Saturday, May 14, 2011

Sweetness Saturday

So my life is pretty amazing, yes, there are ups and downs.  At times I think I am a lunatic living in a funny farm with other lunatics (aka my family).   When I'm not a patient in the funny farm, I'm the warden of my very own jail.  OK I'm done now, really, I do have a great life...so today I'm going to list a few of some very sweet things

1.  It's really SWEET that I don't need to make supper tonight, since I'm attending our annual spaghetti dinner at church. I mean I do have to set up and do a little work but it's so much more SWEET to serve a wider range of people than just my inmates (aka family). This event kicks off our pastor's decision to pretend he's young again, as he runs the full marathon in the morning.  Good luck Pastor Sheldon and I'm glad I'm not you!

2.  It's a Saturday and in a normal world many people don't have to work.  In our world, Scott works weekends, holidays, and 2nd shift, however, today marks his 2nd Saturday off in a row with 4 more to follow.  I know SWEET, we get to pretend to be normal.

3.  Right now, at 5:00am (which is NOT a sweet time to be up on a Saturday) my house is completely silent, SWEET. Well except Scott's snoring, I know annoying! Not that my kids would usually be up at this house, it's just that I don't often get silence.  My kids are up early and Camden goes to bed late (he could totally stay up later than me).  By nature, I'm an early riser and I feel more productive and refreshed in the morning so I'm enjoying this SWEETNESS today.

4.  Yesterday, I attend an annual picnic that is put on by my department at work.  This picnic is actually for our special education students at the high school, like their last hurrah before we end the year.  What is SWEET is this is the first year that I actually fully understood why we host this picnic.  I know I've been going for 6 years and I finally get it...it's not about me and the work I have to do or dealing with the behaviors that come with 70 special education students running freely in the park with minimal supervision. I even have to do a "No drugs, no drinking, no smoking, and no sex" speech before they get off the bus, we've seen it all people, they're in high school (which is like adulthood in their worlds).   Any who, I think part of the reason that I am not a fan of the picnic is because I always have to ride the bus, I can never think of an excuse not to-maybe next year I'll think of  good idea.  It's torture sitting on a bus with a capacity of 77 with 70 hormonal, sweating teens and 2 adults (because that's all we can ever fit) on a hot, May day is not SWEET.  Anyway, this year I had 2 different students, both whom struggle with in school behaviors, come up to me and say "This is the best day of my whole entire school year!" and the other "WOW!  I can't believe that you guys care so much about us that you would do this for us!"  OMG...suddenly, after 6 years and countless positive conversations with kids about the picnic, I got it.  Now that is SWEET.  We really do put on a spread for them and they are spoiled, now before you go getting all public school spending too much money on crap like that attitude, the kids do chip in a big chunk of the money.  It's about fellowship, making them feel special, and spreading the love..I'm going to look at the picnic in a whole new light.  I think it is also SWEET that this is the first year there were not sassy, sending you back to school with the police liaison, behaviors! 

5.  We're working on organizing our garage, which is a never ending task when you have kids with stuff like bikes, balls, scooters, and so on.  It's really sweet that my co-worker, HD (hi HD-I hope you're reading my blog), gave me a SWEET idea how to manage the kids balls, it's way better than the bucket or random shelf ideas we were trying to use.  You take a metal shelf (you can buy them for less than $20) and then you use bungee cords across one of the shelves in either a diagonal or horizontal pattern.  We actually ended up going to a local mom and pop type hardware store to get bungee cord off of a spool, Menard's didn't have it.  Scott had visions of the kids trying to get a ball out and the bungee cord with big, metal hooks taking out an eye or something.  Really, he's so dramatic.  This give kids easy access to the balls and it's simple to put them away.  Think ginormous, plastic ball thingy at Wal-Mart, except smaller, filled with other balls, and in your garage...you get the picture?  This idea is amazing.  I texted her last night about my love for her idea and I thought she should patent it but she told me that she got it from some Mr. Do-It-Yourself TV dude.  So way to go TV dude, I'm in love with  the idea.  If you have balls (seriously, you people are sick), you have to do this!

6.  Finally, my family is really SWEET.  Even though I feel like I belong in a funny farm or like the warden at the local jail and I'll admit once I thought I should have been an inmate, I love my family.  Well, it's obvious I'm a mom and I work long hours, I get paid very little, often I'm under appreciated, sometimes I lose my cool, (uhm...I'm getting depressed), you get the point.  I am so truly blessed to be a part of our perfect family of 4 (well more if you count all the pets-maybe we could be on an episode of animal hoarders).  If I do say so myself, I am living the SWEET life. 

Have a very SWEET Saturday and try to focus on some of the SWEET things in your life.

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