Thanksgiving 2017 & Rose's 1st birthday party

We had a quiet thanksgiving.  It was just us with mom.  Small, yummy and nice.  

Rosie's 1st bday party.  She had fun but when it came time to eat the cake she got overwhelmed and cried.  I didn't get to go but Eric took video of it.  

Test. Can you see this?

Here's a snippet from a walk I took back in October around the neighborhood.

I've come to realize.

I have cut way down on using facebook.  I look at it very rarely and I only posted like 2 times last year.  I have used it to communicate with the homebrewers guild.  I have done the same with Instagram.  I rarely look at it and haven't posted in a really long time.  I'm happy with that and I don't really miss it.

I enjoy this format so I can use it as a journal.  I don't have a paper journal here so it's nice to be able to journal and show pictures of things that have happened in our lives.  I'm hoping it will be here for my family to read some day.  If not, I enjoy going back and look at days long since passed.

I'm starting to feel a pull of taking a break from youtube.  I'm starting to feel the same way about it as I felt towards facebook.  I'd go to the site watch something I think I'd enjoy but really it's nothing that interesting.  There is some good stuff on there but really few and far between.

I wonder how I would do if I stopped youtube also?  I had started becoming a bit more conscious of my use last year but it fell to the way side.  I get a little sad even thinking about reading more- it makes me tired unless it's something I'm really interested in.  I'm content with just reading at night.

I do find myself needing to "take a break" from whatever I'm doing and look at youtube- even just to see what my subs have posted.

But if I think about it, and others have pointed this out....

I'm not really living whats on the screen.  I'm sitting in an office chair, in an office, in front of a computer.  That's it.

I think I would just get soooooo bored if I didn't watch it.  I've been watching more Netflix- because some how I've decided that's better for me?!?!---- watching actual stories instead of random stuff on youtube.

Like everything else, I think it's fear based.  I would get soooooo bored.  I don't want to get sooooo bored.  I want to avoid that feeling.  I think at work or even at home- I would realize how much time I spend going straight into a screen that it would drive me nuts to have to sit here at work with nothing to do.

There's only so much sorting and cleaning and organizing you can do while at work.  I think it would be pretty easy when the guys are here with me (except when they are in their screens) but alone?  That would suck.

I guess I could do other stuff.  Like journal here.  Journal in a actual notebook.  What else though for someone who isn't talented in a lot of stuff ?  I'm good at walking outside but hello cold weather.  It's funny that I'm complaining about being bored at work.

I could listen to music on Spotify. What I'd like to do is take pictures around town.  Old houses.  I really like old houses.

I like weird stuff- get up and moving stuff.  Adventure stuff.  Which can feel pretty stifled in an office for 9 hours.

And some days I don't want to get up and move.

Maybe I do need to do this just so I can figure out what I do like to do- and figure out something that would be fun in the quiet times in the shop.

Yea.  Yea. Yes I'm going to do this.

I'll at least try.

Wish me luck.  I'll tell you how it goes.

Ashton is now 16! November 25th 2017

This is his attitude towards high school.  

Wrestling with dad did not go as planned. 

So he decides to try to pick his dad up.  With his neck of course. 

Ashton is now 16.  We've been at this age for a few months now and all I can describe it as is....

weird.

He's my boy and I want to take care of him like I always have.  Well, it's a habit to take care of him as I've always have.  It's an age where I'm doing less but observing more.  He didn't ask for anything special for his birthday. His birthday fell on a Saturday this year.  We decided since we had to be open the Saturday after thanksgiving that we would take off on black Friday.  We had a slow morning, went shopping and went to a Chinese buffet for dinner.  He was perfectly happy with this low key day.  He also enjoyed spending most of his actual birthday on the phone with his best friend while playing video games.

I like that my son doesn't expect or need extravagance to have a good time.

He is learning all the skills he's going to need to be an independent young man.  He can cook a few things (thank god for the microwave)  He does his laundry, he cleans, he vacuums, he washes dishes.  He is still too afraid to get his drivers permit.  Personally I'm ok with that for now.  He needs to become a little more comfortable with oven and stove top cooking.  He can do it, but he is still very nervous about it.  He's learning (by force) to save at least some of every dollar that comes into his hands.  I'm hoping it sticks.

He's REALLY into video games.  I mean REAAALLY.  His goal is to get into the coding and gaming classes at James Rumsey Technical school for his junior year.  His hope (and ours as well) is for him to go to DeVry when he graduates high school.  We'll see how all this shakes out.

I feel like he's afraid to be a grown up.  He knows whats coming and he'd rather stay in kid land as long as he can.  I like that he's aware of what's coming but it makes me sad that he's so stressed about it.

I'm so proud of my guy.  Whatever comes, comes.  I'll always be there for him..

Mom loves you woobie!

That time I took Ashton to Frederick County Middle School-

Frederick County Middle School.  It was my middle school.  I went through some pretty awkward teenage stuff there.  First boyfriend.  First kiss.  First broken heart.  There was a lot of good memories also though.  I made the flag corp for marching band.  I tried kiwi fruit in Mrs. Arnold's home economics class and had lots of fun with friends.

But now the building sits empty after having closed down about a year ago.

This school is also pretty important to me because I went to work there when I was 29 years old to be a teachers assistant.  It was pretty fun.  I also was pregnant while I worked there.  I was also there when we heard about the planes knocking down the twin towers in NYC.  

So it's natural that I wanted to take my baby back to the building that we used to stroll around in. I wish I could say that he was super stoked about the tour,

but honestly he just wanted to jump on stuff, slide down bars and basically be a teenager who couldn't care less about our history here.  *sniff*

I loved it though and let the memories wash through my mind like a wave.  

The cafeteria/school dance hall

The parking lot where as we walked to our cars on 9/11 a teacher told me my baby was in the safest spot- my belly. 

The front hall leading to the office, where I used to walk everyday both as a student and a employee. 

The lockers where we used to gather between classes to socialize. 

My first kiss approximately in the middle of the dance floor during an 8th grade dance. 

I'm so glad that I did this because just a few weeks after this I found out the building is going to be sold and likely knocked down to make way for newer more modern buildings.  Rumor has it that Valley Health is interested.  

I'm so glad I got these pictures so I'll always have a way to remember it.  I'd still like to walk through those halls one more time.