What Am I Thinking?

I am playing softball. We had practice on Saturday night. Today is Monday and I am still sore, and we have practice tonight and the game tomorrow. I was surprised that after about 17 years that I can still hit and catch and throw. Didn't practice the running. Better get back to the gym and work on the treadmill a bit!

It's exciting to at least try. What is so funny is that as I was playing first base and somebody threw the ball past me I heard my coach (from high school) say, you let that ball get by you and you are running laps. I looked at the girl who threw it over my head and said as I was showing her with my hands - "You see all this (showing her the hip area)? It doesn't come off the ground very well". She laughed! I will update you Wednesday on the score of the game. We play on Tuesdays, and every other week is a double header. WOW!! This will be fun for Chris to get watch Ethan while I am going something.

Speaking of Ethan - the first two weeks have gone by. He had to write sentences both weeks and miss parts of recess because he is having trouble sitting still and talking (imagine that). So he realizes that tomorrow is the last day of the month, so he should be coming off restriction and he is all excited about playing video games again and getting to watch his TV shows. Please Lord - HELP MY CHILD!!! The teacher has also moved his desk to the front of the room to be beside her. I will have to say that this didn't happen with any of the other children. And Amber - don't say too much - it will come back to HAUNT you! :-)

It's Monday, so back to reality. We had a great time on our trip to Virginia last weekend. I will post pictures later. I will add that I know what a dog feels like in the back of a truck and I really don't think that my face flapping in the wind is going to be very good for wrinkles!

Oh - and I am getting very excited about this weekend! I am ready for some football!!!! War Eagle!


Have a great Monday.

OUCH.....

I have the worst crick in my neck. Started early and the week and it is HOLDING on and moving down my neck. Now this is not a good thing because we leave in the morning going to Virginia on the motorcycle!

It's going to be an awesome weekend. I am excited for my children, since Crickette and Ethan will be going to stay with Amber and Steven (I am sure that after this weekend they will put off having children for a few more years).

I called Amber a week or so back and was checking in on the date to make sure all was set. Then I had to break the news to her that her little brother was on restriction from TV and Computer. She said surely he will be off by then won't he? Umm...no, he is on restriction for a month. She quickly informed me that there was no way that could happen at her house, Ethan with no TV or computer and all he could play with were her dogs!!! NOT HAPPENING. She would even tell dad that he would be off restriction that weekend. (So does this mean I will be doing the same thing with her children when they have been bad at her house? :-) ) This could be so much fun later on in life....

I did send a text messege to Steven soon after that said: Just a little note to remind you that when you put your child on restriction that child is not the only one being punished. And I think that your wife just may take it out on you!

So today is day four of 2nd grade for Ethan. The first three days he has missed some of recess and had to write sentences each day. I think that this teacher is going to be great for him!

Well that's it for today, have a great Thursday!! I will be leaving in the morning at 8:00 am. Say a prayer for my neck and shoulder. The next message will include pictures. I hope there aren't so many rain pictures like last time. Going to Mayberry!!!

Too funny.....

I was looking beyond my blog and found a posting about this. Since my link button seems to be broken I will have to share it another way....

If you have a tattoo don't be mad at me, I didn't make this chart, but you will have to laugh and find it amusing too!

Who Who

Well I was hoping by now that I had a picture of a little blue owl that left my house on Saturday so I could show you. He is not very big and will fit in the palm of your hand. I have no idea how he got to my house ,(I even made phone calls to ask my friend that had just spent a night here) but after he got here I remembered an e-mail I read years ago and thought this owl might be used in a little fun for the girls. For now he can be passed between me and Amber until Crickette gets her own place. The funny part was that I was walking all over Amber's house after we got there so I could find a home for him. I did notice that Amber had not hung a picture I gave her birthday and ask her about it. She yelled "I told you Steven that she ask about it!". Oops... but she said she needed to patch the nail holes before she hung it up. Next trip :-)

After we left Amber's house on Saturday night I got a call from her asking if I left an owl at the house. My response - "What?". She ask did I leave some kind of voodo owl at the house and something about it making her either not have babies or make them, I can't remember, I was trying too hard not to laugh out loud. She said she remembered dusting her chest of drawers and that owl was simply just not there. I admitted to putting him there and shared a little about the e-mail that I had read years ago. So now I am sharing with all of you (and Amber) so now that little owl will take on a whole new meaning to her and maybe even inspire some of you to start a little tradition. Have fun and get the tissue out, it may touch you.

