Theo Thom

Theo Thom Turkey 5 months, of Pine River, died peacefully in his sleep on Monday, September 26, 2011 at his home from natural causes.
 Theo was born sometime in April, 2011 at an unknown location, the son of  Mr. & Mrs. Heritage Turkey. He never married and, being the good young boy he was, has no descendants.

Theo was a member of the Chicken Palace Flock. He was the keeper and protector of the coop, from July until his untimely death. Theo  lived to chase grasshoppers and enjoyed chasing the four wheeler, being pet by his buddy Lane, roosting on Rebecca's shoulder around the campfire and "talking" with his family thru five consecutive whistles, and sleeping underneath Becky & Dave's bedroom window at night.

Survivors include his fellow chicken friends, Jack, the Rooster, Fergie, Reba, Mable, Verna, Brownie, Pat, Bertha, Edith, Chick, Bean, & Myrtle.

Preceding Theo in death are Ted the Turkey I, Ted the Turkey II,  Don King, the Rooster, Donna King, the Hen,  Greta the green layer and Soup the Rabbit.

Theo has requested that a private ceremony with only his closest loved ones take place and that he be laid to rest alone beneath the ant hill where he spent much of his day snatching, eating and terrorizing ants underneath the big pine tree near his first home, the Rabbit Hutch. His original requested resting place "the Stock Pot"  was retracted when he suspected he may meet an untimely death of natural causes and asked that he be left to rest in peace.  

Theo was loved by all who knew him, with the exception of one, Elizabeth, whom he just got a little too friendly with, a little too quick.  He always regretted his too forward nature with Elizabeth. So his dying wish was for me to express  his regret to Elizabeth personally in hopes that she will forgive his unwanted advances.

May you rest in peace Theo Thom Turkey.

 

Could I Be More Blessed?

I had such a great time yesterday with some great friends and family gathering at my home.  I was blessed with the opportunity to see my cousin, whom I have not seen in 8 years and my aunt who I don’t see nearly enough but saw her most recently last October at my godson’s baptism. 

I began to think back to where I was just 16 years ago to where I am today. Through many bad choices, wrong turns on my road to life, and an abandonment of the values I was taught growing up, God still blessed me in unimaginable ways and walked with me down my broken road that was leading to a bridge to nowhere to the amazing wonderful life I have today. 

I think, if I had made just ONE choice differently, I would not be where I am today.  I would not have the friends I have today, I would be, only God knows where, but how wonderful that He took me, someone so undeserving of His love and grace and still walked with me. HE made sure that I ended up here in Pine River, Wisconsin, married to my wonderful husband and with two amazingly handsome boys who both have a unique personality all their own.

Someone recently reminded me of the old Girl Scout song “Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”  She asked…”how long does it take to become gold?”  It’s a question I have pondered for a few days now and really, I don’t think it has to take years for a new friend to become a golden friend. A bond can be established in a matter of an hour or a matter of years, but once a bond is established, sometimes it’s impossible to break that bond and therefore, I think it can sometimes only take an hour to move from silver to gold.

I had my first son 15 years ago this December.  I had a large variety of friends whom I had established a bond with and whom I will always love and adore.  But I made a decision to walk away from the life that I was living.  If I had stayed in that area and environment, I believe very little in my life would have changed.  It would have been difficult to break the chains of the old lifestyle I was living. I believe it is an Eagles’ song that says it best “that same old crowd was like a big dark cloud that we could never rise above”.  Not to say the people that I chose to surround myself with were not good people, they were. Deep down they had pure hearts and some will be my true friends forever.  Some I have lost touch with over the years and in the past year I have been reunited with a few who really truly now have proven they are some of the best friends I could ever ask for. Thank you Jon and Todd.  You are my brothers for life. 

Had I stayed there all those years ago, choosing to attempt to raise a child in that environment, I do believe I would have set myself up to fail at being a mom.  I never would have met the amazing and wonderful people here that I know and love so dearly and cannot ever imagine living without.

