A few more hours....

There just aren't enough hours in my day. I wake up now before 5:00 a.m. whether I have to get up early or not. Nothing I do makes me go back to sleep. I just toss and turn and the happenings of life spin around in my head. The do's and the don'ts, the should have's and the should not's, the why's and the why not's and so on and so. Nobody knows unless they walk in your shoes, they just don't know. There isn't an easy button, one to push to make it all ok or all go away. Sometimes you are darned if you do and darned if you don't. So what is the right answer? I'm not sure I know.

Chelsey's 12th Birthday Party

Chelsey turned 12 on November 11th. We celebrated her birthday by taking her out for supper on Wednesday, the night of her birthday. Her birthday party this year, was kinda like the energizer bunny, it kept, going and going and going - lol.

You see, South Shelby only went to school Monday and Tuesday of last week and called school off the rest of the week due to the low attendance due to all of the sickness. Chelsey and all of her friends had already been sick and were on the mending side of things. So Tuesday night she had friends spend the night and then on the day of her birthday they all went out to one of the other girls houses for the afternoon. She came home that evening to go out for a family supper.
On Thursday, Chelsey and 5 of her friends all went out to her grandparents house in the country and spent the day. They had fun riding 4 wheelers, playing in the woods and playing hide and seek. She continued to have friends spend the night on Thursday. On Friday, some girls came over and spent the day and then on Friday night we went to my brother and sister-in-laws house for supper, a pre-hunting supper at what they call "Team Pollard Outdoors".

On Saturday, by noon, the girls started appearing again and Chelsey and 6 of her friends left for Moberly at 1 pm and we went bowling. After bowling we headed to Columbia to go to the mall to eat Chinese and to let Chelsey pick out her birthday present. She had gotten a cross necklace and perfume the night of her birthday but she had been wanting a cover for her phone and a puffer vest - both of which she needed to pick out. We no sooner had gotten to the mall than we ran into 2 additional friends and their mom, so they joined in on the party and we had a good time shopping.

The party finally concluded Sunday morning when the girls started leaving one by one after a huge pillow fight. It wasn't the kind where you hit each other - it was the kind where you steal them from one another. It all stemmed from the night before when Chelsey was hogging the pillows.

It was a good time and I think another birthday Chelsey will forever remember.

Chase's 9 pt. buck

Pictured above is Chase's 9 point buck that he killed Saturday evening. It was quite a story - something about he saw it 600 yards away so he crawled on hit stomache - then he stood on a fence post and shot it 200 yards away right at dusk.........I don't know, sounds sorta like a fish story to me, you know, when the "big one gets away" but he has the proof.

Minor update....

Just a quick update to say hey....I'm alive. Barely keeping my head above water, but managing somehow. Let's just say life sort of happened and it hasn't been smooth sailing and I'm not sure when it will be.

I wish there were more hours in my day, I wish I could really say what I was feeling and what I was thinking but it's probably better just kept bottled up. For those who wouldn't understand anyway, this way they can't have the chance to understand me even less than they do.

So many things I wish I could change, so many things I wish I had the chance to do differently. I don't know that the end result would be any different but I definitely know that the path to that point of knowing would be a much different one.

How many times can I break until I shatter? Doesn't feel like many more.

Change...

We see it 4 times a year: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
We see it in our faces as the years age us and form wrinkles in our skin.
We see it in fashion as the bottoms of our pants go from straight, wide, flare, boot and to skinny.
We see it in decorating as we go from brass to black rod iron.

But sometimes we don't see it, or we don't let it be seen for fear of acceptance or rather rejection.
Sometimes we see it coming and sometimes it just sneaks up and kicks us in the pants. And sometimes it is upon us because we did nothing to stop it and we are left to pick up the pieces because we didn't do what we could have when we should have.

Can there be change? Every day is a new day. The past can't be changed. It is just that, the past. It's what you do from each day forward that forms who you are and what you give.

"Say it loud, say it clear. You can listen as well as you hear."