New Year

Why does the New Year bring thoughts of the year past? It's just another day, or its that day that people finally feel they have the freedom to try something new, or to give up something old. I started thinking about that today, what is it about 2010 that I would like to remember or forget? What can I do about 2011 to make my life a bit better? I am tired of diets and resolutions, I am not going to do either. I am,however,going to make a statement of fact. A resolution is something we "try" to change but underneath it all, we don't change a thing. It's a feel good moment in hopes that another year is better than the last. A statement of fact is what it is-FACT! No feel good moments, not hopes that get diminished because we fail. So, in essence my Fact for 2011:
**Being Healthy-even if it means I am overweight a bit. If I am eating healthy and exercising and the result is that I am still not a model, then so-be-it.I will not be a prisoner to the scale. I will fail! I will fall! I will cry! I will eat out of boredom! I will eat because I am happy! I will eat because I am sad! I will eat healthy, I will be stronger and I will accept that life can pass me by and yet for another year I spent it worried about how I looked and not about how I feel. Fact, that will change!
**Spending more time with the kids than trying to spend time in peace and quite. I am sure my days of P & Q are sooner that what I think, so I dont' want to waste the time now. Turning the TV off will happen more than year than before, and yes I will fall back into my old patterns of wanting to escape into my room,shut the door, watch TV, read a book,and that is ok, because the Fact is that the next day I will spend it with my kids and learn that I too need time alone and that is OK!
**Keeping my house organized!What who am I kidding.The fact is, my house is a mess. I live here, my kids live here, my husband lives here and I am not a super-hero. Fine, who cares! I am tired of wasting time thinking I have to clean all the time. If my house is a mess and you come over, you won't hear an appolgy for me, because that day I spent time with the kids, or read a book or relaxed after a long day at work.
So, my year of 2011 will be better than 2010 because I am putting things out of my mind to the best of my ablity. I will learn to forgive myself for being my worst enemy. For trying to be someone I am not. I have many, many regrets with 2010 and many, many blessings as well.
Goodbye 2010 bring on the new year!

A lot of changes!

I have recently started a new job at Urgent Care as a Customer rep and Insurance Claims. I am LOVING it! The hours are wonderful, but I do have to work! LOL no more christmas break, summer break but HELLO to more money!

We have been getting things ready for Frida to come and stay with us for a year. Thank you to mom and dad for coming this weekend to paint and get a lot of things done that needed to get done. Bascilly, to light a fire up our buts to help get us going. LOL

Just wanted to blog about the new changes. I am a very lucky women. John and I were laying outside on the trampoline together and enjoying the stars and I was thinking how lucky I am to be with someone who listines, forgives does not run away from problems but handles them head-on. I am lucky!

Needle and Thread

A needle and thread can mend more than clothing,
it can allow a person to "sow" what they reaped.
A needle can mend a broken heart,
in order to allow forgiveness to be stitched in.
A needle can mend wrong-doings in a relationship,
in order for maturity to stretch as elastic.
When something is torn people often look for a quick fix,
a needle and thread takes time to mend,
allowing healing and forgiveness to begin!

(by Lena)

Happy Fathers Day

Dear John,
You are a wonderful father to our kids. You create a safe and loving home for us. Johnny loves working with you and you are so good with allowing him to do dangerous things, I seriously don't like that but I can "suck" it up and let my boy grow into the kind of man his father is. Hannah has always been a daddy's girl, and I think that is wonderful! Thanks for being the wonderful Dad that you are and the wonderful husband you are to me! ;)

Dear my two Dads,
I hate that on this day it is bittersweet. I am celebrating the father of my kids yet I miss out on celebrating with my dads. Bill was a wonderful father to me and walked me down the isle at my wedding. He could make me laugh so hard. I loved how much he loved my mother. I hated seeing him pass and seeing what cancer can do, but today I will celebrate how much I loved him and how much I think of him. My dad was wonderful too. I miss that I did not open myself up to truly get to know him and if I could go back into time, I would make getting to know my dad a priority! Happy Fathers day dads!

