Just a minute of my time...

Lake Erie Monsters

Last night we went to the Lake Erie Monsters game with my sister and her family.  My nephew was playing in the band there, so we all went down to hear him play and see the game.

They sure do entertain in between the happenings of the games with showing the people in the stands on the giant screens, dancing music and throwing shirts into the audience.

My brother in law had both Chelsea and Shawn's names listed on the giant screen when they announced birthdays!

They didn't score until after we had left the game, and I guess there were a couple more fights (go figure)?  But needless to say it was a fun family evening!

Once a month

I go to stamp club where we learn new ideas, do a few make and takes and then place an order.  Besides for the things we make at club I rarely use a lot of my supplies, and so this week I decided to start completing some projects and trying some new using the stampin up catalog.

I dug out my  new spring/summer 2009 catalog and went to page 80 and found the top note die cut box and wanted to give it a try.  First I searched Split Coast Stampers to find directions and found easy to follow directions here.  Then I went through my supplies and put together my first top note box.  I think it will work perfect for gift cards for Chelsea's upcoming birthday! 

I love it and have a feeling its going to be one I'm going to duplicate quite often!

I used the stampin up die, stampin up patterned paper and ribbon, making memories die cuts and plain red cardstock.

In last nights stamp class we made these fun projects

It seems like yesterday

as I can remember the tiniest of details, and yet on Monday, February 23 it will be 16 years since we lost Ryan.  Back then I didn't think I'd survive a day and yet here I am.

"Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love.  It can't take away our memories either.  In the end, life is stronger than death."

In memory of Ryan 12/7/87 - 2/23/93

Before and After...

there are things that happen in our lives that will change us forever.  Your life will forever be defined by before and after.  I know this all too well, my life before; having my son Ryan, my life after; losing him.  and so on with the other loses in my life.  they forever changed me, I can look back at pictures and define the time by this was before losing dad or after losing Ryan, etc.  I think when something shocks your life so abruptly you are forever changed...

And so while reading this book Broken Open that my Aunt recommended to me, I came upon a chapter where a father described his life after losing his child in the same scenario,  before and after.  The words brought me to tears as they rang so true with all the emotions that I've carried through these before and after times in my life, and I wanted to share them here.  Maybe you have these same defining moments in your life, or you know someone going through these, it can really open your eyes and change your life.  And so it seemed fitting that in in the month of February, the month where I lost both my son and my father, that I share this with others...

Here are several excepts from the after portion of his story:

the agony of the days that followed shocked me to the core.  I had never dared to dream of such darkness.  i clung to my friends and family as we plummeted into the depths of despair.  The awful pain of having to tell my wife and children of Eric's death will live in my heart for the rest of my days.

the days began and ended with sounds of sorrow.  The time between troubled bouts of sleep was filled with previously unimagined tasks of sadness.  We walked as if in a terrible dream, praying to be awakened from the reality of it all.  In those weeks and months, our minds reeled and recoiled from the horror.

And we awoke, each of us, in our own time.
In hindsight, my life "before" was about quantity and velocity.  Bigger jobs, larger houses, more things... quicker, sooner, now.  I justified my lifestyle as a way to be the best provider I could be for my family.  It came at a price, and yet I paid it.

My delusions of control were destroyed on the day Eric died.  My family fell apart.  None of us knew we had been living life on the surface of a bubble until it popped.

We tried to learn it from the books.  they helped.  But we learned that the lessons of grief, like music or medicine or art or parenting or marriage, must be lived to be fully understood.  And so began our journey through the "awful grace of God"

At one point in history, mankind believed that the world was a flat table, and that those foolhardy enough to venture too near the edge would fall off into a terrible world of fierce sea monsters and destruction upon the rocks.  They were right.  Eric's death pitched us headlong off our daily plane of existence into the darkness to be wrecked upon the rocks.  For weeks and months, we roiled and thrashed in pain, submerged in agnony, not sensing light or knowing what direction to turn.  We fought to hang on to each other.  Lifelines tossed to us from above were not recognized or were purposefully ignored.  Each of us prayed at times to simply drown and be done with it.  Were it not for friends and family  - who flung themelseves into our brokenness, to hold our heads above the water - we may well have drowned in our sorrow.

this place of hopelessness and fear is real.  not a cute little allegory.  some people never leave that place and are broken on the rocks. Some people stop fighting and slip into the depths.  We came to understand that, although we do not have control, we do have a choice.  God or Spirit or creator wants us to go down into the dark waters, but also wants us to come up to the light.  God will not force us to do so.  We are free.  We are made so, and it is our great gift.  We can choose darkness, fear, addiction, and despair.  We can choose light, hope, meaning and joy.

