Little Readers and A.D.D.

As my husband, Chris, and I were out today we came across some of the cutest little journals. I sure love the feel of a new Journal in my hands. The empty pages just waiting to tell a story. We decided after some deliberation, that we would get one for all of our girls, ranging from the age 5-12. Our final conclusion was that by having the girls write in them daily, we could not only encourage their writing and possibly spark a passion, but also create a keepsake. When the girls got home Chris announced that we have a surprise for them after they got all of their things put away. We presented the journals to them, and informed them that they would simply have to write one sentence in them everyday.

I told them 'You just have to write one sentence a day. You can pick anything from your day to write about. You may wirte more if you want, but you just have to write at least one sentence.'

One of our girls asked what if they had a bad day? We told them that was fine, that they could write that too. There are no reals as to what you write, you just have to write. They liked this freedom of expression.

We put aside an hour after school where we turn on some classical or instrumental music and dedicate that hour to study. They were so excited about this new idea. One of my daughters struggles greatly with ADD and dyslexia. Just today she came home in tears with her heart broken, once again, because she didn't think that she would ever be able to spell like the other kids. It was so encouraging to see that she REALLY liked this new idea of a journal. She even decided that she wanted to write a Bible verse everyday too. Oh, what a joyful mommy heart I had. Once they were done with their writing they brought them to me. I got out my red pen and helped correct the grammar and spelling errors, and they rewrote the daily entry again below it. The girls all really liked this. It was a way for them to share and to also expand their reading and writing. I look forward to seeing how it goes as the days pass. For our Kindergartener, we got a picture Journal. These look like a composistion notebook. They have a space at the top of each page to draw a picture, and then the large lines for beginning writers. She drew a picture and we wrote a sent. about what happened. She then copied our sent. below.

January 1982, in reference to the New York Times

Life When I was Born

I have heard stories told by my mother about the day that I was born, about how the snow was so high that grandpa had to plow the way to the hospital. If it had been recited once, then it had been recited a hundred times. I can still hear the stories about the long delivery, the excitement of the family and seeing the picture of my “chubby little cheeks” that could not be spoken about without reverting to baby talk. Yes, it was a celebrated moment for the Stacy family, but what was the rest of the world up to on that cold winter day in Iowa? As I began to stroll through the New York Times, dated January 21, 1982, it did not seem that much of anything had changed over the last three decades. The front page was plastered with articles blaming the president for recession, announcing issues we had with the Middle East, and that taxes and gas prices were going up. After thirty years I would have thought that there would be some new problems. War, money and politics: same thing, different decade.

            President Regan was in office, and by the looks of the article I have at hand, he was not sitting too high that day. Politics, as controversial as they are, never seem to catch as much attention as when the people’s money is involved.  Article titles such as “Debate over Blame for Recession blurs Reagan’s Economic Record” and “Aides say Reagan asks Congress for Excise Tax Rise, Gasoline Levy Affected” are the kind of titles that makes you hold on to your pocket book a little tighter and start to think about how the balance on that check book is going to stretch. After a talking it out with the supply-side advocates, the President thought that raising the gasoline tax 4% would make a significant difference considering tens of millions Americans rely on it to make their daily commutes to and from work. The Senate suggested that doubling the gas tax would do the job. Of course the tax on gasoline was not the only thing they could come up with to tax. There was what they comically referred to as the “sin” tax, taxes on alcohol and Tabaco, as well. Find what people won’t live without and tax it. There was talk about how this plan would bring $30 billion in tax revenue for the 1984 fiscal year. Of course on January 21, 1982, the verdict was still out. During the year of 1980 the tax of $10.50 a gallon, that was placed on whisky 100-proof, brought in $3.9 Billion. Alcohols of weaker proofs totaled $211 million. Cigarettes, only being taxed 8 cents a pack, brought $2.4 Billion. I would say that doubling these would help bring in a little more money. At that point I guess the readers all still had a hope that the taxes would not double.

            One a brighter note, who doesn’t like a nice walk in the park? The city had decided to start using prisoners to clean the public parks. Rikers Island jail complex had been bringing crews of 12-15 prisoners to work off some of their time by cleaning and rehabilitating the parks for the community. They were accompanied by a couple of guards and .38-calaber revolvers. The Mayors criminal justice coordinator assured the readers, “We approached this very cautiously.” So, the parks of Brooklyn had freshly raked, trash free parks with some nicely painted benches. If the people of Brooklyn had been asked prior to, they would have said that they didn’t like the idea, but after seeing the handy work of their cities convicted one lady said “they did a wonderful job” and that there were “no incidents what so ever.”

