Internet, I am going crazy. Seriously, seriously.....crazy. Last night I made a 3 page list of things to do for Eddie's party. Frank and I have a discussion almost every night about some detail of how things are going to run, when we do what, what games to have.....and OMG I am going crazy. See, my problem is this....(what, everyone else has to listen to me! Now you have to, as well.)....I have my photographer (the amazing PHOTOSBYLINDSAY.COM) coming. The party starts at 3, but she is going to come at 2:30 to get some of the detail shots and to do some pictures of Frank, Eddie and me together....most people are driving an hour (thank you family! we love you!!) to get to the party, so I am expecting some lates, so I don't want food out right away. We figure we should start food around 4:00, so people can talk/play a little first (the party is at our local park, so there is a lot to do...I figure most of the kids will be distracted with that first) and then we'll eat. My problem there is that Lindsay is going to leave around 4:30, so if we do food at 4ish, that doesn't leave much time for the cake smash pictures, and those are a must. SOOOOO....I'm thinking that we'll just sing/smash around 3:45. Yeah, so what...Eddie will have a little cake snack before his dinner. I think he'll live.....but I still cannot stop freaking out about it! Like I said before, I really wish I could do things the easy way...but no, I have to make this party a big ordeal. GAH! Silly me. Did I mention that the day of Eddie's party is my birthday? So, yeah, there's that too. I'm going to spend my whole birthday baking, decorating, cleaning, stressing and probably swearing. LOL! However...I am super excited that I get to see all of our family/friends for my own birthday, as well. It's a 2 for 1 deal!
Wow, this post turned into a big rant/rave session. Sorry about that! Oh, I did forget to mention one, tiny detail. Eddie's nap schedule has changed. He now normally goes down for a nap around 2:30-3:00. The time his party starts. Which means I either have to adjust his nap schedule (something I've always just let him figure out) or hope that he changes it on his own the day of the party. So I am either going to have a perfectly timed, perfectly happy, freshly napped baby on my hands....or I am going to have a meltdown city, seriously grouchy, I'm not smiling for anyone little devil baby on my hands. FUN!! Let's try not to think of that, shall we? We'll be positive and think that everything is going to run smoothly, Eddie will nap and wake up just in time and no one will think I am crazy for doing his cake before everyone eats....oh, and while we're thinking positively? I'm going to wish that the shelter/party area will be decorated to the nines, I will have no troubles the day of and that I will get an awesome birthday gift from Frankie. (coughcoughCAMERAcoughcough).
-maggie
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Live your life, love your life.
Jen's obituary was printed today. Among her many accomplishments (climbing Mt. Fuji, fundraisers, etc) were some beautifully written words: 'Jen left us early and had no regrets', 'She did not like dark funerals, so please wear your favorite clothing.' and finally....
JEN WOULD ASK THAT YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE, AND LOVE YOUR LIFE.
-maggie
JEN WOULD ASK THAT YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE, AND LOVE YOUR LIFE.
-maggie
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
RR Crossing
Sunday we went to the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois for the Vintage Transport Extravaganza!!! Now, let me preface this by saying that we've gotten used to country living being a bit...well...half assed. Most museums and what not are small and not all that impressive, and an extravaganza out here is a garage sale in the city.....HOWEVER...the Illinois Railway Museum is not only AWESOME, but we would go there again, soon!! It was so much fun - there were old trains that you could walk through (scary if you're claustrophobic like me), tons on display and even ones that you could ride!! I know, I know...I sound quite dorky. But really, it was super fun.
{Eddie and Daddy on a little caboose thing}
{Handsome in his conductor hat!}
{Eddie and Daddy, watching the conductor}
{hehee, we locked daddy out!}
{End of the line! No, for real...it ends into the bushes!}
{Eddie and Nanna}
{Handing our tickets to the conductor}
{We had to pull over so the Nebraska Zephyr could pass! So neat}
{Daddy and Eddie in front of the HUGE train!}
{Check out the AWESOME fabric in the old train! So neat}
This really was a cool place. Frank and I plan to go back again so we can check out more trains and ride the Zephyr, since Frank really wanted to do that. The Vintage Transport Extravaganza (!!!!) was pretty cool, lots of old vintage trucks and cars that were all very pretty. Eddie even got to drive the firetruck on the way out, which made him quite happy :) So, blog readers....take a trip to the cornfields and enjoy some old fashioned fun with the trains. Thomas the Tank Engine will be there the next two weekends (a full size, real Thomas!!! So cool.), for any Thomas lovers out there.
The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy around these parts - we have something to do every weekend for the rest of August! It will be exhausting, but so much fun. All of the other excitement has me going a little crazy for prepping for Eddie's ROOKIE OF THE YEAR party (aka, his first birthday party) and I've made list after list after list to try and organize myself. One year, I will learn to take parties easy, but until then - his party is going to be HUGE!! (I'm planning next year already...lol!)
