Prom

May is almost upon us and so is prom season. It made me stop and think back to my senior prom which was a mere 39 years ago! I dug up this photo of the cutest couple there. What do I remember about that night? Not much, actually, and not for reasons of indulging in alcohol. I think it was at the Pavilion on Balboa. Like most seniors in high school, we thought we were so grown up and had life all figured out. Funny, the older you get, the more you realize that we hardly ever have life figured out. We come to know that it is a journey full of ups and downs, sadness and triumph and a whole lot of ordinary time in between. It is this journey, not the destination, that makes us who we are. Yes, I was a blond with a daring teardrop cutout on her dress. My date agreed to wear a white tux to match me. Now, I ask you, who wouldn't marry a man willing to don a white tux to please his woman?? For all the things I didn't know back then, I did know he was the one for me!

P.S. Along with the guy, I also kept the corsage!

Wordless Wednesday

Shhhhh......

Rules

Our world is made up of a lot of rules. Many help us to be safe and maintain order ~ Stop at a red light. Don't litter. Say "excuse me" if you burp. The list is endless. Sometimes it seems like there are too many rules and it feels constricting. If there was only one rule, I think it would be the words on this sign. BE NICE OR LEAVE! I especially love that it ends with the polite "thank you"! It seems so civilized. My husband always says, "Why don't people just behave themselves?" He's right, that is all it would take to make the world run pretty smoothly. Trouble is, it just doesn't seem to be that easy for people to behave themselves. Quite possibly, we all have different definitions of what behaving ourselves entails. We tend to look at things the way we want to see them and not necessarily how others might see it. We humans can complicate just about anything!

Writing Blogs

Somebody who will remain nameless (Kevin), told me over the weekend that my last blog was one of his all time favorites. In case you didn't read it, it was very short, probably only 5 or 6 sentences along with pictures of my grandkids. It gave out a few "life lessons" and was really quite simple. I, personally, thought it was awesome, but it got me wondering, what does and doesn't get a reaction from readers? When I write my blog, I mainly do it for myself. It is never very deep, just something that happens during the day that makes me think. I have always considered myself a frustrated writer. The thing about writing is that it is one dimensional until someone else reads it. I claim to write for myself, but I'd be lying to say it doesn't totally please me when someone comments about a blog. Maybe my silly musings speak to others as well as me. Now that sounds like the cherry on the cake of my day!! Even if I am only writing for myself, I will keep doing it. It makes me happy and it forces me to take the time to stop and look at things around me. In the looking, I often find examples of how truly blessed I am.

Life Lessons

Today, at the park, I learned some valuable life lessons from my grandchildren:

Be brave. Try something new even if it scares you.

You may find it wasn't as hard or as bad as you thought. You may even enjoy it.

Laugh often ~ really loud!

Break the rules sometimes.

Enjoy the ride. It's over before you know it!

Sleepover

Usually, we have one grand kid at a time for a sleepover, but mom has been running the ship solo all week and needed a break. We said we'd take all three, no problem.

We did some swimming in the "little pool", as they call it. After all, it was over 80 degrees today. Jack slammed into the side and had a huge bloody nose and bashed up face!

We got Happy Meals for dinner with the new "Rio" birds inside. All was going great. We sat them down to dinner and suddenly, Jack said his stomach hurt. He fell to the floor writhing in pain. I rarely over react, and according to my husband, I "under" react. I'm not going to lie; it totally freaked me out! He was screaming in pain and I wasn't sure what to do. Mark, of course, immediately wanted me to call Amber and meet her at the emergency room! I told Jack he probably needed to poop! See, I really don't over react to these situations. I put him on the potty and he started screaming and dropped to the floor. He was crying out, "I need to go to the hospital." Holy sleepover!! I picked him up and cradled him, not easy for a 40+ lbs kid. Suddenly, he looks up and vomits, all over himself, me and the tile. He does this a few more times and now I am a member of Mark's "Call Amber Camp"! We call Amber and totally freak her out. So much for a "night off". HA! There is no night off when you are a mom. I am thinking the bonk on the nose has done some major damage and this is his body's reaction. He sits on the sofa and rests for a bit. Amber is on her way to check him out with her own two eyes. Mark now tells me Jack had been doing triple somersaults in the pool for over an hour and wouldn't stop. He clearly swallowed some of the salt water because that's all he barfed up. Within minutes of barfing and resting, he tells me, "Grammie, I'm hungry." He promptly polishes off his four chicken nuggets and one left over by his little sister. Crisis averted!! No real damaged incurred!!

Everybody wanted a bath in Grammie's big tub. Jack felt fine. Don't let the green bowl fool you! He's a goof ball!

Now the only question is, where are WE going to sleep?!?!?! Amber, I hope you are having a wonderful, quiet, relaxing, peaceful evening!!!

P.S> Thank goodness for pinot noir, or, as we like to call it, grammie's medicine!!!

