Tarnished Texan: brenda's life

Showing posts with label brenda's life. Show all posts

I hate coloring.
I kind of always have, even when I was little, so the idea of adult coloring books is kind of a "really?" thing for me but okay.
#YouDoYou #NotJust4Kids #BreakingTheRules
Two of my 4 adult kids love it! For me, never really my thing though.

I liked the idea of coloring.

I loooooved the 64 count crayon box, which, when I was little,
was the epitome of all coloring boxes.

I even loved looking through the coloring books, picking out the one with the perfect pictures that had the most intricate designs because
the largest open spaces were soooo boring.

Especially when you'd start that big space nice & neat but it kept going on & on so your coloring would get fainter & less precise & then
FAB.U.LOUS!

Now the entire thing looks horrible so why even finish it at all??
[My first signs of perfectionism showing much, Bren?]

So, pick the coloring books with the fanciest designs
please & thank you!

Here's the thing about me & coloring though:
I'd get on the floor with the coffee table as my artistic space, turn on the cartoons & choose my page I've honored be my masterpiece

[you're welcome, you lucky little kitty cat, you]

but within minutes, I'd be bored out of my ever lovin' mind

unless someone was sitting next to me.
#socialbutterfly #jabberjaw #whatever

And for the love, do not point out if I colored outside the lines!
Worse yet, don't tell me that my bird can't be orange
or that a tree can't be blue.
Honnnnneeey, this is my imagination:
it can be whatever I deem it to be.
Whatever I think, I can create.

My Mind = My Rules
thankyouverymuch

Someone once told me that I'd change how I felt about a lot of things as I got older, but since I'll be sliding into 51 here in less than 2 weeks, I think that if that were to happen, I'd have happened by now. Here are the truths I believe:

1. You can only truly control one thing in your life:
your personal credibility, so guard it well
2. Respect is earned:
try not to mess it up but if you do, fess up & apologize.
3. Rules are made to be challenged:
Wear white after Labor Day & for the love, color outside the lines!
4. Well behaved women rarely make history.
5. Betty White will outlive us all.
#GoldenGirlsForever

shirt: Junk Gypsies
kimono: Pixley [Stitch Fix]
jeans: Level99 [Stitch Fix]
shoes: Blowfish
---
furniture: Kincaid

Breaking the Rules

by Brenda Bobo Sanders on 11:03 AM

I hate coloring. I kind of always have, even when I was little, so the idea of adult coloring books is kind of a "really?" thing ...

This week.
It's not been kind.

I hate when I struggle for words since they usually come to me so easily, in fact, usually too easily and I say more than I should. But today, I can't find my words.

I was out of town last week, and Thursday night to Friday morning, I just didn't sleep due to flight plans, and then I had a 3 hour drive back to my house. So from Thursday morning to Friday night, I was awake. By Saturday mid-morning and deep sleep, I started to feel a bit more normal but still kind of dragging. But then Monday happened.

I got that call. The one every parent dreads but it wasn't the worst it could have been.
My 19 year old daughter was sobbing and rambling.
She'd been in an accident.
My heart stopped but at the same time, she was okay -- I could hear her voice so she was okay but she said her head was bleeding. I could tell she was functioning on adrenaline.
She was 2 hours from me, so I went straight into Mom-mode:
What happened?
Where's the car? Is it driveable (would someone need to come with me to handle the car)
Was anyone else with her? Who was at fault for insurance? She hadn't called the police yet -- call the police.

Then someone took the phone from her and told me the information:
The passenger with her was not injured and no other cars were involved. The police and ambulance had been called. The passerby said the rain had made the roads very slick over in those hills. I asked if the car was driveable and she said no, it was totaled.

It was.
Because it had landed upside down.
Thankfully I didn't know that at the time.
Sydney ended up with 9 staples in the crown of her head.
But she walked away.

We are blessed.

Then yesterday happened.
A couple of weeks ago I posted this post about Keiko and her diagnoses with cancer. Tuesday night, her walking suddenly got worse and she couldn't settle down for the night, almost like laying down was too painful. She kept walking and walking and her nails were like static on the hardwood floors. I finally gave her a Xanax to go with her pain killer for the night and she laid down. But we knew. That's when we knew it was time.

I'd told her to tell me in a vibration I could understand when it was time, and by Wednesday morning, her walking was even worse but oddly enough, she kept trying to go into our bedroom. She never goes in there. So I made the call to the vet and then had to wait a couple of hours until our appointment time, feeding her more pain killers and just petting her and sobbing. I posted on a final video asking for prayers and strength and my friends gave us that and more as we said goodbye.

And now here I am today, on Thursday.
This week has taken so much from me.
From us, as a family.
I'm struggling to find my gratitude but I know I have to.
With Sydney, it's easy: my baby came home alive and in REALLY good condition compared to her car. How many parents don't have this kind of fortune?
I KNOW I'm so blessed!
And in a really neat twist, one of my facebook friends is friends with the passerby who stopped and helped Sydney, and Syd was able to thank her on my post!
I mean, how neat is that? What a small world our social media is!

Even with the sadness of Keiko, we had a great dog who gave us crazy funny memories to last us a lifetime. And one day, those memories will make me laugh again instead of sending me into a sobbing mess. But that's not where I am today.

It's moments like this when I want to pull the kids closer and keep them here, safe, but I can't.
It's moments like this that I declare I won't get another dog again and start this process over (we've lost SIX now since moving into this house 10 years ago. Two just last year and Keiko this year. They're all buried in our garden.)
We have two left: Raiden and Casanova.
Casanova is 10 and Raiden is 8 and we knew all of these dogs would be aging together.

I feel like my joy has been depleted and I need it refilled to overflowing to dilute the pains of this week. I know those moments are coming. Little by little, my joy will be refilled.

So when I'm done crying, I'll straighten my crown.
And then I'll start moving again.

Finding Gratitude in the Fog

by Brenda Bobo Sanders on 12:42 PM

This week. It's not been kind. I hate when I struggle for words since they usually come to me so easily, in fact, usually too eas...

Sometimes I don't know what to say

(surprising to hear, I'm sure) and

sometimes I say too much

(not surprising, I know!) but still,

when I knew it was time to start blogging again,

and the idea of revamping this blog with the first post

became THE NOW,

I was a bit struck dumb with What To Post.

I knew the timing was right.

The dynamic in our lives has changed again.

The youngest of the four kids just graduated.

My "stay at home momma" status with school aged children is no longer really a label even if that child is still at home.

Technically, Cooper and Sydney are both still at home, but just last week, Sydney suddenly got a call for her dream job as a church camp counselor at the camp she used to spent a week attending in the summer when she was in high school. She said goodbye to Subway and headed west and the house is quieter with just Rick, Cooper and me in it.

And then today, Cooper was hired for his first job at DQ (just like his big sister, Carly!") And they've hired him for "fulltime". I don't know if that's true fulltime but he starts Monday and he's scheduled for 9-5 so...

That shrinks the sounds of this old house down even more.

So here I am ...

looking for the new definition of me.

Welcome to my midlife crisis.

Turn up the music.

I'm going to dance like no one is watching

but I know they probably are,

and maybe even recording it too,

and we're all laughing -- hard -- because

we're so happy to be alive and

moving in these moments and making

memories together.