dream chasing

so mike & i are starting a new journey. it has been a dream of his, one that i've taken on as well, to open up a halfway house for recovering alcoholics, for obvious reasons i think. we want to provide a clean, safe place to give a hand up to people who are trying to get & stay sober. there are a lot of places out there, some good, some not so much. to start we will be a "sober living house" for men. eventually when mike finishes school and gets licensed we will talk about adding counseling services and becoming some sort of facility. at some point i'd like to be able to help women as well, and their children if need be. so the hope is to help people like us get the support and help they need.
so we have been looking for properties in the third ward area, we even made an offer on one this weekend. more will be revealed.
its scary to think about starting this business- success, failure. the unknown probably more than anything.

my girlfriend asked me the other day what i did for a "creative outlet". i had no answer (she pointed out my blog was one) but this is something i've been thinking about for quite awhile, especially this week since i was asked that question. i've never felt like a creative being, actually quite the opposite.

so i had a conversation with a dear friend today and he put something in a way that i have never thought of before. he said the bible says we are created in gods image, so being that god is the creator, that means we all have a creative force inside of us. (not that i'm a serious christian that takes too seriously what i read in the bible - thats a post for a different time) but creativity doesn't have to mean being an artist, musician, etc. or what i've been percieving it to mean. it can be anything really. my children are a creation. our marriage. and as much as i need something for myself i think a good start would be to acknowledge the things that i do create & participate in already. huh, that just came to me. aha.....

so i say all that to say this, i have no idea what that means for me but i'm willing to keep my eyes and heart open to find out. and yet again, more will be revealed.

Love it

my new oreck vacuum cleaner.

mike bought me a new commercial grade oreck vacuum last week, he got a very good deal as he was buying one for his office. so he calls me very excited to tell me about this new vacuum, and i'm like "oh,wow, great, a new vacuum - thanks". now i get it, it is AWESOME.

so now i'm someone who gets excited about (to the point of blogging about it) a piece of equipment i use to clean my house.

great.

goodbye jenn monty....

becca, jessica, jennifer, kathleen, carlotta, silvania, monica, joanna, michelle

well, damn you woman you really are moving to canada.

my new mommy friend jennifer and her family are transferring for her husbands job next week. we met through mason's school, you've heard me talk about, and i've posted pics, of her daughters ryleigh and avery. mason and ryleigh are the best of friends and as a result of them playing so well together, and both jenn and i deciding to stay home after babies #2 were born, she and i have become good friends. the relationship has really helped me transition into this new role and new life. i am grateful to god for putting her and several other mommies into my life when i needed them most. i think the sanity, yes i have sanity, truly has come from sharing my life with others that are on the same path as i.

i love you jenn, i will probably write more about this later ......

we had a going away party for her last saturday. we went to see a show at the alley and went for dinner & drinks at mi luna (well, obviously i did not have drinks :-)) it was awesome, it was the first time in awhile that i did not have a diaper in my purse. and if you've never been to mi luna - you must go with a group and order several things and share all around. thank you daddies for watching the kiddos for so long!

it really is the little things....

ode to my new fence

oh beautiful, beautiful cedar fence. i am so glad you are here and the old rotten one is removed (although it did cost a pretty penny, not even kidding - and none of the neighbors were willing to pitch in for it right now). but times are tough for many - i do sort of feel bad at how absolutely shabby their fences will now look in comparison, well not really!

homeownership sure aint cheap. but it is so nice to have a place to call home. although really the old cliche "home is where the heart is" is so true. i was reminding my friend jennifer the other day, who is moving to canada within weeks now (sniff sniff) that as long as we are with our kiddos and hubbys we are indeed home :-)

oh - p.s.

isn't my honey cute ;-)

i once caught a fish this big......

this too shall pass

so i'm feeling much MUCH better this week. thanks for all of the love i've recieved from the people that i repeatedly vomitted on last week.

patience, tolerance, love even? these are my goals to be focusing on right now. i believe self awareness & knowledge only take you so far, then you, i, must begin to change & take action. so i'm praying to better prepare myself for the difficult times with my kiddos so that i may give to them the love they deserve and the room to grow & be themselves.

i've decided that when mason returns to school next month i will put him in 3 days a week instead of 5. i feel that he gets so much from SMMS, learns so much that i won't even pretend to know how to teach him. but also that its really important for him to be home with me and his brother. so we'll see how that goes, i mentioned returning to school to him today and he was not happy, really quite unhappy, with the idea. ouch, here comes that mommy guilt crap again :-)

we attempted to do toddler time at the library today sfter swim class - they sing, dance & read books. VERY cool - we made it about halfway. i'm seeng that mason struggles with the unknown(wow i wonder where he gets that??) so i will be thinking about how to best help him out with that. so even though we had to leave the library in a blaze of glory, he wants to try again next week.

