15 Books

I really do have a whole lot of blog stories swirling around in my head, however I just can't get them to come out. I am posting something going around on Facebook and I think everyone else should too. It's a kind of fun way to see what everyone else likes to read!

DON'T TAKE TOO LONG TO THINK ABOUT IT. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
*** In no particular order- and I will try not to explain why I like them, but feel free to ask.

15. The giving Tree- Shel Silverstein
14. Are you there God, it's me Margaret- Judy Blume
13. The Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger
12. Summer Sisters- Judy Blume
11. More than you know- Beth Gutcheon
10. Second Glance - Jodi Picoult
9. IT- Stephen King (I hate hate hate clowns)
8. Lightning0 Dean Koontz
7. The Bible
6. The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
5. The Girl with the Pearl Earring- Tracy Chevalier
4. The Time -Travelers Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
3. Twilight- Stephanie Meyer
2. The Shell Seekers- Rosamunde Pilcher
1. A Girl named Zippy- Haven Kimmel

Wordless Wednesday

Every time I have a bad day I know that waiting at home for me are two little boys who are my world!!!

Irritation and Chafing

Man, am I irritated today. Part of it is Mother Nature arriving too early (sorry to any male readers). On the way to work it felt like an obstacle course, people driving too fast, too slow, weaving with no turn signals, etc.

Work has been wearing thin on my nerves. I am extremely tired of all the pissing and moaning that goes on in my office. I have never worked with such a group of whiny people in my life. Some of these people would not be happy if you handed them a million dollars. They would find something to bitch about. They would probably bitch that they had nothing to bitch about.

I cannot stand negativity. I can be crabby but I try and see the positive of most things, and when you are surrounded by negativity 40 hours plus a week it begins to wear you down.

It's not much better at home- the negativity is at an all time high so I am back to hiding out!

Tomorrow will be a better day. I am POSITIVE of that!!!

For the love of the Game?

Ahhh Baseball. My favorite sport. Love to watch me some baseball. This year was Evan's third year playing. He was still in coach pitch and he did really well this year.

My boy is not aggressive, he can hit well when he wants to and can throw well but just doesn't always have his head in the game. If I had known better I would have started him playing T-ball when he was four instead of soccer which was a total waste of time. He was bored this year because he was relegated to the outfield most of the time.

As a mom, sometimes its hard to watch your kids play sports. I wanted him to do well and when he would get out (they only got five pitches whether they were good pitches or not) or threw the ball to the wrong base, I would cringe, but when he did well I was so proud. Its' not that I wasn't always proud of him it's just that I didn't want anyone else to think he wasn't good.

The league he plays in is our towns rec league. Anyone can play- you just pay your $75.00 and sign up then the coaches do a draft. They obviously pick their own kids and can pick kids they know are good but they do really well making sure teams aren't stacked. His coach this year was interesting. I know the family and they have a reputation for being hotheads. He really made the kids listen but did a little more yelling than I liked. Evan's dad coached third base so he was right there the whole time so I knew he wouldn't let it get out of hand. Another thing is most of these guys all grew up in this town and have known each other forever, They are all grown men whose kids are playing ball, not them, but I digress.

We had a few incidents in some games. When we were beating some teams sometimes the other team would say we were running our players, but every team did that at one time or another. The kids did really well and ended up 9-2, we had one game rained out and one team forfeit because of not enough players that day.

Playoffs were this past weekend with a double elimination to make it through. During the regular season kids ump the games but for playoffs we had honest to goodness real umpires. Friday was the first game and we played a team we had beat earlier in the season. It was going really well until the next to last inning when the other team tied the game. It went two extra innings until finally their team scored 13 runs on us and by the time we got them out it was 9PM and they called the game because it was getting dark. that meant we had to come back at 7:30 the next morning and play our half of the inning. The boys really tried. They scored nine runs but couldn't tie it. We won the other two games on Saturday. Sunday morning we played at 8:00, the team we were playing was one that had only beat us by two runs and we were doing well but again they tied it up. We went two extra innings again however this time, the umpire we had stated that it was going to go by international rule and the first team to get someone on first base won. We got out 1-2-3. The other team came up to bat and they got two outs but the last kid got on first so they won an advanced. Our kids did great, they were proud of themselves and that should be the end but its not.

Some of our parents started questioning why Friday nights game wasn't played like Sunday's. We would have won Friday night if it had. One of the other issues is that one of the coaches on Fridays team we played is also the commissioner of our league. Also, our coach had gotten into it with one of the other coaches and their team was mad. Since I came back to work today I have had all kinds of comments made about the "issues" our team had over the weekend. We weren't the only ones though. I talked to another mother and she said the rules seemed to change every game.

The main thing is that the game is supposed to be for the kids, not the parents. The kids are the ones who are supposed to play and learn the game. It shouldn't be about grown men competing against each other trying to keep outdoing each other like they have been doing since high school!

M.I.A.

I have been slacking lately. I just realized I have not posted anything in a week. I have started to a couple times and then just run out of steam, so I just let it go. It has been busy with baseball practice and games and working late.

This last week my wonderful sister came up to my house and collected my boys, she kept them for a couple of days and I went and got them this weekend. It's always weird when they are not at home, it's too quiet and I don't know what to do with myself. Friday night we went to look for curtains. We went back and forth between four different stores and ended up buying the curtains at Meijers and the curtain rods at Walmart. We got new living room windows and the boys are constantly tearing up the blinds so lets see how they do with curtains.

Work has been work, nothing fun or exciting. Baseball has almost come to an end. We have on regular game this week and then playoffs. The boy's have done wonderful this year and Evan has had some really good hits!

The home front is the same, nothing better, nothing worse. We got along pretty well when the kids weren't here but that isn't good because the kids are always here every other time. I honestly don't think I get mad at him or upset mostly because of the kids, but he seems to think that is why we fight all the time.

Sunday my sisters and I took the kids to the zoo. IT was great fun. Battle Creek has an awesome zoo and the kids really enjoyed it. Owen was not afraid of anything, in fact he ran right up to the giraffe's and fed them!

Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things because I have tons that I want to post.

5 Questions

It's Monday and I have no ideas so I am blog stealing from Proud Mommy today.......
1. What are your most treasured possessions?
I would say my kids but they are not possessions, so mine are my photograph's of my family and the letters my grandmothers wrote me while I was growing up. They are both gone now and I like to re-read them from time to time

2. What was the best material gift you ever received?
It's not really a gift but recently my Great-Aunt Barbara gave me a quilt top that my Great-Grandma Cotton had hand-sewed over 50 years ago- it needs to be backed and quilted and I am currently working on that.

3. If you could only wear one outfit for the rest of your life, what would it be?
My really comfy jeans, my V-neck tshirt from Tommy and sandals

4. If a world-famous photographer were going to take your portrait, where would you be? What would be around you or in your hands? Would there be other beings in the portrait? What would a world-famous photographer shoot to capture your image?
I would love to have a portrait of me and my boys, they would be in my arms and we would be outdoors in a beautiful field, I don't even need us to be looking at the camera, I like candid shots better.

5. Where do you feel most at home?
My parents house, and my Grandpa Powell's house

The Break-up

I went through a break-up recently. No, not my marriage. I broke up with my best friend.

It's odd really, when you are close with someone you consider a sister, someone you have traveled with, your kids are friends, you do everything together and then you are not friends any longer. It's almost like a death. You go through the same cycles of grief, the denial, sadness, anger, then the acceptance. It can be as traumatic as divorce. Someone you were extremely close to now you are avoiding and not speaking to and all forms of communication have stopped. The hard part in this is that we work together so we see each other every work day.

I still don't know what happened. I know that I have been accused of saying things that I do not recall saying. Actually, I have never been told what I supposedly said, just that I was overheard saying things. This is news to me. In the ten years we were friends I never said anything bad about her. I loved her like a sister.

At first I reached out and tried to understand, I believe there were other things going on in the undercurrent of her life which contributed to this. I apologized profusely for things that I did not what I was apologizing for. I cried daily, at home and at work. I could not understand.

When I got a response in the form of a nasty email I was stunned. Accusations and betrayals coming out of the mouth of someone I thought I knew. I weeped and cried and kept to myself. I felt literally like I had been stabbed in the back. I realized that when you share yourself so openly with another person, sometimes all you are opening yourself up for is heartache.

I became angry and thought "how dare you", I thought about things constantly, I hashed things over in my head trying to recall what could have happened and always coming up with nothing.

After a few weeks her husband called me and tried to figure out what happened. He didn't even know. We discussed at length what could have happened. He wanted to try and get us together to get some type of conversation going but I knew her and any kind of ambush would have made things worse.

As time has gone by I realize now that we will probably never be friends again. I have not talked to many people about the situation especially at work, I just don't trust that many people. The people who do know about it know the basics. I still have never said anything bad about her.

One thing I have realized now that nearly five months have gone by is that I am just as happy now as I was when we talked constantly every day. I have many, many friends. People who love me no matter what. People who would come to me and tell me "Hey, you have upset me by what you said and I want you to know why" That is all I have ever asked for, just tell me what I did so I can understand. I have noticed other things now that I am separated from the situation. Things about her that I didn't notice until we didn't talk and I have realized that maybe this was not meant to be a lifelong friendship. Maybe this has run its course.

A chapter has closed in my life and now I just need to move forward and look ahead to better times.