Mom

How can you look at someone who loved you, nurtured you for your whole life and know that person is slipping away slowly?  I visit my mother each month feeling like the time we spend grossly inadequately represents my love for her.  I want to see her all the time if only to hold her hand in silence.  Why must she be so far away? 

She tries to talk to me but it comes out in gibberish.  Sometimes while she speaks to me in nonsense or stares at me silently, I see different emotions behind her eyes.  I swear I can still see love, sometimes I see distress and sometimes I see nothing but just a hollow emptiness that makes me feel such deep sadness.  When she utters gibberish with an intensity, I tell her while I rub her head how much I long to hear what is really on her mind, what she is trying to say.  I lay my head on her shoulder and tell her how horribly I miss her and how much I wish I could see her every day.  I look in her eyes and tell her how much I love her.  She stares at me blankly and every once in a while she mumbles that she loves me too.  Even if it is an automatic response with no emotion behind it, I'll take it because deep in my heart, I know her spirit really does feel that way.  While she fingers the bling on my shirt, I think about how I can't bear to see her only 6-8 hours per month.

Sometimes when I am in town dealing with such intense emotions, I feel so raw. I understand a little better why I spend so much time running from my feelings.  I think if I were to feel these emotions all the time, it would surely kill me.  There aren't words to express how tough it is to lose someone you love so much and that the loss isn't enough, you've also get to watch them deteriorate in front of your eyes.  I'm going to spare her dignity here and not go into detail about what I witness in her deterioration but I assure you it is a little piece of hell.  Every person is a victim of experiencing love and loss and this is easily my toughest one so far.  I hope fate doesn't have a more difficult challenge ahead for me. 

I am really hoping that putting these words down and sharing them with you will be cathartic for me.  I'm always the brave soldier when discussing my Mom's disease with others trying to concentrate on acceptance.  However, that bravery doesn't help me deal with my feelings about it.  Sometimes you just have to say screw acceptance, it really F&%$ING sucks that this happened to someone I love so much, someone so unreplacable in my life, someone who deserved so much more, someone who it sometimes feels like it's killing me to lose. 

Celine Got Me

Dad took me to Celine Dion's preview performance in Vegas tonight. What a great surprise!! I became a fan of hers with the release of her first single in the U.S. in the early 90's. I also came to appreciate a good portion of her French music as well. I saw her in concert four times in the first 10 years after she kicked off her career in the U.S. Her vocal talent, range, and control have always amazed me. I've also always been impressed with how her singing made me feel things. She was always so expressive in her performing. She always knew when to bring the power and when to pull back. I haven't seen her in at least 10 years. She amazed me once again. That doesn't suprise me at all, what surprised me was how unprepared I was for the onslaught of emotions the concert made me feel. I found myself fighting back tears for the first four songs of the show.

Mom was my concert partner in my 20's. We saw all four Celine shows together. We were both big fans and we both had all of her CD's and always listened to them and sang them in either of our cars when we went out together. The songs Celine sang to kick off the show tonight were all from the early part of her career and it stunned me how it brought me right back to that time. Of course the only thing missing was Mom, though it was awesome enjoying it with Dad.

I started thinking a bout how certain pieces of our lives are partitioned for lack of a better word. At some point in our lives, we make decisions in our lives to close one chapter and open the next and we don't even realize at that moment that we are making a change that will define a new period of our lives. It's only when we look back at the years that have passed by, we see them in these specific segments. That is what happened to me tonight. I saw my 20's pass before my eyes and I felt happiness, nostalgia and sadness all at once.

