Pulling back on the reigns

I don't really know how time gets away from a person. I have those days at work where I look down and its five or I'm laughing with a good friend and glance at the clock and its after midnight...but somehow 13 years slipped through my fingers like sand. How did it go by so quickly? 13 years is not a blink of the eye...so I'm confused and scared. Confused that time seems to have vanished and scared because it means I only have five years left.

F-I-V-E. In 5 years Luke will be going off to college. We only have 5 years left to turn him to a young man ready to leave home and set off into the world. Yes, we hope that he will stay at Auburn but he wants to go to Duke...or Kentucky...or LSU? Yes my child wants to go to LSWHO! ...in FIVE years.

THREE...in 3 years my son is legal to drive. Drive a car! Well of course he wants a truck, but in any case an automobile. A car? Luke will leave my driveway and so will my heart, soul, and mind. What about drunk drivers, and people who text and drive, or the person who runs that light, or the rain...How will I survive that worry?

Time keeps on slipping into the future and its faster than I can handle. I need a hand break or at least an "oh crap" bar to hold on to- because its all too fast. My baby isn't a baby any more. He's a young man. A teenager. Wow.


Momma's hug your babies a little harder when you leave for work. Play in the floor with them just a few minutes longer. Watch them practice what they love. Time transforms those babies into young men...and soon my young man will be a young adult, leaving home.

Memories...what triggers yours

The frontal cortex. What an amazing part of our brain! In my opinion nostalgia is triggered more quickly by a quick whiff...than any other organ. Take the smell of a fire or a burned up house for instance, if you've ever experienced it I seriously doubt you'll ever forget it.

Odor to object memory recognition is so powerful that it can trigger memories from my childhood in a flash. To me that is a miracle. What a gift.

OK so this is getting weird where am I going with this?

On the eve of my wedding anniversary...I married Brock Saturday June 30th a few years ago :) I am reminded of how incredible my life has been. God blessed me with a true soul mate. A best friend, a lover, a provider, a husband. He is the epitome of what every woman should have in her marriage.

Brock and I began long ago. We had our ups and downs but ultimately God always brought us back together. We started our teen and adult lives together and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will be together until death do us part.

Ok so back to the olfactory message I began with. On the eve of my anniversary I walked past a bunch of flowers that were used in my wedding and immediately...

There we are. Standing together...in front of our family and friends promising to love and cherish...

There has been a lot of loss for us this year but at the same time God revealed something so powerful and wonderful that I truly am in awe. My family is more precious than any material object on the planet. As long as we have each other...my nose can bring back the "stuff" that we've lost. I can close my eyes and see it.

I look forward to finishing what we started...and with the help of a good sense of smell nothing is ever truly lost.

A picture really is worth a thousand words

I guess because I want warmer weather to be here, NOW, I've started cleaning like spring has sprung. During our cleaning journey I have uncovered a lot of pictures that have flooded my mind with memories. Finding old pictures of times I had forgotten is like putting on a winter coat and finding a $20 bill in the pocket! It just makes my heart happy. With my happy heart I sat down long enough to go through nearly all the pictures of my life from infant hood, toddler, kid, teen, and adult. Let me tell ya' I've probably got some of you...that you'd rather I didn't. Holy crow at the black mail. Prom pictures, Panama City pictures (I know some of these folks don't even know these pictures were taken...and WOW!), Easter pictures...every holiday...every season of my life. It was fun.

Fun until...I started looking at my children and their seasons of life. My God. My children are growing up! Yeah its a cliche that every parent, grandparent says, "...my babies aren't babies any more..." But hold up!! I have a 12 year old?!?! When did that happen? Luke is on his way to a teenager? Catherine is 8?!?! and my baby, well she came out as a 21 year old.

Then as I start to look at the pictures I see that I've stopped taking as many pictures as I used too. Poor Luke has every second, every breath, every event recorded on film. Catherine I did pretty well but poor Elizabeth...it's kind of sad. What's up with that? I guess I got to the third baby and decided...."Well, just keep up with us kid and you will be fine!" So I must remedy my lack of photos of sweet Lizzie Bell and on my journey to do so... it makes me want to take better pictures.

