Lightning Strikes and Terrorists

Well, the last time I blogged, I was blissfully enjoying my newly fixed air conditioning and packing for a visit to Ohio. God must have a sense of humor, my friends, because only a few hours after I finished, lightning struck -- literally. On Monday night, 7/21/08, some storms were rolling through K-town. Kelsey had a friend over for a sleepover and they, along with Sydney, were sitting in the living room playing cards. It started to rain really hard outside, so Joe B. turned over to check the radar. Sure enough, there were 4 or 5 red blobs scooting down from Kentucky towards us. The power flickered once and we could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. I was in the middle of dinner prep and was praying the power would stay on until the chicken baked.

After the power flickered, Joe decided he would mosey upstairs to turn off the computers in the office and make sure everything was turned off before the storm got close. Within 30 seconds of his ascent up the stairs, there was a BOOM and it sounded like a bomb had blown the top of the house off. I heard Joe scream, so I started calling his name. After 2 calls from me and no answer, I hollered his name again -- LOUDLY -- and he came down the stairs. He said, "I think we've been struck by lightning."

Needless to say, he was right. After much inspection, we found we had lost several thousands of dollars in electronics -- including the much beloved Wii and PS3 gaming systems -- and our air conditioner had gotten struck and was out AGAIN! Joe was in full meltdown mode. But we are now a week out and our phones are back on, Internet is hooked up. We have made trips to Target, HH Gregg, Walmart, you-name-it, to replace all of the *stuff* that got fried in the storm. Our big home computer is still on the disabled list, being re-built as we speak. Fortunately for me, the pictures that were stored on that computer were retrievable. So all is ALMOST well in the Birchfield household. Except we never did make it to Ohio to see the in-laws. Guess that will have to wait until fall...

On another note, I want to comment on something horrific that happened right here in our own backyard yesterday. A man entered a church and opened fire on a congregation during their church service, during a children's production of Annie. Two people so far have died and 7 others were hurt, some still in critical condition today. The news agencies have reported today that the man targeted this church because he "hated liberals". This church is a very open church, allowing all people -- gays, straight, whatever -- to join in their worship. They are very involved in civil rights, peace initiatives, aid for the needy and other social justice issues. They are not just a Christian church, but a church that teaches about all the different religions, stressing more the importance of SPIRITUALITY and treating all as EQUAL than a bias toward one religion or another.

This event has broken my heart. I have written a few things on here about politics, religion, etc., enough for most of you to know I am a liberal -- for lack of a better term. Liberal makes it sound like I'm an outlaw or something, and how sad in my mind that believing that treating everyone the same no matter their sexual preference or religious domination makes me a rebel. But if liberal means that I believe in the value of EVERY person and the rights of EVERY person to be treated equally, then I'm a liberal.

So this monster, this TERRORIST, did not agree with these beliefs, so he came armed to the teeth to church and shot everyone in his sight. What is happening to us that we can not even feel safe in our places of worship anymore? It isn't safe in school, at work, on the streets in our cars, in line at the post office and now it's not safe at church anymore. I don't know what to say about it all. I can't explain it to my 10 year old who wants to know why this man shot people at church.

If this man hated liberals, gays, whatever, one would assume it was because he was raised in a *Christian* conservative home. If that is the case, where does the Thou Shalt Not Kill part of the 10 commandments come into play? I don't remember getting the addendum to the document where it states "Thou Shalt Not Kill, with the exception of liberals and gays and anyone you generally don't agree with" or the part that says "Except in the name of religion." THOU SHALT NOT KILL -- ever, period. And I would add especially not in the name of religion. To kill in the name of religion, in my opinion, is the biggest insult a human being could ever make toward God, the Creator of ALL mankind, not just white, Christian, straight mankind.

For the people that experienced that horrible event yesterday, for the children that will forever be traumatized by the sounds and sights witnessed in that sanctuary, my heart aches. God help us all.

~Peace

Birthday Business, Remodeling and THE HEAT!

Well, I turned the big 3-9 on July 14 and I've been spending the last week trying to ignore it. This was a big one for me. My dad died when he was 38, so I spent a lot of time this year kinda holding my breath. Don't know why the age a parent dies somehow signals something ominous for you -- His destiny is not my destiny, as I have repeated to myself for many years now -- but it does. So for 12 months I have wondered if I would meet the same fate, leaving young kids behind and never seeing my grandkids. I also spent a lot of the last year realizing just how young he really was when he died. I feel like I've got a lot of years left in me -- well, maybe not a LOT, but a few decades anyway -- to accomplish things on my To Do List.

So last Sunday night at one minute past midnight, I rolled over to face Joe and said, "I made it." I can't describe the weight that lifted from my shoulders just seeing the clock hit 12:01. I can, however, describe Joe's response as being something between a snore and a very sleepy "Happy Birthday." So much for sentimentality...