Never A Dull Moment

This post has nothing at all to do with music. This is my dog, Frankie. She is beautiful, isn't she? My dog vomited in my bath water this morning. Yep. No joke. Fortunately, it was at the foot end of the tub. I'm pretty sure I broke some sort of record getting up and out of the water in a hurry! Yes, a lovely start to the morning. I had been up early for my morning walk with my friend, Lorri and Frankie. Thankfully, I was very much awake to be able to react quickly. Sometimes when we get home from exercise and Frankie is really thirsty and she drinks too much too fast, she's been known to upchuck some water and bits and pieces of whatever is sitting in her stomach at the time. Poor girl! Well, this morning, I must admit, I was slightly concerned as she did it twice before I ran my bath. I considered the risk and then thought no, she had never done anything like that before. When I immersed myself in the warm, soothing water, she was laying calming next to the tub so I thought all would be fine. I was in the middle of shaving my legs when she did it. Nice. I jumped up and exclaimed an expletive or two of course and she just gave me the cutest look in the world...like "Hi, Mom, what's wrong?". She's the best dog ever, I heart her tons and tons. Never a dull moment though.

Songs and more...

I started this blog forever ago with the intention of talking music and lyrics. However, in that time, I found I have so much more to talk about but I haven't been using my voice. In fact, I haven't been listening to near as much music as I used to. Don't get me wrong, I still listen to a fair amount but I have been very much into podcasts lately on the commute to and from work. So much so, that recently when I started singing in the car, my throat started hurting right off the bat. Oh, NO!! Not that!!! I ALWAYS used to sing...I may not have time to rig up the mic at home, but the car concerts were very consistent. So, I realize now...that I can't let that vocal muscles get rusty!! So, I need to get my singing voice back and share more about the other things I like to talk about. Hell, I just love to talk and if that sparks a healthy little repartee, all the better! I have also let far too many opportunities to talk about music and lyrics pass me by. I do my best thinking in my car on my commute. By the time I get to a computer and have the time to write...the moment is over. What I need is a handy little device to record my ideas while I'm driving that automatically converts them into a blog post...does such a thing exist? We gotta get on that invention!

It's All Your Fault

So I say under my blog title..."So many songs, so little time"...sooooo true!!! I don't get on here and write that often and it's very sad because so many opportunities pass me by all the time. So this one morning this week, I got to work a little early and I NEEDED to put a few words down about the song I was singing just before I arrived.


"It's All Your Fault" Performed by Pink. This song has about 5 songwriters. I wonder why I can't bang out lyrics like this and some of these great songs have multiple people creating these masterpieces! Note to self...do NOT give up!! (Taking a few seconds here in silent tribute to Alanis Morrisette) Some of you KNOW what I'm talking about. Ok, well back to the present creation.


Let me sum up the chorus for you in a few words. It's a concept that we've heard a hundred times before but I love the way it's written. I love metaphors in lyrics. They are so poetic and powerfully expressive. (again, a moment of silence for Alanis!) This chorus is about a woman speaking to the man who drew her in...she gave in, he let her go and she's stuck there now wanting him badly and blaming him for drawing her in from the beginning, blaming him, saying "Hey, you made me want you, now I want you and you don't want me now but now I have to wait until you want me again ." Here's how the song says it.....I love it...


It's all your fault
You called me beautiful
You turned me out
And now I can't turn back
I hold my breath
Because you were perfect
But I'm running out of air
And it's not fair


She's holds her breath, she's waiting...but she can't breathe while she's waiting, meaning she can't live. She feels like it's completely out of her control, though she tries to gain control, she mocks her own attempts. It's emotional and maybe a little angry and a lot realistic for anyone who's fallen for someone and then wishes they never went down that particular road.



Here's the song on you tube, no video, just the song to hear and the lyrics below.











Lyrics:

I conjure up the thought of being gone
But I'd probably even do that wrong
I try to think about which way
Would I be able to and would I be afraid


Cause oh I'm bleeding out inside
Oh I don't even mind (Yeah)
It's all your fault
You called me beautiful
You turned me out
And now I can't turn back
I hold my breath
Because you were perfect
But I'm running out of air
And it's not fair

Da da dada da dada da
Da dadadadadada da dadadadadada

I'm trying to figure out what else to say (What else could I say)
To make you turn around and come back this way
(Would you just come back this way)
I feel like we could be really awesome together
So make up your mind cause it's now or never (Oh)

It's all your fault
You called me beautiful
You turned me out
And now I can't turn back
I hold my breath
Because you were perfect
But I'm running out of air
And it's not fair

I would never pull the trigger
But I've cried wolf a thousand times
I wish you could
Feel as bad as I do
I have lost my mind

