summer blahs

Why is it I have the house all to myself, have all kinds of things I can be doing and I've been sitting here on the couch, with laptop on my lap & watching cheesy reality tv all day? I've gotten up and done a quick pick up here and there...but I could have done so much more today. Why do I feel so guilty for not being busy and active every moment?

Random Summer pics 2009

Taylor is a SENIOR! Class of 2010....

JOne of the Larsen's favorite activities when they come South!

Cousins Taylor & Derek

Izzy seems to be comfortable...she is not your typical dog!

District 5 2009 Season and Tournament Champs~Go Seminoles!!

Megan and Danielle hanging out while visiting.

Facebook...a new addiction

Ok, so I said I was back and haven't been. I have a new addiction and it is taking up WAY too much of my time...Facebook. I can't help it, really I can't. I have connected with nearly 100 people I went to school with and haven't talked with since 1983-84 (yes, I'm telling my age...but you didn't know I was only 10 when I graduated...right!) It has been so much fun catching up with those people that back in HS you thought would be by your side for life. Well,things happen, you have falling outs, go off to college or move away and just loose contact. Facebook has brought most of us back together and I am so thankful for it. Taylor can't understand my obssesion with it, then I remind her of how much time she spends on her MySpace and her cell. We talked about how a lot of these people and I had a friendship like her, Samantha, Haley and Becca. She couldn't comprehend the idea of not talking to the 3 of them for 20 years...."I just won't let that happen!!" I told her I hope not, but Rhonda, Linda, Sheila, and I didn't think that either....but it did. But thanks to Facebook 3 of us 4 have connected back and I can't wait to see them at our 25th (can you believe that...25th!!) class reunion this summer, if not soon.

I'm back!!

An Old timey school bus @ the Biltmore House, NC. Our 5th grade
field trip to the Biltmore House in Dec.

Four cousins hanging out at Kid's Planet on Thanksgiving Day.

Yes, that's our youth at Family Fun Day at Christian Heritage

Church Nov. 1. Brittany, Taylor & Samantha.

Megan making to the top on the rock wall on Family Fun Day.

Just another day in Taylor's life (yes, it's a wig!)

Well, it's FINALLLY Christmas break so I can catch back up on my blog. It has been a crazy last 2 months...busy one too. I'm just going to post some pictures from the past few weeks and blog more later today. Enjoy...

Coach of the Year??

OK, I've been stewing about this all weekend and still do not know what to do. Let me give you some back ground before I let you know what I was told on Friday evening. Taylor; my oldest, has alway lived for softball. In our District 5 Softbal leagues she was always the one who was drafted first, looked up to by the younger girls, and made the All Star Team every year she tried out. She ate, slept and lived softball. In the 8th and 9th grade she played on the high school team, then last year she decided she would try something different and go out for the drama team. This meant she wouldn't be able to do conditioning for softball during the fall 2 days a week (which is not a requirement for trying out/playing on the team...so the coach says). Taylor's drama teacher told her she would work around her softball schedule and even schedule the play when there wouldn't be a game!! Taylor had even called the coach and talked to her about this decision and she told her she couldn't do both and needed to make a decision, she couldn't have it both ways....even though there was a girl who was allowed to run on the track tream AND play on the softball team. Taylor was so dishearted that she didn't even go out for the team. During the summer while playing on her summer team she rememebred how much she missed it and made the decision she would go back out for the Byrnes HS team. Well, conditioning started and Taylor decided that since she was working out with me at Curves she would continue to do that and get some math tutoring afterschool instead of going to conditioning. Then after a few weeks she went to the coach, who is also her homeroom teacher, about starting to come to conditioning. OK...I know it's been a long read and I appreciate you reading this far. This brings us up to last Friday. Taylor comes home and tells me about her talk with coach and she told me she went to talk to her about conditioning and the coach's reply was..."Well Taylor, you didn't play on the team last year and barely made the team the year before maybe you just shouldn't come out this year." And this person has been named Coach of the Year in our state? This person has just put a sword through my daughter's heart!! I told her if that was me it would just be more incentive for me to work my butt off and come out and throw it in her face that I could do it! Of course, she is not me and she is defeated and probably won't play for Byrnes her Jr. or Sr. year. I told Taylor I would go talk to her and the Athletic Dir., but she won't have any of it. OK, I've vented and feel a LITTLE better. What is a parent to do when your baby is just crushed like that???

A Letter to Myself in 1984

Fairview Park High School
Fairview Park, Ohio

Dear Me in 1984,
First of all, Honey, we need to talk about the eye make-up. If God intended you to have electric blue eyelashes, He would've made you Smurfette.

Second of all, you're not fat. Look in the mirror and memorize what 115 pounds looks like, because you will never, NEVER see it again. The little babies you will someday house in that flat belly of yours will stretch it out to inhuman porportions. And you know what? You will think it's beautiful.

You seem to be awfully preoccupied with the wrong kind of boy. Right now, the ability to block a 40-yard touchdown pass seems like a very important trait in the opposite gender. It's not. But I also know that, deep in your heart, you're wondering if there's more out there than jocks in letter jackets. You're wondering if you'll ever find someone to understand that deep part of your soul you haven't shown to anyone in your little hometown. You'll find him. He'll knock your socks off. He'll challenge you until your head spins, all while loving you just the way you are--and you will never be the same. (Trust me when I tell you you're getting a much better deal.)

You don't understand yet what a treasure your family is. You love them, and you depend on them, but you haven't yet learned how much of the world lives without the kind of support and love that surrounds you. Thank them for the sacrifices they make for you, and spend a little more time listening to them. And you know that little brother who bugs you endlessly? Someday he won't be there to bug you. Go easy on him.

You're spending a lot of time wondering if this faith of your parents is worth claiming as your own. That's okay. Don't be afraid to ask the hard questions. If God is who He says He is, He can withstand the doubts of a teenage girl. Know that the day will come when He'll be more real to you than anything you've ever known. Until that day comes, stop agonizing over your inability to truly believe. He's working in your heart, and He'll accomplish His work--in His timing.

One last thing. Your life isn't going to work out quite the way you think it will, as you sit there scribbling away in your 12th-grade English Lit. notebook, dreaming big dreams. You have very grand hopes of changing the world, and the good news is that you will accomplish this--though not in the way you're dreaming right now. You'll change the sheets of a little girl who has gotten sick in the night, and you'll make sure she feels safe and warm in a way no one else can. You'll stroke the face of your daughter after she has a bad dream and cover her with prayer. You'll share your faith with a second-grade boy in your Sunday School class and watch the light of understanding flip on in his eyes. You'll sit at the kitchen table with a girl whose confidence has been shattered, and you'll build her back up. You'll love a man more completely than you can imagine, and with him you'll build a home where it's easy to laugh and safe to speak your mind. Yes, a tiny corner of the world will be forever changed by what you do more surely than anything you could do in your big city dreams.
And it will take your breath away.

Love, You in 2008

Going to the Dark Side

Well, I knew it would happen one of these days...but already?? Sunday night I had to go and pick up some reading glasses. For someone who has always had near perfect eyesight, it's been kind of difficult to accept the fact that I needed the glasses or grow longer arms!!