Heartbreak

Being a mom to two girls I anticipated comforting them on heartbreak.  I really thought it would be a (gulp) boy issue.  I never thought it would be sports related.  Ella has played soccer since she was two.  She has worked her way up from rec onto a travel team.  For three years she has played in the top pool, focusing a lot on goalie training.  She attends practice three times per week and has gone to goalie training (optional) two times per week for two years.  Soccer here is pretty much year round.  This is a lot of soccer.  Tryouts for next season took place this past week.  Ella has a rough first day, struggling to breathe in the heat.  We got her inhaler for the next day, hoping it would help.  "I brought it, mom" she told me after the second day. Ella found out today, she dropped down to a lower team - all of her friends moving on.  For someone who has poured her little heart and soul into the sport, I saw heartbreak in her for the first time.  As a parent, it is a teaching moment, I know.  "We don't always get what we want." "Look for the positives." But let's be realistic, she is 10 and she is hurt.  She is hurt by a coach she trusted.  Of course, we can't protect our kids from these things, but we can try to soften the blow.  I know kids need to be prepared for disappointments and things that happen in the "real world" but what do you do? What do you say? We told her we are proud of her.  We don't care if she is on the World Cup team or if she is on the 100th team.  We want her to be happy.  So, she went to bed with a tiny smile and tear stains on her cheeks.  I will hold onto that tiny smile...

xo~M

  

She's Baaaack!!

What do you call a slacking blogger? A blacker...and slogger??? Megan? I can not believe I have not blogged since January.  It is not like there has been a lack of action around here.  Let's see....Keelin has started and completed her first season of Track and Field.  So amazing to watch her run and she is competing in the same events that I did.

Keelin passes another runner in the 4x400

Keelin and her friend, Laura

Lead leg of the 4x100

All three kids are full into their soccer seasons.  Max's team has done amazing and has grow a lot the past season.  They went from winning one game in the Fall to only losing one game this spring. He is having a lot of fun.  

Spring Break has come and gone.  Only Keelin truly went on vacation, leaving us to spend a week in Pensacola and Orange Beach with her friend, Laura.  The rest of us spent the week at home.  It was beautiful weather and we got a lot done around the house and relaxed a little too. 
We have 7 more school days left...My summer blog promise is to blog at LEAST once a week.

xo,

~M  

Snow in Georgia

I am from upstate New York.  Land of wind, ice, snow, wind chill, negative temperatures, frozen eyelashes, lake effect ....you get the picture.  Fast forward 10 years....I live in North Georgia.  The Peach state...land of humidity, occasional droughts, air conditioning, heat waves, Indian summer....
But-today we are on day 2 of no school.  Tuesday, our district let out at half day.  What usually takes Josh and Keelin 15 minutes took them an hour.  Snow immediately turned to ice as it hit the pavement.  Cars left abandoned on the interstates as they ran out of gas after being on the road for hours.  Children stranded in schools and on buses.  Reminiscent of Buffalo...when it snows an inch an hour.  Here I think we got close to 3 inches.  The kids were in heaven.  They feel no cold or dampness.  They would have been outside all day. Our neighborhood is hilly and now hilly and icy.  Car tires spin trying to drive out.  So I walked to the store yesterday to gather provisions (mainly ingredients for Ella's birthday cake!) I loved it.  The walk in the snow. It was peaceful and beautiful and so out of place down here.  A little homesickness did settle in.  I am not a southerner yet....I am a northerner through and through.

xo~M

My walk on the way home from the store

Josh and I took a walk in our neighborhood Tuesday night

Store parking lot...a sheet of ice

The front yard!

One happy snow girl!

Happy New Year

"Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one." ~Brad Paisley

I am quoting a country singer.  Am I considered a southerner now?  Stop it!  Once a northerner, always a northerner.  

As a family last night, we all filled out 2013 letters.  We put our names, ages, favorite colors, most memorable moments, what we want to work on, our goals....NOT resolutions....goals.  We sat around the chocolate fondue and read in age order (oldest to youngest). It was fun.  Then decided to put them in a safe place....and read them at this time next year.  I was moved by how introspective the girls were and giggled with Max's answers.  2013-ups and downs for sure.  I am making some internal and external changes (goals) for 2014.  I want to take better pictures.  I want to be present.  I want to be brave and patient and kind.  I want to be the kind of person my kids can be proud of and the kind of wife for whom my husband can be grateful to have.  Not too much to work on, is it? Here is to my first page....

