Still Smiling

I had such a great time with you boys this morning. Today Jack, you received a t-shirt in front of the whole school because you'd read over 100 books. Not just that but you were one of only three to get this award. I was so proud. I clapped. I yelled. I waved and smiled just like a crazy person. It was great! I'm so so so proud of you both. This week Trevor, you got Student of the Month and yesterday I attended the massive sugar high they call their Stars Breakfast. Seriously, there were mounds upon mounds of donuts. I didn't even have one but somehow a lone sprinkle hitchhiked on the sleeve of my shirt for half the morning. I finally set him free after a coworker pointed him out. Regardless, there is truly no way to say "thank you for being a great kid" like a truckload of sugar. And I only say that because I left you there. If you'd been coming with me, my love of The Sugar would've just never happened. Not even slightly.

It was nice seeing the pride in both of you and celebrating your accomplishments as a family. A wacky family, but a family nonetheless. Yeah I looked like a total dork doing the cha-cha slide during your morning assembly. And maybe high-fiving all of your classmates raised some of the adults' eyebrows. It was fun sitting down for second breakfast with you two too. I felt like a politician shaking hands, saying "Hi, great seeing you.....what's your name...Wow nice hair....love the shoes...give me five...be sure and tip your waitress". Sure that was maybe a little different than most kids are used to putting up with. I mean, I didn't see any other parents doing the wave with their kids for just no darn good reason. Come to think on it, they seemed to be trying really hard not to see us either...like The Crazy is contagious.

Stick-in-the-muds!

Which reminds me, Jack I might have told your lunch lady that she could write on your forehead with a sharpie. In my defense it's only to remind you to bring more lunch money. So like don't be shocked when she pins you down and uses giant block letters and one of those stinky permanent markers to write "LUNCH" on your noggin. I'm your mother and just like signing your permission slips to go on fun and cool field trips, I can also sign other somewhat "imaginary" permission slips that only serve to give me a chuckle. I don't feel it's right that I simply show up at your school and act all motherly. I think you'll agree (maybe muuuuch later in life) that it was in your best interest that I ensure my presence at your school could be felt for days, maybe even weeks to come. Even after the marker wears off I know for a fact that neither of you will ever look at me the same way again.

And when your teachers ask for parents to volunteer in your class you can bet I'll raise my hand. Heck I might raise them both and do that "Heeeeeey....Hoooooo...Heeeeeeey...Hooooo" thing you love so much.

Really, it's the least I could do.

Tooning Out

The title of this one isn't supposed to be a clever turn of phrase for "tuning you out" (which is rude & entirely unacceptable). It's supposed to be super cool and more along the lines of "rocking out". But you know, when someone has to explain their coolness, it probably means they missed the mark.

Oh well. I started making cartoons using a simple Paint program and pulled various graphic ideas for the people depicted from the inspiration collected while browsing emoticons and some were copied from the emoticons themselves. I alter them to resemble the people I know, including you kids. In my Paint program I don't have a lot of neato features so the images will not be perfect. I seek to make them readable and really just to share them with you guys.

I've found it to be a wonderful stress reliever and since I've always been the type of person to attempt to make things humorous when they could be anything but, the idea just works for me. It's satisfies my creative side a bit too. Hopefully I can make this a weekly thing. We'll see.

And yes, this is a cartoon likeness of our actual house AND my actual family. The events have not been changed nor the faces blurred because I just don't think it's my job to protect the guilty and the innocent need to face the truth that is our family. :-)

The moral of this toon is: DishwashING liquid is not the same as DishwashER liquid.

Write that down.

Things I don't know...

1. Whether your future relationships will be forever marred because I don't behave like a regular Mom.

2. Whether it will rain tomorrow as I drive to pick up Chrissy thus making it the 3rd visit in a row where I've had to drive in a torrential downpour. Nevermind that it's only rained 5 of the 42 days involved here.

3. Whether Trevor will ever "outgrow" any of his allergies, asthma issues like those really optimistic doctors say he might.

4. Whether Jack will be able to make it 3 more weeks without getting into some sort of trouble at school. 3 weeks. 14 days. 84 hours. I look at you bouncing off your inner walls and just can't see it happening. Trouble comes easy for you. I'm not being mean, you were born that way so I guess it's our fault mainly. But if given the choice between doing extra school work to keep yourself from bothering other people or bothering people and then paying dearly for it, you choose to pay dearly every time.

