saw a man coming or going but I seem to have a hazy memory of someone telling me she cared for someone who lived there. This woman had bright red hair, long down her back with one white streak that trailed all the way down her right side. She kept it in a loose braid most of the time but sometimes she let it go. When it was like that she looked fierce and wild! I LOVED it that way. I thought she might be a witch! Good or bad I didn't know. You could tell that she was beautiful once but the thing that really fascinated me about her was her BLACK eyes. All black. Like they were one big pupil.

Whenever I got the rare treat of seeing her in her front yard I would stop my bike and almost WILL her to look at me. Sometimes she would acknowledge me but it was only with a wave of her hand, never a smile. She would turn those black eyes in my direction and I would be frozen in place by her stare. Chills would run up and down my spine and my tummy would get all tickly and then she would lift her hand in my direction and I would return her wave.

What I would have given to have a conversation with her! I just knew she had LIVED amazing adventures and knew all sorts of dark and wonderful secrets. But I never got the nerve. I still dream about her. I dream of knocking on her door and when it opens, she's standing there with her hair all wild and instead of a wave she beckons me to come inside. I still get a little thrill thinking about her thirty years later.

It's funny how I tended to gravitate toward the older people in the park as their were plenty of people the same age as my parents around raising kids, getting in fights, getting arrested. As you can imagine in a trailer park there was a lot of poverty, a lot of kids with dirty skinned knees, uncombed hair and runny noses. There was a lot of loud parties, a few police raids, though not as much as there probably are now. But none of that seemed to touch me. I wasn't AWARE that not everyone got to live in a park. It was the only life I knew and it didn't seem at all bizarre to me. It seems bizarre to me now.

Most of my childhood memories are contained in the space of that tiny little park. Racing around and around that oval at what I thought were breakneck speeds on my banana seat bike, running through our tiny sprinkler that you could place in the center of our yard and the spray would almost be able to cover the entire patch of grass without having to be moved. Setting up our sleeping bags and feeling very brave and grown up sleeping under the stars, not realizing that my parents weren't worried about us because we were surrounded on all sides by either chain link or trailer houses. Our own unique playpen.

I remember playing hide and seek with a group made up of all the kids in our park, every size, every shape, every age and we could use the ENTIRE park to hide in. We would run like wild Indians, whooping and hollering, cutting through people's yards, hiding in vegetable patches and not be expected home until it got too dark to see.

Every kid's swing set was open to every kid in the neighborhood. Every mother could be run to for band aids, wiping away of tears and a swat on the butt if it was required. It was a child's idea of heaven. A place where I knew I was safe, where I knew that every person knew my name. That if my mom was at work and something happened to me or my brother, there was always somewhere to go.

I look at my kids now and how we have raised them and it makes me a little bit sad. My kids don't hop on their bikes and ride to their friends house. Because of how the world has changed it is too dangerous to let them go anywhere alone. I always drive them where they need to go. Our little tomato slept in a tent in our backyard for the first time this summer. I would never have allowed it at our old house because our yard wasn't fully fenced. And I made her older sister sleep out there with LT and her cousins just in case.

When I think about it, we live in a quiet, sleepy little town full of good people but I think because of the media and the Internet we have become more AWARE of what is out there. The fears of the world have crept into our consciousness and made us hyper vigilant and over protective.

I wish things could be the way they were then. I hope that my children will be able to tell stories about magical fairy lights and wild women with dark eyes and dark secrets but I'm afraid that maybe a lot of the magic has been taken out of childhood.

Maybe part of my responsibility to my children is to teach them magic. To point out the shady part of the forest and ask them if they see the elves peeking out from under the ferns. To ask the horses over the fence how their day was, within earshot of my children, and then laugh heartily at whatever I pretend the horses answers to be. I will stop them from stepping on the box elder bugs because one of them could be the most beloved child of the fairy king. "If you spare his life today, maybe someday the king will return the favor when you need it most."

They will roll their eyes at me and think I've gone a bit daffy but every once in awhile I will be rewarded with a giggle and a smile. That's what magic is good for. That's what I need to impress upon my children instead of the creeping fear that I'm not watching them close enough. Our children are a reflection of ourselves. Do I want their perception of the world to be frightening and paranoid or do I want them to see beauty and magic?

So I am going home now to my children. The sun is starting to set. It's twilight. I think it might be the perfect time to leash the dogs and take the dirt road at the end of our street and just see where it might lead.

Prayers Needed

Asking for your thoughts and prayers for friends and family in Samoa. So far there have been two deaths associated with family that we know of and we are hoping there will be no more bad news. My heart and deepest sympathy goes out to Rick, Lavon and Alana.

We have yet to hear anything concrete as the news has been very slow to report for obvious reasons. The latest I heard was 111 dead with the toll expected to rise. There were 4 tsunami waves that hit one after the other that were 15 to 20 feet high and reached over a mile inland. Whole villages and cars were swept out to sea. This was caused by an 8.3 magnitude earthquake in the ocean south of the Samoan islands that witnesses claim shook the islands for up to 5 minutes.

All the land lines are down. There have been a few people who have been able to get out with cellular phones and Internet but for the most part it has been impossible to reach family and loved ones. We are not even sure exactly what areas were hit. We know Pago Pago was hit hard as well as Apia but that is all the news is reporting.

Please pray they are able to get aid organized quickly and rescue efforts are well underway. Please pray that the death toll stays relatively small although 111 is already too high. Please send out a special prayer that Superman's family and loved ones were able to reach safety and that the damage in their area was minimal.

UPDATE***

If you live in Utah, you can go into any Zions Bank and tell them you wish to donate to the Samoan Relief Fund and 100% of the proceeds will go to help the families in Samoa.
If you do not live in Utah, go to www.fox13now.com and they will have the donation information. Any donation, no matter how small would be appreciated.