Beer Bought a Condo!!!!

My eldest son, Brandon, is the first child in the family to buy a house!  He bought a 2 bd. 2 bath condo about 2 miles away from us.  He's so nervous and I'm so excited for him!  I can't wait to go and decorate it.  I can't believe my little baby is a homeowner.  So exciting!

Praise Technology!

I am sooo thankful that I live in an age when technology is so amazing.  I am also sooo thankful that I actually know how to take advantage of a little bit of it!  I can't imagine how incredibly sad I would be if there was no such thing as texting and facebook and facetime.  I also have to give a shoutout to my daughters-in-law and sons for making very good use of these modern day miracles.  I get pictures of my children and grandchildren almost every day and even though none of them live close I can still be a part of their lives and watch their activities from afar.  I LOVE it!!!  Thank you, my dear family, for including me in your lives and remembering to send those beloved pictures and texts to your old ma:)  I love you all!

More Lasts, More Tears

The "lasts" are starting in earnest.  My baby had her senior picture taken and she looked so beautiful that I cried, right in front of the photographer.  Luckily he has taken all 7 of my kids pictures so he knows me well.  He wasn't even surprised.  Right up until the day it happened I thought I was fine, even relieved to not have to make this appointment again or go down and take care of this but when it actually came it dawned on me that I will never do this again and it made me a little sad.  On the same day I filled out my 91st (and last) emergency card for the school and I cried again but this time they were tears of joy!  Every single year I have had to fill out the same information over and over again even though nothing has changed and I truly will not miss doing that ever again.  O.K.  I did pause for a moment right after doing it and have a little bit of melancholy and nostalgia thinking of the days when I would fill out 5 or 6 at a time but overall that is one chore that I won't miss. It dawned on me that people with only one or two kids might not have as hard a time saying goodbye to this way of life because they never really had time to get into it but after 27 years of doing this stuff every year it really becomes part of who you are and saying goodbye is a little tough.Stay tuned for more "lasts", (and quite a few more tears:) )

Reflections

The mind is an amazing thing.  It can hold so much.  I found an old record on iTunes that I hadn't heard since I was in college so I bought it and have been listening to it on my walks the past couple of days.  Just hearing the tunes and the words transported me back to a time long before any of my current life.  It got me thinking about what has happened since that time and where I am now.  Also, this is the first summer without any of my crazy boys.  The only ones left in our home are the quiet, subdued, solitary people.  In looking around my home and yard I have found pockets of loneliness.  I see places that used to be filled with loud, crazy, happy people.  I see things I have collected to accommodate all of these people.  I could never get enough chairs and tables for my yard and now nobody sits on these chairs or at these tables.  I am ready to give them away to my children who have moved away.  They have no value to me anymore.  It's the same with the swing that faces the basketball court where I watched those balls go through that hoop a billion times.  It's so quiet now.  I have been known to collect couches.  Yes, you read that right, couches.  I have tons of them.  There were always multiple groups in my house and they all needed to have places to congregate.  There were the ones who just wanted to talk, the ones who played games and the ones who watched movies or games on T.V.  They all had to have a couch.  Now I have many empty couches waiting to go to children who need them in their little starter homes.  I have gotten used to the quiet and usually relish the peace and tranquility of my home with just my oldest and youngest living there.  I enjoy having the time to talk to each of them and give them my undivided attention.  I can see, sometimes, why people only have 1 or 2 children.  It's kind of fun to be able to fit into one car and to be able to do things spontaneously because you only have a couple of schedules to work around.  It's kind of weird though to see rooms in my house that used to be filled to overflowing with people now being reassigned to being the man cave or the sitting room or having a bathroom that only guests use because everybody else has their own.  I have children who will soon be making their own homes so I find myself looking around at all of the things I have collected and thinking of who would need what most.  I don't mind giving it all to them because I bought it all for them in the first place.  Without them, I don't really need it.  It reminded me of the plan of salvation and the progression between one life and the next.  In the pre existence I'm sure we didn't need "things" at all.  While on this earth we spend our time gathering things and making memories and then when we leave this earth we have no use for things anymore.  All we take with us to the next life are the memories and the knowledge we have gathered.  Even though I have quite a bit of time left on this earth I can feel myself slowly tagging the material items I have gathered into groups for that big garage sale of my life.  I will gradually give most everything I have to my children so that they can start the cycle with their families.  There really is a "circle of life". The End.