Author Archives: Heather

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About Heather

I adore my family, writing, books, cats, lazy mornings in bed, and chocolate. I'll never say no to breakfast for dinner, long talks with friends and lazy summer days at the pool with family. My life is often crazy, always awesome and one I'm so happy to be living! My side hustle is editing and proofing work. Find out more at https://heathercaryn.com/
Oct6

Let Go

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Thursdays are often a crazy day for me. I work from 7 – 3:30, then I pick up the kids and we rush around doing errands for 35 minutes, then it’s off to swim lessons and a quick dinner before I pass the kids off to the Hubs so I can rush back to school and work at Bingo for 2.5 hours before finally crashing around 10:30. This particular Thursday was shaping up like all the rest, but the sun was shining and the kids went to school without a fuss so I figured it was going to be a good day.  I was going to attack my to-do list, manage my time and have a good afternoon with the kids. That was the plan at least.

Until I got laid off.

When my boss’s boss pinged me to see if I had time to chat, I wasn’t surprised. He and I had been playing tag for weeks trying to connect on a project and I figured he was grabbing 15 minutes with me to finally nail it down.  What I wasn’t expecting was for him to tell me that, due to budget constraints, I was to consider our conversation my 30 days notice as they were doing away with my department altogether.

*POOF*  Laid off.

I have been with my current employer for 13 years and I’ve genuinely enjoyed all of them. I wasn’t saving the world, but I was helping customers and, most importantly, I worked with an incredible group of people that I’m proud to call my friends. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve dreaded going to work and I generally find most of what I do to be interesting. I know it sound naive given the economy, but I honestly thought I could retire from this company.  Unfortunately, due to cost savings considerations, they felt differently.

I won’t lie, the first couple days after I got the news, I was reeling. I cried at the drop of a hat, I was angry and I was ashamed.  But, with the help of the Hubs, family and amazing friends, I got past being ashamed. I have nothing to be ashamed about- life happens and companies have to make hard decisions. I am wrestling with guilt- guilt about how my family’s life is going to change if I don’t find a job quickly. Guilt over the things they’ll have to give up because unemployment, while very helpful, isn’t a replacement for my salary. I still cry occasionally and part of me is still angry- but I’m moving past that.

Now I’m starting to get excited and hopeful. There is a big, glorious world out there and while I’m very much a creature of habit, being shaken out of my rut is going to force me to see more of it! Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a new job right away and my family won’t have to deal with any major bumps in our road. Or maybe I’ll get lucky and I won’t find a job right away and I’ll have some time to volunteer at the kid’s school and get creative with my cooking. I honestly don’t know which way things are going to go, so I’m trying to swallow my terror and have faith that somehow, we’ll be just fine.

Sep23

Leader Day Sharing

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Today was the Bean’s Leader Day.  If you don’t speak Kindergarten-ese, when it’s your Leader Day it’s The Best Thing EVER. Not only do you get to be the line leader all day, you also get to bring in snack AND something for Show & Tell.  The only requirement for Show & Tell is that what ever you bring in can’t be a toy- it’s got to be something the kids can discuss and share.  So we’ve been talking all weekend about how the Bean was going to bring in a picture of her and Scorch tubing (being pulled in a tube behind a speed boat) for the first time this summer. It’s basically my most favorite picture of the kids from the summer because they are radiating pure glee in it and I was excited she was going to share it.

Bean_Aug2013

This is obviously not the tubing picture, but it’s from that day and it makes me laugh!

So we talked all this morning about what she was going to share about the picture. How it was taken at her grandfather’s cottage.  How she thought she and Scorch were going to sink when the boat stopped pulling them. How the Hubs tried multiple times to pull himself up to water ski on one ski and just couldn’t do it.  I made sure she was prepped with a lot to share about this picture!

Scorch_aug2013

Also from that same day- Scorch getting a lay of the land!

So when I went to pick up the kids this afternoon, I was bubbling over with excitement – I could not wait to hear how the Bean’s Leader Day went!  She piled into the car and I asked her what she shared about her picture.

That we bought it at Wal-Mart.

What?

I told them about how you took us to Wal-Mart so you could get the picture.

(That’s absolutely correct- I needed to print the pic out in a hurry, so I did 1 hour photo processing at Wal-Mart. But really??) Did you tell them where you were? How  much fun you had? How fast we went?

Nope, I just told everyone we got the picture at Wal-Mart.

