Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Best Things About Being Mom

I said last week that I'd do this week's Tuesday Top Ten, and this is the topic for this week due to Mother's Day. So, on to the top ten best things about being a mother...

1. Cuddling. From the time I first snuggled Devon and Kaylee under my chin and could hear them breathe, feel their heart beating, smell them...it's addictive. Kaylee is getting so big now that she hangs off of my lap, she can't curl up on me like she used to; she's outgrowing me. But sometimes she'll still sneak in our room after 6 a.m. and wrap her arms around me, and you can tell she feels safe and loved. Funny-so do I. :)

2. Kisses. From sticky and sloppy but heartfelt through to the kiss she lightly planted on my cheek when she thought I was asleep and didn't want to wake me up but couldn't stand to leave the room without some form of affection. ;)

3. Laughter. Nothing makes me laugh like kids. Devon's tarzan yell and little games, and Kaylee is just a goofball. She's sarcastic and highly energetic and dramatic and snappy and fearless, and she makes me laugh all the time. When she starts really laughing, belly laughing, I defy anybody around to not laugh with her.

4. Life. She's so full of life, so full of potential. She lives each day at full tilt, she wants to do it all, see it all, understand it all. She enjoys the ballet, tap, cheer, gymnastics and Awanas, and also wants to do horse riding, drums, guitar, jazz, hip hop and swim lessons. And anything else she can think of. She's a pleasure to watch.

5. Innocence. I love seeing the sparkle in her eyes. The happiness, the innocent joy of life. Where the biggest issue weighing on her mind is whether she liked what was in her lunch or if she got as many signatures on the club she started as her friend got on hers. Kids are so real, they just are. They have a sense of right and wrong and justice and they wouldn't think of playing the adult games that everyone else does. Being a part of that innocence is a great benefit of being a mom.

6. Teaching. I know some of those were more about the best things about having kids and not specifically about being a mom, but that's what came to mind so I went with it. But teaching is definitely a good thing about being a mom. Explaining something to your child and watching them soak it up, figure it out, and incorporate it into their brain is a privilege. Kaylee will ask me to define something, explain it, and will try to incorporate examples to make sure she understands. When she gets it, she's satisfied and moves on, and until then she is a dog with a bone, getting more and more irritated until she figures it out--and if you try to give up on explaining it, you're in for a fight. She has stomped her foot at me and said "I WANT TO KNOW!" Good for her. :)

7. Passing It On. I don't know, there's just something kind of amazing about looking into the face of someone else and seeing your own brown eyes and freckles. I just wish I could pass on only the good things. ;)

8. Watching. It's a privilege watching her grow into a tall, beautiful, smart, sweet, loving, generous young lady. Every year she becomes more herself, and I look forward to seeing who that will be. It's a true privilege to be her mom.

9. Legacy. Someone who can remember me when I'm gone. Maybe just a little piece of our own immortality walking around?

10. Second chances. There's something about having kids that I think is God's way of teaching you more lessons. For one thing, everything you used to do that never bothered you, that you never thought was "that bad", you suddenly realize you don't want to see in your child, who is a blank slate waiting to learn what you model. Every bad habit, every character flaw, every personality quirk, if you don't work on it, you see it mirrored in your child's behavior, and it shows you just how unattractive, what a big deal it really is. You also often end up seeing your complete opposite in personality in one of your children, and it makes you have to adapt, learn and understand ways of thinking that could be completely foreign to you. If you are willing, being a mom can make you a better person. More selfless, more understanding, more compassionate, more careful, and wanting to be the person you see reflected back at you from your children's eyes. You want to be what they think you are. You want to live up to them, you want them to be what you could not be, and you want to guide them into being the people they could be. To do that, you have to change yourself, too, because you see quickly that they follow you for good or bad. THAT is a huge responsibility and an amazing thing about being a mom all in one.

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Favorite Things About Fall

Fall is actually my favorite season. The only thing wrong with it is that it means winter is coming, which is my least favorite season. :)

So, my Top Ten Favorite Things About Fall:

1. The cool-down. I love it when the heat of summer is finally broken, when I can wake up to the crisp cool air that warms up into a perfect comfortable day followed by the cool nights where you can almost see your breath and the stars really pop. No hazy, murky days and nights, but the clear colors and clean air of Fall. Ahhhh

2. The colors. The explosion of colors in the trees around me with the backdrop of the bright blue sky and the amazing sunsets that we get around here during the fall always make me smile.

3. School. Kaylee likes school (usually), it's fun watching her learn new things and garner friendships, and I have the day to work, fly, catch up around the house, whatever needs done.

4. Halloween. It's Kaylee's favorite holiday, I think even more than Christmas. This year she is going as a dark and creepy "goth girl", which I debated on for awhile before letting her do. She has a black wig, black dress, black gloves, black nylons, black shoes, and a pink tulip princess candy bucket. Go figure. ;)

5. Pumpkins. It's a tradition, now. I let Kaylee pick out a pumpkin and let her decorate it as she pleases. I usually carve it how she wants it, and we scoop out the insides and I bake the seeds (the once a year I use my oven) ;) and we just have fun with the whole thing. She loves scooping out the guts and lighting the candle in the pumpkin when we're done. She loves spooky, gross, scary things, and the jack-o-lantern provides most of those things in one fell swoop. Going to the pumpkin patch is something she also loves to do, and is a several year tradition as well.

6. Thanksgiving. Every year, Thanksgiving has been the holiday that Steve and I just spend with each other. We had a tradition of going to Florida every year for several years, and then we made it N. Carolina. Now we don't really have a tradition other than it's the holiday we usually take and do with just us, and we are quite thankful while we do it. :)

7. The Drinks. Steve likes hot apple cider, and Kaylee and I are fond of hot chocolate. I love to make real hot chocolate, with sugar and cocoa and milk on a pan on the stove with a dash of vanilla and some whipped cream on top. Kaylee and I also love eggnog, something we indulge in. My mom used to make real eggnog too, using raw egg, but I can't seem to bring myself to do that one any more. Every once in awhile you'd get a bit of unbeaten egg go down, and the slimy thing gets my goat. I loved the taste of the drink though. Nutmeg rules.

8. The Food. Homemade chili and warm soups, candy from Halloween that I don't even pretend is just for the kids, warm turkey and home made mashed potatoes and I'm getting hungry...

9. The Flying. Fall has usually been our busiest season. This year was a little odd, and things are actually slower now than they were during the summer, but we did have a beautiful summer, too, without the extreme temps. Our BBQ Bash is always in the Fall, and the last of the airshow season too. The cooler temps and the higher winds of the Fall usually make for excellent airplane performance, and the comfort in the planes goes up. Not the icy chill of winter or the hot stagnant air of summer, but Juuuust Right. :)

10. Well, season premiers. The shows we enjoy come back with new episodes and new seasons and it's a much better way to spend some time in the evenings than trying to not to drain your brain too much with reruns again. And, much as I hate to admit it, I enjoy watching the NFL. I like watching football. Not college, just pro. There, I said it...

Recovery Day

I still have a lot of unpacking to do, but I got done a fair amount of things. I cleaned up around the house, and I finally got my photos up. I have seven pages of Oshkosh Photos and one page of snapshots I took on my way home from Maine yesterday. They are mostly cloud photos, nothing too exciting; I just happen to like clouds. :) I also put up five little digital video clips I took while at Oshkosh. Four during the ride in the Tri-Motor, and one of the "Wall of Fire" during the warbirds show. Nothing fancy, just quick little clips you can take a look at. I don't even have any photos or videos from anyone else yet, so I'm sure I'll have more to add later. :)

Even though I went to the store, the post office, lunch, the usual errands, it still felt a bit like a recovery day because I could work here at home at a decent pace, fairly quietly. Steve is working on the billing for the airport, Kaylee is putting away her toys from the trip and enjoying having a TV again, the cats are thrilled we are home, and life is about back to "normal", whatever that means.

Tuesday Top Ten: How I Know I'm Home

1. Immobility. As soon as I lie down in bed, I have cats climbing all over me looking for warmth. One on my head and one on my legs. And one of them always licks me. Around 6 or 7 a.m., Kaylee comes in to my bed too and squeezes up next to me. My inability to move or take a deep breath in the morning due to the monkey pile of warm bodies around me is an indication that I am indeed home. ;)

2. Computer. The computer that I left alone for 10 days other than deleting junk and writing blog posts is back in full force waiting for me to do things. There are things like photos, and there are flying things and there are SMA things and there are friend things. Lots and lots of things!

3. Long, Hot Showers. I stood under my shower until my skin was pink and my toes were wrinkled. Until the room was so fogged over that when I opened the door to come out, the steam rolled out like a horror movie fog. It was quite wonderful.

4. Running Water. Well, I started to leave my water running while I brushed my teeth just because I could, but really, I can't stand wasting water like that anyway. So I shut it off. But the point is, I could have left it running if I wanted to!

5. Connectivity. While this is related to #2, it's still different. I am back to being able to open my email and read it quickly All the time. Whenever I want. Open video files and photo files and not get bogged down when the rest of the "city" is on at the same time I am. Work on websites and actually get it done. Post a blog entry without it "error"ing out on me the first time. Connectivity. That's niiiiice.

6. My Laundry Says So. Man. That's the part a person doesn't look forward to-all the unpacking, putting away, and laundry. Sheets, towels, and clothes for 3 people for 10 days all wadded into your dirty clothes basket all in one feel swoop. I look at that and can say "Yep, I'm home!" :O

7. Quiet Skies. This isn't as nice. I would wake up to jets, to radial engines, to aerobatic planes tumbling with their distinctive whine. All day long you'd hear the music of aviation, and even into the dusk when the ultralights and powered parachutes would be buzzing over your head, and into the dark when the Good Year Blimp would still be circling over. I could get used to living with those sounds. I miss it.