            Brooklyn had clean safe parks for the community to enjoy now, but unfortunately one gentleman was not walking through the park guarded with .38-calaber revolvers. 67 year old, David Sol, who survived the Nazi concentration camps of WWII, did not find his walk in the park to be one where he could enjoy the scenery. Around 6pm, after a day of watching his grandchildren, David walked toward home. After not arriving at home the family started to question his whereabouts. The authorities found him face down with a single gunshot wound behind his left ear. The mugger took David’s wallet, which held about $45 and went on his way. What a terrible way to die after having lived through so much. One person made the comment that “something is wrong with our society and must be done.”

            Tragedy, it has always been the making of a good news story. Beyond the politics and crime there is always entertainment. The New York Times bestselling book was none other than Red Dragon. Headlines reading that this was the “most popular American novel since the Godfather”, and apparently you could purchase the book for not much less than today’s prices. It was being advertised at $13.95. Opening in theaters was the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the fastest growing magazine, GAMES, went monthly.

            Walkman’s, Polaroid cameras, and big box televisions with antennas were all at high commodity. You could purchase your very own betascan for only $649. There was also the “Incredible Shrinking T.V.” This incredible little 3 inch screen came incased in its bulky 8 x 6 x 4 inch case, and yes… the antenna and all. There were ads for a computer, which was no more than a word processor, and that came with the promise of making your business run so much smoother. Every office needed on and I am sure that every office had the space for it. This word processor would only require two stands to hold the huge boxes of equipment and was very reasonably priced at $5995 and 12.9% financing. New fur coats were on sale at Macy’s for anywhere between $370-$5600. Everyone needed  a good mink, raccoon or coyote fur, and the word on the street was that dresses all needed to have high, air restricting necklines, a lot of pleats, some sort of little belt and “stripes are in.”

            How on earth were people able to afford all of these things? Well, if you owned a wholesome family video store you would be able to buy these luxuries for your family by your sales of X rated films. That little room hidden in the back of the family movie rental store accounted for over 70% of the stores business. It is expected to bring in $1 billion dollars, up from the $ 600 million that it brought in 1981.

            On January 20, 1982, life outside of that little hospital room was full of pressures, sex, murder, scandal, fashion and gadgets. The times have made the gadgets smaller, the national debts bigger, and the fashions much more transgender. We still have issues with our President and the taxes are still going up. Makes me wonder what will be in the headlines in another 30 years. I would like to think that I can have more hope for the articles to come.

The Saddest Kind of Sad

Pain, sorrow, heartache, disappointment, loneliness... all of which are a part of life. They can be feelings that creep in even during a moment of joy. They can come like a wave on a sunny day, and sometimes they are like a little cloud that just lingers. It just stays right up there in the sky, and as soon as you think it is gone it starts to block the light. Sometimes they make wounds so deep, so sever that they almost seem to damage the nerves so that you can hardly even feel them anymore. Sometimes, and in the worst of them... they are hidden. They are the pains that you can't show the world. They are the pains that you smile through. They are the ones that if you show, you know that life could simple not go on as it is. Sometimes, you are so strong that you are broken inside. In these times when someone asks how you are, you are not just "okay" or "good"... you are "great!" You are holding to all of those greats. You are believing that these other dark spirits in life have never hunted your mind; your heart. This is when they get to you the most... the saddest kind of sad.

30 will look fabulous on you

By the time that I am done writing this it will be my birthday! I can not believe that I am 30 already. I was talking to a childhood friend of mine tonight, and it really feels like it was just yesterday that we were beading strings to make door curtains, eating this peanut butter/jelly goo (which consists of peanut butter and jelly mixed up in a bowl and you dip your bread in it: it tastes so much better that way for some reason), talking about boys and jamming out. Before we finished our conversation tonight, she told me this "30 will look fabulous on you : )" I thought to myself, you know what IT WILL!  It is crazy how time flies. I am not exactly where I thought I would be at 30.

I remember thinking as a child that when I grew up, I was going to be able to do my nails. That may sound like a silly dream, but OH... the dream it was! Ladies that had their nails done were always so put together. They seemed to walk taller and smile brighter. Being able to do your nails meant that you could go to the Salon, and that you had the money to pay for it. I had never been able to get it done, and I knew enough to know that even if I came up with the money once... that it required upkeep! Those ladies all had a home to call theirs and all their children were able to take dance classes. This simple sounding dream was more of a life style then a pass time. One that I now refer to as the Town Laker.

While I am not a Town Laker, I feel blessed with what I have, and feel good about my current goals in life. Sure, there have been some pretty rough spots, and there still are some... but I am moving forward. That only lets me know that I am still growing. I have always loved the phrase

"If your green your growing. If you are ripe you are routing."