It’s no lie when I started college, I knew no one.  I lived in a one bedroom apartment two blocks from campus.  I was about as alone as I had ever been in my life.  My son’s father lived nearby but when I say I knew no one, that means I had no friends at the school, no one to hang out with, no girlfriends to confide in.  I was 2.5 hours away from home and it felt extremely scary and lonely at times.  But, I also had an excitement in me I had not felt in years.  I was opening a new door to life, a door that led to my future.  I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I was going to succeed and I believe I did. With hard work, perseverance and although I wasn’t paying attention to notice Him, God was there every step of the way, bringing people into my life who would forever change it in many ways.

First there was L.  She worked at the college and I can’t say that I ever gave her a reason to want to be my friend.  I was hormonal, I was tired, I was overwhelmed and once my baby was born and I was back in school, there was little that I wanted to take up what little free time I had. Meer minutes each day.  But she put all that behind her and strived to find out who I was and it helped also that she loved babies.  Once I opened my eyes and decided to let someone in, we became fast friends. She is the person who gets the credit for me meeting my husband.  (Some days I’m still a little mad at her for that.  J  ).  What if I had listened to all the people who told me I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to handle a baby and school….what if I had believed them?  I would have never met her.

Then it turned out I would have two neighbors in my low income apartment building, one on each side, who would become two friends who will always be considered some of my very best friends even though one now lives 3 hours away and the other states away down in Oklahoma.  The three of us could not have been different, but we shared a bond that was like none I had ever known before in my life. We were all single mothers and we all were committed to helping one another in any situation.  I do not see or talk to them often, but they hold a place in my heart that will never be vacant.  When we see each other, it’s like no time had passed and we pick up right where we left off. 

There were many friends over the years as I established my life and finished up school.  Some would come and then go, only in my life for a short period of time and I can’t say I know where they ended up.  Some, I have voluntarily chosen to remove from my life because, well, you will meet some people in your life who just absolutely do not want to see you succeed because it may make them look less important, less ambitious, less amazing.  If only they would see their true beauty we all have and believe in themselves….because we all have something to offer and we all have things we wish we could do away with.  It makes us human, but when you meet someone who just can’t do that, well, I guess I knew it was better to let them go, rather than lose all I had worked so hard for.

What if I never went to college?  I would have never met  so many of my former co-workers who came to be such good friends at the jobs I had after college.  Jen, Tara. Or what if I did not decide to stay home with Lane rather than go back to work fulltime.  Would I have met Cori? 

What if I didn’t have an unhealthy addiction to Farmville for a little over a year…certainly, Deb and I would have never crossed paths and had the laughs and the cries that we have had together.  One little decision to open up a facebook game. What some thought of as ridiculous, a total time waster, stupid…I met a great friend who actually did not live just that far from me….and now we text, visit, and have so many things in common from our love of reading to worrying about our sons, whom one day we will have to say good bye to and let them spread their wings and fly.

But in the last year, it is when all the people in my life would be put to a test neither they, nor I asked for.  A situation happened in my life and it cut me deep to the core.  I was in the midst of a crisis of faith that I was not sure I was going to overcome. My entire world was turned upside down and I felt like all the hard work I did over the last 14 years was for nothing.  Then it turned to, beating myself up for all the things I must have done wrong, some real and some completely fabricated in my mind because well, how could I have gotten HERE if I had not done THAT.  My husband has stood by me unwaivering in his love, and support even when it was not easy to love and support me.  It seemed for months, every time I turned around God was handing me another blow to the side of the head with a baseball bat.  And I started to wonder if He really cared. 

Aside from my husband, there were friends, some not even really close friends yet, who, saw me struggling.  Saw me starting to question all that I had believed in and they were not about to allow me to lose my faith.  A faith, which was going to be the only thing that held me up in the coming days, months, year, and year and a half thus far. In the past year and a half, I have not always been an easy friend to have.  Yet these dedicated women made it their goal to keep me on the path I needed to remain on.  We started Bible studies and I was able to ask question after question as to what God was really asking of me.  What did He expect from this situation and how do I fix it?  And why is He doing this to me?  And if this is His way of blessing me…please, could He just stop already. 

