A great family weekend....

This weekend was beautiful.  Tracy took off for one of those hikes that take all day and sound much better to him than to Sarah and I.  We took off for Old Navy to try to obtain their once a year $1 sale flip flops to start the summer.  Sarah, not much of a shopper, grew tired of waiting in line but after about 20 minutes we made it in to search for our illusive sizes.  I can't believe that she wears one size smaller than I do now!  It's amazing how fast little girls grow...at least in shoe size and height.  We then went off to try to find shorts and shirt...problem being Sarah is about an 8 or 10 around but I need the length to be more of a size 12 or 14.  Luckily we were able to find some 10's with the wonderful elastic pulls that made that possible!  By the time we got home, it was time for margarita's (virgin for Sarah of course), and tamales. 

 

 

Sunday, Tracy convinced me we really didn't have to spend all day cleaning the house to keep it up in case the realtor called, and we made off for the park.  I'm so happy I have a brilliant husband!  The day was turning rainy but we were able to spend a few beautiful hours in the grass.  We took Flash on his first adventure to Floyd Lamb.  He was joyful!  Sarah loved the geese and ducks and told us all about Canadian geese and their various habits :) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Ghost "Peaches"

I woke up this morning to the ghost of a memory.  I must have been about 9 or 10 and was sleeping over at my "best friends" house.  I tried not to go to the bathroom after we went to bed but sometimes you just couldn't help it!  I tip toed quietly and made it successfully across the house....unfortunately, on the way back to her room their dog Peaches came flying at the back of my ankles, ready to protect her people.  I ran at an amazing speed to the door and quickly closed it on the crazed dog and hopped quickly back into the safety of our shared bed.

As I lay there this morning thinking about that moment, other memories came back.  I could close my eyes and remember clearly playing "Horse" in their neighbor’s makeshift basketball court in the driveway.  We, her younger brother and the two neighbor boy’s next door doing round after round.  I'm sure I never won a game. 

I thought those days would last forever.  I even thought we would all still know each other until we were as old as our parents were then. (They seemed so old then but now I realize I have gone past that and don't feel that old!)  It didn't last.  We slowly separated and went our way into our own lives.  Their parents have all passed now and I'm off on the other end of the country.  As I look back, I'm not even sure sometimes if I wasn't more of an annoyance than a friend sometimes...but those childhood years are still alive in my head and they are still friends there in that corner of my heart I tuck away for memories and dreams.

Long Somewhat Productive Weekend......

This weekend was a clean-up weekend!  We've been asking our realtor for a bit of input and she has finally told us that we have had a lot of people driving by but no one is requesting to see more.  It was apparent to her that we need to give a bit more "curb appeal".  Truthfully, our house has never been beautiful from the outside.  It is an old horse property in the middle of the desert.  I would guess there has never been a lot of "landscaping" here.  We have weeds...  This weekend Tracy rented a bobcat and we scraped the back "yard" of as many weeds as we could. 

I cleaned up the back patio as well as I could and painted a couple of old chairs we received from some friends 5 years ago, and put them on the front porch.  I wish I could say it's now beautiful...it's not.  It is improved. We are hoping that we can add a few bushes to the front of the house in boxes we plan to build around the front.  I hate to put a lot of money into this place considering how little we make from it...but we have to put that best foot forward. 

Life is a blessing...

I Think I'm Out Of Step!

Tracy was reading one of our friends face book yesterday and they were talking about her sister going to a hotel room after her prom with no adult supervision.  It made me wonder where I was when this became the acceptable practice.  Is this how it is going to be from now on, me just shaking my head at parents that think these kinds of things are OK?  The parents responded saying that they had brought up a good kid.  I've brought up a good kid so far too, but good kids still need direction in what is good for them.  The what if's keep swimming around in my head. 

Another example of me being out of step is that I hate watching TV with my kid half the time because even the "safe" shows are a little less "safe" than I would like.  We watch a lot of SciFi.  To this point it has kept Sarah pretty interested in figuring out things.  She loves to think about the science of it all and try to think if it would really work.  This was all good until they started putting both sex and the gay agenda in our regular programs.  I have been told that kids, at 11 know all about this from school and you shouldn't shelter them from it.  Sarah is not sheltered, she is informed but we don't need to see it on programs during a time of day that is supposed to be for more "family programming".  I guess I missed the memo on child rearing that told me you can't make the choice anymore.  We could turn off the TV.  We have so far chosen to fast forward as soon as these things pop up but it's getting so prevalent

I guess I'm out of step with the world now.....