I don’t know why I expected any different!

Sep17

Boring & extraordinary

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So lately my life has neither been wicked or crazy, although it has been slightly awesome in that nothing-has-broken-no-one-has-died sorta way.  This past week has just been exhausting as we settle back into our new normal of school and basketball and swim lessons and homework and fall temperatures and birthday parties.  All of which are good, good things- they just all hit at once.

Sunrise3

Scorch continues to love school with a fiery passion and is as happy as a lark to get out of bed each morning and get going!  The Bean, on the other hand, needs to be dragged out of bed most mornings and usually starts crying about going to school right around the time we pull into the parking lot.  In case you were wondering, it is loads of fun to drag a crying 5 year old across a parking lot, across the street and into her classroom every day, thank you very much. *sigh*  Thankfully she’s fine 2 minute after we leave (I peek in on her most mornings) and each afternoon when I got to pick her up, she runs away from me because she wants to stay and play.

FrogHunting

We are trying to eek out every ray of sunshine and speck of warmth that we can from Mother Nature because fall is quickly approaching, with winter waiting in the wings.  While I miss the sun being up when I leave the house early every morning, for 2 weeks I was treated to the most gorgeous sunrises on my way home from the gym.  I was pulling over every single morning just to capture the pink skies on my phone because they were awe-inspiring.  I mean, have you ever..?!

Sunrise1

I haven’t read a really compelling book in a long time. I’m in the middle of Dan Brown’s Inferno but right now I’m annoyed / depressed by it. Annoyed because in the copy I have from the library, random words/passages are bolded for emphasis by the author/publisher. If I’m not smart enough to place my own emphasis while reading, well then, I have no business reading at all.  And depressed because the book talks at length about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket due to over population sooner rather than later.  Not exactly bedtime reading material. Next on my to-read list is The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes, so here’s hoping that’s better. I have, however, managed to watch both seasons of Scandal in the past 3 weeks. Make of that what you will. 😉

Sunrise2

So, that’s the state of us and our average, normal, extraordinary life! How’s your life?

Sep11

So Much Good

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It’s amazing how fast 12 year can go by.  I mean- a word, an image, a sound can all bring me back to that Sept. 11th like it was yesterday, not 12 years ago. I’ve shared before where the Hubs and I were that day and how damn lucky we were that we, and our extended family, made it through the day unharmed.

So here we are 12 years later. In that time we got 2 cats, we moved, we got a dog, we had a baby, then 2 years and 2 months later, we had another one. I survived a car accident and the Hubs has come home every night from his crazy job.  We’ve done what those almost 3000 people should have been able to- we’ve lived. We’ve laughed and cried and loved and fought. We’ve danced and celebrated and mourned. We. Have Lived.  I just wish they had too.

BeTheGood9/11 showed us how fleeting life can be, so I hope I continue to find the joy in the every day and I hope I teach my kids the same. I hope they learn to take the time to watch the colors in the sky, to laugh with a friend and to jump in the puddles during a later summer rain storm. I hope when they learn about the selflessness of the first responders that day, that “hero” takes on a whole new meaning.

My kids don’t know about 9/11 yet. There’s no need- they’re still babies. Soon enough they’ll learn about evil and sadness.  But when they do, they’ll also learn about all the good that came from a horrible tragedy and they’ll know there is still so much good in this world. And that good will always win.

Sep8

Shhhhhhh!

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There are many, many times I look at the Bean and wonder where she came from. That child may be the spitting image of me as a kid, but when it comes to her personality, we’re opposite in a lot of ways. That’s not at all a bad thing, but it is a mystifying thing as I try to figure out how to be the best mom I can to her.  I mean, the little bugger doesn’t even like ice cream – a food I would live on, if allowed. Who doesn’t like ice cream, for crying out loud?!

Friday was the Bean’s second day of Kindergarten and I was dreading it. I knew the first day would go fine because of all the excitement- but the second day is when my kids tend to realize this is for real and, in years past, haven’t taken well to that realization. So I was prepared for tears and heel-dragging that morning, but the Bean surprised me and went to school with minimal protest. I held my breath as we walked into the classroom, waiting for the meltdown I was sure that was coming.  Hmmm….so far so good. Then we went to sit her at her table and found out her seat had been moved after 1 day in the classroom.