It's all your fault
You called me beautiful
You turned me out
And now I can't turn back
I hold (I hold) my breath (My breath)
Because you were perfect
But I'm running out of air (Running out of air)
And it's not fair

(Oh yeah It's all your fault)
I hold my breath
Because you were perfect
But I'm running out of air
And it's not (It's not) fair

He Said

It's time to get cleaning in the garage and get rid of old crap. Maybe it's my age, maybe it's my place in life but I'm feeling the need to simplify and get rid of things I haven't looked at in a long time. I took out my old box of cassette tapes. This is an important piece of memorabilia for me.


Those of you who read my blog about night driving....this box holds all the precious gems that guided me on those night drives...the songs that compelled me. I decided it's time to go through it and find the ones that I can trash and the ones that I can't live without. Of course, being that tapes are obsolete, the ones I can't live without I'll be hunting for on iTunes. So it's a process and being that I get all gooey from that nostalgic feeling, it's a great process!


I found this song one morning on the way to work a little while back. It's called "He Said" by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. I spent countless hours listening to her album "Ghost of a Dog" when I was really young and this song was such a good lesson for me then. It's well written, full of emotion and packed a powerful message. I wanted to share it with you.

"He Said" Lyrics

Just before the lights went out
We sat up and talked about
All the things that we would be
I just wanted him to be with me

When we're young and impressionable and feel the first twinges of connecting with someone on a romantic and oh so intimate level, you feel you'd just die if you had to let that person go. You feel that in this song. The excitement and then aching need.

But he had a mind of his own
And he did not mind being alone
Left me there in our little world
Left me there like a little girl

He said don't get hung up
Hang ups will get you down
He said don't look back
Look up and then look around

But it also teaches about how you'll be just fine afterward. You get the impression that he is older. This sounds like a bit of age and wisdom to me, but it's not words she wants to or is even prepared to hear.

That time I was feeling high
Like I never had to try
To kick myself up out of bed
Kick these worries out of my head

He said it's better this way, yeah
One day you'll understand
He said I'm leavin' today and
He let go of my hand

She's remembering back to a simpler time before she ever knew the pain of loss. But he's forcing her to grow up here and experience it.

I know that I'll never see him again
Not the same way that I saw him then
I know that when I get back on my feet
I will walk away from misery

What do you say when it's all been said
How do you feel when it's all been felt
Where do you go when it's all gone
And you don't care enough to carry on

She knows better, she knows that she'll carry on because there is no choice but she's feeling the feelings of loss in the process, going through the inevitable ups and downs of having to adapt to not being able to cling to a person for all you received from them.

Well, I say close your eyes
Look down deep inside
Someone is there for you
Someone who cares for you

Now she's talking about herself, finding strength inside and pulling that strength from the only person you ever really have completely, yourself. This is what we ALL learn evenutally.

Well, I know it's easier to say then do
Easier to look away than see it through
I know it's easier to think than feel
Easier to make it up than make it real

Yes, we have really weak moments over love, don't we? I LOVE how this song goes back in forth between emotional need and strength and independence. Because that is how life IS. We pick ourselves up by the boot straps because that is survival, emotional survival.

Oh it's hard to love
Oh it's hard not to love
Oh it's hard to love
Oh it's hard not to love

At my age, I still feel this way sometimes...and when we start dealing with friendships that come and go and the circle of life, this takes on even more meaning then just romance.

Oh now take me there don't leave me here
Oh now take me there don't leave me here
Oh take me home and disappear
Oh oh oh no no no no no no

Just feeling the pain that is inevitable.

One of the reasons that lyrics and music speak so much to me is they just verbalize the way life truly is, the way it hits us and the many things we go through and how we emerge forever changed by life.


http://www.last.fm/music/Edie+Brickell+and+New+Bohemians/_/He+Said


I can't find this song on youtube by Edie, I don't think it ever got that much attention. (I always find those songs that are under appreciated!). I did find it on a website called last.fm. If you'd like to hear it, here's a link to listen to the song. I hope you enjoy it.