This holds so much truth. I don't believe that you have ever failed at anything unless you have given up. When you stop trying, stop learning and stop growing... then you can go ahead and count your cards and lay them down. I am still in the game though, and I could still have a winning hand!

Bookstore Maddness

School is back in session! I had to go to the bookstore today and spend far too much money on books, if that is what you even call some of them. Some of these "books" are no more then a stack of lose leaf pages that you can NEVER sell back and pay a mark up price of 1000x. lol. Man! I decided to call up my mom and drag her along today.  It is always a ton of laughs spending one on one with mom, and we don't get the chances too often. On the way up there I heard her phone ring and I swore that it sounded like she had some sort of baby making ring tone playing and it cracked me up. She told me it was in fact not, and that it was Armstrong. I have heard a lot of ring tones in my time, but never any baby making music, so the idea really had me laughing as I gave her a hard time about it. I have been boggled ever since though because for the life of me I could not think of the artist that I thought it was. Don't you just hate when that happens? I even called Chris and he suggested that it was Marvin Gay and my mother thought maybe Barry White. I know that there is another known artist and it was right on the tip of my tongue.... but what is his name? For kicks we drove up to the Main campus Bookstore thinking that would be more fun, right? HAHA! Well, I think that just about every other student thought the same thing. The line for the check out was up the stairs and across the top floor. It gave us some time to visit with one another as we waited at least.

I had a couple gifts cards that I have received on Christmas that I wanted to use, so after the bookstore we went shopping! Oh, how I love to walk the mall. We only went to a few stores, but man was it fun. I don't get out that way much anymore. As we shopped she even got me a pair of Jeans for my birthday! How cool was that! I was so surprised at the offer. I told her 'Really? YAY! I didn't even think about pulling the birthday card.' lol. She insisted that there was no way that I was turning 30... that I was WAY older then she was now. When I got home I pulled out all my new clothes and played around in front of the mirror as if I were still 16. I thought of how I would wear my hair with this shirt or that, and even thought about what jewelry would go with them. I guess that there are some things we just never out grow. I finished the night off by going through the stack of mail, checking and responding to emails, rearranging and updating the new schedules... and checking facebook and pinterest of course!

I am becoming more and more excited about my birthday on Friday and I can't wait to see the acts of kindness from everyone. I think that my list is about done! :)

Making a list

Man, What an awesome few weeks there are ahead. Things are going to be busy, but there are so many fun events and activities I hardly mind.  I am excited about my 30 Days of 30 things for my 30th Birthday for sure. I started to throw in the towel and let it be just another birthday until I finally came up with a plan. I have been trying to make a list of the 30 acts of Kindness that I am going to do on day one. So many ideas. Then there is My anniversary, Valentines day (Willow is on the Vday committee for her class at school), the Father daughter date night at Church, new great movies to are out, Skating parties! It is going to be an action packed month, but it should all be a blast.

Today was suppose to be day one of Spring classes, but the roads were not in favor of traveling. After hearing of jack-knifed semis and several ditched cars I decided to stay home. It is no fun to miss the first day, but it has given me some time to plan out all of these holidays and parties! I LOVE to do this sort of thing! Tatum's birthday is not until April, but I have been planning it now for a few weeks. ^_^ She is going to have an owl party, and looking very promising in the cuteness department. That has been put on hold now for just a little while though, while I am now planning MY birthday. haha. It took so long to figure out what I was going to do. It is always easier to do for others. That is why it became so exciting when I came across the "Birthday Project" and found a way to make my birthday a giving experience!! So, that brings us back to the 30 acts of kindness list. I have been thinking. It is challenged a little bit by the fact that I will have classes and work on this day as well, limiting what I can do.  Here are some of my ideas so far though...

1.  I am going to curl the girls' hair in the morning before they go to school. They are FOREVER wanting that done and it requires a much earlier wake up to do 4 heads of curls, so it doesn't happen much! 
2. Send a Thank you note to school with the girls for their teachers
3. Leave a Thank you note and a treat for the mail man
4. Bring treats to class with me to share with other students.
5. Send letters to the grandparents just to say "Love you"
6. Leave coupons in the grocery store beside items for other shoppers
7. take balloons to patients at the hospital
8. visit the Parkview nursing home
9. Bring hot coffee to my co-workers
10. Pay for the coffee of the person next in line
11. donate clothes to a shelter (i dont know which one yet) 
12. Help someone carry things to their car at a store.
13. leave random notes of blessings for random people
14. bring treats to the fire department 
15. bring treats to the police department
16. send a text to at least two people letting them know that they are special and loved. 
17. Tape quarters to a vending machine
18. Write thank you cards to Wounded Soldiers (I have to find that address again)
19. Read a children's book at the Library. 
20. Pay someones late fee at the Library
21. ....