I started laughing to myself because I knew exactly why my child was moved. Her seat on the first day of school was at the same long table as her best friend. The table was rectangular and the Bean and her friend each sat at the heads of the table, with three kids between them.  When I saw that the first morning, I thought it was perfect placement. I figured the girls were close enough to draw support from each other, but not close enough to talk to each other all day long.  I figured wrong. Evidently they spent the whole first day trying “whisper” to each other over the head’s of their classmates.  So my kid got (rightly) moved for talking too much.

Finally, proof that my kid is my kid in spirit as well as body!

 

FirstDayShoes2013-2014

So far, Scorch thinks that 2nd grade is the Best. Thing. Ever if for no other reason than they have their own desks instead of sitting at a table. Who knew something like that would be so thrilling to 7 year olds? He’s already had two spelling tests- which he thinks is awesome too! There is absolutely no doubt who that kid’s mother is!  Here’s hoping Week 2 goes just as great as Week 1!

 

Sep4

Girls

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So…back to school. Scorch started today and Beaner starts tomorrow (which is good since, you know, stomach bug). The Bean was feeling better today, so we did go and drop off her supplies to her classroom. While she was doing a quick project, I made small talk with her teacher.  In the midst of our conversation, it came out that out of the 26 kids in the Bean’s class, 19 of them were girls.

As the Bean’s teacher was telling me this her nose crinkled as she wore that universal look of “Whoo boy.” And I found myself mimicking her- frankly upset that the Bean was going to have to be around all that estrogen. Ugh. The drama.  Girls- they are sort of the worst, aren’t they? That’s why I moved the Bean to a boy-heavy class last year, you know?

And then I caught myself. Because I’m a girl. And I’m kind of awesome. And so is my Mom. And my sister. And the rest of my relatives. And my female friends- some of whom I’ve had since 3rd grade.  So why all the girl hate? Because that- that is the worst.

Some of it may because the only true female friendship the Bean’s had over the past few years that I’ve seen up close has been full all the drama and yelling and tears that you dread. Each and every get together ends with me sitting both girls down, making them hold hands and explaining to them how friendship works- then they are good for a while, and back at it again. It astounds me how vicious they can be to each other with their words.  It’s both maddening and sad and I find myself holding my breath the whole time they’re together.

It may be because the vast majority of the kids I spend time with, outside of the Bean, are boys. Scorch, his friends, my nephews- they’ve all become the Bean’s friends and she often time prefers hanging out with them than the girls. I’m not raising a girly-girl- she’s much more apt to play Star Wars and Harry Potter than she is My Little Pony or Barbies. I’m not saying that boys are easy all the time- but they seems to be easier thus far than girls in my limited experience.

But whatever the reason, I’m over it.

I’m over the fretting and worrying and the wrinkling of my nose. Because girls ARE awesome and this is going to be the year Bean embraces that. I’m so thankful that she has so many amazing role models in her life- male and female- that she and Scorch can pattern after. I’m so glad that I have family and friends close by so she can see how friendship works. How we listen to and respect each other. How we settle our difference and talk things through and how we never have to resort to meanness. The girl’s Bean has class with are the kids she’ll be stuck with until at least 6th grade so even if they all don’t become BFFs and sing Justin Bieber songs together, she is going to be kinds and respectful even if it kills me.

I wish my kids a lot of things, but at the top of that list is always the friendships I’ve been lucky to have. And I know for the Bean some of them will start tomorrow on her first day of Kindergarten.

Sep3

A Fitting End to Summer

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Today is the kid’s last day of summer.

*sigh*

While admittedly it hasn’t been the best summer between some crazy weather, damaged property, the Hubs being sick for a solid 4 weeks and some other craziness, it’s still been summer. And I love nothing more than summer.  I love leaving the house at 5 am and it being light out. I love getting home at 6:15 am and having hours of time before I have to get the kids anywhere. I love the laid back nature of camp for the kids. I love picking the kids up at 4 pm and feeling like we have all the time in the world until bed. I love time spent in friend’s pools, local lakes and walking in our creek. I love dinner on the deck and grilling just about everything. I love weekends with nothing to except go explore and swim and soak up the sun.  I just flat out love summer and I’m not at all happy that it’s over.