Thinking

My idea for this site may not turn out the way I'd imagined. I wouldn't be the first person to have jumped at an idea that meant something only to run into details and realizations that simply didn't occur beforehand. This is where it would have helped to have had a better understanding of the medium I chose. Live and learn though, ay?

I may not always have this website. I may not always host my images with the same company I've currently chosen. The world wide web is an unpredictable place. I wanted to be creating something that would mean something to you once you got a little older. I've gotten tired of forgetting things and worrying about how much I will have forgotten by the time you're each at a life stage where my ideas might actually mean something. I wanted to preserve them and I wanted to do it in a way that didn't require me to block off hours of my free time playing with paper cut-outs, funky stickers and glue. I chose typing because I can keep up with my thoughts easier than I can while hand writing things. I enjoy graphics and doing a minimal amount of coding so the computer seemed reasonable.

Here I am completely unsure of the future of a thing that means a lot to me. I will still do this but I will do it worrying the whole while that it won't last; not in the full expression I initially intended it to. I like important things to be certain, unalterable if I so choose. I want to know that this will be here, online and in it's present form, when you finally get curious. I've chosen images that mean something to me and connect to what I felt at the moment I wrote each entry. Those have to stay.

Ironic. The purpose of this blog was to preserve moments and bits of myself so that regardless of any future circumstances, you will know me and know parts of our lives together as seen through my eyes. I started it to give you surety and now it's surety I'm most in doubt of.

So it seems, every child (whether defined by age or newness to their path) must feel this same uncertainty and want the same reassurances. I get it now.

30 facts about your Mother

1. I am 33 right now.
2. I am slowly greying.
3. I love books.
4. I am a Cancer.
5. I am a loan officer right now.
6. I love to laugh & make others laugh.
7. I am not a morning person.
8. I was afraid of the dark well into adulthood.
9. I like flossing my teeth.
10. I used to think 30 was "old".
11. I often day-dream about living lavishly.
12. I'm addicted to caffeine.
13. I sometimes wake myself up with my own snoring.
14. I'm afraid of water any higher than my neck.
15. I like the smell of the top of your head.
16. I stole candy from a store when I was younger & still feel guilty.
17. I don't care for my siblings & never really talk to them.
18. I fear that you three will end up that way & it bothers me.
19. I was 16 the first time I got drunk.
20. I once invented a boyfriend just to fit in.
21. I was raised Baptist, married into Presbyterian and then began studying Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Buddhism, Scientology etc. before realizing I'm pagan & mostly spiritual in my beliefs.
22. I swear I once saw a UFO. No I wasn't drinking.
23. I was in love with Elvis Presley as a child until I found out he had been dead for years.
24. I think clowns are creepy.
25. I don't like feet & could be borderline phobic.
26. I think I'm a good parent.
27. I have never been outside of the Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri section of the US.
28. I worry that I'll be too afraid to travel once I actually have the money.
29. I once shaved both of my arms because the hair embarrassed me. It was itchy.
30. I secretly fear that I'm not nearly as good a parent as I think I am.

In light of the big things...

which are hugely serious and also already covered in every conceivable format (school, t.v., radio, print, internet, home), I've decided not to talk about carnage on here. Not this time. Not this place.

In my zen state of mind, I found two other quotes I wanted to give to you.

"No" is a complete sentence.

If you know your own worth what need you care about the acceptance or rejection of others.

A lot can be prevented if you simply learn to say "No" when you need to and learn to appreciate yourself as a beautiful fallible human. Do me a favor and take time today to think of at least one thing you like about yourself. Treat yourself as you would your best friend and admire who you are and how far you've come. Also, practice saying "No" to someone else's request for your time in favor of doing something that is important to you. Just make sure this person isn't your parent or boss and you're not saying "No" to putting your laundry away or finishing your daily work in order to garner more time for playing Taipai or classifying your boogers as they correlate to the US governments terror scale. Be reasonably generous...it can make a difference.

I had a little hand in helping to create you so if you factor in the hours of labor, the sleepness nights and the sheer volume of worry and grief I've taken on in your honor over the years...surely it's the least you can do.