THE YELLOW SHIRT

The baggy yellow shirt had long sleeves, four extra-large pockets trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was faded from years of wear but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963 when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging through bags of clothes Mom intended to give away. "You're not taking that old thing, are you?" Mom said when she saw me packing the yellow shirt. "I wore that when I was pregnant with your brother in 1954!"

"It's just the thing to wear over my clothes during art class, Mom. Thanks!" I slipped it into my suitcase before she could object. The yellow shirt became a part of my college wardrobe. I loved it. After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved into my new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned.

The next year, I married. When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big-belly days. I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were in Colorado and they were in Illinois. But that shirt helped. I smiled, remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 15 years earlier. That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper and sent it to Mom. When Mom wrote to thank me for her "real" gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely. She never mentioned it again.

The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom and Dad's to pick up some furniture. Days later, when we uncrated the kitchen table, I noticed something yellow taped to its bottom. The shirt!

And so the pattern was set.

On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under Mom and Dad's mattress. I don't know how long it took for her to find it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base of our living-room floor lamp. The yellow shirt was just what I needed now while refinishing furniture. The walnut stains added character.

In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children, I prepared to move back to Illinois. As I packed, a deep depression overtook me. I wondered if I could make it on my own. I wondered if I would find a job. I paged through the Bible, looking for comfort. In Ephesians, I read, "So use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be standing up."

I tried to picture myself wearing God's armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt. Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn't my mother's love a piece of God's armor? My courage was renewed.

Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother. The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer.

Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station. A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet. Something new had been added. Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words "I BELONG TO PAT."

Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe and seven more letters. Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, "I BELONG TO PAT'S MOTHER." But I didn't stop there. I zig-zagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend mail the shirt in a fancy box to Mom from Arlington, VA. We enclosed an official looking letter from "The Institute for the Destitute," announcing that she was the recipient of an award for good deeds. I would have given anything to see Mom's face when she opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it.

Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our wedding, Harold and I put our car in a friend's garage to avoid practical jokers. After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head. It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the yellow shirt. Inside a pocket was a note: "Read John 14:27-29. I love you both, Mother."

That night I paged through the Bible in a hotel room and found the verses: "I am leaving you with a gift: peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives. So don't be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in me."
The shirt was Mother's final gift. She had known for three months that she had terminal Lou Gehrig's disease. Mother died the following year at age 57.

I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave. But I'm glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years. Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets.

So with that I left my little owl who flew into my home with Amber. I know that after a visit I will find him (please don't put it under something - you know I won't find him). And when Crickette gets her own place we can share him with her. This can be so much fun and I would have loved to have done something like this with my mother.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and if this brings back memories of your mom today, treasure them! Smile and be refreshed today!

Where is the time going?

I can't believe the summer is gone. We didn't do a whole lot, but we have been busy busy. Sometimes to the point of being so overwhelmed, I just want to crawl in a cave, but have a computer too!

I went and saw a friend two weekends ago, and she knows me oh too well. She asked me, "So, how's Stacey doing?". My usual answer - "Fine". Then later she says, "I am asking you for the third time, How is Stacey doing?". Sometimes you just don't know how to answer! I keep thinking about Chris talking about that little bubble that I put up around me and close the world off. Now sometimes I really don't even realize that I do it.

Okay, first I am not stressed (well not alot - ha ha). I have found my 3rd and 4th gray hair this week. Which is very WHAM - life is catching up with you!!! I did find the first one the day after Amber's 25th birthday. But I must admit to be 44 and just getting gray hair is not so bad!

Now if Miss Bernadine could see me, she could mean what she told me about 10 years ago. When we went back to visit our first church, she noticed that I colored my hair, her comment - "The only reason you color your hair is to cover the gray". Of course that wasn't the only thing that she was brassy about - the first time I met her she said, "Your alot bigger than the last preacher's wife." "Wow" I thought, but said to her, "Well she must not enjoy food as much as I do!" (keep in mind I was a size 14 at the time - just barely a plus size...oh to be there now...)

May I add that being a preacher's wife is very interesting at times.

Hope you are having a good week, it's the last one before school starts for us.

Catch you later, and hopefully it won't be so long.