Scorch starts school tomorrow and the Bean starts on Thursday so today was our last hurrah.  The Hubs had to work, but the kids and I set off on an adventure. We drove to a near by gorge and went for a hike. While it wasn’t warm enough to swim, I brought the kid’s water shoes and just let them walk in the water as long as they wanted. I’m normally a “hurry up and get going” person- we’re always trying to arrive somewhere but today I threw that out the window and we just meandered. I let the kids set the pace and trail and went with it. And we had a ball!

TFalls

After our hike we went out to lunch at the kid’s favorite place. The food was as good as it gets, the kids got along and I didn’t have to mop up a single mess. Another successful outing!   We all go home happy and full and tired.

And then a hour later, Bean started puking and hasn’t stopped for longer then 30 minutes in the past 4 hours.

Seriously, after the summer we had, I wouldn’t have expected any other ending!

Aug27

Players

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The kids and I often play 20 Questions in the car.  Usually it’s me thinking of something and them having to ask me questions to figure out what animal/object/sport/toy/whatever I’m thinking of.  I don’t mind this at all – anything that keeps the kids from bickering over what to listen to in the car is a win in my book.

Today the Bean decided she wanted to come up with something we could guess. Normally when it’s her turn, she picks one of two things (cat or dolphin) so it’s not much of a challenge. But today, she stumped us.

> Does it have fur?
No

> Does it have 4 legs?
No

> Does it have any legs?
No

> Does it live in the ocean?
Yes

> Is it a dolphin?
No.

> (hmmmm) Does it swim?
Yes

> Is it a fish/shark/octopus/squid/sting ray/crab/lobster?
No

> Bean, I give up. We need a hint. (please remember, the child is 5, she doesn’t know that many marine animals)
Ok- it’s either an octopus or a kangaroo.

> An octopus! (never mind that we already guessed that)
Nope, a kangaroo!

Clearly, that child needs to go back to school ASAP because she has lost her mind.

~*~*~*

In other gaming news, Scorch has developed a Pokemon obsession over the past few weeks. Heaven help me, I will not be responsible for my actions if I have to play another Pokemon game EVER.

Aug21

Bug Boy

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Actual conversation on our way home from camp today:

> Mom, let’s just say I ate an ant. Would it make me sick?

I pretended like I didn’t hear Scorch because frankly, I don’t want to know what prompted this child to ask me that question.

> Mom, I asked you something! Would eating ants make you sick?

I turned up the music louder, hoping to drown him out. I’ve got this parenting thing down pat.

> Mo-oom!

I turned the music down. Clearly he’s not letting this go.

> Scorch, why are you asking me this? Did you eat ants today?

> Just one.

> Just one?! What in the world would possess you to EAT an ANT?!?!

> I don’t know. The other kids were doing it so I thought I’d try. Will it make me sick?

(Now, please remember one of Scorch’s biggest anxiety points is getting sick. The Bean had a 12 hour stomach bug on Tuesday, so he’s a little skittish. I have to weigh my answer carefully. Do I scare the crap out of him and tell him out he could get sooo sick from eating them so he never eats another or do I trying to impress upon him that it’s not a great idea, but it’s not going to harm him?!)

> Scorch, I can honestly tell you that I don’t know as I’ve never eaten an ant. I’m pretty sure you’re going to be fine, but I’m also pretty sure that’s not the healthiest thing to do. Can we just agree that eating ants isn’t a good idea and not do it again?

> *siiiiiigh* Yeah, I guess. But it didn’t taste that bad- it was actually kinda good.

Some days, I have no words.

Aug20

Handy Manny

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Thanks to some of Mother Nature’s fury, we’ve found ourselves with a big old tree stump in our yard. So the Hub did what any red-blooded, American father would do.  He promised the kids he’d build a tree fort on top of this stump for them.

Telling the kids that was a huge rookie mistake because now they think they are getting a tree fort tomorrow. Or maybe by Friday.  Saturday for sure at the latest, right?

Ummm…no. For various reason, it’ll be weeks until it happens, but my kids are completely undeterred by this. So, Scorch came up with his wish list for this fort:

> monkey bars
> rope ladder
> regular ladder
> 2 trap doors
> 1 hidden room
> a table
> 2 benches
> 5 windows
> a slide to be used to leave the fort
> 8 Nerf guns to be used to wage war on anyone who approaches

I can’t help but laugh because my husband is good at a lot of things, but he’s never built anything like this (or even a much simpler version). Are we building from scratch? Getting a kit? Hoping the kids forget he even suggested this? I have no idea what direction this is going to go, but I do promise it’ll produce a lot of stories!