Oh and if this is the worst use I make of my Maternal Right to Guilt-trip, then count yourself lucky. Seriously. I was going to go for the "mow my lawn free for life" option and chose to spare you at the last moment. See, even that had a hint of manipulation. I've got me some mad guilting skillz.

word.

So Fragile

photo credit: "A Slippery Grip" by Diane Varner

First of all, I am new to blogging (cliches are so tiring but it's still true) so I'm not sure if I find a photograph on the Internet and I know who took it and I host it on my own service...am I still stealing? I'm prepared to give this photographer full credit because she's brilliant, evocative and seems to see life through my eyes. But I have no idea if she would even want to be associated with me or what I have to say. So I'm torn.

I know this is her picture so I feel more of a responsibility to not screw her over basically. I don't know her from Adam, don't get me wrong. I simply respect her vision, her art. Her name is Diane Varner and she is one of my links at the left; one of my "Escapes" (does anyone else say that word "ess-cop-ay" like on Finding Nemo"? No? Oh well). Her work reminds me about the fragility of life through the detail she's able to capture in her close-ups as well as her landscapes. I feel as though one stray breath could change everything and that feeling isn't inherently good or bad...it just is.

I think I enjoy photography so much because regardless of how many people are taking pictures of the same location, you'll never end up with two identical shots. And even if the same person goes back to the same place day after day...they will never get the same shot.

Just as it feels like people never change and the world seems hell-bent on repeating it's past mistakes over and over again, I see these photos and believe in the power of evolution.

Dear Rutgers Womens' Basketball Team

Why in the world are you allowing this media garbage to affect you? Kiddos, just so you'll know what I'm talking about one day (not that the world won't manage to fashion yet another disaster of these mammoth proportions in the mean time), Don Imus is some old guy with a radio show who in general has a surly attitude and negative persona. He referred to the entire women's basketball team at Rutgers as "nappy headed ho's" and now everyone from Al Sharpton (may you never know who he is) to the players themselves have decided he should be lynched for it.

"nappy headed ho's" (I never know whether to put an apostrophe after the "ho" or not). And may I use this time to tell folks it's not "hoe"? Because that's a piece of gardening equipment that helps in the removal of especially troublesome weeds and tough roots. It is not the term used for a group of women one would intend on making some sexually charged blanket statement about.

The disappointment for me isn't that Don Imus is out there saying the word "nappy" or "ho" because I'm so damned used to that type of crap in every other song that comes across the air waves I couldn't care less at this point. I'm immune from taking offense to female degradation in typical media outlets and persons of celebrity because it's been deemed entertainment. Not that I'm the least bit entertained by it. Instead I choose to read. But I digress....anyway, the disappointment isn't that some old white guy picked up on a few words he shouldn't have (nobody should call other people names but not only is that another post it's also an instance here where what's good for the goose is definitely NOT good for the gander), it's that an entire team of worthy, powerful and talented women is playing into this media frenzy.

Their rebuttal or response or whatever spoke of their hurt and disappointment over what this old dude had to say about them. They even went so far as to say that it "overwhelmed our achievement".

Kids plug your ears....

Stop the mother-fuckin-presses and wha-the-fuck??? (kids, you know I cuss like a sailor so the whole plug your ears thing was just me trying to make a funny) Why are they giving this man and his words so much power in their lives? Explain that to me! If any of the members of that women's team can hand over their iPods and I find them all clean of songs that while popular, speak of ho's and often objectify women as toys, then by all means...those players can be as offended as their little heart's desire. But the truth is that this homely and truly uninteresting radio personality simply said what every person of color has said amongst friends. He used the same general verbiage he and the rest of the hearing public has had to endure since the rap movement took off. There's no real difference here. It's supposed to be taboo because of the color of his skin but excuse me...isn't that racist? Basically everyone is picking on him because they're bored and smell the chum in the water. It's really that simple.

When you finally define yourself in life, you don't work your ass off becoming something great and excelling at something you love just to let some smack talk "overwhelm your achievement". Kids don't ever let someone do this to you. The people who talk out of their asses (as my Dad used to say) have done nothing to deserve that kind of power in your life and by giving in to the frenzy surrounding these truly petty problems, you're taking your eyes off your prize. You're not out there to win the approval of the masses, you're out there to be the best and to do your best. And if that coach had been any kind of good coach she would've refused to allow her players to play into the Al Sharpton Media Machine. I'm disappointed in her as well.

