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Posts Tagged ‘hubby’

Queen of Da Nile

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on September 17, 2012| 2 Comments »

I let myself enjoy the weekend.  I let myself bask in that river in Egypt.  Da Nile.  I didn’t look at work email all weekend (which was a nice change– I have got to remember that I control if I check it or not).  In not checking, I didn’t think about work and I didn’t see the email from younger son’s teacher.  But I’ll get to that in a moment.

I knew I was wrong about the possibility of canceling the January appointment for younger son from the moment I wrote it.  As we sat eating a late lunch at Great Adventure I got my visual proof.  As he ate his food, younger son’s head was moving and he didn’t miss a beat.  His lip tic was happening too.  Hubby and I looked at each other at one point and just gave each other that look.  You know the look.  The look between a husband and wife that says everything it needs to without any words.

That was Saturday.  Involuntary movements were all of the map on Sunday too.

Then this morning at work I read the email from his teacher.  She had written to let me know he was holding his own in class, keeping up with the other students.  She also wrote to let me know she had noticed several head movements and noticed the sounds, the noises.  Small, quiet grunts that younger son seems to not notice at all.

January 3, 2013 is a long time from now.  I can’t not do something to try to help him (if you’ll forgive the double negative).  Hubby wants to look in diet and nutritional options.  What I wonder is if we try to help, will it make it difficult to diagnose something like Tourette syndrome?  I am going to call the doctor’s office tomorrow and let them know that we can’t sit and watch without actively trying to help him.  Perhaps if we keep a record of what we observe and what we try so they have a running record.

In college, we would say DENIAL all the time.  How it wasn’t just a river in Egypt.  We also said “Your MOM” a lot.  Don’t completely remember the origin of the mom reference.  It’s strange to be over 20 years out from college and be the MOM in denial.

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Simplicity and simple joys

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

Over the summer I spent time thinking about the simple joys.  A friend asked about our bathrobes.  The boys each have their own-younger son’s robe is black with grey skulls…very him.  Hubby and I gave robes to each other as presents early on in our relationship.  Oldest son has a red and black robe.  They are all soft and cuddly.  And they all keep a person from being naked.  A robe’s purpose is simple.  I had never given thought to the idea of all the comforts a robe brings to a person.  Like I said, keeps you from being naked after a shower.  But layered over pajamas and it makes you warm and cuddly when you need it.  When you are sick, lying around all day in your robe is about the best thing you can do.  Out of work?  Walk around with your robe over your clothes, just makes you feel better.  It’s a great part of your wardrobe that you may have taken for granted.  This friend didn’t have a robe.  He does now.  After we gave it to him (early birthday present), he wore it all weekend.  He gets the simple joys of a robe.

I have friends and coworkers that have summer homes.  Many times they share stories about the fun times they have at these places.  Other times though, they simply talk about all of the work involved in maintaining the summer houses.  Now I am not fortunate enough to own a summer home.  I hope if I ever get to that point, I will remember what I just wrote…fortunate enough to own a summer home.  If I feel like I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the upkeep, I’ll remember just to rent a summer house.  In the meantime, hubby and I have taken to calling our screened-in gazebo the “summer home”.  Very little upkeep involved here.  Put it up in the spring, take it down in the fall.  Any moments spent in our backyard at the “summer home” are wonderful.  The boys use it a fort.  Simple-poles, screen, and some plastic yard chairs but the immediate feel of a summer home.  It captures the essence of a summer place which is simply a different place than normal.

I accomplished a “Trading Spaces” type remodel to youngest son’s bedroom.  He walked in when I was almost done and he had such joy on his face.  The part I enjoyed was adding the simple details.  A picture from camp tape to the side of his bookshelves so he can see it each morning.  A sheep with wool that his Nana gave out in his class last year taped above the picture.  These are some of the things that are clearly important to this seven-year-old since he’s kept track of them for longer than a week.  I tried to see the room from his point of view.  He still liked how it is painted (the shark from Jaws on one wall, hammerheads, giant squid, jellyfish, octopus on the other walls).  He just wanted it to feel like he had more space to play.  We got him a futon and he loves it.  Rearranged the dresser, desk, and shelves and he feels like he has a brand new room.  I’m doing the same for oldest son.  The simple catch is they have to keep it clean as this is the last time I’ll do an overhaul like this (at least till they are teenagers-which isn’t that far away).  So the simple task for me is to teach maintenance.  I get to be the mean mommy and help them remember to tidy as they go.