8. Kaylee. Her schedule is back "on", with cheer and ballet and gymnastics and tap, and we have to gear up for school which starts in a couple of weeks here. She's been tired-staying wide awake until almost midnight in her bed, and wiped out in the morning of course. She's still recovering from the trip too...but her weekly schedule kind of makes us feel like we're back in the routine.

9. Liquids. I don't have to think about limiting them late at night any more. Now I can get up and use the restroom any time I feel like it without waking up the whole household or traipsing across the grass to a port-o-pot in the dark. Ah, life is good. ;)

10. Flying. Well, at Oshkosh we watch it, and at home we do it. It's all good. :)

11. Cats. Just because this top ten needs eleven. My first day home I have to clean up two piles of cat barf.

Yep, I'm home!

(Here's a picture Kaylee took of Dulce hugging Kaylee's little stuffed white kitty. It was cute, though it's hard to tell what it is...)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things I've Learned From Flying

One of the pilot message boards that I "lurk" on now and then started a topic of discussion that basically asked pilots what life lessons they feel they've learned as a direct result of flying. That tweaked my interest a bit, and since it's Tuesday and I haven't done a Top Ten in awhile, and I'm feeling (way too) wordy, I figured I'd turn it into a Top Ten.

Ten Things I've Learned From Flying

1. Trust your instincts. Might as well start off with one that will make me sound crazy. :) When I first started taking lessons, Ernie, an experienced pilot and instructor, pulled me aside and gave me a piece of advice that actually stuck. He told me that there would come times that something just "felt" wrong, and that when those times came, not to ignore or fight them, but to listen to them. That even if I couldn't explain what was wrong or why, I should pay attention to those feelings of "wrongness". He, being a very logical and reasonable person, made an impression on me with that "hoo-doo sounding" thing, and I filed it away. The first time something felt "wrong", I was a student pilot, and I tried to talk myself into something that didn't feel right but for absolutely no good reason I could come up with; and then those words came back to me. So after an inner debate of logic vs advice, I cancelled a solo flight I had already fired up and started taxiing out on for no "good" reason, feeling a little dumb, and with the ire of my instructor because time is precious and I couldn't give him a reasonable explanation. I won't go into all the details, but I found out the next day that I had in fact made the right decision, even though I hadn't known why, and I'd saved myself an unpleasant experience. Since then, there have been very few times I didn't listen to that "little voice", and in more than just flying, and rarely have I been wrong. There may be times I was cautious and didn't need to be, but frankly, that's much better than the alternative, isn't it. It's not easy to follow your instincts and not talk yourself into or out of things. (That guy just doesn't sit right with me, but he's never done anything to make me not trust him... That kind of thing.) I appropriately trusted my instincts in flying over the years so many times that it firmly cemented the truth of the lesson for me in life, too. Oh, I still argue with myself now and then, but usually if I catch myself doing it, I stop and just accept whatever it is my "gut" is telling me, even if my logic can't explain it. When I don't catch myself doing it is when I regret it later, and say to myself "I KNEW better..." So, Life Lesson #1-Trust your instincts, God gave them to you for a reason!

2. Don't Quit Flying-Fly it All the Way Down. A good portion of pilot training is about emergency procedures. What do you do if your engine quits, if your electronics fail, if you have a fire, if your gear won't come down, if you get lost, if you get stuck in bad weather, if if if. I'll tell you what you DON'T do. You don't throw your hands in the air, scream, cover your eyes and wait for the inevitable, or it WILL be the inevitable. You don't give up. You don't panic. As long as you have control over that airplane, you control it. You control It. Not the other way around. I don't know what the exact statistics are, but the majority of aircraft fatalities are due to pilot error, and a good portion of pilot errors only turn fatal because the pilot freaked out and Quit Flying The Airplane. A Learjet in California which lost its baggage compartment door on take off and crashed because the pilot focused totally on that problem instead of on his flying. Even the non-fatal ones. The pilot who bounces the landing into a porpoise, and rather than flying the airplane, just hangs on for the ride until the nose wheel sheers off and he comes to an unglamourous halt in the dirt. A controlled landing onto a field, water or trees has a statistically massive improvement on chance of survival over an UNcontrolled landing onto a field, water or trees. You have to keep flying the plane until the plane can't fly any more. Bottom line? You can't just hang on for the ride in life, or you'll end up in an unglamourous pile in the dirt. You can't focus on one little problem, or the big picture will come crashing down around your ears. You can't just give up, because the moment you do, you no longer have a chance. All that to say, life lesson #2-no matter how scary it gets, don't give up!

3. Winging it is fun, but preparation is key. So to speak. ;) I've always been kind of a 'just go with it' kind of person. But in flying, 'winging it' has a slightly different meaning. Even the most basic "hop in and go for a few trips around the pattern" flight requires proper preparation. You have to make sure the plane is airworthy. You have to make sure the weather is within your capabilities. You have to make sure the plane will make it off that runway that day with those conditions. You have to make sure there isn't a problem flying in the airspace that day. You have to make sure you are healthy and capable enough that day. That you are current to do whatever you're about to go do legally. If you're actually Going somewhere, your preparations just got a lot more extensive. Not checking any of these things accounts for a good percentage of accidents/incidents. Fuel starvation, over-running a runway, an un-caught maintenance issue, busting a Temporary Flight Restriction or other airspace, etc. For most pilots, this stuff is a process that goes very quickly, almost without effort, but it is there none-the-less. A person doesn't have to make a massive production out of the whole thing, but in flying, like in life, some preparation will make for a much more safe and pleasant experience. :)

4. To Succeed, You're Going to Have to Face Some Fears. Flying can be a tough thing to break out into that next level, because there's only one way to get good at it. You push past where you are comfortable, sometimes all the way to the place where you are UNcomfortable, and you learn from it. But there's a fine line here, because if you push too far too fast, it can bite you. If you don't push far enough, you will never get any better than you currently are. Anyone who has flown for very long will come to a time when they get scared, and that's a crossroads for pilots. Either they slowly (or sometimes quickly) quit flying because of it, they stay right where they are and never do anything else, or they learn from it, work through the fear, and come out the other side an even better pilot. Life's the same way. If you never take the risk, never take the shot, you will never achieve anything beyond where you already are. If you push too far, you might fall on your face, you might make mistakes...and how you handle those mistakes and those risks will define your future.

5. The Worthiest Goals Take Effort. It takes a minimum of 40 hours to get a pilot's license. It takes passing a large "written" exam, an "oral" exam and a "flight" exam. You have to be able to recite regulations, handle emergencies, navigate to other places, know an airplane's systems, and of course fly and perform maneuvers within certain standards. It is no impossible task, but it sure isn't a cake walk either. If it were simple, we'd have a lot more people doing it. But what an accomplishment! To be able to FLY. Nothing in life that is worthwhile comes easily. Not the career you may want, the marriage, the relationship with God, the physical fitness/health. These things come at the cost of a lot of time, effort, tears. If they were simple to achieve and maintain, they wouldn't be nearly as valuable or valued.

6. Patience. This is not my strong suite, but it is indeed a life lesson you can pick up in flying. There's an aviation idiom that goes something along the lines of "If you're in a hurry, drive." In order to be able to make a trip somewhere, a lot of things have to come together the right way all at once. Sometimes you'll get all ready to go, only to find out the plane has an alternator failure, or a bad mag, or a failed radio. At this point, you get to unpack your plane and pack your car and drive. Sometimes you will wait for days straight for round after round of thunderstorms to go through, or fog to lift. If you are in a hurry, if you HAVE to be somewhere at a specific time, you are better off not planning on flying; and if you do fly, you'd better learn a little bit of patience. If you are patient, then it will usually work out in the end. If you lose your patience and try to push forward anyway, it rarely ends well. In aviation-speak it's called "Get-Home-Itis", and it is a killer. Life always goes a little more smoothly when you practice patience. Now if only I could keep that in mind on the roads... :)

7. Practice Doesn't Make Perfect. Actually, practice can sometimes do nothing but cement in bad habits. Practice is very important, but so is going up with someone who can help evaluate where you are and what you're doing and constructively critique and point out areas in which you can adjust your practice. This is one reason why Flight Reviews are required for pilots. I've flown with more than one pilot who did things a lot less safely than a student pilot, because once they got their license they did things their own way for a long enough period of time without crashing that they felt they now had it all covered, when in reality what they were doing was just...headshakingly bad. Nothing can make "perfect", but Evaluated Practice Can Make Better, and in fact is really a "must". My family is rare-we have two experienced flight instructors who fly together all the time. This could be bad on a marriage, but fortunately in our case it usually works very well. :) It's practically impossible to keep "current" on every facet of flying we do, so there are times I've gone up with him and he's helped tweak in a few things on me, and times he's gone up with me and I've helped tweak in a few things on him. We both value not just currency, but proficiency, and we try to better ourselves each time...with not just pounding out landings, not just practice, but evaluated and tweaked-in practice. We're a tough crowd sometimes, but we're also pretty good at what we do...and that's partly why.