I have also lost some friends this past year and a half.  It is amazing how quickly you will see friends go the other way when they realize you have nothing left to offer them because you can’t hardly help yourself.  Not only was my spiritual life ailing, but my health was as well.  Meniere’s does not handle stress well at all.  I found I had nothing left to give anyone.  Nothing left to offer by the way of encouragement, love, support, anything.  For one of the first times in my life, I wanted someone to come running to me and to save me rather than the other way around.  And I was mad, I was mad at God for taking away all that I had worked so hard for, that I changed my life for. 

I can pick out two friends in particular who refused to allow me to fall by the wayside, turn to old ways, to just give up on God and all that He has to offer.  These two friends gave me more love and support in the last year than I think I have known ever or ever deserved.  Some days it was just a card in the mail with a stick of gum saying…you are a great person and I’m lucky to know you that reminded me that life is worth it today.  Other days it was a Thursday evening dinner and then a heartfelt talk that ended with me crying and asking but Why, why did this happen.  And she, not trying to give me a load of fluff but saying, I don’t know why this is happening, but I will be here for you and I will believe in God on the days that you can’t.  When I was angry with God, neither of them judged me, they never scolded me for the things I said, or the feelings I felt.  Sometimes they said nothing at all.  Some days I found that frustrating but then when I really looked at the situation, what really is there to even say?   It took a tragedy, an ongoing battle, for me to see the value in these two beautiful women, whom I would have never met, had I made just one different decision in my life that took me somewhere else. 

The story doesn’t end there…….what I have learned about friendships and family over the last year has been immeasurable, and about people period….

If I didn’t have Meniere’s Disease, I would not ever have been blessed with meeting Madeline, a beautiful English woman and her husband Danny, who together have an amazing family.  I would have never met their daughter Abbey, who has shown me what it means to stand tall with a strength unknown to most humans under the most unfair circumstances. So I really should say THANK YOU GOD for giving me this dreaded, hidden illness that no one understands and makes my life so unpredictable, because without it, I would have never met these wonderful people who have taught me much needed lessons.  And let me tell you, I love them with all my heart even if they are a clan of dang bleeding heart liberals.  J  They mean the world to me.

If I had decided to go to one more church on my journey of finding my “church home”, or if I just simply passed on WCC, I would have never met Julie.  Who is like a breath of fresh air every Sunday morning with her great big smile and bright eyes as she comes to hug me each week.  I do not know Julie’s last name, nor she mine, and I have no idea where she lives, or what she does, but every Sunday morning that hug is so loving and genuine that I can’t imagine my life anymore without that one little gesture of kindness out of her.   She probably has no idea what a difference she has made in my life just by being kind and noticing me one Sunday morning and introducing herself.

Or what if my husband and I chose to look at more houses rather than just buying this one, the first one we both toured together.  THE FRIENDS I would have missed out on…The Johnsons,  The Christiansens, The Kosut’s and then the Koch’s. 

My troubles of the past year are not over, and there does not seem to be a light shining anywhere near me to signal the end of the tunnel.  But when I start to really look hard at the hidden blessings God has bestowed upon me, I can’t help but to say THANK YOU LORD. Thank you for opening my eyes to the wonders around me that I was totally missing.

First it is only through He that sustains me.  It is through His love and grace that I can get up in the morning and smile and thank Him for another beautiful day, another chance to try and get it right. Because of Him, every morning I will continue to thank Him for the beauty I see when I open my eyes and see my son sleeping, my husband sleeping, and the sun coming up over the trees.

