Trying

to come up with an even more depressing post, but maybe we'll stray from that mood for a bit.

On Saturday, I took Cole and Laura with Mom and Frank to see The Sound of Music at the Quincy Music Theatre. This was Cole's second, Laura's first. I wasn't sure how Laura would like it and with Laura there's not a whole lot of middle ground. The girl knows what she likes.

Cole had recently seen Cinderella on a school field trip and loved so I wasn't so concerned.

Laura sat in my lap, there were fidgety times. She asked how many more songs there were. I could tell she enjoyed the girls dancing in pretty dresses. Near the end she asked again about how many songs and I asked her if she was ready for it to end and she said no. I wasn't totally convinced about that due to the wiggling on my lap.

Afterwards I was able to introduce her to the star of the show (who she later told me was her favorite character) Maria, b/c it was Jessica Applegate who I knew from old 5th ward stomping days. I gotta tell you I felt like the heroine to be able to do that. Laura was a little star struck.

So on the way home I asked the kids if they liked it and both gave a resounding yes. Laura said she wanted to go back right then and watch it again. It was a three hour show, so I'm really surprised and pleased.

Musicals are a big love of mine. My first musical was at QMT, it was Camelot and I fell head over heels with the experience. I love the plays at QMT cause it's pretty intimate (small) and just kind of nice.

I did make it Broadway a couple of times, seeing Bells are Ringing and Miss Saigon. Miss Saigon was a disappointment, but I changed my tickets from Cats to this so I could hang with the very cute foreign guys I met in the discount ticket line, and I just remembered that that was in the World Trade Center I believe. Anyway, the show was bad and I did catch up with the guys but, luckily, that didn't pan out either, cause I have a westerner now to sweep me off my feet instead of a european.

Back on track. I'm looking forward to taking the kids to many more musicals. There's Peter Pan in the fall.

Cole is in his first non class play at the school. It's Peter Pan. Growing up I never had the opportunity to be in a play where you try out for parts, have after school rehersals and such. I always wanted to be a part of that kind of production and still hope to be (just not at an elementary school so much). So I'm a bit of a stage mom, at home. I press Cole about the rehersals and am more excited about his two line part than he is, but he's pretty excited....living through my kids already. Cole will probably be a director more so than an a performer, he's already given suggestions of the lost boys and pirates fighting down stage while Peter and Captain Hook are battling on stage. I'm not sure if that has been implemented yet.

So we're singing do re mi, my favorite things around here....

and just because...
I'm a bit of a two year old right now about my dadgum cat. I miss him, I want him back and I think I should get what I want because I want it......this statement may be deleted before this post is printed and bound, but for the time being I'm thinking of it as grief therapy.

Tiger

We are not pet people, well Brandon and I are not pet people. The offer came from people we loved, The Moultons, to take their cat that they didn't want to take across country. The people in our house we loved (Cole and Laura) really wanted a pet. With promises of mole deliverance to Brandon we welcomed Tiger home. We kept him on our back porch trapped for two weeks to acclimate him and the let him go. He didn't come back and I was so sad, but then one day Brandon comes in and says guess how's back. I was so happy!

We enjoyed him for almost two years. He was the perfect pet for us. He wanted just enough loves. He made good on the moles and would leave them for us as presents on the patio. He would sleep and snuggle with Cole and Cole loved that.

Recently, we began to notice that Tiger wasn't himself, he was turning his nose up to food, losing weight, sitting with us on the couch which he never did. So today I took him to the vet and they basically said he's sick - sick, sick. After weighing our options for Tiger and the vet agreeing, we decided to put him to sleep. I'm from the country there are no decisions about animals. This was so hard, but we knew it was the best decision for Tiger.......

My heart was broken, telling Cole was harder than I thought it would be. He was so so sad. Laura was too in her own way, she wanted Tiger back but was not emotional about it, that's part age, part personality. Hannah was oblivious, Brandon was cool until he told Cole. Cole didn't want to go say goodbye to Tiger at first, but then changed his mind. I'm glad he did. We were able to have a couple of minutes with Tiger and hold him during the go to sleep phase. No one wanted to be there during the final shot. They gave us his body in a box.

