Day 31 Month 3..."Spring Fever"

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month."

Henry Van Dyke

"Full" - Day 30

Full is what I want my family to feel tonight! Making our favorite meatballs- I double it & freeze some (cooked)- then I have a fast semi-homemade dinner on a work night. He is traveling Monday- Friday so I wanted his last night of home cooking to be one of his favorites. It'll be a great warm home cooked meal to go with the snow- again (I admit - it is beautiful & I will take it over the blustery rain all morning). The only hitch in my plan is that my baby girl has the stomach virus & is far from full - her meatballs will be waiting for her tomorrow & I hope she will be up to it. Enjoy the recipe - nothing fancy (I don't do hot sauce & usually go a little lighter on the crushed red pepper) but my family loves them!

"Goodnight"~ Day 29

For me it is never "goodnight" until I know they are home.  Sometimes I doze off and then wake up, so a rule is either tap my door or text that you are home so that when I awaken I know you are there.  Then I just hope there are never good nights for them...sneaking out because they know I will never know as long as they are quiet...and I can only hope they use their good sense and rules and what they have learned over the years about drugs, drinking, and driving with either.  Losing one of them is my biggest fear in life, and because it happened to someone I know when I was 19 and she was 16, the fear is far too real and people have no idea...to this day I admire her parents as they have stayed together and gone through life after that horrible night, I remember so many parts of that week in such detail.  Sometimes I feel bad that I am overprotective, especially considering how liberal I am, but I have never gotten over that night (I am talking I knew to the day what day my daughter would officially have outlived her life).  I don't know why.  Neither did my therapist lol.  I still say, "good morning" and "goodnight" to the kids every day; I am not sure how that is going to work out with her gone in five months.

This has been on my refrigerator for YEARS (after I had saved it for years) and was required reading for kids when they got their license, though they joke that they have read it 1,000 times because it is by the toaster and they had to wait for toast and would read it...it encompasses my fears and hopes they think, and it is hard when you already see more discipline and willpower in certain ones of your kids than others.  I know that when I say, "goodnight," they have no idea how deeply it affects me, and it has nothing to do with cordiality.  Peace xo.

"Makes You Smile"- Day 28

I'm definitely the kind of girl who laughs at a funeral...can't understand?  Well you soon will...I don't mean to laugh at the wrong times.  Or at the inappropriate.  & I wish so often I could say what I am thinking out loud...like these...

And, I love the crocs...they have always cracked me up and my son was too young to be looking at the book I had but he got the humor, which was so funny, so we used to read one or two together before bedtime and just laugh at the crocs and their antics.

Day 27- "Hero"

 

I can't fathom how it feels to have my own child have cancer.  I know how much it sucks that his does, but what he feels every day is something I just don't know.  The anger, the compassion, the fright...all while working full time and going out of his way to still be the dad the other two need.  His kids live 45 mins away one way, and one is 45 mins away the other way, so it isn't easy.  He gets so frustrated trying to balance it all, I am not even sure he sees that all of his frustration is because he loves his kids so much and wants to give them what he can, which is hard when you are not living with them full time.  He doesn't want to be just a check each month.  He has had to learn new skills to deal with the cancer and with teenagers, and it may take multiple attempts but he gets there, and I see him become a better father every week for one reason or another. The world would be such a different place if every father embraced their responsibility and went out of their way to be a part of their children's lives.~xo

Day 26~ "The Kitchen Sink"

                                 

Timely that this was the topic, since this is what I came home to...so I am just going to smile and say I am grateful for food to serve to my child and her friends, grateful for my child and that she has friends, grateful we have the means to keep food fresh and have choices in what we eat from many different stores, eat in, carry out, whatever...and grateful that it will still be there when she gets home tomorrow and she will be cleaning it up. xo

Day 25- "Scent Memory"

Coffee. Seriously often the best part of my morning. Opening a new box of K-Cups and smelling them makes me want to go to sleep so I can get up and drink more!  So many comforting feelings and thoughts associated with morning coffee I don't know where to begin...he can actually tell you exactly where I have had the best lattes of my life just because of the location's ambiance- one of the sweeter things he has ever done is take me to Rehoboth almost purely so I can have coffee on the boardwalk- overlooking the ocean- & off season with few people around. Morning coffee on the couch with him is the best though. Please just know if the Keurig breaks we have an immediate crisis!

I would be remiss to not add two scent memories so many my age will relate to- we didn't grow up with entire stores full of sprays & lotions & potions promising you will smell like an apple orchard or a Malibu beach or midnight in Paris. We hoped that on Christmas or a birthday we would open one of these two fine scents...& I can still smell them in my mind. Boys just won't ever understand, nor will our daughters who chose to smell like a breezy coconut plantation today....

Wishing you peace, smiles & no black ice today.