tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90801157170379095452023-11-16T07:03:19.472-05:00capicolaann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.comBlogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-10158268684970993702014-12-05T12:04:00.003-05:002014-12-05T12:11:33.126-05:00All Things MaggieConversations with Maggie because I find her to be terribly refreshing and adorable.<br />
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Relaying to me a story that happened in music yesterday.<br />
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"Mr D. was playing music from different time periods and he started playing a song and suddenly I heard that deep voice and I thought to myself, oh I know that voice, so when he asked if anyone knew who it was I raised my hand. And he called on me because my hand was raised and he said, Maggie who is that singing and I said, oh that's Mr. Johnny Cash. And Jacob gave me a high five and was impressed and then Mr. D. said YES MAGGIE! You're right! He was really impressed with me. And then he asked, do you know what that song is called? And I said oh yes, that's called I Walk the Line and Mr. D. said YES! And then Jacob gave me another high five and everyone was impressed with me and said I was really good at this game."<br />
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Me - You like when people are impressed with you?<br />
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Maggie - YES!<br />
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By the way, when your best friend is an eighty year old from West Virginia you know Johnny Cash when you hear him.<br />
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In the car after listening to Kate lament the fact that she accidentally befriended a rather irritating person and was now deeply regretting being nice in the first place Maggie's response was -<br />
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"Oh Kate, you know what I do? I just listen to what people say and then I agree with everything they say because that's polite."<br />
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Kate tried to persuade her this was a very bad idea and not likely to lead anyplace good and would only mean Maggie would end up with people in her life that she really didn't want to be around, to which Maggie said -<br />
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"Are you kidding me? I love everyone!"<br />
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Please stay young, please stay young, please stay young.<br />
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Maggie came home from school on Monday talking about Elf on the Shelf. She spent a fair amount of time making her own elf and then gave up. I was busy cleaning and cooking and not completely paying attention to her chatter about Elf on the Shelf. We've never partaken in this tradition and I wasn't even sure what exactly it was or what it entailed. She came home Tuesday and started talking about Elf on the Shelf again and so I asked her why she was talking about this so much. She said everyone at school had one and they were all talking about theirs and so she just told everyone she had an imaginary elf. So I did what I typically never do and immediately got in the car to go buy her an Elf on the Shelf. Kate came to the store with me and spent the whole ride there telling me I was literally doing something<b> just</b> because everyone else was doing it and is this really the kind of parent I wanted to be now, to which I could honestly respond, yes, absolutely. I bought an Elf on the Shelf and came home and we put it out and Maggie was thrilled to wake in the morning to find it in the freezer. When she came home from school I asked her if she told everyone she now had an Elf on the Shelf and she said no, that she forgot to, so that was definitely worth the trip to the store. Of course it did give Kate a chance to remind me how pointless it is to try and be just like everyone else.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-35432027193732354732014-04-21T14:11:00.001-04:002014-04-21T14:22:21.258-04:00Tour De Cure - Beast Mode ( as my teens like to say)My century ride happened over a month ago and I thought I would update sooner than this but, you know, life and all. I don't seem to have time to write anymore and I don't think I enjoy it half as much as I used to, so mixing those two things together makes coming on here kind of hard.<br />
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I do have some thoughts on my ride and I want to get them out before I lose all memory of that day.<br />
The entire ride can be summed up with the word windy, but of course you know I like using many words to talk about things so here, let me bore you for a little while.<br />
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I woke around 5 am the day of the ride and ate some sushi for breakfast. My nerves prevented me from eating much else and sushi gives me lots of energy, so it worked out well. I got to the ride with about twenty minutes to spare and promptly made my way to the very, very, very back of the line. It's always good to know your place and get there. This is a general life application, not just a riding thing. We took off at the starting line at 7:30 am. The sun was still rising and everything looked beautiful and hopeful and exciting. I'm not one for pictures so just use your imagination. Imagine several hundred smiling, happy riders completely ignorant of the horrendous winds they were about to face for the next several hours.<br />
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For the first part of the ride I managed to stay close enough to many groups of riders, but at mile fifty things thinned out quite a bit because most people were not riding the entire century. By mile sixty I found myself completely alone. I ride something called a "fitness bike" ( don't let the name fool you - I bought the bike under the assumption it would magically melt away my cellulite, yet here I sit on my cottage cheese behind) . A fitness bike is a cross between a mountain bike and a hybrid, meaning you ride in an upright position and with thicker tires than a road bike. Bored yet? My point is, unless you are in phenomenal shape, keeping up with people on road bikes when you are riding a fitness bike is nearly impossible. Every other person riding this century used a road bike. My sister, who's ridden several centuries, kindly decided not to tell me I would most likely be the only person not riding a road bike. She knows my biggest fear in life involves doing anything that will draw attention to my person, so she kept quiet and I am eternally grateful because I already spend too much time worrying over nonsense and I didn't need that added to the list.<br />
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I rode through some beautiful country towns with rolling hills dotted with orange groves and towns with names like Intercession, where the wind made riding at speeds over ten miles an hour impossible. I thought perhaps God was trying to send me a message, making me ride through a town called Intercession and all, so I decided to start begging every saint in heaven for prayers. I don't really think my success or failure at finishing the ride hit the list of top ten things people were praying about that day, but I really didn't want to quit riding so I prayed all about me for just a bit.<br />
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I rode through some horrendously busy areas like Rt 17 and 92. As I was going down that busy highway with cars whipping past me at fast rates, I got lonely and scared and lost. I called the ride support team and asked them for directions and they told me to head south or north or something, and I told them, no, I am lost and hungry and tired and going on minimal brain function, please just tell me, do I go left or right and they said left, just go left. So I did. And I kept seeing no other riders and cars kept whizzing past me and I thought, oh this really wouldn't be a good day to get hit, why am I doing this? And then I prayed some more, but not for me, I prayed for other people who really needed praying for. I don't like talking about this stuff because I find talking about praying and God not something entirely in my comfort zone, but I tell you this for your possible benefit. If you find yourself in a desperate situation, pray for other people. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you stop thinking about your own self imposed misery and focus your mind on others. Most people know this already but I'm a slow learner.<br />
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At the mile sixty six water break I pulled over, grabbed something to eat and drink and texted my sister, my husband and my friend, Terri. I told my husband not to worry, I felt fine and hydrated and happy and I would text an update at the eighty mile rest stop. Somewhere around mile seventy five I bumped into a group of riders and I wanted to cry happy tears, as the loneliness at that point hit an unbearable level. It was a group of rag tag stragglers, maybe seven or eight people who probably told their original groups to go ahead without them. I rode in the back and just kept pedaling. My body felt surprisingly strong, but my mind started wandering into hopeless territory. Keeping your mind on track is nearly as important as keeping your body there and I started doubting myself and let worry set in. But then we hit International Drive and I cruised by the Copa Loca, the hotel my sister stays at when she comes here, and I made myself laugh thinking about her visits and the time she came all the way to Florida just to see Anthony get his First Holy Communion. She got lost on the way up to Mount Dora and missed the entire ceremony and ended up walking into Mass as the priest was walking down the aisle and exiting the church. For as long as I live I will never forget the look on her face that day as she walked through the church doors. Little did she know that hilarious memory would come back to me several years later, just when I needed it most.<br />
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When I pulled into the mile eighty rest stop I heard people calling my name and I looked over and saw Kate and Maggie and Greg waving and smiling and it may have been the sweetest thing my husband ever did for me, surprising me and showing up like that. We chatted for a bit, until Maggie started asking me pesky questions about whether there was a McDonalds anywhere around because I guess she hadn't eaten in over an hour and starvation had set in and also, this whole thing was boring her so when could she go home and play, and why was I so sweaty and stinky. Guess what parents; you can run,(or ride) but you can never, ever hide from your children, not even on a hundred mile bike ride. Suddenly riding seemed like an absolute treat and I hopped back on my bike and set off for the final twenty miles. Alone again, with nothing but the sound of hollowing gusts of winds to keep me company, I sank back into a state of not quite hopelessness but certainly something close.<br />
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At about mile ninety I spotted two guys who I recognized from the earlier rag tag crew and I pedaled quickly to catch them. They were sweet and told me nice things about how impressed they were with me riding a mountain bike for an entire century. I heard this same thing at least twenty times over the course of the ride that day and had grown quite impressed with myself by the time the rag taggers mentioned it. My burst of arrogance at my mad riding skills boosted my mood for at least a quarter of a mile, but those winds, they got me down again. I kept wanting to look down at my odometer, but I knew if I did I would be overcome with frustration so I kept going until I saw the ninety six mile rest stop. Oh, only four more miles to go, I thought. I can do it!<br />
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As I hit mile ninety seven, then ninety eight, then ninety nine, I wondered why I couldn't see the finish line. And then I hit mile one hundred and I wasn't even back at Lake Nona and I thought maybe I was lost again, but my two rag tag companions kept assuring me it was almost over, we were almost there, but we weren't really because the ride ended being not one hundred miles, but one hundred and four. And four miles on top of one hundred miles is less than fun, especially when you've spent the past eight hours telling yourself that at mile one hundred it would all be over. I told my two new friends to go on ahead without me, I didn't want to drag them down. And for four long miles I did nothing but look down at the ground. That was it. I didn't look down at the ground and try and tell myself uplifting things or pray or think happy thoughts. I just looked down. Every ounce of energy left went into pedaling into what I later learned were twenty five mile an hour winds.<br />
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When I finally did look up I saw nothing around me but some cows and a few houses and a strange looking person up ahead in the distance, flaying and jumping; someone tall and lanky and acting crazy and waving his arms everywhere. As I kept getting closer, I saw it was my son ringing a cow bell and screaming and running to meet me so that he could cross the finish line with me. Anthony told me at least a hundred times that no matter how long of a wait, he would be there screaming for me at the finish and he didn't disappoint. I did the ride for him and he made sure to let me know how much he appreciated it. It was all very sweet and I'm sure if I wasn't completely exhausted I would have managed to cry a little, but I couldn't muster tears by then. Greg and Jane and Kate and Maggie were also there waiting for me. I have never been so happy to see all of them and hug them.<br />
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So there, the story of my century ride. It's over and if you ask me if I'm ever going to do another I will say say, yes, but it will be on my own terms, in my own little neck of the woods here in Lake County. After the century I thought about how dangerous some of the roads were that I traveled on. I was the only person who rode alone, without a team, mostly because I don't know anyone else who wants to ride a hundred miles and I wasn't about to join a team of people I didn't already know. So much of the ride was lonely and scary and if you know me at all, it takes takes quite a bit for me to be nervous on my bike. It's the place I'm happiest and most at peace, but there were huge chunks of the ride where I wanted to call my husband and beg him to come ride alongside me in his car. Me and my bike belong in Lake County. Of course if you're reading this and thinking you want to join me in next year's Tour De Cure, I can probably be talked into getting out of Lake County again. And my lovely husband even went out and bought me a new to me road bike a week after the century was over, so I may even be able to finish in less than eight hours next year.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-53582883036371807472014-03-03T10:24:00.001-05:002015-02-17T14:03:38.598-05:00Per my sister's requestOh wow, I took quite the unintended blog break. This could be the reason I have so few readers. Well, that and the sub-par writing.<br />
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On Tuesday my sister leaves for a week in Ireland and so I am writing this post with her in mind. In the comment section of my last post she asked me to pretend I was giving a commencement speech to college graduates, specifically Williams College graduates. Not only am I not qualified to give a speech to anyone about anything, I am certainly not qualified to speak to Williams students. They are an intelligent bunch and I am less than intelligent. Speaking of which, here's something kind of cute and amusing. My mother used to try and convince me I wasn't as stupid as I believed I was. Sometimes she would tell me I was just lazy with school and that's why my grades were kind of eh. It's entirely true that I was quite lazy, but that's because things were kind of difficult for me, but only in grades kindergarten through college, and when things are hard it's always preferable to fall into a state of laziness rather than try too much. By the way, in the category of other ridiculous things my mom tried to convince me - telling me I didn't look like a boy, even though certain people in my elementary school relentlessly referred to me as Christopher ( my brother's name). Yes, I am scarred for life; go ahead and feel sorry for me, I've been doing it for years and would love some company. </div>
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Between having spent part of my early years looking like a boy and my entire life not being very smart I've barely managed to stay alive, so what could I possibly have to offer the brilliant minds at Williams College? Not much. Of course, just as I was about to quit this post before I even got started, I realized something interesting and important about myself which maybe does qualify me to share my thoughts with the young ones and that is this; I'm very much living the life I always wanted to live. Please keep in mind that I have super low standards and also, the list of things I wanted to accomplish shrunk every year until I made sure the list contained only the most do-able things. So the first thing I would say is aim low and if things get hard, aim even lower. You will get where you want to go with this attitude.</div>