I have done so many things for God to turn His back on me, to say, you are a hopeless cause, you’re worthless, not worth My time or effort Rebecca.  But instead, He never ceased to walk next to me, He allowed me to make the mistakes I did, to do the things I will forever regret and am sorry for.  And even all the times I tried to walk away from Him, He continued to give me friends who would somehow, whether they tried to or not, lead me back to a life that is really something to be proud of.

Saturday morning, I sat with a new friend and over coffee we just talked about our lives.  And it’s amazing how close to her I feel already.  And while I do not cry often, I felt comfortable enough to share with her a little bit about what has gone on in my life over the past year and a half and it’s something I can’t discuss always without shedding tears.  I know that in the end, God will reveal the reasoning behind it all and it will be for good, but right now, it still hurts.  It takes me sometimes months to become that close or trusting of someone.  But she just made me feel comfortable enough to know that she was now and was going to be my friend.  I am so blessed.  

You will never hear me judge another person’s heart, feelings, or actions.  I have done it all, and I have no room.   The saying does go…People who live in glass houses…. I can’t throw any stones.  Because then all the stones should be thrown back at me.

 I am so blessed to have weathered the storms to get where I am now.  I am so blessed that God never gave up on me.  And that when I felt as far from Him as I possibly could, He put the people in place who would help me to feel that connected feeling again. 

I am not sure if the ladies who I laugh with on Friday nights around a campfire, or email with occasionally to catch up from months gone by, or who come to dinner and Bible Study, the ladies who drink with me when I need to relax, argue politics with me when I’m feeling feisty, the ladies who just leave me alone when I need a day to process know how much of a difference they make in my life.  The girlfriends from high school with whom I had lost touch, who reconnected and now daily stay in contact and rekindled that flame of friendship that the fates could not blow out and even the high school girls who were not necessarily my friends then, but are now.  

And it’s not just girlfriends.  I have met some pretty great guy friends along the way as well, they threaten to beat up someone when that is all I want to happen, even though we know they won’t.  It’s just nice to hear.  They give me the guy’s perspective on life and they remind me what a great person and mother I am.  And they make me laugh. Boy do they make me laugh.  Laughing is my favorite thing in the whole wide world and the friends both male and female who make me laugh…oh man, you are never able to go anywhere. 

Yeah, when I look at all the forks in the road and the path that I took, when it looked like I made a wrong turn, I know, I know today that I didn’t.  Every turn made was to bring me right here.  And I could never be more thankful for the people the Lord has chosen to enter into my life.  I hope you will all stay forever. And I hope that God finds a way to use me to bless all of your lives as well. 

It’s a great day to be alive!  And I am eager to see where the next fork in the road will lead me, and I know that I have great friends and a God who will walk with me every step of the way.  Hilly or rocky, muddy or clear, you all have blessed my life in ways I could never fully express. Thank you. 

Surviving the Week. Whoo hoo

Well, it actually was a pretty smooth week for having my husband being gone all week, returning tonight.  Only a few mishaps, one broken carpet shampooer (yes, I’m still hyperventilating over that), one trip to the emergency room, one fall, and a few extra unneeded holes in the wall, a slight, just a slight misjudgment about how much a Sharpie really can do and a received ransom text demanding cake balls or the chicken dies.   But compared to other times he has left, this was a cakewalk!  The week flew by.  I hardly had a chance to miss him but looking forward to his return.

In the past, we both feared the times he would be gone for any length of time because something ALWAYS happened when he was gone.  Something bad.  I recall one year, at our old house on the river, standing at my kitchen counter preparing onions to make salsa.  A quick storm blew up and out and in ten minutes the dock was ripped right out of the river, and rain was POURING down my chimney into the fire place and into the living room.  It was late, like 10:00 at night and I called my Mother in law asking WHAT DO I DO??? She said…go to bed…just go to bed and pretend it’s not happening.  So, I did.

