Simply live..

Something I have always struggled with-jealousy.  As a child, jealous of the kids with the name brand clothes, the big houses, the disney vacations or vacations in general, being able to have dinner out all the time, having a car at 16, getting the nails done, the hair did...you get the point.  Not until you are away from home raising your kids do you start to realize the quote INSTEAD OF BEING UPSET WITH WHAT YOU DONT HAVE, FOCUS ON BEING HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU DO HAVE, holds so much truth.  I look back now and i can say, what i wore didnt matter, my house was homey & cozy, instead of meeting an irrelevant disney princess, i learned to paint a wicked design on rocks we found along our walks, i could make awesome mud pies & learned to dodge chinese throwing stars (thrown by my brother) by hiding behind bales of hay, i learned to love the crap out of spam & snow capped hotdogs!, I learned to milk a goat!, to ride a horse, to shoot.   i learned how to be creative with my own nail polish & i went to school to learn to do the hair do's!  My mother did her best as a single mother & despite what I thought at the time that I was mistreated, I SURVIVED!  My mother did more for me (without even trying) than any disney vacation ever could.  By not having a car on my 16th birthday, instead borrowing hers IF I behaved and working towards buying my own, taught me to appreciate things.  Starting out a young couple, we struggled, we drove crap cars, but they got us where we needed to go, we lived in what we could afford, not our dream house, but it was a roof.  we ate spam, hamburger helper, ramen and we lived...we started our family and they lived, thrived.  They never had nikes before they could walk, eddie bauer car seats, outfits from the childrens place.  Our vacations consisted of making it to grammas lake during the summer, but they loved it.   

So now as we have two of our babies out on their own & we see them struggle, just like we did...i hope they hear the quote over and over in their heads.  Time wasted on being mad with what you don’t have, takes away all the joy you can find with what you do have.  To my girls, you have a roof, food, water, vehicles, healthy children. husbands who love you....when there are homeless families, starving children, sick families, abused wives with no hope.  I would love nothing more than to be able to take away all the things in your life that you consider hardships.  i wish I could win the lottery and buy you both houses and the cars of your dreams and that you would be comfortable for the rest of your lives.  Ask yourselves this, would it mean anything if you had to trade the things that you DO have for the things you DON’T? 

Im not going to lie, I still get jealous as an adult.  I get mad that my kids don’t get brand new cars, shopping sprees, cruises, trips to the ocean.  I get mad when I see adults getting things I think would be awesome to have...but I step back and think...would I trade one of my blessings for that...nahhh.  i have 5 healthy kids, 4 amazing grands, a best friend that makes me laugh and is by my side every day and is the best daddy ever.  i have a mother that raised me to value things and be happy, just being.., simply! 

As my husband and I are climbing through our 40's, things are easing up, the struggle is not as hard.  We are able to have nicer things than we did in our 20s.  We are able to be our kids safety net...whether it be in the form of day care, cleaning out a pantry, taking up the slack here and there, but still making sure they know, its not easy, life is not easy...you have to work hard and it doesn’t happen over night, or in a year, maybe not even 5 years!  But somehow, even in our darkest of times, we were always taken care of.  we were always watched after and always presented with a way of surviving ….a way of fighting to make it.  an opportunity to succeed.  

I will never be one to brag about anything, I would just as soon no one know that I get new shoes, clothes, cars, house or that my kids get anything new, clothes, electronics, etc because I don’t want anyone feeling jealous of the things we have.  I will say it again in closing...Look at your life and be happy with what you have instead of wishing you had more/different things or something that someone else has.  Understand that I can say we survived and it WILL get better, might not get easier, but it will get better...the more you let go of jealousy and embrace the way it is...acceptance.   

Raise MEN

Today I'm distraught with our younger generation and yes I am full on blaming the parents for this.  Since when is it ok to raise your children to be liars, cheats, hateful pieces of sh!t?  When did the chapter on manners, behavior, morals & standards needed to become a man, get torn out of the parents manual?  Oh there is no manual? so we just wing it...well, if it were a subject in college to take or a class to take as an adult to teach proper raising of kids...we would have a plethora of failures...wait, we DO have a plethora of failure parents.  Silly me, here I assume that we teach our kids to always tell the truth, its easier to keep track of the story when its true, it builds character to take any consequences that may be incurred due to the situation, it shows an upstanding quality as you venture in to adulthood, if you were taught this as a child.  I have successfully raised and am still raising 5 children.  My 2 oldest are out of the house, married, kids of their own and raising them properly.  My daughter at home is now dealing with an incident that fault is clearly upon someone else, yet this waste who is involved with said incident, was raised to lie, cheat and you can do anything you want and get away with it.  To take things even further, the boy in question, has collected all his worthless bro-code friends and convinced them to back his story which is void of any truth whatsoever.  To make a long story short, or ...attempt at making it short:
1. if you have a son, raise him honest, truthful, polite, trustworthy, loyal.  Raise him to be the type of man you would want your daughter to marry.  Don't sit back and allow him to be a worthless waste of skin and oxygen in society.
2. raise him to stand up when something isn't right, fight for those that are being wronged, be a voice for those who have none, have some frickin balls!!! even if it means standing alone. 
3. don't allow him to go along with someone who is worthless, just cause he wants to be popular, or friends with the star, or afraid of the backlash that might happen if he does stand up for victims.
I believe in karma.  its a dish best served cold.  I hope that it touches every single person who stood behind the liar and every single person who didn't stand up for the victim, cause in my eyes, youre just as guilty as the liar.  youre just as bad.  I hope it haunts you forever.  I hope that the sight of yourself in a mirror makes you physically ill, as it does me any time I see your face.  if when I die, I get an option to come back as a ghost, I'll be looking each of you up and tormenting the living shit right out of you...on the daily.
I would be mortified to parent a child who acts this way and I wouldn't tolerate it, but that would have started at a young age, when you teach your frickin kids respect, honor, morals and how to grow up to be a decent man.  something that this boy will never be!

