Herding Kittens and the Perfectly Depicted Petulant Persian

It can be a challenge to get all my adult children, their spouses and/or girlfriends/boyfriends all together at the same place and time to celebrate life's little moments. I have found it makes it easier, if we go to them instead of waiting for them to come to us. This weekend the life moment we celebrated was my youngest son's 19th birthday. Since they all work and two of them are in college and work, we were happy we found a time when we could get them all together. My parents got to join us and my son's girlfriends mom got to join us as well. The only two that were

Former squirmy toddler

missing was my brother and his wife. When the kids were growing up, we always carved pumpkins. Well, I say that, but my oldest son says I carved pumpkins while he ran up and down the streets, which sounds a tad more accurate because it was a challenge

The quiet one and his lady

to get him to sit still long enough to do much of anything. Rabbit trail warning, I'm sure if he was running up and down the streets in the fall, he most likely was barefoot as that was his usual attire regardless of how many neighbors called

Some serious tools

to tell me the exact temperature and ask did I know he was playing out in that kind of weather barefoot. What can I say? The boy liked naked feet, maybe it made him feel at one with nature, or the truth of the matter

Very focused work

was, he just couldn't be chased and held down long enough to get them on him and as a parent of mediocre quality, I learned to pick my battle and the shoe battle was one battle I opted out of. Back on track..... We gathered at my daughter's apartment which is pretty dang small when you get that many people in there. My Mother likes to be in the middle of everything, but finally I

Make a wish

convinced her to take a seat, because there was no room for her to be in the middle of. My Dad who has no clue he is severely ADHD, did great. Much like my son, he isn't one for sitting around, but there were too many people in the apartment for him to pace so

So cute

he had no choice but to sit, relax and enjoy the chaos of it all. After a grilled burger dinner and birthday cake, we divvied up the pumpkins, brought out the tools and let our artistic juices flow. My husband went with the tried and true standard happy Jack, my Son and his wife went with a Harry Potter look alike and my Son and his girlfriend did

Daughter-in-law (Love her!)

a Persian Cat without a stencil. She is an amazing artist and did her masterpiece by looking at a picture on her phone. I went with a non- traditional scrolly heart, which I thought was very pretty until my daughter leaned over my shoulder and asked if I was carving a woman's reproductive organs. That's just wrong on so many levels. I worked and worked on it, but every scrolly thingie I carved, did kind of resemble a fallopian tube. Finally, I gave up and brought it home to modify and finish.... I'm still not sure I'm done with it yet, I don't want to sit it out on Halloween night only to be accused of  displaying inappropriate anatomy lessons to the neighborhood 5 year olds. Hands down the winner of the carving party was the Persian Cat. Our family has a soft spot for smushed faces anyway and the pouty pumpkin perfectly depicted a petulant
Persian. We had a great memory making day. When I got home, I felt like I had herded kittens and wrestled walruses, loving every minute of it.

The Cry of a Mockingbird

When we first moved into our home, the front porch was overgrown with giant cedars that barely left room to walk up the steps. Inside one of the cedar trees, a mockingbird had made her nest. We learned to duck as she guarded her nest with fierce determination as we entered the home with arms full of boxes. On the 2nd or 3rd night in the house, the doorbell rang at 3 in the morning. I sat straight up in bed like I had been hit by a bolt of lightening because the doorbell wasn't as much a doorbell as it was a buzz. It sounded like someone was being electrocuted, which in hindsight was a fairly good description since it caught on fire a couple of years later. I ran down the stairs and groped my way through the unfamiliar living room, dodging boxes and furniture. I peeked through the octagon window in the old wooden door and saw a young shirtless black guy standing on the porch looking over his shoulder. I cracked the door open a enough for him to tell me he had just been walking down the street when he noticed the dome light was on in our car and he thought I should come take a look at it. I asked him to wait as I ran upstairs to rouse my sleeping husband. At 3 in the morning, He needed to be shakened a little to get him to wake up so I said the most shocking thing I could think of to get him up and rolling.... I said.... "There's an Ethiopian looking guy who needs to talk to you like right now!"
My urgency wasn't contagious as he slowly got up and ambled downstairs. When he got to the door, the Ethiopian guy was very insistent he come out and see the car light. My husband finally persuaded him to leave and as he was walking down the steps, the momma mockingbird dive boomed the back of his head practically knocking him to the ground. He jumped up like he had been hit with a bat and ran as fast as his Ethiopian legs would take him. It was so funny! We waited until the nest was empty before we cut the tree down and hauled it away. Even with the nest empty and the tree gone, the momma mockingbird kept coming back, squawking and flying in circles where tree once stood. It was like she didn't know what to do with herself and it was heartbreaking. We moved my last little chick to the City this weekend and as we pulled into our driveway I thought of the momma mockingbird and her frantic cries.  The language she spoke makes perfect since to me 18 years after the fact.  All she had ever known was guarding her nest with fierce tenacity. Then one day she returned home to find no nest, no tree.  There were no little mouths to feed... No quarrels to settle, no tears to wipe.... Except her own. The branches of other trees in the neighborhood didn't feel the same.... They seemed... Well, they seemed a little shaky and not as comfortable as the one that held her nest. "Where do I go to from here? What do I do now?" She squawked, but sadly the night was silent and in that moment.... like it might never end....

P.S. If you look for me in the near future, I'll be the one lying in the corner in a fetal position.

