"Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Writing Well"
Isn’t she sweet?! She’s the daughter of a family friend. I bribed her with some gummy bears to look at you with those huge brown eyes and entice you to be my friend. (Okay not really, but I bet she would have done it).
Did it work? 😉
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Now, now, don’t let the title fool you. This isn’t yet another story about my ongoing struggle with my 15-year old son. That story is getting old (telling it and I’m sure ya’ll are getting tired of hearing about it).
No, this story is prompted by Absolutely Bananas’ Monday writing prompt: Travel Horror Stories. You know me, ANY excuse to write and I’m on it. 😀
I’ve never been an easy person to travel with. I don’t know, I used to get SO FREAKED OUT when we travelled. I mean, anal-freaked out. Did we have enough toothpaste? What about sunscreen? Did you pack the bug spray? For some odd reason, I thought it would be the end of the world if we had to shop at a foreign Wal-Mart. Pfft. What an idiot.
Anyway, my first horrific travel experience was my honeymoon. We flew to Cozumel, Mexico. We flew, to a different country. Okay, one, I had never been out of Missouri at that point, so just leaving my home state made me hyperventilate. But the country?! And of course, I had never flown before, so leaving the ground?! Someone hand me a tranquilizer! Needless to say, I cried when we first landed in Cozumel. I was in a different country and all I heard was Spanish. I was totally out of my element, a new bride starting a new life and I pretty much lost my head. Luckily, my husband, being the calm and rational man he is, patiently helped me adapt and we ended up having a good time (though I packed all the wrong clothes – it was stinking HOT there and I left the area with second degree burns – but hey, it’s all good. *grin*)
But that experience broke my travel cherry (wow, that sounds crude, doesn’t it – my apologizes) and from that point on, even though I’ve been nervous about traveling, I haven’t been as freaked out by the experience. For example, the husband and I went on a cruise for our tenth anniversary and I didn’t freak out once (though I did get sea-sick – but that’s another story).
And then, we started taking the boys with us when we travelled. I purposefully waited until they were older before we attempted such a feat. I knew me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle two small children and keep myself under control in the process.
We’ve been to the Florida beaches four times (Pensacola Beach, Madeira Beach, St. Petersburg and Sanibel Island), the Rockies and Washington DC and the boys have done great all the times we’ve travelled.
But the first time we took them on a plane, was a nightmare. Not because of anything they did, but because … well, let me start at the beginning.
I’m from Springfield Missouri. And contrary to what others may think of the area, this is a GREAT place to raise a family. We’re about 250,000 strong and we have plenty of space – our city isn’t stuffed into a small area, our crime rate is low, our schools are pretty good and our cost of living is CHEAP when compared to the rest of the country.
But we’re small. And our airport is no exception. (In fact, when we returned from our Washington DC trip a few weeks ago, we had to exit the plane on stairs as opposed to those cool exit, uh, thingies that they wheel out to the plane. Why? Because we were the last flight into town for that evening and everyone had gone home. I felt like I had walked into a 1940’s movie.)
So, the airplanes that leave our airport? Are small. And unreliable. There are a lot of “mechanical issues” (like not being able to find the oil cap and having to “borrow” an oil cap from another plane – yes, that really happened).
Me and my family are in the Springfield airport. And we’re eagerly waiting to board our plane to Dallas, because we have a connecting flight to catch to Tampa. (I think we were heading to St. Petersburg, Florida that year – but all of the Florida vacations are sort of blurry, so I can’t swear to that).
We board the plane.
And we wait. And we check the clock. And we continue to wait. And now we’re beginning to sweat (literally because they haven’t turned the engines on and there’s no air circulation and we’re all starting to get cranky and just a bit sick) because now the time we should have taken off has come and gone. Still, we wait some more. And finally, they tell us there’s a “mechanical issue.” And though the hubs and I aren’t terribly concerned about this, (it happens), this is the first time the boys have flown and start to freak out.
Now I’m stressed out. Why? One: we’re not going to make our connecting flight if we don’t leave immediately, and Two: I’m trying to act all “oh, it’s no big deal” to the boys so they will calm down but I’m thinking in the back of my head, “uh oh, just what IS this mechanical issue – are we talking something serious, or did a flight attendant over sleep?”
Thirty minutes go by and they finally have us disembark – they are going to bring us another plane.