Cole wanted him to be near the lemon tree so he could smell the blossoms. We decided on a spot less traveled in the back and put blossoms on top. We had a "funeral" for him where Cole conducted and we sang Did Jesus really live again?, offered a prayer and most of us told of a Tiger memory. We were so proud of Cole, it was so hard for him. Cole wrote on Tiger's coffin (that actually looked like a little coffin). Tiger you were the best cat I will and ever had. Love, Love, Love, Cole. Laura was so sweet and loving to Cole, she wanted so much to help him and would hug him when he cried. She also carried Tiger's box around for us and ended up falling in the hole we dug. Hannah was trying to fill up the hole before it was time and kept wanting to see Tiger. She was so sweet today though, when I was upset after the news she was asking what is wrong with me and she asked if I missed Tiger and I said yes and she said awww we'll get him from the Doctor. So. Sweet.

This was the first of family tragedies for us wherein all of us were effected. I realize Tiger was "just a cat". But I know that there were moments during the day that I was carried by my Heavenly Father, led to people who would help without knowing it. Our family was brought closer together, we were able to teach true principles of the eternities and the Spirit was felt,,,, all over "just a cat". Farewell Tiger, you will be missed!

Music to my ears

So I am an odd duck, most times, not too much of a surprise to many. I have this thing with sounds. Random repeated sounds irritate me easily. I think I get this from my dad along with low circulation to the feet. Anyways, an example is hearing someone typing (I thought it was just Brandon's but then my sister was here and it happened then too). There is not rhyme or reason other than repetition; sometimes things bother me and sometimes they don't. Odd.

Cut to a couple of weeks ago when we had some serious lightning hit close to our house. Come to find out our microwave was a casualty to the lightning. So we went without the microwave for a while, cursing occasionally when we went to get a yummy quickly heated. Yesterday we finally replaced the old horse and how excited I was to find out that you can turn the sound off. No more microwave beeping. Something I didn't even realized bothered me I was elated about. The microwave stops and there's just silence. That silence is music to my ears. I think I'll go nuke something now just for the heck of it.

A Friend

I don't remember meeting my friend Tammy. She was just there as long as I could remember. I assume we met in Kindergarten. I would beg my stepdad to take me to her house. It was full of adventures. She was very brave. Her dad hunted and was raising a small farm so there was killings of chickens, pigs. She lived across from a man made water hole that we would illegally sneak into to swim. She eventually had a pool of her own that we sheepishly went swimming in only our underpants, we were all of 11 or 12 and got caught! She had dark hair and freckles. She had a firey temper, but a smile sweet as anything. We laughed alot, we fought alot, we even dressed alike a couple of times.

In middle school years and early high school we 'fought' over a boy and went our separate ways. In the beginning of our Senior year we mended our hurts and became close again, I was baptized into the church in November of that year. In January of the school season she was diagnosed with lymphoma. I spent the night with her not long after the diagnosis and she told me it wasn't contagious, then we knelt and prayed.

It was scary. We made trips to Shands hospital in Gainesville. Slept in hospital beds together. We were both twigs back then and didn't know it. She loved her nurses at Shands.

Not too many months after her diagnosis she was told the doctors couldn't do anymore. She was terminal. It was really unbelievable. I remember driving back home in tears after finding out. Tammy was still so brave. When I made it to Gainesville she greeted me with a smile.

I remember sitting in her room going through her clothes. She designed her tombstone. And she fought to the end. The doctors said she lived two weeks longer than she should have. She would be in so much pain and still go and do the things she wanted to do.

She died on August 8, 1990, two months after she graduated high school where she walked to get her diploma.

She loved daisies. People were drawn to her. Her nurses from Shands came to her home to visit her.

Not long after she died I moved to Daytona Beach with my dad. I remember having a dream during that time and Tammy was alive and I had something to tell her and I woke up and reached for the phone.