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Joking aside, when I was a kid here is what I really truly wanted in life. I wanted to grow up and get married to a nice man and have kids and stay home with them. Oh I know it's so gross and 1950s and not at all what people at Williams College probably want but the fact is, it's what I wanted and I have managed to do it. I wanted to live in a cute little town with houses that looked like they could be in a Norman Rockwell painting and I wanted for me and my future family to be able to walk everywhere and go get ice cream cones with sprinkles whenever we wanted. I also thought it would be lovely to sit down together every night for dinner and have lively conversations while someone accidentally spilled a glass of water over someone else's full plate of food just about every single night and where I would never quite get the hang of handling this well, but afterward everyone would laugh over my silly overreaction. Of course this all sounds so simple and basic and easily attainable, but it really did take some effort and planning on my part. My point here is, if you really see yourself living a certain kind of life, no matter what other people think of it, try and live that kind of life and if you are blessed enough to wake up one day and realize you got exactly what you wanted, appreciate it. </div>
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What other words of wisdom do I have to offer? Be flexible and don't get too hung up on things not working out as exactly as you hoped. I knew this guy once whose brother really wanted to go to medical school, but he kept getting rejected. The number of rejection letters became so staggering that this guy started posting them on his dorm room wall for all to see, in an attempt to make light of it. After realizing that maybe the life he envisioned living wasn't going to work out, he thankfully moved onto to another dream. I don't know what became of him, but let's hope it was nothing too grand as I wasn't actually fond of him or his brother.<br />
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At one point in my life I wanted eight kids. I thought it would be fun and exciting, but look, I had to let that dream die when I realized my sanity was at stake. Here I sit with a mere four children, but I'm quite happy with that number. Some people would tell me I could have had more kids and handled it just fine, but remember, the most important thing is to be brutally honest with yourself about the kind of person you are and what you are capable of doing. Other people are not living your life and have no idea what they are talking about.<br />
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And this leads me to my next point which is this; don't compare yourself to other people. Don't look at facebook and blogs and twitter and instagram and think people are giving you a clear and honest version of their lives. No one wants to listen to people complain all day and so in an attempt to make it look as though things are going swimmingly, people tend to exaggerate the good and leave out the bad. It's fine, everyone does it, but it's a waste of time to look at the facade of other people's lives and then look at the hard truth of yours and compare.You will never find happiness this way.<br />
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I know it's shocking, but I will offer you even more wisdom. Find a hobby and fit it into your schedule as much as possible. There is nothing wrong with doing something just for the sake of doing it and with no lofty goal in mind. As a matter of fact, oftentimes the thing you enjoy most loses all appeal when you try and add a purpose to it. I ride my bike for hours a week. Yes, it does provide some health benefits, but mostly I just enjoy the mindless pedaling, the smell of fresh air, getting to see all the lovely parts of the area I live in. This winter I decided to sign up for a charity century ride and so I've had to do a lot of training for it and guess what has happened? I've lost some of my love for the bike. The century happens in two weeks and I can't wait for it to be over so I can go back to my aimless, pointless, happy pedaling.<br />
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And one last thing. Loneliness can suck every bit of joy out of your life, so find a group of like minded people and stick with them. I've found this in church - mostly; I admit that yesterday I spent much of Fr Robert's homily planning my after Mass escape route so as to avoid all chit chat and small talk and schmoozing. Church isn't for everyone, I know, but it's a very bad idea to not look for a group of people who share common interests, goals and purpose. Don't quit until you find your group. Life is hard and you need your people.<br />
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That's it. That's all I have to offer. And in the words of The Avett Brothers it really all boils down to this simple thing - decide what to be and go be it.</div>
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ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-50876663686487645432014-01-16T10:14:00.001-05:002014-01-16T10:50:29.037-05:00Five favoritesTiffany asked what my five favorite books and movies are.<br />
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Books first, in no particular order, and of course because I can't stop myself from blathering on and on, I can't just give you the titles, I must go into details about why I like them. If the book portion of this drags on I may show some mercy and come back tomorrow with the movies. I do realize you all have lives to live.<br />
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<u>Pride and Prejudice</u> by Jane Austen - I've read this book several times and I never get sick of it. I love anything by Austen but this one is my favorite. It's romantic, but not sickeningly so, and amusing and completely engaging. Anytime I read the book I keep hoping and hoping that Darcy and Lizzie will just end up together and I get a little nervous that it's not going to happen and then when it does I'm completely relieved. A good book will keep you guessing no matter how many times you've read it.<br />
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<u>To Kill a Mockingbird</u> by Harper Lee - The first time I read this I was in sixth grade. I loved it then and I've loved it each time I've gone back to read it. When I read it I felt like I really was friends with Scout and Dill and I imagined myself being with them and doing everything they were doing. I could feel the hot sticky weather and smell the southern air and strangely enough, even though it does not depict a pleasant side of the south, I would daydream about moving there when I was reading this book. I think a good book will always do that though - make you want to go places you never really even thought about before. When Jane and Kate were younger I read it aloud to them and they also fell in love with it. ( I need to stop using the word love. It's becoming redundant.) Kate returned to school this year and it was the first book they read in class and the teacher had to request that Kate stop answering all the questions about it.<br />
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<u>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</u> by Mark Twain - Like a lot of books I read as a kid and then went back and read as an adult, I loved and appreciated this book much more the second time around . The book is hilarious and brilliant and although a lot of children read it, you really should read this when you are an adult as well, because there are things you probably definitely missed the first time around.<br />
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<u>No Man is An Island</u> by Thomas Merton - This is not an easy book to get through, although nothing by Merton is easy to get through. I read it a few years ago when I found it while wandering through the Catholic section of the library. I was shocked that my small town in Florida even had a Catholic section and I think I may have looked over my shoulder a few times to make sure someone wasn't playing a joke. It is the south after all and boy do some people here not enjoy The Catholics and they have no problem telling you that while you are sitting on a bench in Donnelly Park minding your own business reading this very book. I was waiting for Anthony to finish a class one day and a woman whose son was taking the same class asked what I was reading. When I told her it was a book by a Catholic Trappist monk she said, oh my husband was Catholic but I made sure to get him out, and I thought, how sad for your husband and how amusing that you kind of are implying my religion is a cult. Then I looked at the book title and thought, gee why can't men just be islands because people like this woman are...not fun to talk to. I love this book firstly because it contains so much wisdom and truth and secondly because I found it while I was going through a really exciting time in my faith journey ( just threw up up in my mouth typing that phrase) and I found this book at the exact right moment. It made me think about love and God and many other deep things in a completely different way.<br />
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And lastly, really I have to include it because it was the first book I absolutely fell in love with and became obsessed with reading. It's a children's book called <u>Frederick</u> by Leo Lionni. I read it over and over and over again when I was 6 or 7 or however old I was when we learned how to read back then. (I cannot believe I'm old enough to say "back then" in reference to MY childhood. That phrase should be reserved for people who are at least a hundred.) Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was much older than when kids are expected to read now. This book is about a little field mouse who lives with his field mouse family and while they are all going around gathering food for the cold winter months, seemingly lazy Frederick is sitting around not helping and finally, as the busy among us are prone to do, someone gets a little annoyed that they are doing all of the work and Frederick is doing none and so they say hey, what's the deal. Frederick says he is gathering things in his mind and all of those things will help get them through the bitter, boring winter months and sure enough, when that time hits and they are all out of food and are completely at their wits end and probably suffering from severe cabin fever they all look at him and say well, and he gets a little nervous and then recites the sweetest poem about all of the colors he sees throughout the year and each of those colors represent something and when he is done everyone is happy and has forgotten just how miserable they all are. Frederick blushes because everyone cheers him on and tells him he is a poet. As a kid I was captivated by Frederick. I never got the hang of how to write poetry, but I have always enjoyed sitting around thinking about life while other people stay busy. So what can I say, that little field mouse spoke to me even way back in the first grade. When I was in college and got pregnant and then subsequently gave the baby up for a adoption, I was told I could give the baby something and so I went up to Clifton Country Mall on a very cold, bitter winter day and found <u>Frederick</u> in the tiny little bookstore that no longer exists and I sent it to the baby's new parents and hoped they would give it to him. I have my copy stored away safely and maybe the baby I gave up has his, too and wouldn't it be nice if someday we both happened to be reading it at the very same moment.<br />
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The movie portion of this post must wait. I have, as promised, blathered on and on far too long.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-69018654337265367272014-01-12T22:39:00.000-05:002014-01-12T23:08:23.635-05:00Me, me, me! More about me!!Jennie C asks, what is your greatest strength?<br />
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Oh dear, this was not easy for me to answer as I have so many strengths and it was hard to narrow it down to just one. Ba da bump! But for real, it did take me some time to come up with something. Finally I settled on this - people have told me on more than one occasion that I am a good listener and I make it easy for them to open up about things that are sometimes difficult to open up about.. For many years this was a huge burden. In college, friends were constantly coming to my room due to my listening skills and when they left I would stay awake and worry about everyone and their problems. Occasionally someone would drop a real doozy on me and I would be torn about whether I should tell someone else and if I didn't tell someone else, would disaster ensue and if it did, would I be responsible. Then I grew up and got older and decided that I'm not in charge of anyone and all I can really do is listen without making obnoxious, judgemental comments and then let it go and it's no longer a burden but a gift. Just this weekend my neighbor, who is going through something quite painful, saw me sitting outside and she came out and asked if I could come inside and talk to her. She didn't want me to talk, she wanted to talk and when she was done she gave me a huge hug and I left and felt pretty honored that I happened to be around when she really needed someone to be around. So that's it, that's my greatest strength, or at least a strength. Also, have you ever had someone tell you that they are a great listener, that they really know how to put people at ease and all you want to do is start laughing because they are the exact opposite of that? Well while I was writing this I was a bit worried that maybe I am that person and if that is the case, well just ignore everything I wrote.<br />
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Tiffany, I will answer your questions tomorrow and then I suppose I will have to stop answering reader questions altogether because all of this me talk is feeling self indulgent - not that I have a problem with that of course, but I should at least pretend I have a problem with it.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-56840104604057968202014-01-09T11:14:00.001-05:002014-01-09T11:14:21.092-05:00More reader questionsBecause it was fun and I have no imagination and can't think of anything to write on my own -<br />
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Julie in Florida asks, what is your favorite childhood memory, what is your favorite color, who is your favorite person to meet for coffee and when are you going to write a book? Oh these questions readers are leaving always veer off into the delusional at the end.<br />
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I'll start with the last question. I am never going to write a book. The chances of it becoming a best seller are pretty high, which means I would become famous and I've always been a little afraid I would be awful as a famous person, which is why I really never try too hard at anything. The money and fame would go to my head. I would probably start drinking all the time and may even turn into the kind of person who gets on airplanes and spouts off f bombs. It wouldn't be pretty. We're all just better off with me living my life in a pretty anonymous state<br />
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What is my favorite color? Green. I find it soothing.<br />
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Who is my favorite person to have coffee with? Whoever it is I happen to be meeting that day for coffee is my favorite person to have coffee with. If I had to choose one person to have coffee with it would be my sister. This isn't to take away from all of the other lovely people I have coffee with ( and it suddenly sounds like all I do is have coffee with people all day, everyday) but me and my sister are pretty tight.<br />
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What is my favorite childhood memory? This one was hard. When I tried to think of one favorite memory I couldn't come up with one single one. Everything melded together. Little things come to mind, many of them involving my Nana. Picking dandelion greens with her in a field near the DiSiena Furniture store. She used to cook the greens like spinach. I guess this is now considered a fancy meal. My Nana did a lot of things that are now considered fancy and impressive. Too bad facebook wasn't around back then. The time she found an injured bird lying in the road and brought it inside and tried to nurse it back to health. I was a teen when this happened. Nothing much impressed me. This did though. I still remember being mesmerized by the fact that my Nana was doing this. She put it in an open shoe box and wrapped up its broken wing and kept checking on it. I don't even remember if the bird made it or not. Making homemade ravioli with her and having her get mad at me and my sister if we didn't seam those babies up properly. Her praying the rosary in her chair and if you happened to come in when she was in the midst of it she would put her rosary down and talk to you, which always made me feel special. Those are just some of my favorites but I have many more and if I were to sit here and keep writing there is a chance I would never get up and unload the dishwasher, which is what I really need to be doing right now. As an aside, I realize I was extremely blessed to have grown up living so close to my Nana. It does take a lot to impress me and if you want to know why you would have to understand who my Nana was. I'm not sure there is anyone who even comes close to topping her in every single way and if she was sitting here reading this she would smile and say, "you bet your ass my granddaughter."ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-54186185242607698952014-01-07T13:50:00.000-05:002014-01-07T13:55:39.581-05:00RideThis blog stays mostly empty because I never know what to write about, but then I saw that someone left a comment on my last post and I thought oh this is so exciting, I've always wanted to a get a comment that would let me do this....<br />
