I am so happy to be making time for my blog again. It has been a year or more since I sat down to write. I have all these things in my head that I have been wanting to get down and the day comes and then it's over. I am giving here and giving there and then before you know it so much time has passed. So here I am shutting off the world at 11:02 p.m. to write on my blog. I have had so many feelings lately. SO MANY EMOTIONS. Tanner and I finished reading a book about a month ago called FREE LUNCH. It was such a great book. Not easy to read with my ten year old but I am super glad we did because it started so many great conversations. A true story about middle school and poverty. It hit home with me in some ways. I guess because Rex talks about being made fun of and struggling to get attention in positive ways his 6th grade year. I relate to that so much. My parents were miserable together that year of my life. They finally decided to get divorced soon after. They stayed divorced for a year and then got remarried when I was in the 8th grade. TALK ABOUT CONFUSING. It was such a chaotic time for me. During that time we only got to be with my daddy every other weekend. From 6 pm on Friday night to 6pm on Sunday night. It was hard. I mean it just was. There was so much negative and hurtful feelings brewing all over the place. It wore me down. As it does now when I am around it. I felt lost then. I remember my daddy coming one Friday night to pick us up for the weekend and he had shaved his mustache off. I was only 11. I didn't recognize him at all. (he had always had a mustache) so I didn't go to him. I remember my brothers and sister running to him. I just sat there while he cried embracing my siblings. I was angry and confused. The memory is a tricky thing. SADNESS and GRIEF all wrapped up with JOY and BEAUTY. It's just how life is. Raising these boys is tough. I'm working everyday to sacrifice and love them. On a high note I absolutely love books. I love reading. It is such JOY in my life with my children. I love reading with Tanner. I love reading books with him that have meaning. That deal with deep issues. He loves to read too. He may have zero interest in soccer or not care one bit about video games but he can tell you all about REX OGLE. That is the name of the author of FREE LUNCH. He looked him up on his free time and read all about him. That just makes my heart SWOON. I love my boys so much. I want them to have good and happy memories. They will. But they will have not so great ones too. Because The truth is some days are hard. Some days we argue. Some days I act like an idiot and my kids don't listen. Some days I'm completely overwhelmed. Then there's days like today we hit up Epcot and rode rides, laughing and enjoying coffees and ice cream. AND Let's not forget Jersey Mike's on the way home. These are the ones my heart grabs hold of with everything I got. These are special.
Books I loved reading with Tanner this past year: As Small as an Elephant, Ms. Bixby's Last Day, Lemons, Posted, The Dragon with the Chocolate Heart, NightJohn, and Sarny. These are just a few.
Books I have read with Holden and loved this year: Hatchet, all the entire Weird school series ( he loves these) and some cute Halloween books like The HallO-Wiener, The Halloween Hustle and The Gruffalo (still trying to get in the cute reads while he is 7).
Reading with them brings me JOY. I also have read some great books myself including American Dirt, Little Bookshop on the Corner, The Pecan man, and A Long Walk to Water. To name just a few.
Look for the beauty in life. Sometimes it's in a book.
Happy reading.
