Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Musings and Epiphanies’ Category

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on February 26, 2012| 1 Comment »

Billy was back and I really did enjoy him.  But before I get too far into the post, what was with the tinny feedback on seemingly every microphone?  Or was it just me?

Was that Sheila E. working the percussion in the band?

Why and when did they switch the order of the awards?

Yes, I’m happy for Christopher, but damn, Kenneth got dissed every single time.

I love that so many people kept their speeches really brief.  I loved Billy’s opening number.  I laughed my ass off at the “focus group” for The Wizard of Oz.  Thank you, Catherine O’Hara for saying to millions what I have been saying for years.  Glinda’s got a wee bit of wicked in her for not telling Dorothy earlier about clicking those heels together.

Billy Crystal made it feel like it was a ten or fifteen years ago.  What a difference compared to how I used to watch the Oscars.  With a party, pools on who would win, and I would actually have seen the movies that were nominated.  Now I was just glad the boys were practically ready for bed when it started.

I wonder if I will one day reconnect with the Oscars as I did in the past.  The one nominated movie I saw this year was The Muppets.  Tells you where I am in life.  Now I catch movies on demand as I am able.  Sadly, I still think movies from the 1990s are recent.  The other night I was enjoying my good friend Keyser Soze and noticed the year it was made.  1995?  Really, 1995?  When I realized The Usual Suspects is as old as it is, I realized I need to get some new lines to quote.  How did time fly away and the movies with it?

Perhaps one day I’ll re-embrace my desire to go to a large dark room filled with strangers and watch movies.  I do love the movie theater experience, but there are so many other things to do.  But as my sons get older, they too will embrace the experience.  Won’t that be fun.  As you wish.

Read Full Post »

Did this go to fb?

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, Uncategorized on February 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I have been trying to reconnect my blog to my fb page.  Ever since I switched to that silly timeline set up it hasn’t worked and I’ve had to manually post my posts.  I have tried again to reconnect them.  Did it work?

Read Full Post »

Importance of Literature

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on February 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

My oldest son and I were watching last night’s episode of Grimm on demand today.  He asked a lot of questions.  Many of these questions would not have been asked if he was older and more well read.  He’s rather well read when it comes to non-fiction, but the classics, like Grimm, have not stuck to his schema.

I wonder if it is simply lack of repetition or if it is because of his preference for non-fiction?  I have loved Grimm and the like since I was a little girl.  I suppose I figured everyone did or that my sons would at least inherit it.  My youngest son certainly embraces the macabre as I do, but will the Grimm stories and other dark literary classics stay with him his whole life?  Will my oldest connect with them over time?  I enjoy wondering about these things, even knowing that these answers won’t come until they are “all grown up”.  That’s a long time from now.

It also has to happen naturally because you can’t make a kid like anything they don’t want to like.  I’ll see if I can find some graphic novels of Grimm stories.  The boys loved the Beowolf graphic novel.  October is always Poe month, maybe we can make March Grimm month.  In theory, it’s still supposed to be a grim and bleak winter month.  Again, in theory.

He did enjoy the episode.  Perhaps he will like revisiting the stories.

Read Full Post »

Elephant White

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , on February 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I caught an interesting movie this evening. Well, I caught part of it. It’s called Elephant White and it’s got your favorite and mine Kevin Bacon in it. It is about the sex/slave trade in Thailand. The aspect of spiritualism is incorporated into the plot which I found interesting. While I have very little knowledge on the sex trade industry in Thailand, I do know that part of it is rooted in religion-a misinterpretation of it, but if you think of uneducated masses being manipulated for generations, it probably seems reasonable. If you like Kevin Bacon and want to see a good but troubling movie, give it a watch. But not with little ones around. It’s rated R for a reason.

Read Full Post »

The Spelling Bee

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , on February 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The Thursday evening ritual in most homes with elementary age school children includes the final review of this week’s spelling words.  Both of our sons are happily strong spellers.  They get it.  This makes our job relatively easy.  My heart goes out to the parents of children who struggle with spelling.  For some children it just doesn’t make sense.  It may never make a whole lot of sense to them and they will have to learn to trust spell check and find someone to do a really good job of proofreading.

For my sons, they enjoy spelling.  My oldest loves showing how well he knows his words.  He stays very focused during this Thursday night ritual.  He keeps a big smile on his face the whole time.  The only tricky part of the evening is to keep my youngest from being a goofball.  He enjoys misspelling words for fun.  The problem is he might then get them wrong on the test.  So tonight I tried something a little differently.  He got to quiz me.

