It is good to find your Happy Place.

Ah, my cup of coffee in my Starbucks mug and a few stolen minutes to write here. It is the little things in life that make it spin. Sometimes when you are going full speed ahead you miss the days of a slower pace. I do miss writing here, but I am not complaining that my life is so full of wonderful things that I don't have as much time to do so. I love my life and all the wonderful craziness it is.

It is coming up on a year since my life got a little turned upside down and sideways. A year ago I was so sad, angry and confused as to why bad things seemed to happen to me. I was crying almost everyday, I felt that I had failed. I felt very lost . I didn't understand.



Fast forward one year.........



I am not sad, I am happy!

I have a WONDERFUL Family, Kate and Josh are my rocks. They love me so much each and everyday that I can't help but smile.

I run a very successful online scrapbooking store The Corner Store for S.A.V.E. that is shipping all over the world.

I have a wonderful Scrapbooking Retreat Company Scrappin Away Vacation Events that is registering scrapbookers for the January 2009 Retreat where Lisa Pace , Mimi Leinbach , and Jen Starr will be teaching 15 different classes over the 4 days!! It is our 5th Year anniversary and it is going to kick off with a Meet the Teachers Reception on Thursday Night!

I am volunteering more then I ever thought possible. I am managing the concessions for the Football team, coaching football, league rep of the wrestling association and managing the website, getting more and more involved at Josh's school, co-chairing the Holiday Shoppe and Race for education fundraisers.



It is amazing that out of such sadness I actually found my happiness. I couldn't imagine being where I was a year ago ever again. I made so many bad choices to get myself in that situation, but am so happy I had the strength to get myself out of it. Thank you to the few that stuck thru this year with me. My true friends, you are very special to me and dear to my heart. I will never forget all that you do for me. I hope that I can continue to be as good a friend to you.



I love having a place to write my thoughts, it is my happy place!



So on to some FOOTBALL news!!!

Well the team is 5-0!!! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The boys are just continuing to play hard and get the job done! This week was a mud bowl. We played in that rain on Sunday. Hot showers and hot soup were in order after the game.

Lexi is doing great. Her and Cricket are now best pals and play everyday. She is sleeping thru the night and having a great time stealing flipflops and running! But with that face you can only pick her up and cuddle with her. Damn I love this little bundle of fur!!

Had lunch with my friends Julie and Sydney yesterday at one of our favorite lunch spots. It wasn't a long enough visit but it was so good to see them. Sydney is 4 and recently developed diabetes. I can see the worry in Julie's face, and she trys to hide it!! But let me tell you about one brave, brave little girl, Sydney is amazing! She is taking this in stride, she is a hero to me. She will get her Mom thru this.
One of my favorite times is when we all sit around at night and Kate helps Josh with his homework. I love the way these two interact and work things out together. Josh is learning so much this year. He comes home everyday with something new to ask me. I love it that he thinks it is all new and amazed to find out that I know the answers. Makes me feel smart too :)
This was Josh's sack in the 4th Quarter this week. He busted thru the line and got the QB, caused a fumble and drove them back about 8 yards!
Oh and this is Lexi, in all her cuteness.....
So I hope to be bloggin more, lots going on this coming month in October. We have 5 more weeks of football, Mom is coming for a visit and of course Halloween!!!

Also , I am going to bring back Giveaway Wednesdays!!!! I MISS IT!

It's a GIRL!!

Yep here is Lexi!





We brought her home last night. I saw her picture in the vet's office earlier in the week and I called Kate and told her about the picture. I had just mentioned to her days before that I was really liking the boxer breed of dog lately. Lexi is a Boxer/Pit mix. She is just adorable and I think is going to fit into our family just fine. We met her parents and they were very friendly and we liked what we saw. So now to the housebreaking and the puppy kisses.

Everyone needs a good laugh!

And this is one GOOD laugh

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

I am so thankful for writers!

Cause they can write what I think or feel sometimes much better then I can!!
I have listened, I have watched and I have just sat here and gotten very scared that woman are "relating" , " so happy to have someone to root for" etc..... I feel just like the one outside the zombie film saying NO NO Don't do it!!! But I didn't know how to explain what I wanted to say to these people. Then I got this email tonight and went YES!! Finally!!! Someone wrote the words down!!
So I will go to bed tonight and rest and hope that this email keeps going and possibly wakes some people up to what is going on.

