9/11

This morning we turned on the TV to see the shows dedicated to the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. It brought me back to that day. As most people that were old enough to remember, I will never forget it.
It was exactly a month after my husband and I got married. I woke up in the morning in my normal routine. He was at work, I grabbed a bowl of cereal and turned on the TV to watch my usual shows. The first thing I saw was one of the twin towers with smoke coming out of it. They were saying they thought a small plane hit the building, there was a lot of confusion, the idea of terrorists wasn't there yet, at least not spoken. The feeling in the pit of my stomach when that 2nd plane hit is something I will never forget. The reporters went silent for a moment, everyone was just stunned. We were attacked. Then they started talking about the plane that crashed that they thought was headed to the pentagon. It made me, and I'm sure lots of other people, wonder what would happen next. How many more of these could there be, how many more places could be attacked, who did it and why? The scenes of people walking around the area covered in ash and debris were so surreal, something you see on the news in other countries that are seemingly at war, not something that you see here in America. Then the first tower fell, another moment of stunned silence and then waiting and knowing that the 2nd one would fall too. The thoughts of how many people were in those buildings and in the streets below was so overwhelming.
I can say that I was not directly affected by this. I didn't know anyone that was there, I didn't even know anyone that knew anyone that was there. But yet I talk about it 10 years later and still can't hold back tears. It's a moment that my grandchildren will study in their history class, and I'll be able to tell them about where I was and what I remember from that day.
Take a moment today to think about the mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, uncles, aunts, grandparents and friends that died that day, along with all the people who have lost their lives since then protecting us and making sure that it never happens again.



A Round Tuit

I seem to be much more of a procrastinator than I used to be...not sure how that's possible, but it's true. The words "I should..." or "I'm going to..." and such come out of my mouth MUCH more than they should. Unfortunately most of the time it's not often that the thing I should or am going to do actually gets done. For example, I have been saying since the beginning of the summer that I want to go through the kids' toyboxes and get things organized, throw away broken toys, etc... Well, here we are, summer is over, school has started again and, you guessed it, I haven't gone through their toys. We did get their rooms more organized and have gotten a lot of other things done around here, but not that.

Growing up, my grandma always had (and still does have) these silly things called Round Tuits. It's a circular piece of paper with the word "tuit" on it. I used to roll my eyes when she'd give me one after I uttered one of the phrases I just talked about. I think I need about a hundred of those right now, not to mention another 12 hours in each day would be nice.

Another "round tuit" that I need to do is get my butt in gear to lose weight. It sounds like such a normal thing, especially for a woman and mother of 4 kids to say, but this is a NEED type thing at this point. Since I had my youngest daughter and had my gall bladder removed, I'm no longer at the level of at least maintaining, now I'm gaining, not good. Unfortunately, for a procrastinator of my level, sticking to a diet and exercise program can fall right along the lines of impossible. Excuses pile on top of excuses... not enough time, it's too cold/hot to go for a walk, no money for a gym membership, I need to catch up on orders, we can't afford the healthy foods, the list goes on.... Not to say these things aren't true, they are, but I need to make myself get past these excuses and do it in spite of them.

My procrasination has gotten to the point where I actually don't even want to start things because I don't think I'll be able to keep up with doing them. A friend of mine recently went through what is called a Muchness Challenge. Basically it's 30 days of doing the things you need to do to get your muchness back (If you've seen Alice in Wonderland, you'll know what this means, if not, well, look it up cause I probably won't get around to explaining it to you, haha).  This is probably something I should (there's one of the phrases again) do, I definitely feel like I've lost my muchness recently, maybe I will discover what it is I need to do to get it back. Of course, I haven't started this because I don't have time! Oye Vey!

I think I will be changing my phrases to I WILL instead of I should or I want to. Maybe I need to write myself out a daily schedule so I can stay on track. It sounds so elementary to do that, but with 4 kids, a very small house to keep clean and uncluttered and only 24 hours in a day, it may be the only way for me to keep myself on track.

10 Years!

Today I celebrate 10 years of marriage to my wonderful husband. It's so unreal that it's been 10 years since our wedding day. I can't say that I remember it like it was yesterday, because, honestly I don't even remember some of it. It was such an exciting, crazy day that some of it just went by in a blur. Of course, there are specific things that I remember so well, like my little cousin (flower girl) crying because she was so nervous, sitting, standing and even laying while a friend too a good 2 or 3 hours to do the most amazing hairdo I've ever been able to wear, walking from the library to the sanctuary trying not to be drenched in sweat because it was well over 100 degrees that day (August in AZ is not the best time to get married). But most of all, I'll never forget the look on my husband's face when he saw me coming down the aisle or the amount of self control it took for me not to start crying because I was so happy. All in all, our wedding really went off without any disasters. I always hear people talk about how stressful weddings are and how everything always goes wrong, I never quite understand that. It was a pretty crazy day, but nothing really went wrong and I didn't feel stressed at all. I was just happy.
Here we are 10 years and 4 kids later. I can definitely say I am as much if not more in love with him today than I was then. We've definitely gone through the "better or worse" of things... much more "health" than "sickness" (thank God) and a lot more "poorer" than "richer", but through all the ups and downs that come with life, we've only grown closer and stronger together. If you would have told us that day that we would be who and where we are in 10 years, we probably would have looked at you like you were insane. We've sure had some interesting twists and turns, but the important thing is that we're still together and more in love than ever. Our lives aren't perfect, but we're happy and we have healthy, happy children and that's what matters in the end.

So there is my mushy tribute to the love of my life. Here's to 10 wonderful years and to many, many more. Love you honey!

On The Road

I wrote a while back about the "can I really do this with 4 kids" thoughts that enter my mind. Well, here we are on the road for approximately 20 hours with the kids. We're traveling to Arizona to visit with our families and have a short vacation, although I think when this vacation is over, I'm going to need a vacation from our vacation!
I've spent the better part of 2 days catching up on as many orders as I possibly can while getting our family ready for this adventure. The kids have their backpacks full of entertaining things and another bag with books and coloring books, some snacks and of course their video games. I've got my laptop and phone, we've got our music, so we have everything we need to run smoothly....hopefully.
We're about 3 hours into our trip and so far, we've had a diaper blowout (HATE disposable diapers!), a slight case of carsickness, Denver rush hour and construction and a small bathroom emergency.  At this point, I have no idea how this is going to go. Hopefully the part of the trip that is overnight will be filled with nice, quiet sleep, but I'm not going to count on that. I'm just figuring as long as we get there and nobody throws up or pees in their pants, we'll be all right. Now we're just getting in to Colorado Springs, it's so beautiful here it's hard not to be happy. In fact, I think I may want to live here someday. Now that the baby is sleeping, the 4 year old is sleeping and the older 2 are occupied with video games, I figured I could sit and do a bit of blogging, something I haven't been able to do in quite some time.  So, I'll have to try and keep up with it more. Maybe there will be some interesting, non disastrous tidbits to share on our journey to the Desert.