Baby No More

My Baby isn’t a baby anymore.

My Baby, when she was a Baby

The other day she pointed out to me that within 30 days, she would finish high school and turn 18.

How in the world did I get to this point?

She got a LOT taller.

She is almost as tall as I am (if you know, you know).

Her hair got longer and her eyes turned green.

But, does this mean that I’m ready for her to be an *gasp* ADULT!

NO!

My former Baby is getting ready to head to college in the fall.

My head knows this is normal.

My heart is breaking.

Big Sister is now 21.

She can buy me alcohol, which would be great if I imbibed.

I don’t.

Big Sister is already away at college.

That was super hard.

Now, my Baby wants to go to college several hours away.

In the opposite direction.

I’m working hard to accept this.

I feel sorry for the Ranger.

He’s got to deal with me at this stage of life.

It’s a big year for me.

My Baby is technically an adult, we will have an “empty nest,” and I’m going to be 50!

I’m okay with 50.

Fifty is the new 30.

But, I wonder what kind of havoc I’m going to wreck without the kiddos around to keep me entertained.

Class of 2022

So, I Grew Up on a Farm!

My younger daughter was lamenting to me the other day, “Most other people have parents who walked uphill, both ways, in the snow to get to school. But not my mom! My mom grew up on a farm!”

We had been discussing a carton of eggs with an expiration date from 2 days prior.

“Old expiration dates? Pfft! They’re fine! I grew up on a farm and we used to eat food with no expiration dates! I’m alive! You’ll live too!” She says with exasperation.

What does she think? Chickens have eggs that are popped out with an expiration date? That’s why you float them!

When did it expire? Does it smell funny? Does it look weird? Does it taste “off”…

No, then it’s fine. Eat it.

She then rants into, “Zombies! We had zombies! Pfft! I grew up on a farm, you’ll be fine. Just get behind me.”

Yes, we’ve had discussions on where we’d go in a zombie apocalypse. One should always be prepared.

The Valley always wins hands down. If you know, you know. If you don’t I’m not telling you because then when you’ve been zombie-fied you would know where to find us.

One highway in, same one out – so it’s easy to defend.

And those people know how to handle a rifle. (Okay, so not me, but I have other skills).

How would we get there? Just ask my kids..

“Our mom grew up on a farm! She knows how to siphon gas, she can drive back roads, she can read a map without her GPS, and she can build a hay fort for shelter.”

I think my kids have been watching too much John Mulaney, because this particular rant was starting to have his tone of voice.

“My mom. My mom grew up on a farm. Their eggs and milk didn’t come with expiration dates. If it didn’t smell, look, or taste weird, you just ate it and hoped you didn’t die.”

That wasn’t quite how it worked, but when you eat meat products from animals you raised, drank milk that came in gallon size mayonnaise jars from the neighbor’s cows, had butter made from the milk / cream on the top of that jar of milk, had eggs from the chickens out back, and vegetables from the garden – you realize that expiration dates are more of a general idea than a hard, fast rule.

My kids, though… sigh…are rule followers. If the date on the package says one thing, that’s it!

They’ve even had the debate over whether or not that is the last day it could be used or that is the day it needs to be thrown out.

I’m not quite sure how they would handle homegrown foods that don’t come with dates.

But, never fear!

Their mom grew up on a farm.

Somewhere far away, this child sleeps.

Maybe not right this second, but at night.

I miss her.

I miss having her under my roof every night, and knowing exactly where she is and what she is up to.

I miss the innocence of her youth at this age.

I miss tapping on her door (because what teenager doesn’t live in their room) to ask her a quick question.

I miss listening to her and her dad talk and debate politics at the dining room table.

However, I enjoy the inside jokes that we share.

I enjoy watching her develop into herself and the woman she is meant to be.

I enjoy being the phone call she makes on her walk back from classes.

I enjoy the text messages she sneaks during class.

I enjoy the “mom can you look at my citations /email / essay” to make sure it/ they look right moments?

She hates this picture.

I adore this picture.

She says this picture is, “Creepy!”

I say this is a mom picture – a picture I took at the end of a rough preteen day full of angst to remind me how innocent she really was and that at the end of the day, she would return to being this sweet girl.

She is an adult now.

We survived those angsty teen years.

But I still keep this picture. Now it is to remind me that no matter how old she gets, my girl will always be my baby.

What’s in a Name?

So, I’m in a quandary.

I need to rename my blog.

It’s misleading.

I AM still a mom.

But, y’all, we don’t live in the south anymore.

