From past experience you can’t listen to what you fear. I can’t expect that everyone has already stopped by and overwhelmed her. That is a cop-out excuse for myself. I will need to knock on her door & speak to her so I can help. I honestly know that I can help. I have a great deal of understanding & I’ve learned to be quiet. She will need the quiet.

Oh goodness, yes I am talking myself into this. I’ve had a great weekend with my hubby & he had to go back to work today. Because of how I think this went down, yes I will tell him. My hubby has done such a great job working to be healthy so he can be with me forever. I am working to be better as well.

Now to see if a wife is working to be the best she can be as well. O-M-G so out of my comfort zone.

The above is what I’ve been wanting to attack since around 9:30am. Good thing I’m sticking to my strict diet right now or I’d probably be typing this drunk. I don’t have to drive anymore so why not? NO ONE NEEDS ME ANYMORE

There it is. If I just get it out it will pass quicker. Each time a big event in the house goes down it brings back that feeling of how I’m needed less and less. It’s absolutely a good thing…once I get used to it. The problem is as soon as I get used it (which really doesn’t take long) they’ll hit me with another.

Today my oldest got her license.

Do I need to say anything else? This post took me over 24 hours to write because I love to live in denial. That and of course I had a HUGE proposal to write up. Needless to say, my house is clean. Clean for me atleast. You? Maybe not so much. When I’m hiding from things I clean.

Holy hell, on track, get a straight line written.

She turned 16 last July. It’s a really long story as to why she didn’t have her license yet. But honestly, if we’d wanted it to be a priority it would have been done a couple of months ago. It obviously wasn’t a priority for her or she’d have gotten it when she turned 16. lol

It did hit me hard yesterday. But I’m really good at denial so I kind of ignored it. Today it was easy to ignore also. I just haven’t gone outside when she’s leaving so it’s not happening.  Today has been much better anyway. It’s nice to send her off to get her brother from practice and then call her brother to tell them to pick something up from the grocery store.

I know we got to put it off much longer than most people do. But we’re now getting even closer to her senior year. I know things like this are going to just keep hitting me. Maybe that will be helpful. I won’t have time to deal with anything before the next thing hits. It will just all blend into a year of denial. I’ll be sure to keep you posted

Hubby and I are preparing to be empty nesters. As much as you can prepare I guess. They get busier and we make sure we have more dates. We’ve decided we’re going to like being empty nesters which of course means that one or both of these kids will never move out!

We’re remodeling and it’s my fault. I take full responsibility for the disaster my house is right now after 5 days. UGHHHH. This started because we had a leaky skylight two years ago. Hubby fixed the skylight but the ceiling damage was too much and it was only getting worse by the month. I have a lot of allergies and mold is at the top. So instead of going on vacation with JUST MY HUBBY…I said, let’s do a staycation and fix it. Both our kids were out of town for spring break for the same 4 days. It was fate right?

Now I grew up in a house that is now over 130 years old. I know, or should know, well that a house project is never what it seems and will never be as easy as you imagine. Beside the fact I watch HGTV all day long so I know it’s not just a few houses here and there that have a can of worms open.

My first can of worms was going into a full blown asthma attach just a few hours after he demo’d the ceiling. I haven’t had a bad attack in years. I’d actually talked myself into thinking that I’d outgrown my asthma. Literally, I’d thought that to myself just 3 days before. Needless to say I should have gotten a mask & I probably should have left the house while he was doing the demo and asked a friend to help him. But, I haven’t had an attack, let alone a serious one in ages. Now I get to post about my fun times.

So of course it’s taking much longer than planned. It’s going to look amazing when it’s done. My hubby is truly amazing and has done so much of the work. Now my kids are home and my son is helping him a lot. It’s cool and takes the guilt off of me because I honestly just want to lay in bed all day/night and stare at the ceiling. That’s how allergy hell works. Too miserable to sleep but too worn out to be productive.

I have been productive though. I’m excited to post some finished pics of my son’s room. I have hand drawn the Monster logo on his wall and painted two of his walls a gloriously obnoxious green. It’s Sounders green around these parts. But the Seahawks also wear it lol The pic’s are going to look cool.

