You're Gonna Miss This

The little guy on the right, in this photo… is going off to college in a few short days.  This is how he still looks to me in my head even though he is now 18 years old!

On Saturday, my family of five will be taking one of my 18-year-old twin sons, Cody, to Milwaukee.  Saturday will be the last time he will walk out of THIS house, the house he has lived in since he was 10 years old, as we will have moved by the time he makes a visit home.  We will spend Saturday together in Milwaukee, celebrating his sister Rachel’s 12^th birthday.  It will be the last time the five of us will be together for awhile.  By the time Cody returns for a weekend visit or holiday, his twin brother, Mack, will likely be gone to Basic Training for the Air Force. 

On Sunday, after we move Cody into his new Dorm room at Milwaukee School of Engineering, we will be down to four.  In our family.  Moving into our new home.  I will probably cry all of the way home on Sunday because tears have been rolling down my face for the past 24 hours.  I have been so busy, coordinating the chaos that is my life recently as CEO of my household that I haven’t had time to feel anything, although I had been waiting for the tears.  Yesterday, thinking about my best friend taking her children on a family trip to enjoy one of their last days of summer, I started thinking about all of those late August trips my own family had gone on when the boys were the same age as her children.  I told her to hang onto every moment she could and make that day last a lifetime, burn the memories into her brain, because in the blink of an eye she would be sending her oldest off to college in a city that no matter how close it is, is too far away for any mother.   My tears have so many different meanings.  They represent my sadness about my son leaving, and another one to leave in a few short months.  Yet they also are tears of joy for the hope of the future, and what is yet to come.  For all of my children.  For my own life.  I am so proud of the young man my son has become.  His intelligence, self-discipline, kindness, caring and respect for others are just a few of his best traits.  One night recently he told me he didn’t know how he would ever “re-pay” me for all I have done for him.  Well kiddo, it’s “re-payment” enough to see you go out there and be the best man that you can become and follow your own dreams. 

I have never dealt with change very well.  Then suddenly boom goes the dynamite, I am hit with so many different changes all at once.  I could not get through this without my very best friends, who give me a shoulder to cry on and help me look forward to the future, who give me strength, and make me feel less alone with the words “you are always in my heart and I feel what you are going through.”  After all, when the boys were born, didn’t I tell everyone the best part about being a young mother was that I would ONLY be 41 when they grew up and moved out?   If only then someone had told me, “You’re gonna miss this.”  I probably would not have believed it anyhow, considering I was still growing up myself.  Thank you Cody for helping me grow up, teaching me patience and being patient with me.  You have grown into an amazing person with much to offer anyone who is blessed enough to have you touch their lives.  

The Bucket List

 A few years ago country singer Terri Clark had a hit single called “I Wanna Do It All.”  The Green Bay radio stations even played a re-mix replacing “I want to watch the Yankees play ball” with “I want to watch the Packers play ball.”   That song happened to play on my iPod on my commute to work in Appleton today and it got me thinking… (On a side note, statements like this are what that “dot dot dot” button was made for.)  What comprises my list of “doing it all”? 

First we have Terri Clarks list which includes the following:

1.              Visit Paris in the Fall - been there, granted it was Spring way back in 1989… and NO this does not make me French, just like going to Japan does not make you Japanese, even though when I was recently asked if I was French due to a tattoo I have which is biblical verse written in French, I responded stupidly saying, “No. I went to France though!”

2.              Watch the Yankees/Packers play ball - Never the Yankees but many times the Packers.  Nothing compares to being at a football game inside Lambeau Field.

3.              See Niagara Falls - I have… twice.  From the U.S. side.  Long story, however, I did get to the Canadian side via the Maid of the Mist.   The falls were beautiful.  I am not a huge fan of Canada though, and we will just leave it at that. 

4.              Drink Tequila down in Tijuana - Is Nogales close enough?  Border hopping to Mexico via Arizona rather than California.

5.              Get my heart broke once or twice, settle down with the love of my life and rock my babies to sleep at night - Yes yes yes and all of the above and I wouldn’t trade a minute of it, not even the bad parts.

6.              Feel good in my skin, beating the odds with my back to the wall and trying to rob Peter without paying Paul - the two former are recent experiences for me, but it feels awesome and the latter I am an old pro at!!!

So what about my own “Bucket List”?  Do I have one?  Do YOU have one?  Even though I am able to check off quite a few of Terri Clark’s must do items, what about my own?  After all, I am the woman who once told a friend I didn’t understand the phrase “the one that got away” because I don’t have one.  So maybe my expectations differ from those of others.  I really had to rack my brain to come up with these.  Some I have already accomplished and experienced, some I am working towards, and others are yet to come.

1.     Swim in the pretty blue water - after years of my husband and I saying this to one another, this spring we finally swam in the ocean, the Caribbean to be exact, tasting the salt water and finally believing it really is turquoise water with white sand beaches. (Those photos in the travel brochures aren’t photo shopped!!!)  Nothing like feeling that sand between your toes.