I still have to come up with a third of the list. I get out of class about the same time that the girls do from school, so I plan to pick them up and take them to town with me. I am praying that some opportunities will present themselves while we are out.  If you have some ideas I would love to hear.

Almost 30

Well, I have thought about blogging so many times over the last few years. I have used other pages to share, including Cozi (which I LOVE) and Facebook of course. Today I decided that I wanted to do it. I wanted to tell my story, and share my life. I know that things are not always easy, but that some how they always turn around. In the next few weeks I will have my 30th birthday and my 10th Anniversary. for the last 10 years of my life i have been looking forward to 2012.  I had always planned to do a big vow renewal at this point. We got married young and we didn't have the wedding of our dreams, not to mention we didn't know much of anyone since we had just moved from Georgia to Iowa. I knew that it was not the size of the wedding, how many gifts we got or even how pretty everything was, but I did know that it was suppose to feel like a celebration, and we just didn't feel like that was achieved. We told each other that in 10 years we would renew our vows, invite all of our friends and have a huge celebration. Well, life hasn't played out like I had dreamed it would and that is just not a possible option right now. We now have 4 children, have gone through a deployment, beat a few rough patches and I am currently back in school full time while Chris attempts to start a new career outside of military. So, maybe our 15th Anniversary will be the date!

All that aside, I still have my 30th birthday coming up in just a few days. I have been searching pinterest and blogs for weeks trying to think of ways to spend it. It was not long ago that I was out with my favorite person, Alicia, and came across a picture frame. The frame was a simple black wood frame with white writing along the bottom that said something along the lines of it being the life in the moments that counts. A lightbuld went off. I knew that I wanted to do something EPIC for my 30th. I wanted it to be worthy of that frame. I wanted it to make a difference, and be remembered. I also knew that people don't throw parties for you anymore after you have children; which I think should not be the case, but that is another blog. So, I had to plan something, but what?

It has all slowly been coming together. While at Family Game Night at church I played a game that had been given several names, but I choose to stick with the title of "the picture game." I thought, 'man, this is a blast. It would be so fun to play again with my friends. I should do it for my birthday.' As I began to talk about it and I brought up that I had a list of things I wanted to do for it, one of the ladies suggested that I make it 30 things because it is my 30th bday. I was game! I list of 30 things. I like it.

I then read another blog about a lady that did one act of kindness for every year she had been alive for her birthday, and she asked that her friends also did an act of kindness on her bday and shared it with her as a gift! I fell in LOVE with that idea. I am so excited to share that with my girls, and spend the day doing acts of kindness. 


http://mixmingleglow.com/blog/?p=1358

Then I decided exactly what I was going to do to mark this time. I was going to make this list of 30 things and give myself 30 days to do them. I do not yet have the list done, but tonight I started to lay it all out. Somewhere in the 30 days I have several activities to fill in. I cant wait to share the journey with you all. I hope that you all join me in a few days as I join the birthday project making the world a better place one birthday at a time. ^_^


Day 1: Jan. 20: MY BIRTHDAY! Acts of Kindness! I do 30 and you all do one. Then share it with me on the wall as a gift!

Day 2: Sat, Jan 21:

Day 3: Jan. 22:

Day 4: Jan. 23:

Day 5: Jan. 24:

Day 6: Jan 25:

Day 7: Jan. 26:

Day 8: Fri, Jan 27: Sneak Preview of The Wedge. Directed by our friend.
https://www.facebook.com/events/358778050803217/

Day 9: Sat, Jan 28:

Day 10: Jan. 29:

Day 11: Jan. 30:

Day 12: Jan. 31:

Day 13: Feb. 1:

Day 14: Feb. 2: MY 10TH ANNIVERSARY!

Day 15: Fri, Feb. 3:

Day 16: Sat, Feb. 4:

Day 17: Feb. 5:

Day 18: Feb. 6:

Day 19: Feb. 7:

Day 20: Feb. 8:

Day 21: Feb. 9:

Day 22: Fri, Feb. 10:

Day 23: Sat, Feb. 11:

Day 24: Feb. 12:

Day 25: Feb, 13:

Day 26: Feb. 14: VALENTINES DAY!

Day 27: Feb. 15:

Day 28: Feb. 16:

Day 29: Fri, Feb. 17:

Day 30: Sat, Feb. 18"