xo~M

Zoey May-One Year Later

When I told Josh I wanted a puppy he was against it.  Keelin was 5 months old.  We were getting ready to move into our first house after being in the condo.  I argued it was perfect timing.  We could bring her home right after I finished with school for the summer and I would train her.  Reluctantly, he agreed.  But he fell in love with her as much as I did.  Training:  she was never a good one for the leash.  Not for lack of trying.  That was really Josh's domain.  He tried.  Walking her up and down the street on her leash.  We were lucky enough to have a fenced in back yard where she could run free.  Run free she did.  After anything we threw to her.  She loved playing fetch.  She would start frothing at the mouth before she would stop.  We had to make her stop.  She was pretty easy to "potty" train, rarely barked, and has the sweetest disposition of any dog I think I have ever met.  She loved all of the kids.  Nibbling on Keelin's toes when we brought her home and cooling off in the saucer part of Kee's exersaucer is how I remember her in Buffalo. When we moved down to GA, she rode with me and the kids in the Subaru.  We moved in with Kristin and Chris and Zoey went to stay with my new friend, Amy and her family.  We were separated for a couple of months while we house hunted but then Zoey came with us to our new home in GA.  Zoey loved being outdoors here.  She loved to lay in the sun on the back patio and of course, play ball.  I remember our dogs growing up shaking on the rides to the vet.  Not Zoey.  She loved the vet and her caregivers there.  They always commented on how sweet and happy she was to be there.  She did great on long car rides back and forth home to NY when we first moved here.  When we vacationed and could not take her, she happily went to friends' houses. Moving down here did a number on Zoey's ears and skin.  She got many ear infections and the vet told us that unless we moved to Arizona or back to NY, she would be affected by them here.  So she had shots every 6 months and that really helped until the past couple years when she started taking prednisone for her itching and joints.  A few years ago we were told she had a tumor on her leg and we should amputate.  Her love of running and the fact that she was 9 years old led us to the decision not to amputate.  We did get a biopsy which was inconclusive.  And the "tumor" shrunk and went away.....We were lucky to have almost three more years with her.  Her ear problems did cause her ear canals to completely close up.  This did not prevent her from hearing me getting the Cabot cheese out of the refrigerator.  She was there right next to me waiting for me to cut her a piece.  I spent Christmas night laying on the floor next to the fire with Max and Zoey both curled up around me.  She loved fires.  She loved to be pet and if you stopped she would nudge your arm to continue or paw you until you started up again.  If I was sad, she knew.  When I lay on the couch, she would come up and lay next to me on the floor or lay her head on my chest to be pet.  On Thursday, she did not seem herself.  She would not get up off the step.  She had thrown up a couple days before and then stopped eating.  Josh took her to the vet and they diagnosed her with a stomach tumor although not sure if it was in her intestine or liver.  Because of her age, the size, and her difficulty with breathing (the vet said it was pressing on her diagphram) we were told to make a decision....
I slept downstairs with Zoey that night. Her discomfort was evident and I lay silently sobbing next to her.  Josh and I took her to the vet the next day, Cabot slices in my pocket. Her Dr. was in tears telling us that we made the best decision and how much more humane we are to our pets than to people. They placed a plate of cake next to her which she promptly ignored for the cheese I held out. That's my girl.  She went quietly, with no more pain...her head in my lap.
**One year later....still thinking about her all the time.  Charley definitely has a really good life because of how much we loved Zoey and what a good dog she was.  She set a high standard but she also taught us about unconditional love and that time is so short.  Here are some of Zoey....

xo~M

                                     April 18, 2001-January 4, 2013

Our Zoey

Happy face

Zoey and Baby Ella

Josh and Puppy Zoey

Nibbling on Keelin's toes

Zoey and Keelin

Zoey and Max

One of her favorite puppy spots...in Keelin's exersaucer

May your days be Merry and Bright....

Holiday break.  17 glorious days off from school.  Although the kids are at home, so I am not sure HOW glorious! No really it has been great so far.  Spending Christmas Eve with my sister and her family was awesome.  Only lessened slightly by the fact that my whole family is not together.  My brother in law is home from Afghanistan after a year so  my sister's family is complete again.  Definitely cause for celebration and joy.  Both of which was had by all.  The kids had a wonderful Christmas.  Keelin thanked us for an AMAZING Christmas.  Ella, Max, and I made a ton of food.  We have been living in our jammies, watching movies, and general lazing.  Today Max and Ella did get dressed and went outside to play with our neighbors.  I am three quarters of the way through a book I started this morning.  I would say it has been a successful vacation day.

xo~M

Keelin tries shrimp for the first time!

Helping Uncle Chris prepare the lobsters

Her favorite gift...love it

Poor Josh-failed attempt at building a gingerbread house YEARS ago...never let him forget. The kids picked him out a gingerbread house ornament this year.  

Merry Christmas, Baby

A Carpenter's Daughter

Back in the summer I bought an old six-paned glass window.  It still had the rope ties in it.   I have wanted one for a while...I would still like more with assorted panes, but this one would do for now.  It took me until November to really decide what I wanted to do with it.  First I had to sand it.  There were thick layers of paint on it.  Dark green, cream, maybe white too....at least 3 colors and who knows how many coats.  I started hand sanding thinking that it was SO old the paint would just flake off.  You are laughing at me now, aren't you?  Keelin came in to help me one day.  I was covered in paint dust.  She grabbed a sanding sponge and we both put on masks (I am SURE the paint was lead based) and goggles.  We barely made a dent.

I had done a few other wood working projects and borrowed sanders, but I decided it was time.....

To get my own!!!! The fact that it is called "Mouse" does NOT bother me at all!  It is perfect for me-sized projects (for now!) So I went to work.  One pane I was a little overzealous and sanded so much that I knocked the glass out.  I could have put it back in, but I decided to go with it for the sake of the project. I got down to some really pretty dark wood.  I thought for a brief moment that I would keep the beautiful wood, but the thought of stripping it .... nah...been there, done that with a stairway.  Not to be repeated.  

A little glimpse of the painted frame.  You can still see some of the layer that was so stubborn, but I think it adds some character.  I also added some "fake snow." 

 I decided to paint one pane with chalkboard paint and to use the open pane to hang ornaments.  I used some eyelet screws and ribbon to hang some silver ornaments I had leftover.

The finished product sits on the mantle  I changed white ribbon for red to add a pop of color.  I was going to put pictures behind the top two panes, but decided to just go with the snow.  The nice thing is that the ornaments can be removed, the lettering erased, and the snow washed off so that I can use it for another "project." I emailed my mom the finished product - telling her about the sanding, etc.  She emailed me back one line : A Carpenter's daughter.  It made me smile, think about my dad....that I am proud I know how to take on a little project like this because I paid attention to things he taught me.  A smile in my heart for sure.

xo~M