WARNING: SAPPY POST ALERT

You knew it would happen....I'd get around to sappy posting about J. I know, I know, all mom's are proud of their sons. But this guy has been thru some tough times in his 18 years and I'm proud of the young man he's become. When he was 5, his little world was rocked when we found out we were moving from Owasso all the way across the country to Bakersfield, CA. He was sad he'd have to leave his friends, but talks of Disneyland and the beach soon made that all better. Fast forward exactly one year later....dad has been offered a new job back home in Oklahoma! Woo Hoo! The celebrations we had!! We spent the next six years there. 1st grade until mid-6th grade before, well yeah, transferred again. I can barely type the words of how distraught he was when we told him. Never, in a million years, will I forget that night. I don't know who took it worse, him or his best bud Bobby, or Bobby's mom. Looking back now, I see it was all part of God's plan for our lives. He's grown into a wonderful young man. Would he have grown into that same man if we hadn't moved? Probably, but many of the kids he hung out with in his elementary school have not done so well and are not living a life pleasing to God right now.

He has always been my daring son. Don't tell him he can't do something. He was walking, er running at 10 months and never slowed down after that. He wanted his training wheels taken off his bike when he was 4 so he could "ride like the big kids". Even asleep, covers were thrown off, all stuffed animals landed on the floor, and when he woke up in the morning, it all began again. He has some weird habits too. Has a shoe fetish. His first Easter, I bought him a pair of black patent shoes from W-M. We called him "Mr. Shiny Shoes". That was the begininng of the shoe fetish. He loves shoes!! He's also pretty picky about his clothes. I haven't bought him anything other than t-shirts for years. When he was little, if the clothes "didn't feel right", he wouldn't wear them. He's still that way. He loves cologne, loves his truck, his ipod, his posting board at the Titan truck website. But most importantly, he loves God. He teaches jr. high boys small groups and will do anything his youth pastor asks him to do. Even if he doesn't want to. (btw, I posted a couple months ago about our yp resigning suddenly. Turns out, he was asked to leave and had been put on "notice" in Oct. We have a new guy now that he LOVES)

He's had numerous injuries. In 7th grade, he had a knee problem that put him on crutches 8 weeks. In 8th grade, he got tangled up with another runner at a cross country meet and suffered a very serious hip injury. Crutches, 8 weeks. 9th grade was accident free and he excelled at running. 10th grade, an ingrown toenail had to be fixed then a stress fracture in his heel put him in a cast for 4 weeks after being in a walking boot for 4 weeks. That was the end of running for him. The most bizarre injury was back in Dec. when he had the skateboarding mishap and bruised his thoracic nerve in his back/shoulder. He works out regularly and is quite buff, if I do say so myself. He doesn't drink soda, eat many sweets or pig out very often.

He hopes to be a physical therapist. He's been around it enough in his 18 years to know that would be a good career for him. He's compassionate, yet not wimpy....perfect for PT. Between my three turns and his two, he's pretty sure that's what he wants to do. However, in Texas, it's now required that you have your Doctorate for PT. Ask me in 8 years how he's doing.

Here's a few pics of him

The last pic is of us with him holding a scholarship certificate. We wish there were a couple more to go with it, but we're very thankful for this one.

Graduation isn't until a week from Saturday. I'll probably have a couple more sappy moments before then. I've been praying for God to help me to keep it together since the beginning of May. Just a few more weeks and I'll be free to have a meltdown. Then it will all be okay.

Happy Friday everyone.

I THOUGHT TUESDAY WOULD NEVER COME!

We're getting ready for our family to come down for J's graduation in two weeks. We do most of the visiting in our family, so when people come down here, it's a huge deal!! We worked SO HARD this weekend, I can barely move! The weekend started off on a fabulous note with dinner with the R family. I'd do that link thing, but I'm in a hurry. They will be moving within 30 minutes of us in the next month. It will be great to have another friend here and I'm so thankful God is using them in our area!