I would LOVE to take a photography class or at least take the time to get my camera off of the automatic settings. I have a good eye some times but have no idea how to use our fancy camera with all its buttons and knobs. YouTube has some online videos I plan on checking out and maybe there is a class out there for novice photographers...I live in a college town...there is some artsy, fartsy kid that would be willing to teach a grandma, what ya' think?

I think this is going to be fun! So get ready...my pictures are going to start popping up in bulk :)

Some wounds just won't heal

I don't know what has gotten into me lately but my tendency to hold a grudge has grown. It's really retarded too... because most of it is over things that happened...YEARS, ago! Be that as it may, I am dragging some skeleton's out that need to stay underground in a bunker. The big question is why? Why am I even thinking about things that happened so long ago and why in the world am I angry about it? Maybe my inability to deal, pushed issues aside and now in all my spare time (yeah right) I have allowed some unresolved issues to resurface? Whatever the reason I am angry that I'm angry. How stupid. So I started running again in hopes to channel my inner Forrest Gump and just run it out. So far it isn't helping.

I'm the perfect definition of a plotter-(schemer,a planner who draws up a personal scheme of action.) I don't usually react immediately. I wait for it...and boy I can wait for years. Talk about character flaws, being able to plan out revenge that may take years to execute. That puts me in a category of scary, not nice, people. Hey look, after all these years it is what is! I'll also admit that I usually don't stay acutely mad. I've always prided myself in the fact that anger didn't have a hold on me. I would let it go or...start plotting. And again I realize this plotting thing isn't healthy but...

God has all the answers. I know that I'm not on my time table. I realize that one day I will sit with Him and He will show me what I should know. It still doesn't change the fact that I don't understand why? Why?

So I'd love to hear how you deal with anger? How do you deal with issues that can never be resolved? I'm hoping I'm not the only one that has a chapter or two in their book that either needs to be ripped out...or burned.

FB freaks me out...

Being married to an IT professional means I'm exposed to an array of geek invented pleasantries. I say this because if it weren't for Brock (my personal IT professional :) I probably wouldn't know how to turn on my phone. He really can make computers do amazing things; however, on the flip side I also see every thing he does to keep me and the kids safe. Hackers are everywhere. I use to only worry about throwing away personal information and a thief stealing my life out of the trashcan but that's really a joke. Thieves steal your life from your desk top rolling your personal information right over to theirs. With that said it has really gotten me on a kick about Face Book. I cannot believe how much information people share. It blows my mind. It's like a soap opera, drama, thriller, comedy, all rolled into one.

Don't get me wrong there is a side of me that believes Face Book is great! It's wonderful to see the pictures of the people I love and wouldn't get to see much of otherwise because time and distance keeps us apart! ...But what about the people I don't love... and don't love me? Why am I friends with them? Well I'll tell you why...I didn't realize a couple years ago when I created my account exactly how face book worked. I had no idea what face book "STALKERS" were or that people looked at your life just to be nosey. Well 700 plus friends later...I really want to delete my account. As I've grown older there are some things that I value and my privacy is one of them. How can there be privacy with pictures, updates, status changes....etc?!?! Currently I cannot use the bathroom with out three kids coming in and out the entire time! Do I really want people that I'm not close to looking at pictures of my kids? Reading my status updates? The answer is a firm, "No."

There is one other small problem. If I delete my account I can't see what Luke is doing. Yes, I stalk him on face book and will stalk him his whole life in everything he does. All of my children can look forward to their control freak momma being all up in their everything...even when they get off of my payroll :) I could care less if you or anyone else thinks that's bizarre. Privacy is a privilege...and it's other people that I absolutely do not trust. So I have to keep my account but I do plan on making an array of things more private...

It's something to think about...

I Luke is taller than me?