We live in the mid-west.

And, originally my blog was a way to keep family up to date on the kiddos, but as they’ve gotten older, they’ve gotten more private. One has Instagram, the other has no social media…at all! *GASP!*

They are no longer Big and Baby.

Big has become Bigger and Baby has become Big

They are Big and Bigger.

They are, “Mother, I’m 21 in college!” and “Mom! I’m almost 18 and about to start college!”

One of them has flown and the other is leaving us in the fall.

We are going to be…

Empty Nesters!

This wasn’t supposed to have happened so soon!

Was it?

I feel like King George in Hamilton with a little smirk singing, “They’ll be back…”

But will they be the SNL version of “Back for Thanksgiving?”

Or will they be back, back. Y’know.

Anywho…back to the topic at hand.

I need to rename my blog.

Hell, I need to get back to writing my blog on a regular basis.

Maybe as an empty nester I’ll have time again?

No more parking lot sitting? No more last minute runs to pick up kiddos or taking them to appointments.

So, a blog name?

Do I pick something to do with Empty Nesting?

Do I pick something related to my career?

Do I pick something generic?

Do I keep the Accidental? Because, let’s face it, I’m an accident waiting to happen, and things happen rather serendipitously to me.

Do I pick something that mirrors my personality or my family dynamic?

I just don’t know?

But I’m open to ideas! Feel free to send me your thoughts!

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust

Last year on January 1, 2020, I decided that I was going to come up with a key phrase for the year.

“Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust,” was what I picked.

I always have faith and I trust that things will turn out in the end.

Pixie dust was because I believe in the magic that surrounds us, and I’m a bit of a Disney nut.

Things started out amazing!

I was able to travel back to Nashville and present at the Public Library Association Conference. It was amazing!

I was able to connect with a couple of friends from Paris while I was there. It was amazing!

I remember traveling to and from this conference without a mask, but with a whole LOT of sanitizing wipes. I handed them out liberally on the plane. I didn’t wear a mask. It wasn’t a statement, it just wasn’t a thing at the time.

Two weeks after returning home, the world changed.

To me, this whole year has been about faith and trust.

I have always liked the Biblical definition of faith as in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen.”

I trust in that faith.

I have faith that God is giving us what we need to see us through these trying times.

I trust Him to provide us with the supports we need.

And, He has!

My little family has had to have a lot of faith and trust over the years.

We have picked up and moved across the country twice.

We had no idea what we were heading toward, but in each instance that leap of faith has led to amazing opportunities that we not would have otherwise had.

More than once we have said, “Okay, God, now what?”

That pixie dust at the end is taking the opportunities that are provided and using it to sprinkle magic dust to help ourselves grow.

God could plop us down anywhere, but if we don’t take advantage of the opportunities surrounding us, we might as well have stayed put.

This year, to me, that has included information provided by the CDC and WHO. They give us information, guidelines, and it is up to us to make decisions. Those decisions, have not always been easy, but they are what has been fitting for our family.

These opportunities have given our high school junior that opportunity to take classes virtually, and include courses that she would not otherwise have at her disposal in the face to face atmosphere. Our college student has had the opportunity to spread out the final classes of her Associates Degree, because why hurry to finish if everything is online anyways. And, with my husband working from home, he has been here to be a hands on dad – troubleshooting computer issues, taking kiddos to doctor appointments, and to orchestra practice. Things he would normally miss out on due to his work schedule.

My job has been back face to face, sometimes with people in the library and other times just offering curbside service. In any case, we have been crazy busy! It seems like every time I get worn down and need a couple of days off, days I would not normally schedule myself, I end up needing to quarantine for a couple of days. Either I have been exposed, I have a few symptoms and need to wait for test results, or someone else in my family does. In each case, no one in the house has tested positive, but I did get a good bit of rest and was able to go back to work and take my 100% with me. Some might look at it differently, but I look at it as, I needed a rest and God knew I wasn’t going to sit my butt down unless He proverbially shoved me into a chair.

Oh, and we got a second dog.

A BIG, doofy doggo.

They said he was part Beagle.

Pops the Doggo

I think they are wrong.

There are a lot of things that were missed this year, but I would prefer to look at the positives.

So, this last year was Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust.

I haven’t decided my phrase for next year, but I think it might include wine.

A Hop, Skip, and Not Quite a Time Zone

So, it has been a few minutes since the last time I logged in and caught everyone up on our lives.  To say that life has been crazy busy would be an understatement. Here are the basics

I am still writing as the Accidental Southern Mama, but I might have to change that title at some point. You see, we are no longer living in the South.  The Ranger took a transfer, and we are now in the Mid-West. He is at one of his “Dream Parks.”