Saturday was our clean up day. Living in Houston, we've found the need to power wash our drive-way and patio area every few years. If we don't, the mold turns all concrete black! It's nasty and you don't realize how bad it is until you start washing it off. It took me and the two sons until about 6:00 pm to get everything clean. Hubby and whoever wasn't power washing was installing our new storm door. Things I took for granted in Ok, don't apply here. We've lived here 6 1/2 years and are finally getting around to putting it up. That also took most of the day. In between those chores, I decided to scrub the grout in the kitchen. I was about a quarter of the way thru when I got up to take a break. I sprayed some more cleaner and walked away to check on the door crew. I came back in the back door and completely forgot about the floor being wet! Both feet flew out from under me and I landed smack on my hiney! Bonked my head on the refrigerator (the fridge is ok) and possibly broke my pinky toe (AGAIN). This is a once a summer occurance nowadays. It's a lovely shade of blue today. That concluded Saturday.

Sunday we slept in (we never miss church but none of us were moving very quickly). About 10:00 we started the next job of the weekend....stripping the front door. Oh my word, what a job!!! I will never, never, ever do that again! Here's what the door looked after sanding for the better part of two days

These are my friends

These are not my friends

Hubby thought for sure we could sand the door BY HAND. J. went to his friend's to borrow one of the sanders and I went to Home Depot and bought the second one. He'll find himself doing chores alone next time he pulls that.

We stained it and put it back up late last night. We still have to put the shiny coat on, but that can wait until our muscles don't ache so much. Bailey thinks it's all for her.

Which it is.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

THE LAST PROM

It's been a very emotional couple of weeks around here. First with Mother's Day then with J. breaking up with his gf, getting ready for the prom, etc. I had a slight meltdown yesterday. I read a facebook update yesterday that sorta pushed me over the edge...."Hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable". The poster? J's ex gf. I came THIS CLOSE to sending her a message telling her how sorry I am that my son broke her 17 year old heart. But then I remembered the days he spent trying to figure her and her moodiness out, dealt with her parents issues, and really was a very good boyfriend to her. I didn't send the message. I figured that would open up a can of worms that I just can't deal with right now. This post is supposed to be about the prom and since I will not post very many of these to my facebook because of said ex gf, I'm going to share them here.

The guys in his group wanted to be different, so they chose white tuxedoes instead of black. Isn't he pretty? His date was a girl he works with and has known a long time. She graduated last year from a different school than J, but knows some of the same people. She fit right in with the group.

You'll notice it isn't very sunny in this picture. It hadn't rained in a couple of weeks until about 5 minutes after this picture was taken. It then POURED DOWN! However, the home we were at was amazing and had a huge covered outdoor kitchen. Plenty of room for these goof balls.
The whole group (I don't know why one guy has on a black tux, must've not gotten the message)
Then we went into the amazing house and took this picture on the staircase. I wonder if they would adopt me?
Don't you love his pastel/polka dot umbrella? Hummer limo!

Here's a pic of most of their group at the all-night after party. Hubby and I arrived there at 11:15 p.m. and it was over a little after 5:00. We got home about 5:45 a.m. Hubby went right to sleep but I was awake most of the day. I'll probably need a nap this afternoon.

They ordered matching shirts for the party with their names on the back. J's date was a very good sport even though her name wasn't correct. One last pic of him and one of his buds. I'm gonna miss them.
Since I'm finished with the slideshows (which they LOVED), I can now start getting ready for graduation. Most of our family will be here and my house hasn't had a good old fashioned cleaning, well probably since C. graduated in 2006. I have lots to do to get ready.

Happy Monday everyone.

WE CUT THOSE SUCKERS DOWN!!

