BloggingDangerously

Showing My Appreciation

On Saturday we went to Gettysburg because my 9yo son is a history buff.  The Gettysburg Museum is amazing and definitely worth the trip.  Afterwards you drive around the battlefields.  You can buy a $22 CD that details the trip for you - OR DOWNLOAD THE FREE IPAD APP. (Which I only realized after I'd spent the $22.)

Anyway, the battlefield tour was interesting at first, more interesting in certain places and downright dry in some parts.

Until the Army showed up.

That's right folks, a buss full of Army cadets from West Point arrived to tour the battlefield.  At which point things got a whole lot more interesting.

I think.  I was too busy daydreaming to be paying much attention.

My distraction was so pronounced that my husband noticed.  And commented.

Except that I didn't hear him. Twice.

After the third time I turned to him and said so politely, "Oh, I'm sorry.  Are you still here?"

Luckily he is not the jealous type.

 

 

 

 

Collateral Damage

Last time I went to New York I forgot my toothbrush.  You'd think I'd have the hang of this business travel thing by now but it was the day after I'd sliced my finger and I was not at my best.

I went to the drug store and bought a new toothbrush, neosporin, bandages, bandaids and whatever else I thought would help.

This weekend we went away to Gettysburg because my oldest son is a history buff and I had promised him in a fit of insanity several months ago that we would spend his spring break in Gettysburg and Washington D.C.  I had to bail on the Washington D.C. part because work is still out of control but the tears guilted me into a 9 hour drive on either side of a long weekend.

Still, we had a great time.  We left at 2 on Friday afternoon and pulled into the hotel at 11.   The kids did great in the car - thank goodness they get along!  We went to Gettysburg on Saturday and Hershey Park on Sunday.

I dont care if it ruins your impression of me but I VASTLY prefer roller coasters to tombstones.

We stayed at a Homewood Suites hotel by Hilton.  We had a two bedroom suite that was fantastic.  It was nice and clean and the kids had their own room and the mister and I even found enough privacy to reconsummate our marriage after an EPIC dry spell.

I even brought Siri - which caused me to have an anxiety attack.

My 5yo daughter was playing in the "master" bedroom in the hotel and I heard a distict humming sound.  That is to say, a VIBRATING sound.

Knowing what it was I RACED into the bedroom to recover my lost toy to find my daughter with my toothbrush in her hand.

"What?" she asked me and pressed the button on my new toothbrush that turned it on and off.

I had been so distracted when I'd purchased my toothbrush in NY that I hadnt realized that it was electric.

She wasn't letting me off that easy. "Mama, why did you look so scared when you came in here?" she kept asking.

 

Truth

My kids were asking my husband to do something for them and he kept saying "no."  Finally my daughter turned to me and said, "Mommy, can you please tell Daddy to do <whatever it was.>"

My husband laughed out loud and said, "Do you think Mom is the boss of me?!?!"

They all looked at him like he was a moron and said, "yes." with an unsaid, "duh" at the end.

"And you know what's funny?" I asked them all.

"What?" they answered.

"There will come a day when I am no longer the boss of all of you." I told them.

My husband guffawed.

The kids clearly didn't understand.

My husband helped them, "What mama is saying," he told them, "Is that someday, you will grow up and mama won't be able to tell you what to do.  BUT," he added, "Mama is saying that she will ALWAYS be the boss of me."

They laughed.

FILDI

It's been a rough week but I keep reminding myself that most of life is a choice.

The difference between a good day and a bad day is whether you choose to focus on the fact that you hacked the shit out of your pinky finger with a mandoline and it's throbbing or the fact that you're lucky to be sitting in your fat boy leather chair in your home office waiting for the sound of your children's bus bringing them home to you.

And in my experience the choice is self perpetuating.  On the days I choose to smile at strangers in New York City - even though it would feel more comfortable to put my head down and plow forward like most people do - on those days, strangers give me flowers and cab drivers tell me that their entire day changed when they saw me put my arm in the air and hail them - because until then it had been a slow day and my hail meant their day was looking up.

Funny.  SO funny because on that day it had just started raining and I put my arm in the air in a desperate attempt to stay dry.  And when he told me how HAPPY he was to see me, I cried out, "I felt the SAME WAY about you!"

And we both laughed.

And then later I saw this video and it reminded me that success and happiness are choices.  Sometimes we don't hail them because we are scared and sometimes because we are tired.

But when we raise our hand and hail success and happiness, sometimes they are just as happy to see us as we are to see them!

  

Mama Always Said, "If You Can't Say Something Nice..."

I am having a bad week.  It started on Sunday when a cucumber and I lost a battle with my brand new mandoline and I spent 2 hours in the Emergency Room.

And it went downhill from there.

In honor of mama, I won't bore you with the details but if you have some positive energy you're not using, I could use all the help you can give.