Passing on a Blog I follow...

I follow a wonderful LDS blogger from Las Vegas.  She is a musician and a doctrinal whiz and has the wittiest sense of humor.  Plus, her kids are basically the ages of my children and her adventures are so similar.  I can laugh many times at what I immediately found to be the most irritating situation I had ever epxerienced as a mother. 

Today, I stopped by her blog and her post was not the usual fun and witty essay.   She wrote a very straightforward, very honest and yet expressive post on how she feels about some of the political commentary taking place in amongst ourselves in our places of worship - more importantly how we are treating others on the opposite sides of the political spectrum in our own community.  Since I have been the recipient of, heard the same words spoken and felt the same indigation she expresses in her blog, I want to pass it on.  You do not know what her political persuasion is (which is as it should be)... So please, if you read anything this year in the blogger world - read this.

http://thebackorderedlife.blogspot.com/2010/03/political-ranters-need-not-apply.html

Update on the Endings and Beginings

So on the "I Promise to myself to do" list:
I have accomplished a few (without any hiccups, I might add):


2a - done. I was spurred on rather quickly by the announcement that Passport fees could go up and up and up…. They are already darn expensive. So we did it, out the door, on their way and before April 17, will have one in hand. YIPEE!

2b - done, or should I say on its way. The short crop is gone. A short angled bob in the interim to the long bob. More soccer momish than hippish, but I have relented!

3. In the planning stages. Now if the whole job issue thing would iron itself out, we could really get down to the nuts and bolts of planning!

5. I HAVE SO gotten over feeling bad!


On the "I Promist to Be Better At list:

1. This one is hard. I am averaging once a week, at best.

2. Emma done. Working on Sherlock Holmes. Does watching every Masterpiece Theatre available on DVD count????

5. Pretty good. Sugars still better than last year.

6. I am COMPLETELY unsuccessful at restrained eye rolling though. I give up!


By the way - haven’t had a cream puff since January!

Endings and Beginnings

So you think if I make known to the blogger world my goals for the upcoming year, I might actually have more success. Millions (Ha! In my dreams) of hidden accountable eyes would likely be a motivator, right? Imagine looking up in the grocery store and wondering if the woman staring at you notices that you just put in your cart the supersize 72 count mini creme puffs, which you adamantly vowed to all your readers that it was number one on the DO NOT TOUCH, LOOK AT, OOGLE OR LUST AFTER IN 2010; or is she staring at the unwashed sweats and hot pink cap covering the "I haven't taken a shower in two days" hair and wondering what would ever make anyone leave their home in THAT condition? Either way, accountability can be a good thing, right?

So here is the "I promise to myself to do" list for 2010

1. Make sure that the last six months of the baby's life under the wings of his parents are actually memorable and healthy ones, despite the fact that he is a 17-year-old hormonal, sometimes insecure, sometimes overconfident, most of the time knows everything about anything, teenager and cant decide if he wants to be 18 or 12.

2. Plan for months 7 through 12 - which means:
A. Getting a passport for the first time in my life and not caring if I loose 20, 30, 40 even 80 pounds before I have the picture taken;

B. Growing my hair long - okay longer, than the short-short crop that I always have had just cause it was easy and quick and no fuss. I have time now, right?

3. Vacation in the middle of the school year!

4. A spur of the moment trip to Canada, just cause I have a passport and want to use it!

5. Not feeling bad that I am going to go to Europe without my children! My oldest declared that it was not fair, she had never been to Europe either. I promptly informed her that since I had to wait 47 years to accomplish that feat, I was not going to feel the least bit guilty if she had to wait beyond her 21st birthday! I did not even dignify the 17-year-olds moans of unfairness with an acknowledgement that he had even spoken!

Since the new year needs to be about personal improvement, here is the "I Promise To Be Better At" list:

1. Try to find time everyday to do something for someone else who does not expect me to do something for them. (That excludes all immediate family members).

2. Read as much 19th Century English literature I can get my hands on.

3. Improve my conversational French skills, so that I can speak fluently in French with my visiting teaching companion.

4. Keep up with Old Testament GD class this year and pulling out my old Hebrew and refreshing my brain, so its not all lost forever.

5. Be a more diligent patient and following the guidelines set by my docs, cause they actually have been working!!

6. Finally, limiting my eye rolling when my 17-year-old declares he is getting "so old".


So, if any of you see me in the grocery store and I have that 72 count frozen crème puffs, stop me
and remind me of #5.

The Ever-Encroaching Empty Nester Syndrome

I was asked just yesterday by my cousin how I was handling my baby graduating from school in June and all the kids being far enough away to not having someone pop in every day.  A year ago I would have immediately responded with tears and a "I cant talk about"; however, yesterday was different.  I paused.  I had such mixed feelings.  I still have some of the emotion there, but there is also an excitment and heaven forbid I should communicate that to anyone! 

I read the Daily Mail online daily and came across this great article in the Femail section.  Nicci Gerrard, a bestselling British author, at the same point in life as I am now, summed it all up perfectly.  Why try to rewrite the already well-written!  Thanks Nicci!

Bestselling author Nicci Gerrard, 51, lives in Suffolk with her husband and co-writer Sean French. She has four children, Edgar, 22, Anna, 21, Hadley, 18, and Molly, 16.

Nicci Gerrard found it difficult to cope when her children left home.
Sometimes, in a shop or on the street, I hear a child's voice piping up 'Mummy!' and I turn around with a lurch of the heart, thinking they are calling out for me.   But, of course, they aren't. I'm 51 - and that time has gone.

Ten years ago, at the start of the new millennium, I worked full-time on a newspaper, wrote novels with my husband and had four children aged between six and 12 for whom I tried (and failed) to be the perfect mother - juggling work assignments, writing stories in the early hours, racing home to attend parents' evenings, school concerts, doctor's appointments, end-of-term assemblies.

It was a time of constant exhaustion (I used to fall asleep in the bath, while being driven in the car, on the train, in the theatre, at meals); a time of guilt (baking cakes in the middle of the night to prove I was a 'proper' mother, weeping over my children's milestones that I'd missed); of intense physical closeness (the sticky hand clutching mine, the hot body wedged between ours in bed, squabbling round the dinner table, squashing into the car); of grumpiness, anxiety.


And vivid happiness. I would often long for time to myself, be it mornings in bed or baths without someone hammering at the door - but I wouldn't have traded a single second of those breathless days of mayhem and the rowdy, botched imperative of love.


Now three of my four children are at university. One by one, the eldest have gone, leaving behind empty bedrooms, unaccustomed tidiness and a strange silence.   Yes, they return with bags of laundry, but it's not the same - and it hits me hard.


Soon, the youngest will also be gone. A few weeks ago, she said cheerily: 'How will you feel when there's no one left to wave goodbye in the morning?'   And as if someone had pressed a button, I started to weep, ridiculous snorting sobs that I couldn't control.


It's not just about missing them - which, of course, I do - but the realization that a certain part of my life is over and can never come again.   Their childhood is finished: Was it good enough? Did I do OK? Who am I now? What am I for?


Enough. I would hate to be one of those guilt-inducing wistful mothers waiting for their children's visits.


So here's my pledge for the next decade: I'm going to turn my loss (of children, teeth, youth and prospects) into my gain.   I'm going to have adventures, set myself challenges, learn languages, grow chillies, live abroad - do all the things I haven't had time for.


I'm going to turn an ending into a beginning.