8. Always wear deodorant in a C-152. Okay, I totally stole that one. But man, it's so funny, and so true, that I had to say it anyway. Um, those are *really* tiny little 2-seat airplanes, and you are almost literally in the lap of the person next to you. It's called a "three-arm airplane", because you can't sit shoulder to shoulder with all four arms down at the sides, and thus one person usually has one of their arms around behind the back of the other person. Therefore, deodorant-and a breath mint-is usually wise! Life lesson? Uh, that IS the life lesson! Nobody likes a stinker?? ;)

9. Make Every Flight Count. Some day it will be the last time you're able to go up in the air. Maybe for medical reasons, maybe financial, who knows. But flying is a temporary thing, with a finite lifespan. Work at it, appreciate it, enjoy it, make it count. It's a privilege and a joy, not to be taken for granted. I doubt I have to spell out the corollary Life Lesson there, do I? :)

10. Perspective. This truly is one of the best lessons I've learned from flying. After being unceremoniously dumped, I found a lot more solace than I expected just from flying. I would look down, and the houses and cars and trees just seemed so small, it made everything else down there seem small and far away, including problems. I can't explain why, but it worked for me then and works for me today, too. When you are a mile in the air, nothing else seems that big. More importantly, it can give you a glimpse of the bigger picture. As I've said before...there's nothing like taking a cold, gray, depressing day, climbing in an airplane, flying through all that, and breaking out on top where the sun is shining, the sky is blue above, and all is still and bright. You get to see what everybody else down on earth can't-that the layer of gloom is limited, temporary; that above it is clear and clean. You get...perspective.

Tuesday Top Ten: Growing With Grace

This is kind of a meme/Top Ten, which I am happy to do. You can see the original Here. The hard part is, I agree with so many of her answers, it may be hard for me to get past some of those and look for others! For those of you who don't believe in following links, Cat came across a questionnaire called "Growing with Grace" while waiting for her daughters at choir practice, and found the questions worthy of sharing. As do I.

Eight Questions About Our Lives Because Eight Questions Are Plenty

1. What is the best part of your life right now?
**Watching my daughter grow happy and healthy; the ability to have something I just can't take for granted-a "normal" (for us) life as a close family; the health and ability I have to do what I love as far as SMA and flying both.

2. What do you think the best part of the near future will be?
**No contest. I get to start a new venture coming up in aviation that exceeds what I ever expected to happen to me in life. Even if it ended next month, I will still be eternally grateful for the experiences I have been able to have these last two years.

3. What are you most afraid of?
**Failure-the ugly destructive side of perfectionism.
**One of those random, horrible things that can happen to any given person on a sunny Tuesday in the Spring (aka any time) to someone I love. A diagnosis. A phone call. A visit from authorities. That shock you feel when your world has just shifted on its axis by a large amount and you know things will never be the same again.
**For me personally, Alzheimer's or dementia. It is losing who you are, mind body and spirit, and it is the worst cruelty I can imagine.

4. What are you a little worried about?
**The day Kaylee has to face the end of innocence. What to do with her education. How her teenage years will go. Why the cat keeps peeing on my bath mat and other inappropriate surfaces. How Kaylee will react if the cat suddenly disappears one day. Now that it's Spring, when are the spiders going to start weaving their webs on my deck for me to run into face first and have a stroke. Can I get done what I need to do.

5. What do you dream of?
**As Cat said, Literally? Weird stuff. Hodge-podge things that make little sense, when I actually remember them in the mornings. Ever since Devon was here, I just don't remember my dreams hardly ever any more. Prior to Devon, my dreams were wild, vivid, colorful, usually rather frightening, and often quite...weird.

Figuratively? I dream of sitting around a dinner table with my spouse and daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren and smiling and laughing and talking as a happy family unit. I dream of flying very fast and very powerful airplanes and being one of the few women to do so, maybe even at airshows. I dream of being a size 8 again. ;) I dream of the day I get the phone call that they have once and for all cured SMA so that just maybe MY child won't have to worry about that in her children.

6. Who do you trust the most to share these things with?
** Steve, a few friends, and right now, apparently the world wide web. ;)

7. What questions do you have?
**You know, I expect that this question was intended to trigger specific questions related to the group for whom the questionnaire was originally intended, but isn't this a good general question? We all have questions, big ones and little ones. What do we really want to know?

How do some people sleep at night?

What will Kaylee be when she grows up?

What will God say to me when I see him face to face for the first time?

What will our family face in the next ten years?

What's for dinner?

Why do some people always feel the need to tear down others?

If a tree falls in the woods and no-one is there to hear...

Not a real question, but a sadness; why do those who make the worst parents have no trouble procreating, such as abusers, neglecters, and those who don't want children in the first place?

Why can't teachers of elementary age students all be gentle, loving, compassionate shapers of our very young, innocent, sweet, and impressionable children?

Why does it have to be so hard sometimes?

8. What gifts and skills can you share?
**Oh dear. Well, let's see.

Gifts: Compassion and the ability to if nothing else listen. Though I sometimes try to tune it out for my own protection, empathy. I seem to have a weird gift with animals. Even as a kid, if an animal was wounded and scared, I would be the one who could get to it and help it without being hurt myself. I don't know if it would be considered a gift, but I can usually see about every side to a story or situation, which has *almost* always made me very good at conflict or problem resolution. I have to admit that failed a few years ago in one situation when I lost perspective, but in general, this is something I have always been good at.

Skills: I can type really fast when it isn't a string of numbers and nobody is watching me. Does that count? I can fly airplanes rather well in most situations. I have a few skills on computers though certainly not many, and I have always had excellent eye/hand coordination. Until the last couple of years I was mentally quick and had an excellent memory, which I miss a great deal.

Since this is a meme, I'm supposed to tag people. The problem is, I'm not sure any of them will do it or see this in the next month, but here goes. ;)

Well, I would be interested in Sarah's answers if she would do it.

Heather, Kim and Anita,

Andrea,

And anyone else who wanted to do it!

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Random Thoughts for Today

1. Godiva really does rule in the land of hot chocolate. Particularly if you spiff it up a little bit.

2. I saw a Duke Energy truck drive by today, belching white smoke. It was so bad, it fogged out the area for several minutes after he drove by. There is some kind of irony in that, I just can't put my finger on it.

3. When I grow up, I don't want to be in school any more.

4. It has been four days since my television was last on. I think the quiet is starting to get to me.

5. Something is wrong with me. I have had four days of no television, and two novels that I haven't read yet, and I just can not get into them. That is worthy of note.

6. My car was clean for two whole days prior to the rain we got today, splashing dirt and mud back on it.

7. I Want My Camera Back. I am officially obsessing over it.

8. I have got to go up and do some instrument work. And update my logbook. And about 500 other things while I'm at it. Let's skip this line of thinking right now.

9. I saw a woman today in the post office with a newborn baby in a carrier and a two-year-old hanging by his arm, screaming his head off while lying on the floor and refusing to move. She let us know that he was just very independent, and then made the comment that she should have just had one. Ouch. :( I am not sure if I'm more bothered by her attitude, or at the fact that she said that in front of her children, no matter how young they are. I wish people had a clue sometimes.

10. I can not get Kaylee to sleep at night. It is 10 pm and she is wide awake. I put her in bed at 7 pm these days and she lies in there wide awake for hours and hours, and then is exhausted the next day. Ideas from anyone that don't involve drugs (I've already thought of that), warm milk, low lights, music, bedtime routines, reading books, or earlier bed times? *sigh*

"What I Want To Be When I Grow Up"

Kaylee will occasionally out of the blue tell me what she wants to be when she grows up. It has certainly widely varied. She's mentioned being a Mermaid Fairy, pilot, doctor, fireman, nurse, teacher, singer, veterinarian, and rescue worker to name a few off the top of my head. Yesterday she asked me "What will I be when I grow up, Mommy?" All I could do was shrug and smile and say "You can be whatever you want, whatever you are meant to be." She wanted to be a nurse until she found out that nurses have to deal with more blood than most doctors do. She wanted to be a veterinarian until she found out she would have to operate on them too, not just pet on and love them. She is not a big fan of blood and guts, in case you haven't noticed. ;) One thing that keeps coming up with her though, it makes me blink, because I said this Exact Same Thing as a kid. She wants to live on a big farm, and she wants to take in all the stray cats and dogs that are running around alone, and she wants to make a home for them where they will be safe and fed and won't have to live in a cage or get hurt. She wants to feed and love on them all. She keeps asking for another pet, and when I say "no way", she says "When I grow up I'm going to have a whole house full of pets!" I always say "When you grow up and are in your own house, you may do that if you wish!" Then I remind her of how much feeding and poo-scooping she would be doing, and she always frowns and says she'll have to come up with someone else to do that part. lol

Anyway, that reminded me of what I remember saying I wanted to be when I grew up, and remembering these things is a mental note to self that whatever Kaylee says will probably not end up anywhere close to what she will actually do or be! So for a Sunday Top Ten:

Ten Things I Said I Wanted To Be

1. Teacher. I barely remember this one, but Mom says I used to say I wanted to be a teacher, a lot. Now I can't imagine something I do NOT wish to do more than being a teacher-well, not in a classroom anyway. :)

2. Farmer. Now this I remember. I used to actually cry and wish and pray that we could go live on a farm with lots of animals and lots of kids. I wanted that SO much as a kid.

3. Pilot. But I didn't really think it was an option, so I didn't really dwell on it as a real choice.

4. Astronaut. This one lasted until I got an application from NASA and saw the vision requirements and learned that I'd work my whole life and never get a chance to actually go into space. I was truly disappointed.

5. Veterinarian. I really figured this is what I would do. I loved animals and wanted to help them, I seemed to even have a good...rapport...with them. I was drawn to animals and knew that I would be good at the job. As a subset of this, I was going to have land and build a place for every stray pet in the country I could get my hands on to live safely there.

6. Pharmacist. I took this aptitude test and it said I would be good at dispensing drugs. I found that kind of stuff relatively interesting, so I briefly considered it before dismissing it as too boring to do forever.

7. Military. Yes, I almost signed up for the military once. In a recruiter's office. Oh how life would be different right now had I signed that paperwork.

8. Scientist. I didn't know what kind for sure, but science fascinated me. Bugs, environmental science, even geology, astronomy, chemistry. I took a college course my junior year of high school during the summer on Environmental Biology and we did field trips, worked with ecosystems, and I loved it. Every science class I ever took had me at 'hello'. For awhile I was quite sure this was the direction I was going to go.