You Move Me

On my way home from a friend’s tonight, I was listening to this song “You Move Me” sung by Garth Brooks. It's a simple little song I've enjoyed since I heard it back in the 90’s but I heard it a bit differently tonight. Tim and I have been together nine years this year and I have never been more in love with him than I am today. One thing that is a constant in our relationship is growth. Everyone brings different experiences (good and bad) to their relationships, be it from childhood, friendships and the biggie, past relationships. When you get lucky enough, you find the one that makes you want to open your heart and do some really tough work on yourself. When you’re lucky enough, you find the one that makes you want to be a better person, who inspires you to deal with some really heavy internal feelings and patterns of behavior in order to better yourself and the relationship. That person makes baring your heart completely worth it. A certain depth of honesty and communication about yourself and each other develops that is unmatched from any relationship in your life before it. If you’re both willing to do the work that is. Hey, relationships are never easy, even when they are right. Loving him has been an ever evolving experience, each of us on our own and together as well. It’s been an experience I am grateful for every day. Thank you, Baby! Loving certain people just inspires you to be the best person you can. It’s not always easy facing your fears about love and it can bring out the rawest of emotions.

I particularly love these lines in the song.

“This is how it seems to me
Life is only therapy
Real expensive
And no guarantee”

Shit….(pardon my French) but is that the truth! Experience is the best teacher, right???? Right. But you’ve got to live it to get to the other side of the lesson.

In this song, he is singing about a man who realizes that he can’t be who he is with her. Being with her is going to change him. He won’t have a choice. He embraces it, he is ready for it. She is worth it. It does happen.

If you want to hear the song…this was the only thing I could find on youtube of the original song..lol..sorry. Just minimize while listening!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1mI90P6XI

And, here are the lyrics. Enjoy.

This is how it seems to me
Life is only therapy
Real expensive
And no guarantee

So I lie here on the couch
With my heart hanging out
Frozen solid with fear
Like a rock in the ground

Woman you move me
You give me courage I didn't know I had
You move me on
I can't go with you
And stay where I am
So you move me on

This is how love was to me
I could look and not see
Going through the emotions
Not knowin' what they mean
And it scared me so much
That I just wouldn't budge
I might have stayed there forever
If not for your touch

Oh but you move me
Out of myself and into the fire
You move me
Now I'm burning with love
And with hope and desire
How you move me

You go whistling in the dark
Making light of it
Making light of it
And I follow with my heart
Laughing all the way

Oh 'cause you move me
You get me dancing and
You make me sing
You move me
Now I'm taking delight
In every little thing
How you move me

Oh, The Night

I’ve really always been a night person. When I was 18 years old, I had a pickup truck. It was a little 2 wheel drive Mazda pickup. I loved that truck. It was 3 years old when I got it and I drove it 11 years until I couldn’t anymore. It was a single cab and the back window was a slider window that opened all the way up. I was a truck girl, a bit of a tomboy most of my childhood. I used to take off at night driving around Santa Clarita Valley where I live. No destination at all, just out driving because I loved it. I would just drive for hours all around the cities that make up the valley and on the canyon roads with the windows down and back window open just listening to loud music and feeling that mild night air blowing all around singing my heart out. Talk about freedom. It was the best feeling in the world. It didn't matter what was going on in my life or who my friends or boyfriends were, where I worked or what I did. For years, it was just my THING.

Last night I was heading back from out of town around 10PM and I had the windows down, the music on loud driving home on the freeway. I remembered my life back then and how I had the world in the palm of my hand, opportunity and such peace. Life is a little more complicated and peace is harder to come by. It felt so great!! I could have driven on and on in that moment. I’ll trade some of that peace for today’s wisdom and the relationships that have enriched my life but it felt good. Long sigh and smile.

"Once"

I'd like to say that you really have to be into music passionately to truly appreciate this but maybe not. A friend brought the movie, "Once" over to our house last night to share. (Thank you, Connor!) As with most inspiration, you never quite know when it is going to come or where from so it took me quite by surprise on this quiet Wednesday night. Following a grueling workout and shower, I was comfortable in sweats and thought I'd see a nice little story about people and drift off to sleep satisfied. I got a whole lot more.