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A reader in Kentucky asks - Let me ask you ( go ahead reader, ask me anything), are you the type of biker who wears spandex and helmet? I picture you riding your bike in a pair of shorts and tank top, hair up in a pony tail, headphones on, leisurely riding around. I think it's awesome you are doing a 100 mile race. The reader then becomes delusional and says that she is sure I am going to love doing this 100 mile ride and want to do them all the time. </div>
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Well I just loved this question because there are so many facets to it and I now have something to write about! Thank you, Kirsten!</div>
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No, I am not the type of biker who wears spandex. I'm what you can call plump ( go ahead, call me that, I won't punch you in the face, I promise!) so spandex would make me feel like a sausage stuffed into its casing and I would spend my whole ride uncomfortable and annoyed and my rolls of fat would keep falling out over the waistband and I would have to keep getting off my bike to tuck them back in, and then I would just be unhappy and riding is meant to make me happy so no, no spandex. This is the same reason I refuse to wear those awful things called spanx. I don't care how much thinner they are meant to make you feel, they would have the opposite effect on me. I would constantly be thinking about the fact that I was so fat and flabby that it was now necessary for me to put on special undergarments to hold my fat in and at no point would I be thinking, but I look 4 sizes smaller! What DO I wear on my ride? Usually those workout legging pants that come right below the knee, or on colder days, the ones that come to my ankle. On hot days, I wear cutoff yoga pants. Yes, it does look stupid, but I don't care.</div>
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Yes, I most definitely wear a helmet. I used to not wear one because I thought it made me look stupid, but then I realized I would look more stupid dead so I caved in and started using one and now I can't imagine riding without a helmet. </div>
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As far picturing me riding around in a pair of shorts and a tank top, with my hair up in a ponytail, leisurely listening to music from my headphones, I like this idea and I hope you are also picturing me weighing about 115 pounds and being about 5'8" with long tan legs and perky breasts filling the tank top. Also, a small nose and long neck. Please, please picture me like that. It's kind of how I hope my husband pictures me. I just know I would look good like that. Not everyone could pull that look off but I'm sure it would suit me well. </div>
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The reality, of course, is that I look like an oompa loompa when I ride. I know this because I did a charity ride a few months back and I happened to go online to look at the pictures and sure enough there was this thing in one of the photos and I thought oh, I didn't see any oompa loompas out there riding today, this is very interesting indeed. On closer inspection I realized it was yours truly and I almost became upset but then I remembered that even in my fattened state I had managed to finish the ride quite a bit before several young women who were much more fit than me and who had much nicer bikes, so I went back to feeling smug and managed to convince myself that looking like an oompa loompa isn't such a bad lot in life. </div>
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As for how I wear my hair and whether or not I wear headphones; I can't wear a ponytail due to the helmet, but I do wear my headphones when I am riding on the bike path. It makes riding long distances more pleasant. Last week I was on a 65 mile ride and I had a moment of exhaustion and I kind of wanted to get off my bike and lie down in the grass and at that very moment, Bruce came on my ipod and starting singing The Promised Land to me and that was all I needed. I actually started singing, too, and I didn't give two poops who was around to hear me. Music helps me tremendously in every area of my life and it helps me ride better, too, so yes, if I'm on the bike path, they are in. If I'm out in the middle of nowhere on a country road, no, I don't use them. </div>
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As for riding at a leisurely pace, if you were to pass me in your car you would probably think I was riding for leisure. I am not fast, although I do try to make every ride count. I spend many, many, many hours a week on my bike ( I can't tell you how many because then you will think I'm neglecting my kids) and I would feel guilty if I didn't make the time count for something, so I go as fast as I can go and I like to feel exhausted when I get off the bike, but the good kind, the kind that makes me want to go out again and again. </div>
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What I lack in speed I more than make up for in my love for the bike. I LOVE riding. Riding saved me quite a few years ago when I went through an unpleasant experience in college. I got a summer job at the end of my junior year and saved every penny I made and then my good friend, Eddie, took me up to the bike shop in Clifton Park and helped me pick out a mountain bike and I rode that bike everyday of the summer, all over the place.While I was riding I thought about the kind of life I wanted to have and the kind of person I wanted to be and sometimes I just daydreamed about things I knew would never happen but were still fun to think about. I rode on country roads and I went places I probably shouldn't have gone but I always got off the bike and felt better about everything and the bike still does that for me. I never feel worse. Not even when I fall and nearly knock my teeth out.</div>
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Over the weekend I had a moment of panic and thought that my idea to do the century was completely foolish and there was no way I could it. I texted my sister and called my sister and finally after listening to me over and over she sent me a text and said, but you love riding so much and that's all that matters, that's what this ride is about, just calm down. So I did finally and who cares if Greg has to come pick me up in the dark and I don't finish the ride with everyone else. Although I don't know that I'll be doing centuries all the time, I do think Kirsten is right, I do think I will end up loving this particular ride. And Anthony would never let me back out now anyway. He already told me the only way to prove how much I love him and care about him and his diabetes is by doing this ride. Then he told me he was kidding and only trying to motivate me.</div>
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Anyway, thanks for the question, Kirsten. You provided me with a material for a post! </div>
ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-85653247838233218222013-12-12T20:11:00.000-05:002013-12-12T20:25:14.647-05:00I was never good with the titles so I'm not giving this post oneI keep reading things on the computer about Advent and the need to slow down and listen and relax and get ready for Christmas. Except first we have to go out the day after Thanksgiving, or really the day of Thanksgiving now, and buy as many things as we can. And then we can slow down and relax and get ready for the reason for the season. As an aside, I saw a woman on the news on Thanksgiving Day and she was rushing into the store to buy...a toaster! And I felt sad and looked at my husband and I could tell that he felt sad too, because really, if you are going to charge through the store with herds of people on the day that you should technically be stuffing your face and unbuttoning your pants half way through your meal, it should not be to buy a toaster. There is no toaster on the face of the planet that could lure me away from eating too much stuffing and apple pie.<br />
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I'm always worried that during this time of year, when we are told to slow down and savor the meaning of it all, someone is going to take me aside and tell me, Ann Marie, darling, you cannot slow down, you have been slowing down all year and you need to get off your ass and actually do something now. I have a sloth like quality to me and there really isn't any point in the year when I think, oh gee, thank God it's this season, because NOW I can finally slow down. Yes, I have children and yes they annoy me on the daily with all of their never ending wants and needs, but what can I say, I'm a pro at relaxing and nary a day goes by when I don't manage to spend a good portion of it sitting down and doing nothing more than staring off into space, picking my lips. Even my most favorite hobby, bike riding, involves sitting. </div>
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Speaking of riding my bike, I'm doing a ride for diabetes in March. Well the ride is not FOR diabetes as no one in their right mind would ride their bike to get diabetes. The ride is meant for raising money to find a cure for diabetes. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to give me money. I'm saving my change and using that for my fundraising. I love riding my bike and I hate diabetes so this ride will be a pleasure. Not a pleasure really, but more a time where I spend the entire day wondering if I will die, with smatterings of panicky texts to my sister about the state of my numb ass and various other complaints. Sister of mine, you have been warned! I suppose if I make it to the finish line and don't die, then there will a moment of pleasure. The ride is a hundred miles, or what is known in the cycling world as a century, but I've always felt like a bit of a poser calling myself a cyclist, so I just call it a hundred mile ride. I'm hoping I can make it through the entire ride without falling and knocking out my teeth for good, although I have had my eye a lovely pair of dentures I found for real cheap on ebay, so who knows, fingers crossed, those babies will be mine real soon.</div>
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There is a bit of training that goes along with getting ready to ride a hundred miles and I have decided to bore you with only a little bit of it. It involves riding your bike a certain amount of miles on many days and then on the days when you can't ride too long you are advised to ride as fast as you can, or find hills to ride (nearly impossible in Florida but I do okay). These short and intense bursts of riding are meant to help you increase your speed. So far no good. Speed on the bike will never be my thing. Anyway, after you do all of this long riding and short intense riding you are then advised to gas up on oreos. No, I'm kidding about that part. I wish it were true but it's not.<br />
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Speaking of gassing up, that's the term my husband uses to describe a form of eating that entails consuming large quantities of food in a short amount of time and then not eating again for many many hours, sometimes a full twenty four hours. When we started dating, Greg would tell me he had to gas up and when I mistakenly assumed he meant he had to fill his car up with fuel he corrected me and explained the entire concept to me and I thought, gee I wonder if this fellow really is as weird as my parents think he is. You would think someone of my sloth like character would be on board with the concept of gorging, and I am, but I'm not keen on the part where I have to wait many, many hours, sometimes an entire day, to eat again. Anyhow, I've been with Greg for so long now that I do that thing where all of his weirdo behavior suddenly seems normal and the last time I mentioned gassing up to people there was confusion and then laughter when I explained what it was and then I remembered Greg really is kind of weird. I still don't entirely understand the point of gassing up but Greg says it just saves time and frees up his schedule on those days when he doesn't have time to sit down and eat three meals. He is apparently much busier than me.<br />
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Well dear reader, I must go now. I don't quite know the point of this post but I haven't written in a bit and I figured I would get some thoughts out. I hope you are finding time in your day to relax and enjoy the season of Advent. If you need any tips on how to go about that, shoot me an email. And in my next post I will regale you with all of the things I have learned about life in the past year. And that post will be all of one sentence long.<br />
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ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-33770430524693821272013-11-15T13:45:00.003-05:002013-11-16T23:32:54.270-05:00Courage, pleaseOne of my most admirable qualities is my ability to sweep things under the carpet for long stretches of time until they become big problems that can't be ignored, at which point many other people have to become involved in what could have otherwise been an entirely preventable problem if I had addressed it when I should have. I really excel at this. One time when I was in college I got pregnant and ignored it for seven whole months until I lovingly sprang it on my parents one day. Honestly I didn't really spring it on them. It was more like my mom looked at me and said, are you pregnant?! And I said probably. That was fun for everyone! And then there was the time I ran up credit cars bills and just kept hiding it from my husband until one day he came home from work and I said guess what I did - again!? That was also fun for everyone! There have been minor offenses too, like the time I swiped a mailbox when I was a paper carrier and my husband noticed the scratch marks on the side mirror and when he asked me about it I just said, huh, not sure how that got there and then I pretended I need to go poop and I ran inside. Or the time I gained 95 pounds when I was pregnant with Maggie because I refused to look at the scale for my entire pregnancy and even when I got to the point of nearly needing a forklift to get me off the couch I just kept saying, I will deal with this issue later, first I need another sleeve of Oreos. I haven't mastered the art of being a great person yet but I'm trying hard. I really am.<br />
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A month or two ago I was riding my bike in Tavares and my front tire caught the railroad tracks the wrong way and I ended up having a scary bike fall that landed me flat on my face. I was mortified of course. I spend half my life assuming everyone is making fun of me and then I give them opportunities like this. I lay on the ground with my head on the pavement a little bit longer than needed because I knew once I rolled over people would be standing over me laughing and pointing at the loser who still hasn't mastered how to ride a bike in a straight line. If you think I'm being hard on myself, I'm really not. This was the second fall I took on Lakeshore Drive in less than a month.<br />
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As it turns out people are nicer than I give them credit for and everyone wanted to help me, which made me feel even more stupid. The fire chief happened to be there that day and he came running over and told me I was bleeding from my mouth and asked if I had lost any teeth and I said no, I hadn't, I just cut my lip and that's where all the blood was coming from. He was nice enough to offer me a ride home. When he pulled into our driveway my daughter was outside and saw my bloody face and knees and shoulders and seemed quite upset, but I told her to just go inside and mention this to no one, I was fine, please just stop freaking out.<br />
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I took a shower and cleaned myself up pretty good and decided that I would just spend the next few weeks looking down at the ground, hopefully ensuring my fat lip and scraped up chin would go unnoticed by my husband. If he asked me why I was suddenly refusing to direct my gaze upward I would mumble and tell him I was in a pissy mood and he better leave me alone. It was a great plan, except for it only lasted for about two minutes, until I accidentally looked up at him when he walked into the bedroom. Then I had to confess my awful fall and he just kept saying that he couldn't understand why I thought it would be a good idea to keep my accident a secret. Mostly I didn't want to tell him because I knew it would lead to the inevitable talk about my obsession with riding and how I was getting carried away and really why couldn't I ride in safer places. And that is exactly what did happen. He told me he leaves for work everyday and worries I will get hit by a car and he and the kids would be devastated if anything ever happened to me on my bike and I just looked at him and all I could think was, oh wow Greg, how much more selfish could you be, but I figured I would keep my mouth shut and not share that thought with him.<br />
