Georgia

Mom, Cheyenne, Staci and I flew to Atlanta last weekend to visit with my Moms cousin who lives there and do some sight seeing, I had never been down South before so it was a fun experience. We had lunch at a old mansion, I even tried fried green tomatoes, they were not bad! We attended an auction one afternoon and saw lots of fun antiques, we took a ghost tour of the town they live in one night, We spent one whole day at Stone Mountain there is a civil war scene carved into a mountain of granite, it was pretty neat, then we toured a plantation, that was my favorite part, we got to go in all the old houses, the gardens were incredible. On our last day we went to one of the Gone with the Wind museums, that of course is my all time favorite movie so it was fun to go to the museum. The rest of the pictures from our trip are in our picassa album if you are interested in seeing them.

20 years

Friday October 23rd was Richards 20 years in the Army anniversary, since he was going to be on a four day pass and I was going to be gone on Friday I made arrangements with his Captain to bring in a surprise lunch for him and some of his soldiers on Thursday, here is a picture of him getting ready to eat, he was surprised so it was fun.

Remembering Becky

Brandon called last night to let me know
Becky's headstone was in, and then sent me this picture, I think it turned out beautiful, she would love it.
Karl called me last week to tell me he was going through some of Becky's things and he came across a bundle of letters, she had kept every single letter, postcard or card I had sent since I moved away in 1987, he is sending them back to me, I think I look forward to reading them and looking back over our lives, I must admit I am a little scared by that as well, she is on my mind all the time, she was such a huge part of my life and those of you who know me well know I am great at pushing off the things I don't want to deal with, I have a great "Scarlett O'Hara" attitude....I will think about that tomorrow. But she has found a way to creep into my mind almost daily, and that means dealing or tying to with the fact that she is gone.
I have been looking back on her life, she had it hard, she had a difficult relationship with her parents, but she overcame that and was able to realize that they loved her and did the best they could, she had Krystal at 15, was married and divorced by 18 with 3 kids, married Karl had the girls lost Kandace when she was only 11 months old, risked her health to have Kyle, her marriage was a turbulent one, but they stuck it out and had just celebrated their 19 anniversary and had overcome so much, no matter how difficult her life was she stayed happy and found the best in everything, she was a wonderful person full of love. I told the kids I would post the talk I gave at her funeral so they would have it, so here it is.
I met my friend Becky in Jr. High, ever since then our lives have been intertwined. We were there for each other for all the major events in our lives, there were weddings and funerals, new babies and then grand babies, times to celebrate and times to mourn. Our friendship survived not only the test of time but of distance as well, even after I moved 100's of miles away our friendship continued to grow.
Becky's mom always said we were kindred spirits and we believed her, when Becky's daughter Kandace was born on my birthday and the next year my son Levi was born on her birthday we saw that as further proof or lives were meant to be connected.
Becky loved with her whole heart, she loved purple, shrimp, pedicures, Patsy Cline, 49ers, Shirley Temple movies, collecting shot glasses, Peach city cherry cokes...extra cherry of course, yard sales and singing, she sang beautifully, church hymes, the latest hits from the radio or children's lullaby's she loved them all.
Becky loved her friends and genuinely cared about their lives, and most off all Becky loved her family, she loved being a wife and mother, the addition of grandchildren brought a whole new purpose to her life, her voice was filled with pride when she spoke of her kids and grand kids and their newest accomplishments no matter how big or small. Becky was so proud of Krystal and Jesse when they bought their house and when Krystal started work at IRS, she was happy when she called to tell me Brady had met a lovely new girl Holly and they were getting married, recently she called very excited to say Brandon and Jamie were having a baby, and she was so proud when she told me Kami and Robbie would be continuing their educations and returning to school, she so enjoyed watching her children grown into young adulthood, then there was Kyle, every time I called she would put him on the phone to sing you are my sunshine to me and he was her sunshine.
Each new achievement her grandchildren made brought a call, I remember the one to say we just had Josh's birthday you would not believe how big and handsome he has gotten, or Katie is so tall and beautiful and she has the sweetest smile, and how petite and lovable Maddlyn is and how she loved to hear her call her Grandma in that sweet tiny voice. She called to tell me when Lexi started kindergarten and to tell me how well Kirsten was talking, and to share with me the first time Brooklynn sat up, and there was that touching call to tell me she had been able to have lunch with Aubry and was able to sing with her (Aubrey is the granddaughter that was given up for adoption) each moment in her kids lies was so important to Becky and she was anxiously awaiting the arrival of two new grandchildren.
My favorite thing about Becky was her ability to find the good in everything no matter how dark a situation might seem she would find the one glimmer of light and hold on to that insisting everything would work out...and it always did. Becky saw things with almost a child like awe, she called me after she had taken a trip to Arizona to describe to me in great detail the palm trees she had seen for the first time, she was amazed by them. On my last trip home we went to see the fireworks and she and Kyle would pick out their favorites and say oh I loved that one or did you see the colors on that one, her wonder and amazement was contagious and I could not help but see the beauty she was seeing.
Becky touched my life and I am grateful to say she is my friend.
We ended every one of our talks the same....I miss you I love you
So one last time I say I will miss you Bec and I will always love you.

