In this household we try to wear our Cougar Blue every game day that we can. It's pure luck on my part that when those days roll around everyone has something clean that qualifies. On this particular day Malia asked if they could please add some face paint to their weekly routine. Now, it is not my inclination to add things to my life that are mess potential, or chaos potential, etc. I barely handle the normal things let alone adding more into the equation. For some reason I said yes, and was so glad I did. They were so cute! They used the black and silver face paint left over from Halloween, and were really getting into it. Just listening to them alone without watching them was entertainment enough. Malia, the ring leader, was painting everyone elses' faces, and wanted to do hers as well. I told her to be careful, and to remember that since she was looking in the mirror while she was doing it that in order for it to end up readable she'd have to apply it backwards. Apparently she didn't get what I was telling her.

Here's what it looked like in the mirror...


And here's what it looked like to the rest of us...


Lose decided to apply a mole like her Daddy's, right by her nose. It was funny listening to them debate which side Dad's mole was actually on...






Go Cougs!

I've always been so unspeakably impressed and in awe whenever I'd hear of someone experiencing an unspeakable tragedy, and yet they still clung to their belief and faith in God. I am even now more impressed and in awe than I ever have been. After experiencing my own tragedy, the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that God loves me, and that His Son, my Brother, knows my pain, knows my weaknesses, loves me immensely, has a bottomless amount of patience for me, and somehow manages to continue to carry me every day to a better place. This is no small miracle, I assure you. I have been to hell and back with a couple repeat visits lately, and sometimes I stay for a while. I have been confused as to why this is the path I have to walk, and as a parent myself I wonder how God can watch me, his child, endure so many daily difficulties and heartaches. My resentfullness, anger, bitterness, and offended spirit struggles on a daily basis to make it through this enormous somewhat seemingly insurmountable mountain of my life. I've yelled at God, talked to Him, pleaded with Him, ignored Him, begged Him, questioned Him, looked to Him, tried to understand Him, and mostly tried to make myself open to what He is trying to teach me. I do not say this lightly, when I say that I love Him. It is a loved hard earned, not easily understood on my part, and one that I have worked very very hard at developing. To me it is my own small miracle that throughout my immense sadness and hurt that I can say with peace and comfort that I know that I am loved and cared for by them. Do I agree with their methods? Maybe not, and maybe admitting that makes me a fool. Do I hope to someday understand their methods? Absolutely. Do I wish Naki was here to explain them to me like he always had? More than I can express. But perhaps that is a small portion of what this is all about...my own journey towards my Father and Brother. A journey that I continue to make one step at a time, with many tears and many friends helping me along the way.

I have struggled so much over the last three months. I wish it hadn't been so, but it has and I'm trying to make my way to the surface of it. I've truly been drowning for many many weeks, although I've desperately attempted to fake my way to the surface. Faking doesn't work. I just get sucked down deeper and deeper, hoping for a breath of air to sustain me. I've received some much needed gulps of air from some unexpected sources this week, and they were such a relief that I cried from knowing their ultimate source.

It seems so contradictory to feel so sad and distraught and yet be able to say that I know I am an incredibly blessed person in the same breath. But it is the truth.

Cutie

Line just said to me as I was cleaning up dinner, "Mom, Ane gave me the rest of her roll and Lose gave me the rest of her milk shake. How much better does it get?"

Charlie, The Beast

We love our pet, we really do. But it's time for a couple of surgeries that will hopefully tame the beast in her a bit. She goes in tomorrow for her lady surgery, and two weeks later she's scheduled for her own special mani-pedi. We tried to spare her those surgeries, but she is making us crazy, attacking our lower extremities nonstop, leaving streams of blood down our legs and traumatizing ALL of us, even Line, who is way more forgiving towards Charlie. No one is able to walk up the stairs without watching their backs the entire time, knowing that Charlie is about to eat your feet alive at any second. The second you think all is calm as you read on the couch, she attacks any dangling limbs she sees. As the mom, I'm tired of any tears that I can prevent...we have more than our fair share as it is. And if she's not careful, there's going to come a day when the girls aren't going to have any more patience with her stalking habits. Since I'm trying to avoid that, it's surgery time.