Oh, he enjoyed this arrangement very much.  He chose words from his chart of word wall words with glee.  After I would spell the word, he would tell me I was wrong.  Then he would say “there’s a z at the end” or “there’s an e at the end”.  With a sweet smile, he’d then shout, “No, you spelled it right!”  This got on the nerves of his older brother rather quickly, but he tolerated it well.  He seemed to enjoy listening to our little spelling bee.

No matter how you review the words, it counts.  My youngest went to bed thinking he pulled one over on me by not practicing his spelling words.  And I let him go to bed thinking that.

Read Full Post »

Yeah, I know that.

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on February 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Last night during dinner, I asked my youngest about school.  He quickly shared that he had to write a story but he was not sure how because he missed most of writing when he went to speech.   I asked him what he did remember about the story.  He said it needed to have a middle, a beginning, and an end.  I asked if it was possibly a story with a beginning, middle, and end to which he replied, “Yes, that’s it!”

Well, older brother could no longer contain himself.  He had to chime in with his two cents.  He proudly declared that he writes stories with FIVE paragraphs.  He asked his brother if he was going to start his story with a “grabber-you know, to grab your audience’s attention?”  I calmly reminded him that his brother is in first grade and at the moment, the class was focusing on beginning, middle, and end.

My oldest son then asked, with attitude oozing and dripping from his entire being, if I even know what a grabber is and how to use it in a story.

I gently asked him if he remembered that my job is managing a writing lab at a university.  He quickly remembered and acquiesced that I might, in fact, understand the concept of a grabber.  I then told him I hope one day he graduates from the “classic five paragraph essay” because there are so many wonderful ways to write.

It was another rough night for the oldest son.  My youngest received the lion’s share of my time.  We brainstormed some ideas for his story.  He says he doesn’t finish his writing at school because he spends all his time thinking of what to write.  Now he has a plan for the story and he decorated his list with Sponge Bob stickers so I know he was pleased with it.  But this took most of the evening because I wanted him to enjoy the process.  We didn’t rush.  We brainstormed at the speed of a six-year-old.

Eight-year-old was crushed.  The evening was not centered around him.  This has been happening more often and he’s having some trouble with this adjustment of the Mom-time.  Once they were tucked into bed, I called my oldest son out under the guise that he needed to put something in his backpack.  I hoped that would be a boring enough request that my youngest would stay in bed.  Nope, he wandered down the hall about 8 steps behind his big bro.  I shooed him back to bed and called my oldest over for a good old-fashioned Brady Bunch talk.

I asked him why he had been so angry with me all night and he fessed up that he didn’t like so much time going to his brother.  I explained that it wasn’t that I love him any less, but that it was a shift to balance the time between the two of them.  We had a great talk and a lot of hugs.  Then his younger brother came down the hall again.  We three cuddled for a while on the couch and talked about random and wonderful things.  Once they were tucked into bed again, they happily drifted off to sleep.

Yeah, I know a few things.  But with each passing day they think I know less and less.

Read Full Post »

Thoughtful

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on February 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We don’t take enough time to think anymore.  To simply sit and be thoughtful about matters.  We rush through our days and possibly take stock at the end of the night as we brush our teeth.  I suggest that thought may only happen when brushing teeth since one’s mouth is full and talking becomes ridiculous.  Not impossible, but silly sounding!

In the heat of a moment choices can be made.  Without thinking it through, without making a thoughtful decision, a choice may come across very differently than one intended.  A person might think that what he is doing is making things simple for the others involved, but then it comes across to the others as having a deeper meaning.

When you are the recipient of such a situation, you need to be thoughtful about your response.

Tonight I will be thoughtful.  I will reflect on a series of events that span the past few months, perhaps the past year.  I will see where I stand after being thoughtful.  Then I will decide where to go with it next.  It may take more than just tonight.  It may take a while.  Because the action that may have been seen as simple was rather hurtful, at least with how the enclosed note read.

If only I had been more thoughtful and not thrown the note out.  But it hurt to read it.  Didn’t want to keep that around.

Thoughtful times are all that’s left to help me.  I will try to view things from the other perspective and hope the same is being done to understand my perspective.  And there is the gift of time.  Time softens things, makes the memories blurry.  Time lessens the importance I am placing on things today.  The perspective will be different tomorrow.

Treat yourself to a quiet time tomorrow to sit and be thoughtful. To reflect on the important people and projects in your life.  Be thoughtful of what you have done lately and what you want or need to do.

