Devastation

It's with a heavy heart that I come to my blog tonight.  Today's tragedy in Connecticut is burned into my brain forever.  Columbine was tragic.  Virginia Tech was tragic.  None of those people deserved what they faced that day.  However, this feels like a catastrophic event that we will never recover from. 27 people killed in the beginning of their school day.  18 of them innocent kindergartners.  18 dead 5 and 6 year old children.  18 children who probably woke up giddy about Christmas and Santa Claus and what presents they were going to get for christmas in 11 days.  18 children who were probably excited about weekend plans with their families and instead were terrorized by some maniac as soon as they got to their classroom to start the day.  18 families that are missing their precious babies, who now have a huge hole that nothing will ever fill.  And 8 other families grieving for their lost loved ones.  I cannot imagine the pain they feel.  I know the pain that I feel over this and I have never met any of these people.  It's devastating, gut wrenching, heartache.  I had to resist the urge to go yank my own daughter out of school today when I heard the news.  I know rationally that she was safe, but there was that small part of me just wanted her to never leave my side ever again.  We spend all of our time as parents protecting our kids from harms way.  What is the world coming to when sending them to school is giving them a death sentence?  When some psycho comes and kills his own mother and her classroom of youngsters?  It's incomprehensible.  Details are starting to come out about the murderer who cowardly took his own life after he was done destroying the world for the day.  He's apparently autistic.  You know what?  I don't care.  He lived 20 years without doing something like this.  I don't care how "sick" he is, how it's "not his fault" because he couldn't help himself.  The fact is that there's a special place in hell for him and I hope he's getting what he deserves.  Thats all I want to say about that, I don't want to give him anymore recognition then he's gotten today.  I want to focus on the children, and the families.  My heart grieves for them.  Today I cry for all of them.  Today I hug my daughter a little longer and am a little more patient, because I'm one of the lucky ones who still has the opportunity to do so.  Today I'm not taking her for granted.  I urge you to do the same.

new beginnings

"Just when we think we’ve figured things out, the universe throws us a curve ball. So we have to improvise, we find happiness in unexpected places, we find our way back to the things that matter the most. The universe is funny that way, sometimes it just has a way of making sure we wind up exactly where we belong."


With 2012 coming rapidly to an end, I've been sitting here contemplating what the year was like.  As always, it had it's ups and downs.  I'd like to think it had more ups.  Definitely could have been worse.  I watched my baby do well in school, I turned 30 without having a mental breakdown, had some wonderful time with wonderful friends, went to my first NFL game, got offered a promotion at work, and lots of other nice things.

That got me thinking about what I want for 2013.  Not a resolution, because I never follow through with those, just something I want for myself.  I feel like I just had some kind of major epiphany.  I spend the majority of my free time bending over backwards for people.  I have this overwhelming need to be helpful at all times for some reason.  And THAT, my friends, is what I DON'T want for 2013.  I want the new year to be MY year.  I want to do things that make myself happy without worrying about upsetting someone else.  I want to give myself the chance to fall in love instead of closing myself off and not giving myself a chance.  I want to be healthy and happy with myself.  I want to try new things and step outside of my "norm".  I say this kind of stuff every year, but this year feels different.  My mind feels very clear about what I want and deserve right now.  I know what I want, and I won't settle for less.  2013 will be my year, I can feel it.

it's the little things...

Sometimes it's just the little things that make me smile.  Tonight was one of those things.  Everyone always says Saige is my mini-me.  She looks like me (especially pictures from when I was younger) and she acts a lot like I do (except with a lot more sass.  I don't have as much sass in my entire body as she does in one finger, ha).  Tonight she came into my room complaining she had a stomach ache.  The girl was just in her underwear, she hates pajamas.  Well, given it's 42 degrees right now (and weather.com says it "feels like 37 out") I informed her that she needed to put some clothes on.  While she was arguing with me a thought popped into my head.  Whenever I'm in bed at night and I'm too cold/don't have warm enough pajamas on, I get a stomach ache and feel nauseous.  No idea why that happens, but thats how I've always been since I can remember.   I told her about this and told her she just needed to try to put some clothes on for me and to see what happens.  She put on pants and a long sleeved shirt and no less than 10 minutes later she was out cold.  Guess that helped her stomach ache.  She really is a lot like me!  :-)

just once i want some normalcy, just once...