Deja Frickin Vu

When is it too much? 

My daughter has been playing softball since she was 9yrs old, she is now a month away from being 16.  Her dad and I have always been her coaches and we have never forced her to play, it has always been her choice, because she loves the game.  The game is fun to her, as it should be.  So now, we enter in to our 2nd year of high school ball and I'm scared.  Not because of anything other than her expressed disinterest in playing.  She doesn’t have the love for the game at this moment.  Maybe its not that she doesn’t love the game, maybe she just isnt fond of the situation in which she will play the game.  Not excited about the teammates, the coaches, the over abundance of practice, the yelling, the demeaning, etc.  I think she still loves the game, but not this way.   

When something you love, a game, becomes a chore, a job, it loses its fun.  The game to her now, is a chore.  The 5 day a week practices that she cant miss or she will be benched, similar to a job...if you miss work too often youre fired.  Shes almost 16, she has this school season and 2 more after, she has 4 summers left of softball, then its done.  This is suppose to be the best time of her life, fun, carefree, loving every part of her life, yet shes in turmoil about whether she wants to play for her school or not.   

So when is it too much?  The choices shes made in her life have always been hers and we explain that making this choice she might quickly regret, but its hers to make.  she will miss it for these next two months if she backs away.  I realize the desire to win and the importance of practice, but I've also seen my fair share of burn outs, kids who lose their love due to being pushed too hard, too often and who have had the fun sucked straight out of the game they once loved.  This is where I'm at.   

I will not even pretend to know what its like to coach a high school team, but for my summer team, I will promise to never be a 'fun sucker', yes we will practice, yes we will work hard, yes we will play strong, yes I will expect 100% from each player, BUT...i will NOT make you feel like youre an idiot, child, stupid, or incompetent to play the game, I will not work you for 3 hours/ 5 days a week, I will not treat you like a number.  I will keep it fun for each player I coach. 

As I sit and wonder if my kid is burned out or what the issue is, I lay complete blame on the structure of the high school program.  In coaching, you have to have a shred of humanity to let the girls know that they are important to you, that they are more than a piece in your game.  Know their name, know how they react and which form of coaching to use on them.  Some take to the yelling, some do not.  Some take a little more than another one might.  Its similar to parenting, not every child can be raised the same, with the same punishments, the same guidelines, etc.  Once you step away from that personal side of being a coach, you will lose your players.  They will no longer want to make you proud, they will no longer want to play hard.  Their love of the game is gone and they will never play at their full potential without the love for the sport.  Heart, desire, drive, LOVE of the game is what makes a player great and behind that stands a coach that truly cares for, pushes in a positive way and makes that journey WITH their players. 

As I write this, I thought, wow I should have a blog...well I remembered having one, so I found the old thing, brushed it up a bit and looked back at the old posts.  how strange that almost a year to the exact date, this issue troubled me before.  I will still post this, as I find it interesting

cookie cutter

How important is it that your child like his/her coach? Do they tend to play better when they want to
please a coach they like or do they just do what needs to be done? Coaching is such a huge task and honestly,
instead of giving potential coaches certifications based on a test of common
questions about the actual game, maybe they need to be given test that would
determine if they have the correct mental ability to deal with children. The variety of children that a coach will see
in even one season is incredible. You
have the child that responds to being yelled at, the child that only needs a
look, the child that needs to be told what they did wrong in a respectful
manner, the child that will shut down if they never hear anything but yelling
and being talked down to, the child that will lose their love of the game if
they dislike their coach, the child that questions what qualifications you have
to coach if you cant yourself do what youre asking of them. There are so many factors and a fine line to
walk. You have to have many faces, they
are each individuals, with different ways in dealing with situations. In so many aspects of life we are cookie
cutter copies of everything, we group classes together and forget each child
learns at a different rate, each child takes a different approach. We are becoming copies of how we are
taught. We are punished or looked down
upon for not being “normal” or ‘going with the flow’ of the mass. I know that my children fly through a class
with perfect scores when they enjoy their teacher, yet struggle a little when
they despise them. If you don’t have
these qualities to be able to address individuals, you should not be involved
at all with the education or coaching of anything. Find a job at a warehouse where you do the
same action over and over and over, for hours on end, day after day. That way you wont face any thing out of the
‘norm’ and you wont have to deal with anything that would require you to see
things in a different light and be understanding to the fact that we are all
INDIVIDUALS!