On Monday morning, the girls greeted me with hand-picked and homemade gifts. Kelsey gave me the sweetest necklace that came with a poem explaining that the necklace stood for a hug anytime I needed it, even when she wasn't there. So Sweet. Then Sydney had made a little wall hanging from wooden blocks, spelling out MOM in red and yellow. She had glued little crystal jewels all over the blocks and attached yarn to the back so I could hang it on my door. It has found a place on my laundry room door where it greets me every morning as I leave my bedroom. It is FABULOUS.

It was a very low-key birthday, pedicure gift cards from Joe, sugared peaches from Mom and a little family get-together around the pool later in the week. Earlier in the week, Tracy asked me what I was doing 10 years ago this time. I was very pregnant with Kel-Bell 10 years ago, helping Mom move into her new house and nesting in mine. I was remodeling the guest bedroom and making it a nursery. And kinda full circle, I am now in the middle of remodeling Kelsey's bedroom again, a decade later.

This past week, Joe and I also tackled some of our remodeling plans. We finished Sydney's disco room, complete with disco ball and dance floor. She loves it. Here is a link to a video we took the night we finished it. It doesn't really do the dance area justice, but you get the general idea. Syd's Disco Room

We are waiting on a couple of extras for Kelsey's room and it will be transformed from Dalmations to Horses, saddle on the wall, pink sparkly horseshoes all around the room and S'Mores, her robotic horse, showcased behind a white picket fence. I'll post pictures once it's all complete.

Funny side story -- Right in the middle of remodel time, the air conditioner decided to blow up. People, it is the HOTTEST WEEKEND OF THE YEAR! This happened Friday night. Saturday morning, the air conditioner man comes out and notifies us he can't get the part until Monday morning. We deal with it, ship the kids off to Mom's, go out for dinner and come home, hoping the temperature at night will allow us to open the windows, hit the ceiling fans and everything will be bearable. Not the case. At 9:30 Saturday night, Joe was buying a portable air conditioner at Lowe's. By 10:30 I was shipping the girls off to spend the night with Mom and Joe and I were preparing to sweat. I will say that the portable air conditioner did cool things enough to survive Saturday night, but last night was a different story. Joe and I pretty much walked the halls off and on all night trying to find a cool spot. It was so humid outside that the little air conditioner that could really just couldn't do much and so we just had to suck it up. Thank God the air conditioner man showed up this a.m. with part in hand and, I am happy to report, there is air pumping again through the house!

Well, I guess that's it folks. Nothing real exciting. Just the usual. We are heading to Ohio to see the in-laws this weekend. Things are going to be gearing up in the next month. School starts mid-August, as does Sydney's dance classes and Kel's fall softball activities. I'm sure in the midst of that there will be much material to blog about in the coming couple of months. Watch out in September, as J. starts driving and I'm sure I will have LOTS to comment on there!

~Peace

Long Time Gone!

Has it really been almost a MONTH since I've updated? Geez, guys, it's not for lack of activity around here -- That's for sure. I've got oodles of pictures stored up and I'm going to update those later this weekend, but I'm just saying a quick hello before I head out for a softball tourney this weekend. I just thought if I didn't update while I had all this junk in my head it might be another month before I got around to it. So let's get started!

First, Joey's high school baseball season has mercifully ended. He ended up getting in at least an inning a game for most of the remainder of the season. A small victory, but a victory all the same. So summer season has started and life is back to normal. We're gearing up for trips to Mt. Juliet, Kingsport, East Cobb and Charleston with his team this summer. Then we've got our annual Daytona family trip coming up. We're storing up our dough for a trip to the Daytona Beach Kennel Club. "Give me the straight trifecta, 7-1-4, please, ma'am!"

The girls have a week and a half of school left and we're preparing for end of the year luau parties, final report cards and fun day at school. It's hard to believe we're moving to 4th and 2nd grades next year. Little Syd is not so little anymore and Kelsey has grown so much this year she's wearing women's size shoes and junior-sized clothing. Time marches on.

They both did great grade-wise this year, no Bs on either report card. They tested great on their standardized tests (not that I have any love for those things -- I could write a book about the loathing I have for them.), with Kelsey testing at Post-high school in several subjects and Sydney testing at a sixth grade level in a couple of things. Whether that's truly accurate or not, who knows, but I do know that they are learning and progressing tremendously in their studies. I'm glad I'm able to have a hand in that actually. Watching their academic progress has been one of the greatest experiences I've ever had.

