A long, hot, exhausting day...

What did we do on this scorching hot day? Did we go for a dip in the pool, enjoy ice cream, spend some time in an air conditioned environment?  Nope....not us!!  We were moving furniture for my mom on the hottest day yet!!  That's just how we do things....and tempers were sometimes hot, and we were wishing we had more strong male friends...but we got the job done....and are all exhausted tonight!!

"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else."

~J. M. Barrie

My corner of the sky

I saw the sun just starting to set this evening as I was driving home from choir practice and it was beautiful....unfortunately, when I got home and went searching for it, I could just see a little color in my corner of the sky.  My house is not situated in a location where I can see sunsets.  Yet I was really happy and thankful to be able to stand and look at this....my corner of the sky.  It reminded me somehow, that as tempting as it is, as easy as it is... to get caught up in all the negativity in the world...that I have to try my hardest to be positive, look for the positive and think positively...even when life gets stressful....  I have to be positive and hopeful and faithful that I will find my corner of the sky.

"Every man has his daydreams

Every man has his goal

People like the way dreams have

Of sticking to the soul

Thunderclouds have their lightning

Nightingales have their song 

And don't you see I want my life to be

Something more than long...

Rivers belong where they can ramble

Eagles belong where they can fly

I want to be where my spirit can run free

Got to find my corner of the sky."

~ Stephen Schwartz

Bicycle Riding

Alex never had much success with his bike as a younger kid, and the least little fall and scrape would send him back into the house with too broken a spirit to try again.  He's always been like that...very hard on himself if he can't learn something right away.  But he is really enjoying riding his bike this year so far...which makes me happy because I love any activity which pries him away from technology and out into the world. He's been out riding with his sisters and by himself...and I just love that he is loving it so much this year.   I look forward to many days of Alex being a carefree youth while he can...and enjoying himself outside.

There is a lesson in all this...if we just give up, throw in the towel the second it all gets too overwhelming and difficult, if we just let it get the best of us and don't keep at it...we may never know the joys we are missing.  Now, I guess it's time to get him an adult bike....

"I feel like I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is nothing wrong with enjoying one's self simply, like a boy."

~Leo Tolstoy

Dark Days

Some days you feel tired.  Some days you just feel done with the junk....the annoying details, that don't really matter...They aren't really important in the grand scheme of things.  You tell yourself that...over and over...and yet they do matter enough to wear you out, because you still have to deal with them, you still have to get past them today.  And part of you just wants to run away and lock yourself away from it all.  But the other part knows you need to rest and wake up tomorrow and take a deep breath, and plaster on a smile and face it all...all the junk.  And move past it.  Today was a dreary rainy day in many ways...and on days like today, I need to force myself to look past the dreariness, past the rain and puddles and darkness....and concentrate on the promise that it is only temporary and brighter days are coming.....

"Life will break you.  Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with it's yearning.  You have to love.  You have to feel.  It is the reason you are here on earth.  You are here to risk your heart.  You are here to be swallowed up.  And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling around you in heaps, wssting their sweetness.  Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could."

~Louise Erdich

Water

Can't wait to be near the water this summer!!  It is calling to me!!

"Always be like a water.  Float in the times of pain or dance like waves along the wind which touches its surface."

~ Santosh Kalwar

Cousin Fun!

We had a wonderful time visiting with my cousin and family tonight  That makes our kids second cousins...and then I could give you a long explanation on first cousins once removed and on and on....  This drives some of my family crazy....that I am a stickler about the exact cousin relationship.  But this family of a combination of relationships to ours: first cousin, first cousin-once-removed and second cousins feel so much closer than that.  We love getting together with them, We are planning our next visit together and always have so much fun!!  We are big board game players, and seekers of giraffes in zoos on steamy hot days and lovers of chocolate and tonight...we became Wii Just Dance competitors... you'll notice I did not post the picture of me playing....very scary indeed.  I feel so blessed on nights like these.  No family is perfect...every family has their issues....but I wouldn't trade my kooky family for anything!

"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."

~ George Bernard Shaw

Mr. and Mrs.

I have known this lovely young woman since she was a child.  I have known her for 17 years....since she was around 6 years old.  She is now a married woman, and though I was there and witnessed the whole thing, I still can not believe it.  I am not sure where that little girl went....and when the lovely young woman emerged.  I do know that Marissa is family to us....and with everything in me, I wish her and her new husband Dante a life full of love, peace, joy and an occasional dinner at our house.

"Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now you will feel no loneliness,
for each of you will be companionship to the other.
Now you are two persons,
but there are three lives before you: his live, her life and your life together.

Go now to your dwelling place,
to enter into the days of your life together.
May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead
and through all the years may happiness be your
companion to the place where the river meets the sun,
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

Treat yourselves and each other with respect,
And remind yourselves often of what brought you together.
Give the highest priority to the tenderness,
gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves.
When frustration, difficulty and fear assail your relationship -
as they threaten all relationships at one time or another -
remember to focus on what is right between you, not only
that part which seems wrong.
In this way, you can ride out the storms
when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives."
~ Apache Blessing

Exits and Entrances

This is perhaps not the best picture ever taken of these three...but I love it anyway...because I love all of them.  The one thing about your kids making friends...is that you make them and get attached to them also.  Tonight we went to Arlington High School to see a benefit Broadway Revue by members of the Admiral Players.  It was an event that reminded me how much talent we have at that school and how so very fortunate we are to have a school environment that values that talent, nurtures it and helps it to grow.  I am proud of all of these three.

Tonight was a reunion as Alyssa and Bela who have been away at school came to support Bradley, who is about to graduate and start the next chapter in his life.  Last year, the girls were standing where Bradley is now...they were exiting the Arlington stage, but they both made entrances onto new stages in their lives.  I know Bradley will follow ...very literally making entrances on new stages.  They all hold so much promise in their own ways.  My life has been blessed by having them as a part of it!!

"We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else."

~ Tom Stoppard

My girls

The pause that refreshes or insanity dispenses?  When both my girls get together you are forced to travel to another dimension....another reality....and it is hysterically frightening. Either I am too old for such nonsense, or too tired, or they have a very odd sister connection that I do not understand.  In any case I have left them to their fun...for lack of a better descriptor...and I have fled the scene.

"Embrace your inner lunatic. Fun times guaranteed."

~ Derek Landy

Hope

"Hope is the thing with feathers

 That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm,

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm

I've heard it in the chillest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me."

~ Emily Dickinson

I scream you scream...

....we all scream for ice cream!!  What does my family do when there are tornado and thunder storm warnings? We head for the nearest outdoor ice cream spot....that's just how we roll!!  It was a suggestion initiated by Cara....and everyone was in favor and said Ice cream!!

"Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos"

~ Don Kardong

Under one roof

There is nothing in this world that gives me more joy and peace than having all my babies, kooky as they are, home under one roof.  I know these times will be fewer...and I will enjoy them while they are here!!

"I would have given anything to keep her little.  They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them."

~ Jodi Picoult

The people that matter

When I first sent Cara off to Plattsburgh, I worried about a lot of things.  Mama Bird was worried about how Cara bird would do out there on her own....taking care of herself for the first time.  I worried about all the little things; would she wake up on time, ask for help if she needed it, figure out how to get to Walmart, what would happen if she was sick, etc.  But what I worried about the most was if she would find people she could trust...would she find her people...people that she could relate to...that get who she is.  Would she find friends?  Ever since the kids were little...no matter where they were in life, what was most important to me was that they were in a place where they were loved and cared for.

Cara did find friends....and her years in Plattsburgh have been blessed by some great people.  I know it is hard for her to say goodbye to them.  I can relate, I remember how it felt to leave the friends that I had spent so much time with....and who had helped me develop into the person I was.  The friends you find in your college years have watched you stumble and have stumbled with you and have had a huge effect on the person you are as you reach for that diploma.

If  Cara is anything like her mom, and unfortunately for the poor girl, she has a lot of her mom in her, she will keep in touch with the ones who really matter, who have been there with her...they may move out of Plattsburgh, but they won't move out of her heart.  Cara will go out of her way to keep in touch with the ones who have been her friends...  I know that the friends she has mad during these years will stay in touch and will get together and communicate and support each other as they walk forward through life...no matter what their path will be.

In the end, it's not necessarily the place that matters....the particular college or locale...it's the people that matter...the people you encounter that make the place what it is and that change your life forever just for being part of it.

"We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet.

'Even longer', Pooh answered."

~ A. A. Milne

Beginning a life...

"As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in.....


 Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of your advantages.  And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big.  Work hard.  Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; 
.....the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.  Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion—and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.

Because everyone is.

Congratulations. Good luck. Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives."