Was it hurtful? Yeah probably...if you sit around with low self-esteem worried that not every breathing soul on this planet likes you. If you do that then yeah, what Don Imus said is hurtful. A good coach would've sat those women down, looked each of them in the eye and said "Don who?He's nothing to you and he's nothing to this team...it's time to play ball". Because those women already know how they're viewed by society. They hear it on their iPods, see it in movies and most definitely get in on the court. They're rarely televised and only earn a snippet of time in the nightly news's sports slot. They already know the bad news and they have fought above it all every day since they discovered they not only loved playing ball but they were damn good at it.

People are going to say things out of jealousy, out of ignorance, out of displaced anger...you name it. But what I want you to remember and understand and carry with you forever is this: it's not about you. Not really. The people doing the yakking don't have a clue what it feels like to walk in your shoes every day so the shit they're dishing isn't about you. It's about their lives, their wives, their kids, their mothers, their jobs, their fan belt, their checking account, their mistress, their dentist, their their their their THEIR! Are you getting it? By the time a person is standing in front of you and saying something they have already had years of experiences with other people that have created who they are. And those experience will color their half of the conversation with you (just as your experiences will color your half). And the colors they have chosen have very little to do with you because all you can hope for is a quick escape when it all goes crazy.

By the way...nobody is black or white. That's so last week. *insert flip of the hair here* We're all shades of brown....every last damn one of us. And I'm not being all mystical on your ass or anything, it's the truth. Take an art class for christ's sake! Anyway, we've got creams, ecru, bole, umber, beige (etc.) right on up to bistre....but that is the darkest person I've ever seen. People aren't black or white and neither is life. We all have shades to ourselves if people would just step away from the stereotypes ON BOTH SIDES and take a deep breath or two or seven (god, hyperventilate even....your being passed out gives the rest of us normals a few extra minutes to think) and really see.

Women of Rutgers, it's not about you. Don Imus is a nobody with no real impact on your lives, your achievements or your game. I have a feeling you're being lead by your coach and maybe even your athletic department to take a stand against this perceived racism and what you really want is to just go to practice, run your drills and play the next game. Politics. All around it's politics and I don't think a single damn person gives a real shit about you as players or women regardless of your color. If they did, your games would've been known before Don opened his giant yapper and you wouldn't be talking about how some negative ninny stole your thunder.

The more you worry about what others think and the angrier you get over it, the more power you give them over the direction of your thoughts.

And ultimately, you are what you think.

Does not compute...

I was met with this when I tried to write a new post this morning:

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive. We received your unlock request on April 9, 2007. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

I know every blogger has come across it before but I think it's funny. It's funny because the robots are watching me. It's funny because you boys would believe that's true with every fiber of your being and would love every last second of it. So I will treat this moment with the respect it deserves.

I've watched "iRobot" and feel a certain comraderie with Will Smith's character (minus the whole near-death-car-crash-that-requires-I-go-through-life-with-a-robot-arm part) because I know robots think too. One minute the friendly Blogger Robots are detecting similarities in my blogging style (god I didn't even know I had a style! I don't have a style I know this but it sort of feels good to be told I do so I will accept it as fact) sending me little notes apologizing for how anally they seem to mull over my style (god! my style!), offering to buy me dinner (I took that part out so as not to make matters worse...uh...for you kids....mm-hmm). Next thing you know I'll be getting notes reminding me to get my cholesterol checked, put a load of whites in when I get home and feed the cat! Robots are out to take over the world. One crappy nonsense blog at a time. I still can't for the life of me figure out how they'll do that if they're sitting around (they do sit right?) looking at ridiculous things like this blog... but I guess they have personal lives too so who am I to judge?

Point is....part of me thinks they are trying to insult me though. My blog is not spam. Firstly, I have nothing to sell, unless we count you kids and I already tried selling you to Papa this weekend and he said "no". Secondly, I barely make my presence known at the other blogs I visit so it's not like I leave any type of nugget trail of wisdom let alone any slug trails of spam-tacular links. And Thirdly, the edible version of spam is just disgusting. It's like pork or chicken or turtle or something....ick! Only it's not their edible parts...more like their toenail clippings and leg shavings and whatnot.

