Geronimo

      Ever have those days (weeks?) where you just feel like you NEED to do something, anything?  I've been feeling this way lately.  It's so oxymoronic, because I'm SO very tired and pulled in 15 different directions.  I think what I'm missing is that usually at this time of year, my daughter's All Star cheer competition season is finally starting and every week is spent preparing for the weekend.  Bows, bells, air horns, glittered signs, glittered makeup, glitter EVERYTHING. Costco runs for cases of energy drinks (for me), "Mom's Fierce-Aid bag" with all the extras that anyone might need, and of course, lots of hot tea with lemon and honey for soothing throats sore from yelling and screaming for hours.  She quit after last season.
     I'll be honest-I cried.

    You may look upon cheer leading as a bunch of boy-crazed morons that are so superficial they would think the word "introspective" was some new....."position".  All Star cheer is so very, very, different than this.  So much so that you could make the analogy that comparing "rah-rah" cheer leading to All Star cheer is like comparing Anna Nicole Smith to Einstein, respectively.  All Star cheer DEMANDS, and I seriously means DEMANDS, top physical shape, multi-tasking, graceful coordination, the utter defiance of gravity, and you must do all this with a smile on your face within two and a half minutes, inside the big white box.  Anyway, there has long been the debate 'Is cheer a sport?' and while I'm very much on the Pro side of this debate, this is not the point of this here post.  Here, is the point:

I miss being a cheer mom.

    There.  It's out.  I said it.  I MISS those crazy weekends and the 5 days a week at the gym, the other two at some cold (or sweltering) arena for 15 hrs a day, the glitter (oh the glitter!), the early morning rush, the tired sore aching arms/legs/voices/backs (and I mean mine, not my daughter's).  It was all honestly, so much fun.  I loved helping her get ready, seeing her all ready to compete, sitting with my other "cheer moms" and laughing and joking around.  I miss watching her out on that floor, a smile that could light up even the darkest of rooms, and talent-oh the talent she had!  She was tumbling at an elite level (which is part of the reason I cried when she quit).  My stomach in my throat, hoping they hit every stunt, tumbling pass, and jump.  Then when they did the rush of pride and excitement (imagine your favorite sports team winning the-Stanley Cup, Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, World Cup, etc.-yeah it's THAT exciting), it felt like my heart would burst with joy!
     Having been doing since she was 5, and it being a year round sport-no break at all-she finally reached her limit where she just was no longer having fun.  I always told her that if she's not having fun, it's not worth doing.  She won't get a scholarship to college for cheer (she's too tall already), she's not going to be a "professional cheerleader", so this is all just for fun.  It's so very odd to be sitting here, Friday night, NOT preparing for a 5am wake up for and hour+ drive tomorrow morning.  I began to realize how 'itchy' I was tonight, when she was getting ready to go to the District Championship game for the high school's football team.  My hubby was taking her and a friend, so she quickly got ready by putting glitter streaks on her cheeks in the school's colors.  I looked at her and just thought (cue the little girl voice in my head) GLITTER!!!!ILOVEGLITTEROMGGLITTERGLITTERMORE!!YOUNEEDMOREGLITTER!!
I tried very hard to keep my mouth shut, but the stupid giddy smile I had on my face kinda gave me away.  She looks at me and says, "I know, isn't it awesome?!" and points to her cheeks.  She's still a cheerleader at heart (and she knows me OH so well).
       So, this got me thinking.  How do I squelch this itch for excitement?  Bungee jump?  Skydive?  Extreme spelunking?  Flash mobbing??  Ugh.  I could, but 1) I'm broke 2) I might want excitement, but the kind where I'm sure I'll still be alive at the end.  I've been toying with an idea for a while now, inspired by my very awesome sister.  She's a runner.  I have to overcome very similar issues that she had, and she worked her ass off to get there.  She's run 3 marathons this year, and I've lost count of her total run.
      I'm going to run a marathon next year.

