Thursday, December 2, 2010

Catching Up


I can't believe that I have not posted since September 25th! Work tends to get a wee bit busy this time of year for me! Stefan has finished playing travel soccer since I blogged last.......we had trunk or treat at church ....we even had a visit from the Fire Department. Onto November we started the month off with our craft show the first weekend and almost doubled our profits from last year yay! Stefan then was named Student of the Month of November by our town Rotary Club....for an essay he wrote about what he wanted to do when he grew up and how he planned to get there. Of course this essay was written at the end of the last school year, when he wanted to be a Marine Biologist.....now he just want to be a plain Marine. His essay was selected for the research and insight more than for the career! Needless to say we were so honored to go with him to breakfast, listen to him read his essay and answer questions from adults! We had a 25th Anniversary of Ordination Mass the Sunday before Thanksgiving, as a priest friend of mine invited me to the celebration.....then a formal gala the following Sunday, congratulations to Reverend Michale J. Kreder! Before I knew it Thanksgiving was here. I had Thanksgiving at our home.....we had a small group for my family (9) of us, but it was great. Allie spent Thanksgiving in South Carolina with Ryan....but they will be in New Jersey for Christmas.....so excited to see them it has been over four months....we are having Bill's family for Christmas Eve....everyone brings parts of the meal and the host family supplies the house, seats and drinks! It happens fast and furious everyone arrives and leaves at once.....very hectic but a nice evening......I'll be sure to keep you posted. Stefan turned 14 on December 1st....where does time go? This weekend at church we have Santa's Breakfast and then before you know it ........it will be Chrsitmas. I'll try to keep up here.......

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Indian Summer



I can't help thinking that today's weather is a lot like the day Allie & Ryan got married. It is so flippin hot out.....hello it is September 25th. I am so ready for fall. Apple picking and of course apple pie making, sweaters, boots and pants! I guess it would help enjoy this beautiful weather if I wasn't having hot flashes all week long! I had a rough week at work. A good friend passed away, Rest in Peace, Dave MacDonald. I will truly miss his sense of humor, twinkling blue eyes and morning chats....always on Tuesday never on Monday. Dave suffered with cancer for over seven years and most people never knew it. It wasn't until the cancer spread to his liver that he was defeated. Stefan also had a rough week at school.....welcome to the new school year. I would love to know why teachers teach? No one, as far as I know, forces them to be teachers. When they are lucky enough to get a job and to achieve their goal of teaching, why do they turn into children haters? Why are they so mean spirited to their students? Why teach if you don't love to? Why teach kids if you don't like them? It is going to be a l.....o.....n.....g year!
Stefan has his Rite of Enrollment tonight at the 5pm Mass then it is out to dinner with my dear friend Fran and her family for her birthday. Onto 8pm fireworks at White Oak Park, then to a 1:30pm soccer game tomorrow in Union with Stefan. I need to finish my Saturday chores and go pick Stefan up at the park.

Friday, September 17, 2010

And it begins....


Did I ever mention here how much I love summer and the downtime it affords families to regroup and refresh. I do. I am in the minority .....I am not one of those moms who loves when the school year begins and the kids go back to school. I hate school and the invasion of my time with my kids. I hate the homework, the projects ( which we all know the kids don't do, the parents do ), if you have the rare child who does the project with no parental help consider yourself blessed. The running around and coordinating of the whole project issue is an intrusion in my life. Hello teachers are you listening? Projects should be done in school not at home on the weekends and nights that is my time not yours. Stefan is playing travel soccer this year which involves practices on Tuesday and Thursday. We have Religious Formation class on Monday evenings and Tae Kwon Do on Wednesday and Friday and soccer games on Sundays. Throw a full time job into the mix along with a house and a husband and presto it is one big stress ball!
My life has been reduced to emails to my husband and an occasional phone call on our cells. Sorry for the rant. It just makes me angry. I went to a homeroom parent meeting this week at Stefan's school and was told.......there is no parental involvement, they can't get volunteers, there are no tissues for the students....please send in a box, if you live less than 2 miles from school there is no bussing cough up $300 a year for subsidized bussing, there is no tape in any school in the district, there are no after school activities......are you seeing a pattern here. What exactly are our extreme property taxes paying for.....administration salaries and benefits.......and lots of excessive spending not directly enhancing the student life.....hello it's obvious isn't it? Bring it on! Did I mention eleven more months in New Jersey? North Carolina here we come!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

