Author: alicewgold

I would like to state that I am a brunette, but now I am a mix of grey, white, brown, and blonde. I would also like to say that I am 150 pounds, but that would be a boldfaced lie. How about I say I am work in progress because that is the truth? A beautiful work in progress. I love the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard and my greatest hope is that something that I write will lift someone else on their journey.

Snow in Appalachia

My daughter Abigail gets so mad when she has to correct people on the correct pronunciation of The Appalachian Mountains. Out here in the western U.S. everyone seems to think that everyone should say App a Lay shun.

Abigail knows with every fiber of her being that the correct pronunciation is App a La (a like apple) chin. I mean, Hello, everyone knows that! But people out here in Utah don’t know it and they do dare correct her all of the time. She tells them they are ignorant which I think is pretty awesome and kind of ironic. I would discourage her from the fight, but I am proud of her Southern blood and she did live in TN for eight years of her life so I understand it’s kind of her duty.

Check out this picture of a family friend who dressed up with her husband as rednecks. They nailed it with the crashed NASCAR and everything. Man, I miss the south. I especially loved its quirky sides. I miss blogging about it.

In the last twenty-four hours there has been a lot of buzz about how the South is full of a bunch of idiots who can’t navigate the road in bad weather. It really upsets me. Anyone who dares criticize has never had to navigate a shady icy windy holler with ditches on both sides. Trust me, it’s not a fun experience.

If you don’t believe me, go check out this video of a very long traffic pile-up in Atlanta. Count how many truck-trailers were involved and remind yourself that these guys drive all over the United States….they know how to navigate in the weather…they just can’t possibly keep their vehicle under control on a road that was covered in ice then piled with snow that will not be salted or plowed…and even if it was, it still may not free it of ice.

Because I have lived in the South, I want to stand by my daughter in defense of the Southerners…sometimes Appalachian Americans are smarter then you babbling Yankees…sometimes you really are the ignorant ones. I know it’s hard to swallow. I’m sure you feel kind of how I felt the first time I tried out one of their fancy rest-stops…total mind-blown.

To be fair though, sometimes Appalachian Americans can be total idiots, just like the rest of us. Here’s a good joke.

Two rednecks were given a special SAT test to meet their admission requirements to the Military Academy. Soon after the test began the first guy turns to the second guy and asks, “Old MacDonald had a what?

The other replies, “He had a farm.”

The first asks, “How do you spell it?”

To which the second replied, “E-I-E-I-O.”

Perhaps, the thing I love about Southerners the most is that they laugh freely at themselves. I sure miss that.

Oh and I have to add this. I also love how Southerners aren’t afraid to trash talk especially when it comes to their abilities in college sports.

bbc

Lessons from the trail: family bikeride

Man, I can’t wait for spring.
The following pictures have a funny story
that you would never guess just by looking at them.
One summer day, the year before last, a mother got really greedy
and decided that her family could ride their bikes
farther then ever before.
She wanted to make it from home to the nearby waterfalls.
It was only 16.5 miles round-trip.
bridal veil
Every family member, but her, complained the whole way.
The mom didn’t understand, she was having the time of her life.
Even the oldest daughter who was used to running all the time seemed to hate every minute.
At mile 6.5, (1.7 shy of their destiny) the mom cut her losses
and finally told everyone they could turn back.
The mother was so disappointed. The father was almost dead.
The kids vowed to never ride again.
But, to this day, all but the mom
are still all heard to brag of that long family ride
a few summers back.
(The mom is still waiting for the family conquer expedition.)
They still ride together as a family often
but never ever more then ten miles at a time.
The mom now sticks to the long distances by herself.
The moral of the story:
Sixteen miles for one person might be a piece of cake,
but just because you are that person
it doesn’t mean that you can automatically
expect your family to be as capable.
The other thing that we learned:
Together time is the best time to make memories,
even if everyone is in physical pain.
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Happy Frozen kind of Friday

Happy Friday y’all.

It is the weirdest thing looking back at old photos.
Especially as a mother who is not just intimate with the toddler face
but also the current one that is so very different and bigger and older.
I find my heart traveling back to meet my baby girl where she was
and then I have to pull it back to the present.

The present consists of oatmeal {still her favorite} for breakfast
along with Frozen video after video.
This is her current favorite.