9. Stay-at-home-mom. For a brief period of time, that is what I figured I would do. I even pre-named the four kids I would have (none of them were Devon, Sidney or Kaylee by the way). I believed (and still do) that it was the most important job a person could hold-to shape the lives of the next generation.

10. Airline Pilot. This came later, was a more well-defined version of the earlier dream which mostly consisted of just being up in the sky. I 'knew' it would be hard to have a family and a career as an airline pilot, but I figured that there probably wasn't a guy out there for weird ole me anyway, so I'd just go for it. It was the coolest job I could ever imagine at the time. :)

For a number 11, I also considered law.

What I did NOT expect to be when I grew up, but am, is a whole other Top Ten, now isn't it. ;)

Anyway. Today is a good day of rest. We played Xbox for quite awhile; Steve and Kaylee played Shrek 2 while I napped, then I woke up and tried to beat Puss-in-Boots because they were stuck. I got farther than they did, but I still couldn't do it yet. There's supposedly a cheat you can do to be invincible, but we are not doing it right or something because I could NOT get it to work. Kaylee dressed up and I 'painted' her hair with hot pink, light pink, silver and bright blue streaks. She wants to wear it to school that way, but we'll have to see. She cleaned out her closet of shoes that she is outgrowing and I ordered her a couple pairs of shoes for summer. She has been begging for high heels for a long time now; I won't let her get super high heels, (thankfully if they make them for that size shoe, I haven't seen them anyway!), but I did let her get slight heels like wedges. A little cleaning up, not much, and a little hanging out, and a good day of rest before tomorrow starts up again with its usual mania.

I could put my usual rant about Daylight Savings Time on here since we just mysteriously "lost" an hour this morning, but I think I'll spare everyone. Besides, this pretending to adjust time actually benefits our business, so Steve keeps telling me to stop complaining about it. :)

Tomorrow is Kaylee's school, ballet, and cheer practice. It's also my birthday and my first school board meeting with the new start-up Christian school in Kokomo. And so it goes!

Valentine's Day Top Ten

As most of you know, I've always rather boycotted Valentine's Day. Not because I've not loved anyone, naturally, but for several reasons including commercialization of the day and having the country feel like they 'have' to be lovey dovey for that day Or Else. These last few years I've lifted my internal boycott, because I've enjoyed watching Kaylee, who loves hearts, candy, holidays, and all things pink. So in honor of a non-boycotted Valentine's Day, I present a special edition Top Ten List.

Valentine's Day Top Ten Reasons I Love Steve:

1. He is a patient man. You'd have to be to be married to me. ;) He was patient when I was his new employee and didn't really know what I was doing. He was patient when I felt insecurity in areas from flying to relationships. He was patient when we went through so much with our kids and SMA and he wasn't at the top of my priority list. He is patient when I get sucked into something and forget everything else. He is pretty patient being the more "Felix" to my somewhat "Oscar". He is patient if his daughter wakes him up in the middle of the night, and he is patient if his wife steals his covers. In fact, he won't even wake her up to try to get them back. He claims that is more fear, but I don't know about that...

2. Kindness. When we first met, he took the time to sit down with me and go over some real world flying things, and he managed to do it in a way that left me with my dignity intact. He made it easy for me to ask questions without feeling stupid, made it easy for me to learn without feeling threatened or inadequate. When we became friends and started going places and doing things together, I was actually dating someone else, and that someone else and I had an unpleasant conversation which left me upset. Steve took me out, we flew somewhere (I don't even remember where), and when we got back he just sat in the car in the parking lot of the airport by my house and we talked for hours, until even *I* was wiped out and ready to go home (and I'M the night owl). It didn't occur to me until later that he'd done that on purpose to keep me from going home and dwelling on the unpleasantness. It worked. The first time I flew a Cherokee 6, I was with him and we went to a nearby airport. I bounced the landing-in fact I landed about three times in a row. (Third worst landing out of the four really cruddy landings I've ever had.) Naturally there were people there and watching, and I was not only the new kid on the block, I was young, and a girl. The first words Steve said when we walked up to the people there were "Well, that's the worst landing I've done in awhile!" I don't have a great poker face, so apparently nobody was looking at me, or they'd have seen the shock. He more than once gave me a chance to learn and earn people's respect. I had to follow up and learn and DO it, but he opened that door...and I wasn't anybody special to him at that point. He's done that for a LOT of people, because he has a kind heart.

3. Envy-Free. I was the first to ride in the Mustang, and he was not only not upset that it wasn't him, he was thrilled for me. I got to go up in a B-25, I got to fly over the Indy 500, I got to go to California for a week, I got to go to a taping of a TV show in Tennessee, I got to go to the stuff at the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends, and I get to train in the T-6. I've gotten (and get) to do a lot of exciting, special things that for pilots are really once in a lifetime opportunities. He not only doesn't pout that it's not him, he not only lets me be excited about it and is excited for me, he actually hopes things like that come along for me. If I'm honest, I don't know that I could be that way if roles were reversed. I am fairly sure that while I would be happy for him, and proud of him, I'd also be envious. I feel it takes a pretty strong man to not be threatened or jealous when their spouse gets to do things like that in the arena in which they play too.

4. He is very giving. Again, many of the above stories fit into that. He works long hours during the week and the weekend both, and yet when he can he'll still get up with Kaylee on a Saturday morning and let me sleep in. There are trips he could make and opportunities he could take-and he often lets me instead. When I first met him, there was someone he knew whose child was in the hospital with a life-threatening situation, and he gave a *lot* of money to the family in order to help them with the medical bills. Later we would come to appreciate just how bad that can get, but at that time he had no reference. He gives what he can, sometimes more than he can, and that's the way he wants it to be.

5. He trusts. That's a big deal. In our field, I'm about the only woman around most of the time. I know for a fact that there aren't a whole lot of husbands who would be happy, perhaps wouldn't even 'allow', their wives to work alone with other men. But if I had to have a chaperone everywhere I went with another man, I couldn't do this job at all. If he didn't trust my judgment, me, then that would put me into a position I don't even like to consider. He trusts me in an airplane, he trusts me as a parent, he trusts me as a spouse, he trusts me financially, and that trust is probably one of the bedrocks of our relationship.

6. He's persistent, and smart. I like that in a guy. I would call him "stubborn", but that might be a little "pot calling the kettle black"-ish, so I'd best stick with "persistent". ;) When he has a goal, he works at it until he achieves it, and whenever obstacles come up, he sizes them up and then finds a way around them that I usually wouldn't have ever thought of. He knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, and how to even take a "fold 'em" and turn it into what he wanted-or better-in the first place. His mind works in a way mine doesn't, and I've learned a lot from him, even though my grammar IS better. ;)

7. It's good to be friends. Oh, stop that noise, it's true. I enjoy hanging out with him. When we were first married, we both worked at the airport office at Camel-Lot, 8-12 hours a day, every day from Monday through Saturday. People would ask us over and over "Oh man, how can you be with him/her 24/7 like that? Don't you guys fight?" Actually, no, not really. In fact, it's kind of nice being able to work together most of the time. These days I'm not at the office all day every day, but I do eat lunch with him (and several others) almost every day, and I enjoy that. We share a lot of interests and we enjoy each other's company.

8. Support. I think he may very well be my biggest fan. He supports me no matter what crazy thing I am doing. If I want to do it, and I'm going to try it, he backs me on it. Sometimes he's even the one pushing me. As a newish instructor, he sent me out to fly with a guy who had his own plane--it was a type of plane I'd never been in, and I was nervous about flying planes I hadn't been in before (for good reason). Then Steve tells me it doesn't have brakes on my side, and that about had me turning around to go home. Now I'm not only unfamiliar with the airplane and the guy flying it, I'll have No Brakes?? Oh, it has a HAND brake that I don't know how to use. Great. I start stuttering on the phone, and he pipes up with "Hey, if I didn't think you could handle it, I wouldn't send you. You can do this." He was right, it was no big deal at all, but he had more faith in me than I did for awhile there. He's still the one saying "You can do this" if I start stuttering about something.

9. Respect. He always has treated me with respect, from the first time I met him. He took me seriously as a person, as a woman, as a pilot. He respects my thoughts, my space, my ideas. He shows respect to his daughter, listening to her, taking the time to just sit and talk, to try to understand, to let her know that she is important to him and that what she has to say, what she thinks and feels, is important to him too. He's setting a foundation for her, and hopefully she will come to expect to be treated with kindness, respect, and trust by any young men who dare to date her. :)

10. Miscellaneous Reasons. All this sounds like I love Steve because of what he does for me, but that's not it. It's not really because he lets me sleep in on Saturdays or because he took the blame for a bad landing for me; it's more because of the kind of person he is, the kind who would do things like that. There's a difference. It's not his actions that I love per se, it's who he is as a person. (Although there may be no living with him after he reads this.) ;) Huh. A lot of the above sound rather familiar to me. Yes, I'd say so: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Happy Valentine's Day. :)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things Worth Every Penny

Funnily enough, I was considering doing a weekly top ten about different things for which I'm thankful, because sometimes I don't think I publicly mention those things as often as they enter my mind. I have lots to be thankful for, and it never hurts to say so. :) Maybe I'll make it Thankful Thursday and just have a few things to say each week rather than a full ten each Tuesday, but for today, it'll be more along the lines of "Ten things I've purchased that have been worth every single penny I spent" (and I'm thankful for them). ;)

1. The Pictures on my walls. There is a lot of money hanging on my walls in the form of Olan Mills, Sears, Portraits by Greg, Picture People, and several others, and I don't regret a penny of it. I can look around anywhere in my house and see pictures of Devon from birth through a year, and I can see pictures of Kaylee as she grows up. She's a newborn on my desk, opposite her brother. She's a bald one-year old on the wall to the right, our family portrait is to the left, she's a lovely ballerina on the shelf, next to the strong gymnast, next to the cute cheerleader; the refrigerator is covered in photos of aunts, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents. Okay, and under the bald one-year-old is a photo of a not-bald-at-all 35-year-old sitting in a Mustang. All photos worth every penny spent. The walls in my house may not be covered in expensive fashionable art, but they certainly reflect what is important to me. :)

2. The books on my shelves. Steve will disagree strongly, but hey, this is my list. ;) I love my books. Every time I get to sit down and get lost someplace else for awhile, it's worth every penny I spent to get there.