Happy Mother's Day

I love being a mommy.  I didn't post yesterday because we were spending the day with both grandma's.

 It was a beautiful day.  We hung out at Tracy's folks, had a wonderful grilled out dinner and appetizers.   For me, and maybe I'm alone, Mother's Day means way more than my birthday.  The way I think of it, I didn't do anything to be born....I choose every day to be the best mom I can be. I'm sure I fail all the time, but I love being a wife and mother.  It is the best job I've ever had!

Just a nice family day

I had a plan today....for a family that does not like a lot of planning this was not a good start to the day Our neighbor is a singer with a Christian group. They were singing this morning at a small park for a non violence gathering/mother's day thing. We managed to get dressed and ready in time and made it out. What a beautiful day. The kids played in the park and listened to the music. Bridge is really a fabulous singer and I truly enjoyed listening to the perform some of our favorites.

The best part for me was the luxury of shopping. Not much of a luxury for most, but Sarah hates shopping so I knew my time was still limited. We made it to several stores in search of the perfect gifts....I'm afraid Sarah was ready to crumble in the corner by the time I finally gave in to not finding the perfect outdoor chair cushions but it was fun while it lasted!

Sometimes life gives you lemons.....

I'm not a person that gets "sad" or "blue" all that often.  I tend to find optimism in most situations even when it's bleak.  That being said, sometimes you just seem to "step in it".

Several things are setting the tone for me here.

I'm a bookkeeper and business where I work is horrible.  Vegas construction is dead.  I frankly don't know if I will have a job in a month.  I do the collections, A/P, A/R, etc and I can see where things are going.  On top of that, with 14% unemployment it's fairly clear that finding a job for the hours I get to work (mommy hours) for the money they pay will be very difficult. 


Then there is the school system:  My kid just came home and told me she's stupid. She doesn't want to go back to school, wants to be home schooled, and thinks her teachers don't care if they learn because her math teacher told her that the No Child Left Behind is making it so it doesn't matter if she teaches anyway. Ok, then!


Then there is selling a house.  Our house is losing approx. $10K a month currently according to the comparisons.  At this point, I have about 3 more months before we can barely break even.  Again, frustrating but I know God has a plan for us.   I refuse to give up on us moving out of this hole!

Finally, this weekend, we were invited to a confirmation for one of Sarah's friends (almost 3 months ago).  Sarah was invited to her best friend from grade school's birthday party at the same time as the confirmation (3 days before).  I made an "executive" decision and had us go to the confirmation.  Sadly, I'm afraid Sarah's friend's family may very well not understand our non-attendance.  I felt like the larger lesson was to stick to your commitments...and since she loves both friends it seemed to be a decision based on timing of the invitation.  And...we had a great time.  We would have had a nice time at the other event also.

So basically I'm whining and I really don't have a reason to, because in spite of these few things I still have so many wonderful things that more than make up for the stressers.   Thankfully, Tracy is good at reminding me that we should turn it all over to God.  So God, I give it to you

Another weekend gone....

We had a nice weekend...busy but not, if you know what I mean.  We had a friend come in from Phoenix with her new (married less than a year) husband. 

What a great couple they make.  It's fun to find out how life has treated people that you knew years ago.  We had such a nice time getting to know her husband and reacquainting ourselves with our friend.  We ended up watching Tracy toss pizza's and drinking some wine at the house.  I'm not sure this was the "Vegas" experience that most people expect...but for us, feeding people is a joy. 
The puppy was in love!  He couldn't leave his new friends alone.  I'm not sure this is a good thing, but he really loved these two.  I have a feeling he would have jumped in the car if he had been asked!


Sunday we ended up at a confirmation for 5 of Sarah's old classmates.  Although we don't attend their church we were very honored to be asked to attend this celebration!  One of our friends had a celebratory luncheon after so we were able to hang out with a couple of the families we had gotten to know over the course of the grade school years.  It was a really nice time and we so appreciated being invited. 

Air rifle training with the guest of honor :)