I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seat to read this post about the palm trees. When we first moved here in 2002, we LOVED the trees. They were about 15 feet tall and very pretty. As the years passed, we realized how much maintenance they required. Every spring Hubby and sons would become tree trimmers. The fromm/leaves have AWFUL thorns on them. They are razor sharp and it seemed like just barely touching them would draw blood. Then there was the issue of how well attached they were to the trees, even dead. It required much sawing....so much that hubby bought a little chain saw specifically for trimming them. It was on a long pole which made it a little trickier to use. More years passed and WASPS found the trees a wonderful place to build nests. One time hubby came flying off the ladder holding his head. He'd been stung by a wasp! His sister is very allergic to bee stings but he's never had a severe reaction, but this thing welped up like an egg. I gave him a benadryl and put a bag of ice on his face. Sons went back out to finish up the trimming. It wasn't 5 minutes later and C. does the same dance off the ladder! He's been stung right below his eyebrow! I give him benadryl and ice as well. J. comes running into the kitchen to check on them and slides down on the wet floor! I told them they were all dangerous and that I was leaving! That was the last year they attempted to trim the trees themselves. That is definately a job for professionals. I think the first year we paid to have them trimmed, it cost $300. That was money well spent if it meant they wouldn't have to endure the torture themselves. Oh I forgot....the next morning, C. woke up and his eye was swollen shut! I took him to the Dr. for a cortisone shot and a round of prednisone. When I sent him a text about us cutting the trees down, his reply was "tell them to watch out for the wasps!"


When Hurricane Ike came thru in September, our neighbors behind us were pretty sure the trees were coming down on their house. Nope, it just blew them around and blew berries all in our pool We decided right then that those trees, even though they are palm trees, were gonna have to go.

They probably thought I was a little silly for taking so many pictures of them working. They don't know about my blog.

This is only two years worth of dead fromms. We didn't have them trimmed last year.

The bark thingies fall off when the squirrel runs up or the wind blows real hard. Then Bailey tries to eat them and chokes. Not cool.

Here's a look at the sharp thorns. They literally rip your skin. The workers didn't wear gloves!

After chopping off all the fromms

He cut the trunk into pieces about a foot long and then dropped them down one at a time to the ground

See the trunk in flight right above the treetop?

Then these guys on the ground loaded up the pieces on their dolly and hauled them out to the front where they loaded them onto a trailer

They put the branches thru a mulcher (no picture of that)

I spent most of Wednesday cleaning up the "saw dust" from the flower beds. Here's what it looks like today

Now you've had a lesson in giant palm tree cutting.

I'm almost finished with the slideshows for prom. Did I mention hubby and I are working ALL NIGHT at the after prom party? If we come to mind Saturday, say a prayer that we'll make it all night long without too much trouble. I hope there's plenty of coffee or Mountain Dew!

Prom pictures will follow Monday.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I'M IN A HURRYYYYYYYYY!

No time for a fancy post with pictures today. You know that scene from the scary movie where the gal's head is spinning around and around? That's me right now. I volunteered to compile a slideshow for J's prom which is Saturday night. I knew it would be very time consuming. Oh brother, it's taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!!

Plenty of drama around here too. J decided to break up with his gf ONE WEEK BEFORE PROM! Is he nuts? Well, not really. As my sister in law reminded me, he probably had more insight than I do to do it right now. The bad news is his name is mud at church right now since all the gals are mad at him. The good news is that he already found another date. I won't go into his reasons, just that they had numerous chats about their relationship and in his words "I got tired of being a doormat".

We had our palm trees cut down yesterday. I took pictures and will post them tomorrow, if I can get that slideshow finished today.

Happy Thursday everyone!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

I'm going to copy off my good friend Linda and post about Mother's Day. I became a mom 21 years ago the first time. We were the last of our group of friends to get preggers and I wondered if it was ever going to happen. C. has been a blessing to me since the day he was born. Except for the time he......