3. The Computer. Oh my. My heart beats rapidly at the thought of not having this lovely piece of equipment sitting here humming and waiting for me every day. The majority of my work and my communication is done on this thing. Whatever the actual cost was, it was worth every penny--and then some!

4. The Chrysler. Ya know, my first car was a burnt orange Mazda GLC hatchback, very well used, and driven to death. My second car was my parents' car, a gray Chevy Nova, one that I got my driver's license in at age 16 and was driving well after Steve and I got married. That thing lasted *forever* and was a really good car for me during that time of life, reliable and inexpensive and couldn't go over 60 mph without its cute little engine screaming, which I suppose made me safer. ;) My third car was the gray Oldsmobile from Steve's Mom & Dad, which has also been a very reliable and good car. In fact, it took a pretty hard blow to the right rear side, protected my daughter who was sitting directly in the impact path, and after replacing the door, is still doing great as a back-up car. And then there's the Chrysler. It's the first time I've ever bought a car within the same decade, let alone the same year, that it came off the assembly line. It's comfortable. It's attractive. It has an iPod jack and a cd player and a portable GPS. The heater and air conditioner and defroster all three work all the time. The round dials glow green in the dark, I can lock and unlock it from inside a restaurant, the trunk space is huge. And...silly as it may be, it's mine, from day one.

5. 100LL and Jet A. Okay, so it definitely takes a few 'pennies'. But those are two types of aviation fuel, and quietly droning along in the Citabria on a sunny afternoon or playing in the Baron or winging towards a distant destination in the Cheyenne are all experiences well worth the cost. Well, I can't say that about the Cheyenne since it takes more fuel than I can actually buy and I don't have to actually buy it. I'd best stick to the 100LL airplanes. lol

6. My Education. Knowledge and information are doors; the more of each you have, the more doors become available to you, until you may find that one (or three) you are meant to step through. I was fortunate to go to good schools with strict academics and decent equipment (for the most part) all the way through high school. I was fortunate (and stubborn) enough to go through college, and that was worth every penny that I've spent a long time finishing paying for. :) It's not just the classes where you can learn some things that interest you, some that bore you, and some that are utterly pointless, but the transition of child to adult, the learning process, the preparation. Pre-veterinary medicine at Cedarville University for that year taught me some things, Aviation Flight Technology at Vincennes University taught me quite a few other things, and Management/Business at Purdue University taught me still others. Each time of life was very different from the others, but informative and life-changing.

7. The Cats. Oh yes, I just said the cats. Both cats were in and of themselves free of charge. However, their upkeep is certainly a penny or two. Vet bills (maybe I *should* have been a vet!), food, litter, litter box stuff, repairs to leather couch, carpet cleaner for throw-up spots, new vacuum after fur clogs everything up, you know, pet bills. But they keep our laps warm in the evenings and our legs warm at night. They provide company for Kaylee, they play with each other and provide a little entertainment, and they're actually very sweet, both of them. No, we are not getting any more.

8. Wii. Now that was money well-spent. It's fun! I need to get a couple more games for it coming up here. I get sore muscles from playing it, which tells me that I need to do a bit more of it. ;) Kaylee loves playing, and while it's still a "video game", at least it's one that you have to stand up and move while doing in order to play.

9. Digital Camera. My Canon Rebel is several years old now, and I didn't buy it, it was a Christmas present, so it doesn't count, but IT was worth every penny too. If you can snap enough photos to kill a camera, I've probably about done it. But I bought this other "under $200" digital camera on my way out to the Mustangs and Legends Gathering, and that thing has been worth every penny too. It does great little movie clips, it takes good photos with high resolution, has an easy to use macro feature UNlike my Canon, and it's lightweight and easy to carry around. I felt guilty at the time I bought it for 'wasting' the money on a cheapy camera when I already had a great one. I don't feel guilty any more.

10. Extracurricular Activities. Kaylee doesn't like to stop moving. She wants to be doing something ALL the time, and she wants to learn and try a bunch of stuff. Since we don't have to divide that among several kids in the family, she gets to try a lot of things. Right now she's in gymnastics, cheer, and ballet/tap. She wants to take hip hop dance, guitar lessons, Girl Scouts, horse riding lessons, and karate. She'd much prefer to skip school altogether and just go with the extracurricular stuff, because school gets in her way as far as doing the rest. Now these extracurricular activities aren't cheap, but they're worth it. I've seen her go from "gross" to "graceful" when the ballet music comes on. I've seen her concentrate and conquer a gymnastics move that I never could do. I've seen her confidently do her thing in front of a gymnasium full of people at halftime of a basket ball game. She gets an opportunity not everyone gets...to try on different shoes until she finds the ones that fit her the best. That seems pretty priceless to me. :)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Reasons I Don't Do Top Tens Much Any More

So it's Tuesday, the thought of a Top Ten crosses my mind, and I realize the last one was weeks ago. Why? This is why:

1. I Can't Think of Topics. Back when the topic of the week was handed to me on a silver platter, I could think about it for a few days and then Monday night or Tuesday put it all together and write it out. Now I spend half the time trying to come up with something to Top Ten. Hey, if you think it's so easy, YOU try it for awhile on a consistent basis. ;)

2. It's Hard to Come Up With Ten Things. This kind of goes with the topic, but it's not easy to come up with exactly ten things for any topic. Five would be great. Maybe since this isn't really a group effort any more I should make it Friday Top Five. Sometimes there are way more answers than slots to fill. But it's not so easy to cram creativity into an exact number of entries. Particularly if one's creativity is a little weak.

3. I Get Lazy. If something is taking me effort to think of a topic and effort to come up with a lot of things to write, then the effort involved doesn't seem worth the 'payoff' of having it accomplished. A good Top Ten takes thought and time, both things of which I can easily run short. ;)

4. I Forget It's Tuesday. Well, I do. I forget it's Tuesday, I forget you do Top Tens on Tuesday, I forget to mark down Kaylee's minutes of reading, and...what was I saying again?

5. I Have More Important Things To Do. Okay, not really, but it sounds important. All right, all right, yes I do in fact have more important things to do. I have people waiting on things. I have groups of people waiting on things. I have so many things to do that I have no business being on the computer when I have those things I need to go do. *sigh*

6-10. Re-Read Numbers 1-5 and that ought to about cover it. And why do I feel like I've already done this Top Ten before?

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning

I've heard from a few people who miss the Tuesday Top Tens, so this morning I thought I'd leave one for you. The only problem with that is that typical of the last few months, without having it be a homework assignment handed to me for me to complete, I can't seem to generate a topic. Everything I came up with to do left me about five short of a Top Ten. I thought about doing a Top Ten about the Holidays, but frankly I'm not in the mood, and the Top Ten Reasons I'm Not In The Mood To Do A Top Ten On The Holidays doesn't seem very festive. So, out of a pure lack of creativity, coming at you on a cold, rainy day, here are:

Top Ten Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning:

1. It's only early December and I'm already sick of gray. I was driving Kaylee to school today, and everywhere I looked it was gray. Even the grass, which is supposed to be green, looks like the saturation level of the color was completely removed until it was just a darker shade of gray. It's depressing.

2. I've been staying up way too late. For as early as I have to get up and keep going, I can't stay up that late. It makes me cranky in the mornings which isn't fair to Kaylee who doesn't need any help in the crank department herself first thing in the morning. ;)

3. I'd like the world to pause while I get ready for Christmas. I need a time-out. Instead, every time I blink, I'm another week closer to Christmas, and still not prepared.

4. Kaylee has a great smile. She said something in the car on the way to school, and I turned and looked at her askance, and she gave me the sweetest little smile with her eyes all sparkling, and I couldn't help but grin back at her. She has the best smile.

5. I missed the garbage men today. I think it's in their contract that they will come at varying hours each week. Usually they come mid-morning some time. This week they decided to come way early, right after I got back from school, meaning I had no time to pull the trash bins out to the alley. I considered running out there dragging them behind me and seeing if they'd come back, but decided that would be undignified, and the trash will wait for one more week.

6. I'm going to shut email down today and work on some things around here. I've got paperwork to fill out, checks to print and get in the mail for SMA stuff, phone calls to make for SMA Support, bills to pay, photos to put up on a few people's websites for them, Kaylee's room to work on, the errands to run, Christmas to get organized in my head, and many other things to do. Tuesdays are good for that as it's one of Kaylee's Days Off after school so there's no other running around.

7. I really need to get my wedding ring cleaned and inspected. It's been a long time, and it looks like one of the prongs is worn down a little. It needs a good cleaning and I need to get it checked out before I lose the diamond out of it. :O

8. I'm in the "reading phase". While I'm always a bookworm, I'll go for weeks, maybe a month, without really reading anything, and then I'll get the urge and my favorite authors will all start publishing in a row, and I'll hit the 'reading phase'. I might read five or six books in a row, sometimes more. It's good because I enjoy it. It's bad because my book piles around the house grow, and I don't exactly have the time to sit and read novel after novel to the exclusion of other more important stuff. The good news is I can read one in an afternoon, so it doesn't take me days or something. The bad news is, I don't have an afternoon in which to do that when I have 100 emails waiting for my attention in my inbox and 224 Things To Do waiting in my Work List. Right now I'm trying to ignore the new James Patterson novel sitting on my end table in the living room, but once you crack it open during times you have nothing else to do like gymnastics, well, I don't do well at putting books down until I finish them.