I may have been looking, but while going to college in Daytona all of the girlfriends I made had something about them that reminded of Tammy, freckles, their physique, their personality.

I've had many dreams of Tammy over the years, most of them entail how she died and somehow was brought back to life. I often think about what a good mother and friend she would be today.

Last night I had another dream where I was explaining to someone how Tammy was here and she was sick but they saved her. Tammy needed to do research for a paper and I was telling her we didn't need to go to the library we could look it up on the internet, she thought I was crazy. I must of woken up not long after or however that works.

It took me until I got to the living room to realize that I wouldn't be able to call Tammy and my heart ached. I know she is present at times. I know I will see her again. I appreciate having had her as a friend. And for some reason I felt a need to write it all down....

Cole's Garden

This is Cole's idea of a garden....full of money. He's such a hoot. And it's a game. You have to find the letters for money three times.

Other don't forgets recently...

Laura as I'm strongly encouraging her to clean her things out of the living room.

"You are the worst mother I ever had in the whole wide world!"

Hannah handing me a white crayon..."the batteries are dead."

Hannah often gets names and words confused, She calls my sister Melissa, Carmen, she calls my brother Grandaddy Mike and my dad, Michael. Recently she started calling the tent the temple and the temple keeps the bugs out :). As we're headed camping, we're going to the temple, going to the temple!

A dream come true

and nightmare all at the same time. Friday was the stake father/son camp out. So we girls were going to have a night out as well. We went to chik fil a, Laura and Hannah's favorite. They played and then I decided we would go take Laura shopping for spring clothes. Something I've been meaning to do for a while. I am not a shopper. Most of Laura's clothes throughout her life have been handed down, given, or something I purchase and bring home for her to mostly not like. We did do some school shopping, but it didn't really feel like girlie girl shopping. So I took them to Burlington Coat factory. Laura was in heaven liking a lot of the things and I said we had to pick a few and decide. She liked this dress then that one, this outfit then that one. We were all holding outfits. I realized in the middle of it, it felt like girlie girl shopping.

Laura said, Mom do they have one of those places that you try the clothes on and I said yes and had a glorious picture in my mind of Laura trying on her choices and us all admiring how the outfits looked. Well, I did have a two year old with me. She was doing just fine. She had had a nap earlier so I thought we were good for a while. We enter the dressing room, a little tight but we all had moving space. Hannah had been dragging around this yellow dress that Laura picked out so it was size 5, not 2. Laura starts changing clothes and Hannah then states she wants to try on her dress. I try to explain that it's not her size, to no avail. So we get her clothes off all the while I'm trying to help Laura in and out of her clothes. I look down and Hannah has taken her diaper off, then refuses to put it back on. She is completely naked. I'm trying to let her cool down while helping Laura and she escapes out the dressing room door. My daughter is outside of the dressing room of a department store- stark naked, this is a first for me. I drag her back in and there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, possibly a head spun around. I don't know if she is clausterphobic or temporarily possessed by a demon. I do not have an explanation. We finally got her clothes back on. Laura tried on 2 out of 10 outfits, we considered ourselves lucky to have our heads and went to the checkout with our selections.

We had to wait 15 min on a price check of $2.99 gloves that Laura fell in love with while Laura chased Hannah around the watch stand. Hannah had the cutest little purse that she wanted and would go with her Easter dress so I wanted her to get it but couldn't get her to let go of it to pay for it. We finally get that purchased, go to the van, I get the kids in, Hannah's buckled. I turn go to get in the van and hear something go 'plunk'. I turn around and find the undetachable from Hannah's hands purse laying on the asphalt (it is white). I go back to pick it up and Hannah is smiling from ear to ear. I think she won this battle! I don't wish her life away, but the next two years could go swiftly and I wouldn't mind so much.

Title

So when I started the blog the first name that came into my head was Porter Pickens, not liking that puppy so much now so I'm trying some new ones out to see what really reflects our family. The first is The Porter Point of View, be we'll see. Knowing me it'll keep changing anyway, but it has stayed this name for over a year, hats off to me :)!