She just finished her breathing treatments for
her poor asthmatic induced cough that never seems to cease.

Then we are off to her favorite place. PRE-SCHOOL.
{It happens to be one of my favorite places too.}
Instead of getting my physical workout during pre-school today
I am looking forward to an emotional session of marriage counseling.

Then I am taking the kids out to lunch.
I totally bribed them NOT to do the science fair.
Sometimes, I am an unconventional underachieving cool mom like that.
Maybe I will look up a science project I can do at McDonald’s.
{I think we should buy an extra hamburger and let it sit out awhile.

mcd's

Then I will be babysitting and helping my hubby pack for a “frozen” scout camp this weekend.
It’s too bad he doesn’t have a pet reindeer to keep him warm.

I want to be happy.

crazy-old-lady

Last year I read Stephanie Nielsen’s post on “happiness is a choice“.
[As some of you may know Stephanie was in a life-altering plane crash.]

I marvel at how the hardest trials in our lives teach us the most necessary lessons.

Here is a great quote from her memoir  Heaven is Here:
{Go here, for my book review.}

“But even with all that others were willing to offer me, I realized along the way that ultimately nothing they did could make me happy. I felt comforted by family and my faith, but peace was different from happiness. At first I thought stubbornly that the only thing that would make me happy was for my life to look like it did before the accident. But no one could give that to me, and no one else could make me happy. Happiness was my choice, and though it is hard won, I am the only person who can stand in the way of it.”

I wholeheartedly concur that happiness is a choice. I often hear people complain about their lives and I understand that complaining is a tempting choice (one I give into often), but I guess I have learned the hard way that complaining doesn’t accomplish anything. In fact, if anything, complaining does nothing but make everything seem worse.

I concur that happiness is a choice, but I like how Stephanie put it: It is hard won. I don’t think we just say, “O.k. I am going to be happy,” and then we are magically happy. I think that we say, “I am going to choose happiness,” and then we alter our choices to make sure we are happy. It requires a lot of exercise to do this, but I have found that I have become a lot better at happiness as I have matured.

Here are the ways I have changed to become a happier person:

  1. I try no to complain and count my blessings instead.
  2. I take care of myself and no longer feel guilty about it.
  3. I try to live vulnerably.
  4. I have positive self-talk and work every day on loving myself.
  5. I change and set healthy boundaries and  try to live with love in my heart for everyone around me. (This is definitely the most difficult.)

How do you choose happiness? I would love to have more happy tools in my arsenal.

Oh and I love this song from the broadway show No, No, Nanette.

 

But it sure was a bummer when I figured out that the song was full of one really big lie.
We can absolutely be happy even when other people aren’t.
In fact maybe that’s the most important time to choose it for ourselves, when others around us are always miserable because misery loves company and who wants to be the miserable company.

Mozzarella Bites

Don’t you hate it when a friend on facebook shares a recipe
and there is no way for you to pin it for future reference?
I do.
I think that this atrocity justifies copying
it word for word (along with the picture)
and throwing it up on the blog. (Don’t sue me, I made a few changes)

mozzerrella sticks

Mozzarella Bites

  1. String cheese {chop into bite size pieces}
  2. Dip in milk and bread crumbs
  3. Bake at 425 for 8-10 minutes
  4. Serve with marinara sauce

Yummy, healthy, snack that is totally kid-friendly.

For My Sugar Daddy


I am tempted to just write the lyrics:
 
I’m your lady.
You are my man.
Whenever you reach
for me,
I’ll do all that I can.
 
But that would just be cheezy.

And we know you only call me lady when you are rebuking me.
 
But I am your lady.
And you are my man.
And whenever you reach for me,
I have done all that I can.
 
It was the times that you didn’t reach for me that were painful.
Because I couldn’t do anything to help.
 
Here are some old photos from that fun date-night at The Velour
when we went to see The Hinckley Brothers.
Doesn’t that seem like years ago?
Oh yeah, because it was.
 
I am catching up on all my old blog drafts and when I found this one this morning it made me smile.

One hundred percent of my best memories include you Mr. Gold, I hope you know that.

I can’t wait to make many many more….including the more recent one from last night, when my pants didn’t fit and you hugged me while I cried and told me I was beautiful just the way I am. You are the best.

