Sydney's year in Pictures.

This goes back over the last year..... all her acheivements since she turned seven! Enjoy.

She blew out her candles....

Danced the Electric slide....
Painted her face......


Attended a wedding......

Raced in Olympic Day......

Texted and DS'd.....

Twirled in the Thomasville Rose Bud Parade....

Painted Easter eggs in Tampa with her family.....

Fed fish in Albany at the Riverquarium....

Toasted in the New Year.......

Made a gingerbread house with Daddy and Ashley......

Did the most good for the Salvation Army....

Sang Karaoke............

Met her soulmate..........

Washed her feet in a bidet at the London Gatwick Hilton.....

Visited and loved the London Science Museum....

Travelled all over England by train......

Ate too much chocolate at Cadbury World....

Found her long lost cousins.........

Slept on the redeye to London....

Cheered on the Yellow Jackets......

Moments of Perfect Clarity... click here.

This is a post from one of my favorite blogs. Hope you like it, I have thoughts along these lines too and can't help but worry sometimes for the precious children we bring into this world, which is quite frankly headed for the shitter. Enjoy.

Bloggidy Blog Blog....

Lately I have been checking out some other bloggers.. in fact I have been blurking!!! Pelham, I hear you laughing from here!!!

There are some really interesting people out there but they are like me and they're sitting in front of the computer instead of telling their life stories while with buddies at the bar or something. Believe me, I would rather be spouting my rambling bull crap over a couple of cocktails with friends but the thing is, if you do say something hilarious and you all laugh a lot you never remember what the funny thing was later!!!! You just remember laughing. Which brings me to one of my favorite sayings... "people won't remember what you said, or what you did but they will always remember how you made them feel". I learned that in a previous job and it's stuck with me, kind of an Ali motto. Something to live by, so if I love you and you're a friend I will try and make you feel good, if I don't then vice versa!!! not really, just larking around.

Anyway check out some other blogs and if you're a google member you can go to "Blogs of Note" that's where I started. I am currently following a chick from Denmark and one from Australia. I was consumed with envy when I saw the Aussie chick's layout but her Blog is kind of mommy oriented in a not so interesting way, so I am quickly going off her. I could easily got to Parents.com and read the stuff she's writing. I want something a little juicier, more gossip even if i don't know the gossipees. More fun and sarcasm... you know what I mean, don't you???? Happy reading everyone, let me know if you find any good ones.

Not so sad after all.

OK so my little foray into blogging etc has met with mixed responses. Some people tell me they love it and visit regularly to catch up on my ramblings and at the other end of the spectrum are the nay sayers who all seem to use the word "sad". It's funny, the positive responders are all using different colorful adjectives and encouraging comments, the others are all simply using the word "sad".

Well tonight I am taking some time to leave the dishes until later, let the kids stay up a little longer and I have spent maybe an hour investigating "webmasters" and a new picture program. It's all very mind boggling but challenging. Can I teach myself how to run a website? Can I make sense of all the stats and actually figure out how Google use their "spiders" for "crawling". If I can indeed master all this stuff then I may start to have my sight appear in searches on Google. I may even learn how to get it to be the first thing to pop up when you Google Mid Life Mama's.

Who knows one day I may conquer the WWW. It's all really interesting but tricky so this may take more than a week to learn, by that time I may just lose interest and be onto the next thing. I don't have the longest attention span in the universe. Right now this whole thing is fantastic fodder for my creative cravings so I'll stick with it and see if I can make it to the 'Blogs of Interest" page on google. That's my short term goal at least. I have been looking at some other blogs and I really like them, it doesn't take as long as reading a book but you get that "feel good factor" reading about other peoples lives. So stick with me, there may be some changes to the site in the coming weeks but just go with the flow people, you never know you may even like it.

BLAHHHHHH

What in the world???? Why is you can be ticking a long quite nicely and then just out of the blue, BAM, you wake up and it's a shitty day. The girls this morning would not cooperate, I feel tired and miserable, the sky is overcast threatening rain!! blah blah blah.

Today is Teacher Appreciation day apparently, something I didn't know about until I turned the little school calendars over yesterday in preparation for the last few weeks of school. Yes I know I should have turned them last Friday but I was a little busy with Sydney's birthday people. So I am not prepared, at all, I love their teachers and really do appreciate them. The fact that I get them to school every day on time, check on their homework, send items for projects, volunteer to chaperon field trips and communicate regularly on their progress should show the teachers that I am appreciative. No, not according to Hallmark, I have to do a little something extra today. Well there's just too much going on and I didn't get to this one. Sorry. Those of you who are teachers reading this will probably hate me for ever more. The whole thing about it is that now I will feel bad for the rest of the day, wishing I had made some cupcakes last night or sent a card in their book bags. Just something..... well.... I sent a lame old e-card just to ease my conscience a little. Woo Hoo. Mrs. Donna will love and cherish it for the rest of her life!!! not.

