Just Simply Holly

The old adage about time going faster the older you get hasn’t been more true that it is as this moment! Exactly 24 hours from right now my youngest child will turn 13! Although I always knew this day would come, I honestly never thought it would arrive as fast as it did!

Where did the past 13 years go? I look back and think about where my life was then and where it is now and it’s honestly not that much different. It’s not that I feel my life is bad, because I don’t! If anything I feel eternally grateful for what I have been given.

Years ago I was told by a very prominent doctor that I would never carry a child full term, let alone give birth. And look at me now, I’m a mom of two wonderful children, well, they’re wonderful sometimes…..LOL But seriously! I truly feel blessed for what I have been given! There are so many out there that go through so many more struggles than I do, but I draw my strength from their stories!

Be forewarned, I’m going to have one of those “Mushy Mom” posts tomorrow…LOL! But I think that you will enjoy it!

Fortunately, it was a good crazy, but let me tell you, this was will be one for the record books! It started out as a quiet, easy going morning. I was able to enjoy my coffee and wake up well before the kids woke up!

My family TOTALLY respected my wishes and did not buy me a gift or a card. I asked them not to spend any money of me for Mother’s Day in lieu of my upcoming trip to California, so instead they each sent me a wonderful e-card and the kids “promised” they’d be on their best behavior all day. I’m happy to say that other than one or two minor attitudes, the kids behaved themselves wonderfully today, so that made this a wonderful Mother’s Day in my book!

I had told my sister that I would bring a cake to her house as part of the dinner and had found a recipe a few weeks ago for a chocolate cake that I had really been dying to try. So, for the first time ever, I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting 100% from scratch. I was a bit nervous, even with all of the baking that I’ve done over the years, I had never attempted a cake and frosting completely from scratch. My worries proved completely unfounded as everyone agreed it was one of the best chocolate cakes they had ever eaten! I was quite impressed myself and plan on tackling other types of cakes from scratch as soon as I can!

We had an AWESOME time at my sisters house! Of course, by the time we got there she and our mother had already drank two glasses of Sangria, so they had a head start on me…LOL! But I didn’t even try to catch up with them! My sister made an AWESOME lasagna and besides my chocolate cake, we also had strawberry shortcake for dessert!

The trip home, however, became an adventure! We pulled out of my sisters driveway and I happened to look at the dashboard of the car (my hubby was driving). I looked at him and said “You need to stop for gas because we will NOT make it home”, but he assured me that we had more than enough gas in the car to make it home. I told him that I had driven that car for more than 5 years and I was certain that there was no way we would make it home, but he had it in his head that we would make it home just fine. Can you guess who was right? That’s right, I WAS! LOL We were about 2/3 of the way home with about 15 miles to go and the car started that running out of gas “chug-a-lug”. I looked at him and he had this look of complete disbelief on his face, to which I said “I TOLD YOU SO”.

See, we don’t drive the Honda that much anymore, so we hadn’t put any gas in it. He drove it up to my sisters house yesterday morning and had used my brother in law’s truck to drive back and forth with the loads of firewood from the trees that they had cut down. So today we drove the truck back up to them and brought the Honda back home.

So here we were, basically in the middle of no where, with no gas and no gas can to put gas in. My husband walked to one of two houses that were nearby to see if he could buy some gas from them, but they said they didn’t have any. The did, however, offer to call the Sheriff’s department stating that they thought the sheriff always carried a gallon of gas with them. So, we waited for the Sheriff to show up, and when he did, he had no gas. He stated that they stopped carrying gas with them quite a while ago. My husband then walked to the other house that was nearby and was able to get a gallon of gas, which was more than enough to get us home. He brought the can out to the car and put it in and as he was taking the can back I decided to start the car. Only thing was, when we ran out, we coasted off to the edge of the road and the car was on a slant, a bad enough slant that the car just would not start. Thankfully the Sheriff’s deputy stuck around to make sure we stayed safe. Between him, my husband and our son, they were able to push the car up onto a flatter area of the road side and after a few more minutes of cranking the ignition and pumping the gas pedal, the car finally started.

I tell you though, laughed my butt off the ENTIRE time we sat there on empty! I don’t know if it was the 2 glasses of Sangria, or just the fact that it had been such an enjoyable day, but I just found the entire situation hilarious!

We got home and had to clean up after puppies, the only damage they had caused was a chewed up tube of lip gloss that brat gurl had left laying on her desk, so that tuned out better than it could have! I made a pot of coffee and got the kids started on their showers, made a few phone calls to let everyone know that we made it home safely and poured myself a cup of coffee.