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I spent most of the day crying, not because I was in pain from the fall but because it had become clear that my riding needed to be altered and my entire life was now ruined and destroyed and I may as well just throw my bike in the garbage because I would never, ever ride again. I carried on like that for several hours and my husband just kept walking by me saying nothing. It was pissing me off that he wasn't caving into my nonsense and then it occurred to me that after twenty years of marriage he had worked up a complete tolerance for my bs. At some point over the weekend I had a moment of clarity and realized he was right and I decided to switch my routes up to include safer places and I have continued to ride everyday and keep up my miles and life doesn't suck and everything wasn't ruined and my bike never landed in the garbage.<br />
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But this story doesn't have an entirely happy ending. It took at least week for my mouth to start feeling normal again and for my lip to really heal and once it did I decided to kind of look at my teeth and touch them again and I noticed that my front teeth are just a teensy weensy bit loose. Nothing that anyone but me would ever notice and honestly it's almost imperceptible, accept for the fact that it is true, they are clearly just a teensy weensy ( very teensy weensy, trust me it's the teensiest of weensiest) bit loose. Do you like how I have reverted to using words that toddlers use? That's because I kind of act like a toddler and so it suits me to speak like one.<br />
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This is where denial and sweeping things under the carpet is getting me into some trouble. For weeks now I have been thinking I need to go to the dentist, but I can't make the call. I don't even have the name of a dentist I trust. My older kids go to a good dentist except for he's abrasive. My kids don't mind him because they have great teeth with no issues, but I do have issues, both with my teeth and my person. I cannot tolerate a dentist who is harsh. One time I was at the dentist and he was merely coming toward me with a mirror to show me something and I swiped his hand away. I apologized and he was nice about it but that is the kind of behavior I exhibit while I'm sitting in the dental chair. Maggie has a wonderful pediatric dentist but I'm pretty sure I couldn't fit into his teeny tiny cute whittle chairs, but really this is the sort of dentist I need because he has laughing gas that he gives Maggie and she likes it so much that she routinely asks when her next root canal/tooth pulling will be. I need to find a dentist who makes me that excited about jumping in the chair and getting my gums drilled and pulled and shot up with Novocain, but the truth is, the dentist has always been a source of extreme anxiety for me and my going is usually the result of me being in complete and utter pain.<br />
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I wish I could tell you that plans are in the works to call someone today or tomorrow or very soon but honestly I most likely won't take care of this issue until my teeth are dangling like a loose thread and who knows, that could be next week or it could very well be several years from now. Part of me is still convinced that everyone has loose teeth every now and again and they just have to sort of harden up a bit. All I ask now is for you not to leave horror stories in the comment sections. That will not help move me in the right direction at all. Don't even leave a comment telling me I really need to take care of this. I already know I need to take care of it. I mean it. Please do not tell me something horrible. I KNOW this needs to be addressed. Just do me this favor. It's simple really. Just pray that I get some courage. I have no greater fear than going to the dentist and no greater flaw than a complete lack of courage. My problem is always my lack of courage.<br />
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PS . To clarify, feel free to leave fawning comments on this post, just not comments related to how I need to call the dentist. To clarify again, I know, I really know I need to call the dentist. Courage! That's all I need. And fawning comments too. I need those too.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-89573932072852221552013-11-05T09:17:00.002-05:002013-11-05T09:20:13.697-05:00ThirteenAnthony turned thirteen yesterday. So here are some random things about him<br />
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- He told me yesterday that he thinks Maggie is going to be a feminist because she is bossy and independent and always thinks she is right about everything. A slightly unflattering view of a feminism perhaps, but Anthony meant it as a compliment so I didn't bother saying anything to him other than, good, I hope she stays that way. He does too. He thinks girls who let boys dictate how they live are idiots and he keeps telling his sisters that if they date boys they better not lose who they are.<br />
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- At some point during the past year Anthony decided he liked The Grateful Dead. This makes me a little sad because I always associate this particular band with the most obnoxious kids in my high school, but thankfully Anthony isn't like any of them so I will just sit and hope this phase passes.He also wears tie dye just about everyday. He has not started smoking pot yet so that's a plus.<br />
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- Last year his endocrinologist told him that now that he was getting into his teen years he would probably be tired a lot more and may even find himself sleepy during the day. So as soon as we got home from that appointment Anthony was suddenly very sleepy and said he needed a nap and he has kept this trend going for the past year. He needs five or six naps a day. At that same appointment the doctor also told him he was old enough to now take responsibility for much of his diabetes care but Anthony didn't hear that part of the conversation and every time I bring it up he says he's pretty sure I'm wrong about that.<br />
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- Anthony loves cooking and has become quite good at this year and whenever I tell him this could be a potential career choice for him he says, "Oh I only cook for the love, not for the money." He does have the idea that Mount Dora is lacking in men's thrift stores. According to Anthony, everything in town is geared toward old ladies and he wants to fix that. So who knows, someday soon you may find yourself shopping in a men's thrift store run by my son. If he keeps it anything like he keeps his bedroom you're in for a real treat!<br />
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- During a recent youth group meeting the kids were asked to think about what their greatest fears were. They were given some time to consider this and Anthony took it very seriously and of course he decided to be the first to share his thoughts. I can't tell you his fears because they were pretty deep and when he told me I thought wow, worry much Anthony? The rest of the kids said they were afraid they wouldn't get into a good college and then Anthony felt maybe he had "gone too deep with the whole thing and I wish I had said something like I was afraid of snakes, but I'm not afraid of snakes, but you know, maybe I should have kept it lighter." I told him not to worry, his friends were worried about all of the same things he was, they just weren't as comfortable sharing. So then he asked if he should start being less honest and part of me wanted to say, oh yes, for sure you need to be less honest, but instead I just said, I don't know, do what you think is right.<br />
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- If you would like to see Anthony really engaging in honesty give him a gift he doesn't like or want because he will not be able to hide in anyway his sheer disappointment and disbelief that you could be so foolish as to think he would like the piece of crap you are trying to give him and if you think it's rude of him not to appreciate it, well you are wrong, you are the jerk who got him a crappy gift and you are the one who should feel bad. I can't hold this too much against him as he inherited this charming quality from me.<br />
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I'm sure I could sit here and write all day about Anthony but it's time for math, Anthony's most favorite subject ever! When I just told him to get his math book out he told me he had to take a nap first.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-34668660734570827192013-10-29T12:26:00.000-04:002013-10-29T13:57:43.071-04:00All my honest thoughts for your enjoymentHave you noticed people saying "all the things." Like I want to eat all the things, or I want to read all the things or I want to buy all the things. It makes me want to throw all the things when people use that phrase. It's right up there with people.putting. periods.after.all their.words.to stress.how.much.they mean.something. Sorry not sorry. Another phrase I hate! All of these phrases are used non stop on the interwebs. If nothing else, the blogging world and instagram and twitter have given me ways to make fun of people more than I already do ( which is pretty much any hour I'm not sleeping), so there's that (that phrase right there...so there's that...another phrase I hate). I don't know why phrases catch on and why people have to beat them into overuse and why everyone wants to sound exactly like everyone else.<br />
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Kate and me are going to see The Avett Brothers in a few weeks. I won't let the fact that Seth Avett divorced his wife and is now dating an actress ( who is not as pretty as his ex wife) ruin this concert for me. I'm quite pissed off though. I mean can't people just stay married? Seth Avett wrote a lovely song for his now ex wife back when they were engaged. It was called January Wedding and now he says he won't be singing it anymore and every time I hear it on my ipod all I will be reminded of is that Seth Avett was just full of shit when he wrote the lyrics. </div>
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Now this one will get me into trouble. A few weeks ago a particular post was circling the internets and it was written by a man and it was all about how we should worship moms, specifically full time moms. He didn't call them full time moms, he called them stay at home moms, or something like that. By the way, just to assure any mom who may be reading this about whether or not she qualifies as full time mom...if you have a child, you're a full time mom, regardless of how many hours of the day you are with them. Anyway, the post was all about how we should put moms on pedestals, but what he really meant was, moms who stay home with their kids should be put on pedestals. Now you would think that being a legitimate full time, stay at home, homeschooling mom, this post would have been right up my alley, but no, all I could think was, gee this guy really wants to get laid. I don't need a man telling me how awesome I am and I certainly don't appreciate a man trying to garner attention and create drama by writing about moms and which moms are better and how we should kiss the ground stay at home moms walk on. If you read the post and enjoyed it, good for you, but I found it gross. Respect people because they are fellow human beings, not because they stay home with their kids. I ended up reading a few more of this guy's blog posts and realized he thought he knew everything about everything and then I felt sorry for his wife.</div>
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Speaking of humility, Greg and I were in a conversation recently with some people and the topic of children came up. People were saying all these things about raising kids and how to get them to be good and proper and well behaved and successful and Greg and I just glanced at one another. We've run the gamut of issues with our kids and if I thought I knew nothing about raising children before, the past year has confirmed for me that while Greg and I love our children as much as any other parent, we usually don't have all the answers. We usually have none of the answers. Anyway, after the conversation went on a bit my husband sensed my unease and he titled his head to the side a little and looked up and said, well, they are their own people and they're going to make mistakes no matter how much we want them not to. And everyone agreed and we went on to talking about something else, much to my relief. Later on I was reminded of something Greg told me last year when we were in the midst of a crisis with one of the kids and I was feeling distraught and hopeless - "They aren't done being people! They won't be done till they are dead, Ann Marie." So really, that's all I have to say about parenting. If you are in the midst of a crisis with your kids and you start to sink just remember, they aren't done being people. And either are you. I know, you had no idea this post filled with rage and venom and hate would turn into a pep talk. I'm always surprising people!</div>
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ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-69428104157785700562013-09-04T00:14:00.001-04:002013-09-04T07:39:26.065-04:00Driving CirclesToday I spent three hours driving children to and from various places when suddenly I realized I was just driving in a bigger and bigger circle, getting further and further away from home. Every day the driving circle seems to expand, which really is counter productive since all the things I need to be doing, like making dinner and folding laundry and taking a nap, are at home. Even though Jane is old enough to have her license she doesn't (I'm sure my revealing this completely unrevealing fact is going to get me in trouble with Jane. Hi, Jane!), so I'm still the person left to drive the kids most places and I almost always say yes to taking them wherever they need/want to be. I was talking about this today with a friend. We are yes parents. Our kids appreciate this about us. I don't mean saying yes to them smoking crack, although given time I suppose I would back down on that one too, but yes to all the things I don't want them to miss out on, which hopefully will never ever include smoking crack.<br />
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I have my sister to thank for much of this. She has kids a few years older than mine and I would call her when her two oldest were in high school and she would mention in passing that she had spent approximately twenty two hours in the car that day. I wondered when she slept but she seemed happy enough so I left it alone. I would think, oh I guess this is normal; when you're a mom of teens who don't drive yet you take them everywhere. Having younger children does require plenty of driving time as well, but something about the teen years ramps everything up ( and not just the time spent driving). Anyhow, my sister did all of this driving stuff and she didn't make a stink out of it so I thought, hmm, she seems as though she likes being a parent, maybe I should like being a parent too. But her kids were older and so I decided to wait on liking being a parent until my kids were older too.<br />
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The time has come. My children are older now and I like being a parent, but the truth is as much as I'm enjoying it I really feel I can no longer write about it because teens require privacy. That's unfortunate as some of things I could discuss are wildly entertaining, although not nearly as entertaining as the expanding driving circles you all had the pleasure of reading about just now. This is what it's come down to - me making up ridiculous things to talk about because I can't talk too much about the real things.<br />
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So anyway, your kids will get older and with each year the driving circle will get bigger and if you are lucky like me and live in Central Florida than you can't complain too much because you have limited space with which to expand the circle. If you live someplace like Nebraska there's a good chance you'll spend years and years expanding your driving circle until your husband calls you one day and asks if you are ever returning home, because the laundry is piling up. By then you'll be in Canada and you can tell him, dear, this is why you should have learned to do laundry years ago - don't you remember when I told you that wise woman from Florida warned us about the expanding driving circle?<br />