A Sad Day

Since Bill & Stefan are away camping this weekend.....I had plans to wake up early....and hit the ground running....NOT
I put NBC on to have the news playing in the background while I got ready to begin my day and heard the news anchor remember what it was like for her reporting the horrible tragic news that morning 9 years ago. And so it began.....I was glued to the TV the rest of the morning. I always listen to the names being read until I hear the three names from my hometown and then the two names of people I knew from the Port Authority and the name of a brother of someone I used to work with. The tears came out of nowhere and the pall was placed on my morning. The flowers being placed into the reflecting pool as people came up to read the names of those who perished were haunting to say the least. The pain on the faces of all those people, the tears in their eyes, the bagpipes, the violin music, the pictures and yes the American Flags blowing in the wind. When I finally went outside to begin the endless list of errands, I looked up at the sky. It was the same bright blue as the day it all happened. Since one of my things to do on my list was to go to my mom and dad's to help them with something.....I literally drove the same route that I drove that morning....as I got closer to Carteret......I felt as though it was that morning, in my minds' eye. I could still look over at the NY skyline and see those awesome towers only that morning as I got closer and closer to NY the skyline was very different. Those towers at that moment were on fire....you could see big black clouds of smoke in the air and over the skyline. When I got to work I remember thinking I should just go back home, get Stefan from nursery school, get Allie from school and hide in the safety of my home. I called Bill and he told me to stay put until things could get figured out. After all our sleepy little town was far enough from NY City and Philadelphia for our kids to be safe. That night our church had a special Mass and we went....that night there really weren't that many people there.....but in the days and weeks that followed the church was always so crowded. I remembered my sister calling from California (she is a critical care RN) and she and some of the nurses that she worked with were signed up with the government to come to NJ to work at ground zero for recovery......all too soon we realized there would be no recovery....no bodies needing to be taken care of....no need for medical care for survivors.....the phone calls waiting to hear if my Uncle Bob was on the subway below the trade center.....my cousins' husband being part of the NYC Police working at the site.....seemingly non stop.
Then I get a call from the teacher at Allie's school asking for our permission for her to be a keynote youth speaker representing Somerset County youth.....who knew there would thousands of people there hearing her relection....each holding a candle ....each remebering and listening to my daughter speak so eloquently.....we were so proud of her....and blown away how mature she seemed to be speaking up there in the sea of candles and tears. We have a picture of her with Christie Whitman right after her speech! The days and weeks following were days of terror, anger, frustration and prayers......driving to work not seeing the twin towers in the sky any longer were vivid reminders of what happened. The smell in the air....the dust in the air and yes all the stories. The news footage of families wandering around Manhattan looking for their loved one holding tight to a picture asking if anyone had seen this person. The women pregnant with babies not ever to meet thier daddy...the babies waiting for mommy to come home, the newlyweds mourning a future they will never have, the young lovers knowing thier dreams of a future were no more, the husbands, the wives, the grandparents, the sons, the daughters, the aunts, the uncles, the friends, the families, the fire fighters, the police officers everyone gone in an hour time span.
Listening to President Bush comfort the nation on TV seemed unreal. How could this have happened to the USA my great, safe country. No longer safe, secure. We were attacked by terrorists.....I couldn't even begin to understand it all.....yet it happened. There was no alarm waking me up from a bad dream, it was real. How do you tell you children they are safe, not to worry? How do you keep a four year old from asking why? How to you explain to a fourteen year old that it will be ok? How do you ever feel safe again? How long do you keep the TV off when the kids are up? How long do they catch you in tears and want to know why you are crying?
And here we are nine years later.....life goes on...people return to their routine...husbands/wives leave forgetting that important kiss goodbye, children no longer cling just a bit longer in your arms hugging you goodnight, terror and sadness are replaced by anger and revenge and sadly...people forget. Our young men and women are still in harms way,in the Middle East fighting a war that we are not wanted in. Watching my son in law, Ryan deploy to Iraq last July had to be the saddest day of my life. Watching fives buses of young men and women going off to the Middle East to defend our freedoms and to let everyone know that yes we are still America and yes we are still proud....still frightened....still angry.....but American and damn proud of it.
May our dear and mericful Lord hold all those who died on 9-11 in the palm of His hand. God Bless the USA and our troops.
Amen