Read Full Post »

Ah, simplicity

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on February 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Today was a day of simplicity.  The boys and I went to church.  I was subbing for one of the other Sunday School teachers and my students were the helpers.  This meant I got to teach my youngest son’s class.  He did really well having Mom be his teacher for the day.  I try to teach a grade that neither are in because there is a wee bit more pressure when your mom’s the teacher.

The worship service seemed to be filled with simplicity in that so much of it was prayer.  Prayers for the community as we struggle with the tragedy from Thursday morning.  The words from my pastor filled my heart and I kept adding my own prayer of thanks for my two healthy and happy sons.  The boys helped me put the new curriculum in the classrooms after service and then we drove home.

On the drive we looked to see if the carcass of the deer was still on the side of the road.  It had been several weeks since we sat and watched the turkey buzzards (I think that’s what they were; they didn’t look like a classic vulture).  The bones were still there but no birds were circling anymore.

We came home and had sandwiches for lunch.  We had hoped to go to the museum this weekend but the boys didn’t keep up their end of the bargain.  Chores had to be completed by the time I got home from work on Friday and the chores weren’t done.  There were a lot of tears, a lot of promises, and I’m sure they were thinking “mean Mommy and mean Daddy”, but they had the whole day to accomplish a few simple chores.  What they accomplished was making the mess even bigger.  I hate that part of being a parent.  I love to take them on adventures.  But part of the job is saying no when the time is appropriate.

Without the trip to the museum, yesterday was spent working on the house.  With actual thought and planning, we simplified our kitchen.  We have this pile of stuff that tended to sit on the floor due to lack of cabinet space.  I measured the space and found the two random, funky cabinets we inherited with the house would fit in the space.  I gave them each a quick and dirty coat of paint (theater painting in my vernacular) and we set them up.  Not only does this give us the extra storage we needed, it provides the ever popular extra counter-top space.  Ah, simplicity.

My hubby and I also talked about the fact that we don’t need to buy as much food as we do.  I am dreadfully spoiled since my hubby does the shopping, but the man loves a sale.  He’ll stockpile like a hoarder.  Today he went to get the lunch meat for the sandwiches and did buy some Entenmann’s donuts–on sale.  Today he only bought two boxes.  Yea!

Hubby did a lot of work in his office too.  We also agreed that the more we cleaned out the more there is to clean out.  We agreed it will simply take time and celebrated our little victories of the weekend.  I repositioned my wonderful “Vera” bouquet in a spot that highlights it beautifully.  I used the space it had been in to set up a little bar (when did we acquire enough liquor to require a little make-shift bar?  Wow, we’re like grown-ups or something).  I dealt with several bags of “stuff” that seemed important enough at the time to set aside but now are clearly unnecessary.  Time really does work its magic, doesn’t it?  Things that seem so urgent and important rarely are as important as we make them out to be.

And now I sit looking at my home.  If one of those “staging for sale” shows came in, they would have a heart attack.  But man, it’s our house.  It is fun, funky, and a little bit strange.  It always strikes me as odd when people ask me how the boys handle the office downstairs.  I have to remind myself that to some that’s a weird way to grow up.  To me, it’s not like it’s a funeral home or anything.  It’s a chiropractor’s office.  Sure there are a bunch of spines and x-rays, but what house doesn’t have them?  With my hubby working from home, our sons get to have grand adventures after school and all summer long.  We are in a phase of simplicity yet also a renewing of our shared lives.  It’s quite a lovely place to be.

Our sons bedrooms would also freak out the staging people.  A picture is worth a thousand words. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So our house is our own.  We live life marching to our own drummer.  At this moment, our sons are cuddling on the couch watching their beloved Pokemon.  Then they’ll get ready for bed and they’ll probably fight just a little bit.  Because they are brothers.  And that’s okay for now.  Simplicity.  Spending the weekend together.  Simplicity.  Doing a little bit each day.  Simplicity.

Read Full Post »

Just in case you forgot

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on February 16, 2012| 2 Comments »

It seems for me that whenever I’m ready to plop myself down and dig into a deep and wide pity party, God lovingly smacks me across the face and says, “Snap out of it.”  I have had a blessed life.  Yes, I have had my own challenges to deal with and battle and overcome.  Some more intense than what others may have faced in their lives, but every challenge has had an outcome of me growing stronger or learning a new way to live my life.  I’ve been mighty whiny in some of my posts the past few months.  (Sorry, but then again, it is my blog.  I get to decide what I’m going to write about, though I truly appreciate you reading my whiny posts).  I also believe that the challenges I face in my life are totally valid and not any less of a challenge because of other events, but those events offer perspective and help me move forward.