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feministand activist best known for "The VaginaMonologues," wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears.Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seenone in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story-- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds,deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover.
But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately,this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as ametaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan.
She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered specieslist. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered.Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.She obviously does not believe in sex education or birthcontrol. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently.She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference.
This is a woman who could and might very well bethe next president of the United States . She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the endof separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction.
It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is afree open tolerant society or a closed place of fear,fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC,"Drill Drill Drill."
I think of teeth when I thinkof drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt,ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone,in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve EnslerSeptember 5, 2008

Remember

This image still burns in my mind 7 years later. I remember sitting in bed watching the Today show and seeing this image. Still not believing the first tower scene, and then just gasping at this one. I remember Josh was still just a baby sleeping at just 19 months old. I remember watching everything unfold. I remember having to force myself to shut off the TV as it ran 24/7 in the house.
But do I think about it each and every day, I would have to say no. So today I will remember for those people that do think about it each and every day. For those families that today changed their life forever in more personal ways. For those children that might have been infants and toddlers and might have been sleeping, to wake to a changed world. I can not even begin to imagine what each of those families have gone thru these past 7 years, I can only hope and pray for each of them that the healing continues, and honor them today in my thoughts and prayers.

Today you are not forgotten.

One Proud Mama!!

Yep I was a beaming Mama on Sunday!
I am not the easiest Mom when it comes to expecting excellence.
I always ask for 110% of Josh in whatever he does.
We have many talks about the difference of playing something for fun and playing
something to be a champion. In sports Josh has big dreams and expectations of himself.
He wants to be the best, he wants to play in the NFL , he wants to play in Highschool, in
College (right down to already picking where he wants to play in college).
I think it is great to have these dreams and hopes and the drive to accomplish them.
Josh is one of those kids that is athletic enough to possibly do this , to see his dreams come
true.
So this Sunday Josh gave more then 110% , he was in on so many tackles we lost count. He ran for 1st downs. He got the job done. Yes there is no I in team and the whole team did so well, I have to give Josh his due , for all the times I drive him to do just what he did on Sunday, his job all 4 quarters of the game.
We have a great group of kids, they are all having a great time and being 3-0 on the season is making for all smiles! WTG Josh, I am so proud of you!!!
This is my other Proud of moment! Look at that Smile, FINALLY!!! I have missed that smile for so very long. It is not fake , it is not forced, it doesn't have pain behind it. I am so proud of Kate for all the hard work she is doing to get herself moving again. Tomorrow will be 8 weeks since surgery and Kate is riding the bike a mile and 1/2 on level 4 at Physical Therapy!!! She has such great range of motion , the therapist are just amazed. It is so great to see her not in pain everyday. Life is good!!

As for me, I miss my scrappy friends right now. Not that I have had a minute to scrapbook much , but still miss them. Life just seems to get more and more crazy everyday.

So today is my Lunch Duty day...I love seeing Josh during the day at school hanging with his friends. (I haven't told him I am coming today).

Ok back to work ....S.A.V.E. opens up in 6 days!!!

When did the calendar get turned to Sept?

And when did this little guy get so big and become a 3rd Grader!! I can't believe 3rd grade, he is just trucking along, growing , learning. He is my little super hero! He was less then thrilled with the approaching school year. I think more that summer was ending. But come the first day of school he marched off like a trooper and when he came home later that day he had a huge smile on his face and exclaimed that his teacher was really nice. He also has one of his buddies in his class and one of his football teammates too. So he is all set and ready for a great year.
There is the big Yellow Monster swallowing him up. It came so fast this year this was the only shot I got. Everything seems to be moving faster lately.
Here was our little bit of , life doesn't always go as planned. A freak thing happened and the car jumped out of park ( after the key was removed) and rolled down into our front lawn and ran into the poor little well house. No one was hurt, and the car is in for repairs now. Then it is off to the mechanic to find out the problem. I have since looked things up on line and Ford seems to have some issues with the transmission doing this before. Not good!
Our 2nd week of football proved to be another good one. Josh scored a TD and made some awesome tackles. He was put in a new position (Defensive Tackle) and seems to really like busting thru the line and breaking up plays. We won 19-7 and go 2-0 for the season!! This weekend is not looking good for football. Waiting to hear from the commissioner to see if we are going to have games today. Hope Hanna keeps going east.

So as we get in the swing of Sept, I am busy with The Corner Store and S.A.V.E. with Scrappin Away Vacation Events opening in 9 days for the January Event things are in full swing on this end. We have some excitement this year as it is our 5th year doing these events!! So I have invited some great teachers to help us celebrate. Lisa Pace, Mimi Leinbach, and Jen Starr will all be teaching classes at the event. I just couldn't hold out anymore, I am so very very excited about these ladies coming all at once!! I have already got some pictures of the projects and WOW is all I can say!! We will also be doing a Charity Auction and Raffle this time, I missed doing this the past couple events. So look for all the information coming soon!

Oh and READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!! Can't wait for Football Sunday!!