Okay, by this time, our nerves are frayed. And we’re not exactly thrilled about them bringing us another plane – I mean, how RELIABLE is this airline’s planes now anyway? But we’d rather fly on a new plane than take a chance on the old plane, you know? After another thirty minutes, we finally board our new plane and head off to Dallas, Texas.
We land in Dallas and we have to RUN to catch our connecting flight. We’re terribly late and I know we’re probably not going to make it, but I’m praying there’s been a delay and we’ll be able to board anyway.
No dice. Our flight has taken off without us.
Now we’re stuck in Dallas and aren’t sure what to do. The boys are scared and we’re getting the run around. “Check in with such-and-such. You’ll be put on stand-by,” etc. Any seasoned travelers out there KNOW about the airport runaround.
So now, we’re on standby and incredibly frustrated. After all, this wasn’t our fault. It’s the airlines’ fault and they aren’t really bending over backwards to help us. In fact, we’re ignored most of the time. And this just makes my blood boil. Every time a flight takes off for Tampa, we’re in the terminal crossing our fingers that our names will be called.
The day wears on and the number of flights begins to dwindle. Our chances of getting to Tampa that day are looking grim.
It’s time for the LAST flight to Tampa to leave for that day and we’re on pins and needles. We’re tired from running from terminal to terminal and nervous about being trapped in the Dallas airport our entire vacation. The boys are getting tired (they are only 11 and 9 when this happened), and still, no one will help us.
They call our name.
But they only have two seats available.
We’d have to split up.
GD goes berserk and starts to do the big boy cry (you know, tears in his eyes, trembling lower lip but he’s trying hard to keep it together because you know, it’s not COOL for boys to cry). We refuse and tell them there is no way we’re splitting up.
They give the two seats to some other people on stand by.
That’s it. No more flights to Tampa that day. We’re shell-shocked and numb. What do we do now? We have two small boys who are bone-tired and they are telling us that it will be mid-morning before the next flight leaves tomorrow and then there’s STILL no guarantee we’ll get on that plane.
The husband snaps. He DEMANDS that someone help us, after all, it’s their fault we’re in this situation to begin with. The airline directs us to their ticket counter and the airline finds us a hotel to stay the night in (they pay for it, of course). In addition, our not being assured a seat on the next day’s flight is not good enough, we’re on vacation after all and we’ve already wasted one day of our vacation, so the hubs puts up such a fuss that the airline books us four seats on ANOTHER airline’s flight.
Good enough. We now had secure passage to Tampa.
We arrived at the hotel. Since we didn’t have any change of clothes (no toothbrushes or any health and beauty aids), we bought the bare essentials at the hotel and slept in our underwear. We arrived at the airport the next day in rumpled clothes and looking pretty rough, but we didn’t care. We were on our way to Tampa.
Our flight, on another airline, took off without a hitch and we arrived in Florida. We had a GREAT vacation and we laugh about that trip to this day. So though at the time, it was irritating and a bit scary to be stranded, we definitely walked away with a family story that will likely be passed onto our grandchildren. 🙂
I have purposefully kept the airline’s name out of this story. Can you guess which one it was?
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Here’s another writing prompt idea:
Don’t let the name fool you – it’s a writing exercise you can use any way you wish – everyone is welcome to participate.
This isn’t a big deal to most of you. But this was the first time we were even close to a subway, let alone getting ready to ride one for the first time.
I think the highlight of our trip MIGHT have been the subway. Is that sad?
The woman in the pink t-shirt that walks in front of the camera and looks like she’s about to faint on the tracks from nerves and then notices that nearly every person on the train is dressed for business and there she is wearing ratty tourist clothes? Yeah, that would be me.
But I wasn’t intimidated. *cough*
It’s been a pity-fest at my house this week.
The boys survived their punishment. Actually, MK is off groundness (is that a word?) today – GD still has another full week of no video games or computer. I’m sure I’ll be forced to endure yet another few days of heavy sighs and stubborn silence from the boy as he’ll be so jealous of his little brother having his privileges back that he won’t be able to keep his eye on the ball of reality.
In case you’re just stumbling into my block of cyberspace – we had a pretty ugly scene at my house last Sunday. The boys not only tested their boundaries, they erected a tent and tried to camp out on the other side of “let’s see how far we can piss mom off before something bad happens.” I won’t go into the sordid details again, you can read about it if you wish, but suffice it to say, this past week … sucked.