Okay...geez...where was I going with this?

Oh yes! This is a real blog. Not a real GOOD one but a real one nonetheless. So robots disengage! Robots Stop! Robots End Program!

END PROGRAM!

Easter on Steroids

We went to our friends' home to do the whole Easter thing up right with their two teenage girls and one boy that fits right between you two rabblerousers. So three boys and 141 eggs. Oh yeah, that's right 1-40-1. Some were real eggs that we had a blast decorating and the rest were plastics that we filled with mind-altering chemically inhanced sugars and a purse full of coins. I figured out why my purse was so damned heavy: I had about $15.00 in change floating around in there plus a few assorted rocks (I kept the rocks). Once I unloaded my...uh...load I felt the tension leave my shoulders immediately. So Easter was blessed if for that reason alone. I only slightly missed the jingle in my step this morning.

It was fun finding places to hide 141 eggs for people under 5ft tall. I kept wanting to put them all up in trees because I got the plastic pastel set that came with these kick-ass green ones that were the exact shade of green as our friends' apricot tree's leaves. Dad thought that was mean (to you? to the tree? I never really got an answer on that one). Mean and funny tow a thin line with me. And it's not that I wasn't loved enough as a child (though I wasn't so maybe it is)...it's just because I am not really being mean. You can't hide an egg "meanly". Can you? So I might put it up a 10-foot tree in the crook of a branch masked by two nearly identical spring leaves. And so...that just might be the plastic egg with the rolled up money in it. I still fail to see the problem. As I see it, you can hide things in a difficult location but geez, since when was a little blood, sweat and tears asking too much when it comes to getting what you want?

So I'm not Captain Obvious when I hide the loot. I should think you'd all feel lucky that I didn't go with my first mean little thought: putting rolled up toilet paper in some and money/candy in the others.

And maybe next year if it's not so chilly out I can talk your dad into letting me hide them my way: buried under about 4 inches of soil, some peat moss, a little mulch and then topped with a nice potted plant.

You'll need to start hunting early that year......

Dear Girls Who Will One Day Meet My Boys,

Hi, you don't know me yet, but I'm raising that boy you're toying with. The one you're yanking around by your invisible chain, leading him to nothing and for no other reason than you're bored and consider boys your hobby. I'm asking you as nicely as possible to stop. See, they don't normally expect girls to behave this way so they aren't really sure what you're up to. But I know. I can see it in your eyes and I'm guessing that's why you can't look directly at me.

Because I'm on to you.

Yes, yes, that's a lovely smile. I'm sure it distracts everyone else. But I'm not watching you smile anymore. I'm watching your body language, how you display yourself to everyone in the room like the Alpha female. And good heavens! Honey! This isn't the Spring season of Animal Planet....kindly stop eye-humping my son and if it's at all possible please don't start marking the furniture. We still have to live here when you're gone. Now, close your legs and I don't know...maybe spit out the gum or at least use a little less saliva in the chewing process.

Does your mother know you wore that out of the house? For that matter, did you have a mirror when you did your makeup? Or lighting of any sort? The colors are so.....um..............vivid. I have half a mind to snap a quick shot on my camera phone and save it for the next time I see your parents. I could've sworn you looked a lot nicer at the school play the first time we all met.

I know you brag about being on the pill. How do I know? Well, you manage to make it a part of nearly every conversation you have whether you're in line at the movies or looking for a nose ring at Hot Topic. People talk and you are not an island unto yourself. So really....everyone knows. And that means everyone also knows that you often seem to "forget" to take them. You seem to enjoy the mini dramas brought about by your "forgetful" scares. You laugh about it. People see you. They've heard your friends say "not again!?" and know that you do this often and think it's a game. How does this game end for you though? With my son? Will you bring my son into this game because I'd rather you didn't. We'd all rather you didn't. He trusts your word because he likes you. He trusts you because he's attracted to you and everytime someone uses and abuses that he loses more and more of it. Be responsible either way so that he can do the same. Give him the chance to make better choices instead of playing games that are only fun to you.

Also, you are dating each other. He chose you and you chose him...it was mutual. You're not married nor are you necessarily meant to be together forever. The only thing I ask while you're together is that you respect each other and that starts with being honest. So are you going to tell him about your other boyfriend or will I?