-maggie
{Eddie and Daddy on a little caboose thing}
{Handsome in his conductor hat!}
{Eddie and Grandpa, riding the 100 year old train!}
{Eddie and Daddy, watching the conductor}
{hehee, we locked daddy out!}
{End of the line! No, for real...it ends into the bushes!}
{Eddie and Nanna}
{Handing our tickets to the conductor}
{We had to pull over so the Nebraska Zephyr could pass! So neat}
{Daddy and Eddie in front of the HUGE train!}
{Check out the AWESOME fabric in the old train! So neat}
This really was a cool place. Frank and I plan to go back again so we can check out more trains and ride the Zephyr, since Frank really wanted to do that. The Vintage Transport Extravaganza (!!!!) was pretty cool, lots of old vintage trucks and cars that were all very pretty. Eddie even got to drive the firetruck on the way out, which made him quite happy :) So, blog readers....take a trip to the cornfields and enjoy some old fashioned fun with the trains. Thomas the Tank Engine will be there the next two weekends (a full size, real Thomas!!! So cool.), for any Thomas lovers out there.
The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy around these parts - we have something to do every weekend for the rest of August! It will be exhausting, but so much fun. All of the other excitement has me going a little crazy for prepping for Eddie's ROOKIE OF THE YEAR party (aka, his first birthday party) and I've made list after list after list to try and organize myself. One year, I will learn to take parties easy, but until then - his party is going to be HUGE!! (I'm planning next year already...lol!)
-maggie
Monday, August 3, 2009
Eddie wanted to introduce you....
To his best buddy!!
Noo...You're MY best buddy!
Aren't we the cutest?
And we just crack eachother up!Ethan and Eddie, best buddies. I'll miss Ethan when he moves to Germany, but my mommy and daddy and I are thankful that he'll get to be with his daddy when they move. Until then, I think we should start Friday night play dates again...Ethan is one cool guy!
-Eddie
(Ethan's awesome Daddy, Jesse is in the Army. They are being stationed in Germany this October and we're going to miss them terribly. Jesse is working super hard for his family and we can't wait to have him back in the neighborhood for a bit before he ships out! - maggie)
Thank you.
(before I write my original post of the day, I wanted to address my below post. When I signed on to write a thank you to the various family and friends that have contacted me over the last couple of days, the last thing that I expected to find was a large, full color and animated ad for condoms. If I ever see that again, the ads will be removed. NOT OKAY AT ALL.)
Anyway.....
I wanted to send a quick thank you to all of the family and friends who have emailed/texted/called/messaged me about the accident and Jen. What I have been experiencing for the last couple of days in nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. Friday night, I had so much....something....energy? adrenaline? shock?....that I stayed up until 1:00am. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat and I just walked around in circles. Around and around and around my house. I didn't think that Jen was going to die. I thought she would have some serious injuries, but I thought that she would LIVE. I went to sleep and dreamt about her, except that there were different people I knew lying in the road, not Jen. Saturday I pulled up the newspaper article, read the comments and commented myself. Our newspaper never did a follow up story, so I was depending on the comments for an update....and then I got it. One of Jen's uncles went on and thanked me for being with Jen in her last moments. I was shocked. I bawled my eyes out, threw up and cried some more. I didn't understand. She was wearing a helmet. She shouldn't have died. In the days that followed, I began receiving emails from friends and relatives of Jen. Each would include a thank you for being with her, a note about how shocking this all was and a story about Jen. She just got back from Japan. She lost a sister to Leukemia and her dad recently died from cancer. She was a vegetarian. Each story would rip open the wound again, and I would picture her laying in the road. Her eyes - the only thing that I saw of her face since her helmet covered the rest. One family member sent me a picture and I recognized her immediately. Its funny, Friday night I went home imagining taking my dogs to the vet for their check up and running into her. I would tell her who I was and give her a hug, just happy to know that she was safe and sound. But she's not.
Life is a precious and fragile thing. It can be taken from you or you can be taken from it, in an instance. This has been engraved into my every thought every hour, minute and second. As much as my family and friends have been there to listen to me recount every minute, every email, every dream, my husband has been there holding me while I do so. This man that I married is the most amazing person that I know. Saturday, as I sat bawling on the bathroom floor he brought me water. He hugged me, brought me tissues and was in disbelief as well. Then suddenly, it hit me that life was precious. I needed to be thankful. I was half watching the Nanny and half spacing out when there was the funniest scene on the Nanny in the whole world. It was right before Mr. Schefield and Fran hook up, and there is all of the sexual tension and they play ping pong - and all of the sudden they are moaning and groaning and thrusting against the ball and the table and Frank and I are just sitting there, in awe that this is actually happening. And then the ball hits Fran in the chest and she collapses out of breath and sweating. And Frank and I are all "WHAAAAA? THE NANNY??? WHO KNEW!" and that helped to get me laughing. And for the rest of the night we would just look at each other, laugh and go "THE NANNY?? REALLY???" because it was just that funny. Then we played baseball in the house, because we could, and it was the most fun I've had in a long time. I cried myself to sleep that night, with Frank holding me tight, and dreamt of Jen lying in the road, of her eyes, and how scared she was.