We finally got a game system.  One simple joy of an X-Box is bowling.  We laughed and laughed and got lots of strikes and gutters.  Younger son is really good at boxing and this makes me glad it is a video game and only the avatar got hurt!  Still, after playing with X-Box for an hour, the boys asked to play a game of Scrabble.  I’m glad I have an old board that has wood tiles.  I heard the wood tiles have gone the way of the dodo.

Finally, a simple joy I keep summoning up to my mind’s eye is hubby teaching the boys how to skip stones.  Does summer and life get any better than that?  I don’t think so.

Enjoy the simple joys.

 

 

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Fossils

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on August 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We had quite the lovely adventure searching for fossils this weekend.  Boys are watching Destination Truth as I document our findings.  They are in a very questful mood!

 

 

 

Above:  Not sure what this is a fossil of but it reminds me (and hubby) of those candy buttons that came on a strip of paper and were all different colors.

A rather nice example of a trilobite.  Oldest son found this on our second day.

In the photo above I think it may be a coral fossil.  It’s cute as a button in the center of the photo.  The photo below has a nice example of a brachiopod toward the right.  I believe below that in the stone, toward the center, may be part of a crinoid fossil.

 

 

Younger son found this partial trilobite (above, upper right of stone).  The depth of it is neat, compared to the depth of older son’s find.

I believe the fossil above (toward the upper center of the stone) and below (upper right of stone) are bryozoans.  They are fan-like and, in my opinion, very delicate looking.  Very gentle.  In the bottom photo, there also seems to be a fossil of a brchiopod.  Look to the left of the bryozoan.  It looks like a little seashell.

 

It was exciting for me as I always wished I could be a paleontologist when I was younger.  I did not force this interest in either of my sons, but when they discovered dinosaurs and fossils, I certainly supported it.  They both had fun in the dust this weekend, looking at stones from pre-history.  Both handled the spiders really well too.  Hubby did too.  One photo that will have to wait to be posted till next year since I didn’t take one with my camera is the one in my mind’s eye.  As I walked through some of the trails today, I noticed the amazing amount of quiet.  I also noticed the beautiful layer of ferns growing in this wooded area.  It transported me back.  You could feel the sense of history, the millions of years of existence, ever-changing with the times.  Another moment of my own destination truth.

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Fossil Hunting Again…

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , on August 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We drove to PA today to go fossil hunting again.  The air conditioner in the rocketsled died on Thursday so the boys got to experience the same type of trip I had when I was a little girl.  A hot, stuffy car where the windows seem to do nothing.  It was much nicer to be in the front seat.  I now understand why my folks always called out to us in the backseat, “It’s not that bad”.  Ah, being the parent.  You get the benefit of sitting in the front seat but you also have to listen to the kids arguing in the back, deal with the traffic, maps, and tolls.

The boys were really well-behaved on the trip.  It’s not a long trip, maybe two hours with the leisurely pace we decided to take.  We’re in the hotel now and the first thing the boys did was ask if the television had Cartoon Network.  Hubby had suggested we go to the park today to scout out the location, but he’s sleeping on the bed.  I think we’ll be lucky to make it over to the Cracker Barrel for dinner.

The nicest thing of all is that we are all relaxing.  There is no schedule.  I’m not even going to make one, other than to make sure we get downstairs for the breakfast by 8am tomorrow.  We can always come back upstairs to the room after we eat and finish getting ready for our adventure.  I packed nice and light.  A lot of the bags were actually filled with food and drinks.  The room has a mini-fridge and microwave.  Mini-fridge is now filled.  When the boys finally looked in it, they initially thought it came magically filled with everything they love.  Then they put it together that I must have filled it.

Oldest son is thrilled that the accent wall in the hotel room is orange.

Youngest son is thrilled that he and I went to the room first and he got to claim which side of the bed he wanted.

All I hope is that we find some fossils tomorrow.  And that I stop sneezing.  Terrible day for an allergy attack.

 

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My Lunch with Indiana Jones

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , on July 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and X never, ever marks the spot.”  Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  Indy is speaking about enjoying the journey because if you only follow the map and only pay attention to the stuff that is right in front of you, you’ll miss something.  He likes getting another perspective and this is often when pieces of the adventure fall into place.