So... now I have it out of my system and can go back to feeling miserable for the rest of the day and hopefully tomorrow's blog will be a little cheerier. I doubt it though, tonight I am juggling an open house at Syd's new school for next year and an Exec Board meeting of the JSL. Siggghhhh.

J.T.

I am a big John Travolta fan, always have been, except maybe when he did that weird Ron L. Hubbard movie which thankfully I never did see. Anyway, years ago when my darling hubby was a government contractor and flew all over the globe with the Special Operations Command, he had some friends who did some flight training for their Boeing 707 in Texas. Well there's only one facility for this kind of training and JT (that's what us mega fans call John Travolta) happened to be there. His jet is a 707 and he was looking for some people to come and help him out on flights from time to time, so Steve's buddies gladly volunteered... uh YEAH!!!!!!!

Knowing that I am such a big fan one of his friends, Tony, very graciously got me a signed picture from JT....yes people Johhny Boy, the Urban Cowboy, Vinnnie Barberino, Danny Zucko, Michael....he wrote my name ALI with his own beautiful hand. For about five seconds he knew my name!!!!!!!! Tony will forever by in my hero hall of fame.

I had that picture in a frame at home for a few years, then decided to take it out and use the frame for a picture of my adorable girls. Steve would make fun of me sometimes. Then one day I was rifling through the closet for something and I came across my wonderful JT again, so I decided to take it to work with me. I have it on the desk behind me so that people can see it when they come into the office. He is quite the conversation starter, people always ask me how I got it. One client even told me he has met JT and he brought in a picture of him and the big man which I have placed with my signed pic. Then last week a lady came in who I have known for about three of four years, she used to be one of my clients at the Bank and I just love her. Well her daughter was with her from Florida and guess what? yep, she has a picture of her and John too so she's going to drop it by to add to the collection!!!! hahahahaha. Who'd have thunk it??

So if you happen to have a picture of you with the man himself, or even just a candid shot that you snapped somewhere let me have it. I will add it to the ever growing collection and get into the Guinness Book of Records or something!!!!! Say what you will about John Travolta but he'll always be my main man.

Tired....

I don't even know where to begin today's blog???? Last night was Sydney's slumber party and we had six little girls and one littler girl all running, screaming, laughing all over the place. We decided it would be a good idea to take them to the Relay for Life event at the local school track. That was in fact a genius idea because there's lots of them to do and a free band playing, only thing was it was hard to keep up with them and a little nerve racking to think you are responsible for so many other peoples kids!!!! We were only there five minutes before Syd lost us and found one of our friends and had them call my cell phone!!!! Still it all worked out and they had a blast. They all had their faces painted and got tattoos, they had Icie's and they danced like whirling dervishes. All the greats, the Electric slide, YMCA and the hokey pokey... which we Brits call the hokey cokey.

The band played Happy Birthday for Sydney which tickled her to death. Then when they lit the luminaries and had the little moment of silence they asked if any one wanted to come up on stage and say something about their personal experience with cancer. Sydney thought about it for a minute and then asked me if she could go up and say something. Of course!!! So she got up there and told the crowd that she was there to honor the memory of her Grandpa. I was so touched and I know that he's watching over her and is about the proudest guy in heaven right now. I just hugged her until she told me I was squeezing too tight!!!!

We then gathered up the Chiclets and took them home (thanks for the van, Holli) where we had cake and opened the gifts... or was it the other way round. Yeah, good idea Ali, get them all hopped up on sugar at ten o'clock at night. Smooth move!!!! So they jumped around her bedroom for an hour or so before I decided to call it a day myself. I left them to it after and very long discussion about who was sleeping where. OK all is well... good night.... uh what time is it??? Five am. and I think Hannah Montana is giving her own very personal performance right in my house??? Could it be true???? Nope, just Katie entertaining the girls!!!! So they were politely asked to be quiet for a little longer and let us get some rest. Not happening. I eventually gave in around seven and made them some monkey bread, cereal and bananas for breakfast. The monkey bread didn't turn out, mostly because I didn't follow the directions and all I got was some soggy brown sugary dough.

The girls had all finally left around ten am. Sydney went with a couple of the girls and Steve and I breathed a sigh of relief. Peace at last. I'm exhausted but happy it went smoothly and absolutely elated that they all got along so well. No squabbling or tattle tailing!!! They're all good kids though and I think Sydney loved every minute of it, she's snoring on my bed right now as I type this. I wish I was although I have managed a little cat nap here and there!!!
Glad we did it, glad it's over for another year!!! Ashley's birthday is in a month and no there will be no slumber party for her, at least not just yet.