Life lessons

People tell me all the time that I should write a book! All the "goings on" in my life are the makings of a publication! Well, I don't think I could sit down and organize enough thoughts into a comprehensive story. I think maybe the best idea would be to just write about life as it happens and about what's going on now! If nothing else, it's a good place to look back to remind me why I move forward with the decisions I make.

I realize tonight, that I've made some really big mistakes. I thought I was doing the right thing when I was doing it, but, WOW, I'm old and my kids are grown, and I didn't accomplish anything!

I need to start over. Now! Start over before it's too late for the last kid on the list. My baby. My 9 year old girl.

As I helped my son, 21 and my daughter, 19, plan their vacation for this year, I found myself hurt and jealous!

Rony, my husband, and I have worked long hours, without rest, with certain goals. The problem is, we didn't set a time limit on these goals. They were always just out of reach. We were going to buy a bigger house so our family would be comfortable and be able to spread out! We were going to travel. Show the kids everything! Take a cruise, visit Europe, travel across the country. We actually made a trip together once. One week in the last 21 years. One week.

Where did the time go?

The world keeps spinning.

Time keeps passing.

Here I sit, in the same spot I was in 21 years ago.

The same spot, but my son is grown, and moved out.

The same spot, but my daughter is grown and moving on.

The same spot, but different bedrooms for me and my husband.

So as my two oldest kids planned their vacation this year, without me, I found myself resenting the fact that they could just go and enjoy themselves and never even thought to ask me to go with them. We spent so much time "providing" for them and teaching them to be independent, that they have excluded us from their plans completely.

So I missed their childhood, and now I'm going to miss their life!

I sit here crying, wondering if they will forget me when they hit all those milestones in their futures, like getting engaged, married, pregnant, birthing, growing......life.

What makes it so hard? The fact that we have been saving for months with plans of actually closing the restaurant and taking a week to travel, as a family, to Guatemala. Ronald only gets a week of vacation a year. He chose something else.

I've decided, with or without Rony, Claudia and I are going to start living today!

We are starting by planning a vacation ourselves! Italy, maybe? I don't know yet, but I'm not going to let her forget me! I can't wait to plan!

Any suggestions?

My first Blog

Wow! This is my very first blog ever! I mean, I have never even so much as written a diary, or made a journal entry. What an undertaking! I wonder if I'll keep this up.

Hmmm. Well. A little about me.
I am a 40 year old mother of 3. (Whoa! wait a minute. I'm 40 years old. FOUR-ZERO. FOURTY. I've been fourty for ten months now. I'm almost 41, in fact, but I've been so busy with my everyday tasks that I didn't realize I was 40!!! I'm middle aged! AARRGGHH!)

I think I need to think about this for a while....

Ok, I'm a 40 year old mother of 3 with a brand new middle age crisis. My son just started his senior year in high school. He works as a delivery driver at our pizza shop/breakfast restaurant combination. My middle daughter is a sophomore and helps as a waitress there, when she isn't playing SOCCER!!! (yep, I'm a soccer mom) and my youngest, hated by all because she is "spoiled" and "such a baby" is six and just started FIRST grade. She makes me feel young again. (yeah right!). I have four dogs, four birds and a cat and we all live in a tiny two bedroom house that my husband and I keep saying we are going to move out of because there just isn't enough room here for all of us. The problem is, we never go because we are so busy with everything else!

So, here begins my story. The story of me, the 40 year old, middle age mom raising a spoiled baby, a soccer queen and my 18 year old baby boy. (Don't tell him I said that, he'll be mad.)
While juggling a job and animals and housework and sports and life. Everyone says they don't know how I do it, so here's the scoop!