Happy Halloween!

Halloween has always been one my my favorite holidays.  I just love costumes!  In high school, before I decided to become a teacher, I daydreamed about studying theatrical fashion design.  I pictured myself heading off to Broadway with a needle, a glue gun, and my imagination.

Well, that didn't happen.  So I lived the dream vicariously through the big kids' Halloween costumes.  Every year I made their costumes, from designing, to sewing, to embellishing.  Those are some of my best memories.  It's tougher now with the little kids, being a working mom.  But while I don't have that kind of time or energy right now, I hope to get back to it soon.

To Trick-or-Treat or not?  That was the question.  You know how I am about candy.  How do I take my little ones from door to door and then not let them have their spoils?  So we decided not yet, but next year for sure.  They had so many fun things to do, though, they didn't even miss it.

At the pumpkin patch, looking for that perfect pumpkin...

 This year the girls wanted to be Disney princesses.  Here we are posing before heading off to the Little Gym's Halloween Party.

Here's our little Tinkerbell...

And our Ariel...

They had a great time at the party, although Caitlyn had to do the routine sitting out and being shy for 20 minutes.   Once she got into the swing of things, she was all over the place.  We might have to sign her up for Little Gym soon!

On Halloween Day we made cookies...

Then we carved our massive pumpkin.  Well, I carved and the girls gave me pointers.

  

  

 

Happy Halloween!

12...Picture a Love

What do I love? I love going to the bookstore!  I love walking in the door to a million books as far as my eyes can see.   I love the cozy chairs and soft lighting that beckon me to come in, sit a spell, and lose myself in another world.  I love the scent of coffee brewing, and the knowing that it will be there waiting.  I especially love to walk among the shelves, running my hand along the books lined up like chocolates, each with some mysterious center, and trying to decide which I will taste first. I love knowing that any of them can be mine.

11...Picture Hatred

What do I hate?  Hatred itself.  Intolerance of any kind just makes my heart hurt.

10...Picture My Screw Ups

This is who I do the most screwed up things with...

Okay, so really...I can't think of anyone.  I spend my time either keeping people or getting people out of trouble, not getting into it.  Lame and boring.

9...Picture a Friend

This post is about the "person who has gotten me through the most."  As I look back on my life over the years, I have to say that Melody is that one person who I truly counted on.  Here's an old-school photo from 20 years ago! 

There were several periods of my life, from 16 to about 25, when I just really, really needed a good friend.  Someone who cared about me.  Someone who was wiser.  Someone besides my mom and sisters to listen and understand me, and to just lend a helping hand once in awhile.  Being Kharli and Christian's grandma, she was always there for them, of course.  But she was there for me too, even after she wasn't my mother-in-law anymore.  So even though I have a new MIL who I love, and she has a new DIL who she loves, and I don't see her very often anymore, it doesn't negate my memories or feelings.  She will always be that person in my mind and heart who I remember as the one who had gotten me through the most.

8...Picture Me Laughing

What makes me laugh?  Cavemen!

They get me every time. :)

7...Picture My Treasure

This is my most treasured item...

It represents being the first, but certainly not the last, of my generation in my family to go to college.  It stands for a breaking away from the expected finality of a high-school education, of a longing for more than is offered.

It represents a transcendence of class, of seeing beyond the boundaries of socioeconomics and daring to believe that achievement is possible.  It stands for the overcoming of stereotypes and the refusal to be denied.

It represents years of dedication and hard work.  It stands for countless hours of study after putting my kids down for the night, and then working until dawn in order to finish papers and projects. It stands for cleaning the homes of other people to make ends meet, and for all of my sisters and parents pitching in at one time or another to babysit as I took night classes.

It represents a surpassing of expectations for a once-teenaged mother.  For myself and for all those young girls like me, who nobody ever thinks will amount to anything.  For those girls who are balancing on the tightrope between adolecence and adulthood, and who walk that line with only a dream and a prayer.

Education is a treasure in and of itself, but an education that changes a life is the greatest treasure of all.

6...Picture Drew

So, if I could trade places with someone for one day, who would it be?  This was really, really hard.   I like being me.  I never actually wished for someone else's life.  But, for just a day, this is whose life I'd like to try on for size...

I love Drew!  She's cool, she's fun, she's hip.  She is young at heart yet acts her age.  She never compromises her ideals, and does what she wants.  She made some odd-ball movies during her teen years, but she's grown into an amazing actress.  So, yeah...she can take-over my ordinary life while I step into her shoes for a day :)  I can dig that.

5...Picture Attitude

This post is supposed to be about a "favorite memory."  Okay, well, a could upload dozens of pictures of any of my four children being born, or my wedding day (oh, wait! hahaha) or our family vacations.  And those are all wonderful memories.  How can I choose just one?  So...I'm going to forgo the obvious and share this memory instead. 

Yes, it's from my wedding day, but no, it wasn't a happy thing.  This is when I decided to steam my wedding veil 30 minutes before showtime.  As you can see, there was a little mishap with me and the steamer.  Things like that are a big deal for brides, you know!  Well, I cried for about 8 seconds.  But then I got a grip, laughed a little and went back to drinking champagne.  I put that veil on and wore it with my beautiful dress and took lots of pictures!  I like this memory because although it's only a small thing, it shows what I'm made of.