Since project’s lead into another, here’s the list of what is going on during day 5.

• Full remodel of main(kids) bath.
• Full remodel of laundry room since they are attached by a door
• Full remodel of master bath just because we have the tiles for floor and can’t stand it
• Extra bedroom work as hubby had to fix some things in the wall connecting it to the main bathroom.
• Painting youngest’s room.

These are just the projects going on right now. Oh man, I hope they are finished by the end of the weekend. We still have some other projects to finish so we can list the house. Yes, that is the point of all this. We’re putting it up on the market OR we’ll be much happier staying here lol

I’ll post more because I’m on a total rampage about my doc visit. You’ll either want to hear it or ignore it for the amount of swearing that will go on with my next post about my asthma attack.

I knew it was going to happen eventually. We talk wine with a few friends and he’s showed a lot more interest and definitely more knowledge. He’s been listening to what I say as I’m learning. I’ll give him that.

But it’s gone over the top now. He’s now enjoying red’s and white’s. Which means I have TO SHARE! I don’t want to share. I liken this to 19 years ago when he suddenly found out he wasn’t allergic to chocolate anymore. My Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk kept going empty. I thought I was losing my mind. We lived alone. We were broke so that ice cream would last me weeks. I’d take a couple of spoonfuls here and there. I didn’t have to worry about it, it was only mine because he was allergic. One day I finally figured it out (yes, score one for the brain surgeon) and told him to take his shirt off so I could check for rashes. NONE, well where the hell was my ice cream going then? That’s when he started snickering and came clean that he found out his allergy was gone. Sharing my chocolate has gone downhill ever since as two years later I got pregnant and more chocolate sharing had to go down.

While obviously I won’t have to share my wine with the kids for quite some time I am going to whine about sharing with hubby.
I mean SERIOUSLY, I already had to learn to share my whiskey because he decided not to be a rum drinker anymore. Nothing is sacred anymore. Ok, now to focus on the positives of this situation.

1# Wine tastings have become more of a priority. He wants to try different varieties and wineries. In fact we’ll be hitting some wineries during spring break. Both kids have plans so we’re taking our first of many camping trips alone. It’s easy to tour the wineries here in Washington. The difficult thing is figuring out which one’s to hit first on any tour because they start to run together by the third stop

2# He buys wine more often. Previously I would need to ask him to pick up a bottle if he was going to the grocery store just because he wouldn’t think of it. Now I find bottles in the fridge chilling that I didn’t even know we had. See, I told you I was going to come up with the positives!

3# We are both still cheap asses on the price of our wine. However, I’ve come along way in the last few years. Have to stimulate the economy you know. I never used to spend over $5 for a bottle of wine, I’d shop whatever was on the sale on the bottom shelf. Now I still buy from there because not all wines have a high price tag. But, there are a ton of great wine choices from Washington for $10 or under.

Hubby is never afraid to grab bottles that are more towards the $10-$15 range. In fact one time we were cruising around the wine section at our grocery store and the wine steward was there. Hubby started asking questions and we learned a lot of cool stuff from the guy. He showed us an incredible bottle of wine that you can no longer get, yes he did warn us we’d love it and be unable to get more because the winery closed. It was a killer deal 1/2 off and only $25 a bottle. We were having a date night at home and hubby bought 2 bottles. I never would have grabbed them myself. See, the positives just keep racking up. The wine was really good by the way.

4# Glasses of wine show up while I’m working or just watching tv. It’s the craziest thing. I’ll be sitting here and all the sudden this hot, bald man will come out of the kitchen with two glasses of wine. This is the best perk of all.

I started this post thinking, “be careful what you wish for”. However, ignore that and just ignore the whining above. Now that I’ve typed out all the positives, this sharing of the wine isn’t going to be such a bad thing. I’m kind of starting to think I can get a wine fridge out of this deal now! lol

Then I got the text message that the youngest had forgotten his PE uniform. Semester just changed so it’s an easy forget. BUT I had to get up and do it right away. And so it began.