Both boys watched more TV this past week than I think they have in the past year. My boys are not into TV, at all. They LIVE for their video games and online interaction with their “friends.” So, when they do something unacceptable such as, oh, I don’t know, hit me or curse in my face, then you bet we’re going to step in and take their precious LIVES away from them.
Humpf.
The first few days after the incident, and they realized their punishment, were torture. None of us spoke to each other. We were all walking on pins and needles – GD was nearly impossible to be around. He sent me so many hate looks that I’m surprised I’m not a walking, smoking skeleton. Which I don’t quite understand considering he was the one who disrespected me and who, in my opinion, got off pretty light with only being grounded two weeks. And at first, I felt pretty guilty about my participation in the ugliness. I’m a fair person, I absolutely take responsibility for my part, in anything I screw up in.
But enough is enough. Stop with the pouting and stop acting like a spoiled brat. What happened, happened. You can’t take it back, we can only learn from that bitter experiment (and I’m including myself in on that hard lesson learned, too), and move forward.
It’s our fault, really. We’ve spoiled our boys. They have everything they could possibly want. They get nearly everything they want, either from gifts (birthday or Christmas, we rarely buy them anything any other time), or with their own money they’ve saved up from their grandmas’ generosity. They are content, and believe it or not, happy, most of the time. And we’ve told them that we’re happy to spoil them as long as they follow the rules, do well in school, and just BE good people, step outside those guidelines and all bets are off.
But we’re in the teenage years. And even though I hate labeling or making excuses for irrational behavior, it is what it is. GD is trying to push out of the box that I’ve had him trapped in for most of his life. I know this, I get this. I WANT him to exert his independence and I’m trying really hard to give him a little rope, but to be THIS pissed off, to be THIS bored and refusing to even TRY to take an interest in anything BUT his games/computer, has me a little worried. No, scratch that, I’m worried. Is it healthy to be THAT focused (as the hubs calls it – I prefer OBSESSED) on just one thing in your life? Shouldn’t he have other interests? Shouldn’t he CARE about anything – something – other than one aspect of his life?
But GD has always been this way. Even as a baby, I couldn’t get him interested in ANYTHING outside of trains. The boy was positively obsessed with trains. It seriously worried me. But what can you do? The boy liked his choo-choos. Finally, he outgrew trains only to divert his obsession to Pokemon/Drazon Ball Z/Yu-Gi-Oh.
This phase lasted for another handful of years. He collected cards, he had every game, he dressed up as a Dragon Ball Z character for Halloween, he went to Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments and “battled” other kids. It was insane. I tried to get him interested in other things. In fact, a few summers, I MADE the boy take breaks and tried to interest him in paint-by-numbers, reading, or doing something physical, like shooting hoops or going swimming.
And though GD would do these things, he only did them because I made him. He had one eye trained on the clock the entire time, just biding his time until he could back to what really interested him.
*sigh*
MK likes his video games, but he’s more diverse. He at least makes an ATTEMPT to enjoy other things. In fact, give the boy a stick and a rubber band and he can entertain himself for hours. Not so with GD. The boy is focused. The hubs keeps reassuring me that this is a good trait, I’m not quite so sure, if you want the truth. There’s being a perfectionist, then there’s irrationally obsessive. It’s all or nothing for GD.
When GD and I talked about “the incident”, I apologized for my role in the theatrics. I opened my heart to him and told him things I’ve never told him before. GD now understands me a bit better. He now realizes that I’m weak in so many ways and that I’m not only human, I get hurt and am hurt by the way he acts sometimes.
Instead of being compassionate, which is normally his reaction, he’s been cold and rude. I think he sees my confession as a sign of weakness. I think he thinks that he can now walk all over me and is looking for ways to take advantage of me at every turn.
Does this boy never learn? I can’t believe he still doesn’t know me well enough to know that that will NEVER happen. I’m fair, but I’m stubborn. I’m still his mom and he still has to live by our rules. We may negotiate and re-evaluate those rules as he gets older, but the bottom line? They are our rules and he must respect that, take it or lump it.
I’m all about tough love, baby. I’m all about teaching my boys respect, courtesy and getting along with people. Even if that means they hate me for a while until they learn those lessons.
*sigh* Is it time for school to start yet?
