Childhood Wishes...

When I was a kid there was nothing much more exciting or magical than getting the Sears Christmas Wish Book in the mail.  I would spend hours and hours poring through those catalog pages, dreaming and folding and circling and hoping and wishing and deciding which items I realistically thought I could get Santa to bring me each year...

And while Santa was always good to me and never left me empty-handed or in a state of disappointment, there were a few things I asked for or sometimes only secretly wished for (because I knew hell would have to freeze over first) that I never did get...


My own place.  And by my own place, I mean my very own playhouse in the backyard.  A place I could play with my dolls, read my books, listen to my records, play board games and just hang with my bff.  You know? A little pink house...

A genie bottle/magical powers/magic wand! Maybe I watched too many old episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched but I had all sorts of plans for the day Santa finally delivered this one.  I was going to rule the world.  Or at least just marry Shaun Cassidy.

Miniature horse.  I'm pretty sure this was one of those wishlist items I placed in the when hell freezes over category and never actually asked for but oh, how I wanted one! And I've never completely gotten over this one... The cuteness overwhelms me!

My own phone/private line in my room. Because what the heck was a cell phone or even a cordless phone? If you wanted phone privacy, you pulled that curly cord as far as you could, sneaked around the corner, and closed that door shut tight on that sucker.  And if someone else was talking on the phone and there was something you just had to talk to your bestie about right that minute?  You were just S.O.L!  

Pink carpet.  I had daydreams about pink carpet...

Persian or Siamese cat. While I've always been an animal of all kinds lover, when I was a kid I was obsessed with cats and while we did have a few when I was very young, once they were gone we never got another one.  But I always wanted me a big ol' fluffy Persian or an exotic Siamese of my very own.  I wonder what the Darling wieners would think of that? Hmm...

  
  

















Swatch watch. I can't really say why it is I didn't get one of these because they were all the rage for a time in the 80s and I remember wanting one or two or three (to stack on my arm) pretty bad at one point.  Maybe I had asked for a lot of other stuff from Santa that year or maybe I didn't realize I wanted it until after Christmas... Who knows?  But I never had one...

A pool. Georgia summers were hot and running through the sprinklers just didn't satisfy our urge to get wet.  And I'm sure this wasn't something I ever thought to ask Santa for in the month of December but it definitely stands out in my mind as something I always longed for.  My best friend and I once had the genius idea to build one ourselves by stacking bricks along the edges of the patio.  I don't think you have to ask how that turned out...

  
A puppy in my stocking. Some things never change!

Snow on Christmas Day. Living my entire life in the south, I never did get that one. Until last year... Last year, at the age of 39, that wish was finally delivered and I don't think it could have been any more magical had it happened thirty years earlier...

   
And to me, that is a perfect example of how the best, most cherished gifts of all are always those that no amount of money could ever buy...  


Though I would jump for joy and shout with glee if I woke up Christmas morning to find one of those itty bitty horses in my backyard or another li'l wiener dog in my stocking... 


I'm just sayin'.   


*This post is part of Writer's Workshop at Mama's Losin' It.

Got Elf?

 I've been collecting ornaments for years.  It is one of the few things in life I have managed to be diligent about and have been for the past seventeen years now.  Every year I get my little Hallmark critter with the year (though the series is currently in the snowman decade) and my Hallmark bird of the year...

Then of course there's the Danbury Mint bird I've gotten every year since 2004...

  
And this year when I went into Hallmark, I noticed they had started a new series of whimsical little birds so the crazy bird lady in me  had to start that one too. (Clearly, I have a problem!)...

A few years back I started trying to get an ornament at every new place I visited.  I really wish I had thought of this idea sooner.  I bought a few of those at the places we visited this year.  This one is from Maine....It's the little restaurant on the water in downtown Camden that we ate lunch at one day...

But none of them can put a smile on my face like my happy little smiling elves.  


I.love.me.some.elves!  


My mother-in-law, Pat (Darin's mom), has a collection of these little guys that she's had for forever and ever amen and once Darin moved out on his own, he would go over for a visit when the elves were out at Christmastime and kidnap them when she wasn't looking.  


I still have two of those old vintage guys, one of whom appears to be  staying together by the support of a single forty plus year old thread. He's got an unfortunate case of the old elf wobbles. And the other one is not in much better shape himself.  Bless their little hearts!