This movie really hit me. The music seared right into me. It is a story that takes place in Dublin, Ireland about a man and his music and the woman he meets that steps into his life for a time to enhance his music and his life. I don't quite know how to explain the feeling this music and story gave me. This was a man with a beat up guitar and a simple life pouring his heart and soul into these songs. They are simple melodies that packed the most powerful punch. The songs were full of life and pain and the movie full of aching honesty and genuineness. I found myself riveted right from the beginning and particularly enthralled with each song played. I think the most amazing part is that at the end of the movie, I found out from our friend that the actors in the movie are the real writers and performers of these songs. The story was fictional but the fact that these songs truly came from the actors made such an impression on me. Somehow I felt let in to their real world of divine yet unadorned raw talent.

It made me realize how very asleep I've been in nurturing my own musical passion. I wanted to run right out and purchase this soundtrack and learn every word and sing it until my heart was overflowing. As of late, I have not given that passion enough oxygen to let it breathe fully enough for growth. That passion got me into voice lessons twelve years ago. It also got me singing regularly with friends ten years ago. Sadly, in recent years I have stuffed it below other things in my life staunching its growth and I feel the difference. It's time to revel in that kind of satisfaction again.

It is one of the greatest gifts of life is to be blindsided by great inspirations, recognize them, be grateful for them and change my life because of them.

Check out the youtube clip on my myspace page for a sample from the movie. A big thank you to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglove!!
http://www.myspace.com/songbird0706

Big Girls Don't Cry

"Big Girls Don’t Cry" sung by Fergie is the newest song on my singing list. It is a girl who sees the value in sharing something special with someone special for a time. Knowing that the time comes to an end and finding the strength to move on to concentrate on herself and her life again even if it takes some adjusting to. Why can’t we all love this way? Realizing that it is within us to deal with our needs and not thrusting the responsibilities of our needs on someone else? Relationships have become so much about emotional needs and dependence rather than just connecting with someone. Can’t we rise above that? In the song, she feels real emotions. The song implies that the passion is real and so is the loss. She misses him but she needs to think of herself. It’s not about him personally, it’s about her personally. And it’s not easy but to me there is realism about life and love laced throughout the song. People don’t seek out reality in romanticism; they seek out the fairy tale. When real life doesn’t pan out this way, we think it’s the person. Eh, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. It just isn’t realistic to have those expectations and relationships don’t survive on obligations. Check out these lyrics..everyone should be this mature about letting go.

The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You're probably on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center, clarityPeace, Serenity

[CHORUS:]
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, myself and I
We've got some straightenin' out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
It's time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
The path that I'm walking I must go alone
I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown
Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they?
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay

[CHORUS]
Like the little school mate in the school yard
We'll play jacks and uno cards
I'll be your best friend and you'll be my Valentine
Yes you can hold my hand if you want to
'Cause I want to hold yours too
We'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds
But it's time for me to go home
It's getting late, dark outside
I need to be with myself and center, clarity
Peace, Serenity

Summer is over..

It's September already. Summer is over and I find myself looking forward to fall. Mind you fall in California is not too much of a change and we are still feeling summer weather but it's really time for a change. Time to feel a chill in the air and put on some warm sweaters and drink warm drinks. I guess being an east coast girl and loving change (LIKE I DO!), it's always welcome to feel the freshness of a new season. Okay, it's also a time to get ambition back and let the laid back vacation like attitude of summer go. I guess I'm feeling inspired. To push in business, creativity, and just overall live life differently come this fall. For some reason, the change in season inspires change in general for me. I don't know why. It just seems like an opportunity to seize. Silly me.

Promise

I started this blog back on Christmas and I have been lousy at keeping it up...oh how I miss writing. I promise...to myself and you, my friends to keep up better! Sending out love to you all, hope all is well in your world!