And, you know those two sweet babies of ours?

They are now only babies in our eyes.

Both of our girls are freshmen this year.

Big has started college, and Baby has started high school.

Big is highly private. She is 18. She is ready to change the world with her vote.

Baby is private. She is 14. She just wants to survive marching band season.

Me. I am still a librarian.

I am manage a branch within a large public library system.

I serve my community.

It is really hard to write a “Mommy Blog” about children who are now teenagers, who are rather private, and who have the ability to vocalize their displeasure in my publicizing their lives. So, I am having to come up with ideas on what to write about now that I’m not allowed to write about my children.

 

 

Things that Go “Woof!” in the Night

So, I have been told that my life is a Saturday Night Live sketch waiting to happen.

Apparently things happen to me that generally only happen in the movies or on television.

Last night was the movie Rear Window.
You know, the movie with Jimmy Stewart where he is recovering from a broken foot and witnesses a murder through his open window.
Yeah, that was me.
Only without a murder.
Just a stupid dog.

Last night, I had been up for hours, listening to this stupid, little, yappy dog bark.
We live in town.
In a highly residential area.
I should not be listening to a yappy or howling dog in the middle of the night.
His owners are home.
These people have been approached many times by both my husband and I and our Sweet Neighbor about this animal.
When they have refused to act, we have been to animal control and the police.
Their standard mantra is, “There is not really anything we can do.”

So, there I am laying in bed at 1 a.m. live texting my Sissy about this dumb dog, when I realize that my Sweet Neighbor has left her house and is yelling at the dog.
My Sissy was afraid that the owners would call the police on the Sweet Neighbor.
“Ummm…No,” I explained. “This is the warning that they get that she is about to call the police herself!”
Then the police show up.
She called the cops!

Picture this…
Me…
with my broken foot…
who can’t get around on her own…
flopped over in an obnoxiously uncomfortable angle…
so that I can peek through the shutters at my Sweet Neighbor and the police officer…
and eavesdrop!

Typically, I am huddled in the dark next to her, waiting for the police.
It is our theory that while the other neighbors can hear the dog, they don’t want to deal with the owners.

I live texted my Sissy the whole exchange.
There was a lot of gesturing on the part of my Sweet Neighbor, while I could hear her explaining the issues we have been having with this particular pet and family for the past 3 years.
Their dog barking at all hours of the day and night…
Running rampant through the neighborhood (in a town where there is a leash law)…
Chasing runners, walkers, children, postal workers…
…my cats…
Because to quote the owners, “These are just the types of things that dogs do.”

And, apparently, the police officer had been looking on the wrong street.
He had slowed down when he started to hear the barking…
…Three blocks and one street away.
He finally agreed that we shouldn’t have to live our lives with the soundtrack of this dumb dog.
I think he gave them a ticket for disturbing the peace!
At least I hope so!

The end result was that they finally got the owners to take the dog into their house for the rest of the night.
History with these owners have shown that they will keep their dog in the house at night for most of the next week and then we will be back to the barking, howling, yapping dog and middle of the night calls to the police.

So, it makes me then wonder…
What will I see the happen the next time I can get to a window to peer out!

11 Blessings of a Broken Foot

I have a Pollyanna Complex.

My glass is always half full.

The other day, while in a painkiller stupor I was starting to feel my glass get half empty.

I don’t do half empty.

So I decided to start to count my blessings of a broken foot.

1. The ER didn’t send me home before I was seen by the orthopedist.
Yes, Ma’am, I see that your foot is broken in four or five places. Here, have this boot with velcro and some pain pills. Call the orthopedist on Monday and go see them. Thanks, have a nice day!

I can’t even imagine!

2. I have been banking paid sick leave FOREVER and have several weeks backed up.
So, even though I am down for the count, I am still able to get paid.

3. Most of my summer projects are cloud / internet based so I can still keep working from home.

4. The Ranger has excellent bedside manner. *Wink* *Wink*
Seriously, I love that man! He is pretty darn awesome (and that isn’t just the painkillers talking!)

5. Rose, my mother-in-law, has finally come for an extended visit!
In fact, I told her the other day that my broken foot was just an elaborate ruse to get her to visit us…and it worked!

6. My sister-in-law, that I love to death, drove Rose down so I got to visit with her for a couple of days!
It is really great having nurses in the family. Who knew that adding one more pillow to the leg could make such a huge difference!