4...Picture Wine Tasting

My Saturday night...

Laughter, vineyards, wine-tasting, grape-sneaking, vintage-choosing, game-playing, all-day-with-just-the-girls fun!

3...Picture Friends

This is my ALL TIME favorite show.  If I had to watch only one show a day for the rest of my life, I'd watch Friends :)

As an added bonus, here are some of the best clips of Friends.  Watch, you know you want to...

Watch Friends Clips

2...Picture Kharli

My daughter Kharli is the person in my life that I've been the closest with the longest.  Everything I like about myself is mirrored in her, magnified by ten, and enhanced with her own special uniqueness.  She is everything I wish I could be.  I love her with all my heart.

1...Picture Me

Here I am "working." :)

1.  I'm at school because, even though we're on break, I'm dedicated.
2.  I'm blogging right now because, even though I'm at school, I'm easily distracted.
3.  I just went back and fixed commas in my first two sentences because I love punctuation and insist on using it correctly.
4.  Number 3 makes me a bit of a nerd, and I'm okay with that.
5.  Right now I'm listening to Coldplay...my favorite band of all time.
6.  I hate wearing shoes and just kicked them off my feet.
7.  I love coffee, especially the Mocha I'm drinking inbetween keystrokes.
8.  The word keystrokes just made me giggle because my inner child is a 12 year old boy.
9.  I'm having 80's flashbacks because iTunes just switched to the Go-Gos.
10.  I gotta go dance across the room before "Our Lips Are Sealed" is over...

See ya!

I Don't Get It

I love my husband a great deal, and one of the things I dig about him is that he's a sports fanatic.  Every sport, all NY teams, every weekend.  And that's just the pro stuff, don't even get me started on his college teams.  He's all guy that way, and I get that.  I even like it.  

But what I don't understand is the number of women who are as into football as my man.  I know that makes me sound hopelessly gender-biased, which I'm really not, but my girlfriends who scream at the TV and play the football pool and look forward to Sunday because the games are on?  I don't get them.

I just don't understand why they like it so much.  What's the pull?  What IS it about football that makes them light up like that?  Am I missing something? 

I've been told that it's sexy for a woman to be into sports.  That hats and jerseys on girls are cool. But really...unless that girl's doing a football jersey strip tease after the game, what's so sexy about it?   Truly, I'd rather be reading, or baking cookies, or listening to music, or watching reruns of Friends...all very nice past-times that may or may not lead to sex just much as football watching.

Don't get me wrong, though.  I do like sports...some of them.  I like hockey and baseball a lot, and enjoy going to those games.  I think it's cute when my husband buys our girls NY team jerseys.  And I really want our girls to play sports as they grow up.  Sure, I'll be the mom on the sidelines reading a book, but hey...I'll be there.

I have this vision, years down the road, of my daughters sitting on the couch on Sundays with their dad, shouting and cheering over some televised game.  I have a feeling there will be many weekends to come where our girls play games on Saturday, and watch them on Sunday. 

And me?  I'll probably still be sitting here shaking my bewildered head as I bake cookies and blog.

Butterflies vs Ants

 

Educators love maxims.  We have a motivational saying for every circumstance you can imagine.  Each year at my school we adopt a phrase that expresses our commitment and ideals.  This year it's,

"If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies."

Pretty.  Motivating.  And true, or at least I think so.  I love this motto. Who wouldn't aspire to be as beautiful as a butterfly?  Who wouldn't identify with the idea that change can be scary, yet liberating all at once?  

Today I saw a very pretty butterfly, but unfortunately I wasn't inspired by it much.  It happened to be dead ( I hope it was lucky enough to be dead) and its carcass was being transported on the backs of a trail of ants.

Ants.  Now there's an insect that nobody writes motivational maxims about.  But the more I considered that, the more I thought...hey, I'd be an ant over a butterfly any day.  

Ants are never lonely.  Ant colonies are huge, and if you are a member, you automatically have 100 relatives and friends who've got your back.  Ants stick together.  Go try stepping your foot on an anthill and see what happens.  

Ants learn what works, and then perfect it.  They don't waste their time devising more elaborate tunneling systems.  This gives them more time to plan ahead for the things that do matter.

Every ant has a job, understands it, and excels at it.  Ants don't give up...they don't even know what it means to give up.  It's a physical impossibility that ants can carry the heavy loads that they do.   I personally think ants do the impossible simply because they believe in themselves.

I never saw a butterfly with that kind of fire.  A butterfly's days are filled with floating about, happily sipping a little nectar, and napping all alone in some flower garden without a care in the world.  

So, while butterflies and flower gardens are lovely, ants are the true dreamers.  I think I'd rather be an ant.

Attemped Refuge

Our girls go to a preschool at a church.  Today when I picked them up from school, Catie lagged behind a little as we walked out to our car.  She wasn't much interested in the car ride home, I guess.

She stood watching some people coming in and out of this door to a building I'd never been in before.  I thought she was right behind me, but when I turned to take her hand, she was bolting down the pathway, heading for that door.  She almost made it when I caught her.

As I carried her away crying, some of the people standing around were laughing at us and pointing above our heads.  Puzzled, I glanced up to see the huge lettering above the church doorway Catie almost went through.

It read, "Sanctuary."