Hardware

I have started to amass a few medals from the races I have been in in the last year. Much like my son's hockey medals from long ago, you ask yourself, what should we do with these? They were hard earned and carry memories, but, still, where do you put them? At some of the race expos, they sell metal hooks for displaying your medals. They are cool looking but have a very uncool price tag of $50 - $75 each!! As they say, necessity is the mother of invention so I decided to try and make one of my own using wood. I bought this rack with four pegs from Michael's (of course, with a 40% off coupon!) and the letters to spell RUN. I painted the rack black and then distressed it with some sandpaper. I glued the letters on top. That's where my creative side stopped and I turned it over to my contractor husband to hang it level. I must say, I am very pleased with the results ~ and even more pleased with the price tag. The whole thing cost me less than six dollars to make! That leaves me more money to sign up for my next race and get another medal!

Definition of Joy

joy (joi) -noun 1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation 2. Jack Riley on a hockey rink 3. the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety If Webster included a photo to define the words, surely Jack's picture in his hockey gear would be right there when you look up the word "joy". At four years old, he loves hockey, morning, noon and night. The smile on his face speaks louder than words. His joy spills onto us and we feel it too. Lucky us!!

Crepe Paper Carrots

Remember this? We used to use crepe paper to decorate for every party we had back in the 70s. Well, it's still around and look what I did with it! You can turn this...

into this ~ crepe paper carrots for Easter! All you need is a roll of green and orange crepe paper. I bought way too much; just a small roll for 99 cents is plenty to make loads of carrots.

Here's the "how to":

Loosely wrap orange streamer to form a carrot shape, making it thicker at the top. You could even tuck in tiny gifts as you work. Press the end of the crepe paper down into the top. I used a dab of glue to secure it.

Fold green crepe paper and cut in jagged pieces to look like the top of the carrot. Bunch it up and secure it into the top of each carrot with another dab of glue.

You could even tie a small tag to each one and use them as place cards at your Easter table. People often ask me where I get my ideas. I read a lot and my brain works overtime thinking up things. Many people see things and think, "Oh, that's cute. I should try it." I actually do! It is satisfying to make something and then stand back and admire your handiwork. It makes me smile. Give it a try and let me know how it makes you feel.

Lies

There was a study done that said the average person lies four times a day. That means, we lie, on average, 1,460 times per year! This got me thinking about truth, lies and the "in between" part. Sometimes we lie to spare a friend an unnecessary truth. "How do I look?" Oh, boy, that can be a loaded question. Do we really want to know or are we seeking general approval and validation? Do we want to know the stripes make our back side look the size of Texas or do we want to hear that the color green really brings out the color of our eyes? Do we lie more to close friends or acquaintances? Do we lie more to family or gladly slap them with the truth, no matter how harsh? The most common lie, in my opinion, is when we answer the often asked question, "How are you?" and we answer, "I am fine." Many of us are not fine. We carry burdens about our family, our health, our finances, etc. that make us far from "fine". It is the socially expected answer and yet, it is often not the truth. For whatever reason, we choose to keep the truth to ourselves and offer up the pat answer. It is easier. It is safer. We want to appear together and good and fine. We figure most people don't want the detailed, truthful answer about how we are. It may be too revealing, almost like wearing a bathing suit in public. All of our flaws, bumps and ripples are showing. What if they don't like us after they see the real us? Too scary. At a sales seminar I attended years ago, the speaker suggested that when people ask you, "How is business?", you always answer "Unbelievable!". This can mean it is unbelievably bad or unbelievably good. Either way, it is the truth without revealing too much. It may just work in our daily life as well. So...how are you...really???

95% Awesome

Looking back over the results of the boutique last Saturday, it was a fantastic day filled with mostly gracious vendors, perfect weather and tons of shoppers. Why, then, does the one nasty woman stick in my mind? Why do I keep hearing her unkind words and the tone in which she said them to me? Why do we all replay the negative tapes in our heads rather than the positive ones?? My daughter reminds me that we are not aware of other people's struggles and this lady clearly had some things going on in her life and used me to lash out. I tend to be very business-like and direct. There were 53 vendors at the show that needed it to be organized and smooth. I am good at organized and smooth. As Amber says, "It's not my mom's first rodeo!" Many of the vendors have been with me for all five shows and we have become friendly and look forward to seeing each other every time. They know me, my ways and what to expect. Some of the first-timers sent me emails or called to say they had never been in a boutique where the promoter did so much work ahead of time and offered tools to help the vendors. I want the vendors to be successful. I consider their success, my success, in a way. Anybody can say they are having a boutique, take people's money and sit back and hope for the best. I work hard and long to think of ways to promote the show and the individual vendors. Each and every time, we learn something to make the next one even better. I never want to stop trying new ways to promote the show and help it to grow. Positive thoughts create positive actions which create positive results! That is what I am going to remind myself, today and every day.