*Update: To add insult to injury, GD went and had his elastics put on his teeth today. He’s about three months shy of having his braces removed and apparently, elastics are the final stage. As a result of these rubber bands being in his mouth? He’s TERRIBLY self-conscious. So, to say the boy is cranky would be putting it mildly. AARGH!
writefromkaren.com
All you have to do is answer the questions below either in the comment section, or on your blog. And elaborate! Make these questions show your unique and special personalities. This meme entry will post at 12:01 every Monday morning and will be the first postentry listed on WFK all day Monday morning. (This is an all-day Monday meme, so please, play all day!)
July 21st Questions:
1. Have you ever played hooky (from school or work)? If so, what excuse did you use to get out of school/work? What did you do instead of going to school/work? How often do you play hooky? If you’ve never played hooky, why not? What one thing HAS to happen before you would consider playing hooky (again)? Has your significant other every played hooky? If so, tell us about it. If not, why not? Has anyone you known ever gotten caught playing hooky?
2. I can’t tell you the number of posts I read from bloggers who were going to BlogHer about what sorts of clothes they were going to pack for the trip. If you went (or wanted to go) to BlogHer, describe the outfit you did, or would have, worn for the first day of the conference. Remember, first impressions are everything (most of the time) so you want to impress your blogging buddies. Don’t forget to describe your shoes/accessories! Better yet, link us to your outfit so we can “see” what you’re talking about. Why did you pick this particular ensemble?
3. If you could be guaranteed an honest answer to three questions, what questions would you ask, and who would you ask them of?
4. If you could give a single piece of advice to the film industry in Hollywood, what would you say? If you were a powerful film producer, what sorts of films would you produce? Why?
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The photo contest is a mere 6 days away! Click the banner above for more information and start looking through your pictures!!
I’ve always had a “thing” for photography. And by thing, I mean a passing interest. I’ve always been interested in photography in general, but have been too lazy intimidated to learn much more than where to aim and what button to press.
It hasn’t been until just recently, when I discovered The Pioneer Woman’s blog (and I’m sure I’m probably the last to do so – but really, that shouldn’t surprise anyone, I’m so clueless) that I REALLY started taking an interest in photography again. Ree has posted some really awesome photography tutorials that I’ve been reading over and that makes me want to try my hand at taking “artsy-fartsy” pictures once again.
In addition to Ree’s wonderful photograhy, I discovered the Shutter Sisters blog and their Flickr group, which I’ve joined but haven’t had the guts to submit any of my own photography … yet.
But to motivate me to train my brain to look for the beauty in less obvious places and to actually take pictures of this inconspicious beauty, I’d like to showcase some of the best pictures I think we (as in me and my husband) have taken over the years. Photography is one thing that brought us together and we’ve often talked about taking a photography course together – just for grins. Who knows, maybe we’ll actually do it sometime.
This first one is not anything spectacular – I was experimenting. I used a Canon Powershot and was experimenting with the focus. I was thrilled that it actually turned out becuase it was blurry in my viewfinder – or maybe it was just my vision, I wouldn’t be surprised.
This is the shed my husband built. It’s in our backyard. He built it because our garage was getting too full to house all of his toys equipment. This was taken through the glass of our back door. Again, nothing great, but I thought it turned out pretty good for my first try at something like this.
Have you run across any cool photos lately? Please share the links with us!
Up next: Monday Morning Sneak Peek questions!
Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.
If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.
Let’s get started:
Last week, I posted a video about faith. This week, I’ll like to expound on that by providing a link to an audio teaching about trust and a video about how we can trust the written word.
Faith is a vital topic in Christian circles, and is apparently something almost everyone wishes he had more of. Faith is basically “trust,” and this teaching breaks down the subject of trust by providing a practical exploration of its four components: character, competency, consistency, and cohesion. Starting with the first relationship He had with mankind, God has woven trust into the very fabric of all relationship, and we must understand its role in order to develop healthy and godly relationships.
This teaching will prompt you to examine yourself and consider the following questions: Are you generally a trusting or a distrusting person? Have you ever trusted when you shouldn’t have or not trusted when you should have? Do you have relationships that you would like to see improve but are not sure where the problem is? Do you want to increase your trust in God, or have you ever considered whether God should trust you? Trust us, this teaching by Dan Gallagher will bless you.
You can download this audio teaching here, or subscribe to the Truth or Tradition podcast here.
Did you know you can trust the bible?
Vodpod videos no longer available.
(If this video will not play for you, you can find the original file on this page).
If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page.
Thank you for visiting and God bless.
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monday morning meme
Write From Karen 