I'm trying to shake it. I'm trying my best and although I cry off and on when I read an email or tell the story again, I'm getting there. Sometimes I feel a little silly that I'm crying over someone I knew for only a couple of minutes....but in the couple of minutes that I knew Jen, and the stories that I hear about her now, I feel for her. I feel for this family, and I feel for anyone that is going through the heartache of her death. I wasn't going to post anymore about Jen or the accident, but then I realized that this is MY BLOG. I can write about what I want....and while I am going to post later about our awesome trip on Sunday and my plans on continuing to make the most of my life (and my family's), I need to get this out. The last couple days have changed my outlook on life tremendously, and that will be reflected in this blog. It is now reflective of everything that I do and everything that I am. My next post will be a happy one, I promise. Until then, THANK YOU to everyone that has been there for me.
-maggie
Anyway.....
I wanted to send a quick thank you to all of the family and friends who have emailed/texted/called/messaged me about the accident and Jen. What I have been experiencing for the last couple of days in nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. Friday night, I had so much....something....energy? adrenaline? shock?....that I stayed up until 1:00am. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat and I just walked around in circles. Around and around and around my house. I didn't think that Jen was going to die. I thought she would have some serious injuries, but I thought that she would LIVE. I went to sleep and dreamt about her, except that there were different people I knew lying in the road, not Jen. Saturday I pulled up the newspaper article, read the comments and commented myself. Our newspaper never did a follow up story, so I was depending on the comments for an update....and then I got it. One of Jen's uncles went on and thanked me for being with Jen in her last moments. I was shocked. I bawled my eyes out, threw up and cried some more. I didn't understand. She was wearing a helmet. She shouldn't have died. In the days that followed, I began receiving emails from friends and relatives of Jen. Each would include a thank you for being with her, a note about how shocking this all was and a story about Jen. She just got back from Japan. She lost a sister to Leukemia and her dad recently died from cancer. She was a vegetarian. Each story would rip open the wound again, and I would picture her laying in the road. Her eyes - the only thing that I saw of her face since her helmet covered the rest. One family member sent me a picture and I recognized her immediately. Its funny, Friday night I went home imagining taking my dogs to the vet for their check up and running into her. I would tell her who I was and give her a hug, just happy to know that she was safe and sound. But she's not.
Life is a precious and fragile thing. It can be taken from you or you can be taken from it, in an instance. This has been engraved into my every thought every hour, minute and second. As much as my family and friends have been there to listen to me recount every minute, every email, every dream, my husband has been there holding me while I do so. This man that I married is the most amazing person that I know. Saturday, as I sat bawling on the bathroom floor he brought me water. He hugged me, brought me tissues and was in disbelief as well. Then suddenly, it hit me that life was precious. I needed to be thankful. I was half watching the Nanny and half spacing out when there was the funniest scene on the Nanny in the whole world. It was right before Mr. Schefield and Fran hook up, and there is all of the sexual tension and they play ping pong - and all of the sudden they are moaning and groaning and thrusting against the ball and the table and Frank and I are just sitting there, in awe that this is actually happening. And then the ball hits Fran in the chest and she collapses out of breath and sweating. And Frank and I are all "WHAAAAA? THE NANNY??? WHO KNEW!" and that helped to get me laughing. And for the rest of the night we would just look at each other, laugh and go "THE NANNY?? REALLY???" because it was just that funny. Then we played baseball in the house, because we could, and it was the most fun I've had in a long time. I cried myself to sleep that night, with Frank holding me tight, and dreamt of Jen lying in the road, of her eyes, and how scared she was.
I'm trying to shake it. I'm trying my best and although I cry off and on when I read an email or tell the story again, I'm getting there. Sometimes I feel a little silly that I'm crying over someone I knew for only a couple of minutes....but in the couple of minutes that I knew Jen, and the stories that I hear about her now, I feel for her. I feel for this family, and I feel for anyone that is going through the heartache of her death. I wasn't going to post anymore about Jen or the accident, but then I realized that this is MY BLOG. I can write about what I want....and while I am going to post later about our awesome trip on Sunday and my plans on continuing to make the most of my life (and my family's), I need to get this out. The last couple days have changed my outlook on life tremendously, and that will be reflected in this blog. It is now reflective of everything that I do and everything that I am. My next post will be a happy one, I promise. Until then, THANK YOU to everyone that has been there for me.
-maggie
DEAR GOOGLE
WHY IS THERE A GIANT "TROJAN" CONDOM AD ON MY SITE???? FULL COLOR? WITH A GIANT DILDO LOOKING THING COVERED IN A SILK SHEET??????
WHAT IN THE WORLD????????????????????
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Shock.
The girl I wrote about last night, Jen, died. I have no idea what happened. I am in total shock that I sat with someone in their last moments. She was 23. I found out from the comments on our local paper's article on the accident. Someone that knew her family thanked me for being with her....I stupidly gave my email address on a public board (the email that is also listed here) for their family to contact me. I feel that I should talk to them, so I just typed it out and hit send. Stupid, yes.....impuslive, yes. Am I regretting it, yes. But I can't delete the comment so I'm just hoping that the spam keeps to a minimum and I can at least talk to her family. If I can do that, it will be worth it.
I am totally struggling with this and trying not to throw up. I am in such shock.
I am totally struggling with this and trying not to throw up. I am in such shock.
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