- Life doesn't always turn out like you plan... but don't the best things in life sometimes happen when (& how) you least expect them?  "Heart of Life" has been one of my favorite songs (John Mayer, Continuum) of the last few years; has always reminded me that even when things are difficult, life IS still good. -

I started this blog when Dave and I separated 2.5 years ago, and wrote the words above back then...  Now life has taken another turn, and not one I wanted or even expected, until recently.   After almost four years of marriage (this Thursday is our fourth anniversary) we have said our goodbyes, and Dave is moving on, and I'm sure eventually to Florida.   He has said several times in the past few weeks that we are just in different places in our lives- I want to be respectful of him, so I won't go into all of it on here.  But suffice it to say that he truly does not want to live here in Missouri any longer; and I am here, and happy about it, for the next 6+ years, until Jace grows up.  And, I need more than a relationship with him that is lived out in two different states over the next several years.  So, I guess we really are in different places in our lives.   For those of you that know Dave, he is an amazing person in so many, many ways; but some of the very things that I love about him most - his drive, his energy, and just his personality in general - are also the very things that keep him moving, and searching. 

It was two weeks ago today that he moved out, and headed to Dallas,where he's been working during the week for the past six months.  It has been really hard, of course, but I'm dealing with it so differently than I did 2.5 years ago.  I've written a few times on here over the past couple of years about the fact that I've changed more during this time frame than any other time in my life.  Part of that was in my marriage, but part of it was me, as an individual - I know I've grown as a person and in my faith in God, and have a strength- and a sense of peace - that I haven't known before.

He came back into town this past weekend, and we met yesterday for coffee, and talked about the finances and other things that need to be settled.  It was hard for both of us, and I won't lie - part of me is so angry at times, and wonders how he can love me (which I do not doubt), but yet not enough to be willing to stay with me here any longer.  But that is one of the differences between us, and one that he may someday regret.  For me, this goodbye will be final; I can't go back again, even if he realizes in two or three weeks or months that he was wrong.  So I will move on, and start to heal, with Jace and my family and friends.  I don't regret the time I've spent with Dave, or reconciling with him a couple of years ago.  It has been a wonderful time in my life, and I have made so many friends, AND a wonderful stepdaughter and stepson, who will still be in my life.  

It feels good to be able to write this tonight, and know that I am able to do this, and will be okay.

Cash in Hand

It is Friday afternoon and I'm home early finishing up my list to do my grocery shopping tonight. When possible, I like to do it early on Saturday mornings, as Walmart is chock full of all kinds of interesting folks on Friday nights.  But no matter when I do it, I always take two things - cash, and a very precise list, with estimated prices out to the side of each item (if anyone is interested, I have an Excel spreadsheet I can share!).    Call me a nerd, but this has been one of those habit-changing (and life-changing) things that I learned from our Dave Ramsey class a couple of years ago, and it has been such a cool thing.    Wheeling that shopping cart  up and down each aisle used to be a temptation-filled trip, and I would always find several treats that were impulse buys - AND were hell on my diet and waistline. 

Not surprisingly, many people have that same challenge when paying with plastic, according to MSNBC.com's article: Cash Only Diet May Be Key to Healthy Eating.  A recent study showed that people that tend to impulsively purchase when paying with debit/credit card are much less likely to succumb to their junk food weaknesses when paying with cash.  Hello, that's me!   Do I really need to buy that $4.99 tub of Pillsbury Slice and Bake cookie dough?  Uh, no - and paying with cash (usually) curbs that urge!

It has been a good lesson for Jace as well - he knows I have a certain amount to spend each week, and is used to it after two years.  He sees me sticking to the list and making good food choices that are within our budget.  Although I do let him get some snacks and yummy things, he understands and respects that we won't be piling impulse purchases into the cart, just because they catch his eye.

And what's the other trick I've learned with grocery shopping?  Never go on an empty stomach, because then everything looks good!  So I'm off to grab a little snack before we head out to the store. 

