Wildfire

Since I seem to have little to say, I'll share this poem that Addison entered in the college's poetry contest.  I think it's cool (and very timely):

http://addison-renee.blogspot.com/2011/04/poetry-contest-entry.html

LiMINTless

Back in April, Stride Gum promoted a contest to rename their mint-flavored gum. The grand prize winner was to receive $10,000 and a year's supply of Stride gum with the new name on the package. Stride later closed the voting and ended the contest claiming a "technical glitch." Instead of allowing online voting to take place, they just randomly selected five entries and gave them each $25,000.

Addison entered with the name "LiMINTless." Stride sent her a box of gum with her entry name on it and an apology letter. At the very least, she has a lot of gum and a funny story. :-)

Eighteen

Happy Birthday, Addison!

The girls

I suppose it's another mom thing, but there's just something about seeing your kids together, like this, that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. When you have more than one child, you essentially are giving them the irreplacable gift of each other. Yeah, it's a little melodramatic, but true!

Seventeen Years

Favorite Memories: Meeting you for the first time, our nightly singing in my bed, "Tell me about your day," always being a dog, using big words, playing store, playing with Reba, how sweet and funny you were in the hospital when Bailey was born, helping me decorate the Christmas tree, the emergency room when you cut your chin, "The Ballin," "Did I eat it?" (the balloon), all the stories you wrote, "Why is that man BLUE?", baking pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving, every recital, every band performance, watching you march in the parade, tubing the "scary" rapids in New Braunfels, watching you experience your first time seeing the ocean, making homecoming mums together, getting your braces off, your 16th birthday, and watching you drive by yourself for the first time.

Some I remember so vividly, others have faded with time. But I'm looking forward to many more wonderful memories in the future. Happy 17th Birthday, Addison!

Love you always, Mom

Headed for New Mexico

I just have nothing my brain can wrap around as interesting, not even remotely interesting. So here's an update of the goings-on.

Addison and Bailey started back to school this week. (Duh - like every other kid.) But it's kinda weird to have both my kids in high school now, Bailey being a freshman and Addison being a junior. Bailey's playing volleyball for Lee Freshman, and Addison just started a new job as a receptionist at a very nice retirement community.

Tomorrow Alan and his dad and myself leave for Albuquerque for the marathon on Sunday. Alan's race starts at 5:30 a.m., meaning he has to be on the shuttle that takes him to the starting line around 4:30. When the 5K is over that Leigh and I are running, I'll have plenty of time to walk back to the hotel to get my camera for when Alan crosses the finish. I can't wait!

Last night we went out for mexican food with Addison and her boyfriend, J. It was a lot of fun, and we got to know J a little more in the process. He seems like a great guy.

Since this was the first week of school, I wasn't expecting any subbing jobs. But I have been receiving several requests, anywhere from September through to December. Hopefully I'll stay fairly busy.

See? It's a slow week.

Bittersweet Find

What was I thinking? I've been struggling to get everything in my closet to fit when I remember that there is a WHOLE OTHER CLOSET at my disposal. Addison didn't have much in her bedroom closet to begin with, and when she left, she left a fairly empty storage space.

I know where the mental block was however. I still call it Addison's room, Addison's bed, and obviously, Addison's closet. I haven't really thought of it as a space that I can take over and do whatever I want with. And honestly, I don't want to. Some "Addison" things will probably remain on the walls and on the furniture tops and in dresser drawers for a while. It's not because I'm waiting for her to come back at some point, but because it's sort of hard to remove signs of her. I kind of like it that some of her things are still in there. We had good times, too, and I like to see things that help me remember.

BUT, I really do need space and where there's an empty closet, there's a happy place for my things.

Insomnia makes for gloomy posts

Yes I do still have another daughter, although the lack of mention of her in my blog makes it seem like I've disowned her. I absolutely haven't, but since I'm not actively involved in her life right now means blogging about her would just seem forced. I keep tabs on her, I help her out when needed, and we talk occasionally but briefly, both in person and on the phone. Hopefully now that some time has passed, we can do this more often.

It's not as if I haven't written several blogs about her, I just never published them. Those were typically low moments when I was struggling with this whole separation issue. There's been a range of emotions - anger, disappointment, frustration, guilt, hurt, you name it. But mostly sadness. And those unpublished posts were ways to get my thoughts out somewhere, even if it meant leaving them suspended in cyberspace.

There are still low moments, but more and more I'm coming to realize that that's just part of raising teenagers. Some parents get to enjoy this time of life with their kids, others don't. Big whoopie. Don't need pity, but don't need to be judged either. Walk a mile and we'll talk.

Bumps in the road

Can't say that it's been the greatest week, so click away now if you don't want to hear my whining. For starters, I spent two days with some 9-yr old heathens (and some 9-yr old angels, but those get cast aside when your energy has to go towards the heathens). Really, the class would be quite manageable if it weren't for this one little boy. All the other discipline problems, and there are many, are still nothing compared to the havoc this one boy creates. I gotta say this for him though - he has nerve.

And then we learned that Karl, Alan's brother, is leaving for Somalia due to recent events and is probably en route as I type. His other deployments, although in the Middle East, seemed a lot safer than this one. He'll be gone at least a month, will come back for a month, and then return.

And now Addison is moving out by choice to live with her dad full-time. At least we're 99% sure it's going to happen. It's probably going to be a really good thing for her, but there's a whole slew of "mom" emotions that I'm going through that are just hard to explain and hard to talk about.

So no, life doesn't suck, but it's really hard some days.