Yes, Pat knows I still have them.  She allows them to live here. She even bought me a new one several years back. And last year?  I scored me some brand spankin' new pointy shoe wearin' dudes to keep them all company and scattered them out around the house... 


And two more again this year... 


I am on an elf roll!


But this year I put them all together, way up high atop the entertainment center so they can keep watch over the boys and the wiener dogs and tell me all about every teeny, tiny, sneaky little thing they do or trick they try to play.


Muahaha! 

I think Mr. Jolly Green Leprechaun on the left there looks like he's throwing back an invisible mug o' ale!

The following two are the newbies I scored at Michael's this year.  I really wanted to take every single one of them home but I do have a little 'elf-control.  It was hard though, y'all!  Oh, so hard!  

There's one of the ancient wobbly heads there with the green and white stockings and Pinocchio nose.  I just love that little old elf man!

This one's just flat out showing off.

Hope y'all enjoyed my little elves as much as I do... 


And if anybody knows of any who are looking for a good home,  please send them my way!  ;)  


**This post inspired by Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday's Letter E and Mama Kat's writing prompt, 1.) Have you decorated your Christmas tree? Share a favorite Christmas ornament.

Five Things...

Five Things You May Not Know About Me...

1. My hair fell out when I was a baby and it didn't grow back until I was almost two years old.  My parents and grandmother got really tired of people calling me a boy... Apparently they did so even when I was wearing a dress!  

It was starting to come back in here.  I now have a head full of very thick hair though my dad, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction... 

2. I have Thalassemia Minor that I did not find out I had until I was pregnant with my second baby.  I was always told I was iron deficient when that was not the case.  I'm basically a carrier of Thalassemia, a blood disorder that is life threatening if you actually have the Major version.  Turns out my dad has it too and so do both my boys.  About half of our red blood cells are normal and the other half are abnormal. Physical endurance can be challenging.  

3. I didn't go to kindergarten because I was so shy and it was optional back then. 

4. Anytime I have to have more than a vial or two of blood drawn, I get very lightheaded, begin to hear ringing in my ears and come within an inch of passing out though I have never actually gone through with it...the passing out, I mean.  

5. I have two creases where my arm bends.  Well, there's the one where it bends like everyone else has but then there is an extra one below it.  I had never met anyone else who has this extra crease until Dracen came along.  He has it too though his is not as defined. 

Five Things I'm Knowledgeable About...

1. Dachshunds.  Surprise!  There's not much I don't know about those beloved little long dogs.  

2. Arranging flowers.  I was, after all, a florist for four years and it's just one of those things that came easy and has stuck with me. 

3. Movies from the late 80s/early 90s.  There are very few of them I have not seen and I have been known to quote lines from many of them at random.  

 4. Online dating.  I had it down to a science when I met Charlie.  

5. The stages of grief.  

Five Things I Know Nothing About...

1. Operating heavy machinery.  I mean, you know, other than a car.  

2. How it feels to get all pumped up about watching a football game on t.v.... or a basketball game, or a hockey game or any other kind of game, aside from baseball.  I did go through an obsessive stage about the Atlanta Braves one summer when I was a kid but it mainly had to do with a major crush on one of the players.

3. Why all boys and men too (though they don't all admit it) love to pee outside so much.  I just don't get it and am quite sure I never will.

4. Faking it. I've never been good at hiding my feelings or pretending everything is perfectly fine when it's perfectly not.  

5. Rocket science.

Five Things I Believe...

1. That words can be powerful but actions speak volumes.

2. Life is comprised of a little bit of luck and a whole lot of what you choose to do with it.  

3. Gaining knowledge of something is the best way to conquer a fear of it.

4. Worrying will get you nowhere but it is pretty near impossible to stop, especially after you become a mother.  

5. All dogs go to heaven.  :)     

Got this idea from the Writer's Workshop at  Mama' Losin It!
Also linking to Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday!

My Biggest Parenting Challenge

I was always the shy, quiet girl who went out of my way to avoid drawing attention to myself in school.  I was bewildered by the class clown type, even when I secretly found their antics hysterical,  because that personality was so very different from my own. I just could not fathom possessing that kind of carefree gumption.   


And really, I am still that way.  I go out of my way to avoid uncomfortable situations and confrontations.  I recently read an article in which someone referred to herself as "conversationally challenged" and the words leapt off the page at me. Because that?  Is so me.  