Nostalgia

Just a quick few words to say that nostalgia is one of the most comforting things there is. Everyone knows we can't go back but nostalgia is the memories we've made accompanied by feeling the actual feelings again that we had at that moment the memory was being made. A huge nostalgic trigger is music. Another may be smell or certain places revisited. How amazing is it that we get to DO that??? Nostalgia envelopes us like a cozy blanket taking us out of our present briefly in order to appreciate the past, to ponder for a few moments sort of in reverent manner. I am so grateful for having moments in my life that bring on such positivism and peace when reflecting back on them...tune in soon for my ramblings on gratitude! LOL...

Funny shit about people in New England

Funny shit about people in New England

My cousin had this on his blog and I just had to post it too...too funny!! Thanks, C!

If you dont live in new england you probally will not get it. Enjoy!

Forget Rednecks ..here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about NewEnglanders...

If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 36inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping it will swim by, you might live in New England.

If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because Mt. Washington is the coldest spot in the nation, and Boston gets more snow than any other major city in the US, you live inNew England.

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you live in New England.

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for six months out of the year, you live in New England.

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don'twork there, you live in New England.

If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you live in NewEngland.

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in New England.

And, you know you are a New Englander when: "Vacation" means going anywhere south of New York City for the weekend.

You measure distance in hours.

You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.

You have switched from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.

You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching.

You install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked.

You carry jumpers in your car and your girlfriend/wife knows how to use them.

You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

The speed limit on the highway is 55 mph -- you're going 80 and everybody is passing you!

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.

Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

You find 10 degrees "a little chilly."

A Song For Tonight

I'm learning a new song right now. For those of you who don't know me very well...singing is my biggest passion. I do it for me and in no public arena and it is the most satisfying feeling to belt out the words of a kick ass fast song or a heart wrenching ballad depending on my mood. Being a person who keeps her emotions often reeled in and is the queen of control...it's my way of letting go. It's the one way, I can let go...let go all the way. I get to experience the emotions by singing it even if it is not something I've ever been through. I guess the way an actor feels a character they portray. There have been many times when I have been depressed or angry and really the best friend for me to turn to is my microphone. An hour or so of pouring all of me into a set of songs and I'm a new person.

Tonight's song is "Lay Down My Life" by the timeless queen of written song, Carole King. Have you heard this song? The version I'm immersed in is just Carole and her piano. The power and emotion she packs into this love song left me speechless the first time I heard it. I had the pleasure of hearing this song for the first time LIVE at the Greek Theater during her Living Room tour in 2004. Every time I listen to it since that night, the power and emotion of that performance and the song's meaning hit me. Tonight I decided that I need to add it to my personal singing set.

It's a raw depiction of a love, a love that feels so right though it is wrong. It is amazing when love can exist so strong and cause people to have no control over their hearts sometimes against the odds. Just sharing a love like that binds them together forever from the experience even if they never see each other again. Think about that, love can be that powerful. Singing the song makes me feel immersed in the power of that kind of love, a love that knows no limits, no bounds, just is. No matter what.

Life With a 2 1/2 Year old

Have you ever had a 2 1/2 year old in your life? Or better yet, raised one? The stages they go through make you question your ability to be a great parent! Though nine times out of ten I can be the perfectly patient parent handling the crying or whining exactly as I should, that one time when I lose my patience, I know what's at stake. I think of his perspective seeing this giant's wrath and the inevitable tears that follow break my heart. I start thinking of his fragile self-esteem and inability to understand why his behavior upset me. He doesn't understand cause and effect. He doesn't understand that he held the power to make things different at that very moment. He's just trying to figure out who he is.

I was prepared to have a child. To love him unconditionally and to teach him everything and be consistent and do RIGHT by him. I was prepared to discipline my child and tell him "no" and give him consequences for unacceptable behavior. What I was not prepared for was his constant self-contradictions and whining that he goes through at this age. Oh, I knew it would happen, but I had no idea how it would frustrate me! He is trying to find out who he is and how everything works in his world. This is all quite normal. An instance of this craziness: I don't care if he wears the baseball pajamas or the Elmo pajamas to bed so I let him choose. It's important to give children choices wherever you can. He chooses the baseball pajamas. We go through the whole bedtime ritual and get him dressed and as soon as he's dressed, inevitably he's changes his mind and whines and cries because he wants the Elmo pajamas as I am returning them to his drawer. But it's not over when you offer him the Elmo pajamas because then he cries that he wants the baseball ones. You can't win so you finally have to just put him to bed as is and this makes him more upset. This happens over and over about the most mundane things until we, as parents, are ready to pull our hair out. In the very next moment after that explosion when I lose it, he sits and cuddles in my lap telling me I have to be nice, the most lovable creature in the world. My heart is filled with love for him. At that moment, I don't know how I could have lost my composure.