In our sleep, pain, which cannot forget,
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair, against our will
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
--Aeschylus

Focus

I have so many kits and projects which is part of the reason that I chose the word FOCUS for my word this year.  Because I need to focus and start completing projects. From cleaning out the house to cleaning out and completing projects the list seems endless, but it sure feels good when you tackle it!

So on Friday when they were coming to install the television I told Deb to come over since I was going to be home all day and we would work on our Karen Russell 6 X 12 stand up albums 

They went together a lot easier and quicker than we had planned, and I spent the rest of the time adding photos.  I still need to add some journaling strips, but I was thrilled with the amount of pictures this little mini could hold!

So now my next project to tackle???  Besides cleaning out some more things from the house and the class with Trish on Thursday, I will pull out another kit project and get to work!

Busy Sunday

Today we got out early and went to Bob Evan's for breakfast and out to Sam's club for some supplies.  On our way back we came through Medina Square where they are holding the Ice festival.  We decided to park and check things out.  We used to go every year, especially when I worked at Treasured Friends and knew of all the upcoming events in the square.  

When we arrived back home I had less than an hour until I was leaving again and going to a friends house for a party light party with my mom and sister.  It was a nice quiet afternoon out with friends.

Now tonight I still hope to find some energy to get some more cleaning done around this house...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday we did the heart shaped pizza at Papa Johns, so now I'm not sure what we are in for tonight?

We also had the television installed yesterday and I love it!  Well, except for the fact that after it was installed the cable box had a defect, so now the cable company gets to come back Monday to fix that... and Joel still has to drill holes in the back of the cabinet I picked up to put the cable box and Playstation in... then I will get a picture! lol

Today, Valentine's Day is also my brother Joe's birthday.  It's hard to believe he would have been 43 years old today.   And it seems like yesterday that we lost him...

 

Valentine party

Every year our girlfriend Kim hosts a Valentine party at her house for all her girlfriends.  It got to be so big she had to break it into 2 nights.  Last night was our event!  Brenda and Debbie came in from Michigan earlier in the afternoon and we all hung out last night to share some fun, food and Valentine's.  

Everyone brings a Valentine to share with each other.  It is always fun to see how creative we can all be.  This year I did the cans with the scrabble tile I ordered from etsy, there are always socks, candles and the cookies Brenda did are adorable!

Such a fun night we share with friends catching up on life...

 

Scrapping time...

This weekend was full of scrapping time, something that I haven't had in a while and while I didn't get a lot of pages done, I'm thrilled with what I did get done.

Some of these I still have to finish up journaling on, and I hope to do that this week. 

Ryan was always so helpful with Chelsea and I think it shows in these pictures. I haven't done a lot of layouts with Ryan.  For the longest time my mindset was that once I completed these pictures I had no more.  But that in turn had me completing no layouts about Ryan.  I didn't want the layouts to be all about losing him, but about his life.  And you need a certain mindset for that.

Zach's obsession with Frankenstein lasted quite a while...

That is one of the things I love that I learned during the Library of memories class, is to use pictures from different years to tell a story. Joel and Zach through the years spending quality time.

Hopefully I'll finish up some journaling and add some more of the layouts soon

After a fun weekend

It's back to work!

We had a blast this weekend, with Deb's birthday on Friday we did some shopping and went to lunch at House of Hunan.  Then I arrived home just in time for Joel's birthday gift to arrive, a new flat screen television...  Zach and I had thought of several places that we could hide it, but once it arrived we realized that wasn't happening!  So Joel got his gift Friday night.  His favorite part was that I already paid to have it installed, so its not something he needs to add to his list of things to do. They are scheduled to come on Friday to install the tv, but were going to call me if there was an open time earlier.

Saturday we spent the first half of the day at a crop with Trish and the girls!  Deb and I were the first ones there, arriving with our extra large Dunkin Donuts coffee, we were ready to go!  We scrapped until 6pm and then headed home to meet up wtih friends for dinner to celebrate all the February birthdays.

This week is our girlfriend Valentine party, tv installation and after spending all of yesterday organzing my scraproom I'm going to get back into some scrapping fun!  I just have to finish up some journaling on my layouts and then I will post them here.