Then came J. He's been the "strong willed child" and I've often said (to him) if he had been the first, he would of been the only. He's my nurturing child and hopes to be a physical therapist. He's also been the one with all the injuries. He's been on crutches three times in 6 years! Maybe it's because I dropped him on his head when he was a month old. Yep, he was already screaming his little head off as I was getting his bottle ready and he literally jumped out of my arms and landed on the kitchen floor!! We spent the night in the hospital "just for observation". He had to have cat scans every 30 days (I think it was 30, it doesn't really matter anymore) for three months to make sure there was no bleeding. He was fine. Never had any problems. But talk about GUILT.....

My own mom passed away Oct. 2, 1995. She was 69, I was 30. The first few MDs I had without her were pretty hard because I'd started working for Hallmark. Ugh, I hated MD cards. Didn't want to look at them, read them or watch women buy them for their moms. I've been moving stuff around in my closet and came across an old box of pictures. These are the ones that belonged to her and when we were cleaning things out of her house, my sister told me to "get some pictures". So I took the whole box! Here's some vintage pictures of my mom, Helen

1972 (yep, that's little L and my nephew Jeremy). That's her first grandchild. My sister had a baby girl a few years before that, but she died the next day so Jeremy was a pretty special baby!

My dad must have taken this one since there's so much wall behind her. She was barely 5 feet tall and he was well over 6 feet! The red thing on the wall is a spoon rest. I don't know why it was hanging on the wall. Someday I will ask her.Like me, she had a silly streak. She's modeling my socks here. Check out her great figure!
Another special gal in my life is my sister. She's 17 years older than me. This pic was taken in 1979 and is the only pic I can find of the three of us together.

I've been blessed with the most amazing mother-in-law in the world!!! We've never, in 27 years, had a cross word with one another. If I'm HALF the mil she is, I'll consider it an accomplishment.

She's showing J. how to embroider. She crocheted (that's an odd word to spell) her three kids afghans, their spouses, her grandkids, and even managed to get two finished for her two great grandkids before her eyesight and arthritis got too bad. She had us choose our colors then she'd get busy with her crocheting

Happy Mother's Day to my mom bloggy friends! Here's a special shout out to my nephew's wife, Allison. I'm thinking of you and praying for you on this first MD without your mom. I promise, it won't always hurt so much. I love you.

UNEXPECTED GIRL TRIP!

One of my girlfriends called me last Friday and asked me if I was up to a night away from home. Is the sky blue? the grass green? Of course I'm ready for a night away! She had a Dr. visit in San Antonio and her hubby couldn't go so me and another gal went. We left Sunday afternoon and took the simple three hour drive over to San Antonio. We stayed in the swanky Le Mansion Omni hotel. We roamed around the Riverwalk before visiting the Harley store (always looking for a T-shirt) and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. We decided we'd eat supper at Boudrou's restaurant. My friend LeAnne's soup came in a bowl that we thought looked like a flying saucer.

We ordered gaucamole that they prepare at your table. YUM! I was too busy eating it to take a picture of it. We enjoyed the evening and I took these pretty photos. We got home about 6:00 last night. What a relaxing time. I wonder if I could do that every weekend?

I was a little worred about leaving J to fend for himself Monday morning (yes, hubby was here, but he's not as nice as I am). I've really had a problem getting him to get up in the mornings and get moving. This is the child that will be off at college next year. But, he got himself up, let Bailey out, fed her and Minnie, prepared his own breakfast of "already cooked bacon" and toast and left in plenty of time. Attaboy! There's hope for him.

I don't know what possessed me, but I volunteered to make a slide show for the seniors at Project Prom. Even more bizarre is me volunteering hubby and myself to WORK ALL NIGHT at Project Prom. Anyway, I've already been receiving emails of the seniors. I've never done it before so this morning after I downloaded a couple of pics, I went over to Le Target to buy a pack of dvds to download to. Do you know how many different kinds there are? I hope I picked the right one. I'll let ya know how that goes.

It's pretty today. No rain for the week! Yay!!

Happy Tuesday everyone.