Redstone

I took my son to visit with his friends the day after Christmas. I couldn't help myself. I had to stop by my old Redstone home. I pulled up to the gate & I knew the guard by name. I travel on thru & see the familiar sites. I notice the new street sign up at the light. I turn & go down my old street to my old home. There are vehicles in the drive, which makes me think I have company. It still feels like "my home" except I don't live there anymore, and the vehicles parked there have New York plates. I pull into the driveway beside it & visit my old neighbors. I see m neighbors new baby. Funny how I felt so attached to this precious little baby boy just from ggoing thru the pregnancy with my neighbor. He is beautiful. It delighted me like can't tell you to have the neighbors 5 year old little girl come to the dorr when I rang the bell only to look out & her eyes get wide & her open the door & yell, "You're Back!" and give me a hug. It doesn't take long to get attached to such a cute little girl. I was blessed with a great neighbor. I miss her a lot. We used to eat together a lot since both of our husbands were away at the same time. That saved on the cooking.

I have been truly blessed with neighbors. I even have a good one now at my new home. the value of a good neighbor can not be measured.

I am really proud of myself for not crying as I got to Redstone & went around the circle I used to live on, seeing my neighbors. rolling my window down to see if my old neighbor was baking & per chance I could smell it. She wasn't home. But I felt her presence. I did not cry as I left, because I didn't really leave. I took a part of it with me.

Going Home For Christmas

Isn't it funny how where you live is considered home, until Christmas. Then wherever your extended family is is considered home, even if you didn't grow up there.

We will be headed to Alabama for the week to enjoy my extended family & hopefully my friends that can make time for me. I am going to try to cram in as many friends & relatives in my visit as possible. I don't want to miss a thing. One thing that being an Army Wife will teach you, is to never take an opportunity for granted. When you are headed home & you are 12 miles from your parents house, but you are passing the road a long time friend lives on, turn on down it, call them, see if they are home, try to visit. You never know what next year will bring. You may not be coming this way next year. Or, if they too are military, they maybe somewhere else next year. I have been blessed to live in the same place for 16 years of my life & have lifelong friends. Not everyone had that type of childhood or blessing.

The more I get out in the world, the more thankful I am for the extremely close knit street, small town, small K-12 school, & close knit county & community I grew up in. You only know what you live as a child. When you grow up & you see how others around you lived in an entirely different world, it has to sink in that you took for granted all the years of safety & security you felt as a child.

I am also blessed that I have parents I can be proud of. Every day I realize how thankful I am & how much more thankful I should be for parents that cared. Again, as a child you don't think much about your parents. You know them inside & out because you lived with them. But you don't think about how the decisions they made affected your life. I am so thankful I never had to worry about "if" my parents were coming home, or where they were when they weren't home, what they were doing. I had that life that as a kid you think is boring & now as an adult you know it was consistent & the consistency that you counted on was a comfort you needed & had & didn't even know it.

I remember waking up on Christmas morning as a kid & not being able to wait until my parents got out of bed to open presents. No matter how bad the economy got in the 80's, I had presents. Whatever I needed, and much of what I desired, my parents somehow made happen by putting their own wants & needs aside (those of you who are reading that are parents, does that sound familiar?). Boy at the list of things that I have to be thankful for due to my parents.

So you can pin it on Santa if you want, but when I look at the blessings that I have been blessed with LONG before I even knew how to ask for them, I know that they all come from MY Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ, who watched over me & provided for me & held my parents up & held them together to take care of me, his daughter who didn't deserve it, who wasn't worthy, but who He died for anyway.

Every time I pass through on my way home, I have to pass by where I was raised. I have to pass through. I never go through without being reminded of how blessed I really am.

Teen Get Together

Since we moved here in October, we really haven't been able to do a lot with the homeschool group for the immediate area due to Rod working, one car, etc. We had a teen get together here at the house yesterday & it went splendidly. What a blessing.

I had a wonderful evening with my husband, a better evening than we have enjoyed together in a long time. It makes me smile. We got to just lay together on the couch. Last night as we were laying in bed & he was sleeping, I remembered that the year is almost gone. I started thinking back to what I was doing last year at this time. I can't remember what I was doing on this day. But I kow I rang in the New Year at a friends apartment with her & her daughter, while talking on my cell phone with my husband who was in Korea at the time. Rod was at a friends New Years Party. I then picked him up & went home. This year we get to spend Christmas & New Years together. It is going to be so nice.

Still Settling

As most of you know we moved here in October. Since moving we still haven't really settled in. My son had a HUGE group of wonderful kids that were in & out of the house all the time at our last post. I worry about the lack of involvement I find for teenagers. I am going to have to actively seek out things & create things here in my home to draw kids in. We haven't had this issue before since my son & I are both very personable. He is making friends, but I guess since we are new, no one knows us. I on the other hand due to one vehicle, taxi driving back & forth most days, haven't had the chance to properly make friends, but have so far made some wonderful acquaintances. At Christmas, I remember my friends from my old post. I wonder what my neighbor Pam is baking, because I know she is baking. I wonder what my neighbor Heather is cooking. We used to share a lot of meals together. I wish I could have a peek in at all of our homeschool friends at drama class & see what they are working on & I miss my homeschool Mom friends a lot. Of course, away from family at the holidays for the first time leads to my melancholy mood. I am blessed that we are probably going to get to see family for Christmas & I am sure hoping to squeeze in a visit with my friends if they can put me on their schedule. It is so wonderful to know that with true friends, you can go back after not seeing each other & the friendship doesn't end.