Mom's back in the hospital again.  She had a knee replacement done last friday and has been in a rehab for almost a week.  She has breathing problems to begin with, so they're supposed to be keeping a close eye on her in there.  They haven't been giving her medications on time and last night they called my sister and me at 3 am saying they had called 911 because she got up to go to the bathroom and ended up not being able to breathe.  The hospital originally thought she had a big clot in her lung, but test results showed she has severe pneumonia.  How does a place that's regularly checking her breathing not catch that?  sigh.  So, they have her on IV meds and a vent until tomorrow, but hopefully she'll be ok.  It's one thing after another.

mommy adventures...

My 6 year old is the love of my life.  She's full of spunk and energy and is incredibly smart and quick witted.  Lately however, those qualities that I love about her so much have been bringing us less than joy.  She's turned into the 6 year old going on 17.  I'm not really sure what brought on the sudden change, but parts of our days have definitely been challenging the past few weeks.  She thinks she knows everything, whines when she doesn't get what she wants and rolls her eyes at me.  The other day was the last straw.  It was the first few days of summer vacation and my nerves were shot.  I decided something had to be done.  She's going to be spending a lot of time at home this summer (only doing camp every other week) and I work at home, so in an effort for some peace and structure, I decided on creating a summer schedule for her.  I also decided to give her chores/responsibilities she needs to tend to every day, and limit her tv to an hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon (after lunch til bedtime).

In an effort to avoid creating a riot in the house I asked her to help me make the list.  We sat together and thought of things she should be doing every day and household chores she could do at her age.  She seemed excited for it, but I figured the first actual day of the new schedule would be the true test.  I woke up expecting the worst and was completely, and pleasantly, surprised by her.  She woke up and immediately asked for the dust rag (her house chore was dusting yesterday) and just did really well the rest of the day.  Day two went just as well.  She was super excited to be allowed to run the vacuum today.  I'm pleasantly surprised, relieved and proud of her for taking the change so well.  Bring on summer!

Blog Train

I'm not sure who invited me to this (whoever you are, thank you!) but it's a pretty cool site.  You just go here, put your blog address in and it will help you get more followers.  You also get points for visiting blogs through that site and whatever else...though I'm not really sure what this purpose of the points is yet, I'm still new to this.  I've found a few cool blogs through that site that I started following too.  If you want more followers you should check it out!  my blog train link

today's to do list...

trying to get all of this done today!  keep your fingers crossed!

laundry (2 loads... wash and fold/put away)
couponing
grocery shopping
pick up dog's mess in the back yard
gardening/get saige a seed for school ready
run/walk
cook dinner
meal plan for the week


ready...go!

Trying something new

<p>Today i joined weight watchers online. I wanted a little extra something to help keep me on track and people rave about their success using this program so i finally took the plunge and joined. A few years ago I joined the south beach diet site, and while it reminds me a lot of the weight watchers site, the food was awful on that program. I like the idea of eating what I want but but just being aware of WHAT I'm putting in my body. We'll see how it goes,  wish me luck.

First day of 2012 - new and improved?

I'm trying to start myself out on the right foot this year. My big goal I really really want to accomplish this year is getting myself back into shape and losing some serious pounds. I also want to become a runner, which I think I mentioned in my blog the other day. Well, today I took the first step towards both of those goals. I registered (with trish!) For a 5k on March 30th. There's no turning back now. I think I needed to register so I had something I have to work towards, to train for. Tomorrow starts training. I'm really nervous I won't be able to get myself into the shape I need to but I've got 89 days ...plenty of time.  I'm excited to start this new chapter in my life and I'm glad to have a friend on the journey with me!