This continues to be a struggle for me.  Enjoying the journey and not worrying so much about the destination is not my strong suit.  Perhaps because I have ended up in some strange places in my life.  Pretty normal places, really, but places I never expected myself to end up because it wasn’t “in the plan”.  I watch others sometimes and they seem so very content and do not demonstrate an obvious map to their lives.  The cliche of the grass is always greener comes to mind, and I fear, gentle reader, this post will may more cliches to follow.

I have a very nice life.  Why do I clutter it by worrying about silly stuff?  By seeking more than what I have already?  When will I come to realize that I am there…that very nice spot to sit and tarry a while?

Perhaps because I still feel a drive to do more within this world.  Hubby gave me two books for our anniversary (yep…I’m a nerd…books are a really good gift on all occasions and smart hubby picked up on this early in our 12 years together!).  One of them was about the butterfly effect and how every action you do has an impact somewhere, even if you don’t see it.  Makes sense he would give me a book about the butterfly effect.  First, he knows I’m grappling eternally with purpose in life and, as part of the chaos theory, the butterfly effect fits into our way of life.

I then wonder what butterfly effects could I be having?  Are they positive for the world, or I am sending out dismal influences that will haunt folks for generations to come?  By nature I am a worst case scenario-ist.  I have to go through all the worst possible end results to feel comfortable with a situation.  If I explore this idea of sending out the dismal stuff, I’ll work my way back to a more centered reality.

During this lunch, in which I hope there are no truly exotic foods, like in Temple of Doom, Indy and I would  talk about the digs, rights of the modern countries to archeological finds, and his uncanny ability to enjoy the journey.  Not only does he enjoy the journey, he does it with great style and in his own way.  One never really realizes how much you can learn about life from Indiana.  Ah, Dr. Jones, you chose wisely.

      Each day I hope I don’t choose poorly.

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My Lunch with the Doc or A Night at the Opera

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , on July 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

My lunch with the doc is also known as late night dinner with my hubby or a night at the opera.  We went to see (and listen) to an opera.  It was beautiful but had to end at intermission because of the storm.  The power was knocked out so they performed the first act in a combination of the church lights and the emergency lights.  The pianist, who was fabulous, was playing by flashlight and tap light.  Our friend was playing the role of Julius Caesar and his voice is heavenly.  Everyone in the cast did an amazing job especially with no air conditioning!  They decided to end it after act one since the building was getting darker and there were no lights in the restrooms.

That’s a hard call to make but the founder of Opera Modo made the correct choice.  As we were driving home we encountered several trees that had fallen and two lanes on a major road blocked off due to fallen power lines.  She was concerned with safety and liability.  She made the right choice.

So hubby and I had time to enjoy a late night supper and made our way to a classic Jersey diner.  If you are not from Jersey, you do not have a full appreciation for diners.  Next time you come to Jersey, you need to go to a diner.  Not a fancy one, not a “theme” one, just a diner on the side of a highway or maybe even a little off the beaten path.  Good food, good service, good prices.  And lots of good conversation.

Hubby and I were able to finish complete thoughts on the first attempt!  We also had our third date night in a month’s time.  How awesome is that?  We talked about politics, education, food, opera, performing, and our sons.  We sat in silence and ate yummy food.  He stole some of my chocolate milkshake.

So my tip to you is to have a night at the opera.

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Time to do…

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on July 5, 2012| 1 Comment »

whatever I’d like to do.  It’s odd.  I’ve haven’t had this much on my hands in years.  I do not want to fritter it away however, so I need to focus myself and find something purposeful to do with all this time.

Hubby and I have begun discussing sprucing up the laundry room.  We need to clean and then seal the walls, finish the top half of the walls, and do something with the floor.  Then the fun part is painting it.  I think I’ll pick a very funky color for the room.  It’s one of the rooms you can have a lot of fun in because one has to make laundry fun and exciting.  While we’re at, we can seal the lower half of the walls in the family room and lay down the new floor boards.  The frame of the floor is fine, it just has terrible floorboards.

I also want to paint the upstairs.  Not the boys’ rooms, they’ve been painted several times.  The bathroom’s been done twice too.  I want to paint our bedroom.  And the hallway, living room, dining room, and stairway walls.  This means of course I get to pick COLORS!!!!!

I have no clue about any of the rooms yet except our bedroom.  I’m planning a lovely jewel-tone in the blue family.  I’ve already found the new bedding to go with it.  I have some paint chips and will narrow down the choices.  Then once that’s done, we’ll figure out the rest of the upstairs.  By we, of course I mean me with some mice.