2.     Write a book.

3.     Drive a 1969 Mercedes Benz.

4.     Visit every single National Park while taking an RV trip cross country with my husband and all three of my children and hug a big old Redwood tree when I get to California.

5.     Live to hold my grandchildren and see them grow up. 

6.     Play Paintball.

7.     Plant a garden.

8.     Wear a fur coat to the grocery store – (there IS a story behind this one, a goofy one, but a story).

9.     Hire an assistant to pull a red wagon behind me everywhere I go so I no longer have to worry about everything falling out of my purse/backpack/beach bag and digging in it like a bag lady every time I am at a checkout stand.

10.  Learn how to appropriately scan and bag items at the self-checkout so ONCE … JUST ONCE…. I wouldn’t have to call an actual employee of the store over to help me!

11.  Give BACK. Volunteer for worthy causes that I believe in – I have had a very rewarding experience volunteering in a Kindergarten class at one of the local schools, but I would like to expand on this, perhaps volunteering at pregnancy counseling center or the humane society.

12.  Dance at my daughter’s wedding.   

13.  Go on a wine tour in Napa, Go on a wine tour in Italy, Go on a wine tour at Walgreen’s – oh wait, I already did that one!

14.  Work as a missionary in the jungle of South America.

15.  Live a simpler life with fewer belongings so that the “things” that measure me as a human being are not material possessions, but rather what’s in my heart – I have already started working toward this.

16.  Earn a college degree – and then another, and another, and another - I am almost there with the first one thank you NWTC!!!

17.  Have the kind of patience others have given to me – yes; I want to give up my need for immediate gratification. 

18.  Have lunch with Tina Fey, dinner with Justin Timberlake, drinks with Kid Rock and play laser tag with Barney from “How I Met Your Mother.”

19.  Run through the house of someone who is an OCD perfectionist and tilt all of the pictures on the wall, mess up the hand towels, wash my hands with the decorative soaps, and turn all of their canned goods around and upside down so the labels are not perfectly facing front... JUST FOR FUN!!

20.   Become the friend that a friend would like to have, modeled after those in my own life who have shown me that I truly CAN count on the kindness of good friends.  Thank you, all of you, for what you do.  I was once told that if you cannot be a good example, at least be a horrible warning.  So thank you dear friends for giving a good example to this horrible warning.  I love you all!

Tales of Welcome Days

Yesterday, as a member and officer nominee for the open Public Relations position for Phi Theta Kappa, I volunteered to assist with NWTC Welcome Days.  (I say this because even though I was not working to promote Phi Theta Kappa, I would have never gotten involved if not for my fellow Phi Theta Kappans.)  So with the scent of "new t-shirt" (volunteers wore aqua t-shirts to identify ourselves to the new students) and the commons swarming with new students, I set about my business to assist with campus tours.  It felt similar to being a Senior in High School and helping out the new Freshmen.  In the past I have volunteered at an elementary school in a Kindergarten classroom, so I am familiar with the rewarding feeling of doing something just to do it.  So many things in my life are done for a paycheck or for my own family, that to show some kindness to strangers was a really different thing.  Making the new students feel welcome and not so alone is really important to our College.  If we can help them to feel comfortable with this new adventure, regardless of whether they are just out of high school or if they are a returning adult student like myself, it will make NWTC a better place.  It will make our school much more appealing.  Unlike my own son's experience, which will include moving into a dorm in a few weeks, there is often much less camaraderie and sense of family built at a two-year facility like ours because we do not offer housing.  Even at a four-year college, students that don't live on campus often feel as if they are "on the fringes."  My goal yesterday was to squash that feeling for these new students.  Not only did I want to simply walk them around pointing out classrooms and the library, but I also wanted to share with them what NWTC has done for my life and what we have to offer as far as activities and involvement.  I wanted these new students to know that student involvement will make their experience more rewarding, to reassure them that they WILL make many new friends (and perhaps a more diverse group of friends) and that organizations like Phi Theta Kappa will recognize and honor their academic achievements. A mother of one of the new students who is going into Marine Engineering told me she was part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. She is a Big Sister to a high school student interested in the Paralegal Program.  She had some questions for me and before we parted ways I gave her my contact information so that her Little Sister could get in touch with me if she wanted more information to get a sense of what the classes were like.  It felt good to be able to offer that and maybe I could make a difference in the life of a young person.  (Something my teenage self could never imagine doing !!!!)

While I was walking around with new students, I saw the husband of a very good friend, who is a welding instructor at NWTC.  Volunteering with me was Casey Fryda's co-worker/counterpart whose name escapes me (short term memory loss begins in your 40's kids!!), who said to me "You write the blog!" when I introduced myself and made me feel like a celebrity!! If anyone doesn't know this, Casey is my supervisor for this blogging position. Hi Casey!  One of my very best friends, whom I met my first semester at NWTC by some twist of fate, appeared in the commons to find that one of her primary instructors was assisting with my group as well.  Along with my dear friend, was a very new friend who does not currently attend our school, who might possibly have been impacted enough to consider going to school here.  It was good to see familiar faces, and good to see all of the new faces.  I definitely look forward to the upcoming semester and appreciate the opportunity my return to college has given me.  I am glad I did it - college, volunteering yesterday, and opening myself up to meeting new people and expanding my view of the world from the tunnel vision it had become in years past.