     Ok.  It's in print.  I can't back out now.  I will start training, in multiple ways, and my hope is to run the Marine Corps Marathon with her next fall.  There's several other small runs (5k/15k's) that I want to run in the coming months also, but for fun mostly.  She'll kick my ass and be waiting for hours at the finish line for me, but we'll have so much fun-and that's the thrill of it all.  All the training, the sore legs, backs, arms, knees, all building up to reaching that finish line after 26.2 miles get pounded beneath my feet.

     So worth it.

     So, as I seem to be making my resolution a month early, I don't really have anything else to say but

GERONIMO.

$500 mil Doesn't impress Espresso baby

     To know me, you must know my one, true, deep addiction for which I unapologetically will continue the habit of until the day I die, and then, I hope to be buried with a carafe of it (you know-just in case).  Coffee, espresso, lattes, cappuccinos, macchiatos, pretty much anything made with a coffee bean.  Chocolate covered espresso beans? Crack rock.  So, that being said, one thing my father and I have always shared (and that he's shared with all my siblings as well) was the love of a good cup o' joe.  So, as an early Christmas gift (or maybe birthday? eh, it's one in the same), he bought me the very same espresso maker that he has.  It's a LOVELY machine....(insert dreamy eyes here)!  We received the Wonder a few days ago and couldn't wait to start playing with it and brewing some of that brunette mistress that calls to me like a siren.
     In true-to-form fashion, I sit down to read the instruction manual first.  Oh-not because that's what most people with common sense would do, but because I'm terrified to break the damn thing (we have a plague upon our house-we break anything and everything OVER the value of $5).  Ok, I am OCD enough that I'd have to read the manual first, even if we DIDN'T break things, so my neuroses do come in handy.  There's your usual this-is-that-thingie picture/number matchup, yada yada.  Then I get to the page of no-no's and there was this one particular no-no that grabbed my attention.....

.......I'm sorry....I think I may have misunderstood....so you're NOT supposed to put your baby on the espresso machine?  Or are they making a statement against gratuitous child modeling of random products?  Espresso baby don't care.  Espresso baby just stylin', waitin' for mom to make some lattes.  The symbols above the picture just add to my curiosity.  Are they saying "Attention! Wait!"  Or possibly "Hey! High 5 for espresso baby!"  Maybe "Yo! Stop!"...collaborate and listen, or it's Hammer Time!  I don't believe it would be In the Name of Love in this instance.  Anyway, espresso baby confused the crap out of me whist making me laugh so hard, I'll be honest, I may have peed a little.  Is this REALLY such an occurrence that we need to not only have a warning about it, but a PICTORIAL one at that?   As if saying, 'Hey mastermind, letting your baby crawl onto this machine might not be the best idea you've ever had' was one that really needed to be stated, let alone demonstrated graphically.  The most depressing thought in this whole quandary is that there actually had to BE someone who not only allowed their young child to play ON THE MACHINE, but who probably sued the manufacturer of said machine for not putting a warning about this very situation.

     Today got me thinking about espresso baby as I watched so many people stand in line to buy a Powerball ticket in the hopes of winning a mere $500 million dollars (sorry, can't help but picture Dr.Evil as I typed that).  People of every shape, size, and background buy these lottery tickets.  Hell, I bought one myself (seriously, $500 MILLION-espresso baby could buy his own franchise with that), but what would these people REALLY do with that much money?  Sure, you fantasize about what you would do, but when it came down to the nuts and bolts of it all, what on earth would you need so desperately with all that money?  Do you deserve that much money?  By deserve, I mean to you feel you'd be responsible, smart, wise, whatever with the money?  Would you buy an espresso maker then (possibly) sue the company because you let your toddler play on it?  

     Here's my point-with all that money just a few numbers away, do YOU feel you could handle all that it brings to your table (I mean that metaphorically)?  Would you help others or would you simply help yourself?  I come from a lower middle-class point-of-view, so it's not like I have money at all to spare, but I still can't imagine keeping so much when so many have so much less.  

      I was once told, when I was younger, that I had an overinflated idea of what was fair.  I still don't understand why that was a bad thing. 