Sincerely,

His Mom

(letter written based on years of experience at both being a female and having female friends...so while I know not every girl is like this, I know some are and this is for them).

Young Love

This isn't really a post about how I met Tony so much as how I managed to screw it up the first time and require a four-and-a-half year gap of time for healing before either of us was ready to give ourselves another try. This post is about that and relationships in general I guess. They are so tricky at first and quite honestly, I wouldn't repeat my first experiences for all the money in the world. So just know that your initial ventures into this uncharted land aren't expected to be perfect. You'll all make mistakes and that's okay. Here are the mistakes I made:

1. Expectations. The only real examples I'd had about love, dating and how it all worked I'd gotten from movies and Teen magazine. Not exactly the best sources for legitimate samplings. For starters, movies almost always have happy endings and well, relationships rarely do or I'd have married the very first person I had a crush on and for the life of me I can't even remember his name (Greg or Phillip or something like that). Anyway...don't go into it expecting it to be your forever-after. Dating serves a purpose. You were attracted to that person for a purpose. Let that be enough. Give that the respect and attention it deserves without making it more than it needs to be. Pushing expectations onto every attraction and every date only complicates things and leads to hurt feelings. You simply aren't meant to marry every person you choose to date, not normally anyway. You'll hear stories where that's happened but the chances of it happening to you are slim so just keep that in mind and try to enjoy the movie k?

2. The past. Let it go. I never did. For the longest time I carried the hurt from past boyfriends and past dates on into the next relationship and all that did was make us claustrophobic. In any budding relationship there's only room for two people so before you say "yes" to someone new, make sure you say "goodbye" fully to the last one. And remember, this new person isn't the one who didn't measure up the last time or who broke your heart or lied like a cheap rug. So do yourself a huge favor and don't make the new person pay for what the old one did wrong. If you can't let go of the anger and pain, you simply aren't ready to date again. It really is that simple. Hang with your friends awhile longer and give yourself more time. Write a letter to your ex and get it all out and then burn it, bury it or hell, mail it (so long as it's constructive and true and not just a bunch of "I HATE YOU AND YOU SUCK!" because that sort of thing is better left in your own letting go process).

3. Know yourself. Keep in touch with who you are then accept and appreciate it. I'll let you in on a little secret: usually insecure people who don't want to accept responsibility for their choices will try to convince you that there's something wrong with you and that is the reason they don't want to date you. The truth is they just don't want to date you and are too chicken shit to just admit to that being their choice. It has nothing to do with you as a person though. In life, it's simply not possible for everyone to like everyone else. We're all too different and unique and come from varying experiences. The liklihood that every person you cross paths with will be instantly and forever attracted to you isn't very high and it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with where the other person is headed and what they want for themselves. Don't ever change who you are just to keep yourself in line with someone else's path because you have your own path to follow. Staying on your path regardless of the people along the way who come and go for whatever reasons will always lead you exactly where you are meant to be. As long as you live, you are your very best friend and you'll do well to remember that.

4. Fear. Start practicing now at ignoring it's seductive voice. Tell it to shut up and go away. Decisions made from a place of fear will only serve to limit you in ways that lead to more decisions made out of fear. It feeds on itself. When you are young and only have yourself to be responsible for...that is the time to kick it's ass. So start now and don't ever stop. When you make a decision from a place of informed power, regardless of the outcome, you have won. There are no real failures in life except to succumb to fear and stop trying. Afterall what is the worst thing that could happen if you took a chance on someone or something? Would you get turned down? Would you lose something? So what. If you let fear keep you from trying you haven't simply lost at the end, you've lost the entire experience and who knows how that will affect the rest of your life? It's these experiences that make up the whole of our lives and if you are to get to the end with as few regrets as possible, you're going to have to take risks. People risks, professional risks, emotional risks...tell fear to suck it. You won't be sorry.

Why not?

Ask for exactly what you want in life. Why not? Honestly. What is the worst thing that could happen if you just ask? Will you be told "no"? Is being told "no" all that different from simply not asking to begin with? I think being told "no" is actually better because it removes all doubt about the outcome. At least once you ask...you know. You're no longer left guessing, wondering about what might've happened if only...

Recently I asked the Universe for something big for me, something selfish but also something important to my mental health at this point in my life. The Universe listened and now I am glad I asked because even though the possibility of achieving the same outcome without having asked is pretty good, I actually feel like I accomplished something productive just by having made the effort to step forward and admit that I had a need.