Sophia’s First Cast

If you haven’t noticed I’ve been working on
importing my posts from my previous blogs to this new space.
The OCD in me can’t stand having all of our family stories all over the web.
I’m really happy with the result, although I have a lot of formatting to do.
{Notice the pages above where I will be categorizing the old posts.}
One of the great discoveries in this process today are some drafts that I never published.
I plan to publish them a little at a time.
Today we start with our family’s first broken arm.
It happened to Sophia at gymnastics in 2012.
It was pretty traumatizing, especially since shortly after breaking it,
I told her to do another cartwheel to make sure it was really hurt. I’ll never live that down.
Upon finding these photos this morning, my nose was instantly assaulted
with the smell from under this cast the day we had it removed.
If I had to tell you what it smelled like after six weeks I would say:
a mixture of Shrek, rotten corpse, and bad broccoli.
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Lucky for Sophia, the second time she broke an arm it was the other one.
Lucky for our pocketbooks and sinus passages, it fell off by itself.

A Pause in Parenting {A Poem}

My four beautiful  girls were all huddled around the computer desk a few days ago and were pointing, giggling, and talking as I cooked dinner. They were all so happy that I broke away from food preparation to investigate. (I’m always looking for new ways to make them happy – especially for when they spend time together) Upon inspection of the screen of my laptop, I was surprised to see them looking through my old blog. As they looked through all the old posts with stories and photos, they shared memories and debated names of former stuffed animals.

I was sucked in as easily as they had been. I knew in  my heart Abigail was just making a really good attempt at procrastinating her homework, but I let it slide. We all ooo’ed and awe’d at how cute everyone’s younger and littler selves were and shared our opinions on silly things. “Sophia, you always look better with shorter hair.” “That was so fun when we dressed as Rapunzel.” “I wish Caroline could have kept her curls.”

Bella remembered out loud, “That time Caroline threw up in my mouth was so gross.” Abigail found the photo of her first crush in 5th grade and we discussed her continued respect for  boys with brains. Sophia questioned me as to why I let her hair grow so long and scraggly. There were so many happy memories. Even the bad experiences have become happy over time.

It was a beautiful moment that I won’t forget. I felt so close with  my girls. I felt so lucky to be their mom. I was so grateful for so many wonderful memories. I was so astounded that they have grown up so quickly. I wanted time to freeze.

I was so glad that I blogged. My mom pride swelled as I realized that my little hobby had preserved so much for us to share. The girls lamented, “Mom, you used to have the best blog, and now you are so boring. You just blog about your problems.” Out of the mouths of babes. I chuckled as I reminded them that they used to often be mad at me for blogging about them and sharing all their secrets, but was privately happy that they were not just giving me permission to blog about them, but were practically begging for it.

I look forward to sharing more kid stories although I think it is more difficult to find such entertaining material as they age. It will be a fun challenge.

This morning however as I searched my heart and photo folder on my hard-drive for a more recent story or two, I just couldn’t help but feel heavy-hearted with the fact that my little girls are so grown-up.

A Pause in Parenting

They will grow so fast, they would say:
Try to enjoy every day.
I skeptically disagreed.
The dirty diapers will never stop
and neither will the million scraped knees.

I dragged along trying my best
not to totally screw up their joy.
I felt like a failure most of the time
and lamented my previous care-free me.

Ran around like a chicken I did.
Please don’t cut off my head.
Dragged them to and from every magical place
While I often wished for just a moment of peace.

It was in the car and school and church
and yard and kitchen and parks
that each little memory was made.
I didn’t believe I would ever miss it:
the toil and sweat was pain.

I stole a smile here and a smirk from them there
and a billion laughs and songs and sighs,
I often just cursed all the work it required
and didn’t stop to see the end
that would come quicker than a wink of an eye.

Now, I can’t make them stop.
They grow every day.
A millimeter at a time.
I would debate their inevitable progress still
if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

I can’t stop time.
I can’t keep them for mine.
Someday they will fly this coop.
I didn’t enjoy every minute like I was told
but I tried as hard as I could.

They, however, enjoyed a lot more
then I ever had time to see
and I guess that is the way
that God always intended parenting to be.