Time Waits for No One

As I am thinking about starting Fall classes next week, it seems like it was not too long ago that I was walking into the first day of my first class of NWTC back in January of 2011.  In some ways it feels like it was yesterday, and in other ways it feels like it was 100 years ago! It's the same way I feel when I realize in just 16 short days I will be bringing my son to Milwaukee to move into the dorms at MSOE.  Where does time go?  And why can't we freeze it on those days when life seems so beautiful and perfect and fast forward it on those days when we feel like things can't get any worse? Even yesterday my daughter, who is looking forward to her 12th birthday in a few weeks, told me that last year it felt like she had to wait FOREVER for her birthday, yet this year it seems to be coming up so quickly.  Maybe it's true, the older we get, the faster the hands of time spin.  The days when it seemed to tick tock at a snail's pace have long since passed me by.  At my age, I feel like I am trying to grab every fleeting moment that is slipping away like trying to trap a bee in my cupped hand so it doesn't sting someone (ok, my nephew Max namely in this case, because believe it or not I actually did that!  Shocking considering my lack of hand/eye coordination!)

If you are young and waiting impatiently for life to BEGIN,  remember to slow down and enjoy the journey rather than spending every moment trying to get to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.  Believe me, being a full fledged grown up is highly overrated!!!  Tonight I will be visiting a friend who doesn't live very far away, but whom I haven't seen in far too long.  Her twin girls were just babies like TWO SECONDS AGO, yet somehow they celebrated their fourth birthday this week.  And though I know our friendship will always stand the test of time no matter how few and far between our visits become,  I am going to make a concentrated effort to slow down and spend more time with the people that matter in my life.  I am going to savor those moments instead of racing through them so I can get on to the next thing my busy life requires.  And because time wait for no one, you should do the same. 

Life Dealt Me a Bad Hand and Other Similar Excuses

I could say that I am a "victim" of a sub-prime predatory zero down payment mortgages that banks were handing out like candy at a parade a few years ago.  I am a victim of being promised that anyone, yes anyone, even those with a not so stellar credit history who don't possess enough cash to make a 10% down payment, deserves to live the American Dream, which at that time meant home ownership.  My mortgage broker promised me that I had nothing to worry about, we would "make it work."  He suggested that on my husband and my mutual payday, we transfer all of our funds into a savings account for just a few days before using it to pay bills (as those of us who live paycheck to paycheck must do on payday) and he would have the lender pull our bank information in that short window so that it would appear we had that 2-3 month reserves required by the lender.  So of course, wanting to be a part of this amazing American Dream that all grown ups seemed to want, I did as I was told. Side note:  prior to this I could not even commit to buying new furniture, content with hand me downs because a new couch was far too large of a lifelong commitment.

So was I a victim of a predatory mortgage?  Or perhaps I was just a victim of my own stupidity?  I am a smart woman and common sense should have told me that I was in no financial position to do a zero down loan with a mortgage payment far too high for the home I was purchasing.  Was I a victim of my own senseless spending when money seemed endless, the economy seemed so great, and we could only be moving on up from here?  Probably a little bit of both. It is easy to lay the blame on what we all know is the truth of what happened in those years and what the result of that is... And though I was promised via a television speech one evening that I would no longer have to lie in bed and worry about how to pay my mortgage, the processes put in place were so convoluted and tedious and repetitive with no actual results, that I finally gave up and gave in.  I stopped trying, because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  To try to save a home that I am not even really that attached to seems ridiculous.  My emotions that surface when I realize in less than 60 days I will be leaving that house, have less to do with the actual structure, the real property, than they do the "home" part of it, which is about the PEOPLE who lived inside of that building and the memories we made.  All of that could have easily happened with a different background.  The house is simply a backdrop to our lives, but it isn't what made my family what it has been and what it is. 

If I am honest with myself, I can admit that I have failed.  I am not good at budgeting.  My husband loves me enough to never throw it back in my face, as I was the CFO of our household.  However, we both know it is true.  Although we are both having a tough time with it, we must look ahead to a new chapter in our lives and learn from not only our mistakes, but the mistakes of that mortgage broker who promised us something we weren't prepared to live with, which wasn't the American Dream, it was being "house poor."  Even though we will likely be moving to "cozier" quarters soon, in the form of a duplex or maybe even an apartment,  we need to see it as an adventure.  (Even though most people, like my nephew, don't like adventures unless they involve pirates or dinosaurs... this will be good for us.  Change is good.)  So as we choose our new place to live, we can't go in with non-negotiables.  Everyone will not be 100% happy.  The art of compromise again -  everyone is a little bit happy, everyone is a little bit miserable.  The important part is that we will have each other and we will still have a lot of love in our lives.