Thanks to Media General's wonderful furlough program, Pat was able to be with me and the children on my birthday. We decided to spend the day away from the house and enjoying the nice weather. We took off this morning around 10:30 heading to Carter's Mountain for their apple festival. It was nice outside... not too hot and not too cold... and the leaves are just beginning to change their colors. I will tell you that the apple festival wasn't really a festival at all... just a way for the company to get a mass of people there to buy their products. We left after about 45 minutes and only bought a jar of peach and jalapeno jam (very good with a little bite). We then went out to lunch at the Cracker Barrel... a weird choice, but it was what I wanted. I had a nice meal (chicken and rice) and Julius helped me eat my corn and butter beans. The Cracker Barrel ladies brought out a brownie and ice cream at the end of our meal to wish me a Happy Birthday and we slowly walked our stuffed butts out of the restaurant after a full meal. We finished our afternoon with a trip home via Skyline Drive and although we planned to take a hike, the children conked out in the car seats and we came on home. I've had a lovely day with many birthday wishes from family and friends and a beautiful card from Mom and Dad. Here are a few photos from our day... you'll notice I couldn't even get Julius to smile as he was focused on all the other kids in the pumpkin patch.
I thought it would be fun as I celebrate my birthday to list a few things I’ve learned in the 37 years I’ve been on the planet. Most of these are in random order so if my thoughts on customer service is above love of friends it’s just my process and not order of importance.
1. Children are the biggest blessing – and the biggest job – you will ever have. 2. Finding Mr. Right (or Miss Right) might take time, but it’s totally worth it. 3. When you marry someone you also marry his or her family (luckily for me, I married a great man with a great family). 4. Having a job you love and want to go to every day is great, but it would be even better if you were paid a decent salary to do it. 5. Everyone wants to tell his or her life story … if you’re willing to sit down and listen to it. 6. Treat customer service workers as you want them to treat you because you never know when that might be the person you have to do your business with tomorrow in your own work setting. 7. It’s important to know how to count back money without using a calculator. 8. Getting an email is nice, but getting a letter in the mail is nicer. 9. Children will pick up every thing you say… even the cuss words. 10. The best partners are the ones who lift you up when you need lifting, cheer you on when you need cheering and leave you alone when you need quiet time. 11. You might never cook as well as your Mama, but you can still put a good meal on the table. 12. The closest family members don’t have to be the ones that you were born into. 13. You never know when the words you say might come back to haunt you. 14. Be thankful every day for the blessings you have because there is someone near you who would give anything to have them. 15. You can never sweeten iced unsweet tea (at least to my taste). 16. Friends can be the best-adopted family you can have. 17. Friends may come and go, but your love and fond memories of them stay long after. 18. Therapy is a good thing. 19. Parents are only human and all of us make mistakes with our children. 20. Children can make you smile when they do something that makes them cry. 21. The best things in life can be right under your nose (or in your office) so look around and see what’s out there. 22. There is nothing better than spending your weekend vegging out with someone you love, good food, a few newspapers and some quality music. 23. Great relationships can be damaged by topics such as politics and religion… it’s better to agree to disagree than to belabor a point. 24. Everybody has a right to love in his or her life and no one has the right to take that away. 25. Single parents are true unsung heroes. Parenting is hard enough when you have a partner to help. 26. Crying through your baby shower is OK as long as you have a group of great women there to support you. 27. You can rise above your raising… just because you were born into poverty (or into any kind of adversity) doesn’t mean you have to stay that way. 28. You can’t solve money problems with money. 29. You can never find anything to buy when you have a cash flow, but see plenty of things you want when you don’t have a dime to spare. 30. You will meet people in your life that will change who you are as a person. Be thankful for them even if the experience doesn’t seem worthwhile in that moment. 31. A wedding doesn’t make a marriage. Two people make a marriage. 32. Giving up control is hard, but is so worth it. 33. Losing a parent to death is hard, but losing a parent by choice is harder. 34. Hearing your child say, “Mommy, I love you” for the first time can make you cry. 35. You can never hear your husband say “I Love You” too many times in one day. 36. Time certainly does flies the older you get. 37. Having wonderful family and friends and healthy, happy children are among the biggest blessings you can have.
