When Your Fortune Is All-Too-Real

Today was a 'not-so-good-day' that can best be described in reverse order. This afternoon Joey and I had lunch (without the kiddos) at P. F. Chang. At the end of our meal Joey handed me a fortune cookie and jokingly said, "here you take the bad one". My fortune read:

"Life always gets harder near the summit."

This is true more today than ever before. This really dreary and rainy morning, Joey and I woke up with a very difficult task to take on. A friend of ours mother lost her battle to cancer this week. It's a new chapter in my adult life that I had to attend the funeral of a friends parent. After the service another friend made a comment that rings true, it could have been me today. Thank you God for the time I have with my family and my parents. Everyday is truly a gift.

Maya Angelou

Ali Edwards posted this today. Maya Angelou has always been one of my favorite poets. She has a beautiful way of transcribing emotions.

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The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.

Memories of a Child

I have clear memories of my childhood and time spent with my Mamaw and Papaw. Anytime my Mom had a commitment for work or a trip where she had to leave town I spent that time with my grandparents. It was always bittersweet - I missed my Mom but truly loved the time I spent with them.

Every time I arrived Mamaw would find out all of Mom's flight details. They lived close to Hobby airport and flights passed frequently. She made sure that when the time was right and a flight was overhead, we would run outside and wave as big as humanly possible to the airplane. It was my form of closure that Mom was gone for a week and our little tradition to starting the week off together.

Since Grace was tiny I've traveled somewhat frequently. This week I'm in San Diego for work. The older Grace gets the more aware she is of my trips. Naturally it's sad to leave but she handles it wonderfully. This week when I settled into the hotel and was finally able to call home Grace got on the phone and told me about her day. It went like this...

Grace: "Momma, this morning I was at school playing and I saw your airplane fly over. I waved, did you see me?"

Me: "You did, how sweet!"

Grace: "Mama, I miss you already"

This story has brought tears to my eyes a number of times. Maybe it's normal for kids to wave at planes passing. It certainly brings peace to a child's heart (I know from experience). Grace never knew about my experience as a child - in fact I'm not sure anyone knew. It was special to my Mamaw and me. This week our little tradition became a tad bit more special when I saw it pass to a new generation. Who knows maybe years from now I'll stand in the back yard with Grace's daughter waving as she leaves.

Random Thoughts and Happy Thoughts

Just a few random thoughts about this week...

1 Joey’s started a week ago saying some stupid phrase that drives me nuts. Since it drives me nuts he taught Grace to say it. She cracks me up every time I hear her say, “yo yo what’s up dog”

2. I went into our office today to get some stuff for work. The building sustained a great deal of damage to the electrical damage. From what the building manager told me there was water pouring down the stairs and elevator shaft. At this point we will not be able to report back to the office before Monday (at the earliest).

3. Ethan has recently developed so much personality. He’s so much like his Papa. Today I caught him just lounging on the tile driving a car around. I don’t know where my baby went but I think he’s turning into a little boy before my very eyes.

4. I love lying in my daughters bed saying nighttime prayers and watching the “papa dance” when they are over.

5. No matter how busy I am I truly enjoy stopping for a second to dress a Polly Pocket doll for Grace.

6. One of the things I loved most about this week was having my parents stay with us. It was so nice to have them around and share the experience. I think what helped most was knowing that we were not alone in all of this.

7. Grace learned a new prayer at school – every time we sit to eat she says the prayer to bless our food. I know it sounds silly but there’s something about the prayer and this week’s events that truly makes you say thank you for all things big and small.

Thank you for the world so sweet.
Thank you for the birds that sing.
Thank you for the food we eat.
Thank you for everything.
Bon Appétit, now we may eat.

Yea for Typing Class!

Just a quick (but VERY happy) post. This morning I got online and tried to register for a photography class offered by Karen Russell my all time favorite photographer. She offers a couple classes each year. Class size is extremely limited so you have to act fast when registering. I literally sat at my desk hitting the F5 key over and over until the registration page appeared. When the page finally appeared I typed fast and furious clicked submit - low and behold I made it! I've been wanting to sign up for this class forever (or so it seems). Later that day Karen posted a message about the registration process, "Both classes sold out in under 2 minutes." I'm so excited to be a part of her workshop. Yea for typing class - it really paid off!

