Party of Five

The past few days, my girlfriend has been going through the joys of "early labor"...but when you're bringing a baby into this world, labor is labor, and it doesn't matter at what stage of it you're in.  It's the craziest, worst, and most anxious feeling all wrapped into one anticipated moment - that moment when you introduce your child to the rest of the world. The past few days, my girlfriend (not the same one) has been packing up her son's bedroom in preparation of his leave for college.  Her "little boy" was born just 6 months before Mr. D. and I were married, so I've seen this boy as a newborn, and all the way through including his graduation party last summer.  I can't believe he's grown up enough to be living on his own.  And didn't he learn that he's breaking his momma's heart by leaving home? Both of my momma friends are having life-changing weekends. My momma friends keep me humble.  It doesn't matter ho...

I'm a thinker. I think about ...everything. Okay...maybe once in awhile, I over-think things too. But really, for the most part, I just like to think. If I'm meeting with someone, I'll think prior to the get-together about how it may go.  I'll rethink the entire get-together on my way home. I'll think of what I did say...and usually also, what I should have said instead.  (Told you I sometimes over-think!) Last night I watched a movie that kicked my thinker into high gear. Blue Like Jazz  began as a book, that I was highly encouraged to read almost 8 or 9 years ago.  At that time, unfortunately, I couldn't possibly have began reading a new book, so it was quickly set aside in my brain.  The title, however, stuck with me. Last night, Mr. D. mentioned that he had heard of a new movie that was out on DVD that "sounded good."  The title? Yep.   Blue Like Jazz. I'm not even sure how to explain this movie.  A Christian movie?  e...

Hello old friend.  It's been a few weeks! I was finishing off my "40 in 40" thing, then actually TURNING 40, and fighting  advocating for my children ... all of that was exhausting to say the least.  But now I have a handle on being a 40 year old woman, the school board came through for my children (on this one issue, at least), and I have the itch to start writing again. Of course, there's the genealogy thing (also known as my obsession)...and I have a number of projects open in that arena right now between finishing up my Daughters of the American Revolution application, my Gallia County ancestor application, Mr. D.'s ancestors, the two Buffalo friends who asked me to look around, maintaining my Paulding County, Ohio website, and of course, writing more on my own ancestors.  I need to micromanage my genealogy time I think. The monkey children are heading back to school....soon.  But I know this final week of summer vacation is going to drag at a sna...

Another school board meeting - another blog post.  I wish that I wouldn't be prompted to write after I attend these things...but it happens.  I'm a woman, I have emotions...and it happened on my birthday and gave me a headache, and that annoyed me. So I'm going to write about it.  Because I can.  Because it's my blog.  And there's this thing called Free Speech. I'm not the only one who writes (or vents) under the guise of free speech.  Someone somewhere associated with our school district has chosen to create and write in the blogging world and use it to "inform and comment on educational issues" within the school district.  He or she is an anonymous blogger, so I have no idea as to who it is...and even if I did know their name, what are the odds that I would actually know this person?  Pretty slim I imagine.  I'm not a western New York native, and until recently I've tended to stay inside my little bubble. When I first stumbled upon sa...

Happy Birthday To Me! Today is a day when I can totally get away with being a wee bit selfish and not feel a bit guilty about it.  (You know, as opposed to the other 364 days of the year when I'm completely guilt-ridden over my selfishness)   It's a day that I can get away with doing absolutely anything that I want to do (that doesn't involve anything illegal), and nothing that I don't want to do (Well except for taking a princess to her first soccer practice, and going to another insane school board meeting which will accomplish nothing except for giving me a birthday headache).  I don't have to share chocolate, and I can have as much Mt. Dew as my body can tolerate.  (Not really different from any other day, other than the guilt-free part) At this point, I'm thinking it's a TacoBell for lunch-genealogy-filled-kind-of day.   Nope, there are no crazy draped in black celebrations, and there are no "lordy lordy look who's 40" sign...

Congratulations!   To you - because you made it through 40 days of my rambling, crazy memories, and going a little deeper into my sometimes scattered brain. To myself - for sticking to this whole "40 in 40" thing. This whole past year I've been looking forward to this coming birthday.  I actually began embracing my birthdays recently, completely enjoying them, some might even say "milking" them for all their worth.  I believe in a birthday week, not just one day, and if I could I'd go for a birthday month. This is just how much I love my birthday. Last year? THIS was how much I loved my birthday!  (Okay, it wasn't actually on my birthday, but a few weeks prior to.  But I did say that I would take a birthday month if I could get one...) Now I know you're dying to know about the big 40, and how I will be celebrating. You'll just have to wait and see....I don't even know yet how I will be celebrating tomorrow!! (That's n...