7. I got an AWESOME care package from my Mama and Sissy.
The box talked.
Seriously!
When Trumpet Girl set it down on the table, it actually said, “NO!”

8. I have always wanted to be 9 month faculty, and this is going to be pretty close.

9. I have realized that we truly have a support network in place here in Middle of Nowhere, TN.
Friends have been dropping by to visit, texting to see if we need anything, bringing pizza, etc.

10. Time to catch up on my reading (I’m out of books) and DVR recordings!

So, now my glass is back to being half-full.

Oh, and I now have an 11!

11. I finally have time to update my blog.

There!
Done!

How I Failed to Negotiate a Set of Steps

Or, “How I managed to get 4 weeks of paid vacation with just one missed step”

Either way you put it, it put me in a cast.

Ever since my first FaceBook post on Saturday that I was at the hospital, people have been wondering exactly what I did.

I broke my right foot.

In at least four places.

I sprained my left ankle.

Only one place to do that.

So, how could this happen?

Apparently, very easily.

Saturday, June something, 7:30 a.m.

I’m not exactly sure what today’s date is, let alone what the date was on Saturday.

I got up, made the Ranger some breakfast, and went down to the basement to give the Queen her breakfast and her insulin shot.

The Ranger and I had a full day planned, and, as usual, I was making lists in my head and the first thing on that list was yardwork.

We live in the Middle-of-Nowhere, TN, so it is best to do yard work first thing in the morning. We were even running late! One of our neighbors had already finished his lawn!

Doing yard work requires some finagling for us – we don’t have a shed or garage, so all of our mower, trimmer, etc. are kept in our basement.

And before you say something, none of our equipment is powered by gasoline. Everything is electric with either rechargeable batteries or electric cords.

Our basement is a walk up, with four steps to an interior door and another to get out an exterior door. Both doors have individual locks.

I figured that I would save myself some time and unlock the interior basement door so that I wouldn’t have to keep running in and out doors and up and down stairs to get doors unlocked and equipment outside.

I went up four steps and unlocked the basement door and started to back down the steps. Hold on folks, this is where the chain reaction starts…

Apparently, I didn’t count my steps up correctly and I completely missed at least one or two of the steps. This misstep caused my right foot to come down hard and at an angle across the edge of the cement bottom step. Feeling the pain, I hopped onto my left foot, and managed to do a turn that would have looked graceful if I were a ballerina but since I’m not looked more like someone who was trying to fall without causing more damage, and I went down screaming for the Ranger.

I have a lot of practice falling.

I once had a basketball coach who decided to teach us to fall without hurting ourselves, it was the one time I lettered in a sport.

The fact that I had never broken a bone has amazed my parents for years! Stitches, concussions, pulled muscles, crutches, bandages, patches, splints, boots, but never a broken bone. Until now.

The Ranger grabbed our Sweet Neighbor, who came running, at 7:35 am.

They decided that I was really hurt because I wasn’t laughing.

See, when you are as accident prone as I am, you tend to laugh at yourself a lot.

I wasn’t laughing.

I was screaming…gasping…crying…incoherent.

They called an ambulance.

I have decided that there are some lovely things in this world and Fentanyl on Saturday morning was a happy thing…

…at least for an hour at which time it was no longer happy.

Around 9:30 a.m. I was that person in the ER who is screaming and crying in a cubicle while everyone else is trying to figure out who is screaming and crying and what horrifying thing happened to them.

I, of course, felt totally within my rights to be screaming and crying. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, but when the X-ray technicians are moving your broken foot to various angles so they can try to see what is broken… yeah… it just happened.

Sorry for what I screamed while I was being X-rayed.

After they got done, I was given some more happy medication called dilaudid.

It was my friend…

..at least for an hour at which time it was no longer my friend.

All my screaming must have paid off, because the nurse came back to us with a boot.

You know the kind…big…velcro…doesn’t match anything you own.

He stopped just short of putting it on my foot.

Thank-you, Sweet Baby Jesus!

He said they were going to wait for the orthopedist to come and look at it before putting the boot on and sending me home.

The fact that the orthopedist was coming in on a Saturday morning, would have had me a bit concerned if it weren’t for the dilaudid.

It did make the Ranger a bit concerned.

I am used to the world where they put a boot on your foot or your arm in a splint and send you home to make an appointment with the orthopedist.

In fact, the Ranger called the Sweet Neighbor who had stayed at our house with the Minions to let them know we would be home soon.