more later.....

stephen

one more post for today - stephen turned 8 months old monday. his newest accomplishments are sitting up and rolling around to get where he wants to go. his hair still sticks straight up and he still wants to be in the middle of everything. he's alot of fun. i took him to see a urologist yesterday, his circumcision was kind of botched so he is having to have a procedure to correct it. its perfectly routine, the only thing is he has to have anesthesia(sp?), which i'm not thrilled about. we will probably wait until he is closer to a year old, the doc thinks its best not to wait too long. its purely a cosmetic thing, but i want him to have a perfect penis, because lets face it one day it will be very important to him!

i'm grateful today for the health of my children, myself, my husband, our families, friends, our home, full bellies, warm(well i guess cool)beds.

catching up on reading

so i've gotten in the habit of reading awful mindless suspense/mystery novel crap. i have been really wanting to read something good and finally remembered that my sister becky is a literary scholar and would, of course, have a good suggestion for me. ok so she sent me a list of about twenty books (i should have known!) i'm going to share my thoughts.
the first book i read was "love in the time of cholera" by gabriel garcia marquez - it was very good. i really enjoyed his writing style, he did win the nobel prize for writing for goodness sake. its about marriage and love - its quite a pathetic love story. i liked it because i think it was true to what love is and can be (beautiful, painful, exciting, depressing, fulfilling, sick) it was not what i expected it to be, and i like that.
then i read "the color purple" by alice walker. i've seen this movie countless times and absolutely love it. now reading this book i am a little disappointed at how it was portrayed in film. the book was wonderful, if you enjoyed this movie you MUST read this book. in the end i think it is about peoples journey to god and to self.
i am now going to start "one hundred years of solitude" another garcia marquez novel.
i love reading, its just so hard for me to put a book down!

week from hell

hallelujah, it is over. it has been awful, not because anything was any different than it was last week. i just reached overload i think. i have a cold, stephen has a cold, i've had some not so fun drama with my sister, don't get enough sleep, it was the anniversary of my dads death, i was preparing for mike to leave for the weekend to fish, etc...
i need to get better at taking time for myself, especially for the remainder of the summer while mason is home. i have this mommy/wifey guilt crap that i should be home - thats crazy i am home plenty, thank you. i do not know how women stay home full time with 2, 3, 4 dear god 5....... kids. i salute you, you are more woman than i.
i got a much needed break this a.m., mike took mason over to his moms this morning before work and she brought him home around 1. i am a new woman, its amazing what 6 hours can do.

so i am going to touch on some of the aforementioned points - the first being my dad. he died 9 years ago at the age of 47 due to diabetes related illness. wow, 9 years, i can't believe it. 47 years young, i was 18. i often wonder what it would be like to have a dad as an adult, what type of relationship we would have. one thing i know for certain is that he would have LOVED having two grandsons. poor guy had three daughters (he let us put barette's in his hair when we were little - that really says something about a man i think) and for most of his life was even stuck with all girl dogs, until hank came along - who was a teacup yorkie, by the way. he died at the beginning of the end of my downward spiral into drug addiction & alcoholism, i attribute part of me being able to get sober so young to the pain i felt after he was gone. so, i miss him. alot. i love you dad, wish i could have gotten to know you more.

mike is off fishing this weekend - its him and four of his buddies on boliver peninsula in a little one bedroom house. and let me just say his buddies are big guys, i don't even want to imagine the snoring (and god knows what else) that will be taking place the next two nights. i hope they catch fish, they never catch anything.....
so me and my two guys at home taking it easy, right now the silence is very nice.

the next thing is the drama-rama with my sister. i think what i will say about that is sometimes it is so hard to know what, how & when to say things to the people i love. i struggle with personal integrity & authenticity and really is it any of my freakin business in the first place. so i had a difficult conversation with one of the most near & dear people in my life and essentially told her i can't have a relationship with her right now, i just don't know how. so i'm praying alot and trying to let go because i am indeed powerless over her life. i hope she knows that if she ever really needs me i will always be there, that i love her deeply and think she is beautiful and completely worthy of a happy, peaceful, awesome life. i don't know if you read my blog, i hope you do.
so i'm sad and i miss my big sister.