9. I wish my iPod retained a charge in the cold. After I dropped Kaylee off from school, I turn on my music, only to have it die right away, even though it was fully charged yesterday and not used hardly at all. The cold really zaps the battery, even if it's in the heated garage. So I have to remember to take it in and out of my car every time I get in or out of it in the winter, which is kind of annoying. Or I could leave it plugged into the car I guess, but that leaves cords hanging out.

10. Travels. Nathan is out in New York, and Ty is down in Florida. Both are I believe going to be flying home-or trying-soon, but the weather certainly hasn't been cooperative. Nathan has a much better shot in the Cheyenne than Ty does in the Viking, but he's not much more fond of heavy icing than I am. The RG is done at Muncie and needs to come home, but the weather isn't working for that, either. Maybe tomorrow we'll catch enough of a break to not make it a hard IFR flight just to do that.

Now wasn't that just fascinating, the things I think about on a random Tuesday morning? Yeah, sorry. ;)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things About Halloween

Hmmm, any ten things I feel like about Halloween. Former costumes, memories, whatever. This actually may be harder than you think, since I didn't really "do" Halloween as a kid! And Halloween these days is more geared towards adults than it is kids. Anyway, okay...

Top Ten Things About Halloween:

1. Candy. I don't mean from when I was a kid, I mean now. I only buy the candy I like, so when we have a bunch left over, guess who has to eat it?? It's a rough job, but somebody has to do it...

2. Traditions. Kaylee *loves* traditions, and I enjoy watching her get excited over them each year. They are nothing big. We just go shopping for her costume and accessories, we carve a pumpkin and make pumpkin seeds that she doesn't eat all of, we go to ours and a friend's neighborhood and trick-or-treat door to door for about 4 blocks total, and we usually go to one indoor place with tons of candy (usually the mall, but probably not this year). She also wants to be able to hand out candy to kids, and loves to wait by the door for it to ring. Unfortunately, we rarely get any trick-or-treaters, and last year we had NONE while we were there, which bummed her out. She waited by the front door way past time with her bowl of candy as you can see by the bottom three photos of this page. I can get away with saying "Boy, she's cute" on my own blog, can't I? lol

3. Grumpy Old People. Mom, you did just fine, it was her fault, so don't feel guilty! :) Okay, for the story: I was a very sensitive little girl. The first year I got to actually go trick-or-treating instead of just handing out the candy to everybody else, I was with a babysitter, I was ecstatic to be going, and I went to a few doors before I got to this white house down the street. An old lady opened the door (Old to me then, I have NO idea how old she really was), looked at me, and asked "what are you supposed to be?" I told her quite happily what I was, and then mentioned proudly that my mommy had made my costume. She looks at me, frowns, says "Well, she didn't do a very good job now, did she!" drops a grape sucker in my bag, and shuts her door. I'm left standing there...devastated is the only word I can think of. I was done. I wouldn't go to any more doors, and I cried for...a long time. My babysitter valiantly went door to door, ringing it, getting candy and putting half of what she got in my bag. (Which back then you usually only got a piece or two per door.) Finally she took me out to a friend of hers, and she said to me "Laurie, I promise you, she won't make fun of you." We get there, she knocks on the door, her friend answers, and I hear her whisper for a minute, and then she brings me around, and her friend drops this huge load of candy in my bag and compliments me. I felt pretty miserable and sad, but as a self-centered kid, I had no idea how that would affect a mom. I was mad at that lady for saying something mean about my mom's work, and I was hurt that she was so mean to me, but now, imagining somebody doing that to Kaylee, I'd want to go back to that house in person and have a calm but serious Come to Jesus Meeting with the bitter angry woman on why she finds in necessary to destroy a child for no good reason. And hope she apologized on her own before I had to help her do so. So today I feel almost as bad for how it probably made Mom feel as I do how it made me feel! But that was like...30 years ago, so it's way past time for either one of us to have bad feelings about it at this point. ;)

4. Costumes. Not for me. I never really did dress up for this 'holiday' and I still don't. But Halloween is the time where kids can pretend to be whatever or whomever they want. It's their way of expressing themselves, of having a little fun, of getting to feel beautiful or scary or clever. Kaylee has been a Hershey Kiss, Barney, a Unicorn, a Barbie Princess, Tinkerbell, and now a mermaid. Next year she'll probably want to go as a Goth Princess or something. :P

5. The Time of Year. I just love the Halloween "feeling". The cool/cold nights, the stark moon and sky, the beautiful fall colors during the daytime. It's the last Hurrah before winter, and it's a pretty one. :)

6. Pumpkin Patch. I really like taking Kaylee to a pumpkin patch, watching her choose which pumpkin is going to get to come home with her, seeing what criteria she uses, etc. She even names the thing. Then deciding what to carve into it, scooping out the goop. We just have a lot of fun with the pumpkin thing each year. Having a nice candle-lit Jack-o-Lantern is just kind of perfect Halloween Fun.

7. Scary Movies. Well, I have to confess two things to people who may have known me at different times in life. First, I used to absolutely love scary movies. They didn't make a scary movie I didn't watch for a long time. So as a bit older of a kid on through early adulthood, Halloween was one of my favorite times because they'd play on the great scary movies on TV, and the video store and theaters always had a rash of new ones. Don't ask me why I liked them, I don't know. Perhaps I was warped by that angry bitter woman when I was a kid. ;) My second confession is that I don't really like them any more. They don't scare me, I just don't really see the point of watching them any more. It serves no positive or useful purpose to watch Saw III or whatever. I just have better things to put in my head or better ways to waste my time now days I guess. But every once in awhile I find I do have to watch "The Shining", because it was a tradition. Brenda V. and I used to watch it Every Halloween, with food and drinks, up way past our bedtimes, scaring the pants off of ourselves. Nobody beats Jack Nicholson on that, *nobody*. One of the scariest dudes I ever saw.

8. Hayrides. Kaylee has gotten to go on one short one, but mine were better. I remember a couple of Halloween parties I had as a teenager that had terrific stuff. Well, not the time that Jeremy about sliced his thumb off carving a pumpkin in front of all of us. That was bad. But the hay rides were great. You'd sit up on the hay wagon and get towed through the woods where stuff would be buried or jump out at you. The hand coming out of the ground that started wiggling, the ghouls that would swing down from the trees. If you made it through, the wagon would pull up to a huge roaring camp fire and we'd roast marshmallows and sing songs and have hot cider.

9. Other People's Decorations. I'm not very good at decorating myself, but I do enjoy driving around and seeing all the stuff in people's yards. I even take Kaylee's picture in front of them sometimes. So from all the people like me who don't do that, thank you to those who do, and who help make it a more festive holiday for us all.

10. I dunno. Halloween is kind of a non-event to me personally, other than Kaylee loves it and I like anything that will make her eyes sparkle. :)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things About School

I think the others are doing Ten Things They Want To Lose, but I'm going to do the one I never got around to last week. This is supposed to be any ten things about school. Things you like, things you dislike, whatever. So, for your reading boredom:

Ten Things About School:

1. Fundraisers. While I know that schools need money, and I sympathize with their plight of trying to provide quality teachers and supplies to as many students as possible, I detest the fundraisers. They don't stop. There are literally over six fundraisers going on at Kaylee's school right this moment, and they pressure the kids (and of course the parents). I think everybody else takes it all in stride, but this is bad for me. It was bad when I was the kid doing it, and it's just as bad if not worse as the grown-up. I'd spend a good portion of my savings account right now towards a fundraiser aimed at research on a way schools can exist WITHOUT putting us all through all the fundraising.

2. "The Cool Kids". It starts early. In fact, it was brought up at our Parent/Teacher conference today. There's a particular girl in Kaylee's class, who after going on a field trip with that class, I have nicknamed "Queen XXXX" in my head. She's the little adorable blue-eyed blond with dangly earrings and perfect clothing who holds court over the entire class and any adults she's around. She chooses who can sit next to her, who can eat with her, and in fact who may speak to her. She befriends someone when they have something she wants, and then dumps them for someone else 'better' who comes along. And all the kids flock to her, wanting to be one of the ones she 'chooses'. Sound familiar? Yes, we all know or knew people like that, didn't we. But she's SIX YEARS OLD. And I really, really am saddened when Kaylee comes home and tells me stories that made her feel sad or unwanted. Steve, myself AND the teacher have all talked to Kaylee about it being okay to not be best friends with everybody, and that if a person doesn't treat you well, they aren't a good friend, etc. Not a fun life lesson, though I know we all went through it, and in some cases still do. :(

3. Friendships. On the flip side of that coin, when you are in school eight hours a day, five days a week, 9 months of the year, when you DO find those good friends, it makes all the difference. You have someone to hang out with, swap stories with, back you up when you need it, get you in trouble with the teachers when you start laughing during class, write notes to, eat lunch with, complain about homework to, whatever. For me, I never had a lot of friends, but other than in Junior High, I usually had one close friend, which makes life a lot easier even when the rest of school is...difficult.

4. Learning is Fun. It's fun to learn new things, to see Kaylee come home with new skills. I LOVE listening to her read to me, I love seeing her do math equations with the greatest of ease (she just Whizzes through her math papers...it's her highest score on her report card of 98%.) I love talking to her about nouns and pronouns and having her pipe up from the back seat "Oh, didn't you know that Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun?" I love watching her mind expand, and I have answered some questions I didn't even know existed to ask. School opens that door for her.

5. Field Trips. They're really pretty neat. I don't always enjoy going, because, well, I'm not good with noise and mass quantities of kids and noise and unruly behavior and noise. But they ARE kind of fun. And they're nice to be able to get out of the school environment and still learn stuff.