I asked and I got what I wanted. That's not always the case. But I know that I have no regret for the moments in my life where my requests have gone unanswered. I have a few for the moments when I was too scared to ask.

just ask....nothing bad will happen...that much I promise.

Meditations

I have a "thing" for meditations, for quotes, chants, mantras...whatever it takes to get a person through a particular hurdle and able to see a more positive path. Some have simply explained the unexplainable. You can skip these if they bore you but chances are at least one will stick and grow to mean something to you later. At least that's how it's always worked for me.

There is only one Master, and it is neither male nor female. It shines within you as your own Self. ~Poonjaji

If I could, I'd comb the sky and collect the stars, quickly pile them into a basket until it overflowed with silvery light. And then I'd give the basket to you, because all things precious and beautiful should be yours today. ~Author Unknown

The state of self-realization, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been. ~Ramana Maharshi

There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. ~Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works. ~Louise Hay

Life is a constant flow and it never stops. The experience of today is only valid for today...tomorrow will be a new day where all has to be started again. ~Dharma

We cannot change life! We can only change the way we live life. Any moment is the best moment and any place is the best place. ~Tishan

A simple criterion should be remembered: whatever feels good for you -blissful, peaceful, spontaneous, happening on its own accord - that is your path. ~Osho

In order to grow you need to be sincere and honest with yourself. You are like anybody else neither better nor worse, just a human being. Your sincerity and your will to be true are the key elements to your realization. ~Author Unknown

All things have their uses. However humble its origin, every little thing has a place in nature. ~Gisan

All your answers lie inside of you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust. ~C. Carter-Scott

The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear. ~G. Gurdjieff

I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us. ~Geronimo

You love

Chrissy, you love art, or rather, artistic expression. You express yourself keenly in your poetry and I'm so glad you share it with me. You love to draw and use various coloring mediums to complete your work. You draw fairies and clothing designs as well as using it for sudden emotional expression: whatever you're thinking or feeling is sent through your fingers onto a page. I love that about you. I don't ever want you to lose that. You're enjoying your camera now as well. You like Myspace and Youtube and other teen hangouts online. You're an avid speed reader often finishing 500+ page books in one evening. You're nocturnal like me and I love that you share pieces of all these things with me. I know you don't have to and I appreciate the trust...at this point in life we're learning that it goes both ways.

Trevor, you love schoool. Your favorite subject is Math followed closely by Spelling. You love your Playstation, your ipod and basically all gadgets and gizmos. If I need help with something electronic I can usually ask you and you're just a 4th grader! LOL You are so active and have so much energy even though you have severe allergies and asthma. You handle your daily meds and shots like a champ and rarely let anything hold you back. You like having family game night and enjoy regularly kicking your parent's butts. You love OSU sports, mainly football and basketball. You rarely miss any games. In fact your room is painted orange and black. You love your friends too. Our house regularly has one or two or more kids from the neighborhood hanging out until they absolutely have to go home. And you've started using the phone too. I thought we had a few more years until this started but....oh well. You talk about tamagotchis, playing wall-ball, neo-pets, toonami and SOOOOO much more! If it glows in the dark...you're in.

Jack, you love your brother and everything he does. This sometimes gets you into trouble but most of the time you enjoy the same things your brother does. You also love family game night but you seem to win way more games than any of the rest of us and it's not because we let you either. You're just really good....eerily good actually. Remind us to take you with us to Vegas later, k? You love rough-housing and haven't gone a single week of your mobile life without getting some type of wound that required antibiotic ointment and a band-aid or at the very least an ice pack and a strong warning to slow down. You like taking risks which worries me but doesn't seem to bother you in the least. Your Dad rented The Guardian this weekend and you watched the entire thing without moving or making any noise. You're 7, you're supposed to like Spongebob and Shrek not action movies about guys that almost get killed jumping out of helicopters. After you fully processed Ashton Kutcher's brilliant portrayal of what I fear might be you one day you went on to rewatch Shark Tale and write me a lovely note that I saved. It reads "I love you very very very much Mom". Well, I love you very very very much too. How 'bout a little less daredevil stunts and more fluffy froo froo stuff okay?