~David McCullough , excerpts from Wellesly High School Commencement Speech

Blue Skies

“Only in a place like this do earth and sky come together in such a way that they bridge into one, and in such a place a person could put up her arms and find herself in heaven.” 

~ Laura Pritchett

Accomplishment

While one daughter is getting ready to graduate from college, the other has just successfully completed her freshman year.....a year of so much growth and so many "firsts". She has done well and accomplished so much....and is looking forward to a summer free from the stress of a to-do list with a million things to accomplish each day.  This has definitely been the right place for her, and I watched her say Goodbye to the good friends that she has made this year and I thought of how far she has come this year....how much she has grown.

So proud of the accomplishments of both my college girls!!  Bravo for a job well done!! I am so proud of both of them!!  So happy to have them both home for a little bit.

"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end.  It's not a day when you lounge around doing

nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it."    ~Margaret Thatcher

Never Grow Up

So hard to believe that my little girl will be graduating from college this weekend.  Does that mean she's all grown up?  She was always so sweet.....and calm, compared to her brother and sister...  It was hard admitting she was growing up throughout school...but she was always so mild mannered and sweet and really didn't give me the rebellion and trouble that I saw other kids dishing out.   So I fooled myself into thinking it wasn't really happening....she wasn't really growing up.  Even when we had to send her off to college...I told myself it was just another step in the process, she'll be back....and she was.  But what do I tell myself now? She has a bachelor's degree...is not planning on moving to temporary college housing, but her own place.  She'll be busy, working and going to grad school.

I am so incredibly proud of her...and yet part of me misses my sweet little girl.  Gone are the days of running down the hall with stolen canned goods, asking me "what pink mean, Mommy?", pretending to be the Mommy and wanting to drive to daycare.  Now it's conversations about grad schools and music, broadway shows and friends and jobs.

They say it's not good to dwell on the past....and I am really not, I look at her today and wish her more beauty than pain.  I wish that she is able to hold onto the sweetness that has always been a part of her in a cold-all-about-me world.  I will, as I always have, continue to be her biggest fan and help whenever I can, and remind her that she is not alone in this big world...but a part of something bigger....a loving family.  But a tiny part of me pauses, to glance over my shoulder at my precious little girl and wonder why she had to grow up so fast...and wish even more that I could go back in time and plead with her to never grow up.

                               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1YGmOit8G0

                                                             "Never Grow Up"

Your little hand's wrapped around my finger
And it's so quiet in the world tonight
Your little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming
So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light
To you everything's funny, you got nothing to regret
I'd give all I have, honey
If you could stay like that

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart
And no one will desert you
Just try to never grow up, never grow up

You're in the car on the way to the movies
And you're mortified your mom's dropping you off
At 14 there's just so much you can't do
And you can't wait to move out someday and call your own shots
But don't make her drop you off around the block
Remember that she's getting older too
And don't lose the way that you dance around in your pj's getting ready for school

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
No one's ever burned you, nothing's ever left you scarred
And even though you want to, just try to never grow up

Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room
Memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home
Remember the footsteps, remember the words said
And all your little brother's favorite songs
I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone

So here I am in my new apartment
In a big city, they just dropped me off
It's so much colder that I thought it would be
So I tuck myself in and turn my night light on

Wish I'd never grown up
I wish I'd never grown up

Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up
I could still be little
Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up
It could still be simple
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
Won't let nobody hurt you
Won't let no one break your heart
And even though you want to, please try to never grow up
Oh, don't you ever grow up
Oh, never grow up, just never grow up

Growing up

As Alyssa finishes her freshman year and anxiously looks forward to a long summer's nap.  I think about her experiences, the friends she's made, the ways she has grown, the things she has accomplished.  I am so proud of her and how well she has handled college.  I am thrilled that despite the growing up she has done, Alyssa still continues to be her own unique Alyssa-self.  I have stolen these photos from Alyssa's friend Rose (pictured with Alyssa below). She was one of Alyssa's first pals at college....and I am so thankful that she and Alyssa have been there to help each other through.  In the photo above, Alyssa has somehow convinced her roommate to carry her up three flights of stairs.  God bless this girl!!  Can't wait for Alyssa to be home on Thursday....but she's going to have to crawl upstairs on her own!!

"Growing up is hard, love.  Otherwise everyone would do it."