6. Homework. Uggggh. You know, I thought it was bad when I was in school; now I feel like I'm BACK in school. There are spelling words, Bible verses, reading words, reading assignments, math papers, and English papers to do. Thankfully, Kaylee is pretty good about doing her homework without muss or fuss, and she's fast at it too. But some days it IS a battle, when I have to figure out what the teacher wants, the directions aren't clear, and Kaylee "doesn't remember".

7. Projects. This could go with #6, but I think it deserves its own line. Dreaded Projects. I Don't Even Want To Talk About It Projects. Parents Are Really Competing With Each Other Projects. I Am Distinctly Unhappy About Projects.

8. The PTL. That doesn't stand for "Praise The Lord" as the network show, it stands for the "Parent Teacher League", where parents and teachers are in league together, the better to torment those of us not on it. :) I have a great respect for the parents who can dive into the projects, the parent-teacher league, the classroom moms. I honestly do, because it takes more than I have.

9. School Programs. Can't help it, I'm a sucker for these. I love them. I love watching my little darling get up on stage with everyone else's little darlings and sing, talk, act, whatever they are doing up there. I think the programs are terrific, and I'll bet this school does a terrific Christmas program that I look forward to attending. :)

10. Graduating. Personally, I quite thoroughly enjoyed every school graduation I attended. I enjoyed graduating from high school. I was rather pleased when I graduated from flight school. And I was mostly relieved when I graduated from Purdue. Graduating is the best thing about school! You work hard for years and years and you finally did it! I can't stand the thought of Kaylee graduating yet, because she's six and she's just begun. But some day I'm sure I will be quite proud to watch her receive her diploma too. :)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things NOT To Do When Mom Has A Headache

Done in honor of my poor friend Cat who has had a long day which will hopefully be ending soon, to start fresh tomorrow!

Ten Things NOT To Do When Mom Has A Headache:
(Boy can I relate to this one a little too well, I'm afraid!)

1. Whine.

2. Scream.

3. Cry.

4. Whine.

5. Complain.

6. Argue.

7. Play with anything that requires batteries or electricity. At all.

8. Yell. Speak Loudly. Speak Half Loudly. Speak outside of a considerate whisper.

9. Dump on mom a big project by the way due for school TOMORROW.

10. Did I mention "whine" yet?

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things I Do For Myself

Okay, this was last week's topic, but I missed it, and we don't have a this week's topic being sent out yet, so I'll do this one. One of these weeks I'll catch back up with the group. ;)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things I Do For Myself:

1. Bathe. Okay, that's not for me, that's for those around me. Sorry, I needed something to get me going. But a long hot shower with a lot of water pressure, or a hot tub on a cool night certainly works for me.

2. Read. It's always nice to take a mini (or maxi) break and slip into a good book.

3. Snap photos. Makes me feel good to capture moments, and I like it even better if the picture turns out halfway decently. Why do I feel like I've done this top ten before? Hmmm.

4. Tune Out. Put in my iPod and close my eyes and just relax and unwind, alone, in silence. It recharges my batteries.

5. Travel. It used to be "hop in my car and drive around with tapes for my stereo and snacks". These days it's more often "hop in an airplane and fly around with my iPod plugged in". Something about driving (formerly) or flying (currently), the act itself has been something I enjoy. I guess seeing the world pass by my windshield.

6. Friends. It's nice to be able to connect with people who know you and care about you, with whom you can share problems and excitement, questions and just life in general. It's also always nice to be able to drag somebody else along to help you do stuff you don't want to do but have to. When they come along, it can make a daunting prospect just a little more entertaining. :)

7. Internet. I spend time on the internet for myself. It helps with #6 too, but also because I like looking up stuff, reading things, learning stuff, and yes, talking to friends. Some days I've spent too much time on the internet, other days not enough as I let work get behind. But all in all, it's definitely something I enjoy doing for myself when I can.

8. Ben & Jerry's. Not fond of their politics, but love their ice cream. ;) Any ice cream that has all those chunks and nuts and chocolate and...yum. I'm getting hungry...

9. Be Myself. I dress comfortably, I'm not out to try to impress anybody in looks or anything else, and I always do try to just be honest about who I am. It was hard to do that at first, after all the years of wanting to please everybody all the time and be the perfect 'everything' to every one. But I can't be, nobody can, and I've found that being myself just makes my own life a lot less complicated and stressful. :)

10. Kid Time. Whether it be devotions with Kaylee, or snuggling for a few minutes, or sitting and just talking about whatever is on her mind-she's a sweet, smart girl, and she's growing up so fast. I know it won't be long and she won't fit on my lap any more, or want to cuddle early in the morning, or be as open with her feelings. Sometimes we argue, tis true, but many times she just melts my heart. :)

Tuesday's Tribulations & Tuesday Top Ten-Ten Ways To Beat The Heat

Alliteration Rules.

Today hasn't been a great day for anybody. So, I'm going to complain. Just briefly, and then an attitude adjustment will ensue, but for a minute, I'm going to complain. Skip it if you wish. :)

I woke up with a scratchy sore throat and a headache. Just a normal, garden-variety headache this time at least! It took me awhile to get going; I wonder if it is allergies that are getting to me. Anyway. I watched "Premonition". Now if you haven't watched this yet and want to, don't read this next paragraph, because I'm going to 'spoil' it.

Sandra Bullock (whom I like) keeps living a week out of sequence. She has a normal life through Monday morning-but when she wakes up on Monday it's really Thursday, and the police notify her that her husband has been killed in a car accident. She wakes up and it's really the previous Sunday and he's home. Next time she wakes up it's Friday and he's been dead for a day and she finds out a few more facts of his and her life. Back to the next Monday and he's still alive. Saturday is the funeral. Etc. Finally she figures out that he dies on Wednesday. Throughout the movie, you see her living out the days out of order, putting all the pieces together. And here's the kicker. She can't change anything that happens. Her daughter still goes through a plate glass door and cuts her face. She still gets institutionalized and drugged as a crazy person when she keeps trying to tell people her husband's not dead yet. Etc. And in the end, she's on the phone with him, in a car right behind him, begging him to turn around and get out of the way, when she watches a semi jack-knife and crush him anyway. The movie ends with her pregnant with their third child, conceived the night before he died, and that they were given that miracle. The other thing to make it 'right' was that they got to repair their relationship and reconnect with each other in those 10 minutes before he was killed. Oh, and that he was bothered by her warning so he tripled his life insurance the morning he was killed so his family was taken care of financially. I was more in the mood for the bubble-gum everybody-lives-happily-ever-after ending where she saves him from being killed, but if you're in the mood for ha-ha-this-time-they-killed-off-the-guy-anyway, you'd be pleased. I'm not sure being a single parent of three is better than being a single parent of two, but who am I to complain about their semi-happy ending?

Today it's hot. I mean....hot. And muggy. Triple-digit heat index 'hot'. Even brand new car's air conditioning can't keep up with it 'hot'. Kaylee and I ran some computer cords out to Glenndale for Steve, and stopped at Wendy's for lunch on the way out. The airport was stifling hot and empty, so Kaylee and I sat and ate for awhile. Wendy's got my order wrong, giving me a spicy chicken sandwich (which I don't like by the way), after Arby's got my order wrong last night giving me hot ham & cheese (which I also don't like). The last three steaks I ordered medium or medium rare came back well done. So I'm a little tired of not getting food the way I ordered it. Steve was up flying, and when he landed, he walked in and his face was purple from just being hot and sweaty. He's having a worse day than I am, so I'm glad I had a frosty for him to enjoy. ;)

Flew with the new student, "S", in the 172 today. She's walking on water excited about flying, and that's always fun. Even though it was heat-stroke hot outside, she had a great time. I took the Saratoga over to Muncie this evening when it started thinking about cooling down, and Chuck gave me a ride home in the Citabria. The Citabria is one of the 'coolest' airplanes to fly in-you can open the window wide, and the airflow feels GOOD. Nothing else keeps you as cool on a hot day-except the air conditioned Seneca, which is no more. *sniff*

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Ways To Beat The Heat

1. Don't Fly in Small Airplanes. They are little glass-enclosed heat machines. Sauna rooms. Sweat shops. Stink factories. I think you get the drift.

2. Don't Leave Your House. My house is set up just perfectly with shades pulled and air temp set right where I like it.

3. Ice Cold Beverages. Water is best, but don't ask me if I'm drinking it, or enough of it. An ice cold Diet Coke or Diet Mt. Dew hits the spot many times too. Iced tea. A Wendy's Frosty. If it's cold, it's a terrific way to beat the heat.

4. Ice Cream and Popsicles. Creamy, cold, and tasty. In fact, I wish I had some in the house, because I've just made myself hungry for it.

5. Don't exercise. You know, I've been looking for an excuse to not exercise for many years now, and I finally have one! It's too hot-it's NOT good for me to exercise in this heat. Big girls like me who exercise in heat like this are asking to stroke out.

6. Put ice packs or frozen water bottles in your shorts/shirt. An actual trick for folks wearing flight suits. It's unbelievably hot in say the Mustang, so the suggestion comes from Chuck/Nathan. You may come out wet when everything melts under your clothes, but it provides at least a measure of coolness. I'd hate to walk around with that in my pants in public, but if I get desperate enough...

7. Hit the water. Whether it's a wading pool, a sprinkler, a beach, or the public pool, water somehow makes it a little more bearable. Kaylee loves to put on a swimsuit and run in the water in the back yard. I'm sure our water bill doesn't appreciate it, but hey, you're only a kid during the summertime once.

8. Light Cotton. No nylon. No polyester. Just cotton, and light cotton at that. Absorbent for sweat, keeps you cool, and sticks to me much less than anything else. *Definitely* no silk, which sticks to me like plastic wrap. No dark colors, no heavy materials.