I need to choose carefully about the living room because very soon we will have to replace the furniture.  I’m thinking I’ll pick something in the espresso family because in theory that could hide the boys’ messes.  I keep thinking of spices for the living/dining room colors and then a bright vibrant color for the hallway.

I need to make these choices and then make my timeline so I don’t fritter away my time to do whatever I want to do with my family.  Some home improvement projects are always a good idea.

Happily it’s been too hot to weed!

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My Own Mr. Holland’s Opus

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on July 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am fortunate to have actual Mr. Holland moments through my work and my pirates always make me proud.  I do enjoy watching their growth and discoveries.  If I have even the tiniest bit to do with their successes, it makes me smile, a smile that goes all the way through my soul.

Still I came to realize that my opus needed to be told that they are my opus.  I sat down with each of my sons and told them that they are my opus.  They are the greatest part of my life.  I explained to them, explicitly, that my priorities go as follows:

My relationship with God.

My relationship with my hubby.

My relationship with my sons.

…my family.

…my friends.

…my job.

…my hobbies.

Granted, my job may read this (not my immediate boss, but the concept of employer) and think, why her priorities are not in the right order.

But they are.  If my relationship is not right with God, if I don’t maintain that one, I’m of little to no use to anyone else.   Particularly, I’m of little to no use to my hubby or sons.  Hubby and I have a type of short hand that we can use with each other, but we also know how important it is to nurture our relationship.  And even if all we get is 15 minutes to hold a conversation, because we share a brain, we are able to cover a lot of ground.  This was a banner month-two date nights in one month!

But I remembered that my sons are still young.  They won’t be for long, but at this moment I remembered, or realized, I needed to be EXPLICIT with them.  There are two lullabies I sing to them.  One I made up and the other is “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon.  Mr. Holland (played beautifully by Richard “I did Jaws, I don’t need this” Dreyfuss)  sang this song to his son in the movie.  So I related the idea of the the boys’ importance in my life to the movie.  I told them they are my opus, the most wonderful piece of my life, my efforts,  my dreams and hopes.

While I am not perfect and never will be, I told them that everything I do and say and show to them is to help them when I’m not with them.  To help them make good choices and to know they are loved.  I said if we were independently wealthy, I would be at home waiting for them when they got home from school.  I also pointed out how lucky they are to come to their father.  Not a lot of boys get to spend so much time with their dads.

I love the subtle shifts I’ve seen in my sons.  They are talking more, sharing more about their fears, worries, hopes, and dreams.  They are slowing down their pace and taking the moments to explore what they are feeling.  Then they are trying to express it with more clarity.  I know this change  isn’t simply due to me telling them they are my opus.  This is because they are my opus and hubby and I have been working on this opus since the day we found out we were having babies.  It is so neat to see it starting to click for our sons.  It is so cool to watch them as they grow and develop, gain new confidences, and try new adventures.

My opus will not bring me fame and fortune, just as Mr. Holland’s didn’t bring those things to him.  But it’s not the fame and fortune.  It’s the moments.  It’s hearing “I love you , Mom.”  It’s the hugs.  The kisses.  The cuddles.  The wee bits of embarrassments that are starting to rear their ugly heads.  My opus is filled with cacophonous sounds and they are a beautiful noise.                                                                                                          

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The Peace in the Chaos

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

Well, well, well, gentle readers.  I had a wonderful weekend.  We did so many things together yet nothing with a stringent schedule.  We just were together and doing things that made us happy.  Friday night Hubby and I went to a wedding and had good times, good times with family and friends.  The boys had their yard sale on Saturday morning.  Most of the money they made was because people thought it was sweet that young boys were having their own yard sale.  We put up the screen-gazebo and bought some new chairs for enjoying the outside with-happily they were even made in America.

We played air hockey, we went to church, we went to the baseball picnic.  We cuddled, we talked, we shared dreams.  The peace of the weekend was lovely.

Topic of the sermon on Sunday was about the idea of peace and being still.  As I wrote a few posts ago, peace comes in chaos.  Focus has been given to finding those moments of peace and it makes each day happier.  Humor also helps each day and this evening we were having fun with grammar.  My kind of fun!

I did throw my back out.  In my 41 and a half years I have never thrown my back out.  I attribute that to going to the chiropractor since I was 12.  Irony is oozing over this situation for me since I just celebrated ten years of marriage to my chiropractor.  Hubby was rubbing my feet last night and I fell asleep on the couch.  When I woke up at 5am to the joyful strains of the Brady Bunch, I got up to go to bed.  I grabbed the hand towels, the last bit of laundry in one of the baskets, and headed toward the bathroom.  I opened the door to the linen closet and bent slightly to place the towels on the shelf and out went my back.  The towels were the straw that threw out the camel’s back.