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Don't fret. I still have a child and a dog who have no idea how to get on my blog so I can write about them all I want. And if I beg and plead I may even convince the older kids to let me tell you a few amusing things about them too. Otherwise this here blog doesn't stand a chance. It would be nice if I was interesting enough that I could write about myself, but the truth is, it's not really fun to reveal things about yourself when you can reveal them about others.<br />
<br />ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-74155884186675680112013-08-27T21:37:00.000-04:002013-08-27T21:39:36.380-04:00The post you have all been waiting for - or not.It's been a while. Is anyone still there? Probably not. Many weeks have passed since I last wrote and I can't even remember half of what happened during that time, but I'll try and come up with something for you.<br />
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I turned forty four at the end of May. If you haven't turned forty four yet and you're wondering if it's as boring as it sounds, it is. There is nothing romantic and exciting about that number. The kids all made me birthday cards. Jane and Kate wrote out some lovely sentiments. I can't reveal what they said because if you know me you won't believe anyone could think all those nice things about me and you may just think my two oldest children are complete bull shit artists. Anthony composed a card only after one of the girls guilted him into it. He taped a dollar bill to a piece of paper and below it he wrote, Mom, here's some weed money. I wasn't really sure what to think of that but I am never really sure what to think of Anthony. He said it was a joke, but that still didn't give me any clarity on the card's meaning. Maggie drew me a pretty picture of a birthday cake. </div>
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Greg and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary at the end of June. We went out for dinner and a walk and then made a trip to the bookstore. It rained, which was lovely because it rained on our wedding day and believe it or not I'm a bit sentimental every once in twenty years and I thought, oh how sweet, this is just like our wedding day. Well, our wedding day plus four kids, several dogs, many friends and moves and houses and telephone numbers later and also a couple of rather upsetting medical issues regarding a few of the kids, the births of many nieces and nephews and the death of a few loved ones and a hundred million other ridiculously good and bad things. So it was better than our wedding day. On June 26, 1993 Greg and I had only known each other for three short years and the amount of history between us was so small that there really were no stories to tell. There was the one about how we met and how we got engaged and how my Nana told my mother, upon meeting Greg, Barbara Ann, that boy is going to marry your daughter and a few other funny tales but really there was no meat like there is after twenty years. There is no way to talk simply about two decades of being together and now that I've written that I realize I'm a bit nervous about the next twenty years together. It's insane, people. Marriage is insane. Having children is insane. Insane in a good way and occasionally insane in the exact way you picture insanity to be, but it's still worth it and now I'll end my marriage thoughts with a sappy quote from an Avett Brothers song... "True love is not the kind of thing you should turn down. So don't ever turn it down."<br />
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Kate and Maggie are now both in public school. Maggie is in first grade and is extremely happy. Kate began her freshman year of high school after much worry and obsessing from me. I prayed, too, but never one to completely trust God I gave into my worry on a regular basis until finally I had no choice but to accept the fact that I was sending her to school and things would either work out or they wouldn't, but worrying about it was not helping. So as soon as I entered that phase of acceptance I encountered an unpleasant secretary in the guidance office who made me feel as though I was trying to get Kate into Harvard rather than the local public school system and I started worrying again. There really is no other way to describe the secretary from guidance except to say she was a huge and royal pain in my ass and because of her I wasted an entire Sunday writing down detailed notes of Kate's curriculum from last year. After spending hours doing this I realized Kate has done an enormous amount of work and I was proud of myself because I'm not nearly as pathetic at homeschooling the kids as I thought. So then I had less ill will toward the guidance secretary because if not for her I wouldn't have known how truly awesome I am at homeschooling. But as luck would have it, I brought the many pages of detailed curriculum information to the guidance secretary on Monday morning and she went right back on my shit list. I need to remember to not take people off that list for any reason. As Oprah told me many years ago, when people show you who they are, believe them. When I handed the curriculum to her she reacted as if I had placed my own feces in her hands, which now that I think about would have been kind of fun.<br />
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After the woman I will now refer to as Guidance Ass told me she didn't think Kate would be enrolled in school by the first day I went out to the parking lot and picked up the phone and called my friend So and So and burst into tears. I don't ever call So and So. I text her and we get together for coffee, but I never call her. I never call anyone, so I can only describe my calling her as some kind of God thing and yes, I fully accept that all this blatant talk of God is making me feel not at all Catholic, but it's true people, God made me do it and he gets all the credit and trust me when I tell you, he has been fully thanked every single day. Within fifteen minutes of me calling So and So she found several people willing to help me and then she met me at Starbucks and talked me off the ledge and I suddenly knew everything would be fine. A friend of So and So's knows important people at the high school and so Kate was enrolled before her first day and she got every single class she wanted and even got all the best teachers, because So and So's friend made sure of it. Thank God and thank So and So and her friend, but definitely do not thank Guidance Ass.<br />
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The best part of this story is that Kate seems to be loving school. She told us tonight at dinner that she wakes up every morning excited to go. She is enjoying her classes and teachers and seems content and comfortable and has already met some people she likes very much. I can't convey how thrilled and relieved I am for her.<br />
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On that note, I must end this so I can get to bed.</div>
ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-67262315233451038772013-05-10T22:10:00.001-04:002013-07-14T22:28:54.501-04:00This riding life - a longish post in which only the riders will be interested ( but only mildly)I love riding my bike. Even when it's 95 degrees outside and I'm exhausted and riding up someplace like Sugarloaf Mountain ( yes, we have a road in Florida with the word mountain in it) and the top of the hill seems to be getting further away instead of closer; even when my water bottles are empty and I'm miles from anywhere and suddenly starving and wishing I had packed a little sugar, and the sun is beating down on my face and I remember I didn't put sun lotion on, which means my dark spots on my face are going to get darker and my wrinkles are going to come faster, even then I love being on my bike, especially then.<br />
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When it rains all day and I can't ride, which happened several times last week, I complain endlessly. I go out into the garage and open the door and pull my bike to the front, like maybe Mother Nature will see me do this and she'll be nice to me and act accordingly. I'll say listen Mother Nature, don't do it for me, do it for my family - you know I will make them suffer if you don't give into my demands. Sometimes Mother Nature can be a real bitch though and she decides she does want them to suffer and the rain just goes on and on. But still, I stand in the garage and stare up at the sky and look for any glimpse of sunlight breaking through. I know, I'm such a hopeful soul!<br />
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Last week was a tough one for me and my bike. So much rain. One night after dinner, despite the fact that every news station was reporting storms approaching, I decided I didn't care and was going to take a ride anyway. Greg told me not to go, but I ignored him. I left and headed toward Tangerine and felt like I could will the storms away from my little area. Usually when I try and will things into happening it involves me closing my eyes and holding my breath, which is hard to do on my bike, so I just kept saying over and over, go away rain, go away rain, go away rain. I knew it wasn't working when someone pulled along side me in a car and asked if I was close to home because a big storm was about to hit, to which I could only say, "are you kidding me!? I had no idea! I wish I knew before I left!" It was hard for me to turn around though. Before I left for my ride I spent several minutes mocking Greg and his trust in Doppler radar. Going back home would mean he was right, but I knew if I didn't turn around he would just come looking for me. That's the kind of person he is. Caring, selfless, concerned. I'm the kind of person who would rather risk getting struck by lightening than admit her husband was right, but I turned around and went home anyway.<br />
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Sure enough, as I was turning into my street, I saw Greg in his truck headed toward me. He rolled down his window and I rode over to him and in my most serious and sincere tone I asked him if he was going downtown for a walk. I couldn't help myself. I had to keep it up and keep pretending I didn't think it was going to rain. He said, no, he was going out to look for me, and I couldn't resist telling him that the only reason I came back home wasn't because I thought it was going to rain, but because I knew he would be looking for me. I know. I'm not nice at all. I made up for it a couple of days later though when he was leaving to play golf and I asked him if he had lost weight. This made him very happy. And it was true, he did look like he'd lost some weight (which can probably be attributed to my laziness lately regarding meals - we've had salad every night for the past week and half and not much else. And really calling it salad is being generous. It's more like lettuce, with a drizzle of olive oil on top.)<br />
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Sometimes I talk about riding my bike and people assume I like it so much because it's relaxing and peaceful and relieves my stress, which is true to some extent, but I'm still Ann Marie when I'm on that bike, which means I still act like the ass I am when I'm not on it ( those last two paragraph highlight this point nicely), just slightly less so. Like last week when an elderly person almost hit me. This happens a lot with the elderlies. It's like they think stop signs and traffic lights are optional. They've lived a long life and I guess at some point they believe they've earned the right to ignore traffic laws. Usually I don't care about having to dodge them, but last week I yelled out, "old people suck!" I knew I should have felt bad for yelling that, but I started laughing at myself instead. Unfortunately I am the kind of person who sometimes thinks old people suck (mostly just when I'm on my bike trying to dodge them) and then I start thinking about all the things that remind me of elderly people, like butterscotch candy and perfect lawns and all the old people at the 4 o'clock Mass on Saturday evening who always leave right after Communion because they need to hurry up to the early bird special. If I'm on my bike having all these thoughts I'm generally filled with a sense of amusement, whereas if I'm off my bike having these same thoughts I feel complete annoyance - not about the butterscotch and perfect lawns, but definitely about leaving Mass early. Obviously being on my bike is beneficial for everyone.<br />
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My love of riding means going on Mapquest and spending too many hours looking up every road and trail in my state and figuring out how long it will take me to ride some of those routes. It means being in my car and seeing someone out riding and becoming overwhelmed with jealousy that I'm not out there too. Sometimes I want to roll down my window and just yell, "I love you bike riding person!"( The more intelligent among us call those people cyclists, but I like my phrase better.) It means waking on a Saturday morning and telling Greg, in all seriousness, that I'm just going to take a quick four hour ride - and thinking this is completely reasonable and not understanding why my family thinks I have a slight problem. Mostly though, riding just means a few hours a day of peace and quiet and freedom. That's really all it is for me. Nothing bigger than that.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-15429241573613521142013-04-25T22:21:00.002-04:002013-04-25T22:24:13.226-04:00Fun with Anthony!When I'm stuck for something to write about I can always count on my son for material.<br />
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Anthony continues to delight me with his laugh out loud antics. Oh it's all laughter over here, yes it is. Nothing but knee slappin' good times! Yesterday he came inside with a large wooden pole that was previously used as a door jam for our old sliding door. Since we no longer have use for the pole, Anthony told me he was going to make the world's most awesome pinata smasher with it. He was headed for the garage as he was saying this and immediately the thought entered my mind that the world's most awesome pinata smasher, according to Anthony, may include putting nails into it, so I said to him, "dear and wonderful son of mine, what exactly are you going to do to make this the world's most awesome pinata smasher" and he said, "oh, I'm gonna put nails in it." Do you see how well I know my son? Although, let's face it, anyone reading this post probably could have guessed the same thing - he's not exactly a puzzle, is he? Call me crazy, but something about the whole idea of hundreds of nails sticking out of a wooden pole seemed dangerous to me so I told him no, he would not be able to make the world's most awesome pinata smasher.<br />
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With his nails in a wooden pole idea shot down Anthony moved onto more productive things. He grabbed my kitchen blender and about fifty sheets paper and went into his bedroom. Greg was home by this point and glanced up at me with a look of concern on his face. I told him about the previous pinata smasher idea and then he looked at me like, oh, okay, so whatever he's doing with that blender is an improvement over the last idea. This is how it goes with Anthony. He comes up with so many ridiculous ideas that eventually whatever it is he has finally settled on seems normal. <br />
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It turns out he was blending water and paper and flower seeds together. He made little balls with this concoction and then let them dry over night. This morning he placed the dried up paper balls out in our back yard where they will sprout wild flowers all over the place. This is a real thing. He read about it on the Internets and after he told me what he was doing I was kind of grateful because our backyard needs a little sprucing up and I had no intention making that happen.<br />
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Now don't go getting all jealous of me. It's not all fun and games over here with Anthony. Would you like to know the most horrific part of my day with him? Math time. If I die of a heart attack I know exactly when and where it will occur - in my kitchen, with Anthony's math book clenched in hands, at approximately 10:30 on a weekday morning. And when the ambulance comes to take me away, Anthony will be sitting at the table still trying to figure out 3 times 4 and telling everyone within ear shot that I never taught him his times tables and when one of his sisters points out that yes, I did teach him, he'll move onto his next excuse which is that he has short term memory loss and he can't help it, he just can't remember anything. This is our routine. Me teaching him something and thinking he's got it and then three minutes later when I ask him to do a problem showing what he just learned he looks at me and asks if I'm sure I taught him this and when I nearly explode he tells me I shouldn't get mad because even though it seems far fetched, he really thinks he has short term memory loss, which is why ( according to him) he should never, ever go back to school.<br />
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Oh look, it's almost like I wrote a real post here, minus an introduction and conclusion, but who needs any of that. I'm tired. Good night.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-46795750321687501782013-03-27T11:06:00.002-04:002013-03-28T09:53:20.753-04:00More stuffOh look! Another post and it hasn't even been a full week. I'm ambitious.<br />
