Random, or maybe not so much

Hi there blogworld.  You've been on my mind a lot lately even though I rarely have time to post.  I've composed a lot of posts in my head, though- is that weird?  Never mind, don't answer.  I know it is.  If I'd had more time to post, it would mean that my world was not spinning wildly out of control right now and I would be thankful for that.  As it is, I have umpteen million things to do, but it's Sunday afternoon and I am trying to relax.  (which involves at the moment ignoring the mound of (thankfully) clean clothes on my bed waiting to be folded and ironed, trying to get over the fact that every room in my house has a garbage bag in it as we go through the process of packing, cleaning out etc., also trying to get over the house that everything is unorganized and in dis-array right now and I DON'T LIKE THAT!!).  Anyway, all that to say, I choose to relax today by blogging, so look out!  This post has the potential to be incredibly random and just as disorganized.  Those of you who are bothered by spelling and/or grammar errors might as well just stop reading here because it is not my goal today to be editorially correct.  I may even make up words (is editorially a word?  I guess it might be since spell check didn't grab it...).  Anyway, it is not my goal to please all you grammar nazi's - today is about me and my random thoughts and how I can be most relaxed in the process of writing them which means I am ignoring the little blue and pink squigglies appearing all over my page as I type...

Like I said, random.  I thought about making a list of all my random thoughts but that would take entirely too much organized thought and I am obviously not in that kind of mood.  Usually when I sit down to blog (yes, many posts at one time- sorry but that's all I got right now...) , I actually have an organized list of the topics I am hoping to make the blog on that particular day along with the pictures to go along with them.  That ain't happenin today (yes, I did just so ain't on my blog and you will be happy to know that spell check didn't yell at me about it).

See the picture at the top?  That's me and my habibi.  (Arabic for "my love, my dear, my friend, hey dude-" pretty much anything, but in this case, "my love").  Anyway, that's us on our 15 year anniversary date.  Yes, he is holding his arm out to take the picture- anybody else have a boatload of pics like that pre-kids?  Our kids are thankfully now old enough to take pics like that for us so we have less and less, but on this occasion they were at McD's with my parents (thus the date opportunity) so we were left to take it ourselves.  Anyhow, did you hear me say 15 years?  Yes, we have been married 15 years, which means we have been together 18 years which means I have officially known my husband half of my life since I just turned 36.  Wow.  I'm 36.  Which makes Jason 37 (37.5 acutally if we were still 9 and counted half years) which means we are officially in our late 30's.  How did that happen?  When I was younger (like I still think I am), people in their late 30's were OLD.  My crazy Latin cat-lady teacher in high school who was ancient, I have sadly just found out was only 34 at the time- good grief.  I'm older than "crazy cat lady Latin teacher".  Again, how did this happen?  Oh, and on the subject of age- I went to my doctor the other day, who is incidentally a young, vivacious, beautiful Lebanese woman and she referred to me during the process of my physical as "a woman of your age".  WHAT?  I'm not a "woman of your age"! I feel quite young thank you very much!

Unfortunately the theme of aging seems to be emerging here- didn't mean for that to happen but so be it.  How did we go from this.....

and this...

TO THIS!?!?!?...

 

Don't get me wrong- I am so thankful for my girls, and I guess if I'm honest with myself I realized that the aging process would inevitably effect them too- I just didn't expect it to happen so stinkin fast!    Lord help us! That's all I can say about it at this point. And thankfully I know he will.   I've messed up plenty of times along the way, and I know I'll mess up plenty of times more.  Praise God for His grace and forgiveness and for our family relationship that extends each other the same grace.  I hope apologizing to your kids is not a bad parenting technique because I find myself doing it often. Every day is a new adventure and I know the next 10 years we'll be in for the ride of our lives with three teen/tween-agers. I think I"m going to have to devote an entire post to this subject (hopefully it will actually make it to the computer and won't be just in my head...)

Yeah, I know I left out one daughter in the pics above.  She wasn't in a very photographic mood that day and I came up with this...

Yes, very precious, and oh so very precocious, and thankfully still enough baby fat on those cheeks to pinch!  I'm very thankful that it didn't go along with the glamour shots photos of my big girls.  I'm barely handling two of those- three would probably push me over the edge!  

Another random thought on little girls- I know all you mothers of girls have probably had this thought and as we are getting ready to come to America, I want to know how to prepare for it- again, this will probably be a subject for another post (that hopefully doesn't just stay in my head).  Please tell me why in the world the children's clothing industry is insisting on making our little girls look like mini fashion models?  Never thought I would be the old fashioned one, but seriously people?  Come on!  What are you thinking with the way you are wanting little girls to dress???  Ok, I have to save this rant.  

We are late for dinner with friends.  Jason is giving me the "you're going to make us late" eye, and it is oh so annoying when he turns out to be right on that (yes, more times than not...).  So I'll close with this- I posted a while back about a battle not worth fighting  with Naomi- this was another one...   

Yes, this is a picture of Naomi sleeping in her closet.  She slept here the other night and was oh so happy about it.  In all honesty I intended to move her when she fell asleep, but oops, I fell asleep.  And she stayed there all night.  And she fell down when she tried to walk the next morning.  And she talked about her legs hurting.  But she was very happy.  

Ok, that's all for today.  We are now officially late and Jason was right- darn it!  I don't like to be wrong- have I ever mentioned that?