Say Cheese

Well, it has been a day - not for me, (well, yes for me also, but that's not something I really feel like talking about) but also for poor Chocko Rocko... stuck in the house from 8:15 this morning until 6:15 tonight... all because he's so quiet in the morning (after he goes out to potty and comes back in to eat) and was most likely in his usual spot when I bellowed "Outside!":

He apparently didn't respond (which is not a surprise - this is the MOST mellow dog ever), and in my haste to get out the door this morning, I just absolutely didn't notice.   So when I walked in tonight, he eagerly met me at the door to the garage, and literally stampeded to the back door to be let out.  What a good boy, he didn't have an accident at all today, held it for 8+ hours!   I'm just going to be better about making sure both of them do make it outside when I shoo them out in the mornings - next time I may not be so lucky!

In other news, I have a new camera - I don't really know how to USE it, but I plan to learn!   It is a fancy schmancy one, DSLR - had looked at a Nikon and the Canon Rebel, but instead ended up with the Sony A55; just liked how it felt in my hands, and it really has a lot of features for me to learn about, so I'm excited.  I've signed up for classes at Lawrence Photo here in town, later this month.

Here are some pics of me and Jace, at my grandparents' this weekend, taken by my brother Rob, with my camera.  Thanks, Rob!   We didn't use a flash - I don't know that we still had the settings where they needed to be to really get the best shots (it was on Auto, so there wasn't much we had to do) but I'll be learning about that in the Lighting class in August.   And I loved the pictures - trying to kiss Jace here, and he was putting up a fight!

Can't believe he's going to be a teenager in less than two months - love him so much, the time is flying by.

July 4th with the family

It has been a long weekend, but I wanted to get these pictures on here before the work week starts - we sure missed Tara, Ann, Susan, Thom and families at PB this weekend, it was good to be there and spend some time with family.

The highlight of our time there was the POOL - Grandmother and Grandpa had actually just had it filled about a week ago, after some repairs and all of the rain/cool weather in April and May. But with the 95 degree temps, the water was wonderful, not a bit too cold! The kids loved it, Jace had a good time being the big cousin to Sam and Eva, both in and out of the pool.

Dad and Dave, enjoying the water and a beer

Jace pulling Sam on the raft

Jace and lil' Miss Eva

Grandpa got his pitching arm back in shape throwing balls for Jace to catch mid-air

Two cool guys in their hats and shades

Sam rode his bike on the driveway after dinner

Grandmother and Eva, ready for church Sunday morning

Isn't Henry adorable!?  Look at that grin!

Grandpa Nick reading a book (shortly after he was
fast asleep with his mouth hanging open)

Henry with his Mimi

Sug and Sugette (about 10pm, all three kiddos fast asleep!)

Eva noticed that she and I both had "shiny shoes" on,
and wanted me to get a picture!

It was wonderful to be there with Grandmother and Grandpa - they have such a beautiful home, and they really enjoy it when we all come to visit.    Just wish we could've all been there together!  Hopefully soon.  Hope everyone has a good week.

Happy Father's Day 2011

Happy Father's Day to my dad, "Nick the Stick" - in addition to being an attorney, Dad has been the municipal judge in our hometown for the last 20 years, and that was Rob's suggestion for his campaign slogan. It didn't make it on the campaign flyers, of course, but it has become one of the many affectionate nicknames that we kids have called him over the years. We love you, Dad.

United States Navy, 1960

Dad and me, 1972

Dad and me 1996

Dad and youngest grandson, Henry, 2011

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This weekend we said our goodbyes to Uncle Chuck, my favorite uncle, who was a wonderful man, father, grandfather, and husband. Jace and I traveled to northern Iowa for the funeral. It was a bittersweet trip, such a sad reason to travel there, but wonderful to see my aunt and my cousins and their families, and spend some time together remembering Uncle Chuck.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck, taken about 10 years ago:

Aunt Mary is my mother's sister, and she has remained a part of our lives since our mother passed away, almost thirty years ago now. Some of my favorite summer memories were at Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck's home in Cedar Falls. We went to visit her for several summers growing up, and this weekend we had a chance to remember all of those things - blueberry pancakes in the mornings, long rides on the bicycle trails, and getting to see our older cousins, Mike and Laura. They were several years older, and already in high school and college when we visited in the summers - I reminded Mike this weekend how he always used to affectionately call us "rugrats" and give us piggyback rides!