Pat captured these photos of Julius watching the feral cats play outside on the back patio. I'm not always excited that we have these wild cats running around in the back yard, but they have helped the mice problem we were suffering last year due to living so close to the woods. Pat said Julius got upset when the cats finished giving him a show and ran off.
I took the children to our first ever girl's field hockey game on Tuesday. It was mainly to support my niece, Samantha, who is coaching her high school's field hockey team this year. Samantha graduated from James Madison University in May and is coaching while she looks for a full-time job. We went to watch her team, North Stafford, play the local girls from Albemarle High School. The game was interesting, but I spent most of my time making sure Savannah kept herself out of trouble. The game ended after two quarters with the score 0-0, but it was fun to see Samantha stretching her coaching skills. We got a chance to visit for a few minutes before she had to get back to watching the girls and I had to get the kids out of the cold. Here are a few pictures from our outing...
I woke up this morning to receive the sad news that my friend's daughter, Kristina Venable, passed away hours ago after a long battle with Cystic Fibrosis. She was 21. I can't begin to tell you how sad I am to hear this news although Kristina had been living on borrowed time for many years. CF is an inherited disease that causes thick, sticky mucus to build up in the lungs and patients suffer severe pain all over their bodies. People diagnosed with the disease aren't known to live past 37, but many die well before that. Since I am a writer, I wanted to put my thoughts down here and share them with you. I met Kristina through her Mama, Melanie, when I took over the night cops beat at the Telegraph in 2002. It was about that time that then Police Chief Rodney Monroe put Melanie in charge of public relations for the police department. Melanie cut her teeth on that job as I learned the ropes of the cops beat and we had a helluva good time meeting up at one crime scene to another at night. It wasn't too long before I discovered Melanie had two daughters, Kristina and Katherine. Kristina, the oldest, was diagnosed with CF as a young girl, but she never let that diagnosis stop her from living life. She had been a competitive swimmer years earlier and went through high school as a cheerleader. In fact, if you looked at Kristina back in those days you would never have known she was sick. A beautiful girl all of her life, Kristina never let her sickness keep her from smiling. I remember being in her Mama's office one day and watching her come in with some fast food... she was trying to eat enough for two people, but never gained an ounce (another fact about CF). Kristina was battling CF hard and had already lost of few friends to the disease. By the time I left Macon, she was in the hospital more often and those visits were becoming actual stays. The last time I saw Kristina was in June 2007 when I brought Savannah home to Georgia for the first time. We stopped by Melanie's office at the Macon Police Department and Kristina came over from her job to see my little girl. By that time, I could see the disease had taken it's toll on Kristina, but she was still fighting. In late 2007, Kristina and her family were told that she would not be eligible for the double lung transplant she needed to save her life as the doctors didn't think she would survive the difficult surgery. They gave her just a year to live and she would have to rotate home stays and hospital visits every two weeks. Well, once again, Kristina beat those odds and I know she crammed as much life as she could into that time. Last month, Kristina celebrated her 21st birthday and I'm sure it was a milestone she fought very hard to reach. I, along with so many of her friends, sent birthday wishes on Facebook. Just two weeks ago, they all went to the beach to enjoy the last bit of sun and some time together, I hope they were able to get plenty of it as that was the weekend Georgia was hit by a lot of rain. This morning Julius woke me up and I logged onto my computer to find a message telling me that Kristina passed away. When I logged on to Facebook, Melanie had already posted the sad news on her page as well as Kristina's. I always knew this day would come, but I think since I've had children of my own it has hit me even harder than it would have before. I know there will be many people saddened by this news as Kristina touched a lot of people in the 21 years she lived. I'm sure there are even a few people who will regret never getting to know the young woman who could still light up any room with her smile even when smiling was probably the last thing she wanted to do. Melanie and I met up at many crime scenes where young life was snuffed away over trivial things. If Melanie was bitter over the fact that those young people sometimes threw their lives away while Kristina fought so hard for every day of her own she never showed it to me. I believe Melanie has just been thankful for every day they've had together. God Speed Kristina. The world today is truly a little dimmer without you in it.
Pat took these pictures tonight of Julius standing up at the couch. His legs are now strong enough to pull himself into a standing position and stand up for a few minutes at a time. You can see he even gave his Daddy a one-handed pose... I believe Julius will be walking before Halloween... and that is just amazing to me!