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Happy Birthday Allison Suzanne


Happy Birthday to my beautiful daughter.
Today I choose to remember and hold onto some of Allie's chidhood memories.....allow me to digress for today my blogging friends!
After an extremely long labor my long awaited dream had been realized.....a baby girl! What a gift form God she has been in my life! It seems like it had been her & I forever....being a single parent.......working fulltime ......no means of supprt except a really sucky job ....when Allie was two I met Bill and our life has never been the same since! Bill & I married when Allie was seven years old and just finishing first grade....it sometimes seems like a lifetime ago!
My sweet little blonde haired, blue eyed girl.....looking like my little angel! We quickly went from Nursery School, to Kindergarten, Girl Scouts, Youth Council, People to People, Communion/Confirmation, 8th Grade Dance & Graduation, High School Graduation,Driving, Church, College, Disney and of course the Love of her Life, RYAN....Dating, Deployment, Engagement, Wedding .......Happiness
I so miss her being in my life , in my home! But we give our children wings to fly and fly they do.
Thank You God for Allie.....Thank You for the Gift of Life, through me......and Happy Birthday to my little Allie Sue Poopie Do......

Monday, September 6, 2010

Work Tomorrow

Spent almost of Labor Day "catching up" on the mail from vacation....the most time consuming was the school paperwork for Stefan's first day on FRIDAY! Way too late for them to start.
I sometimes read other people's blogs....mainly Allie's fellow bloggers....it has really helped me to understand what young military couples are thinking and struggling with and in turn helps me to understand Allie & Ryan....and their choices! I think these young men and women have it right....they live for the day....the hour...the moment.....they love passionately and with their whole heart and they have had to grow up faster than most people their age have had to. They understand how precious life is, how fleeting time is and how their world can change in a moments notice. I have been reading two blogs in particular.....one is about a young woman who is a widow she is under 25 years old and has a baby girl under a year old....who has never met her dad...he was killed in Afganistan before he had a chance to meet her. The other blogger is also a young woman also under 25 years old who had her husband come back home to her wounded. He eventually accidently overdosed on prescription drugs and of course this was directly from the war and the service he volunteered to do for our country! I pray for these young women all the time and for others like them. I thank God that Ryan came home safe in November and that Allie & Ryan were able to realize thier dream of being happily married and in each others arms and lives for ever. When life gets me down (and who hasn't been there) I think of all these young men and women still over in Iraq (50,000) remember and the thousands more in Afganistan.....along with all the spouses and children waiting for them at home and doing the best they can to hold it together until their loved ones return home......hopefully unaffected by what they saw and how they lived.
On to a more happy note....my little girl turns 23 on Wednesday....where has time gone? I remember going into labor on labor day with her.....and my life was changed forever.......Allie starts her new job tomorrow and hopefully arrived home safely from a few days away with Ryan in South Carolina.
God Bless America and Our Troops!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Vacation is over :-(

I forgot to memtion that I got to see Allie for a whole 24 hours the weekend of my dad's 88th birthday. They arrived after my sister's mother in law's funeral on Saturday afternoon and left on Sunday night. I'll take it anytime I can.
We finished out our time here going to Dollywood, Fontana Lake, whitewater rafting and a nice hike up to the ski slope by our house. We did find an intersting country inn right down the sdtreet from our house called The Swag......google it if you get a chance......the rooms start at $490 a night and it looks like our house......I told Bill that perhapw we can turn our retirement home into a Bed & Breakfast....we have the ame look, the same views and can charge less and stay open all year (the swag is only open mid April - the first week in November.
Can't wait to get home to have a manicure and pedicure! Dippy is ready for home too....she can't seem to figure out what she's doing here.
Bill never ceases to amaze me ....we had some center island stools delivered today for the kitchen and in walk the delivery guys with a dining room hutch....I'm like what is that he's like you said you wanted it when we were in the wtore getting the stools for the kitchen so I got it for you.....I love that guy....so sweet. Going out for dinner now then home to do the last loads of laundry and bed for the 11 hour drive home....wish us luck.....and Happy Labor Day Weekend!