This time I am talking about leaves.  Ya know, the ones that “fall” from the trees?  It is very deep.

Click here to head on over there and check it out!  And as usual, comments MAKE MY DAY!

Thanks!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

But more than the numbers, this past year has been one of exploration for me.  One that first day when I went “out there” and live with my blog, I have placed a part of myself in my reader’s hands.  It was not easy for me to open myself up through my craft — to expose my writing and my life to anyone and everyone.  I have struggled with what it means to talk about kids on a public forum — to put their names nad faces out into the world for anyone to see (some may say that once we appeared on national TV the horse was outta the barn on that one!!).  I have to face my own inner demons of what kind of approval I have needed from my own readership, soaking up comments like a comment-glutton.  I have studied Google Analytics (which tells one how many people are visiting one’s blog) and I have also walked away from statistics and fasted for months — not knowing if anyone anywhere ever read a word I was writing — and contemplating whether or not that was even important.  I have been pursued by advetisers, product reviews, even other bloggers, to put up posts about what they want. 

But a year ago blogging wasn’t really an option.  I mean, I had to start this blog.  I was bursting to write, to document my family, to put my thoughts “out there.”  I knew that starting a blog was a MUST the day Dave decided to perform a dubious (at best) home surgery.  A few years back we discovered that much like Chandler on the show Friends  it seemed that Dave had grown, well, a third nipple.  He liked to call it his “love bump.”  So, one day he got tired of it and asked the family at the dinner table, “Who would like to cut off my love bump??”  The look on my face communicated, what kind of freakin question is that to ask of these lovely, genteel children?  But, I was wrong.  Lily (age 7 at the time) was all for it.  So, the two of them grabbed the fingernail clippers and scurried down the hall to the bathroom, where all home-surgeries are performed.  The rest of us hid under a blanket.  I then knew that I needed a blog.

But more than the personal rewards that come with writing, it has been a good discipline for me to write regularly.  Some weeks I have to force myself to sit down and try to come up with something to say.  Some weeks stories just burst out of me.  I have had to be very open to the process of creation through writing.  And that process has opened me up to myself.

But now it is more of an option.  I sit here tonight wrestling with where to go from here.  I feel pulled to both keep the blog going and to stop and take a break.  I honestly cannot say which is right for me.  I keep looking for a sign to tell me where to go.  When I was younger, I used to ask God for signs that went something like this, God if you want me to do this thing, make a blue bird land on my windowsill in the next 10 seconds.  Yeah, seriously.  I can picture God listening to me and saying, “Yeah, seriously?  I am not a performing pony.  But I like your creativity.”   The blue bird never seemed to come and I have learned since that “signs” do not usually come on demand.  Instead they require an atuned ear to the universe that is sometimes hard to muster inbetween diaper changes, band concerts, dinners, clean ups, and sore feet.  But I do trust that the path will be revealed.

But no matter what happens, on this lovely first birthday slash anniversary, I want to say THANK YOU to all my readers. Your comments have meant so much.  You subscriptions have meant so much.  Just knowing that there are people “out there” reading my words has meant so much.  Truly.  Each reader has been a blessing to me in his or her own way.  I really have such a great group of readers — some of you I knew before, some of you I have met since I started this journey.  You have all treated me with kindness and honestly, and I love you all.

So, here’s to all of YOU!  The thousands of you who have shared this last year with me.  Thank you and Cheers!!!!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

We had had a few “false starts” to her next life, but Tuesday was “it”.  My mom sat by her side until lunch time, and within minutes of my mom stepping  out to get a bite to eat, Grandma passed on.  My mom and Uncle and the rest of the family are at peace with her passing.  Sad, sure, but mostly just a goodbye or a “see ya later” — she was 87 and had lived in a nursing home for 9 years after her stroke.  It was time for her to go to Jesus.   There isn’t going to be a service.  This summer we hope to scatter her ashes into the ocean that she loved so much.

How does one write a tribute?  Being the writer in the family, I was called upon to write the Obiturary for the newspaper.  So, I did.  But Obits are so short and don’t really do justice to who a person was.  There isn’t space in the Obit to tell the story of Grandma Lois’  first love.  Who went to war (that would be World War II) and didn’t come home.   There isn’t space in an Obit to tell the story of my uncle’s first migraine.  Headaches run in our family (why couldn’t it have been the skinny gene???) and he got his first migraine when we was a teenage.  His mother sat by his bedside, put a cool cloth on his forehead, and held his teenage-boy-hand until it passed. How do I capture in just a few short words what it was like every Thanksgiving and Christmas growing up… going to Grandma’s house and eating a huge meal she had worked to prepare.  How my cousin, Amanda, and I would always… always be in charge of filling the amber glasses with ice and cool water right before the meal.  Her kitchen was always clean and there were always cookies in the cookie jar.  My Grandma’s house was full of books and she was always reading.  And it is perhaps because of her that all of us… I mean ALL of us in the family are voracious readers.  Her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren devour books. 

She was the type of woman who did things for herself.  When the vacuum cleaner broke one day, she sat down, pulled the darn thing apart and re-wired it herself.  When she got mad at her husband one weekend, she decided to get some space by packing up her two kids and going camping.  Not something a woman in the early 1960′s did.  So,  she and my mom — then about 14 years old — had to work together to put up the tent.  Grandma got to laughing so hard trying to put up that tent, that she pee’d her pants!  Now, that is my kind of woman!!! 

When I was a baby I burned my hand on the front of the oven.  I cried and cried until my mom, in desperation, called her mom to come over.  The moment Grandma got there and picked me up, I stopped.  There is just something about a Grandma… 

My Grandmother doted on her children and grand-children.  She looked on all of us with perfection in her eyes — even when we didn’t deserve it.  She golfed, she sewed all my mom’s clothes growing up, she was a working mom in the 1950′s and 60′s, she played Bridge, she gardened, she cooked.  And she loved to dance.