      I don't feel the world owes me anything, least of all money.  If I have the opportunity to help someone, why wouldn't I?  Because no one helped me?  On the contrary, that's my motivation, I believe.  I've had to make it through most of my life on my own, learning things the hard way and always starting from the ground up.  It's made me a very independent person (sometimes, to a fault), but if I could ease someone else's hard times, maybe give them a step stool to start a little higher than ground level, that would be the real jackpot.  It sucks always being so far down, never seeming to get any higher.  My life here at the bottom hasn't been a bad one, just difficult.  I don't regret my life at all.  If I turned around and made someone else's life a little less difficult, then all the lesson's I've learned through my struggles will have come to fruition.  

     The only value of learning a lesson is applying what that lesson taught you. 

    So, my hope is this-whoever wins that obscene amount of money tonight, may you be blessed with the wisdom to turn around and make the world better for all that it's provided to you.  Well, you and espresso baby.

Moving Sale

     If you've followed me from HubPages, I welcome you!  If not, come on in, pour yourself a good, strong drink (you're going to need it), sit down and enjoy yourself!  I decided to make the move form HubPages as I felt like I didn't really fit in with their style of blogging (like wow, OMG I totally wasn't a plastic).  While I enjoyed their breakdown of how your blog is viewed and the usual statistics (anyone of you who know me knows I'm a total whore for statistics-you should see what I'll do for a spreadsheet), looking around at other blogs, I felt my writing to be....different.  I'm in no way truly informative, or a resource to be used by other writers, I'm just me.  Plain, crazy, me.
     There's been a lot of....stuff...going on in my life lately.  I've made the decision that I'm actually going to write my book, though whether it will ever see the light of day, is the question.  I spent MONTHS agonizing over this decision.  When I say agonizing, I mean full on anxiety attack provoking, not sleeping for days, crying and shaking , so you know, your usual thought provoking decision making process.  I was (and am) terrified over the ramifications of what skeletons will come pouring out of my closet.  I asked my father a few months ago if I should pursue this.  His answer, "If this is what your heart tells you to do, then yes."  I've learned to take his advice over the last few years of my life (and consequently, his).  I thought on it for a long time (hence the period of panic attacks, etc.) and decided that if it was causing me this much stress and anxiety, that it just wasn't meant to be.  I put the idea out and began working on other things.
     Two weeks ago, I hear from my stepmother after repeated attempts to reach my father via text (we texted everyday) to no avail.  I was afraid he was pulling away from me as his disease progressed.  He has always been very open and honest with me, but I have always feared that as his physical body fell victim to the ravishes of this bloody disease, that he wouldn't want me to know by how much.  My step mom replied to me letting me know that he wasn't pulling away, but rather he physically could no longer type or easily read his text messages.  I asked if I should come out there, and she said yes.  My sisters and I all coordinated to catch a flight out there.  That night, knowing I wasn't going to sleep anyway, I stayed up, packed, cried, ran out for coffee, cried some more.  As I was out getting coffee, I looked up at the stars and saw them as I had when I was 6-outside on a frigid night with my father, learning what all the constellations were, shivering hands trying to hold on to too-big binoculars (we couldn't ever afford a telescope), and I loved every second of that time together.  I tried so hard not to cry because I was terrified that I'd never stop.  I wrote my father a letter then, unsure if I'd ever actually give it to him, but I poured everything I wanted him to know into that letter.
     After that, I couldn't seem to stop writing.  On the plane out, everyday I was out there, on the plane home.  When I came home, I felt compelled to finish writing about everything I experienced out in the desert, but I felt a million miles away from my real spirit.  It dawned on me then that my father had read my heart so well, he just neglected to realize that he was my inspiration.  His happiness and pure love opened my heart to accept all the possibilities that my writing my bring about, not just the negative ones.  I had become so focused on the bad, I had forgotten that my writing may inspire, help, or grab a giggle or two.  In the end, that's what really matters, not the skeletons themselves.  They've done their damage already, where I am now is the positive result of said occurrences.  It's not how my life began, but what I've done with it since.
    So, what does a moving sale mean?  You're clearing out the old and getting ready for the new-new possibilities, new memories, new chances to find more of yourself.  In the spirit of new things, I will post my one and only self-picture (I don't do pictures, unless I'm BEHIND the camera).

So let me be weighed, measured, and no longer found wanting.  Welcome to the new World.