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We're on spring break this week and the weather is not spring break weather. It was in the 60's yesterday. People are saying how refreshing it is. It isn't refreshing. If this was the middle of August and we were having 99 degree days with 150 percent humidity, then it would be refreshing. But people, really, what on earth are you being refreshed from? The weather has not been warm here. Stop being careless with your words. This weather is the opposite of refreshing - it's annoying. Someone said yesterday, "well, it could be worse, it could be snowing out." No, actually it really couldn't be snowing out. We live in Florida. We don't get snow, so no, please just stop making ridiculous arguments. I want warmth. I want to be out walking in the morning and actually break a sweat. I want to get off my bike and be drenched. So come on Florida, get your act together and get warm.<br />
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Speaking of walking in the morning...I was out the other morning finishing up my walk and while I was on the corner of Highland and Liberty, I happened upon a man laying face down in the bushes, covered in toilet paper. Thankfully I was in my car when I saw him. Sometimes I leave for my walks straight from my house, but other times I get in my car, drive down the street and park somewhere. I do this so that on the way back home I can avoid the slow walk up my hill in which neighbors see me and wave and sometimes talk. If I'm in my car I can just drive up my street and get out of my car and look down at the ground, avoiding contact with chatty neighbors. So anyway, I was in my car pulling out of the parking lot on Liberty and Highland and that's when I spotted what I was pretty certain was a person. Because it was so early out and still quite dark, I decided to flash my high beams and sure enough, up popped a person's head. Said person just stared at me as though I was rude for waking him and honestly I did feel kind of bad about that once I realized he wasn't dead. I asked him if he was okay and he made some remark about having had a fight with his boyfriend the night before and so I guess he found his way there to that nice cozy bush.And really, who among us can claim to have never fallen asleep in a bush? No judgments from me on that one. I asked if he needed anything and he said no thanks and went right back to relaxing face down, right in that bush. I hope he worked it out with his boyfriend. Sleeping in a bush for one evening is okay, anything more than that and it becomes somewhat uncomfortable.<br />
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Speaking of men and their boyfriends, did you hear that the Supreme Court is hearing arguments regarding same-sex marriage? I know, you hadn't even heard about this and now you have me to thank for informing you! I like to stay on top of things. Okay, I admit, I didn't know any of this until about five minutes ago when I went on Google and something about it popped up and I thought, hum what's going on, should I make myself aware of this, should I educate myself and become involved and concerned? Well, as it turns out, the way the Supreme Court works it doesn't even matter what I think about any of this ( RUDE!), nor does it matter if I am at all educated on the matter, so I decided to just check back in a few months when all of this will be decided. Yes, it's true. It seems that a ruling on the matter won't be given until June so we only have two to three more months to listen to people on both sides give profound and moving insights into why they are right and you are nothing but a complete ignoramus. Do you care to hear my insights? Oh please, you should know better. I don't talk about this stuff. Rest assured though, if you feel like giving me your thoughts on the matter I will listen and then, depending on your stance, I will either think you are brilliant, or an ignoramus. Roll the dice and take you chances, people. You just never know where you'll end up with me.<br />
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Well, children are getting restless and my behind is getting numb from sitting here so I will end this. Don't forget to watch the Florida Gulf Coast/ University of Florida Gainesville game on Thursday night. While we may not all share the same views on gay marriage, there is one thing I know we can all agree on - Gator Nation is filled with the largest number of arrogant jerks ever to roam the face of the earth so with any luck, Florida Gulf Coast will win. GO EAGLES!!!!!ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-35478881351543398452013-03-22T09:07:00.003-04:002013-03-22T09:11:28.952-04:00Some things I keep on letting way too much time pass between posts. Here is some stuff from recent days.<br />
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Maggie - I'm going to be an astronaut when I grow up.<br />
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Me - That's awesome, Maggie. Why do you want to be an astronaut?<br />
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Maggie - So I can blast off into outer space and see the whole world!<br />
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Me - (trying not to melt from her cuteness) Well, that's great. You have to work really hard in school and do all your work if you want to be an astronaut.<br />
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Maggie - (stares at me for a minute) I don't want to be an astronaut, I was just kidding.<br />
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Um, we may have an underachiever among us, but she sure did make me laugh hard with that one.<br />
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And here is a typical conversation from Anthony that we have just about everyday.<br />
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Anthony - Mom, do we have hydrogen peroxide, bleach and matches?<br />
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Me - No. Just no.<br />
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Anthony - No we don't have those things, or no, we do have them but you won't let me have them?<br />
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Me - Get out!<br />
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He's a royal pain in the ass, but he makes me laugh. A lot.<br />
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Kate and I went to the library to see a talking presentation of two actors portraying Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. Would you care for some highlights?<br />
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First, the audience. Kate and I were just about the only people in the room not eligible for AARP. We expected this as it was 2 pm and honestly, the only people who have leisure time at that hour are old people, and me and my kids. The crowd shook their heads yes and no a lot and laughed at all the right parts. By the way, who knew Abe Lincoln was such a hoot? I kept looking at Kate because I found the whole scene somewhat amusing and then she turned to me and told me to stop it. Yes, my fourteen year old does routinely have to tell me to behave.<br />
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Lincoln had a parenting style I quite like. He let his children do whatever they wanted because he believed children shouldn't be too restricted by parents and their rules. Parenting is hard and exhausting and I've spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to get out of actually doing it. I don't mean I want to get rid of my kids, I just want to get out of having to parent them. When I learned today that the same man who championed the 13th amendment was lax in his parenting style I decided, hey, if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. This frees up a lot of my time.</div>
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Mary Todd Lincoln was a rather unpleasant person on occasion. She was given to ridiculous fits of hysteria over things that would have had other people simply shaking their head in mild annoyance. Oh Mary , you had me at ridiculous fits of hysteria. This particular behavior of hers wasn't news to me, but the following was - one of the main reasons she wanted her husband to win re-election was because she had gotten herself into so much debt buying all manner of fancy things that if her husband won the race she would have four more years with which to hide her money troubles from him. Is it possible I am Mary Todd Lincoln reincarnated? The fits of hysteria, the hiding of money woes from spouse. If I had learned she picked her lips it would have been all over and I would have had no choice but to get up and leave. It would have been too much to bear.<br />
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The actor portraying Lincoln recited a few of Lincoln's speeches and would you believe I nearly cried while I was listening. What can I say. I am a hopeless sucker for the well written speech. I may also be getting my period soon.<br />
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I have included all of my children in this post except for my eldest. Hum, I think I can sum up the past few weeks from Jane by saying she has asked me to drive her to at least 4398 places. I said no to most of those requests. She's also been out and about with friends and since she's fresh out of babysitting money, right before she heads out she asks me or her dad for money and she always says this, "but I mean I probably won't need it, it's just in case of emergency, I'll bring home the change." We all know how that ends. Also, she wants her haircut and every night, right around 11:30 PM she asks why I haven't made an appointment for her to which I always say, why are you bringing this up at 11:30 at night. Remind me during the day. Then, the next day, around 11:30 pm, she asks me again when I will make her appointment. This has been going on for several days now. I guess since I have just written about it I should go make the appointment now while it's on my mind, but then I will miss her asking me tonight at 11:30 if I made the appointment, so no, I think I will not do that.<br />
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So there you have. A brief glimpse into my life the past few weeks. And yes, it is exactly as glamorous as it seems here in this post. Have a good weekend!<br />
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ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-52756348037133448182013-03-07T22:09:00.001-05:002013-03-07T22:20:57.611-05:00Dear Maggie, Someday you'll grow up and you may not remember much about being six. I'll be old and there's a possibility that I will have lost the rest of what is left of my mind by then. When you ask me about this time in your life I won't know what to say, so I think I should jot down a few things now, while I still I have my wits about me.<br />
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You were very excited on your birthday this year. You woke up and came bursting out of your bedroom door, skipping and yelling, "I'm six! I'm six!" It was such a happy show of complete joy that I almost started crying. I don't get to see that kind of unbridled enthusiasm anymore with your three older siblings. Two of them are teenagers and the other is twelve and something happens around that time. They believe overt displays of happiness and glee are a bit gross. Dramatic exits and entrances are much more their style, and if they really want to make a statement they're prone to sit in a room and stew and seethe in silence hoping that I finally beg and plead of them, "What is the matter? Please tell me what is wrong! I must know!" They sigh and say, "oh nothing" and then they get up and slowly walk into another room, but not before turning around to see if I am following behind to ask them just one more time what's wrong. (Maggie, I hardly ever follow anymore. )<br />
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Someday you too will stew and refuse to tell me what's wrong, but right now you are at a point in your life where you have no inhibitions. Whatever is on your mind, whatever emotion you are feeling, it just spills out of you. If someone has a blemish on their face, you are the first one to point it out ( you're sisters and brother don't find this as amusing as I do) . When you asked a few months ago how I fed you when you were a baby and I told you I fed you breast milk, you gagged. You found the thought of it so revolting that you ran in your room and sobbed for a full five minutes. When you finally came out you told me you were mad at me and said to never talk about that again. Then you got over it and went back to talking about unicorns and pink dolphins and the giant lollipop I promised you earlier in the day. You move on from upsetting things at a brisk pace. There is no mulling over and discussing and obsessing and that's good because someday you'll spend entire weeks mulling over things as ridiculous as whether or not someone you knew saw you and tried to pretend they didn't see you ( even though you were doing the same thing to them). Enjoy your carefree days while you can. They are fleeting.<br />
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You came home from school last week and told me you wanted to invite everyone in your class to your birthday party, except for that one girl who doesn't want to be your friend. You weren't mean about it though. You know she doesn't like you and so you realized she wouldn't want to be at your party anyway. It hasn't entered your mind yet to try and make her like you. People either like you or they don't and it's of no consequence to you. Your feelings aren't hurt by this. Embrace this for a little while Maggie, because unless you are like your dad, you will come to a point in your life when you will try desperately to get someones approval. Sadly the person who you are trying to get it from will probably be a total ass not worthy of your time, but I won't bother telling you that because you would only raise your eyes and tell me I don't get it, I don't understand. Of course the good news is that as you approach mid-life you'll go back to not caring who likes you and you will hardly ever go out of you way looking for approval.<br />
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You tell me ten times a day that you never want to move out of this house. When Jane or Kate or Anthony mention things about going away to college someday, or getting married eventually and moving into their own home, you say no, no one can ever leave here, and then you cry and sob until we all say, okay, okay, no one is ever moving out. It's incomprehensible to you that we won't always be together forever in our tiny little house. The logical part of my brain, the part I try to ignore, knows that someday you will not feel this way, that you'll want to leave here and you'll want to start making memories that have nothing to do with all of us.<br />
<br />
Life moves forward regardless of how much I keep telling it not to. Next year, you will be different from this year, and every year that passes after that will put your six year old self at such a distance that all you'll really have is feelings of this age. I know this because that's what has happened to me. I have a picture of me and Nana DeVito hanging above my desk. I bet I'm six years old in it. My hand is on Nana's shoulder, I'm standing behind her and she's sitting down opening a present. I have no memory of that day, only a feeling. I was excited and happy. If every memory of this time in your life vanishes from your mind I hope you at least can remember the feeling of it, the feeling of being adored and cherished.<br />
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One last thing. If you're reading this as an adult, you by now have encountered someone who felt it necessary to tell you that you, Maggie Hacic, are not the center of the universe. If that person was me, please remind me that I spoiled you more than I should have and made a much bigger deal out of every one of your accomplishments than was appropriate and that it was I who created the monster who now thinks she is the center of the universe. And if it wasn't me who told you that, tell the person to kiss your ass and then send them my way.<br />
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We love you, Maggie! </div>
ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-88016613308597291272013-02-19T20:45:00.001-05:002013-03-07T23:38:21.644-05:00KindergartenMaggie started school in January. I know school starts in August around here, but I didn't feel like sending her then, so I didn't. Someone asked if I could even do that, just go ahead and pick a time and month for school to begin and I said, well I did it and no one stopped me, so yes, I can. Around here we kind of do what we want regarding the kids and really, everything else. We do this so that in fifty years parents the world over can look at our family and see what not to do. We consider it our public service to all future generations.<br />
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Maggie started school on the Thursday after Christmas break ended. Greg and I brought her in together. (The rest of the family begged to come in as well, but I refused to let them as I worried it may create a Hee Haw effect.) We hoped to meet her teacher, but she was absent. One of the other kindergarten teachers came to greet us and she looked at me and immediately recognized me as the parent of one Anthony Hacic. I laughed and said oh yes, there's no denying it, that lad is all mine!<br />