Just as I sat down with my coffee, the phone rang. I seen that it was my step daughter, so I let my husband answer the phone, thinking she was calling to talk to him, but I was wrong. She was calling for me to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day, which meant a lot to me! For a few years of her life, she lived with my husband and I full time. Although she was a wonderful child, I easily qualified as one of those typical wicked step mothers! I won’t go into the details, it serves no purpose anymore. I will say that it was better than 10 years before the two of us sat down and talked to each other and the only thing that I could offer her was my heartfelt apology. I knew that my mistakes had damaged her relationship with her father, and I offered to remain in the background so that the two of them could mend their relationship. It was a step in the right direction and over the past 2 years all four of us have developed a wonderful relationship with this very amazing young woman!

As a matter of fact, the relationship the the kids have developed with their older sister has grown so well that they are actually flying out and spending some time with her this summer, all on their own. Which leads to the final “WOW” of my Mother’s Day! I’ve known for a while now that the kids were going to go spend time with their older sister this summer, it’s about all they talk about any more and all three kids are really looking forward to it. I had initially thought they’d go for a week, maybe 10 days, but almost choked tonight when their sister asked if she could have them for a full MONTH! While I’m not even remotely against them spending a month with their sister, I’m a bit worried because the last time they spent any time with her was when she came to stay with us for a week, over 8 years ago. I trust her to take care of them, even though they’ll be in a major city over 500 miles from home. But the kids and I have never been away from each other that long!

So I’m torn, yes, they’ll be 15 and 13 by then and their sister is 25 and VERY responsible. I’m just torn you know! What would you do?

I’d like to take a moment and wish all of the mom’s out there a VERY wonderful and happy Mothers Day! I’m just chilling out this morning (no one will let me do ANYTHING), but we’re heading up to my sisters house this afternoon for dinner with her and our mother!

The kids were asking me the other day what we were going to do for their dad for Fathers Day. It wasn’t until they asked me that I realized that it’s only a few weeks away. My husband is like most other guys, he likes tools and gadgets. Since I don’t know enough about the types of tools he really uses and needs for work, I decided that the best thing we could get him for Fathers Day would be in the gadget department.

Since he purchased a new laptop a few months ago, he doesn’t need a new computer, so there’s one thing to take off the list. He also purchased a new MP3 player recently, so I can take that off the list as well. Then I remembered something he said the other night when we were watching a movie. We have an old and very cheap surround sound system that does not work well, and he said something about how nice it would be to get a better system that actually worked like it was supposed to!

So I clicked on over to Buy.com to see what kinds of surround sound systems they had the best deals on and found an awesome Harman Kardon CP40 5.1 channel home theater system with a DVD player AND a powered subwoofer that I could snag for way less than the normal retail price!

I’ll admit that I’m not the most technical savvy person when it comes to stereo type equipment, so I hopped on the phone and called my sister who is. She and I both looked around the Buy.com website for a while, checking out the great deals that they have on every type of electronic gadget you can imagine. My sister couldn’t get over the amazing prices they were offering on their weekly deals and she even snagged up one of these Digital Spectrum pink digital frames that they have on special right now for $59.99!

Anyway, back to me and my search for a surround sound system. Buy.com had several to choose from, and it was not an easy job trying to narrow the choices down, each different system had it’s own awesome features, but ths Harman Kardon just seemed to jump out at me as the best system and the best deal!

And I really like the fact that it comes with a built in DVD player, the one that we have right now is a combination DVD/VCR and we lost the remote for it in the last move, so you actually have to push the buttons to work it, which is a pain, especially with my old eyes….LOL!

Now all I have to do is figure out which day I can order it so that it will be shipped to the house on a day that he’ll be at work and won’t see it so that he’ll be surprised when he opens it on Fathers Day!

Do you ever look back on your life and the moments that forever changed it? Sixteen years ago today was one of those such moments for me! It was the day I said “I DO”. I won’t even pretend that our life together has been easy, because not a moment of it has. But no matter what was going on in our lives, my husband always let me know that he was there for me. He has shown me unconditional love and support through times in my life when no one else would. We’ve been through a “rough patch” lately, but I have no doubt we’ll make it through this one like we have the others!

Here’s a glimpse into the 16 years we’ve been together…

Although we still have a few years to go until we get there, my husband and I were recently talking about our 25th wedding anniversary, which will happen in 9 years…LOL. The thing is, my husband has a “problem” with thinking about going to any type of foreign country, he just wants to stay in the United States…LOL! I’m a beach person, I always have been and I always will be. One of my dreams has been to go on vacation to a tropical beach with beautiful blue water and just relax like I never have before.

Considering that not a single person at our wedding thought we would stay married for a year (It’s now just a couple of weeks away from our 16th anniversary) I think it’s only fitting that if we do make it to our 25th anniversary we do something extra special to celebrate it! I brought up going to somewhere like the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos Islands, but he flat out refuses. Then it hit me, why had I never thought about North Carolina?? So when I brought it up to him, he said it’s a definite option that he’d consider!