In other news, Kelsey had her first pitching outing last month and did pretty well. She got out of the first inning with no runs, walking the first two batters. Batter #1 got thrown out trying to steal second and Batter #2 got called out for leaving the base too early (a little help from Blue, thank you very much). Then she was down in the count 3-0 on Batter #3, but came back and fired 3 right down the middle! Inning over! Woohoo! Now, in the second inning, things didn't run quite as smoothly, but it was exciting nonetheless. Let's see. With control issues, she threw a few behind the batters' backs and hit one in the head. Her dad brought in another pitcher soon after, but all-in-all, for a first time ever outing, she did great. I'm hoping to post some video on Vimeo later in the week, so I'll let you know when I get around to that.

Sydney had her spring musical May 1 at the co-op. I usually dread the spring musical simply because it's the typical, boring, school program. It's hot in the auditorium, crowded and you can't hear anything for all the babies fussing and crying all around the room. Kel missed out on this production because she had a softball game. (As is custom, I let her decide which event she preferred to attend, and she (BIG SHOCKER) chose to play ball.) Anyhoo, Syd had two songs in this production, one with the 1st and 2nd grade classes and one during the big finale with the entire school on stage. It was such a great little show this year! It was very upbeat and the music was contemporary Christian, so the kids danced and did sign language and it was beautiful. It was a very simplistic performance with minimal set design. The kids were dressed in khaki bottoms and spring colors on top, so it looked like a bunch of Easter eggs up on stage!

I have to say it was very enjoyable and Syd also came out of her shell this year and actually did the hand motions. For those of you in attendance last year, you will remember it was a little like the episode of the Brady Bunch where they went on the TV show as the group, "The Silver Platters", to perform a song and one of them froze up -- Was it Jan? (If you know the answer to this one, please leave it in the comment section below!) Anyway, Syd was kinda like that last year, but this year she was loosey-goosey and really enjoyed herself. I'm hoping to upload that on Vimeo this week, too.

We also took a quick trip to Pigeon Forge for our annual cabin vacation. It was tons of fun (even though it was Rod Run weekend and driving on the main drag was IMPOSSIBLE!). The cabin had a hot tub, two video game machines, foosball, air hockey, pinball, a jukebox and a pool table. So the kids -- Dad included -- had a ball! We visited the Gatlinburg Aquarium on Friday and then we invited the fam up on Saturday for a cookout. The girls got in the hot tub with their cousins after we ate burgers and horsed around for about an hour. Then after the family was leaving, we were stalked by a peacock for the remainder of our trip. It was beautiful, but kinda creepy, too. Evidently it was mating season for the little guy and he spent most of Saturday night squawking right outside the cabin -- Joe was thrilled, let me tell 'ya! Then on Sunday morning as we were getting up and getting ready to come home, Mr. Peacock was sitting perched on our front porch! AAAHHH! Anybody who knows me knows how much I fear birds, so it was not a big treat for me. Neither was the big pile of hmmm, how can I put this delicately, bird stuff he left on the front porch! I've got pics of all the festivities and I will upload those to the blog later this week.

Well, kids, I think that's all for now -- I know you're thanking the Good Lord that the babbling is ending! Kel's got three games today and it's time to get ponytails pulled up, Under Armour donned and cleats laced. If any of you have a 9 year old, you know this is not a quick process. So I gotta run. I hope everybody is healthy, allergy-free and in a good place. I'm hoping once school is out I'll be more attentive to the blog. There are lots of things coming up!

Finally, tomorrow is Mother's Day. I don't have a whole lot to say about that except I am thankful I still have a mother, two grandmothers, a mother-in-law and two sweet aunts (not to mention many friends) who are still around to share this experience with me. We will gather tomorrow at Mom's house as we always do, having sub sandwiches and chips and cookies and we will laugh and poke fun and enjoy the day. While I always say my idea of the perfect Mom's Day is laying in my comfy PJs all day watching movies and napping, I have to say I am so fortunate to still have so many mothers (this phrase is open to interpretation!!) to spend my day with tomorrow. Being a mom has been the greatest challenge of my life, but also the greatest privilege. I never regret for a single moment making the choice to be one. I am richer for having done so. So for all the moms reading this, Happy, Happy Mother's Day!

~Peace

Anniversaries

At approximately 7:00 p.m. this evening, 2/22/08, Joe and I will have been married exactly 11 years. ELEVEN, people. That's more than a decade, almost a third of my life (Yeah, yeah, I'm old. I'm aware...).

Am I going to say that time flies? Sometimes. Sometimes I can still remember how the day felt -- a little cool, not cold -- or how the air felt behind the scenes when we were all getting ready -- electric, like everything was buzzing. I remember sitting with my girlfriends out on the back steps of the church sharing a cigarette (Back in the day before I was *Mommy*, I liked to have a social puff or two) an hour before the service. I remember I wore black leggings and a blue denim shirt into the church that day and I remember the flowers were COMPLETELY wrong, but I didn't care.