There was the time on a Sunday, my new puppy Chessie tried to eat a fishing lure, (might have been the fishing lure my MIL tried to fix my toilet with….yeah, I’ll get to that in a minute).  I walked past her and she got caught on my pant legs.  Unknowingly, I pulled my leg and said stop biting my leg!  A few minutes later I realized what happened! She had a fishing lure embedded in her tongue.  Yes, I felt horrible then immediately for wrenching my leg away from her.  So, an emergency call to the vet was made and we drove there. She was put under to have the lure cut out of her tongue and then re-awakened with some miracle shot that woke her up so we could head home. Poor little Chessie, but who know they had a shot that can wake up a dog after being put under?  Not me!  But, a couple hours later and one very large vet bill and we were headed for home with a groggy puppy. 

Now to the toilet….there was the weekend the toilet wouldn’t flush. (It was a common occurrence sometimes in that house) but this time it would not flush, was not plugged, it was crazy.  My in laws were at the house and I mentioned that Dave would have to fix the toilet when he came home.  But to the “rescue” came my mother in law, the queen of all rigging.  She fixed the toilet with a FISHING LURE.  I was new to the whole hillbilly country life and was about as speechless as I could get but managed to say…”I don’t think that is going to work”.  She replied, “Oh sure it will, it will last for months now”.  Uhm…no, no no, you do not put a toilet together with a fishing lure and expect it to do anything.  I clearly was not comfortable with this.  So, when Dave came home I said, “We need a new toilet”.  He checked it…said “It seems to be working fine now”.  I said, a little louder than I should have “YOU DO NOT FIX A TOILET WITH A RAPALA!!!”.  He ignored me. So two days later, young David and I return home from a long day at work and guess what….my living room was flooded, and moving quickly into the kitchen.  David took one look at the floor and then at me and said very cautiously, “I’m going to just go to my room now and watch a movie”.  You guessed it…the fishing lure was not the quick fix we, or rather, they thought it was going to be.  I would have a new toilet THAT NIGHT, because Dave received a phone call from me and was basically told not to return without one.

Yes, things always have a way of going bad whenever I was there alone, un-educated on the country life and having no idea how to fix anything. 

I seem to be having a little better luck these days but I certainly am always on my guard.  I remember one day coming home from work and Chessie, now feeling great after her little fishing lure mishap, getting into the food pantry that must have been left open like a half inch….HOLY MAN what a dog can do in a 12 hour time period with a stocked pantry.  From one end of the house to the other it was nothing but a sticky pasty mess of Bisquick mixed with punctured juice pouches, potatoes everywhere, boxes shredded of pancake flour, sugar, noodles, soup cans found in the bedrooms, onions under the furniture.  EVERY inch of my house was either powdered, filled with peanuts, raw popcorn or coated with sticky juice from Capri Sun juice pouches.  Again, David walked in with me, took one look around and said “I’m going to go play outside for a bit” and disappeared. 

It’s quite amazing I still am willing to have dogs in the house at all, but Chessie did grow to be the absolute best Black Lab in the world,  She is now 11 years old and as faithful as a dog can be.  We love her completely and she is treated pretty darn good for being a dog in her old age.

She lived through a lot of things, from a flood, to eating random deer hides found after deer hunting, being raped by the Yellow Lab next door, to even one bout with skin cancer four years ago.  

Yep, I just heard your question.  She was raped by the dog next door?  Yes, yes she was.  There was a time when there were “phantom sightings” of a mountain lion in the area.  Multiple reports and my husband was called more than once in the middle of the night by the Green Lake police department to come with his hound dogs who had hunting cougars in the past to try and find this cat after a sighting was reported.  He would race out of bed, grab his clothes and head out about as excited as a boy on Christmas morning with a train circling the beautiful Christmas tree.  One day the call came in about dinner time and I had, had enough. There WAS NO MOUNTAIN LION…..these people are smoking crack for crying out loud, it’s dinner time sit down.  But nope, he was going to go and rushed out and drove the truck down to where the dogs were tied and was going to go and save the day again….I stood up by the house watching this scene unfold .  Dave really loves to hunt, I see him at no other time as excited and happy as when he is about to go on a chase so I was watching him zoom the truck down the dogs and jump out to grab Buck, the champion of all Plott Hounds.  Well, he made one slight mistake, a mistake I have made more than once in my lifetime…he did not put the truck into park and I just stood at the house saying “your truck is driving away, your truck is driving away”.  OK, I didn’t say it as loud as I probably SHOULD have but I said it.  He grabbed his dog and turned around and stopped dead in his tracks.  WHERE WAS THE TRUCK??? Well, it was nose down in the ditch on the other side of the driveway.  I couldn’t help but to laugh, but did my best to stifle it….and that truck was deep.  We needed a tractor to come and pull it out. Thank goodness for that beautiful John Deer named Bodacious!