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Greg then took it upon himself to give this teacher some random information about our daughter. He mentioned that Maggie is almost always barefoot so getting her to put shoes on this morning was a huge struggle. She's never been to any kind of school and her very best friend is an 80 year man from West Virginia, and oh, she doesn't really like to go to bed before eleven PM. I couldn't make him stop talking by staring intently at him, so I finally talked over him until I was drowning out the sound of his voice and the teacher was forced to listen to me talk about the fact that we've done some school at home, and Maggie was so excited and eager to be here and she does wear shoes more often than my husband was making it seem, she wears shoes at least once a week for sure when we go to church. We left. I didn't cry. I felt happy knowing that we hadn't met the real teacher. I knew if I could get in there without Greg I could make a good impression and not make Maggie sound like a mountain goat.<br />
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I went to school the next day and again, the teacher was absent. I wanted to say, couldn't the teacher have gotten sick on vacation? I mean I was showered and dressed and wearing make up two days in a row now hoping to meet this woman and the chances of me being able to pull this off a third time seemed unlikely, but I left and put the whole thing out of my mind. Finally, on Monday morning I was able to meet her. She seemed nice and I made no mention of Maggie's aversion to shoes or her 80 year old best friend from West Virginia. She told me Maggie would be fine and not to worry about anything.<br />
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Every morning I drove Maggie to school and every afternoon I went to pick her up. She was always excited to tell me about her day but she always started by telling me she had some worksheets to finish because she hadn't finished them in school like all the other kids. I said, are you sad that you are the only one bringing work home and she said, NOPE! After this happened several days in a row, I wondered if maybe I should go ahead and ask the teacher if Maggie was the only child not finishing her worksheets. I sent a note in. A few days passed and I heard from the teacher, who said, yes, please feel free to come in, so that's what I did. This made four days in one month that I had showered and dressed, and put make up on, and done my hair, and worn something other than yoga pants, all before 8 AM. No matter what the teacher would tell me about Maggie I was proud of myself. School was turning out to be good for me.<br />
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I got to the class and sat down in one of those tiny chairs and waited to hear what the teacher would say. She said, "Maggie knows everything she needs to know. She is really cute and kind to the other kids. But she is slow. Not as in mentally slow, as in, she does what she wants at her own pace and doesn't seem to be at all bothered by the fact that she is slow. I tried to get her to work faster by bribing her with rewards, but she just looked up at me and told me she didn't feel like doing these worksheets because they are boring and instead why doesn't she just go and play in the centers. ( here the teacher laughed as though this was funny and not annoying. A good sign) Maggie talks about centers a lot. She puts her pencil down and wanders over to the centers and when I direct her back to her seat she says, very politely, those are boring, I think I should do centers instead. And when she does agree to do a worksheet she is slow." So I said, "hum, is she confused?" And she said, "no, she is not confused, she just doesn't seem to see the need to hurry and she really doesn't like the worksheets."<br />
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So then I had to do it. I had to tell the teacher about Maggie's 80 year old best friend from West Virginia. I had to tell her how Maggie gets up and walks over to Jack's house in her bare feet and goes into the chicken coop with Jack and they take several minutes to gather the eggs and then they go into Jack's kitchen and Maggie washes her hands and gets the bacon out and they separate it and fry it up and scramble some eggs or sometimes they boil them and yes, boiling takes some time, but these two have nothing but time. Sometime around two hours after they've started breakfast they are ready to sit down and eat and that takes about two more hours. I'm really sorry about this. I think Maggie would probably be perfectly suited for West Virginia mountain life, but I could see how her ease at letting everything happen at its own pace was probably not too much fun for the teacher and I would be willing to do whatever I could to make things easier for both her and Maggie.<br />
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The teacher seemed to be amused by Maggie and her best friend and said, well, I have to tell you she isn't even the slowest child here. There's a group of them who are quite relaxed, and I said, so they are special like Maggie and she laughed and said, yes, I think someday I'll stick them at a table together and see what happens. I said I thought that would be a terrific idea, could I come and document it. We agreed that we were both okay with Maggie only doing one worksheet and not the five that the rest of the class was doing. She felt confident that in a few weeks Maggie would be fine and doing everything on time and there was nothing to worry about. Sure enough, today Maggie she got into the car and said she finished all her worksheets and when I opened her backpack to make sure she was telling the truth this time, she was. Success!<br />
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Next time I'll tell you about Valentine's Day and Maggie's attempt to steal the fancy chocolate I bought for her teacher.<br />
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<br />ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-22049434679775119802013-02-18T12:45:00.000-05:002013-02-21T07:32:13.835-05:00Writing and riding and livingThis blog is in need of a major update. My mood in December took quite a long time to lift, but I've been feeling relief the past couple of weeks so I will force myself to sit and write.<br />
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Although I haven't been writing lately, I have been doing a lot of reading about writing and every book says the same thing; in order to get better at writing you need to write everyday, even when you don't feel like it. This piece of advice ends up applying to many things. The more you do the thing you should do (but that you have no desire to), the easier it becomes, the better you get, the more you enjoy what it is you are trying to master. As a woman mired in mediocrity and doing just what I have to do get by, I find all of this irritating. Even though I know there are many things I should be doing every single day, it's just not going to happen because all of that doing is hard.<br />
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Writing is hard. Even bad writing is hard. I know because I've been doing it for years now. This is when you all come in with the comments about what an amazing writer I am (please!) and I fend off the compliments with my self deprecating wit. Did you know that using cheap gimmicks like I just did right there is a sign of a bad writer? That's the great thing about reading books about writing. You learn about all the things that make for shitty writing and then you become gripped with with fear to the point of not even wanting to write and then when you do decide to maybe put something down on paper, you have no idea what you are doing anymore.<br />
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So yes, I read several books about writing and the only thing I can remember is all the stuff about what to avoid and now I just want to start using bad cliches, and switching tenses, and adding useless words like <i>very</i> over and over, and just being wordy in general. I always feel some compulsion to do what I was told not to do. I think many people are like this. Like when people see me drinking diet coke and tell me it causes cancer. I want to drink more and sometimes I even want to throw some diet coke in the face of the person who feels compelled to tell me how to live my life. That's the kind of person I am. I seem pleasant enough, but most likely if you piss me off I'm thinking about ways to inflict some kind of humiliation on you. It sounds cruel and petty, I know, but really it amuses me and keeps the rage at bay.<br />
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Speaking of which, I went for a bike ride on Saturday and I was feeling ragey for a solid three hours. It was windy and grey and awful outside. Rage can ruin a bike ride. I started yelling out things as I was riding like argh, and son of a bitch, and I finally succumbed and dropped a loud f bomb over on 561. It was so windy that it honestly got to the point where I could barely pedal and I thought about giving up and calling Greg to come get me. But that would involve admitting where I was and then he would have given me a lecture about how he needs to get more life insurance on me because I ride in places I shouldn't be riding. I would have said, please, this is perfectly safe, plenty of people ride over here, and he would have said he isn't married to plenty of people. I would have looked at him and imagined throwing a huge diet coke in his face or maybe even a bike, since I do like to keep my imaginary acts of violence related to the topic at hand. And I probably would have called him a dream killer too. Suddenly, having him come get me didn't seem worth the trouble. I finished the bike ride and ended up being happy at the end, which is always what happens when I finish a ride.<br />
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My bike ride was much like the past several weeks of my life. Things sucked and I wanted to quit, but then things got better and I was happy again. I kept calling people and annoying them. People like my sister and my dear friend, X ( not her real name), who just sat and listened to my nonsense. At one point I told X to just go and find new friends because I was lousy and would only infect her with my lousiness. This was X's first experience with my truly horrible and immature behavior and although she was probably shocked by my awfulness, she thankfully she didn't let on and didn't run away. She will never get rid of me now. My sister, she is used to me, but still, the phone calls filled with negativity and feeling sorry for myself and lamenting every choice I ever made must have been tiresome. If you manage to find people who sit and listen to your foolishness and resist giving you unsolicited advice, you should be grateful. My sister and X are the opposite of the diet coke police. They are fully aware that I'm acting like an ass but they know enough to just shut up and listen and make some jokes now and again to try and alleviate some of the misery. They know how to avert having an imaginary diet coke thrown in their imaginary faces.<br />
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For the most part, so does my husband. He was forced to live with me and endure hours and hours of my obsessive worry. He listened and every once in awhile he would say something and I would think, oh whatever, what do you know. So I went and talked to Fr. Robert to get some expert advice and he kept saying things which sounded vaguely familiar, and at one point it hit me and I said, oh, you know what, my husband said that. And then he said something else and I said, oh yeah, my husband said that too and after this went on for a little while Fr. Robert looked at me and said, Ann Marie, maybe you should start listening to your husband. What a novel idea! Ladies, have you ever heard anything so interesting before? Listen to your husband? Who knew? Anyway, I went home and told my husband and he didn't even gloat, he kind of laughed for a second and went on doing whatever it was he was doing and I realized I really do like him of a lot. That's the thing about marriage. You wake up in the morning wanting to throw diet coke at your spouse and by the end of the day you are wondering how you would have made it through the past twenty years without him or her.<br />
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So yeah, the past several weeks were not so great and I complained about stuff a lot and didn't write anything, but then, because life is the way it is (thank you, God), something happened and suddenly things looked brighter and less hopeless and there was some relief. There was a little shift that made getting out of bed much easier and it made me thankful I had gone through some weeks of agony because what's the point of life if you are always living on a high. It gets boring. At least for me it does. And hopefully for a little while now I will I write more than once every couple of months. Thanks for listening, capicola farts! I hope I didn't lose you all in my absence.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-85775593205206784912012-12-05T00:39:00.000-05:002014-09-15T17:38:53.367-04:00Chandeliers of HopeWhen I was in the third grade we went out to a local tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. It was cold and dark and it seems like it was snowing, but I'm not sure about that now. Memories start melding into one another when you hit a certain age. I have to ask someone else who was there if they remember it the same way I do. We went out to the middle of the tree farm and my mom saw this little tree, and she said that was the one she wanted. We all said it was too small and went on looking a little longer until we ended up back at that little tree where my mother told us one more time, that's it, that's the one I want. My father said Dear, that tree is too small, but my mom wouldn't budge and so my dad took the ax and he cut it down.<br />
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We got home and put it in the stand and my mom looked at the tree and said it was too small. Then she started crying a little. I was a kid so I thought, why is she crying, it's just a tree. But I'm an adult now and I would venture to guess my mom wasn't crying about that little tree. It's not really my place to tell you all about my mom's life, but suffice it to say, she suffered great loss in her early years and the holidays have a funny way of making every loss and heartache come around and smack you in the face. I wonder if she was feeling it at that moment she looked at that tiny Christmas tree. To her credit, our holidays were filled with tremendous joy and love and fun and laughter and I've been chasing that kind of Christmas around for years now. I get glimpses of it with my own kids, but the big high, the absolute care free days of those childhood Christmas times are a little out of reach.<br />
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People come here to laugh (I think) and I'm sorry for having disappointed you. I shouldn't be writing right now. I should come back when I feel sunny and happy, which could possibly be tomorrow, but who knows, probably not. I told a dear friend that I get anxious this time of year, that sometimes I just want to skip over it, and she said, hey me too, do you like spring, let's just pretend it's spring, and so I did for a little while. But you can only do that for so long. Trees come up and lights go on and holiday songs are playing everywhere and you would have to be a complete idiot to not notice that, hey, it's the happiest time of the year! So be happy!<br />
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I went for a long bike ride today. Halfway through I started bawling my eyes out. I was riding down Lakeshore Drive crying and wiping my snot on my sleeve, but I kept on riding. It's hard to ride a bike and cry at the same time. It's impressive really. And funny and stupid, too. I started doing that thing you do when you're sad and life's gotten the best of you. I thought of the starving people in Africa and of the people who had no one to go home to and no one to eat dinner with, but that didn't cheer me up all, imagine that.Why do we think other people's misery will make us feel better about our own? It's warped, isn't it? But what I thought about mostly, what brought about the tidal wave of tears, was that someone close to me is going through tremendous heartache and I can't do a thing to ease that person's suffering and I started to cry so hard I couldn't see anymore.<br />
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It's Christmas and you came here to get some holiday laughs but I'm not giving you any. I can give you hope though. Well, I can't, but God can and I'm kind of grateful Christmas is rolling around right now because as my sister commented to me, if there's one time of year you believe something good will happen, this is it. Something good will happen and there will be light. I know it. Everyday from now until Christmas morning a little miracle will happen that will give me hope that everything will be okay. Maggie will smile at Santa or she'll dance around the Christmas tree downtown and sing. Jane will help me make Christmas cookies and Kate will make sparkly paper snowflakes, huge ones that look perfect. Anthony will string the lights around the tree in clumps and we'll laugh at his craziness and Greg will come through the door and ask if anyone wants to go for a walk to see the lights and Leo will charge at him and probably knock over the tree in the process. My sister will send me a perfectly worded email or text me the sweetest little picture of her Advent Wreath and I'll see it there, I'll see hope and happiness and peace and I'll be thankful for all the people who made me believe it, for the people in my life who gave me a Christmas miracle when I needed it most.<br />