I remember standing in the living room of our little ranch house in nothing but a corset and stockings, getting all gussied up to leave for the church, and Joe coming in from his morning bachelor golf game with all his high school and college buddies, not realizing I was still there (in my underwear). A spat on our wedding day -- If you know us, that is so appropriate!

I remember the pictures, the ceremony, the elation I felt in the limo on the way to the reception. I remember dancing and drinking and talking, talking, talking to sooo many people. I remember trading my wedding shoes in for a pair of Keds early in the night and I remember riding home in the limo with my sweet, sweet stepson and my brand new husband. I remember finally eating at midnight, watching Saturday Night Live in the floor of my house while little Joey colored sleepily in his coloring book beside me.

So in that regard, the way the memories of that day are still so clear, like it just happened last week, time has flown. But in other ways, it seems like a lifetime ago. It seems like a wedding where I was an observer and not a participant because those two people were so different than the two people who live here in this bigger house I'm in now.

In our 11 married years, we have been blessed with new members of the family and we've mourned the loss of other members. We've traveled together, traveled apart, driven kids to the E.R. a million times, weathered the wrath of ex-wives, prayed for sick parents, put down sick dogs, trained new puppies, homeschooled our children, built a house together, cheered on the kids in baseball, softball, spelling bees and ballet. We've laughed at and with each other, screamed at and with each other, stayed up late fighting over stupid things and stayed up late making up.

I could never, ever list all the experiences we've had that have tattooed themselves onto my memory. These days I forget a lot of things, more than I probably should, but there are a lot of things I don't, can't, won't forget. And I know that even if, God forbid, when I am old (older) and gray (grayer) I develop some memory-killing condition in the old lady's home, I know my heart will fight to hold on to all the reasons why marrying Joe B. was the best decision I ever made in my life.

Joe always tells me life is a culmination of choices. If you make good choices, your life goes one way. If you make bad choices, it goes another. Forks in the road, crossroads -- we all come to them eventually. If you have known me for long, you probably know I have all too often made bad choices, especially in my early years, taken the wrong fork in the road. But somehow, some way my internal GPS led me to him all those years ago and, for whatever reason, I made the right choice.

We aren't the prettiest couple in the world, not the smartest, not the richest, not the classiest and not the most exciting. Our life together won't be made into some reality show for VH1 anytime soon because it's just not that darn interesting -- I mean, come on, Joe is no Flavor Flav. But it's a good little life. Sometimes it's dramatic, sometimes it's sexy (okay, not so much), sometimes it's funny and there's almost always an episode where somebody throws up! :)

So to my bestest, bestest friend in the world, Joe B., Happy 11th Anniversary! XOXOXOXO

The Big 4-0

Joe's 40th birthday party was last night. He doesn't actually hit the milestone until August 22, but since family tradition has always been to celebrate on the weekends, we chose this weekend to throw the big guy a party. Well, a Mexican fiesta combo party with Mom, whose birthday is August 22.

Joe's been kind of in a funk all week. He has blamed it on this advanced training class he's been in every day and all the homework he's been slammed with every night. True, that does wear a body out, especially when you've got to come home to a full house of kids demanding attention. Still, he hasn't been himself. It makes me wonder what's going through his mind sometimes, if he's feeling that 40 sitting on his shoulders or if he's thinking that time is passing too quickly.

For anybody who knows Joe, I think it's safe to say he has never seemed older than your typical teenage boy. He's perpetually optimistic, willing to embarrass himself for the sake of a chuckle and is always talking about the latest video game or sports event on the horizon. And that's probably why I was drawn to him in the first place. He's my perfect balance, always keeping my pessimism in check, dragging me to activities I say I'm too old for and never letting me take it all too seriously.

On the gift list this year: a Guitar Hero '80s video game, some low-top *GO VOL* orange Chuck Taylors and a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor (Thank you, Tracy Lee) in honor of the big day. And with every paper ripped open (or tissue pulled from the bag), he smiled a little wider and laughed a little louder. He loved every minute of it.

Before we decided just to do a family party, I was trying to decide what kind of huge shindig to have for him. I was calling banquet halls, thinking of how many people we would invite, food, etc. Finally, I just asked him what he wanted to do to commemorate the big day. He said, "Nothing big, just something at the house." I kept saying, "But it's a big deal. You're going to be 40," and he kept saying, "It's really not a big thing. Just something small." So I reluctantly decided we'd do it his way.

Last night, after everyone had left and he had cleaned the kitchen for the fifth time (Those of you who know him get that joke!) and we were heading to bed, he said, "Thank you so much for my party. It was just perfect." And I thought in my head how right he was. It was the perfect day for my perfect guy.