Monday, February 24, 2014

So long, Sochi

Pardon me while I'm in my funk-of-every-four-years.  See, yesterday the Winter Olympics ended.  I LOOOOVE the Winter Olympics!  Even though the USA figure skaters didn't really show up much.  Okay, Meryl and Charlie won gold in Ice Dance but no one really watches that.  We wanted our Ladies and Pairs up on that podium!  (I also hope someone recognizes the insanity of that "team competition" and stops it before Korea 2018.  It's just a country competition and I don't understand what the purpose of it is.  I think if you put all the skaters from one country out on the ice at the same time and have them to a program together...that would be interesting!)

Anyway, so then there was hockey.  I hate watching hockey.  I'm thankful my husband is not a hockey fan.  BUT, if there's a major hockey event I will watch it.  We had a fleeting one of those when the USA beat Russia in a shoot-out and one of our guys (see, already forgot his name) was a household name for a minute.  Then nothing, and I went back to hating hockey.

The boys were into it this year, too.  Cooper told me, as if he was stating the sky is blue, that he wants to be an Olympic snowboarder.  Guess he can do that in the off-season of NFL football.  And the NBA.  That boy...  It's fun to think about though: this is the first Winter Olympics he'll remember watching with the family.  Carson just might remember Vancouver 2010.  I have awesome memories of watching the Olympics when I was a kid and I hope they do, too.

So for this sports-watching family we have to wait two years to hear that familiar Olympic anthem, and four years for the good Olympics.

And omg.  I just realized I'll be 51 years old when that happens.  Uh.  Wow.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Crickets. And game whistles.

I'm such a cliche tonight.

My husband's out of town and the boys got invited out with a friend for the evening.  Five hours with no one here at the house but me.  At night, on a weekend.

I thought it would be kind of cool, ya know.  Watch whatever I want on TV (even though omg the channels still land on SPORTS and I have no idea how that happens with the sports people in this family aren't even in the house!).  Eat whatever I want for dinner.  No one to pick up after or nag to pick up after themselves.

Instead of melting into solitary bliss, I'm watching the clock tick until someone interrupts it.  I miss them all and I'm done with my silent night.  Bring me back the busy!!  Now!!

See?  Cliche.  But I believe cliches exist because they are often true.

But still, why can't we just be content with the way things are at this moment instead of always wishing for something different?

I'm going to ponder that awhile.  In my boring silence but for the roar of some crowd on TV.

Friday, February 14, 2014

A Love-ly Day

Happy Valentine's Day.  I went to the boys' school to help with their parties.  Their teachers have them design and construct boxes or some other vessel at home and they bring them to school to hold all their Valentines.

I wish I'd photographed some of these structures!  I think some kids must have started designing their boxes back in December.  (Carson was not exactly jazzed about it...maybe that's expected from a Fourth Grade boy?  Last night at 7:30 he poked around in the garage and came up with an Adidas shoe box.  Glued a red heart on each side, called it "lame," and he was satisfied.)

Their parties were loud and chaotic as usual but the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.  There were plenty of parents there to help hand out goodies and clean up and stuff, but oh my...I am exhausted and the boys are exhausted.  Why are parties so dang exhausting?

I'm realizing, though, that they won't be having these little classroom parties much longer.  And as they get older I'll have fewer chances to visit them in their classrooms for anything, much less a party.  I kinda want them to remember that I took a little time to be there on some special days like this.

(I'm off to a flying start on this back-to-blogging thing, right?  I just stared at this post for 15 minutes trying to make it into something...else.  But you know, that's my life: it's not a fairytale or a riveting novel.  It's just my everyday.  Welcome to it.)

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

So.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining or apologizing for not blogging for...gulp...YEARS.  I'm just not going to do it.  I think people get tired of hearing the excuses about why bloggers abandon their blogs and would rather them just get on with blogging again.  Hmm.

But I can't start back up here without having a little bit of a plan as to what this blog will be now.  I feel like I need to clarify why, on this day, I decided to write again.

One big reason is that I decided to read some past posts.  I was astounded to read about some things that I would have completely forgotten about had I not written about them.  There were a few cringe-worthy posts (omg who cares about me and Dwayne watching TV?!) and a few posts that still get me emotional.  Good or bad, they are me in that moment of my life, and I kind of like being able to reflect on stuff since my memory is getting worse by the minute.

Now where was I?

Oh, so another reason I wanted to start writing again is that a couple of my nieces have started blogging.  When I read their heartfelt posts I scream to myself "I have heartfelt in me, too!" or at least a little boring daily recap, and then I grumble about how my blog is old and stale and I only had seven readers anyway so why bother.

But then I would write posts in my head.  I'd think "I'd so blog that, if I blogged anymore."  And I remembered that even though I've been away from being paid for it for a long time, I still like to put my thoughts in writing.  It's that simple.  I like to write things down and string words together.  Just sitting here pecking out these paragraphs feels like I'm home again.

So now I have to think about audience again, because you know, a good writer writes to someone.  That's a tough one, since this blog is basically about me and my life and I'm not sure anyone really cares that much about all those details.  There are way more interesting bloggers out there (ya think?!), bloggers who give information or write how-to posts or inspirational messages.  This blog is none of those or maybe it is sometimes by accident.  I believe my audience out here is...me.  And I guess that's good enough if it gets me blogging again.

But if you enjoy reading about me (or my kids or my husband from time to time) then hang out here and let me know about it in the comments.  I could use the company.