A tragic accident occurred this morning in the town where my husband grew up.  My father-in-law lives there still.  We worship at church there every week.  I’m on one the boards of this church because that’s my church family and I believe I can be of some use in this capacity.  We got married there, we were both baptized there, I pray my sons will one day be baptized there.  So while I’ve never lived in this town, my heart weeps this evening.  A family has lost a child.  I can’t even write about that because I can’t fathom how that must rip one’s soul out.  My heart , my prayers, are with the family.  I have friends who lost a child and I am constantly in awe of their strength and love and patience to grow from it and to embrace their family close to their hearts with their child always in their hearts, with lots of love and hope.  I hope for the family who is living that tragedy today that they are able to find their love and strength as my friends did, do, and will.

This is the perspective.  This is what makes me write what I wrote above.  I can’t get the image of Cher out of my mind.  Remember in the movie Moonstruck, she slaps Nic Cage and says “Snap out of it.”  That’s what God does to me every once in a while when I get stupidly stuck in my own experience without looking out to the world to connect to the larger world.  To see Him weeping at some awful tragedy that has happened.  To challenge me to think of ways I could help the world rather than sit and whine at a pity party.

I hugged my sons nice and tight tonight.  I smiled as I heard them saying their prayers.  I thanked God for my blessings.  I asked for comfort and grace for the town of Chesterfield.

Read Full Post »

Date Night

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on February 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I had a date this evening with an incredibly handsome young man.  He’s a little shorter than 4 feet, has dirty blond hair, and these blue eyes surrounded by the most amazing (girls are jealous because they need mascara to get these) eyelashes.  I even told my husband about the date.  He was jealous, but he let this young charmer spend the time with me.

My youngest was sick yesterday with a little stomach virus (no, not the norovirus).  We spent the whole day together.  Still, evening came and the boys were tucked into bed.  A few minutes later I heard the footsteps coming down the hallway.  Ah, my youngest, with tears streaming down his face.  He claimed to still be sick (he was using some of those brains in a most manipulative way).  After some deep conversation, the problem was identified.  He wanted more time with Mommy-without the big brother making the choices.  Ah, the root of the issue.

Birth order impacts each person greatly over the course of their lives.  When my hubby and I were gearing up to get married we attended premarital counseling.  It was awesome.  Part of it was to explore our families of origin and how they would impact the family that we were building.  You learn a lot when you look at your family objectively and identify the “roles” you are assigned.  Part of this process helped discover that as a middle child, I knew I would prefer to only have two children.  I also discovered a goal created from being a second child because I know what it’s like to live in the shadow of the older sibling.

There are very few pictures of me as a child.  My interests were echoes of my older sibling’s choices.  My schedule was often dictated by my older sibling’s many because he started his stuff before I did.  Age trumped beauty, I like to think.  😉

Anyhoo, I knew I would not let my second child wonder where were all his pictures.  No, I do not harbor deep feelings of anger toward my folks. Actually, I tease my mother about it.  At least I hope she knows I’m teasing.  But I am intentional in my efforts to level the playing field.  Still, my youngest is beginning to express his discontent about the rank of his big bro.  Big brothers do tend to boss the younger ones around.  It happens rather naturally.  But I believe in nature and nurture.

Tonight’s date included his choice of movie and no big brother.  Big brother was eventually invited to join us and then nature stepped in the picture.  We were watching School House Rock (oh, yeah, Mom was pleased with the choice) and the oldest was trying to tell his brother which one to pick next.  I’m sure you can guess the drama that followed.

Older brother really didn’t like not being the one to make the choices.  He burst into tears because “it’s not about me.”  He was quite troubled by someone else being in control.  The younger brother was delirious with the power.  Pinching was involved.  Parental speeches that echoed the speeches of Mike and Carol were delivered.  Hugs were given.  This was the first step on the road to a more balanced control of power between the brothers.  It will take many steps.  And many more Brady Bunch speeches.

All this generated an interesting declaration at bedtime.  The oldest stated that dad must be the boss of mom, mom the boss of oldest son, and oldest son boss of youngest son.  Whoa.  I quickly corrected him that Dad is not the boss of Mom.  That husbands and wives are partners.  And siblings are not bosses of each other, not are they their keepers.  The complexity of relationships will be explored for decades by these boys.  Of course, their mom is still working on relationships.  That’s the best thing I could teach them about relationships.  They always change and you never become a master at them.  You always work at them and sometimes they are beyond your control.  The only control you sometimes have is to let go of them as gracefully as you can.  And even then you’ll stumble.

Date night.  Way more than I expected.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »