:: Stop & Smell the Roses ::

"It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones."

Jean Webster
Daddy Long-Legs

It's Official! I'm a Football Mom, Too!

Today is a Banner Day in my household! It can't get much better than this!

One child a Freshman in college, another a Freshman in high school. My big fish in their little ponds have now been dumped into bigger ponds! AND my baby played in his first official High School football game!

The youngest of my three children, the smallest of my babies ... the little boy who barely weighed 7 pounds and whose little bitty legs looked like twigs when he was born has grown into a 260-pound Defensive Tackle with a size 12 shoe that any Football Mom would be proud to call her own!

We put a football helmet and pads on this child at six years old, and he has played with all his heart ever since. The game has not always been his friend ... he has been discouraged and disgruntled at times, but he always comes back to it. And that kind of perseverence can only be explained by a genuine love of the game!

Oh, and he's a pretty good kid, too!

It's Official! I'm a Hokie Mom!!

We delivered our daughter to her college dorm room tonight. A fairly painless procedure for us ... if you compare us to the thousands of other exhausted parents and students who had been =Moving In= all day. Remember, my daughter is very independent and self-sufficient ... she had already filled her car to the brim and carted =just= about everything she owns to her new address earlier in the day.

Oh, and she's very pretty, too (even if I am her mom) ... so there were plenty of "Frat Boys" available to help her unload her car.

So all we had to do was walk her to her door, kiss her good night, and tell her that we love her ... and that we are very, very proud of her.

But surprisingly, what I thought would be the easiest part of this whole "High School to College" transition with her actually turned out to be the hardest. The hardest part was coming home ... coming home, knowing that my daughter would not sleep under the same roof with us ... coming home without her, turning off the front porch lights and locking the door ... locking the door to a home that did not shelter all of my children for the night. And, until tonight, I thought I would welcome the day when my daughter grew up and didn't need us any more.

Our job is almost done. And I think we've done a pretty good job preparing this young lady for what's next.

Family :: Friends :: Fireworks

Happy 4th of July!

:: Pomp & Circumstance ::

... our daughter graduated from high school this morning. This beautiful young lady ... this child who has been pulling away from me since the MINUTE she was born eighteen years ago ... has cleared another one of the biggest hurdles into adulthood.

This young lady walked across the football field -- on this beautiful Spring morning -- with her head held high and her shoulders back and proud ... and casually accepted her high school diploma. She knows she has worked hard to gain this little piece of paper ... and she realizes that not every one of the children she started kindergarten with twelve years ago was in that line of graduates with her this morning. But she really has no idea of the significance of her hard work and efforts over the past twelve years. She has no idea how this persistence will pay off over her lifetime. I doubt if she will ever know how proud we are of her.

:: Run for the Roses ::

Congratulations to Mine That Bird ... winner of the 135 Kentucky Derby.

It's the chance of a lifetime ... in a lifetime of chance

:: Coincidences -- Or Cosmic Signs? ::

Not too long ago, I mindlessly turned down a street that I NEVER travel to reach my daily destinations. I was just driving down the road, like I do EVERY morning, and WITHOUT thinking ... and at the LAST possible SAFE moment ... I turned down this seldom-traveled road.

Okay. I'm thinking that I'm not QUITE sure why I did THAT, but change is good; right? And then I ran right SMACK into this sign. So I had to turn around. Stop. And take THIS picture:

I won't go so far as to say that this experience was divine intervention ... but I truly believe that I was supposed to drive that route ... that I was supposed to see this message. I'm still not quite sure what the message is, but I feel certain that when I'm supposed to understand it, the message will become crystal clear.

But in the meantime, this seemingly insignificant discovery has made me think. It has made me think about all kinds of things. And I wonder if I'm alone in my thinking. Am I the only "unsettled" middle-age wife, mother and daughter who is questioning whether or not I'm headed in the right direction? Am I the only one who questions if the path I have chosen in my lifetime will lead to undying love, happiness and success? Am I supposed to be "here" ... where I am right now? And am I headed toward a place where I want to be ... for my own personal reasons, and not to satisfy an obligation to or an expectation of someone else?

Or EVEN worse! Have I become so buried and overwhelmed in the daily responsibilities and obligations that go along with being a wife and a mother that I neglect to wonder "What If?" Have I become so complacent and so comfortable with my current state of being that I've lost myself? Have I become so overwhelmed by the obstacles that I have given up on ever finding a way around the barriers?

and I ask myself:

What If I had paid better attention in school? What If I had actually studied and applied myself? What If I had followed my head instead of my heart, even way back then?

What If I had listened to my Grandfather when he explained to me how a GFI circuit worked ... AND What If I had watched just a little more closely when he showed me how to wire it into a receptacle? What If I had known then that he would not be around to show me again when I really needed to know how?

What if I did not choose the Path of Least Resistance when that choice and that path was so critical to my future happiness and success? What If I had not settled and What If I had not sold out all those many years ago?

AND MAYBE THE MOST CRITICAL OF ALL:

What If the planets are now aligned in my favor and the cosmic void is screaming at me: "Wake up, Stupid! This is your call! Get to work!" ?

So NOW I'm thinking that Middle Age is a fantastic impetus for accomplishing goals and making difficult & painful decisions. Time marches on ... Life rarely grants us a "Do-Over" ... and if something is to be done, it MUST be done now ... or at least within a reasonable & foreseable future.

and What If this license plate is trying to tell me something, too?

I have been told that walls are built to define who we are and what we can achieve in our lifetime. We are who we are ... but we can only become who we are based upon the definitions of these walls. And I believed that. For a long time, for a life-time, I trusted this notion ... just like I trust sight-unseen that there is a merciful God in Heaven. I trust that sunshine will eventually shine through the dark clouds, and I pray that good people are rewarded for good deeds and forgiven for their sins.

But now I wonder about the insignificant and random cosmic signs that appear out of nowhere -- in the parking lot when I'm JUST paying the cell phone bill or on the side of a road that I rarely travel down, on a morning when I begin to question who I am and where I'm going and what I can achieve in the second half of my life. Are these signs scattered for me to find in some fabulous treasure hunt, a beacon of sorts to guide me along? Or are these only random coincidences in a life that is powered soley on auto-pilot? I hope so ... and I hope not.

And I am intriqued ... no, MESMERIZED by the underlying current of subconscious decisions and encounters that are taking me to places I don't recognize. These random cosmic signs and chance experiences are requiring me to trust myself and to rely on my instincts and to believe in myself, another auto-pilot, if you will ... for the first time in my life.

It never ceases to amaze me how significant the insignificant can be

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