From there it was just one little thing after another. Thankfully I had one of my little blueberry muffins at 6am because I didn’t get to eat until 1:30pm! However, that did have to do with the fact that there was a cancellation after my daughters massage and I took it. See, I am totally open to the good things that happened today. I’m just not going to ignore the shit.

It’s the end of wrestling season and I know from last year this is when I’m about to lose it. That would be enough but then add having my bday this weekend ON sub-regionals and I’m just super over it. Next week hubby will be having a talk with the kids. Today I ran all over the place for them and not a single thank you. They need to show appreciation for people doing things for them but I can’t be the one to tell them or I’ll get an eye roll and lose it. I’m holding on by a thread as it is.

Just wait, there will be plenty more. This weekend is my bday and I’ll get to celebrate about 5 seconds of it. I’ve hated birthdays for decades and it has nothing to do with the age I turn. So yes, this is all part of my growing shitty day today. My bday was taken over 14 years ago by my oldest being born the day after (by choice, they wanted to induce ON my bday) and then now and for the next 4 years by wrestling.

Don’t get me wrong. I love it and I will love spending the day watching wrestling. I really mean that. But the lack of appreciation for what I did for the brats today is just setting me off. I know the day has to be better than I’m thinking. If not, I’ll get pictures of the carnage that ensues.

Instead of bitching about how busy I was today I want to post all the things I’m thankful for. I was just in such a good mood and so were people around me. Always a miracle around the holidays.

So without further adieu…

1. I’m glad my daughter still needs me to drive her around. Yes, I said it outloud for the whole world. It would be wonderful if she’d gotten her license on time and so much easier, but I don’t get much more time having her fully rely on me. So yes, I’m thankful for getting up at 5 and leaving at 5:30am to take her to morning practice.  I’m thankful I’m able to because so many can’t.
2. I’m thankful that between us and my parents we could afford to get her an incredible letterman’s jacket with no-holds-barred. It came today and even though I should have done work I ran to the town next door to pick it up and then took it to her at school. It’s just so easy to think back and how exciting it was. I knew everyone at practice would want to see it and she was dieing to show off her graphic she created for the back.
3. I’m thankful hubby got to see our son wrestle today. Even though he lost, it was an awesome fight and he almost pinned the guy. He just needs a few more finishing moves. But killer job for his 4th match ever.
4. I’m thankful for an awesome chiropractic office, Henschell Chiropractor. I’ve been going there for something around 10 years. I love everyone in the office, they are so helpful. Now that my lower back is much better we’re going to work on seeing if we can improve some of my chronic health issues. Then there is my amazing massage therapist Amanda. Even though she usually makes me cry, I’m thankful she can work magic on these horrible knots I get. If you stop in there tell them I sent you!  You can just say Val or even just my blog, they’ll know lmbo
5. I love the customer service I ran into everywhere I went. Not just great service, but happy people too. THANK YOU!
6. I’m thankful for coffee and sushi, no not together EWWW.  My fav teriyaki place just started serving sushi too. I’m in heaven.  It was amazing and they have some very different combos that I’m looking forward to trying. ALSO, they are now open on Sundays! That is typically the day I don’t want to cook at all after such a busy week of running around.
7. I’m beyond thankful for my husbands job that he loves, that gives us great insurance (pays for above chiro and massage) and pays the bills so I can be here for all my families needs.
8. I’m thankful that my sites are allowing me to keep being home and pay my bills, which leaves me open to do all of this running around as well.
9. I’m super thankful that after a long day of running around I have these fuzzy fleece jammies to melt into and a nice glass of cab from right here in Washington.

A wrestling Mom’s tale

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and all through the house,

Not a creature was pushing to be a tiny mouse.

Wrestling weigh ins causing a long food time gap,

The dilemma to enjoy dinner or just take a nap.

One child trying to gain, another working to lose,

Then me in the middle of the food dilemma blues.

I remember the reason we stopped visiting family on this day,

It’s too difficult to say no to the stuffing, taters and buffet.

A long line of wrestlers we do come from,

But they love to heckle from being under prior thumb.

To all the wrestling moms, I bid you adieu,

I’ll see you at state where you can kiss my butt too.

