My favorite time of year

Baseball season has begun for the Keetons.  My son, Jake, loves to play baseball almost as much as I love to watch him play! Almost. :)  I love the excitement of going to the games and watching my favorite son out on the field.  Sometimes, he is actually playing the game.  Sometimes, he's out there pretending to pitch.  Sometimes, he's busy swatting at the bugs, or hitching up his pants. But when that boy bats, you'd better watch out.  He can hit that ball like nobody's business.  I was in the backyard with him over the weekend, pitching (very badly) to him so he could practice batting.  I was ducking flying balls like, well.... like a GIRL. I figure if he can hit what I was throwing, then he shouldn't have a problem during a game!  Baseball consumes our lives until the end of June.   Jay is an assistant coach and goes to all the practices, too.  Most games start at 6 pm, and both of us get off work at 5, so it's a mad dash to get home, changed and to the ballfield in time. There are sometimes 3 games a week so the laundry starts piling up and the dishes go undone and we eat a lot of sandwiches.  By mid June, we're complaining that we are tired of all of it, and even Jake is ready to be done.  But, every year, we sign up for it all over again. And every year, we are excited and happy to go to the field.  It's one of life's greatest pleasures, in my honest opinion, to watch young children learn a sport.  So, thanks, all you coaches out there...for giving your time unselfishly to a child.  There is no greater reward than to see a child loving playing a game.

Soles for Souls

My family and I went to church yesterday in our bare feet.  Yes, that's right...walked right into Eagle Heights Baptist Church barefoot!  Don't worry, we haven't turned into hillbilly's out here on the prairie.  It was an organized event to gather new or gently worn shoes for people in Haiti that don't have any.   It was chilly and raining, but we still walked in barefoot.  I think the uncomfortable weather made a bigger impact on us than if it had been a warm and sunny day.  We were uncomfortable for a short while.  For many, uncomfortable is a way of life. They say that one person can't change the world.  BUT, little stones dropped in a pool make big ripples.  We did our part by dropping 2 pairs of brand new shoes into the donation pool.  There will be 2 less shoeless kids in Haiti soon.  I can live with that. :)

UPDATE:  EHBC members donated 316 pairs of shoes!

                                          

I NEED Gerber Daisies in my life!

I am pretty sure it's really, truly, springtime in OK!  The evidence is all around me, yet my yard looks as if winter is still breathing down it's neck, waiting to dump 3 more feet of snow at the first hint of green grass. My MIL always told me to wait and plant until April 15 to ensure against a late frost.  Which means, of course, next weekend I will be busting my tushy in the yard!  DH and I recently took a walk around our property and wrote a list of things that we wanted to do and needed to do.  The list is 3 pages long!  We've been in the house for 8 years now and things are in need of repair. So our "need to do" list is longer (and more expensive) than our "want to do" list.  I checked on my annuals and was thrilled to see my 50 year old Peony bush exploding from the ground, covered in buds! I brought a start of that with me when we moved. I am never more excited to see a bunch of ants as when that Peony bush buds! (ants eat the nectar which opens the blooms)  My lily of the valley plants are pushing right on through as well as my irises.  I may need to build a new fence to hold my clematis.  And I noticed that my miniature rose bush is spreading so I will need to start training it around the new trellis I bought last season.  The last time I did that, I was swarmed with ants. They made it to the hem of my shorts before I noticed them.  NOT so happy to see them THAT time, believe me.  This time of year, I feel positively FRANTIC with the need to plant something beautiful! So I'm praying for gorgeous weather for the upcoming weekend so I can dig out my garden tools and get to work! Please, please, PLEASE don't let me see any snakes! 

Easter and Facebook

My family and I went back "home" for Easter weekend.  We spent time with family coloring Easter eggs, eating, making Resurrection Cookies, shopping, eating, hunting eggs and eating.  Did I mention eating? I stayed at my parents house, in the room I grew up in. (since 3rd grade, anyway)  I always sleep like a rock in that room, even though I don't sleep well without my husband.  After all, it's my parents house and mom and dad are just down the hall, so I can yell for them if I get scared.  Right?  And besides, mom leaves a night light on for me.  Yeah, I admit it...I'm afraid of the dark.  There.  I said it.  I've been afraid of the dark my whole life. Why change now?  It's good to have consistancy in your life.

The highlight of the weekend, for me anyway, was attending the church I grew up in with my mom and dad.  And here is where I realized that I am a Facebook junky.  I walked into the sanctuary and saw a guy I've known since high school.  I thought to myself "Hey, there's one of my Mafia members!" One of the ushers was another Mafia member.The sound guy is another! Pretty soon, I saw another friend with her son, who I've never actually MET in person,  and thought to myself "Hey! There are couple of my Farmville Friends!"  I sat down to speak to another friend and she told me who she was dating.  I said "Yes I know."  She said "How did you know?"  I said "Facebook."  I am not really in the mafia, nor do I really own a farm. Or a cafe. Or am I a  mayor of 2 "cities" that I have built.  But on Facebook, this is how I spend my time while interacting with people I haven't seen in ages! Facebook has made the world a "small town" for me.  If you are friends with someone, you know what's going on in their lives from who they are dating to how much coffee they may have consumed that morning before shouting "good morning" in ALL CAPS. (Mike :)  ) Conversations are carried out in posts and you can either leave a message or click the LIKE button, just so your friend will know you stopped by and cared enough to see what was happening with them.   And I LOVE it!  It makes me feel like, no matter how far away I am from my hometown, I'm never out of touch with it.  I hope that's how it is with all two hundred and something of my Faceook friends !