Anyway, back to MY dog (I'm a tad ADD....SQUIRREL)….so these reports are going around about this mountain lion and I get up one morning bright and early at 4:30 to get ready for work. I jump in the shower and get out and wrap my hair in a towel and put on my bathrobe and head out to the front porch to let the dog out.  The only thing I see is a yellow animal and the only thing I hear is a deep low growl.  I SLAMMED that door shut and screamed MOUNTAIN LION IN THE PORCH!!!! No one even budged or twitched in their sleep.  I peek out the door again and realize, it’s not a mountain lion, it is a yellow lab with my in heat black lab.  OH BOY WAS I MAD…I had talked to the neighbors more than once about keeping their male dog tied up because I had a couple dogs in heat, my lab and a one of the hounds…but he apparently was hard of hearing and did not hear me those times I was in his yard talking right to his face.  I got in my van, (yes, in my bathrobe and towel) and drove to the end of the long driveway and pounded on his door….no one answered.  Well, really, if you looked out the window and saw a stark raving crazy woman in a robe and towel at 4:30 in the morning would YOU answer the door?  My poor girl….the dog busted through the porch window (and the door and another window at two other different times).  He was an INTRUDER….until it dawned on me…what if Chessie was one of those crazy teenage girls who snuck their boyfriends into the house at night or when the parents were gone?  What if she was just the town hussy?  Well, regardless, she should have used protection then because 90 days later there were 8 adorable puppies being born in the back room of my house.  By then we all had warmed to the idea, since both dogs were pure bred AKC labs.  She was such a good mom, but I told her it would not be happening again.  After those puppies grew and were sent off to their new homes, after an extensive interviewing process to make sure they would not end up at a puppy farm or an abusive home she was taken on a field trip to the vet to be fixed.  I think she was just as relieved as we were to know there would be no more unwanted pregnancies.  But I still wonder how many nights after that she was sneaking her friends in while we were gone whooping it up and then getting them out before we returned.  In fact, HOW MANY DOGS were there when the pantry was ransacked…..hmmmm, I think I had a dog party going on in my house during work.  It is all making complete sense now…she is SO GROUNDED!! 

So when compared to that....this week was quite quiet while my husband was away, but there are still hours to go so I best not say that too quickly.  Here's to a safe, peaceful, uneventful Sunday with nothing but relaxation and a football game!

Have a great week all! 

Well, most of you have heard about the big storm that blew through here a week and a half ago that knocked out our power for 4 days.  When you live in the country and your power goes out....you can't do ANYTHING.  You have no running water on top of no electricity.  It got to be a tad bit smelly in my house...and you know how I feel about how my house smells.  But ya know, there were some unexpected blessings that were realized in those 4 days without TV, Video Games, Computer.  Ok, I kind of had a computer on my smartphone and a battery pack to charge it....but we were definitely not prepared.  And me the Queen of burning yummy scented candles had ONE candle in my house that barely lit up the small bathroom.  (Thanks to that awesome pod warmer that uses no flame I ran a little low on candles.).  But, I looked at the experience as time built in to our already busy lives to just be.  To just relax.  We did a 500 piece puzzle in those four days, I knitted with a book light stuck down my shirt and into my bra and we laughed at all the silly crazy things Lane always does and we went to bed early every night.  Because really, in the country, once it gets dark IT IS DARK.  And while I was trying really hard to look for the blessings, there also was no distractions to keep me from thinking about my baby Lane going off to 4K in 3 days and wondering how the first day of high school went for my 14 year old son.  It was time to reflect, time to dwell, and time to suck it up and be a tough country girl.  Besides, I can't tell you how lucky my family was.  You could walk down to the end of my driveway and see how much worse so many other people had it.  Trees blocked the road, we couldn't drive through.  Electrical lines laying in the middle of roads, and dear friends who lost more trees than I have in my whole yard and the lot next to us.  It really makes one realize that we are not in control, not even a little. 