When I told the bigger girls what the first surgery was for, they were disappointed that she wouldn't have any babies. I told them that it was highly improbable that that would ever have happened anyway, since she's an inside cat and isn't ever in the right scene for a little hanky-panky. They all giggled at what they thought was a very risque joke for Mom to say outloud, and then Line replied, "Ohhh...but she's so attractive!" Poor Charlie...apparently all her good looks are for naught.

Now. Are there any surgeries out there for another lady who feels like she could use a couple of tweaks to her always-sad, always-tired, always missing her old life while trying to adjust to her new one personality, before those she loves decide they might just not have enough patience for her anymore? *sigh*

Halloween 2010

Every time I look out the doors in my kitchen that lead to the back porch I feel such a sense of elation at what I was able to get done last Friday afternoon. I took the good weather and our completely open schedule as no coincidence, knowing I only had a couple of hours to get everything done, and so set to work, happy to finally be able to spend some time outside working in the yard. Thanks to help from two different neighbors, the swamp coolers were finally covered, and the leaking water shut off valve was finally fixed. I disconnected the hoses, turned off the water outside, mowed the yard, weeded all the plants, took down all the Halloween decorations, put away all the outside furniture and planters from the patio, and swept and sprayed everything down. The girls helped pick up all the apples from ours and our neighbors trees, and then spent the rest of the time playing outside. I loved seeing them giggling with one another, the wind in their hair and kissing their cheeks, just as happy as I was to be outside for one more day before winter was here for good. I can't describe why I feel so good about that day, but I've always been a dork, feeling happiest when I knew I'd gotten things done that needed to be done. I feel so grounded when I am pulling weeds, checking leaf buds, and smelling the glorious fall air.

Even though I've been feeling terribly sad these last few weeks, I have loved every minute spent driving anywhere, because it means that I get to see all the leaves that are changing, have changed, and the difference that brings to the landscape around me. I started laughing outloud the other day as I realized that one of the reasons I feel such peace when I look at nature during this season is that it reminds me of being in my house, my safe haven. The colors I see outside right now are the same exact colors that I've surrounded myself with in my house...hmmm...something about that color palette must make me feel secure and safe.

Today I spent the afternoon looking for something we could use every year to bring to Naki's grave in honor of Thanksgiving. I really wanted to find something that signified the true reason for Thanksgiving, which to me is giving thanks for all that the Lord has given us, but that yet still had a Thanksgiving/Turkey-Pilgrimish feel to it. Not as easy as you think, let me tell you. My friend Cyndi and I were talking last week about how her Dad always said that he feels that Thanksgiving is the unsung holiday. I agree completely. How is it that something as important as giving recognition for all your blessings is so easily missed? I've been looking for some time for his headstone decorations, and most stores have nothing! In fact, they already have their Christmas decor out. And even most of the things that I did manage to find were turkeys and pilgrims, which of course are very Thanksgiving oriented, but just as in everything else I think about lately, I wanted to find something with a little more depth. One plaque I found reads, "Our Greatest Blessings Call Us Mom and Dad". And another framed thing I found reads, "I'm thankful for the Harvest, I'm thankful for the Fall. I'm thankful for so many things, but for Family most of all". That was just what I was looking for. I did manage to find a little turkey thing too, since he so enjoyed eating that darn bird every year, and also a fun little sign that says, "Family and Turkey and football...Oh My!", which sums up what Naki loves about Thanksgiving. I felt such relief to feel like I had found a couple of things that will hopefully be a tangible way for the girls to remember him next week.

Having done several major holidays, baptisms, and birthdays immediately after Naki died and having survived them, I really hadn't given much thought to them this year. I wanted to get through our one year mark, which we did, and that's all I was really thinking about. Only as Halloween week was here did I realize how foolish I had been to think that it could be any easier. Silly girl. Naki is the one that makes Halloween for me bearable, truly. It's just not my favorite thing, and I know that I mentioned that before. I must give a HUGE shoutout to the anonymous donor last year, who after reading my post about how much I hate thinking of Halloween costumes, dropped off a huge container of fun costumes and fun costume pieces, which made assembling the girlies' costumes this year a cinch. They had fun doing it and so did I, unbelievably. A big thank you to whomever that was...we felt so loved as we dug through that treasure chest of costume treasures.