Conversationally challenged is exactly what I am.  I stumble over my words, if I can find them at all, and end up walking away or hanging up the phone shaking my head and feeling completely frustrated because I know I did not say what I felt, thought and intended to say.  

And I had one of those moments this afternoon when I got a call from a teacher (the third time I have heard from this teacher this year) informing me, yet again, that my son is still being unruly and  disruptive in her class. That she finds it disrespectful. And that she wants it to stop.


It felt like an attack on me and my parenting skills and I wanted to shout, "You and me both, girlfriend!  You and me, both!"  But of course I didn't.  Instead I asked her what exactly he was doing to which she replied "just constantly giggling, cutting up and talking amongst his friends." I apologized three times and told her we had talked and talked to him about this and thought we had the problem solved and that we will deal with it.  


Then I hung up the phone, threw a few four letter words around and sent Charlie a message pretty much stating that I was at my wit's end and did not know what else to do aside from going to the darn (only this wasn't the exact adjective I used) school and sitting right beside him in that class every day. And we agreed to crack down harder.   Take away ALL the privileges this time!  


I have to say that above all the challenges parenting has brought me thus far (even the constant bickering between them and the endless lobbying to wear shorts in the dead of winter) THIS is the hardest.  


The direct reflection I feel that my children are of myself.


Although they are each their own persons with their own wills and personalities, I feel personally responsible for each and every move they make and action they take even when I am not with them.  Especially when I am not with them.


And although I am a little ashamed to admit this, the bottom line is that when they act bad...I look bad.  Or at least it feels that way. And who likes to look bad?  Not me! 


I did not expect to feel this way before I became a parent.  Nobody wrote that down as advice at my baby shower, not a one of those "what to expect" parenting books devoted a chapter to it and my mother didn't warn me about it.  


I expected the sleepless nights, the messes, the occasional defiance, and even the worry. But the one challenge I never saw coming was this one...The unsuspecting way I could be right in the middle of an otherwise perfectly fine day and have someone jerk a knot in my tail, pee in my corn flakes, or eat my bowl of sunshine all up with one little phone call, note or email informing me that my kid...mine...was being anything less than perfect.   


And the fact that the quietest of quiet girls in the class grew up to be the mother of the class clown is just further proof that God?  Has a wicked sense of humor!  


**This post inspired by Mama Kat's writing prompt, "Your biggest parenting challenge and/or joy" and Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday's Letter C.

In My Own Backyard...

The weather has been so beautiful here this week with high temps around 70, bright blue skies and glorious colors all around.  Monday afternoon I stepped out into the backyard with Dracen, the Darlings, and the Canon and tried my best to digitally capture some of that beauty.

Close up of the leaves from a small Maple tree in the backyard...

View from the sunroom...

One of the many big, beautiful oaks that surround us on all sides...

The Darlings in action...

Weathervane atop the well house...

We threw some old squash out over the fence several weeks back and ended up with several gourds that made their way into my dining room to join the others I had already bought since I had no idea I was growing my own...

My knockout rose bush out front is still in full bloom.  If you look through the dining room window you can see it.  I love eating in there and admiring it.  This old dough bowl belonged to my great-great grandmother.  I filled it with a few of my...ahem...many wine corks and some leaves Dracen picked up a couple of weeks ago...

And speaking of Dracen, here he is making his best shot from the trampoline...

Have  you ever seen a bluer sky?  

Another shot of the maple tree...

This picture reminds me of the motto of the preschool both boys attended, "Mighty oaks from little acorns grow!"...

This holly bush grows just outside my bedroom window.  I love the look of the red berries against the orange and yellow leaves...

I'm not sure who's advising whom here but I think this is a frame worthy shot...

I love the speckles on this majestic canopy of leaves...

Kicking up some leaves with sock feet and little paws... 

This shot was taken from the front yard. It's not often I find myself with the camera in hand at the exact same moment heaven is shining its light down like this. I've always found that so magical.  It takes my breath away...

Thanks for joining me for this glimpse of how fall shows out for us here in my little neck of the woods.  I hope it puts on a good show in your neck of the woods too!   


**This post inspired by Mama Kat's writing prompt, "Fall in your neighborhood! Share some Fall pictures that capture the season in your neck of the woods." and Jenny Matlock's  Alphabe-Thursday's Letter B.