Most of all, she was deeply kind.

In her last days, she held my mom’s hand and told her that she was the best daughter anyone could ever want.

We will all miss her.  And, as we examine our beliefs and hold on to what we hope, we hope to see her again someday.

Goodbye Grandma, I love you.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

A while back I went to a party at a friend’s house.  It was called “Check Your Boobies.”  It was your basic tupperware, candles, pampered chef, book club but with the intent to educate women about breast cancer and breast cancer detection and prevention.  Yeah, not your typical way to spend an evening, but wih October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, I thought it was worth mentioning.

At first there were a lot of nerves in the room — just what would we be asked to actually DO at this party?  It better not involve …well.. getting undressed.  But in reality nothing happened at this party that a nice glass of wine and an egg roll couldn’t help — with the nerve-calming, that it.  In the Seattle-are where I live, this organization puts on these parties to help women not be afraid of the dreaded “Breast Self Exam” — to help to know what is normal and what isn’t.  To ask questions.  To listen.  To give it a try — after the wine and the egg roll.  Basically, this organization’s mission is to de-mystify the breast.  You would think we would know more about our bodies, but we don’t.

Did you know that 8 out of 10 women do not perform breast exams regularly?  And it is regular exams that leads to early detection.  So, go to their website by clicking here and sign up to get an email reminder each month to perfom  your breast exam.  And, better yet, if you are local, go ahead and take the plunge and host a party.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Apparently he cries at least four time in the pilot — which really isn’t a big suprise.  Teaching is freaking hard and Tony strikes me as kind of a cry-er to begin with.

I really hope he is not teaching about Twilight in that picture.  I take hope with the “Shakespeare Project” written behind him on the blackboard. But only a little. 

When I got the promo info, I was skeptical.  I generally  hate shows about teachers. Mostly because the portrayal is so far off from reality.  For instance, on one episode of Boston Public, one of the teachers — this History teacher, I believe, says to a colleague after she was held at gun point by a disgruntled student, “It’s all part of the job – it is what I signed up for!”  Uh…. whah?????  I taught for 8 years and I did not sign up for being help at gun point.  Or being yelled at by parenst because their son has an A- in my class.  Or having to kick a kid out of my class for using the F-Bomb in reference to  me and my character… and … yeah you get the point.  So, I have yet to see a TV show that actually portrays what it means to be a teacher. What it means to really like teenagers.  What it means to love your subject matter.  What it means to creatively present the most boringest play in the world — that would be Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar — in a way that kids actually connect with.  The same kids who text and play Wii and watch TV and who live in a world that doesn’t relish or promote critical thinking. A show that portrays what it means to take home your student’s problems with you and stand in the shower and rack  your brain (cliche intended) to try and reach the kid who is on the edge and hates you and your subject.  And then to smile at your CORE when your students succeed.  To embrace that you are teaching someone else’s child — someone’s most precious gift and to therefore act with compassion, humor, and dedication.  To know that being good at your job comes with stakes higher than selling coffee, making cars, mowing the lawn, or hitting a homerun.

So, we’ll see how Mr. Tony Danza does.

The show airs tonight on A&E.

I will be watching.

Let me know what you think.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

She is going to be explaining how to look thinner in photographs!  Uh, yeah, I am ALL about that!

I am going to take a small — very small – sliver of credit for introducing them since Me Ra Koh Photography provided all the pictures for our appearance with Nate on national TV. 

Good luck, today, Me Ra and Nate.  MamaBloo LOVES YOU!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t get me wrong.  I actually like nice weather — I like it a lot.  The problem is around the Seattle area, we don’t actually have nice weather in the summer.  Or ever, really (this is my plug for people to NOT move here… not that we don’t like people, but………).

But for me, there is something about Fall that calls to me.  January 1st is never really my “new year” as much as September 1st.   I love the back-to-school supplies, the new shoes, the crisp, golden air… these are my new beginnings. 

Today was spent ushering three kids off to their first day of school, tending to a sick 1 year old, researching cabins that sleep 14 for a girls weekend away, deciding if I could tolerate even one episode of Sponge Bob, and eating a frozen Gryo.  Life still goes on, but I am ready to write.

So, I am back.

Welcome back, self!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Ben’s mom, Carin, is an equisite writer.  She blogged via the Caring Bridge website and brought such raw reality to their struggle with Ben’s cancer and then their loss.  Almost half a MILLION visitors read Ben’s story. She is now going to blog on their new site and share the next chapter in their — and Ben’s story — through their new venture with the foundation.  I do encouage anyone… everyone… to check it out.  Ben story was… is… an amazing one that I know I will never forget.

Click here to read my post about Ben.

Click here to go to Caring Bridge and read Ben’s whole story.

Click here to go to the Ben Towne Foundation.

Bring kleenex.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Today I am the guest blogger over on her site to help her out a bit.  If you feel like it, head on over to read about what happened when I TRIED to write a blog post and failed.  Click here.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Clearly.

It doesn’t help that the family scheduler is also the author of this blog and has a doozie of a case of writer’s block to top it all off.  I am not sure that sentence was even grammatically correct.  Oh well.  

One piece of business before I sign off. To all of you out there you have sent in submissions to write for MamaBloo….THANK YOU.  All the submissions are truly great and I am super sorry that I have not replied to you.  But I will.  I promise.  Give me a day or two to survive the killer of a swim meet this weekend and to graduate my 6th grader and to attend my last preschool board meeting and to get two kids to the dentist while the other two need to be at another swim meet and to buy some birthday presents, have two five year old playdates and a well-child check up for Ty, a retirement party for a friend, and… well.. you get the picture.  Replies coming soon.  Really.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.