Tuesday, April 29, 2008

All The Other Birthdays Will Be Different

After posting about my great birthday, I realized that I left out something important. All three kids, 17, 19 and 21, danced the can-can together spontaneously to entertain me. I think that they were also singing, but I don't remember what. With Aimee getting married, things will be different next year. Kind of a sad thought. Will she be too dignified to dance and sing with her siblings on my birthday? It is not a good thought to ponder, rather I will cherish the memory of my 48th b-day with their performance.

We are heading out soon to Portland to investigate a college for Abby, and then to the coast for some R and R. Sadly, we cannot take Aimee and Ryan who have school. Double sadness, we cannot take our dog. He is getting older, but he absolutely loves the beach and the ocean. Because Paul and Abby will be flying back, and I am staying a few extra days for a conference, it just does not work to take Randy.

Our lives are changing rapidly, and it is taking a little adjusting on my part. I loved all those busy crazy years of taking kids everywhere and doing everything. Okay, not baseball, but pretty much everything else. I have been realizing that I need to develop a life of my own, and soon.

Today Abby and I were reading more from our English Literature book, and I think that is the direction that I will go, pursuing a degree in Eng. Lit. I actually enjoyed some of the 20th century poets. For a time, I thought that I would pursue some type of ministry opportunity, but I have decided against it. I do not have the iron stomach that it would require to handle all of the ups and downs, disappointments and rejection that go with that. Best to be honest with myself that I am not cut out for that sort of thing.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Latest

I enjoyed the teaching at the women's conference, and I had a fun birthday when I got home. I was given a basket to go on my own private egg hunt in the backyard. The ten eggs were stuffed with chocolate mints and clues to find my presents in the house. (I love egg hunts and have always wished for one!) Great cake, and we watched, "Enchanted," a new Disney movie that I like. I also received some Celtic CD's - a worship one and also the High Kings, a popular Irish group. I also received a neato lavender set of bath products in a basket. I love the smell of lavender.

Mr. Sinta bought more knives for my kitchen. They looked a little different, and I was not sure what they were for until I just looked them up on-line. They are called Santuko knives. Not surprisingly, they are for cutting things up. I am shocked at how expensive that they are. Needless to say, I will be taking very good care of them!

Sunday I went to church and came home and ate cake and napped. I have accomplished nothing today. I didn't realize how tired that I was. Sometimes you just need to sleep.

We walked the dog...that's what I got done.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Second Lap and Vote for Judd

The Big Shower Event was really fun. Most of the very talented women who helped create the invitations came back to make fruit trays (they were beautiful works of art), hang crepe paper, slice meat and buns, and make punch, etc. so that we could make it happen. They were also very gracious about doing name tags and helping with our game which was really not a game at all. I hate shower games. We handed out forms and asked everyone to give Aimee advice on a number of topics. She read some of the advice aloud for our entertainment. I liked Carol V's advice on the wedding: Don't leave him at the altar. The crowd roared. There were a lot of us. Everyone was so busy talking to everyone else that it became difficult to get their attention when we were moving to something different, like eating, or passing out prizes. The prize winners were just drawn randomly from the advice paper pile. Ok, so the funny prizes weren't so funny, except to me; they were weird. Sara R. won a large gift bag of toilet paper. Carol V. won herbal teas. Faith won special hot cocoa mixes. Lisa won spot cleaner and ant killer. At least they were useful! Aimee received many beautiful and useful gifts, including lingerie, and everyone had fun. Mr. Sinta and Ryan went out to eat and to a movie, "The Bucket List," because they knew it would take a long time to open all the gifts, and they wanted to avoid a large group of women like that. Afterwards, we had cheesecake from Costco with lots of yummy berries. After most of the guests left, we had face off between a Canadian and a new U.S. citizen from Bosnia, and a handful of saner people to referee the repartee. Erma, our Bosnian friend, loves to tease the inimitable Miss J. from Saskatchewan. Thank you spell check. I would have to say that the Bosnian sent enough verbal slap shots to be declared the winner. When there were just four of us left, we ran to see the house that Brent bought for Aimee, and then to J.C.Penney's with our friends and family coupons. (New sunglasses and some pearl jewelry.) Then, Abby and I left most of the kitchen mess, and just sat down and watched, "You've Got Mail," because I was too bushed to do anything else. We did eventually put the house back together on Monday, and we both went to work in the afternoon.