I am not getting old.  I don't think I look old.  I wonder if that saying is true? "You're only as old as you feel?" Well I don't feel old... Except for during hubby's vacation weeks when he keeps us all jumping from one day to the next.  Then I feel old.  And tired.  Today for instance, on the last day of his 2 week  vacation...I'm feeling exhausted and ancient. But I still don't think I'm old. But in August 2010...I had an "old" moment.  I think it stemmed from a memory I had of my parents going to their 20th high school reunion, and then all of sudden...without warning...I was going to my own 20th reunion, and the realization that...oh my god...I'm as old as my parents once were.  (And we all know that our parents are always and have always been perpetually "old") It was a small graduating class, unless you graduated from a one room school house.  My own children will graduate in a class of approximately 300 kids,...

Shortly before my 37th birthday, in the midst of my genealogy obsession, I had run across information on my Parrish family ancestors that had been published in a few books by Irene Parrish Baker.  I asked my mother if she had ever heard of a "cousin Irene", and she had not.  The people she had wrote about were the same people I was researching, certainly we had to be related. Inside the 3 family history volumes she had already written, Irene often referred to an upcoming fourth volume dedicated to the history of the Parrish family.  Had this volume been written?  Was she still working on it?  Was she even alive to work on it?  I had gathered from what I had discovered of this long-lost cousin that she was no longer a young woman in years.   Silly me for not giving credit to the Parrish women! At 91 years old, not only was she still alive and kickin', but yes - she was still working hard on that last family publication! And after making contact with h...

Is there anything better than the best of friends to share things with?  I'm lucky like that.  I happen to be surrounded by "besties" who share my love of all things Broadway. I came to my love of musicals all on my own, but somehow I managed to marry a man who enjoys them (or at least isn't completely opposed to watching them with me) and also having two bestest friends whom I can sing and enjoy a good musical number with. When my girlfriend called me years ago, alerting me to a new musical that I just HAD to hear, I laughed and said ok...sure.  When the CD arrived at my house I laughed and said to myself...sure.  And then (and I can't believe I did this.)  I shelved it.  I actually put the CD up on the shelf to listen to at some undefined point in the future. This was the same friend who I was able to share the experience of seeing "Phantom of the Opera" for the first time with in Toronto - Actually, we saw it twice.  (My mind wants to remember...

I was bitten. I don't remember exactly how or why, but I had picked up some old papers one day that detailed a few events of my grandfather's early life and his family.  Just a few tidbits really.  But looking at that information, seeing the names of people I had never known - the reality hit me that these people were my family, flesh and blood relatives of mine, a real part of me. And that's when it happened. Somehow I had become fascinated...completely obsessed with all things related to my relatives.  The dead ones.  Who does that?   Yep...me. It wasn't just about trying to find old family photos, and talking to family members about what they remember, suddenly cemeteries became as much fun to me as an amusement park.  And libraries?  Libraries are a WONDERFUL place! Just point me to the closest microfilm machine please.  I've never been in trouble with the law, but I've spent more than my fair share of time in county courthou...

I grew up being part of a family of 4.  Being a grown-up, I was content having my own little family of 4.  Mom, dad, son, daughter...perfection, right? Ha! If you've been reading and following (and hopefully you have been!), you'll know that I had absolutely ZERO control over when our son and daughter came into our lives.  Granted, I was there and part of the process, yes.  But it was God's timing when these children came into our lives, no matter how hard I tried. And if I didn't have control then....guess what?  I certainly didn't have control after they were born and I thought I was done having kids. Ha Ha! My little super-hero, little dude, comedienne extraordinaire, and little surprise was born in March 2006. I was scared at the thought of being out-numbered by the kids in this house. I was petrified at how I could possibly care for two little ones at home...three when our oldest came home from school in the afternoon. and.... I was comp...