Then I checked out some of the nice Condo Hotels that are available because if we take a trip like this I want to be able to have enough room so that I don’t feel like I’m cooped up and I also want something that has kitchen facilities so we don’t have to go out to eat every meal! Condo Hotels are a great option because they offer all the amenities that I’m looking for, and many more. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any that book 9 years in advance, so I’ll have to be patient for a while…LOL!

After being told for several years that I would never be able to have children I found out in the early summer of 1992 that I was pregnant with my eldest child. It was definitely one of the biggest shocks that I ever received in my life, but also one of the biggest blessings!

He was a stubborn child from the get go though! He ended up being almost 3 weeks late and we almost lost him. When he finally did come the doctors grabbed him and ran because he was completely lifeless and blue. His father and I were so scared! But within an hour they brought him back to us. He was as pink as could be and screaming as loud as a banshee….LOL! He’s never stopped once since that moment.

There have been moments, between him and his sister, that I have questioned why I chose to be a parent. But there have been many, many more moments where I realized just exactly how blessed I am to be their parent!

In honor of my son’s 15th birthday, I made a slide show of photos from his life and set them to music. It’s obvious there are several gaps in the photos, but I lost many of the kids’ pictures in 2003. I’m going to warn you, this is an emotional video, or at least it was for me…LOL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEITH!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!

I had no choice but to remove the video from YouTube because I discovered that a questionable website had grabbed the video, and I don’t want a video about my son “promoted” by someone I don’t know! I’m sick right now. I’m not stupid enough to believe that what I put online isn’t available for anyone with an internet connection, but in my stupidity, I honestly didn’t know that people could grab my YouTube videos for “their own”. I still have it on my MySpace account, so if you didn’t get to see it contact me via email and I’ll give you my MySpace info!

As much as I dreaded going to the family party at my sisters house last night, I’m actually very glad I went! It was amazing to see all six of us kids and our spouses, plus all of our kids, plus some of our kids are married or have long term significant others, and then my one niece is a mother herself. There was a total of 30 of us waiting outside when my mom and step father to pulled up. The look on their faces was priceless! They came to my sisters house with the expectation of my sister and brother in law taking them out to dinner, so seeing the whole gang there was quite a surprise! My mom immediately broke down in tears when she realized what was going on, my step father was speechless! The best part of the night was their reaction when they unwrapped their 42 inch TV! Mom just couldn’t believe what she was seeing, then broke into tears…LOL!

Everyone brought a dish to pass so we ended up with sloppy joes, mac n cheese, cheesy potatoes, baked beans, veggies and chips. It was a TON of food, but it was also obvious that we should have made more…LOL! We ran out of sloppy joes and cheesy potatoes by the end of the line. After everyone was done eating we sat around talking. I hadn’t seen my step sisters husband in several years, so it was really good to see him! And my step brother had to be silly, he had brought the brand new Cleveland golf clubs that his wife had gotten him for his birthday this week, complete with fluorescent golf balls, so all the guys ended up golfing in the snow…LOL!

I hate that I made myself stressed out about going to this party!  I was on the brink of calling my sister and telling her I was sick or making up some lame excuse, but I hated the thought of lying to her even more than I hated the thought of going to the party.  Lying just isn’t cool in my book, at all!

My mother and step father are celebrating their 70th birthdays in just a couple of weeks. Between the two of them, they have six kids, so all of us have decided to pitch in and get them one large gift rather than several small ones. Knowing some of my step siblings though, they’ll also bring small, but expensive gifts to the party. Anyway, after tons of back and forth emails and phone calls we finally came to a final decision on what I’m sure will be a very special gift. We’re sending them on a royal caribbean cruise. They’ve talked about wanting to go on a cruise for a very long time, but it’s just not something that they’d actually purchase themselves, so we did it for them! I can’t wait to see the look on their faces!!!!

I was finally able to get the batteries to my camera charged enough to get the pictures from the game Thursday night uploaded to my computer. I haven’t had the time to crop and resize them, but once I do I’ll post them here. As special as they are to me, I’m thinking about purchasing a digital photo frame so that I can always view my special memory of the game!

I love the fact that technology has advanced to the point that it has. When we have special family gatherings there is always more than one photo that I want to put out from the occasion, but space limits the amount of photos that a person can put out. With a digital picture frame you simply put your favorite photos on a memory stick and insert the memory stick into the frame and you can display many photos in just one frame. With many of them you also have the option of adding your own sound, which makes the memory that much more special.

Digital frames make a perfect gift for that special loved one that you don’t get to see as often as you’d like to. Maybe grandma and grandpa live far away and don’t get to see the grandkids that often. Just take some of your favorite photos of the kids and put them on a memory stick, put the stick into one of the many beautiful frames available, have the kids record a special message to grandma and grandpa and have it shipped to them. Imagine their surprise and joy to get such a wonderful gift!