Surprise!!

I like surprises.
Soft surprises.
The Pumpkin Spice coffee mate in the door of the frig,
Mike making dinner while I am at Aqua-fit class,
finding the right material in the flannel aisle,
and random picture texts, kind of surprises.

NOT the jump out and stop my heart, sneak up behind me, and make me scream kind of surprises.

So when I walked into the house and saw a package from UPS with my name on it on the counter I was happy surprised.
I gave Mike the "OK, how much did you spend?" look and he raised both of his hands in surrender and said "No, It wasn't me!"

It only took me a minute to be annoyed. I am thinking someone forgot my birthday was last month. (I later found out that that was true) and this person doesn't know me very well to send me this.

Cupcakes - really - everybody who knows me knows that I am not a cake fan. Now I need to know who they are from.
Borderline pissed right now. Who in their right mind would waste their money by sending ME cupcakes?

I open the box and there is no card, just 48 mini cupcakes. Of course, I am convinced that who ever send these to me didn't included a card on purpose.

After closer inspection I realize maybe this person does know me.
The box was this pretty tie die, and these weren't just any cupcakes - These were "carrot cake" with cream cheese frosting. Pretty decorated!

Hummmm... "Baked by Melissa" with 20 cupcakes stores in and around New York. I was pretty sure I knew who sent them now!

I got a phone call last night and sure enough I was right. My birthday did slip Steve's mind, and he did send me this wonderful looking cupcakes in the mail.

I haven't tried them yet. Steve is coming for a visit soon and I will wait till then so we can try them out together.

Reflection

My Mother was a hard worker who raised 7 kids.
She was a Mother who disciplined us and instilled in us a drive and reason to be better at everything we did. We never wanted to disappoint her - NEVER.
Her motto was "The easy way is not always the right way!" and she did not let us take the easy way out ever - God Bless you for that, Ma.

I finally get what she was about or maybe it's just the process of growing older and wiser.

There comes a point in your life that you stop being a mother and switch your gears to "Grandma". Of course you will always be there for your kids when they need you, but that seems to be less and less.

True, you always want to know what is going on in your children's lives, but the conversations seems to turn to the grandkids. My conversations with Ma over the last few years of her life always ended up about the grandkids and great grandkids. Kinda like - OK enough about you what are the kids up to.
She was the best Grandma and great-grandma.

She showed me that your job as Mother changes. You don't need to worry about whether they are eating right, seeing the doctor, getting enough sleep, not staying out too late, and saving for their future  (at least on a daily basis). They should already know that by now, or they have a significant other in their lives to help them through all that.

No,  it is time to sit back and watch them become Mothers and Fathers of their own. To watch them become responsible parents. To succeed in their jobs and make something wonderful of themselves and just be proud of that.

Your job now is to be Grandma.

It's to plan your schedule around watching the grandkids play baseball and football. To see them on the sidelines cheering. To get on the floor and play blocks and build that tower over and over again only to be knocked down. To buy them something just because you know that they would love it.

You bake them pancakes and cookies and just like my Mother always did make so much food that they never leave hungry.

You fill your camera with pictures of silly fun stuff of them that nobody else but you will care about, but you think it's the best ever.

You brag to everyone what your grandkids are doing and you are not one bit embarrassed about it.

Yeah Ma, I think I can get used to this Grandma thing.

So I am going to face being 60 and see myself in the mirror as not getting older, but being a Grandma who thinks her grandkids will someday rule the rest of the world like they do mine.

Splitting Wood

We had a tree that was dead in our backyard. Sharen had one in her front yard so we tag teamed for a better price and scheduled them both as one job. They came on Monday and had them both down in a couple hours.
That left us with some major wood to be split.
Tree at our house coming down.

The tree at Sharen's

We rented a heavy duty splitter and got to work. We started on Tuesday and had a few visitors.
Anyone that showed up we put to work.

 - Bill showed up with his work gloves in hand and jumped right in

  Linda came all 3 days down at Sharen's house (Even in the rain on Wednesday) and took her turn manning the blade lever.
We would fill Brian's truck and while they were unloading at our house I would take wood left behind and stack it in Sharen's yard and pile the crap wood on the fire.
I drove my tractor down from our house.

 

The boys were off school on Friday and wanted money for their Halloween costumes so they stacked this big pile of wood over behind the shed. They loaded the cart. I pulled it over (with my tractor) and they stacked all this wood! We made about 35 trips. Besides loading and stacking - Logan would drive the tractor and Dylan threw crap wood on the fire.They were such a HUGE help!!!!

I was so proud of them. They earned every penny I paid them. I couldn't help and think of Mom. She was whispering in my ear "pay them what they were worth". It was more than $20 Mom. :)

We still have some logs from our tree to split. We only have the splitter for a week so it looks like we will continue right through this weekend. So don't look for me in the Chicago marathon - we have one of our own in our backyard.

Survivor Fans

I am pretty sure you would want to keep ME on your tribe.
This Bi**ch (a shout out to Jack and Jeremy, APM) can keep a fire burning.

During the steady rain today, I kept a fire going to burn the bark and scrap wood.

Walmart

When Bryan was growing up we had a 7-11 a block away. If I needed something I didn't have in my kitchen, all I had to do was give him money for a slurpee and he would usually walk down there for me. I could go and get what I needed very quickly. I missed that store when we moved out here in the country.

They built a new super walmart a couple of miles from the house.  I have to jump into the car to get there, but it is really easy and convenient to run too.

Sunday before the Ryder Cup came on I took a quick run over there with a list of 4 things. A planned quick trip of just 4 things.


Nope - as I was headed over to the flavored water section (Sharen got me hooked on the Pineapple/Coconut water) I walked down the aisle of my dreams.

This crazy store has a whole aisle devoted to PUMPKIN.
Glorious Pumpkin!!!!

Coffee, jello, cookies, bars, cake, beer, creamer, marshmallows, icing, no bake pie, can pumpkin