The One Next to You

The volleyball hit the ground and bounced over the fence for the third time. All four of the women erupted in snorts, giggles and belly laughs. Our men on the other side of the net, stood quietly composed (like they always do), as one of them went around the fence into the neighbors yard to retrieve the ball. The longer it took, the harder we laughed. We laughed and laughed and laughed until I thought I was going to spew the hamburger I had just eaten. We must have looked like a group of the three stooges trying to play volleyball with each one making excuses for missing the ball due to... "My bad knee, my bad hip, my sore side?" yet there we were, causing a neighborhood ruckus and playing with childish abandonment

(which is what keep you young). With the four of us doubled over in laughter, gasping for breath  and trying to maintain bladder control, one of the girls said.... "We've been through a lot together." No truer words were spoken. We've raised kids, dealt with toddlers, teens and college, We've worshiped, wept, vacationed, supported each other during times of convalescence, encouraged each other through difficult times, cheered each other on in new endeavors, complained, fought and faced each triumph and trial that life has thrown in our path with what I'd like to say was elegance and grace, but truthfully much of it was done barely holding on by our finger tips (or so it seemed). The thing that has kept us moving forward was knowing we weren't alone. Much like volleyball, when the life aims the ball at you and you're not sure you can get it, it's good to know the one next to you has it covered.

Dreams Come True

31 years ago today I took the first step down the aisle to an amazing journey. December 1981 was a cold one. On the 19th the temperature was 3 degrees with the windchill dipping well below 0. While most people scurried around preparing for Christmas, I scurried around preparing for a wedding. After 6 months of long distance dating, my fiance' and I tired of driving back and forth between Tulsa and Duncan, paying enormous long distance phone charges and just not being able to spend time together. We had spent hours talking about our dreams and our future. Every second that ticked by, was a second we could have spent making those dreams come true. Shortly after parting at Thanksgiving, we decided not to wait until the new year to get married. The wedding was quickly moved to December 19th, which gave me 2 weeks to plan and put it all into action. Christmas is

a bad time to plan a wedding, and looking back I wish I would have taken Daddy's offer to elope. Like most girls, I dreamed of standing at an altar, veiled in white with the train of my gown flowing down the aisle behind me. Short of that vision, I just wanted the ceremony over, the photos taken, and the rice thrown, so we could begin our happily ever after. The journey has been amazing. Not every step has been easy. Not every twist and turn of the path was planned, but every step has been taken together, for better or worse, through thick and thin. Thanks to amazing grace, we are  31 years and Three kids into our happily ever after. we have seen many of our dreams realized and are in the process of dreaming new dreams for chapter 2 of our story.  I can't imagine the 2nd half being more amazing, but life has taught me not to put limits on dreams, because they really can come true.

The Monkey on My Back

What a beautiful weekend. Thank goodness summer is coming to a close and fall is just ahead. My husband and I took advantage of the weather this weekend and tended to some much needed yard work. The last couple of years have been brutal as far as our desire to get anything accomplished past the front door. Unwanted weeds and weed trees(trees I don't want) have invaded our yard until we really are starting to look like the Herman Munster House. It amazes me how someone like myself, you know someone who can't keep a cactus alive, can grow the most amazing, vivacious weeds and weed trees.  These lawn rascals simply cannot be killed. Trust me, if I can't kill them, nobody can.  I took Riley and Sailor outside to work beside me. I like having them around, and they like being wherever we are... Well, usually. I put them both on leashes so they couldn't run off while I was preoccupied with cutting off limbs... Limbs of weed trees, not my personal attached at the body type of limbs. You would have thought I was taking Riley to dog Six Flags or something, she gets so excited about doing anything that the snorting could get on my nerves if I let it. After a while she settled down under a tree and behaved herself, which trust me can be a full time job for her.My husband brought out the reciprocating saw and went around back to mow the lawn. I know, kind of amazing isn't it, him leaving me unsupervised with a sharp power tool. It's scary crazy how much that man loves me! So, Sailor is my shy little scaredy cat. Well, at 182 lbs, she isn't exactly little, but she doesn't know that. She doesn't like change, loud noises, new environments, kids or strangers, in spite of the fact that I have tried to socialize her like a responsible pet owner should. Trust me, the first time you have to pull someones head from her mouth, you stop trying the socialize approach and turn to the tranquilize method

instead... Yeah, I'm really not kidding. Anyway, a tree fell down a few weeks ago and I just let it lay because it was so dang hot, and really who cared about it anyway, no one could see it (yeah, that's just my relaxed style). This weekend was the perfect time to cut it up and get it out... Except Sailor was freaked out, she wanted to be on me, panting like a rabid coon. It was like cutting up a tree with a 182 lb. spider monkey on my back. I took a log and tied her leash around it, I thought that would hold her back and slow her down, but no, she just followed me around, dragging her log with her. Let me just say it.... She looked ridiculous! I went to put something in the dumpster, she tried to follow me and got her log caught between the rock fence and the car and I just looked at her like she had lost her everlovin mind and thought to myself.... "That must be what God sees when he looks at me. A nonsensical mess of a woman dragging fears and anxieties that have yet to manifest themselves around behind her like a nut." If Sailor could only see how silly she looked lugging that log around, terrified of imaginary horrors, when there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of...  Well except for the fact that I had a sharp power tool thingy. I told her how silly she looked and just how ridiculous she was acting then I went in the house and bought out her doggie Xanax. In a few minutes she was resting peacefully under the cedar tree, keeping a close eye on me to make sure I didn't cut my foot off and things ran smoothly for the rest of the day. Yep, the lesson for the day is, life is too short to walk around with a giant spider monkeys on your back or logs hooked around your ankle. Shake it off, take a Xanax and get back to work!