The orthopedist felt my foot up, and said they were going to do a CAT Scan. The X-ray had showed one break, but it wasn’t straight and he was going to have to manipulate it around to put it back and he wanted to make sure there would be no surprises.

I’m glad he did the CAT Scan.

He was glad he did the CAT Scan.

Apparently my Mama’s advice of, “If you are going to do anything, do your best!” had sunk in.

In addition to several smaller breaks, they had to realign the metatarsals for toes 2-4 and I broke some bone on the bottom of my foot that goes to my big toe.

Luckily, before they start this surgery, they knocked me out.

I woke up in a plaster cast.

I spent 2 days in the hospital…

…with a broken foot.

That was longer than I spent in the hospital after giving birth.

I have decided that I love the night nurses.

I like the daytime nurses too, but I really love the night nurses.

They apologize everytime they come in to check on you.

They bring you snacks at 3 a.m.

Mine brought me a toothbrush and toothpaste at midnight.

It was supposed to be just an overnight, but when the physical therapists tried me out on crutches…

No words here…

…just the massive shaking of heads.

With a sprained ankle and a broken foot, they decided that I needed a wheelchair for being in the house.

They don’t hand out wheelchairs on Sunday.

The orthopedist agreed with their assessment and kept me overnight again.

The nurse had me up again that evening…this time with a walker.

I can totally ROCK a walker!

I went home on Monday with my crutches to get into my house, a walker to get around the house, and happy pills to make sure that I sat on my butt most of the time.

I am supposed to “rest.”

I am really BAD at “resting.”

I am making lists.

Lists of projects to accomplish while I am “resting.”

So now you know what happened!

I would like to put a disclaimer on this post to please not judge my grammar and punctuation too harshly on this post. Painkillers don’t work well for proof reading.

Ten Blog Topics I Could Have Used

I am still working on lists.

I like lists.

Don’t judge!

This blog post is about at least 15 of the possible blog topics that I have thought of in the vast expanse of time that I haven’t written any.

Here we go:

1. In this house we do messy hair.

We have it down to an art form.

I remember a teacher that used to make me produce a hairbrush on a regular basis to fix my hair because it was always a mess.

Apparently, it is hereditary.

2. Things my students have done that make me want to whump! my head against a wall!

I’m not going to explain.

Suffice it to say, you would probably want to whump! too if it happened to you.

3. A photo hommage to how my cat sleeps.

No, seriously, all the Queen does is sleep.

On a pillow.

On the floor.

I don’t think she moves while we are gone for the day.

4. The world according to Miss A.

“Mom, I only do things the way I want to do them.”

You get the picture.

5. Trumpetgirl meets Hulu and is sucked into the computer like the little girl on Poltergeist into the television.

Thanks to almost three weeks of snow days, she has been through multiple series.

Multiple times.

6. We got snow and it stayed past noon!

This is a pretty big phenomenon here in the Middle of Nowhere, TN.

My Pennsylvania girls are usually disappointed in what qualifies as snow in the South. But this year, they were both happy campers!

7. Trumpetgirl meets MyersBriggs testing and we are not surprised by the results.

For those of you who are nosy and want to know, she is a stereotypical INTJ.

She is very excited about this because apparently so is Sherlock and the Doctor.

8. I a librarian, let’s just save time and assume I am right.

I think the Ranger should buy me this shirt.

No reason.

Other than that I AM a librarian!

And, if I AM a mom!

Therefore it equates that I AM always right!

9. A Viola, 3 Trumpets, a Trombone and a piano walk into a house…

It could be the start of a joke.

But that joke would be my life.

Those are the instruments that we have lying around here.

Considering my lack of musical ability, I am always in awe of the sounds the Ranger and my children can make come from these instruments.

Depending on the piece, sometimes I wear ear plugs.

10. Your too happy, you scare me.

Not me personally.

I’m an obnoxiously happy, perky person.

Just ask the Ranger.

This would have been another post about my favorite topic – my children.

People assume if you are quiet, you are shy.

Don’t assume…

I have a child who is terrified of people who are loud, bouncy, outgoing…

…basically like her mom…

She looks at them with a mix of awe and terror!

I think people would be shocked to know that she hides, watching them from behind her hair because they terrify her not because she is anti-social and wants to be left alone.

Let me rephrase that, she usually does want to be left alone, but she wants to be invited to be included.

Kind of like that infographic on the care and keeping of an introvert.

Someday I might actually use these topics in a blog.

So, you can:

A.) Consider yourself warned

and

B.) Now realize you have the Cliff Notes version of what I will be talking about