I wrote in my post about Naki's Y pumpkin that he was the master carver at our house. Last year my sister and her husband were here, as well as my Dad, and they oversaw the pumpkin carving extravaganza. So this year it was up to me...oh joy. We made it a two day project, and combined it with our annual caramel apple treats. It used to be that Naki would sit at the kitchen table and work with some of the kiddos carving pumpkins while I would work with the other ones at the kitchen counter, making our delish caramel apples. Since I was a one woman show this year, we split it up over two days. Friday afternoon we went and shopped for the pumpkins. Thank Heavens for Maceys, they still had some. And they were huge! So huge that you should have seen us ladies, trying to climb over the stand of pumpkins to reach the ones that we wanted, only to try and lift them and realize that it was going to take some serious muscle and some serious maneuvering...those suckers were heavy! At one point I'd hopped from pumpkin to pumpkin, like they were lily pads or something, got to the top, grabbed the one that one of the girls wanted, and realized there was no way I was going to be able to come back down in one whole piece. Lucky for me, or not so lucky since I completely believe now that all "luck" is God watching over me, a neighbor just happened to be walking into the store at that very moment and helped me by grabbing the pumpkin, and then helped me climb down. We got all those big babies home, and while they started brainstorming on their carving ideas, I started on the apples.

















We finished the apples that night and started on the carving the next morning. Here are some of the masterminds at work...



Because of my complete uninvolvement in the carving last year, I had no idea where to locate all of the child-friendly carving tools that we've acquired over the years. I knew I didn't have the stomach to find myself in the emergency room, the same one I was in with Naki, should any carving injuries happen. That left me to carve ALL the pumpkins, and I found myself struggling more and more emotionally as I moved from pumpkin to pumpkin, feeling so angry that Naki wasn't with me to do this together. I hate that anger emotion more than any of the other ones, I think. It feels so impure, so out of place, and yet sometimes exactly what I want to feel. I tried so hard to make it a positive experience for the girls, desperately trying to separate my issues from the fun they were having. The girls were great pumpkin-gut-scrapers and removers, and then I did the carving.




Here are the finished products.

Eli's:

Line's:

Malia's:

Lose's:


Eva and Ane were the helpers with Daddys' Jack-O'-Lantern this year.

Here are the pictures from my camera of the girlies in their costumes that I took on Friday morning during our school's Halloween Parade. As I was walking my my Kindergarten class, a teacher walking right behind me took pics of me and the girlies...






This next pic is one of my favorites, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because just look at Ane...this is what she was trying to do as I walked by. And secondly, because look how unfazed everyone is around her. I hadn't realized it when I took this picture, but just now as I was studying it, I received the truest feeling of love in my heart for everyone surrounding Eva and Ane. I can not adequately describe the feelings that I'm experiencing right now, as I just discovered that the people in this picture all sat together for this parade to see their own children march by in their costume glory. But I do not doubt that they saw my friend Cyndi walk in with not only her little kiddos but mine too, and they all came together, either consciously or unconsciously, with love and support for me and for each other. I am so blessed with the best of friends. I love you! Chases, Jordans, Andersons, and Scoubes families. You are angels, truly.


And here are the photos I took on my camera from the evening trick or treating festivities. Some of the cousins hadn't arrived yet when I took pics, but we were able to see everyone. It's always so fun to see what everyone comes up with for costumes.









Gosh...I just realized for a Holiday that I'm not fond of, I sure take a lot of pictures of it.

Even though I had such a difficult time actually doing the traditional activities that each holiday brings, it's always such a relief to know that we've done them, and done them well. It brings complete satisfaction to my heart to know that as their living parent, I gave EVERYTHING I had to whatever project we were doing. I know what I'm capable of, and God knows what I'm capable of. When those two match, and then I actually see whatever it is through to the end, it brings such peace to know that when I see Naki again I'll have absolutely no regrets, and I know how proud he'll be of me for doing hard things. Happy Halloween everybody...