Home

My house is coming together. In the past six months I've painted the exterior, installed new carpet in the living room/dining room, bought and installed blinds/Roman shades in the kitchen and living room/dining room, and bought a brand new central air conditioner. For a 1950's ranch house, these are some major improvements! I still have some things on my 'to do' list -- the fence from the driveway to the backyard needs to be shored up, the sprinklers in the front yard need to be redone, and the carpet in the master bedroom needs to be ripped up and wood floors installed. I've also done some purging of things inside the house, remember those bags of things from my closet?

Tomorrow I'm going HOME for the 4th of July weekend. My daughter has never seen fireworks like they have in Las Vegas -- each family lighting them off in the street, in front of their own house. In Riverside, where I live, individual fireworks are illegal. Not in Vegas. Madison has never seen a sparkler. She's 10. It's time. I'm picking her up from summer school at 11:30 and we're hitting the road. If traffic is good, we'll be there by 3:00ish. My uncle is having a BBQ and the entire family will be there. Good times, good times!

We'll be in Vegas until Monday morning. Madison has summer school Monday and I have an appointment with an orthopedic specialist about my knee. School starts at 8:00am so we'll leave Vegas by 4:30am and I'll drop Madison off at school. We've done this many times and it works well. She sleeps in the car while I drive. I'll nap once I get back from the ortho doctor. I'm hoping to find out exactly what is going on with my knee -- it's been four weeks since I fell roller skating and I am still in pain. Today I picked up my x-rays so I'm all set.

Took Madison to see the American Girl movie today. It's set during the Depression, and while it presents an idealized view of soup kitchens and hobo camps, it's still worth seeing.

Recap

The conference I went to (for teaching gifted students) was AMAZING. The researchers at USC affirmed my teaching and gave me next steps. I can't wait for the new school year to begin! And I had already signed up for a series of four courses with the professor who led the conference. I'm super excited now -- the courses were described as an extension of the conference. Yay! Professional development can be hit or miss. This was a definite HIT!

Yesterday I drove about an hour to Laguna Niguel to see a girlfriend I went to high school with. She was my best friend through those years and we don't see each other as often as I'd like, even though we don't really live that far away...it was a nice day. She has a pool, and we sat outside for a bit. Had a nice dinner, chatted some (so nice to just be able to talk about everyone in my family since she knows them all) and then came home. I told her, "If I hadn't known you so long, I would never be this honest with you, I'd think you'd think I was a freak!" -- by the time I was done telling her about my sister, my niece, my parents -- luckily she has a family like mine! Do we all have families with those people? And we just don't talk about them as openly as we do with people who have known us a long time?

I'm in the midst of a purge at home. My closets were out of control. So far I've taken out 15 bags of stuff. FIFTEEN bags! And I'm not done! That's from my closet and Madison's closet. I have to do the linen closet and the front hall closet still...It feels good to have the stuff out of the house, though. My house feels bigger somehow...and after seeing how organized Melissa's closets were yesterday, I'm really motivated now!

Feelings

I'm so tired.

• Of people taking their attitudes and trying to push them on me.

• Of mean people.

• Of rudeness. What happened to manners? To being nice?
  

• I'm tired of my knee hurting. When did falling down on roller skates mean a month (or more) of pain?
  

I'm sad.

• That my trip to New York City was canceled.

• That friends aren't always what I think they are.

• Or that friends can't be what I want them to be.

I'm happy.

• Going to Vegas this weekend!

• New York City was rescheduled and the weekend is probably better anyway.

• Meeting the 'girls' for coffee this morning.

• Ten days in West Palm Beach is not that far away!

I'm relaxing.

• In the middle of the new Elizabeth George book, and I love it.

• Bought the Sex and the City movie book.

• Have a movie about Paris (the city) to watch.
  

Trust

There is an email going around that starts "I believe..." and one of the things listed is "I believe...we can do something in an instant that will change our lives forever." -- isn't that true? Isn't that the very essence of trust? We trust people with ourselves, our true selves, and they make decisions, in an instant, that change things.

It's hard for me to make friends. I don't trust easily. But when I do finally make a friend, I feel like it's a good, true friendship. Not shallow. Not superficial. Maybe that's my downfall. Maybe I shouldn't value friendship so much. Because when a friend betrays my trust, I feel as if my entire world has been turned upside down.

Am I the only one who feels like this? When a friend does something hurtful, is it the end of the friendship? I have difficulty recovering from betrayal. I know it's a character flaw. And yet...I still cannot get past the feeling of being let down. Of being hurt. Of trust being broken. Of wondering when it will happen again.

There are very few people that I let know the 'real' me. And when those people let me down I become so disappointed...

Contemplating

Why is it that there are certain people (and we all have them in our lives) that can make us doubt ourselves? These people can reduce us to questioning ourselves, to shriveling balls of tears, to masses of self-doubt? Yesterday, my first *official* day of summer, I had two phone calls from two self-sufficient, confident women. They both had encounters with the someones in their lives who made them doubt themselves.

Sunday, Madison was an altar server at church. As she was on the altar, being precious, and I was in the congregation, listening to the service, I was struck by a single comment the priest made. He asked for prayers for "the physically, mentally, and spiritually sick." That single phrase has stuck with me -- how many of us know someone who is spiritually sick, who takes that sickness and brings it to us? Who pushes it on us? Who forces us to become someone we don't want to be in their presence?

And yes, I know -- no one can make you anyone but who you are. No one can change you but yourself. I understand all that. BUT. When faced with that certain someone -- be it your mother or your grandmother or your boss or whomever it is in your life that can push your buttons in exactly the right way -- we shrivel a bit in their presence. Change. Wilt. Become less of who we are. Spiritually melt away.

Thank God for girlfriends. For phone calls to friends. For people to listen. To say, "I know, it's not right...it's horrible...I know..." I know when I have had one of those self-doubt encounters, I want to feel cocooned, wrapped up and loved. That's what my best, closest girlfriends do for me.

Summertime and the Livin's Easy....

From Heather's blog, my five favorite things about summertime:

1. lounging by the pool, feeling the sun on my skin

2. summer trips to very fun locations -- last year it was London and Paris, this year it's West Palm Beach and Martha's Vineyard

3. roasting marshmallows once the sun has gone down

4. evening baseball games

5. being with friends, not being rushed to get up early the next day to go to work (one of the perks of being a teacher)

Sex and the City

Run. Run right now, grab a girlfriend, and see this movie. You have to! It's one of those "I need to see it again and again and own it and watch it over and over" type movies. It's the TV show, continued. And oh, how I've missed Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda. Not to mention Mr. Big, Stanford, and the rest of the crew. They are all back, exactly as they left us. I cried. And cried some more. Tears of sadness, joy, relief, pain -- every emotion possible packed into the movie.

What Sex and the City does for me is take my life and put it on the screen. Not that I'm running around Midtown Manhattan in designer labels, looking for love (love me the Fergie song "Labels or Love"). But the friendships, the nurturing, the insecurity and neediness that each one of us has -- it's all there. When Miranda calls Carrie, or Carrie calls Samantha, or Charlotte cries that she's worried it's her turn for misfortune -- those are all moments every woman has had. We've been the one calling, or the one receiving the calls from our closest friends. And the four women are there for each other, through ups and downs. Over six seasons and then when the movie opens, three years later...

Run right now and go see it!