Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Not the Mommy!

Have you ever woke up and realized that you're not the Mommy that you wanted to be? We all make jokes about "you're turning into your Mother," or "I sound like my Mother" but do you have an idea in your head of what kind of mom you wanted to be?

I don't like the mom that I am becoming. I believe in being strict because I believe that my girls need to be taught that they are resposible for their actions and no one is to blame for their bad choices, but lately their choices are getting them into trouble. They're not doing anything that most people would get upset about, but again I'm the strict mom. I'm after them all the time and I'm loosing my temper almost on a daily bases and I don't like to. I've seen both of my girls in tears because of me almost everyday for of the last 7. That isn't what I want at all. This isn't the mom that I want to be.

I love my girls and I know they are great. I know that Em is intelligent and outgoing and confident but I'm always on her case. I know that Erin is intelligent and kind and loving but I'm always hard on her about school work.

I've been feeling like a monster lately and I just want to be a loving Mom. Not a best friend Mom but a loving, care what I think, be there to talk to Mom.

Today is my birthday and I'd rather not celebrate it because I've become a person I don't like and that isn't something to celebrate.

Friday, April 25, 2008

I love Spring

Last Saturday was a beautiful spring day. The scouts had a planned butterfly garden work day and so we were up and out of the house working in the garden by 9:00 am. I just love doing that. It is hard work pulling weeds and digging holes and watering routinely but the garden is so beautiful and smells so sweet.

I enjoyed it so much that after we were done up there at noon, I came home in ripped out my front flower bed. Though you really can't call it a flower bed because the only flower in there is a rose bush that I keep trying to kill (it isn't something I want to spend time up keeping) and the gardenia bush that I planted two years ago that has not bloomed yet. I want to expand my bed to 8 feet by the length of the house south from the front door and then I want to create a bed that goes north that you would walk through to go to the garage. I want to also put one there along the side of the garage. The plans are all in my head but I'll try to take some time and draw then out so you can see. I'll also take some pictures this weekend of what it looks like now. Crap would be the word I would describe it as now.



Since I've got this project in mind, that is what I told the girls I wanted for my birthday. Flowers for the flower beds. I want to see butterflies and hummingbirds and birds all around my yard. I've always loved flowers and having gardens. My grandmother and mother had flowers and flower beds everywhere when I was growing up. I love the smell of gardenias because of the one that grew just out the door of the playhouse. That is my favorite scent.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

She blogs!!!!

Well now that March has come and gone and April is almost too, thought it would be a good time to catch you up. Not that anyone reads this anyway, but here goes.

Severe Weather

We have had record severe weather here in Arkansas. Snow at the first of March, then rain that caused flooding and then tornadoes that came way too close to home and then more rain and more flooding.

I am trying to figure out how to get my old camcorder hooked up so I can share the video I shot of the Arkansas River. It is absolutely amazing to see the river completely out of it's banks. I drove over to our construction site by the White River and was just in total awe of the magnitude of water. You have to see it to believe it. I saw it and still can't wrap my mind around it. It's actually a good thing that our project is stopped for litigation because that site is under water.

The tornadoes where a little too close for comfort and too many of my friends were even closer then I like. There was officially 10 come through from one wall cloud. I just consider it one that just kept touching down but they call it 10 separate ones. Marty and I were watching TiVo TV so we were behind on the warnings that were coming out. We had just caught up with real time when we really started looking at the path projections. I don't usually get worked up about storms (guess I've been through too many that were nothing) so we don't normally even do more then just watch the broadcast but for some reason we both felt that we needed to get up and get dressed for the weather. So we did and we even got the girls out of their beds and put them in ours. I've NEVER done that. (They slept through it though.) About that time, the phones started ringing. First Mom, because it had just past her and she knew it was projected at us. While I was talking with Mom, John called Marty's phone. I called Stacey because they are just down the street from us and if it was coming our way it had to pass them first. Her family went next door then to a neighbors storm cellar so I didn't have to worry about her. Marty called his mom while I talked to Stacey. She said that it wasn't bad there because it had gone east of them. Christine called me after I got off the phone with Stacey. They were doing well but they were concerned. Their power went out while we were on the phone. We had lost satellite but we still have an air wave TV in the kitchen so we could still see the news plus Marty has his ham radio license. So I stayed on the phone with her. The tornado turned and took the path it had taken when it wiped out Cabot in the 70's. Which was a lot closer to Christine than to us. Like I said too close. They didn't have any damage but there was lots of damage around the city park/pool off of Richie Lane. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep that night. I was on the phone calling friends to check on them.

Later I found out I had friends even closer then I knew: Laura, Melanie, Mr. & Mrs. Merritt, Ronnie & TJ.

It did a lot of damage to the baseball field at Sylvan Hills and my old high school, Sylvan Hills High.

Emily

The other things that have been happening is that Emily has started singing with the Praise Band at church on Sundays. She is really good and is starting to not look scared to be up there. Again if I can get through some technical challenges I'll post some video of her.

She decided that she wanted to do a talent show, so she looked in the paper and found the "Babies and Children's ABCExpo". She was very serious about it and kept reminding us what date and that she really wanted to go. So we took her. She performed Hannah Montana's "Rock Star" for the audition. They only took the top 10 talents for the show. She didn't make the show but she was great about it. She did well but it was her first audition and there were many of the "pageant/talent show" kids that were there also. Who knows, we maybe doing it again.

She is working hard at the moment on getting ready for her second piano recital. She is working on 4 pieces. I don't know the day of the recital yet but will be posting about it soon.

Erin

Little Miss Sunshine is working hard at school. She is still struggling with reading and writing. So if you get a letter from her, would you please be her pen pal? She doesn't like story writing so we are trying to let her write letters to friend telling about her life to get her to practice. She just finished benchmark testing at school and said that it was easy, so lets hope we're moving in the right direction. I do think the glasses have helped though.

Church

We have our first annual Easter Egg hunt and it was a huge success. I got to do the planning this year but I hope to have someone serve as Family Events coordinator and take that off my plate. We had it at a new members home and it was fabulous. They have huge yard out in the country. It worked out great except that it was really wet from loads of rain that we have been getting. Didn't dampen any ones spirits though and we all had a fabulous egg hunt for over 1500 eggs.

On Palm Sunday, the kids started the service with a parade of palm branches then stole the show with a performance of two songs. It was so wonderful to see the kids sing "Come to Jesus" and "Get Up, Get Up". Again, if I can get the technology worked out, I know where a video of it is.


There is more but I guess I can try to type that soon.