The summer I turned 33, was a traveling kind of summer.  And those are a rarity. It's not so much that we don't like to travel, it's just that real vacation time, away from everything, just doesn't happen often for us.  Living away from his parents when we were first married, meant that vacation time was spent traveling to Buffalo to spend time with them.  Once we moved to Buffalo, we began to vacation in Ohio, seeing my family and our friends there.  Add to that - financial reasons, or time constraints, and now having two kids... "real" vacation time away just didn't happen for us on a regular basis. As life happened, my mom had moved to Florida - and that opened a big vacationing opportunity for us during that summer of 2005.  Baby girl was still young enough to travel easily, and D-Man had turned into a young lover of all things Hollywood (age appropriate of course), so we hooked up a portable DVD player in the car for him, and set off down the ro...

I had no idea.   I had no idea what I was in for having a princess grab ahold of my heart the way that she did. But grab hold she did. And no amount of words can even come close to describing the joy of being able to welcome a happy and healthy baby girl into our family that year...so I'm not even going to try.   C.

By the time I hit my 31st birthday, I had become a student again.  It wasn't something I had ever planned on doing, going to Bible School, but the opportunity had presented itself and I jumped on it.  I registered as a "part-time" student (because being "mom" was still my full-time job), and each semester found me registered for another class...sometimes two. One night a week for 3 hours I sat in a class with other students all of us hoping to gain a little knowledge and insight into the topic at hand... Christian Ethics Acts and Paul's Letters (All-time FAVORITE class) Book of Hebrews Women in Ministry New Testament Survey Old Testament Survey (Another favorite, but completely burned me out) Marriage and Family World Religion (Took this one a couple of times, once audited and then for credit) What was I thinking taking myself away from my family not just one night a week, but also taking the time to do the class work and writing those lengthy p...

(Forgive me...this is long...it was a long year!) As I write this, like many others around the world, I am basking in the excitement of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Ten years ago, it was the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah that grabbed ahold of our attentions. While today we are celebrating the achievements of Gabrielle Douglas and Michael Phelps, in 2002, we were focused on Sarah Hughes, Bode Miller, and Apolo Anton Ohno. It was also during the Winter Olympics celebration in 2002, that I discovered I was pregnant. I was surprised, and not entirely sure I was ready for another baby, but having only one child was never really part of "the plan", so...we moved forward spending those first few days and weeks reliving the excitement of what another baby would bring. The happiness was short lived, as I would miscarry this baby just a few short weeks in...and we moved on.  We moved on through the year and throughout the summer, into August. I turned 30, and ...

Something about being a mom. Something that kicks in...a gut instinct...a "momma bear" mindset that says we will protect our kids from anything and everything that might threaten them. There are also times, when despite how badly we want to hold them, keeping them safe from all of the evil in the world...we can't. My little guy was not hurt, injured, or distressed at all.  In fact, at only a year old, he was not concerned or even aware of what was going on in his world.  And this was HIS world.  It was his world, and his future, and it was being threatened like we had never known that beautiful autumn morning in September. And there was nothing I could do about it except to watch it unfold on the television. It was a "normal" morning for me, Mr. D. had gone off to work, baby and I were at home, and I had just finished my shower and sat down to catch a glimpse of what was happening via The Today Show. I turned on my TV at 9:03 that morning, precisely ...

A few weeks before I turned 28... ...I became a mom. A quick history...late 1998, we had miscarried our first child.  Exactly one year later on what should have been a sad day of remembering...I was taking a pregnancy test, and watching the results turn positive!  Even though I remembered with dread what had happened just one year before, I was now celebrating the fact that another baby was on the way. I had home pregnancy tests telling me I was pregnant.  I had a doctor telling me I was pregnant.  We told all of our friends and family that we were pregnant, and although it wasn't said, I know that everyone was hoping for the very best this time around.  Well this time around was definitely it when at 7 weeks, "morning sickness" kicked in like a rocket, and just an FYI...the "morning" part of morning sickness is a complete lie.  It wasn't just in the morning, but lasted all day, every day for seven weeks.  It seems like such a short time no...

Columbine. Anything that may have been going on in my life pales in comparison to what happened that April day in Littleton, Colorado. A spring day in Buffalo and another day at work for me, when the word of what had happened that morning came across media outlets. Two armed students, duffel bags filled with explosives, and one hour that will remain a nightmare to so many students and parents. I think at some point we all shed tears for those who were killed that day, either on that day or at some point in the future while those directly affected mourned and said goodbye to those they had lost.