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Up above, candles on air flicker<br />
Oh, they flicker and they float<br />
And I'm up here holdin' on<br />
To all those chandeliers of hope - Coldplay<br />
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ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-20351971600072263182012-12-02T23:37:00.000-05:002012-12-02T23:40:38.811-05:00Advent SeasonHere's something I wrote back in the winter of 2010. It seems like way more than two years has past. Anyway, in lieu of being original and ambitious, I've decided to give you this recycled post because it's all I can manage at the moment. Also, the original comments are here. If you commented two years ago, please feel free to comment again! Have a happy Advent everyone.<br />
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Here's what the beginning of the season looks like for us...<br />
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We get really excited about the wreath, go to look for it in the attic and realize it's lost again. Someone (it could be me) complains that our house is a mess and disorganized and then threatens to throw out everything in the attic. Someone else walks in with the Advent wreath and says,"were you looking for this?" I look for candles and can't find any. I run to the store hoping that I will be able to find pink and purple candles. I believe this is the year the store will have stocked enough of these. But alas, there are no pink or purple candles to be found within a 20 mile radius of the town where I live. I make a mental note to not wait until the first day of Advent to buy candles next year. I get white candles instead and tell the kids it really doesn't matter and Jesus would not be upset, but this doesn't make anyone feel better and there is still the belief that Jesus would be upset, at which point I get upset and beg my children to go with the flow a little more because I am their mom and if they don't learn to do that while living with me they are going to be miserable. I get super crafty and tie pink and purple ribbon around the candles and then someone starts to worry that the ribbon is going to catch fire.<br />
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I look through my Advent schedule and get out the appropriate readings, at which point all of my children who know how to read descend on me and start arguing about doing the readings. I say something reassuring like, "See, this is actually something Jesus would be upset with." Then I read the readings and tell them I will continue doing that all through Advent if they all scream like that again. We finish and I ask if anyone has anything they want to say. We all look at each other like a bunch of mutes and I start to wish we were one of those families that felt free and easy talking about their thoughts on God. We end with an "Our Father" and "Hail Mary" and I almost start to cry because nothing sounds sweeter to me than the sound of my kids saying these two prayers together. And the fact that Maggie can almost recite them on her own this year just about breaks my heart in two, in the best kind of way of course. <br />
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I have set my standards low this year for the Advent Season. I simply want to light the wreath every night, read our meditations, have a few minutes of quiet and not argue about who gets to blow the candle out, and really should anyone else but the three year old be allowed to do this? Should there even be the slightest argument?ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-80919824441038176452012-11-14T14:11:00.004-05:002012-11-14T16:07:09.474-05:00The final word on BusterThe Bastards win. Don't they always? I've tried my hardest to keep Buster alive but after spending way too many hours obsessing over this, he has to be put down. I spoke to more than one person involved in rescue, people who spend all their time placing dogs and worrying about dogs and acting like dogs are human beings and every response was the same. No one would feel safe placing him. It turns out a dog who bites the daughter of the owner is not a hot commodity. The consensus was that Buster could possibly do this again and it would be irresponsible to let him out there.<br />
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So the dog who couldn't be taken down after getting plowed into by a car going twenty five miles an hour will be going away due to his own stupidity and really, it's fitting. It was always Buster's stupidity that we knew would do him in. And yes, I am mad at the little mother trucker right now. He had a good thing going here and he blew it and now I have to listen to Maggie say at least twenty times a day, can we go see Buster yet? Being mad makes it much easier on me because the madder I get, the less likely I am to burst into tears.<br />
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Why yes, I have cried over this. How can this be? Believe me, I've faced worse things in my life. Logic would tell you that if you've had to say goodbye forever to a person, saying goodbye forever to a dog would be a piece of cake and yet here I am, crying like a great big buffoon, doing things like taking off in my car or locking myself in my room so no one sees me shedding tears over a dog. But I admit, I never wanted to be one of those people who, with every new sadness, turned into a colder, harder version of myself, and clearly if the past few days are any indication, there's no fear of that happening.<br />
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Buster came into our home when Maggie was about a week old. He ran away more times than I can count on all ten fingers and toes. We chased him through the streets of Mount Dora; I pushed children out of moving vehicles just so they could grab him; we had neighbors chase with us and if they weren't chasing they were cheering us on to go get him, pointing out the direction he had taken that day. He scared the UPS man so much that he no longer left things at our door, he would just yell to us, "it's in the driveway." When friends would come over for tea and a chat Buster would find a way to insinuate himself into the activities, usually by placing himself directly on people's laps and not moving until they got up (Julie? Does this sound familiar?)<br />
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Oh of course, of course, he was just a dog, I get it, I really do, but when you say goodbye to a dog you start thinking about all the other stuff that occurred during the time he was with you and it can just choke you right up. Five and half years is a little bit of a stretch wherein all sorts of things have happened to you and your loved ones and you realize, yet again, that life just keeps moving on and sometimes that feels good and sometimes it just plain sucks.<br />
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We'll miss you Buster. Thanks for listening, you guys. Now excuse me while I go shed another tear or two.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-57667542210314452862012-11-10T20:27:00.001-05:002012-12-05T07:07:08.053-05:00I must laugh so I don't get too sadWhat a difference a day makes. I was feeling lighted hearted when I wrote my previous dog post, but things have certainly changed, haven't they? Buster bit Maggie last night and she had to get some stitches and we had to say goodbye to our dog of five and half years.<br />
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He really was a sweet dog. Yes, he ran away once or twice or hundred times and even got hit head on by a car once, but he survived and we took it as proof that he was Wonder Dog. We believed he would live for a long time and that he would be with us for at least ten more years. I loved walking with him. He kept up with me and could walk forever. He would look up at me every once in awhile like, yep, me and you are pretty kick ass with our walking pace, aren't we? He would lay next to my side of the bed every night and any time I put my sneakers on he assumed I was taking him with me and if I happened not to, I would feel guilty. Did I spend some serious time complaining about how many times he ran away or the mess he would make with the garbage? Of course, but that was because I just figured he would be around forever and now that he isn't, I'm a bit sad.<br />
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Lines have been drawn in the sand. We seem to have broken up into two camps over here. Here's a completely unbiased version of what's happening. On one side we have the Cold Hearted Bastards<br />
(the CHB) who believe Buster should be put down. He bit a five year old, our five year old, and he needs to go away permanently. And on the other side we have what I'll simply refer to as the Angels of Light (the AOL). To maintain journalistic integrity I can't tell you which side I'm on. The AOL believe that although Buster did bite our favorite five year old, he is a dog and as such he has a pack mentality which kicked into gear last night. He was trying to be the leader. The Angels believe that if given to the right home where no children live, he could live out the rest of his dog life without bothering anyone, because never before has he been aggressive to Maggie.<br />
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The Bastards are implying that perhaps the Angels simply don't love Maggie enough if they want Buster to be kept alive, because yeah, it's not like any member of the AOL carried Maggie in her womb and breast fed her and spent the past five and half years taking care of her. Anyway, the AOL are quite upset that Buster bit Maggie, but they believe in second chances and even though they know he cannot come back here ever again, they want him to go somewhere he will be loved. It should be noted that the victim in all of this still loves Buster and was crushed when she was told ( by our <a href="http://wwwcapicola.blogspot.com/2010/10/life-lessons.html"><b><span style="color: red;">chicken murdering</span></b></a> neighbors) that he would not be returning.<br />
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One member of the Angels has taken a turn for the worse in regards to her feelings for Leo, because even though Leo wasn't involved in the incident and wasn't even the room when it happened, this particular person believes maybe Buster was just jealous Leo was brought into the family and biting Maggie was his way of acting that out. And she also consider herself extremely loyal so she just feels bad liking Leo too much now. A member of the opposing side wise cracked about how this kind of twisted loyalty is exactly how Nazi Germany was so successful, I guess implying that this Angel would have made a great Nazi. The Angel had to remind the Bastard that given the chance, he would probably replace his love for his Angel (which is how she now wishes to be addressed by him) just as easily as he seems to have replaced his love for Buster and he would probably do so with a slender golden haired hussy just to match his new dog. It's all so hand to forehead frightening I can barely stand to think about it all!<br />
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On a more serious note, Miss Maggie is doing amazingly well. She was a trooper in the ER and didn't shed a single tear. She wowed the doctor and nurse with her vocabulary and speaking skills and at some point they found out she was homeschooled and mistakenly thought it was this fact that was giving Maggie her sophisticated edge. I decided to let them keep on believing that instead of telling them the truth, which is just that Maggie watches a lot of movies that were meant for bigger people ( please, nothing R rated, just things like Phantom of the Opera). She had such a smashing time at the ER and liked everyone there so much that the second she woke up today she asked if she could back again to visit, but first she had to go outside and show off her stitches. Later on this afternoon, after rehashing all of the previous day's events and Maggie's cuteness and good attitude throughout it all, we agreed that regardless of any feelings we had about Buster's fate, Maggie is a keeper.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9080115717037909545.post-61172591458556256392012-11-08T08:53:00.003-05:002012-11-08T08:56:20.983-05:00MY INTIMATE THOUGHTS ON THE ELECTION AND PRESIDENT OBAMA!Did you fools really think I was going to talk about that? I'll do whatever it takes to up my readership though and I knew someone out there would be lured in by that title.<br />
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Well here's an update on our new dog, Leo. He is highly irritating. Greg keeps trying to trick me into finding his behavior cute by calling Leo a puppy, because he's only eleven months old and technically that still qualifies him as such. But he is fully grown and he doesn't look like a puppy at all ( kind of like Anthony is fully grown and doesn't look like a pre-teen. The similarities between Anthony and Leo are endless) . He is a complete nuisance but as soon as Greg tells me he's only a puppy I think, oh, that's right, I can't get mad at a puppy, that would be like getting mad at a baby. Yesterday I caught him with his paws up on the kitchen counter and his face in a jar of peanut butter. He looked at me like," yeah, whatever be-atch, I'm a puppy, just try and get mad at me."<br />
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And so it's begun. I am one of those people who tells really boring dog stories and when your face glazes over with complete disinterest I don't even care. I just keep rambling on and on, because omg! Leo is the cutest dog ever, don't you think so too?! Yes, I will send out Christmas cards, for the first time in fourteen years, but not because I really care about wishing you a Merry Christmas. I need a reason to put antlers and a scarf on my puppy and Christmas is ready made for that. I'll do a Christmas letter too and I'll make it so it looks like Leo wrote it! Here's what it would say if Leo <b>did</b> write it...<br />
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<i>Hey everybody!<br /><br />It's Leo. I've just been adopted by a new and really dumb family. They let me rip up paper bags and books and shoes and toys all day long. Sometimes I like to go into the bathroom and grab the toilet paper and then let it trail through the house. The mom gets a little mad but then she laughs and says something about how it reminds her of her son when he was a toddler. (She compares me to her son when he was a toddler an awful lot and I'm starting to think this kid must have been a real handful.) I take all their socks and hide them out in the backyard and under couch cushions and then I watch the mom wander around all day trying to find them and sometimes she looks at me like she wants to hit me over the head, but then the man comes in and tricks her into thinking I'm just a whittle puppy and I can't help it and she calms right down. This guy has her wrapped right around his finger. He tells her all kinds of lies, like that she makes the best toast and eggs ever, just to get out of doing things himself. I think she has what you humans call low self esteem, so if you just give her one little compliment she eats it right up! Anyway, I like to jump all over people and hump blankets. That one gets me into trouble, but not too much because I am just a puppy after all. I've been enjoying my walks. The lady just likes to take me out and show me off, because she thinks everyone will find me as cute as she does and mostly people do because let's face it, I'm a golden retriever. The mom keeps calling me the Jon Hamm of dogs. She makes sure not to do it in front of the dad though. And the son thinks it's funny to call me a son of bitch and he tells the mom, "well, technically he is a son of a bitch so it's not like I'm cussing, mom!" I've noticed that the males in this family like to use the word "technically" a lot and the mom sometimes has a hard time getting control of those two. Anyway, I really like it here because everyone thinks I'm cute and lets me do whatever I want. The only thing that bugs me is that they have this older dog, Buster, who must have been considered a bad dog before they got me, but now that I'm here tearing everything up all day long the mom occasionally looks at me and tells me she can't believe it, I'm so bad I'm making Buster look good! But she's always smiling when she says it. She's a real sucker. Well, that's about it from me. I hope to stay here for a really long time!</i><br />
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So anyway, that's what it would say if Leo wrote it. That's all folks. And admit it, this was much better for your mood than having to read nonsense about the election.ann mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18393802297623607520noreply@blogger.com10