All I am saying is give peace a chance...

I am sitting peacefully in my backyard at 9am on a Saturday morning. It is the crack of dawn in my house so everyone else is still sleeping.

I love these moments of quiet when I am alone. I should be doing my homework but I felt the need to talk about the peace while it was still surrounding me before anyone else gets up and breaks into my silent world.

Soon the morning quiet will be gone. In a week and a half school will start again and I will go back to driving 40 miles each way to bring daughter #3 to the Long Island High School for the Arts which she attends in the mornings in Syosset.

I have had a really nice summer. I know that sounds odd considering I did absolutely nothing this summer except work and eat. No trips to exotic places, not even a trip to a not so exotic place like Virginia or Washington DC which we normally do.

It was just like Groundhog Day, did you ever see that movie where the same thing happens everyday?? The point of the movie was that he needed to learn to fix his mistakes before the day would finally end. Everyday he woke up to the same day with the possibility of learning something important and he couldnt have a new day until he figured it all out.

That is how this summer was. Calm, no drama, same thing everyday and for me, in my life where drama has been a four letter word for years, it was perfect. I learned something new everyday.

I work at a place that I love, with very special people. Like Ms. Abracadabra, Skim McNibble and of course Ellen. Ellen is my favorite though. She is much more "real" than the others. Of course these arent their real names. I have changed their names to protect the innocent. I talk to Mike on the phone a lot, although he is like Charlie from Charlies Angels, I have never actually seen him. He just calls with instructions and we begin our mission.

We have in depth conversations about things that really matter. Some of them there though are so quiet and "stuffed". You know? We spend a lot of our day fielding problems about things that dont quite measure up (sometimes things dont but come up to ma knees), or missing items that are always there, the customers just lie and say they arent. We have had so many of these, we had to post names of the liars on a "Wall", similar to a facebook wall only bigger. Sometimes we deal with bigger issues, like when large "cats" maul our clients babies. They call and leave pathetic messages. It is hard to deal with but somehow we make it through without too much emotion.

We laugh and cry, and laugh until we cry. We cry for real though, like this week when our kids are leaving for college. It is a new chapter for some of us, while others just sit there and be still, hiding behind their little cubicles we call "buckets".

I learned a lot this summer though and that is why my ground hog days are starting to change. I am allowed to move on.

I learned that I can use a table saw without cutting off any fingers. One person missing fingers in this house is enough. I learned that I can grout a bathroom and that although I thought it could be done in just 1 hour it really did take 3. I learned that if you offer daughter #4 a slurpee she will do just about anything. And if you offer her unlimited slurpees she will eventually get sick and not do anything. I learned that although I always believed I was a good mother (actually I thought I was a great mother) some of my kids dont have that same opinion of me and maybe no one ever understands how much a mother sacrifices for her kids until you become a mother yourself. Maybe not even then. I learned how to make fried rice. Although I havent been able to make it the same way twice. I learned that hubby will do anything to win a contest. Actually I have always known this. It isnt new.

I learned that boring has such an appeal to me now and excitement is reserved for younger, skinnier people. Excitement for me is when the end of the day comes and no one has collapsed catastrophically.


Well the peace has been broken. The phone has rang three times and daughters 3 and 4 are awake. The day has just begun and I have already learned that if you answer the 800 numbers that call, they arent all creditors looking for money. Some of them are just looking to sell you stuff.

So I guess tomorrow will be a new day with more things to learn and another day closer to the busy September life style we lead. Sports and music lessons and work and dieting.

But that is what life is, isnt it? A collection of experiences and moments and even when they arent all pleasant they all have a purpose and we should try to learn something from every one of them. Maybe tomorrow I should get up a little earlier to have more time to find out what I need to learn.

maybe not.