The Shearing

Monday night my son decided he wanted his hair cut. He wanted his long hair cut VERY short, with clippers. I made him wait until Tuesday morning incase he changed his mind, but the steel trap had spoken. So I sheared the blond carpet & he is ever so handsome, as always. Just a different look. Yes, all of that hair is from ONE teenage boy. I didn't have a YETI in there that I sheared or anything.

Tuesday, yesterday, I woke up with a headache that followed me thru the day, but I made it. I took my placement test for college & scored very high. I still think I would have done better without the headache. Oh well. It is done now & I should be happy with the scores.

First Aerobics Class

I went to my first Aerobics class this morning after dropping my son at work. My friend didn't get to meet me as we had planned. I now know that was a higher power intervening to save me the shame of being embarassed in front of a friend. I made it through about 45 minutes, but not the whole hour. I had to stop. My son was working at the gym & I didn't want him to have to clean up the bloodshed when my heart exploded. I am going back though. And I have drank enough water to float away.

Learning is a lifelong process. Open your mind & your ears & you will learn something new, at least one thing, each day. Some days, you will learn something more important than others. Here is what I have already learned today: Fat impedes rhythm. Now that I am fat, I have no rhythm. Once I get all my fat going in one direction, in aerobics, we change direction. I know I used to have rhythm, at least white girl rhythm. Now the clumsiness (which made me afraid the whole entire time that I was going to fall flat on my face off the step in aerobics) is something I inherited the moment I conceived Rod, so it has nothing to do with the weight.

Getting to Know You

Ok, I stole this from a friends blog. I liked it!

1. How old are you? I am 34

2. Where are you from & where do you live now? From Section, AL (Proud COrn-Fed Mountain Grown gal!). I live in Southeast, GA.

3. What music have you been digging lately? I like top 40. I am really getting into the new stuff that sounds liek the bubblegum pop we listened to back in the 80's.

4. favorite food(s)? Free food! But seriously, Prime Rib, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, greens.

5. Single, married, divorced? Married for 3 years

6. Kids? If so, how many & how old? 15 year old Rod. Alex, who died when he was 2, but would be 14. Step-daughters Brie 14, and Sierra, 10.

7. What are 3 blogs you read daily? Daily? I don't think I do anything EVERY day.

8. What is your favorite Christmas/Holiday tradition? Going to my Aunt & Uncle's house at night.

9. If you are a blogger, how long have you been blogging? If you don't have one, how long have you been reading blogs? Ha ha! I created my Blog today. I have been reading blogs for about a year.

Alex

Now that I am in GA, there are things I simply cannot do. One of those things is putting flowers on the grave of my son Alex. My friend Stacy was nice enough to do this for me. I just want to say that if you have any friends that have lost a child & you don't know what to say or what to do, this is something you could do. It was something I would have never asked someone to do, but it means the world to me. My friend has a daughter the same age Alex would be. She even took pics so even though I couldn't be there to see in person, I could see and I would know it was taken care of. One of my biggest fears with Alex is that since he only lived to be 2, that he will be forgotten. This helped a lot. Although, I am a Christian, and I do not beleive my son is there, it is my memorial. It is my place to go. And when I go, I like to go alone. I don't feel that anyone except his Father can possibly feel the way I feel because only the two of us lost Alex. Only we were his parents.

So when you think I am cutting up all the time, making funnies, know that my life isn't all giggles. Sometimes I laugh to keep from crying.

Car

My '01 Volkswagen Passat is in need of a Mass Air Flow thingy (yes, thingy is a technical term to be used only by us professionals). My husband has made the car "work" until the parts get in. We ordered them offline & got them WAY cheaper than Auto Zone. Wow @ the difference! Seriously! But now we wait on the parts to arrive. Want to know what he "fixed" the car with? Duct Tape! You laugh, but I am not kidding. If you can't fix it with duct tape, I mean is it not the Redneck fix-all? It is still getting us where we need to go. Pray for us that it keeps til the parts get in!

First Blog of a First Time Blogger

I have wanted my own blog for some time & just didn't take the time to find out what I needed to do to get one. I so enjoy the blogs of my friends.

Intro:

Crystal, age 34

I am married to Lyn. We are a Military family.

I have a son Rod, 15, who I homeschool.

I also have a son Alex, who is in Heaven. Alex died when he was 2 years, 1 month & 1 day old. He would now be 14.

I have two step-daughters, Brie, age 14 and Sierra, age 1o.

We currently live in Georgia.

Please follow as I will be blogging about MUCH more interesting stuff than this!