9. Hit the Movies! They always keep those places freezing cold. It's dark, it's cool, you can have a nice drink and sit in complete comfort for a couple of hours.

10. You Can't-Just Give Up. It's 105 degrees Fahrenheit with the heat index. It's miserable, it's horrible, and unless you curl up in your underwear on your living room floor with the air cranked up to its max and an ice pack on your head, you can't beat the heat. Quit while you're behind and wait for Fall like the rest of us!

Top Ten: Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Back Then

I just realized we haven't had a Tuesday Top Ten for a couple of weeks, so I'll make one up; Thursday Top Ten this week. :)

As I've gotten "older", I've seen "younger" kids doing or thinking things that I just KNOW they'll come to either regret or wish they'd believed. So I started thinking about things that either I was told and didn't believe, or things that I wish I could go back in time and tell myself...knowing full well I probably still wouldn't listen.

Top Ten Things I Wish I'd Known

1. This Too Shall Pass. When you're a kid, even a teenager, it's impossible to visualize life "later". Your classmates are your entire world, every day, 8 hours a day, five days a week, 18 years. Your place in that world is the be all and end all of your existence, the definition of you as a human being, which is really unfortunate if you happen to be at the bottom of the food chain. I vividly remember feeling...hopeless, just trying to get through the next day without being noticed or bothered, usually unsuccessfully, never really believing it would ever be any better. I wish I could go back and tell myself that some day, these years would be a joke, and that This Too Shall Pass.

2. You Teach People How To Treat You. Thank you, Dr. Phil. To put a finer point on it, people will treat you how they treat you; whether or not you accept their treatment of you dictates all future interactions you will have with them and anyone else. You can be kind, you can be respectful, you can be gentle...and still not accept how someone is speaking to or treating you. I would love to be able to get that lesson across to the girl-even the young woman-that I used to be.

3. Red M&M's Do NOT cause cancer. I ate them anyway while they still made them, so it didn't stop me much, but it did concern me briefly as I snarfed them down. I could have saved myself the morbid worry of what cancer I might get; worry not overcome by the inability to waste chocolate, even at a young age.

4. It's Okay To Be Different. Really, it's not so much okay to be different when you're young. You don't want to stand out, you don't want to be outside of the "pack", because like the wild animal analogy this is, when you're outside the pack, you're unprotected, easy prey, picked off and eaten alive. But man, what a wasteland of humanity that pack usually is. I'd get a perverse pleasure out of going back to several points in my life and telling my young self exactly what happens in the future to the packs and their leaders. Long live difference.

5. Don't Chase. Don't chase friends, don't chase boyfriends. Chasing someone gives them power over you, eats away at who you are and what you believe you are worth. Understand that thanks to basic human nature, once you start trying to latch on to someone, their instinct will probably be to pull away. Rarely does chasing end well, even if someone is eventually 'caught'. The relationship is never balanced or on even footing, and both parties know it. More frequently, the 'chaser' is the butt of jokes, the one people look down on and sneer at, the one people use to do things for them. Have respect enough for yourself to let people go who don't want to be with you. Do Not Chase. Said to the girl who so desperately wanted to be friends with another girl who would only hang out with her when nobody else was around to see. *sigh*

6. Don't Try To Change Who You Are. Again-it does not work, you will not have a real relationship with anyone for whom you are changing. Don't pretend to be what you're not just to get a friend or a guy who wouldn't like you for who you are! If it's not the right match, it's not, and you can't make it be. In fact, it is really freeing to just be yourself. I'd love to get that through a teenager's head. Say a teenager who dated someone who was threatened by her getting better grades than he did, who had a temper tantrum when she bested him at anything, who tried to tell her how to dress and act. Changing who you are just causes you to lose the pieces of yourself that would make you the best person for yourself-and for someone else. How much better is it to have friends with common purposes and a partner with whom you can relax and just be yourself? Trying to be something you are not is exhausting, and unfair to both you and the other people...

7. You Are NOT Fat. Man are people hard on themselves "back then". And probably now. But it's occurred to me that "back then" I thought I was terribly unattractive and overweight. Today I look at pictures of "back then" and think "Wow, I'd love to be that 'fat' today." So in twenty more years am I going to look back on photos of me now and think "Wow, I wish I could look that 'bad' now"? So I'd like to tell "back then", stop your complaining. You had tons of energy, wore a size of clothing I'll probably never see again, a flat stomach, and one chin. You don't know how good you had it, and for the record, you were not fat! Look at all the energy wasted on worrying about it! Just live!

8. Don't Date M. Hey, it's one of the things I wish I'd known back then. Actually, it's one of the things I DID know back then, but chose to ignore. Ironically enough, it wasn't the wiser advice of anyone else I ignored, it was my own instincts and knowledge. You know, most things in life I say "no regrets", because you learn, and what you learn from even mistakes helps shape you. But in this one case, I need to go back and kick myself and figure out a way to convince myself that dating "M" is a very, very, bad plan!

9. You Can't Un-ring A Bell. Consequences for anything seem pretty theoretical to a young person. But you really can't un-ring a bell. Make bad choices and you will have bad consequences. Make good choices and you will have good consequences. Sounds simple enough-but for most young folks, it's not that easy. "Good" kids can make bad choices, and some of those choices can change their lives forever. I actually kind of did know this back then, and I even mostly listened, but it still seems important enough to reiterate.

10. Don't Wear Blue Eye Shadow. Red/brown hair, brown eyes, pink skin and freckles does NOT match with baby blue. Alas, the 80's and early 90's were a time when baby blue eye shadow and Big Hair was The Thing. I have this awful picture of myself, my junior year I think, in a pale blue turtleneck sweater with big bangs (anybody remember Rave Hairspray?) and blue eyeshadow. It is definitely in the top ten worst photographs of me ever. (Oh THERE'S a Top Ten list for you. The Worst of Me. Like me in 7th grade with the glasses and the braces and the no make up and the vampire eye teeth and the left eye bigger than the right eye and the hair a mess even though I'd just combed it. No way...) Anyway, I wish I'd known then how ridiculous I looked in blue eye shadow.

That probably doesn't conclude what I wish I'd known back then, but it's certainly a decent start. ;)

Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Things I'd Do If I Won The Lottery

"We all like to daydream a little, and who hasn't thought a little about this one?: Ten Things I'd Do If I Won the Lottery. New house, new car, new face? Get those creative juices flowing, what would you do with millions of dollars?"

First I'd have to actually play the lottery in order to win, so it's not looking too good, and actually we'd have a plan with living off the interest and keeping the principle invested, setting up a fund towards SMA and keeping it going on interest as well, etc. But aside from that on the more frivolous side, if someone handed me millions of dollars, I'd probably...

Ten Things I'd Do If I Won The Lottery

1. SMA. Well, I'd make sure I was able to do something lasting and large for families dealing with SMA. Maybe I could finally afford to get the handicapped accessible vans that so many people need. Maybe put some towards a diet study, heart study, or a worthy drug trial. Or all the above.

2. Perhaps...consider adding to the family.

3. Land. We'd buy some nice land somewhere and build a home on it. Somewhere out in the country, but close enough to real people that I could get fast internet and find a store open 24 hours a day. Not that I go out at 3 am any more come to think of it, but just in case the urge ever strikes again.

4. Oh the Airplane(s) I could buy. I can't begin to drool over my options here. I'd want something fast and good for family travel, I'd want something big powerful and good for my own thrills, and maybe something small for local pretty evening sunset relaxing flights. Maybe I should have titled this one "Oh the maintenance and fuel I could pay for." *sigh*

5. A bus or RV. It's not like we need one of these. We only use one a time or two per year, but if we had one we could do weekend camp-outs at the airport and tag along a little easier on the airshow circuit camps. I started thinking to myself why I wouldn't get one, and then I remembered: someone handed me millions of dollars.

6. Oh the places I would go. I'd get my passport post haste, and we'd be gone in a flash. I have a lot of countries I want to visit, a lot of things I want to try or do. I want to get that magazine listing all the rich and posh places to visit, and I want to check some of them out. And to freely visit family and friends whenever I wanted. Now that would be nice.

7. Makeover. I'd actually go along with it. A hair, face, clothing and body makeover. Sure, why not? I wouldn't care to be Princess Laura with the perfectly coiffed hair and the always stylish clothing-it's not me. I'll always like the smell of fuel and oil and prefer jeans and t-shirts. But I could use some new duds and my own scary personal trainer for sure. ;)

8. Savings. It's a boring answer, but true. I'd save a lot of it. Retirement, Rainy Day, Kaylee's College; all worthy saving goals. I wouldn't care to just blow it in a big wad of fun, I want it around for years to come, even if it means I can only buy one cool airplane at a time. ;)

9. Whatever I want. Okay, I'm just kidding, mostly. Life doesn't work that way. Next sarcastic answer-"Pay Taxes like crazy". Or "Suddenly find an amazing number of relatives I didn't know I had on my doorstep." No, if I was given millions of dollars, other than SMA, I'd take some of it to have fun with, some of it to save for the future, some of it to take care of family/friends in some ways as I could, and some of it to make a difference in areas where I could. A small church, a small private school, the SMA community, etc.

10. Heaven. By the way, 'heaven' for me would be a cleaning service, a laundry service, and a cooking service. Can you imagine?? Someone to cook healthy but tasty meals every day for my family. Someone to PUT AWAY my laundry, the #1 job I detest. Someone to make it so that when I walk into my house, it smells fresh, sparkles, and I can sit and relax and not worry about picking up, putting away, or scrubbing anything like cat barf off the floor. Oh, I need to stop and dwell on this one for a minute. It gave me as big of a tingle as #4 did. Yep, I need to end on this one. There's nowhere to go from 'heaven' anyway, right!? (Quietly moves this to #10).