As a parent, these are tough times and I know we're going to make it through just fine but it gives me the unshakeable feeling of failure I sometimes experience as a parent questioning whether or not I should be a parent thinking I should be better, more patient, more calm. I really do know that answer. Of course I should be a parent. I do some much RIGHT for him. I LOVE my son with all of my heart. We're all human. I know this and all I can do is be human with my child so he learns being human is ok, communicate with him honestly and from the heart. Maybe I'm doing him an even better service than I realize.

It sure makes me look back at all the explosions my parents had when I was growing up and understand them much better. Okay, that's all. Thanks for listening.

Post Holiday Pondering...

All the baking and shopping and gathering yielded another wildly successful holiday celebration. We stuffed our faces, put on a few pounds, spent a bunch of money and indulged in family time. Quinn turned our house into the aftermath of a tornado opening and playing with every new toy. The gift wrap, boxes, bags and leftover sweets strewn around the house. The gifts were fun and appreciated and we all sat around playing with our new toys; electronic gadgets, media, books, clothes, etc.

Christmas is passed for one more year and we made it through. Phew! New Years is approaching. With the holidays comes a hustle and bustle that is amazing, unheard of, and psycho! We become these frenzied creatures trying to shop, bake and prepare for holiday parties with family, friends and co-workers. Our mere existence becomes entirely about this tradition for a time. So our lives as we know them are put on hold. Then we all sit back a few pounds heavier afterwards and say, “Wow, that was great! Glad it’s over!” Now we can resume our normal lives.

So I sit here and ponder how we lose our lives for a brief time during the holiday season enough that we actually need recovery time. Can it all actually be worth it? What dictates this devotion to the holidays? Is it obligation? Tradition? The meaning is often religious or spiritual celebration. Unfortunately, we all know that the holidays have become much more commercial and we find ourselves constantly holding up to a standard, keeping up with the Jones, make this year just as good as the last or better. God forbid we’re strapped for money and dare to consider not celebrating. It’s just not an option. But we still hold the holiday season dearly in our hearts…the welcome of the cold weather, the Christmas lights, the eggnog, the gathering of friends and family and the endless generosity. It is a warmth that envelopes us and reminds of us of many holidays in a simpler more perfect time, our childhood bringing back all the magic. So we’ll go through all the hoopla and all the haze and come out of it making more warm memories and we’ll get past it one more year to look forward to the spring until the countdown to the holidays starts once again.

Hope your holiday season was wonderful and wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

Welcome to my blogspot...

Why blog? Why blog you ask??? Well, (number one) because I have much to say. My mind never quite stops. I have lots and lots of random thoughts as well as a mulitude of philosophical ponderings. Maybe (number two) if I put them out there into the air for others to read and share, I'm SURE it will give me the opportunity to discuss things more with others and get them out of my head!! I LOVE doing that. Great conversation is stimulating! We all learn from each other even in conversations every day where we are not seeking an opportunity to learn, it just pops up. Every one brings something to the table, my friends. We need to keep our eyes, our ears and most of all, our hearts open. Quite frankly (number three), I am becoming an internet junky. Oh yes, I am. So welcome to my blog, good people. I'm interested in any and all feedback to my ramblings whether you agree or disagree! Just love the connection of sharing thoughts and ideas and connecting.

My blog is called songbird because as many people who know me already know music is everything to me. I LOVE music. Singing is my oldest and dearest passion besides the people in my life that I love. I will probably be talking about music, lyrics and singers who have spoken to me, inspired me and so on!! I'll leave you with one mantra constantly running through my mind..."so many songs, so little time!"

I look forward to writing on this blog. THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN!! Now...where to start???