It was the first time in my adult life I went to the basement during a storm.  I brought Lane down with me and we were watching out the back patio doors (Yes I know, they say stay away from windows in a bad storm, but I WAS in the basement!).  I could not believe my eyes.  Things were swirling around my yard, I watched my rabbit hutch flip over and the doors to the chicken coop flap in the wind.  I watched the trees in the woods behind my house bend and twist and snap.  It was, for lack of a better word, amazing.  Amazing at the power weather really has.  When it was all done, I looked at Lane and said "Now THAT is the power of God my friend".  And then we went out to assess the damage in our yard and of course look for Theo my turkey.   I really was a little worried about Theo out there in the weather.  But, he was fine, along with the other 15 chickens who were oddly, set free during the storm and roaming around the yard eating grasshoppers to their hearts content. 

Initially I wanted to just cry.  Not that we had that much damage but it was a stressful fifteen minutes that I just started to process what I just witnessed.  And I should have known it was coming because the day before I was sick all day and very dizzy. (My ears are a great radar for pressure changes in the air).  But I started to look at the situation as something we will get through and we will help anyone else who has real damage get through as well. 

We often find who we really are in times of adversity.  How we handle them.  But again, I heard things during these four days I never thought I would hear.  Like "We need to swap generators, this one won't run the chicken plucker".  Yes, when you hear that it is definitely a "what happened to my life" kind of moment. And it reminded me of the notes I used to keep titled "What I learned this Week" and so I thought, what will I learn through this experience.....look for the blessings Rebecca.  And oddly, I wasn't feeling very blessed that week even though I should have.  I felt blessed we had minimal storm damage of course, but it was a week where I felt oddly disconnected from my friends, my life, and God. 

The first day of school had come and gone and I was missing my friends.  It was the first year in the last four that I would not be the bookkeeper at my oldest son's old school.  And I realized, my default time to get together with my girlfriends as they dropped off their children, no longer was there.  I wondered if they missed me as much as I missed them. 

I knew it was a new chapter starting in my life.  Sending Lane to a new school and being the "new mom" once again.  And wondering if it would resemble the show "The New Adventures of Old Christine" like my life did when I was the mom of a kid at the Private School for five years.  Yes, yes...I'm that girl.  I'm always "THAT GIRL".  I am always doing something to make people turn heads, lift their eye brows....especially at the private school where some of the moms can be a little.....well let's just be honest...they are meanie moms.

There was the day, Lane REFUSED to put on two boots and I had to get to a soccer meeting at the school. FINE...wear one boot....and of course someone came up to me and said "Lane is missing a boot".  Yep, I know, it's all he wanted to wear today and quite frankly, I'm just glad it's not the middle of January....but if you check his diaper...you will find he has a princess right on his ass as well".  (I was in a hurry that morning on my errands run and needed to change a diaper...adn of COURSE did not have the diaper bag with me, so I rushed into Walgreens, grabbed the first package I saw and if they weren't freakin CINDERELLA diapers). Good gravy.  Luckily I think everything is funny so as I was telling this particular mom that, and watching her "you're so pathetic" look come across her face, I burst into an uncontrollable laugh and couldn't quit.  It was a great story to share with Dave as we were standing in the hardware store later that evening.  And then all of a sudden he looked at me and said...."so did you go to the soccer meeting with your shirt on inside out and backwards? "  I looked at him, looked down at my shirt and BY GOLLY YES I DID.  Yes...it happens to the best of us, but only the  most awesome can pull it off. 