Volunteering for the FRG

I recently agreed to be the co-leader for Richards Company/Battery (they are still deciding which we are) FRG (family readiness group), we are a brand new company,literally just starting up, so it has been a crazy few weeks, filled with classes, meetings, planing committees etc. it has been fun and now as we are getting more volunteers and planning some fun fund raising and family activities I am glad I agreed to take on the position. Maureen and I (the other leader) have had the opportunity to get to know the Company Captain and Lieutenants better, get a feel for their mission and hopefully some training that will allow us to help fellow family members prepair and survive the company's upcoming deployment a little easier.
When I first agreed to do this, I was a bit worried that I just would not have the time with work, school, kids and so on, but so far it has worked out well. I have always been such a huge supporter of our military/veterans, and have put together many fund raisers to help them, that this turned out to be perfect for me. I like this type of thing and I feel good attempting to do my part to support our nations heros.

Good luck to my friend

Every once in awhile someone comes into our lives and changes us. My friend Tyler did just that. Today I have been reflecting on our friendship, and realizing how very lucky I am to have a friend like him.

He started out as my boss at the airline, and then became one of my dearest friends. He took a promotion and moved to Denver, but came back to help us every chance he got, his managment style reminded me of myself and the way I ran things when I was still doing that, and I think that may have been part of why I liked him so much, as time went on and I got to know him better it became more than that, I came to see what a wonderful giving person he is and what an important part he plays in my life.

When I got the call that my friend Becky had died, Tyler was right there, and he took over and made all my arrangments, got me home, called me daily to check on me and made that difficult time a bit easier, he was my friend, he listened to me cry, helped me come to terms with things, and became my rock when my world was falling apart. I do not think many of us can say we have a boss who does that.

Today was his last day with us at the airport, he is headed back to Denver to his regular job, and while I know we will see him from time to time as he comes to the station for training I can't help but think how different things will be without him. I will miss seeing him everday, knowing he will be there when I get to work, he is my friend and I know we will stay in touch, our lives are connected by more than work now, but it is still a sad day knowing he is leaving.

How much is to much

My job has been crazy for several months now, with all the extra hours of training, plus full time work,no manager and so on, I had hoped that things would begin to get better now that we have a new manager (he started two days ago) now I am not sure.
My old manager (who is still our GM and company trainer) approached me awhile back and told me once things settled down I could have FRI,SAT,SUN MON off, I will not work the am shift anymore as it starts at 5am and that left my kids to get up and off to school on their own, so I was told I could have all my hours in the afternoon and evening and would be guaranteed between 28 and 30 hours per week, this was perfect for me. He had me put a schedule together based on every ones availability, well another girl who works with me had been doing a temporary schedule and I heard her having a "fit" because I would not be working weekends anymore. So to condense the story she took it upon herself to make up a different scheduale and give it to the new manager and then told me he did not like the one Tyler and I had done and could I look at this one and make sure my days and hours would work. I almost had a heart attack she had me off Sat and Tues, working all the rest of the days split shifts two of which were am shifts and my total hours were 16.5 for the week...now I live 20 min away from the airport for me to drive back and forth twice a day for a 1 to 3 hour shift would in no way be even remotely profitable for me. Well I told her there was no way I was working that and if that was what they wanted they could consider this my notice. Tyler happened to be there and so he talked to me, re enforced that he had said I could have the schedule he had offered me, I was not to leave the kids to work a early am shift without being given notice and a choice (so I could make arrangements for kids) and he would talk to the new manager, turns out the new guy had never seen the schedule Tyler and I did, he did go over what I wanted and I agreed to work either Friday or Monday if I had the other three days off, so I felt pretty good about that until he made a comment in passing to me, he said he was bringing some employees from his old airport in to fill some of our open positions, this is great I think but then he said right now I am catering to people because I need them, but when my new people get here some people may quit because I am not going to give them the "good shifts" while my new people work whatever is left. So I guess time will tell what happens with my shifts. On top of that I hurt my back last week at work, a bag got stuck on the belt as I was pulling it into the cargo bin so I have been at the Dr and having some real problems with it healing, so that is not helping.
I feel like I have put up with to much at work the last few monthes (far more than I want to get into now) so I am leary to just give up now, but I do wonder how much is to much, and is it worth it when I no longer enjoy going to work?