Sometimes I wonder... I guess I am still a lousy blogger. I only post when I really have a good chance to sit down and think about the direction our life is goin, which isn't very often. We have been unbelievably blessed financially this year. Andy and I are out of debt completely, except for the house and my lease car (can't break the lease for 11 more months). We have our emergency fund at 3 months salary (his and mine combined), our 401k is maxed, college savings going on, and a sinking fund for categories I didn't even know we wanted to have! Andy got a huge raise out of nowhere... it's not review time, but they gave him a project and he did well so they just walked in and gave him a raise. We are struggling with how quickly this financial freedom has come, because we have seen it all go away before. We are well invested and prepared for just about anything right now, but stil live in fear. Andy tore the meniscus in his right knee. No idea how. He has been having leg pain since before Christmas and after seeing a doctor, having physical therapy, and still enduring pain, they did an MRI and found this. We will see what they want to do to fix him. Probably a surgery in his spring/early summer. The house is coming along nicely. I painted a bathroom and got new bathmats and shower curtain and a pic for it. It's the only room in the house that isn't some neutral/tan color and I LOVE it. We toyed with new carpet for our room and down the stairs, but have decided to wait another 6 months. Outside is the priority this spring. We are going to have some landscape worked on because we have some sort of choke weed destroying all the perennials in two different flower beds. We are having that removed, and all the beds mulched. In addition we are having two evergreen bushes near the garage rescued. I think they were planted in the wrong location and they can't survive with so much cement surrounding them. My brother Pat gets remarried in June, so I have been spending lots of time buying suits and shirts, and ties, and belts, and shoes for boys. It's times like this I wish we went to church, so they would already have all this stuff, or at least have a chance to wear it again soon. I have the shower next weekend, and have already gotten the gift for that. We still need to get them a wedding gift, shoes for my dress, shoes for Max, and I 'need" jewelery for my dress. :) Life is really good right now. Sometimes it seems too good... and it scares me. Most of the time I am able to think that we have worked hard for 21 years, and lived poor for so long that we are finally able to do the things we want. All the time I realize how far we have come and how lucky we are.

This is our first "real " house. We went from an apartment to a townhouse, to the trailer. The trailer was home for 16 years, but it wasn't a "real" house.

This week I am on vacation. I am painting a bathroom, re-doing a poorly installed vent in the bathroom, and hoping to install a new lighting fixture. I am steam cleaning carpet so I can stretch its life another year because I want to use the tax refund to do some landscaping.... it seems so scary to write all that down. But I found out that I LOVE it.

I love owning a place, and making the plans to improve it or give it our own special feel.
I love that I can plan a garden, and a deck, and a sunroom... and then do it if I want.

We are at a place where we can afford to do house projects, and to do them the way we want to.. or choose not to. It's an amazing feeling. We don't have to incur any debt to do these projects, and yet I am not stuck in the phase where I had to sacrifice what I really wanted because of cost. I am still frugal, but am able to really do what I want.

If I can just get past the perfectionist tendencies that cause me to spend so much time "planning" every detail before I begin, I would be thrilled.

Can't wait to see the changes in our home this spring.

Stream of consciousness post ends here.

Why does this part of my life always feel like the beginning of the end.

Max turns 17 today. He's the youngest, so that means today marks the beginning of the last year I will be parenting a "child'. In 365 days, I will have two adult children.

I can't wrap my head around that.

How young we were!!!!

SLOW down......

This is Max and Zach, at age 2.5, getting ready to go to a wedding. They were soooo tiny and adorable.

Where did the time go???



This is Max and Zach at Christmas 2010. They are much bigger, and a little less camera friendly, but still found together at every single gathering. They are 3 weeks apart in age. On this day, they both chose burgundy shirts and jeans (without talking about it), and notice how they both hold their hands when they sit???

The next year brings proms, and graduations, and .... SLOW DOWN... this is my BABY!

11 years

11 years ago today, my Mom died.
I remember this day like it was yesterday. I still miss her.
I always wonder what she would think of the boys that were 8 and 5 when she died, and then I realize that she would love them. She loved them no matter what they did when they were that age, and I am sure she would love them now.

Mom taught Josh how to play tic-tac-toe, and he would go across the street and through the back yards to her house to play in the afternoons after kindergarten. He would come home with little sheets of paper that had the "scores". Sometimes he won, sometimes Mom won, sometimes it was a "cat" or tie game. Josh loved this time with her so much that when she died, he was at the funeral and made her a tic-tac-toe game. He created a game between them, and let her "win". He left that sheet in her casket. They had a special love, and I am so glad she helped shape him into the man he has become.

Losing my mom was the hardest life challenge I have had at this point. I really relied on her to be my friend, and sounding board, and to reassure me that I was doing alright. And she always did. These past 11 years, I have had to learn to trust my instinct and do what my heart tells me. Often, when things are a bit rough and I am not sure what to do next, I find myself stopping and thinking about what she might do or say. It is comforting to me. I was so blessed to have a relationship with her that was open, and honest as I grew into adult hood. She was a great Mom, and an even better friend.

Just blog

I guess if I am going to chronicle the feelings and experiences of this part of my life, I am going to have to blog. So I am committing to blogging every day. I am sure this means some days will not be worth reading, but at least I will have captured what transitions are going on in my life.