So I Was Just Thinking

...not that she will see this today. Although her apartment complex has a computer she can use, and I got her an email address, she still remains somewhat digitally disconnected. She's thinking about buying an iPad or an iPhone, though. (Don't worry, I will send her the link and tell her to go check her email.) Mom just got back from seeing my brother get married in North Carolina. She has also been very busy coordinating the carpet people putting carpet in my Texas house. Additionally, she has put her house on the market and moved into a senior apartment complex. Moving to the community has been the best thing ever. They have coffee hour every afternoon. Someone arranged a Senior Prom last month at a country club where there was food and dancing. Most of the time when I call her she is talking to one of her neighbors. It is very nice to know that she is making new friends now that I am in Missouri. I hope you have a good day, mom. Here are some pics from the past.  Mo...

I just realized how much time I waste on Facebook when I could be crafting or blogging or reading or exercising. Does that mean I am going to change? Who knows, but I thought it was time for some of my random thoughts to hit the blog page. Other than the computer, what else has been taking up my time? Let see: School started over a month ago. We are well into the swing of things. There are still some school provided programs not in place yet, but I make do with what I have. My students are sweet, generally well behaved kids. It takes many of them much longer to learn things than the kids I taught last year. I am learning how to help them. When they make certain mistakes in math, it makes my head swirl because it is so beyond me how you couldn't get it after a week of daily tutoring and a week of lessons and teacher's aide coming around to help them individually whenever they are stuck. My coworker said, "You must have asked God to give you patience." I must have. C...

I got to use the Olympus camera today that I had traded over to my mom for the Kodak. I was so happy. Here are the results. Mom, James and I went to Salado today for a little window shopping (a concept that is lost on a five year old boy, by the way.) Along the way we came across this field of bluebonnets. So I pulled into a nearby parking lot and got James out, and Mom and I started taking pictures. Although the camera reunion is only temporary, it made felt good to be able to take good pictures again.

My mother has always been a very conservative person. She goes to church twice a week, watches religious television, listens to Rush Limbaugh and watches the Fox News Network. When my father was alive, he would bring home movies from people at work and mom would go to her room and read a book and listen to easy listening radio. Dad loved shows like Law & Order and La Femme Nikita . Mom hated them. The one thing they loved together was Jeopardy . They would record it everyday so they could watch it together. Since my father passed away almost two years ago, mom has started watching strange things on TV. I call her everyday to check on her. When I ask her what she is doing, many times she will say, "Watching Kill Bill." Sometimes it is one of the "Bourne Identity" or "Matrix" movies or something like that. When I hang up the phone, my husband asks what Mom was up to. He just cracks up because it is so unlike her. Mom Before Maybe it's boredom. Who ...

I decided today, I would play catch up with you all and share some of the little things we have been doing that keep us busy. On Palm Sunday, we went to church. As usual after church, we made our way to our regular breakfast spot. When we got there, however, it was packed to the point that their parking lot and banks parking lot were full. When this diner is too full, they don't have the best service so we decided to go somewhere else. That somewhere else turned out to be The Cracker Barrel. We had a good time and good food. Mom likes Cracker barrel, but it is too far to go every week. James is not sure about this hair style. Cait looks like she was wondering when we were leaving. After breakfast we rushed home to get Caitlin ready for dance photos. Her group is dancing to a song called the heaven hop where they come on stage dressed as nuns. Part of the way into the song they remove the habits and show off their sparkly angel dresses. Before we went to the dance studio, I took he...

My parents loved the family road trip. Since my father was in the military, he would have 30 days off a year for vacation. He always waited until summer to use them. The trips always started with Dad getting out the old Rand McNally, a Best Western Guide and a pad of paper. (These were the days before Mapquest.) He would then map out our route correlating travel times with Best Western Motel locations. Dad knew he would be doing most of the driving while mom read the map, and my brother and I sat in the back of the metallic blue Chevy Impala station wagon continually saying, "I'm not touching yoouuuuuu." It's a wonder dad never pulled the car over. Lunches at roadside parks consisted of foods that would survive long times out of the refrigerator. Mom found something called "deviled ham" and another product known as "Cheez Whiz." She would use these together to fashion a ham and cheese sandwich with mustard on the white bread that stuck to the roof ...

You know, after feeling so bad for so long you finally have a break where everything is just funny. Yesterday was that day. I was coming out of the grocery story feeling sad about everything that has been going on these past few days when I heard the phone ringing in my car. It was my mother who had taken my brother to buy some clothes for my father's funeral this coming week. She wanted to know what color pants my husband had and if I thought he would like a new shirt to wear. I didn't know, so I thought I would try something I had never tried before which was three-way calling. I told her to hold on and not hang up and hit the send button. Next, I called my husband, but the phone rang and rang. I was ready to hang up on him so I hit the send button again when I heard him say, "Hello," and I heard my mom say, "Hi." My husband had no idea I was on the other line. My experiment worked. Finally, I had to say that I was on the other line too. When I got home, h...

When I was little, my mother put me in ballet classes. I think she thought I was too chubby. I couldn't have been more than 4. I remember going to those classes in my black leotard, pink tights and pink leather slippers thinking, "Don't I look cute?" Our teacher would make us practice our splits, but I don't think I was able to do them. Even back then, I would get lost in thought and forget to switch legs when she told us to. After that year, my mom never enrolled me again. I never forgot that. Fifteen years later, my roommate and I tried out for cheerleader in college. I had never done it before - I was known as a dyed in the wool "band geek/flag twirler." Tryouts were fun, but I didn't make it. I called my mother to let her know, and her only comment was, "Well, you were never very coordinated." It was like a stab to the heart. Weren't moms supposed to console you no matter how bad you were at something? A few years later I became an ...