Now Mike has a college-age daughter of his own, Emily - it had been several years since I'd seen her, and she has grown into a beautiful young woman, getting ready to start college at University of Iowa in the fall.

Emily and Eva!

Here's Susan and our nephew, Henry, with Mike's wife, Kathleen. Somehow I didn't end up with any pictures of our cousin, Laura - but she is as beautiful as ever, and is married to Matt, with two adorable sons, Michael (8) and Andrew (6).

Of course I did manage to get all kinds of photos of the kids over our two day visit; the older boys stayed busy playing games, swimming, and wrestling in Aunt Mary's back yard.

Cousins - Isaac, Andrew, Payton, Jace, Landon and Michael

The younger cousins had plenty of fun of their own, although they didn't try to keep up with the big kids. Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck's church had a lunch in their parrish family center after the funeral mass, and the Sam and Eva enjoyed climbing the bleacher steps, while Isaac made his rounds visiting everyone.

I was so glad to have made the trip, and that Jace could go with me to see Aunt Mary again, after many years, and to meet Mike, Laura and their families. Aunt Mary and I have communicated by letters and email over the last several years, but I wish that I had made the time to travel and see them. Mike and I talked about this very thing, as we visited on Thursday night - how busy we all are, and that we don't have or make the time to keep up with our families.

This weekend served as a reminder to me that some of the best times I had as a child were spent with my siblings, cousins and family. Today, on Father's Day, I'm thankful for my immediate and extended family, and resolving to make the time to stay in contact, and keep building those memories for myself, and for Jace.

Good Fortune

Summer time is lake time, here in southwest Missouri. Some of my favorite times in the past few years have been with Dave, our kids, and the friends we have made at the lake. We still keep in touch with many of our lake friends, and have been down to the dock to visit a couple of times already this year. And while we love to see them, it also really makes us ready to get our own boat out of storage and get back in the water!

Dave has done an amazing job of tracking our finances each month, and we've both been pretty good about making sure we're staying within budget, so we're definitely getting closer to being able to get it out of storage. That Dave Ramsey, he's kept us on the straight and narrow - a great thing, even if we have missed our boat for the past two years.

A couple of Saturdays ago Dave, Jace and I had lunch at Leong's Asian Diner (I would recommend it, for any of you who live here - a little more expensive than other Chinese takeout, but worth the extra money in my opinion - scrumptious pork fried rice!) We were getting ready to drive to the lake to see Chris and Jana, and some other friends on the dock.

While we waited for our food, Dave took the iPad out, giving me a quick update on paper where we were time-wise with our finances, and we were discussing what we would need to do on the boat to get it back out. Painting the bottom will be the biggest expense, but it needs to be done, and the smart decision would obviously be to do it before we put it back in the water.

We grabbed our fortune cookies on the way out of the restaurant, jumped in the car, and headed south to the lake. Jace and Dave's were pretty typical fortunes, something nebulous about luck or admiration. But mine - now, mine is truly the real thing. Don't you agree??



Unfortunately, we can't live our lives by the cookie's fortune, so this weekend didn't find us at the lake in our boat. But perhaps we will be back on Banana Pancakes by next summer, enjoying the sunny days on the water.

This weekend we had a couple of projects here at home, although the pending rain has kept us from completing the bigger of the two. Dave powerwashed the back deck on Friday, and it is ready to stain, when the weather cooperates. So we opted to start remulching the flower beds yesterday, putting fresh cedar mulch after spreading a weed deterrent. It did rain last night and this morning, so we were glad that we didn't start on the deck. Today we'll hopefully be able to finish the flower beds, and maybe grill out tonight.