Link to Karen's site

Three Decades

On the 27th my "odometer" flipped and I officially turned 30. Crazy - I dont feel thirty. I often wonder how it's possible I am the mother of two kiddos - but still, I dont feel 30. Joey spoiled me rotten for the "big" event. He bought me a camera I've dreamed about for years and planned a weekend getaway without the kids. Sounds great right...only one problem, our weekend get away was to New Orleans and it just so happened to fall on the same weekend they were preparing an evacuation due to the arrival of hurricane Gustav. After a last minute decision to cancel the trip Joey and I re-routed to Austin for the weekend. It all worked out really well and we really enjoyed ourselves. We'll have to reschedule our trip to the Big Easy for another weekend (outside of hurricane season).

A New Baby to Love

It’s been so long since I’ve posted anything. Life has been busy – not that it’s any excuse for not posting. Over the past week I think I rode the emotional roller coaster of life. My week started out pretty bad, thankfully it did not take long for God to remind me what I had to be thankful for…

On Tuesday (late in the evening) I found out that “my person” in this life, my best friend Erin, had gone into labor with her first baby. Seeing as Wednesday was my 30th birthday and it looked as though Erin was going to have a baby on my birthday, I was so freaking excited! All day long I requested updates over e-mail from Erin’s sister-in-law, Jill … it was my version of “virtual pacing”. I even had Jill sending me updates on my work e-mail address so it would show up on my Blackberry when I was away from my desk. Long story short – Erin went into labor in the weeeeeee a.m. hours on Tuesday, the baby was born in the weeeeee hours of Thursday morning. As the proud daddy said, “you do the math”. Erin was such a trooper….I don’t know how she did it; James McCullough Lowery was born at 1:33 am on Thursday, August 28; I cannot wait to meet him. He’s such a beautiful baby and has two of the most selfless devoted parents to guide him through this life on this earth.

I've Been Tagged!

My dear friend Tammy tagged me in her recent post so here goes...

What Were You Doing 10 Years Ago?
Seeing as it’s August and I was in college I was most likely preparing for rush. Hard to believe that was ten years ago!

Things On My To-Do List Today:
Top two are church and prepare for starting my new job tomorrow. Hoping to also accomplish laundry, clean the house, and go grocery shopping.

What Are Some Snacks You Enjoy?
Grapes, snack packs, popcorn (homemade not the bag kind)

What Would You Do If You Were A Millionaire?
Get rid of all our debt, make investments, Take care the kids college….who knows what else. That would take a lot of thinking -- it's a bit hard to answer after seeing what Tammy wrote!

Name Some Of The Places You Have Called Home:
Houston, TX; Nacogdoches, TX; Katy, TX

What Are Some Of Your Bad Habits?
Dwelling over things I should let go of, laundry, laundry, laundry!

What Are Some Jobs You Have Held:
Marketing Coordinator for an engineering firm, a handicap mobility company, an oil analysis laboratory and now Sr. Marketing Specialist for another engineering firm.

Who Are You Tagging?
Jeni, Brad, Dawn

A Quick Recap

I've been so busy this last week that I needed to post but didn't have a spare moment. This was my last week at Staveley, a job I had for the last four years. I can't believe time has passed so quickly, it seems like only yesterday I started my job there; by the number of boxes I had to move out it felt like way more than four years! I grew a lot and gained a great deal of experience in that job. I'm sad to leave some of the people behind but I am very excited about my new position at LAN. For those of you who have e-mailed me at Staveley in the past, please update your e-mail address books and only send e-mails to carmichael3@sbcglobal.net.

On top of moving out of my office and changing jobs we had a fight with our A/C this week. On Thursday night it quit on us and turned into a two day headache! Thank God for my Uncle Joe - his lifetime of experience came in handy and he fixed the problem in all of ten minutes. We were saved my my in-laws too. After packing up the kids and going over there we made ourselves at home for a couple days and enjoyed catching up. There's always something good that comes of these situations. We shared some good laughs and late night conversations over the two nights we stayed there.

:: My New Adventure ::

What a crazy two weeks its been at our house. After lots of time, consideration, talking, thinking and praying a big decision was made this week. On Tuesday, I officially resigned my position of nearly four years at work and accepted a new job. I'm really excited about the opportunity. I feel very comfortable with this decision. In the end the new company made the decision easy for me. I have been very neglectful about posting, please understand I was (obviously) distracted. I'll try to get caught up this week.

If any of you have my work e-mail address set as default - now is a good time to update it! You can always reach me at carmichael3@sbcglobal.net.