I am really busy at work, and I almost never read the news at work, but I did find one fascinating political item which I will share with you:

Texas prison inmate cons way onto Idaho primary ballot

Keith Russell Judd is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. He's scheduled for release in 2013.

Judd, 49, qualified for the ballot by submitting a notarized form and paying the required $1,000 fee, state Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said. As a result, Democratic voters will be able to choose between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Judd.

Prison officials told the state elections office that Judd sent out about 14 checks to states seeking to get on the presidential election ballot and about half had been returned. He qualified as a write-in candidate in Kentucky, California, Indiana and Florida, but Idaho apparently is the only state where his name will appear on the ballot.

There you have it, dear readers. This is our big opportunity to save time and stress in our court system. Instead of electing someone and then sending them to prison, we can save time by electing someone already in prison. This is a delightfully superior alternative to Obama and Clinton.

Friday, April 18, 2008

The Race To The Big Day Continues

I rented a carpet cleaning machine yesterday and cleaned the carpets in anticipation of the BIG SHOWER EVENT. Aimee thinks that this is tremendously funny. "Mom, they are not coming to see your carpets!" She is quite right, but they might accidentally notice that they haven't been cleaned for about two and a half years. I think that this is like the nesting instinct. Many women, about 72 hours before they are going to give birth, run nilly willy through their homes cleaning ferociously. This is the reverse-birth-cleaning/nesting-bridal-shower-instinct. Abby and I even took the cans to recycling earlier this week. Is anyone going to check the aluminum can count? No, of course not. It is totally IRRATIONAL and UNREASONABLE, but I am doing it anyway.

Abby willingly cut the grass and pulled two grocery bags of weeds from the front yard for me. She also cleaned all the doggie doo from the backyard. (What if the guests wander out there in the '40 degrees and breezy' weather? Will they be seeking little piles of doggie doo?) I think she deserves a prize when this is over because I have been shorting her on attention on school mornings as well. Additionally, she took Aimee and Brent's engagement photo which was sent out in the invitations and will be in the paper this weekend. Probably a three foot chocolate trophy engraved with the words, "World's Best Little Sister," would be appropriate. She and Mr. Sinta also went shopping for me to find neat little canvasses and easels to put up neat quotations that fit the couple as decorations at the party. (Abby is painting those too. Maybe we should call her, "St. Abby.") They are kind of brainy and intellectual, so that suits them. We will also have crepe paper, the Target Club Wedd Candle and a few roses.

Did I mention that I think a whole lot of people are coming? I have given loads of parties. I have learned that most people completely ignore an RSVP, and to plan on 50 percent or so attending, no matter how many you invite. I am not sure what to think of this party because I have had the highest RSVP rate that I have ever had. Of course, none of the college students have called, but I did not expect them to. I did not really expect anyone to respond, it was just on the printed invitation so I filled in my phone number. I think that someone responded yesterday who was not invited, and I am delighted. We are kind of open about parties. We also called and invited by phone someone we inadvertently forgot. She was very sweet and not offended at all.

I hate shower games, so we are just playing one game and giving several prizes. I have picked out unique and special prizes at Walmart. I cannot reveal them to you now, but later I will, dear readers. HA! HA! HA! It was funny just to purchase the prizes. Part of the game involves having everyone write down lots of advice for Aimee on a variety of topics. Someone did that for me once at a baby shower, and I still have the pieces of paper in a baby book. Way cool. There will be about three women at the party who have each been married over 50 years. I am thinking that they will have very good advice. It will really take no skill to win the prizes, so even the college students will have the opportunity to take home something really fun, as long as they can write their names.

Here is the extra fun-fun part: everyone gets to take home a little bag of chocolate. That's what I 'm talking about.

P.S. The other part of the race is that I am incredibly busy at work, and there is a women's retreat at church that I am signed up just one week from today. Will she make it? Will she get a second wind? Will she sprint to the finish?

As the Minnesotans say, "Yah sure. You betcha!"

Monday, April 14, 2008

"Hallelujah!" they chorused.

The invitations were mailed this morning. Pastor Tri, Boise's only pastor who truly cares about the environment, (Tri is Aimee and Brent's pastor) would be proud. The invitation, the map, the photo and a "where we registered" tag all weighed in at just .5 of an ounce. I guess the only way to use less paper would be to email them. Not going to happen.