random

Well, from my last post, obviously the week prior to the 4th of July irritates me. There is no reason to be doing that crap a whole week before the actual holiday. I would love to be trick or treating for a week prior, or having awesome Thanksgiving food for a week..but noooo, the only holiday that allows that nonsense is 4th of July, if we would have gotten our 'independence' on the 27th of June, they would have made the holiday then. Our dogs are going nuts, or kids are like maggots in hot ashes and our sleep time is all out of whack! I will be glad when its all over, dont get me wrong, im totally thankful to troops for independece and freedom, but geez!
my next irritation is the way kids text/type. i realize that all those sites out there for friendship and things, like myspace, twitter, facebook and they have the age restrictions that i realize everyone (young ones) cheats on and says they are older than they are, whatever. I remember way back having a myspace (shame!) but in the beginning it was alright, then it became saturated with teens and not a fun place to be. the reason it became 'un-fun' was due to the overused layouts, the massive amounts of 'bathroom' pics from half dressed teenagers (and pre-teens), the huge amount of requests from everyone to LEAVE ME A PIC COMMENT (also, no one OWNS/POWNS ANY PICTURES) and then the retarded form of typing that they have to use. so, i remember in the beginning when i first joined on facebook, there were alot of people my age (yea old)...people talked normal, spelled correctly and their keyboard buttons didnt stick causing double digit spelling. I really dont care how old the people using facebook are, but at least try to look old enough to know how to work a keyboard and please attempt to come off as passing 1st grade english, otherwise...understand that its not cute, it only makes those that can type feel sorry for you. tips:
you (correct) yuu (incorrect)
their, there, they're (learn all meanings)
Gg (use this letter for the word "great" do not use a small Q to replace the small G) its not qreat.
ifff thisss wass offensive to anyyonee, rememberrr it forr nextt timeee and donttt readdd myyy notesss.
WHEW...feel better!

grammar nazi

By no means am I an English major, nor did I help write and publish the dictionary, but holy gosh dangit! What has happened to people these days? Have we forgotten basic english skills? I remember a whole section on words that sound the same and are spelled different and have different meanings. I also remember not being the only child in class that day. It amazes me that more people DON'T know the right way to use the language, compared to those that DO. My 10 yr old knows the difference...he's in 5th grade. So, this would explain why no one has actually won that show "smarter than a 5th grader". The winning question was.... define the word "their", answer given...uhhh, a place?? like, over there???...ugh NO. So thats my pet peeve..and my rant for today.
There= in or at that place
Their= a form of the possessive case of they
They're=contraction of they are
Other words that tend to stump everyone are: you're, your/ to, too/ than, then/

mini madness

This has been a LONG time coming! I have to admit that, back in the day...2.5 kids day....i had a minivan...*sigh*, yes, it was an awesome machine (not). It was the hardest trade in my life when I handed over the keys to my Nissan pathfinder for a big stupid windstar. At the time, the whole...'im a mommy, gotta get a van' thing took over. Im thinking this is somewhat similar to menopause, uncontrollable urge to buy minivan,, no cure....It lasted almost a year, when i had to pull myself out of it and got an expedition, now a tahoe. I think the SUV is the cooler way to tote the kids around without becoming victim to a minivan. Something happens to these women that drive minivans. if they dont get out of the clutches, they turn into satan behind the wheel. Im not sure if they are mad that they have a minivan or if they think they are the controllers of the paved streets we all travel. Whatever it is, they pretty much suck. I cant count the times that ive seen a minivan nearly take someone out...another car, animal, old person in a scooter, mailman, ice cream truck, child IN school crossing walk....they are so worried that they will be late for soccer or girl scouts or just trying to get everything done so they can get the hell OUT of that stupid minivan! Dont misunderstand, i have done my fair share of populating this world and i fell victim to the mini, but i found the strength to get out and still have a vehicle to tote all 5 kids to everything and maintain some level of 'cool' doing it. I dont feel like i need to prove anything by driving like a nascar driver or seeing how many ppl i can injure or scare to the point of pissing themselves while trying to escape a lunatic driver. Honestly somedays, evil thoughts run through my head about pretending my tahoe is a monster truck and plowing right over about 50 minis. I think there should be a support group or intervention for ppl driving or thinking about getting a mini. If youre my friend and you drive a mini, break away, save yourself!
k im done......