We had put up the gazebo, rearranged the family room, did multiple loads of laundry, and made several trips up and down the attic stairs.  My back said enough.  It hurt on the way to work, all day at work, and then on the ride home from work too.  Hubby worked on it and I’ll be taking some Advil PM.  I’ll stick some ice packs on it as I drift away to slumber land.

The moment of peace in this?  My sons making a date with me for tomorrow night to watch the newest Adventure Time on demand.  Youngest son asked me for the date and he acquiesced to letting oldest son join us.  Slumber land will be filled with sweet dreams of peaceful summer evenings.

                                                 

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Bucket Lists of Many Kinds

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on June 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I was planning on auditioning for a show in the next week or two, but I am having serious second thoughts.  First, while it would be a fun show, it’s not one that was on my “list” of shows I’d like to do before I die.  I guess one could call it an actor’s bucket list.  I really enjoyed working with the group, so that’s not the issue.  I’ve been looking at the time I would need to spend on the role (presuming I were cast) and as I added it up, I began to think…hmmmm, do I want to do that?  Now?

I would actually have more conflicts than I had thought before thinking to myself that I could easily do a show.  I had remembered the conflict with a wedding I’ll be attending but hadn’t thought of eight or nine or ten other commitments that are not moveable.  That’s almost a dozen conflicts which is about a quarter to a third of the rehearsals.  (Don’t ask me to be more specific, I’m not a math person and I’m really not a fraction person, unless I’m baking and then fractions make sense.)  The other commitments are too important to try to shift or move, but I also do not like being the type who gets a part and then lists a slew of rehearsals I’ll miss.  It happens, I get it, but I don’t like to do it.

Would the person directing the show work around it?  Possibly, probably, maybe.  I don’t really know and that’s not what’s important.  I wouldn’t feel right.  Knowing I had intentionally double-booked myself and forced one or the other to work around my inability to be there would lessen my enjoyment of whichever one I did attend.

Putting all of that aside however, I realize that the main deterrent is the time I wouldn’t get to spend with my family.  Yes I like to indulge my interests and keep myself fresh and excited by doing things I like to do.  But this is the first summer in a decade when we’re not on too many boards (I’m only on one and it doesn’t meet during the summer).  The classes I’m teaching will be over by the end of June, right around the time the boys finish school.

I could feasibly take advantage of the summer hours at work and spend some lazy summer evenings with my family.  I could work on my yard. I could do scrapbooking or beading or sewing or reading or nothing.  Imagine working on my sons’ scrapbooks.  Imagine sitting and having deep conversations about the exoskeleton of cicada with my sons.  Imagine reading a book in one sitting.  Imagine not feeling the pressure of extra, self-inflicted deadlines.  This is the first summer when I don’t have any externally imposed deadlines on my plate.

Do I want to put one on my plate?  Or would that be like putting a big helping of beets on the plate?  I would imagine it could begin to leave a bitter taste in my mouth and I don’t want to do that.  I also feel like hubby should do the next show.  He probably won’t do a show because he always comes up with a reason not to do a show.  But I don’t think I want to do a show.  I think I want to not do stuff that doesn’t have a direct positive impact on my whole family and not just me.  This summer I think I want to be selfish and spend all my spare time with my family.

The boys and I started making the presents for their teachers tonight.  We came up with the idea of giving their teachers a small, hand-painted wooden box personalized with either an initial or a picture of something each teacher likes.  We had a blast working on the boxes tonight.  I want more of that.  I looked at my sons this evening, painting and smiling, and they looked so much older than I expected them to look.  Oldest son doesn’t like me to hug or kiss him in front of people.  Youngest son can’t be too far behind.  At this moment, they still like spending time with me and I’m still relatively cool.  That won’t last and I know it.  It’ll come back another day, but it’s going to change soon and last for quite some time.  While I pray daily for the blessing of a long life, spending time with my sons is always on my bucket list.  Spending time with hubby is always on my bucket list.  I don’t want to take that for granted.  Ever.

At the beginning of this post I had not yet decided the fate of the audition nor did I think I would figure it out today or tomorrow.  And yet I’ve clearly made my decision.  I didn’t go through my normal long and drawn-out process.  Well, there’s one to take off the bucket list.

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