Speaking of today, happy 32nd birthday to Tara, the youngest of my sisters!

My sis Tara and her hubby Luke serve as my “blogging barometer” for when I’ve gone too long between blog posts. Every once in awhile I’ll get an email/text from one of them, saying that they are “just checking in to make sure all is ok, haven’t heard anything from you in awhile”… And they don’t mean that I haven’t called/emailed them personally – they mean that my blog has sat silent, day after day after day. True to form (and much appreciated- thanks, guys!), I heard from them about almost two weeks ago, and it has taken me this long to sit down and catch up.

Life has been busy as always; however things are quickly put into perspective when a tragedy happens. Things hit close to home, literally, when a record-breaking F5 tornado swept through nearby Joplin, MO a week ago Sunday. I had a highschool friend who huddled with her family in their basement bathroom while the tornado swept her entire home away. Thankfully they are all okay, although it is hard to fathom the journey that they, and so many others in Joplin, have in front of them as they start to rebuild from literally nothing.

I went with a work friend to Joplin on Sunday, to volunteer with a local church that was coordinating clean-up in neighborhoods. We arrived Sunday about 10 AM, and sat through a brief orientation with about 40 people; we were the only ones in the group who were from Springfield - the rest of the people were from St. Louis, Kansas City, Oklahoma, Kansas, and even Austin, Texas. It was touching that so many people traveled hours to come and help. The coordinator said that they had had counted over 3,000 volunteers come through their church alone over the week, and expected that it would be 5,000 by the time the Memorial Day weekend was over.

As we drove from the church to the neighborhood that we had been assigned, it was hard to even process what we were seeing. Everything looked normal for the first mile or so, as we headed down one of the main streets. Then within just a few blocks it was a stark contrast - trees were stripped down to little more than jagged stumps, houses were just piles of rubble, and cars were smashed, almost all marked with a red "X" to show that they had been checked for survivors. The neighborhood where we worked was demolished - most houses in the two blocks where we were had one or two walls left standing, but the roofs and majority of the structures were in piles in the yards.

We spent several hours helping sort through one couple's property in the neighborhood. The man was disabled from a stroke, and fortunately neither he nor his wife had been home when the tornado hit. They had already spent some time gathering personal items that they could salvage, and now they had about 30 volunteers who helped to carry the wood, metal, stone, and other items into piles on the side of the street for FEMA to come through and pick up. The picture below is their home - the volunteer in the yellow shirt is standing where their kitchen was, behind her (out of the picture) is one wall with some shelves, but the remainder of cabinets and all the contents were in the rubble, covered with wood, tree limbs, metal and other debris.

We worked for almost four hours on this and my friend and I commented that it still didn't feel like we had really accomplished anything, looking at their yard and all of the yards around them. It was so sad, but also uplifting, to see and hear about the numbers of people that have come together to help during all of this. I came home sunburned and tired, but glad I had made the trip to help for just a few hours.

While my Sunday was spent in Joplin, the remainder of my weekend was spent with family and friends - and I have to say that on Monday, I was especially grateful for each of them, after seeing all of the devastation in Joplin.

Paige, Neil and his girlfriend all went with us down to the lake on Saturday to see some friends on the dock and then go to dinner at Chris & Jana's bar & grill, Fish Tales. Then Monday afternoon Dave made a late lunch for us and all three kids, in celebration of Paige's 20th birthday and Neil's 17th birthday, both of which are in May.

Everything else has been pretty status quo, although busy. Paige is in school this summer for eight weeks, has a research grant; we were glad she could make it home for the holiday weekend. As of tomorrow, Jace is done with school (Neil's already out) and we'll have plenty of baseball this summer. Looking forward to heading to Poplar Bluff for the 4th with grandparents and family, AND heading to STL for a Cards game in a couple of weeks.