  I'm going to post this on Facebook now....feel free to leave your comments! Or, just click the LIKE button. :)

How to Train Your Dragon

Run, do not walk, to your nearest movie theater to catch a showing of How to Train Your Dragon!  The 3D effects are the best I've seen YET!  It was funny, exciting, touching, scarey, heartbreaking and beautiful!  The detail on the characters was amazing!  You could even see the tiny hairs on the Vikings arms!  I don't know how many exclamation points I can use in one paragraph, but I'm really excited about this movie!   The movie opened with a terrific battle between the Vikings and the dragons, with a little narration from the "hero" Hiccup.  He's different and trying to find his place in the tribe while clashing with his father about who he WANTS to be vs who his father THINKS he should be.   And as it so often happens, dad doesn't listen.  Sometimes our kids don't fit into the molds we have in mind for them.  But Hiccup finds a way with the help of his dragon friend, Toothless, and the pair eventually each find their place.  I plan to buy this one as soon as it's available on DVD.  I guarantee you will enjoy this movie as much as me and my kids did. 

I went to the High School tonight for a parent meeting with the High School Counselors.  The principal stood up and said "Welcome to High School."  I literally stopped breathing.  It can NOT be time for my angel baby girl to go to High School!  High School has bigger halls, more people, open campus, teenage drivers, harder classes and worst of all, High School BOYS!  My head is reeling and my heart is aching.  This is the year I have to start letting her go.  This is the year she will start driving a car.  This is the year she starts leaving me! I'm not sure I can bear it.  This miracle baby that God blessed us with will be a Sophomore in High School. And she is not a little girl any longer.  She's perched on the cusp of her adulthood and she's so anxious to fly.  This is the year she will start experiencing true freedom.  Have I prepared her enough?  Have I told her everything she needs to know to be safe?  Will she make good choices?  Will she be happy? 

Yet, at the same time my heart is aching for that baby girl, I'm so excited to see the woman she'll be becoming!  I get the opportunity to relive MY High School days through hers! I look forward to her coming home from a date, letting her drag me out of bed  (yeah, like I'd actually be SLEEPING while she's out) and rehash every single moment of the night over and over and over.....just like I did with my mom.  Those memories of High School are some of my MOST favorite ones and the bond I had with my mother throughout those years is still just as strong today.  I pray, with all my heart, that I will get to share that kind of bond with my darling daughter.  She and I are both getting ready to start a new chapter in our lives.  It's going to be one HECK of a ride!  Bring on the Valium!

The Day I Stole a Rock

Originally posted April 11, 2007. Since it's coming up on the 3rd anniversary of the death of my Aunt Wanda, I wanted to repost what I was feeling then.



My favorite Aunt passed away last week and her funeral was Monday. She was a wonderfully funny, strong, bossy Christian woman. She is who I aspire to be. She was 87 years old and spent the last 18 years taking care of her invalid daughter at home, despite 2 heart bypasses. She taught piano her whole adult life and at the time of her death, she had 30 students. Her funeral was an amazing tribute of laughter through tears. My family has dealt with all the blows life can throw at them with laughter. It's how we deal. Case in point....my recent episode of rock stealing.

My cousin and her dad, me and my dad, my husband and my Uncle David, along with my young impressionable son, took a road trip on Easter Sunday to my dad's birth place in Braggs, OK. Picture this....3 old men, Jay, 2 forty-something women and a 7 year old piled into one van. The van is today's equivalent of the station wagon, so my cousin and I were in the very back with my son. You know, where the kids sit. ( Some things never change, apparently.) Our mission... to retrieve a rock from the old homestead. Not just any rock, but a rock my grandfather "engraved" with my dad's and uncles names back in 1941. There were 8 kids in my dad's family and they were all born in that house. There were bad jokes cracked during the drive about bail money and police chases. And we laughed. A lot.

The lot is abandoned and the house long burned down, but those 3 old men knew exactly where that rock was. Dad and the uncles took one look at it and decided it couldn't be dug up. My cousin and my husband grabbed the shovel.. So while I took my post as look- out in the street, they dug up the rock. Dad and his brothers were busy distracting a neighbor. In our family, fortunes have been made and lost, loved ones have passed on, marriages broken apart, illness has touched us; but at that moment, nothing, and I mean NOTHING meant more to all of us than that rock. A piece of our family history. Solid. Whole. Timeless. Just like our family. We loaded that 72 pound rock with my grandfathers handwriting on it into the back of the van, laughing the entire time. And I believe with all my heart that my Aunt Wanda was watching from Heaven. And she was laughing with us.