Just as You Are

We had a busy, exhausting, freezing, weekend in CT watching the Huskies beat South Florida with a last-minute field goal I might add. Yeah for kickers! We had the opportunity to take Erin, Chad's significant other, with us to surprise him. It was fun plotting and planning all week to make it happen. He had NO idea. It was so fun to see his face when he realized she was there when before the game we were trying to get his attention at the end of the field that he was warming up on and where the mega tron is. The camera tech saw us trying to get Chad's attention so that he could see Erin and he put her up on the mega tron as Chad was kicking towards it..... it was pretty adorable. It is fun to see him happy and how sweet and caring he is towards her.
I am determined to be supportive and accepting of whoever my kids care about. I had a great example in Rich's family. I always felt like they accepted me from the moment I met them. Mom was a great example to me. Boys are special to moms and it isn't always easy to see them caring so deeply about someone else. I don't ever want to be "that kind of mother" and have that tension. So far so good.

I Got Nothin'

Rich asked me why I haven't blogged for awhile. That is my answer. Nothing seems interesting enough to share. Life is about peaks and valleys, right? I feel more interesting when I am on a peak. Life is good and I do have some belated thanks for my family, cozy home, my boy who is away from me only because of football and not because he is in the military far, far away in a dangerous part of the world, a dog that is my best friend when I am home alone, and dark chocolate, definitely dark chocolate.

Should I Care?

Have you ever known that a person really doesn't care for you and you have absolutely no idea why and know for certain that they have no basis for any of their feelings simply because you have never had a personal conversation with them? Their opinions can only be measured by something that they have heard from second-hand knowledge. It feels unfair. I am really only writing this hoping that somehow saying it out loud might make me feel better about being in this situation.

I feel like I have spent a good part of my life not making a good first impression, but seem to turn most people around, eventually. I really try to give most people the benefit if the doubt when I first meet them. They may be shy, unsure of them self, full of pain from something I don't know about, and I would hope that a little compassion could go a long way. I am better able to cope with someone who knows the "real" me and still doesn't like me than someone who has a fabricated opinion and decides they don't like me. Not sure I care, other than the fact that I am to reflect the Lord and don't want to be a poor reflection of Him.

These are my deep thoughts for the day and a reminder not to jump to judgements about others before you really know who they are.

Three Hours for Fifteen Minutes

My cute parents, me, and Rich made the three hour trip to see UConn play Pitt on Saturday. We had a fun time before the game at The Strip in Pittsburgh and a had a great lunch at Primanti Brothers. Aside from some parking issues before the game and a heartbreaking loss by a field goal, we enjoyed a beautiful fall day and just being together. It never ceases to amaze me how we don't mind traveling pretty much any distance just for a chance to see Chad for 15 minutes after every game before he has to fly home to school. The actual game is just a bonus. We laugh because right now while Chad is not playing, we really only care about getting there before the games start just to see him warm up.
$15 for PA Turnkpike tolls
$24 lunch at Primanti Brothers
$10 for parking at the stadium
$12 for a stadium drink and hot dog
Seeing your boy for 15 minutes after the game... Priceless.

Wish I did.....

anything but what I do. I know, sounds so ungrateful, but I'm just throwing it out there. I went to see the movie "Julie and Julia" last night and I so could relate to Julie's feelings of being lost in her job. She and Julia Childs found a way to make what they always dreamed of happen. I want to be them. Most times I feel like I have wasted my time doing a job that feels unfulfilling and meaningless in hopes that it is for the best interest of my kids. I'm no martyr, believe me, I whine about it all the time. I feel conflicted a lot of the time wondering what God's take on that is; not the whining part, I know the answer to that! I am extremely grateful just to have a job, don't get me wrong, and I work with some of the most amazing people you could ever meet, it's just not my "calling". I need to go on and find that.
If I can't find that "calling" I would want to be a bear. God has a perfect plan for their life. They get to eat as much as they want in the fall, gain hundreds of pounds, go to sleep and skip the worst time of the year, wake up skinny. Brilliant! I think I'll ask God why that wasn't an option for me when I get to heaven.

Family

Some families have it right. They live close enough to be involved in each other's lives and share day-to-day things. I know that can go all kinds of bad, but most of the time it really is wonderful. We just got back from Texas where we spent time with my bother and Rich's sister. How sweet it is to reconnect and realize there is nothing like family.

Cattle Call

Rich and I were at the grocery store yesterday to get a few things and something that happened made me think that we really aren't that different from your average farm animal. There was a display of fresh, local corn that the produce workers were refilling and there were swarms of people snapping it up faster than they could put it in, and I swear in the distance I could here mooing just like cows when they are at the trough. It was a little humiliating to see humans act that way. I'm not sure if I missed the memo that this will be the last of the tender, sweet kernels of corn for the season, but you would have thought so. Rich, being the fearless provider that he is, got right in there and shoved a few people out of the way to secure our 5 ears of delicious corn.

I have also observed something about my personality that at some point, along with a laundry list of other things, want to have analyzed. In situations like that, even if it is something that I was determined to have, when there is a mad dash for something, like say corn, a cute dress, etc., I find that I want the opposite of that thing when I see people pushing, shoving, rushing to get it. It feels too humiliating to want something that bad. I'll get that looked into sometime soon.