We are committed to this now. Not that we were not committed before, but now it all seems very official. I mean, people are going to show up at a little country church in Midvale, Idaho, expecting a wedding, and by golly, "Let them eat cake!" Yes, we are meeting with the cake lady from Weiser tomorrow night. She does custom cakes and comes highly recommended.

If you are wondering, the reason that we are not getting a Midvale cake is that there is not too terribly much in Midvale except the church, some houses, and a very small cafe that would fit inside of a McDonald's twice over. Aimee feels that we should warn the cafe owner of the date. Even a small crowd will take Midvale by storm if they all stop for coffee.

We are hosting a shower for Aimee on Sunday. This will be a very busy week. I wanted to make home made berry cheesecake, but we may have to settle for some plain cheesecake from Costco. It should be a pretty large, fun group of people. Of course, it could be a fun group of large people. We will have lots of food. They can come small and leave large.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

How It Went

The week is gone. I am sorry for not posting, faithful readers. We had family birthdays on April 1st, 6th and 11th, and the funeral of a friend on the 11th as well. The other reason that I have not been posting is that I have been using those spare minutes to play Scrabulous on Face Book. Mostly, I am winning. It is not addicting, but it is distracting. I mean, who wants to read all those forwards which are continually sent to me if I can be cleaning someone's clock at Scrabble. PLUS, it does not mean having a Scrabble board set up on my dining room table. I think that I have five games going at this time.

With the birthdays out of the way, I can work on addressing wedding invitations. Also, the house needs a thorough cleaning, and the dog needs a bath. I joined Curves this week. It is a club for old women to keep them from decaying. Did I mention that my birthday is the 26th? I am still young in my head, but fat in my butt. "Life," as Carol Benjamin used to say, "is so daily." It means that we have to hit the battlefields everyday or we fall backwards.

I want to take Mr. Sinta on a date tonight to see National Treasure II. Unfortunately, it is not on until the 8:45 showing. We will see if I can get through my list today, and if he can stay awake that late.

It looks like we may have a cake provider for the wedding. We meet with her on Tuesday. I feel like I am running a life marathon for April and May. We are extremely relieved to have canceled the trip to Yosemite which would have come a week or so before the wedding. Sad to miss it this year, but too stressful to make it.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Everything Stops

I have a dozens of things that I need to do today (like get out those wedding invitations, and put the announcement in the paper), but I just read my email, and suddenly I am recoiling. My friend, Phyllis, is now a widow. Just like that. Her young husband has been in the hospital in CCU, and we have all been praying for him. I just stopped in again on Sunday afternoon. Now, he's gone. Just like that. Yes, he was a great Christian, but he was only in his early 40's. His lungs were congested after he got sick from the flu with pneumonia so they put him on a breathing machine, and sedated him with paralytics. That was four weeks ago. We were believing for God to do something really big. He did. He took Michael home to be with Him. I am overwhelmed.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Your Children Eventually Grow Up

I am slowly coming to realize that your children eventually grow up.

I confess that I went into Aimee's room when she was sleeping last week, and just looked at her because soon she will be married, and she will not be sleeping in our house anymore. We just brought her home yesterday, it seems, and now she is leaving.

Tonight was Abby's 17th birthday. Mr. Sinta had to be out of town this week; he has never missed anyone's birthday before this. We had a birthday lunch as a family on Sunday. Tonight I took Abby and two of her friends to a restaurant down town to celebrate. I will say it again because you probably missed it; my baby is now seventeen years old. This one is the world traveler, and I do not anticipate seeing much of her once she leaves in 15 months for Portland. She is also the only teenager I know who wanted a clothes hamper for her birthday. (White wicker with a cloth liner, thank you.)

Ryan is going to be 21 on Sunday. He will be gone a great deal of the summer at an army camp.

We are rapidly heading toward the empty nest stage. I read a blog, Femina, about what to do with this years. I do not agree, but she is worth reading. You can also view my non agreeing comment if you know my name. Since I have been home educating for all of these years living a pretty secluded life at home, I think that I want to go back to college and get a degree in something that I enjoy and could possibly use, like Organizational Leadership or English Literature or Art History.

It will be fun, but not nearly as fun as being a mom. Nothing else is as demanding or as rewarding. Enjoy them while you've got them, or when you get them, depending on where you are in life.