So anyway, I was looking through some of my old "What I have learned this week and found one entry that I just thought man....I must have felt so overwhelmed that week but yet could really find the humor in almost everything.  And it made me feel a little extra nostalgic because my son was still at home with me and had not moved in with his father yet.  I thought I have to share this with my blog buddies....because it just really shows how much we moms go through in a day and it's really a miracle we, or at least our kids survive.  Well, ok, I'm sorry to lump you all with me...it's a miracle MY KIDS survive.  But man, my kids and husband will never say they had a boring life.....

From February 2009: What I have learned this week: 
1. Dumping the entire contents of a large container of fish food into the fish tank does not mean you get to feed them less. It means you have a LOT OF WORK ahead of you to try and save those fish from over eating and being able to see the fish in the cloudy water again. Compliments to my dear boy Lane for teaching me this lesson. :)
2. Even if your dogs live in a fenced in yard, they still can eat something that will make them very sick and throw up ALOT. ALOT ALOT ALOT. And if it's a Lab, she will feel very bad about this. If it's a Newf...she won't care she will find the next gross thing to eat because it was worth it. OK I didn't learn that about a newf this week but I know that to be a fact.
3. If your kids hate you....it must mean you are actually parenting them.
4. During a TWO MINUTE phone call, a two year old will have time to try and flush a box of baby wipes down the toilet and flood the entire bathroom before you are off the phone.
5. When the toilet floods enough...it leaks down to the lower level of the house. :(
6. Your two year old, like a newf, won't care that he made such a huge mess for you to clean up...he thought it was fun and worth it.
7. While you are cleaning up a flooded toilet...your two year old will then raid the marshmallow bag in the cupboard and dump them all over another floor and then say HI MOM when you walk in the room like ... hey whats up. Again, he won't care...it was worth it.
8. If you have not cried in MONTHS AND MONTHS but you start ... it takes a long time to stop. Once you do...you feel refreshed.
9. Husbands will agree to a cat if you catch them at just the right time to approach the subject...but that doesn't mean they will actually like the cat when you get it home and will remind you that he has no desire to sleep with that cat at anytime during his lifetime.
10. Some fish die when you give them too much food, but some actually do survive.
11. The not so sociable cat at the humane society just may become very sociable when you get them away from other cats and show them enough attention.
12. Once you have had one newfoundland .... it is not likely you will ever convince your husband that you can have another newfoundland, even if that newfie is an adorable six month old homeless sad newfie living at the animal shelter. He will say NO before you even have the thought formed in your head. He will see it coming.
13. After a night of listening to your teenager scream he hates you and you are ruining his life and the next morning still won't look at you....if his girlfriend breaks up with him that day, he will come to you and confide in you and hope that you will show him some sympathy.
14. And after the I hate you's and your ruining his life....and you don't think you could be angrier at him, and he tells you his girlfriend broke up with him that day...your heart still breaks for him because you love him more than your own life.
See...even when you think you are having a bad week....there are a LOT of valuable lessons that are being learned in the trials. And bringing home a new little Maica who needed a home makes it feel like less of a crappy week when you go to see her and she rubs up against your leg and purrs for the very first time since you saw her and it makes you feel loved all over again. And if you can laugh when all this stuff happens to you .... you are doing even better. I laughed a lot this week...not over all of it and some...not right away and some not at all but I laughed this week and that's a good thing. Bring on the rest of the adventures!!!

So my friends:  when things just seem to go wrong wrong wrong....stop, breathe and laugh and think to yourself......well, it could always be worse...because if I have learned one thing in life....when you say it can't get any worse...the fates, oh the fates will show you it can. :)   And no matter what happens, I LOVE MY LIFE.  What more could I ask for? 

OK, no more sap, did you hear the one about the........  Good night my friends!