Yeah, I’m poetic like that. I started out all nice and ready to post this on my “mommy” blog. But then I couldn’t help myself. My personality came out so it immediately got copied to my “momma” blog. Yes, this is a Val Selby original so don’t steal it cause it’s obvious.

A zillion years ago I use to write poems all the time. My parents have a ton of them. See how stupid my brain works?

I believe I was still MIA around here during last wrestling season. This is when my daughter decided to wrestle as a sophomore and found a true sport passion. It’s incredible to watch, especially since I’m a wrestling junky to begin with. I don’t even have to know anyone on the mat and I’m yelling and screaming lol If she had to wait to find her sport, I’m so very thankful she picked one that rocks!

So you’ll be hearing more about wrestling. My son also decided to join in at the middle school this year. I’m pretty sure it was to show up his sister, but hey, competition is good. Plus, the conversations in the car after practice bring literal tears to my eyes. They try to one up each other about mat work, but they also explain and learn from each other. It’s just plain awesome.

We done did right somewhere. (sniff, sniff) Now go kill em. Oops, my redneck showed

Yep, these are my big dates for Halloween. Hubby is working and both the kids went to friends houses. I have 2 more hours before I go pick them up. I’m feeling really unfestive and even turned the porch light off. I usually love Halloween, but it’s really different this year.

For one thing it’s on a school night so that stinks. Then the kids are just too old to trick-or-treat anymore. We did get some costume stuff for the youngest, but the oldest is just at a get-together at her boyfriends house with some friends. eww, that’s weird to type!

I had big plans of sitting here watching horror movies and drinking some wine, but then I remembered I have to go out and pick the kids up. arghhh, spoiled plans. I watched The Crazies, but now I’m bored with scary movies which is not normal. I’m in a funk So I’m catching up on Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice instead lol Yet another fun-filled holiday!

But it’s impossible to believe she’s hit 15. As a summer baby, it means she only has 2 years left before graduationg. BLEH, OMG, WOW, UGH, YAH lol We’re working on her getting a lot of college courses completed before graduation and she won’t get into drivers ed until Novemberish. We’re doing ok I think.

But with her bday and the week of her on vacation I’m in a fit of denial. My oldest is 15 at 1:26pm. I’m way too young to have a 15 year old, R U Kidding me?!!!

We have a fun evening planned just the 4 of us which will be expensive as hell and FUN AS HELL! I’ll try to remember to take pics, I’m horrible at that. Then we’ll have a family BBQ that my aunt and her hubby are in town to attend so they’ll bring their grandbabies My parents are coming up and bringing her laptop for sure. Can you imagine your grandparents giving you a laptop for your bday? I can’t and yes, I’m jealous. But, this is why we never moved away. My parents want to be and ARE the grandparents I never had. It’s very cool. My parents are there for way more than just stuff. My kids have a completely sick relationship with their grandparents that I can’t even relate to. One of so much joking and they know each other so well, definitely not what I grew up with.

Anyway, I’m excited for my daughters bday. I’m excited to plan her sweet 16 next year even though hubby has no idea what is necessary. lol I’m happy with what we got her and I can’t wait to take her on her family day

My youngest is a little over 12.  I’m sure he’s officially taller than me, but I refuse to measure until tomorrow so I can blog today/nite with no official knowledge that I hit shortest like I always knew I would.

I’m 5’6″.  I’m was shortest in my immediate family growing up.  No idea why as my male cousins are tall, it’s just us female cousins that are shorter than our parents.  WHAT?  There’s a chromosome study ready to go!

But hubby is 6’3″ at his tallest and my cousins and brother are over 6’4″.  I know son will be tall.  Cool thing is he’s comfortable in his skin.  But right now it’s hurtin as he grows.  It’s just so fast.

Old moment happened when he told me that he couldn’t believe he was taller than me and he never thought it would happen.  WHAT?!!! Holy shit, I’ve known it would happen and sometime around this age as well. lol  Did I not pass that on well enough?  Guess not or he wouldn’t be surprised by it.  DUDE, you are going to be tall.  It’s why we talk about your weight training.  We’ve got to add the muscle to your speed, agility, endurance and height you already have.  Very few can put it all together at 12!!!  Yeah, that’s my sports star in the sideline