~ Kim Harrison

Thought for the day

"Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of"

~Markus Zusak

Dance

We took a quick trip to Oswego this weekend to see Alyssa in her college dance recital.  She was in several dances.  We loved them all...especially the one that she choreographed!  I have always loved watching Alyssa dance, and am so glad that she has joined this dance club....which she absolutely loves and has tried her hand at choreography!  I thought she did a wonderful job with her first choreography.

It made for a crazy busy weekend and Mother's Day....but I can't think of anything that makes me prouder than my family supporting one another as they do their own thing.  I am so blessed!!

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once."

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Happy

So happy to be able to share in Alyssa's dance recital and her first choreography! So proud of all the three human beings who are always growing, singing, laughing, talking, creating.... And who made me into a Mom!!

"HAPPINESS [is] ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED” 

_ Jon Krakauer

Bravo

So proud of Alex.  He did an awesome job playing piano and singing at his recital tonight.  He doesn't always love practicing, typical teenager that he is, but I see the talent he has, and I will not let him ignore it.
Great way to start our very busy weekend.  Bravo Alex!! Encore!!

"Without music, life would be a mistake"

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Blooming

Spring is a time of rebirth...of blooming...of blossoming.  I am here to tell you that who you are is good.  Who you are is beautiful.  Know that there is a special place for you in this world.  There is room in all of us, though, to become better...to blossom...to grow. The process of growth happens from a place within....and true growth can not come from anywhere else.

We all struggle and sometimes we fall, we make mistakes...hopefully we don't have to make the same ones too many times before we learn from them and make ourselves better.  Learn from the mistakes, think about what you did wrong, what you should have done differently...and then cast them aside and look forward.  We all make mistakes...and they are one  moment of one day in our life.  We are not defined by our mistakes.  No matter how monumental they may be, they are not...who we are and what we are.

So when you make mistakes...and you will, because we all do...reflect, learn, grow and blossom into a new you having learned the lessons that they taught you.

"If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you've made, if they don't realize you are not your mistakes, then they have to go."

~Steve Maraboli

Blessings

I was just running to the store last night...and when I got there...look what I found.  I have been really so exhuasted trying to juggle so many tasks and events lately, and this is just what I needed to make me stop and realize...that life is so much more than all the drudgery that it has been lately.  It reminded me to take a moment and stop and count my blessings...all the wonderful things I am blessed with.

Even during difficult times, exhausting times, trying times...I need to remember that I am blessed...that our current state is just temporary....and believe... that even if things look dark, the sun will rise again.
For today, I have completed my tasks, the laundry is in the washer, the cookies are in the fridge..even if the oreo balls still need dipping....Alex is finally practicing and my bed is looking quite inviting.  Tomorrow will be a new day, starting early...filled with new tasks to be accomplished.  I will begin the tasks at hand while reminding myself of my many blessings.

"May we be strengthened with the understanding that being blessed does not mean that we shall always be spared all the disappointments and difficulties of life."

~ Heber J. Grant

Chocolate Mousse

I have been beyond scheduled and busy lately.  I have neglected the blog, partly due to my exhaustion, partly due to Alex's taking over the computer as he completed a project and partly due to lack of inspiration.  Alyssa informed me that her friend sent her a message expressing feelings of consternation at the lack of a post in several days.  SO for her...I am dragging myself to the computer to post so that her life may once again be complete.  I am touched and amazed that anyone out there has trouble getting through their day without a few words and images from me.

Alex has been working on a French project and the culmination of said project is the presentation of a French dish in French class tomorrow.  I had been told by Alex that this was my part of the assignment...the parent's responsibility.  If I hadn't had some correspondance with the teacher about how to deliver the food item, I might never have learned, that indeed....it was Alex's responsibility to create the dish.  So here is Alex this afternoon....whipping up some Chocolate Mousse.

And this seemed a fitting photo and subject...because in my life, it has been proven time and time again...that there isn't much wrong in life that can't be healed through chocolate....unless of course, the problem has to do with not being able to fit in your jeans...and in that case...chocolate is still going to help you drown your sorrows.

"If there's no chocolate in Heaven, I'm not going."

~Jane Seabrook

Someday....

“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”
― Shel Silverstein

Procrastination

Alex has procrastinated a school project and his usurping my computer in his 11th hour attempt to get it done. I will try posting from my phone... So bear with me as I see how this works.

“You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
What mood is that?
Last-minute panic.”
― Bill Watterson