It's My Blog and I'll ____ if I Want To...

“Life is a succession of lessons which 

must be lived to be understood.” 

~ Helen Keller

Sorry I've been missing this week. I got BUSY and just didn't have the energy to blog. Terrible excuse, but the truth nonetheless....

Here are a few things I learned this week:

The hardest part of parenting has to be witnessing the natural consequences of your children's mistakes and not being able to "fix" them.   Gracey is struggling with a few classes at school requiring us to pow wow with her teachers about how to get her back on track. (Nothing terrible or earth shattering...just a loss of mojo. A mere hiccup in her academic motivation if you will...) ANYWAY - watching your child be disciplined by others, lectured by others....heck.. even redirected by others.... is SO hard. I don't know who ended up crying more tears over the whole situation - me or Gracey. All I know is that it once again reminded me of how much I love my kids - and gave me another perspective on how God must feel when I screw up and have to suffer the consequences of my actions.  

Sometimes you just need someone to get mad with you. With everything going on this week, I found myself overly emotional. Stupid little things went wrong and got me all riled up. And the people who helped me the most were the ones who joined me in my frustration and said things like, "That stinks!"  "What is THAT about?" "Who does he think he is??"  "That's CRAP!" Heck, it could have just been about some little frustration. It didn't matter what the issue happened to be. It only mattered that I had a crew on my side.  Don't we often forget to do that for each other? We want to fix the issue. Change the scenario. Give advice. But in reality...all the other person needs to hear is that you are just standing in solidarity - ready to fight the good fight right beside him/her. 

Reality sneaks up on you sometimes. I had plans to eat lunch with Jason (my bestie) this weekend because I was going to be in "his" town and haven't had a chance to see him in a while. Our plans got sidetracked because he has chemo this weekend. Amazing how quickly happiness turns to sadness sometimes. Breaks my heart to even hold a conversation with my best friend that includes words like "cancer"or "chemo".  Not fair, I say. NOT fair.  Add him to your prayers tonight. Remember...he has to be with me in the nursing home when we are old. I need someone to harass.

 He'd die if he realized I was blogging about him...but it's my blog and I'll call him out if I want to...out if I want to... OUT if I want to..  Ooopss... sorry... bursting into song isn't appropriate for this subject, is it? ;) haha  I love you MOST, Jase. So there.

The best recipes can be found on Pinterest. This is self explanatory. But trust me....it's true. Tonight I made Spicy Romano Chicken. It was worth every calorie. (She says tonight while wearing sweats that stretch...)

Ok. That's all I've got. Hope you had a good week. Let's all raise a glass to the weekend! I need it!