Dear Father-in-law,
I don't tell you often, but I love you so much! You are always there for us, even when you don't want to be. ;) I miss you living close by. Many great memories. I don't think I can play mononlopy without thinking the "community chest" is not really called "community breast" that still cracks me up!
Happy Fathers Day! ;)

John's Schooling

This week has been the perfect example of how life will be when John is done with school! I am super proud of him, but to be honest these past couple years have taken a toll on all of us! This week has been great since he has been off of school! I had forgotten how it was to snuggle and talk and do things together!

We can do this babe! When you are done with school you will have accomplished a huge goal in your life and I am proud of you! If we can last out this storm, we can make it through a Tsunami together! I remember hearing a saying from Max Lucado.." Don't tell God how big your storm is, but tell the strom how big your God is".

I love you, we can do this!

Mirror-written by me

Mirror, Mirror hello it’s me…
Tell me again, what do you see?
Go beyond my looks, and into my soul
Tell me the truth, I need to know!
I put on my makeup and fix my hair,
I look at my reflection—I can only stare!
Mirror, Mirror, tell me what you see.
Am I as ugly, as I have been lead to believe?
All the imperfections are easy to hide,
Just put on a cover and hide all the lies.
The pain from the past, is not reflected,
Cause in you Mirror-I have protected.
You can only see what I want you to see,
Not even you can know the real me.
For my soul is not available for reflection,
You make it easy to hide, my imperfections.
I can walk away—and forget for one day,
What it is that I see,
What it is that you see,
Is the perfect example of
Me hiding Me!

author: Lena K Roach
not the best, but I wrote it nonetheless

Freida

For those of you who do not know, John and I are taking in a foreign exchange student from Sweden. Freida and I talk everyday and she is going to fit right into our family. I love her already. I will be blogging a lot about her. John and I are really excited to take this new journey and the kids are just as excited. Keep watching the blogs for great stories about our new daughter!

Sweet 16

Thank you all for the support of my blog. I am not so good at keeping it updated, but I will work on that.
I cannot believe that my baby girl is 16. I still feel like I am 16 and I keep thinking of what I was doing at 16. I was working at Hardees and John was in college at East Central. We just met and fell in love right away. He told his mom the day we met that he was going to marry that "Lena Campbell" girl. I am glad he did, I don't deserve him most days, but I am lucky to have his love and support. Anyway, to think that Hannah could be falling in love FREAKS me out!
Right now she is working at Lost Valley Lake resort and has already banked over 400 in savings. I am proud of her. She is a penny pincher, which she did not learn from us... Grandma and Grandpa taught her that..LOL She is driving and she is very responsible. I don't have to wake her up to get going, she knows what needs to be done and she does it. I am proud of my daughter!

Kennedi

So, I have dozens of nieces and nephews and I love them all very much. Kennedi is the latest baby born into the Roach family and she is precious! She already loves me and I know this because she is so smart she told me so.. Ha Ha!
Kennedi was sick for awhile and was in the hospital and I got to spend the night to help Karen out and what a great bonding time I had with her.
Last Thursday Karen brought her over for me to watch and I just held her the entire time and kissed her so much. She even kissed me back--so she was hungry I am going to pretend it is because I am her favorite auntie--wait I am her only auntie! :)

Below is a photo of my precious Kennedi and yes it does appear as though she is flipping me off! Whatever! LOL

Cruise Part Two!

I love blogging..it's so much fun.. :)

What else can I say about my cruise. I am blogging this so that I can share with my fellow readers and so that I can have a keepsake memory of my adventure!

Did I tell you that my sister and I were the life of the ship? Everywhere we went the staff would call to us " Hey, sisters".. it was wonderful!
There was one singer, Brian Scott, who we would follow around to hear him sing. He had a great voice. Below is a photo of him that I took of him in his off time. The shorts crack me up! He later came down and sunbathed with us and was telling us about his show that night in the casino. I said, "yea I know, we have a show tonight at 8:00 too".... LOL we were stars, we had people wanting us to sing Karaoke again--LOL


Later on in the week, Ginkers and I were still following Calvyn around and we ended up taking a class in folding towels.. Trust me when I say I could never do that again. Kudos to those who can, they are wonderful in the room, but I have zero talent for it!


If someone were to ask me what my favorite thing on the cruise was I would say:" Being able to be 34 years old and have good clean fun meeting new people, dancing until 2 am and of course seeing the beach!" What a magical time in my life. Here are a few more photos of my trip!

What can I say about my trip other than I had such a wonderful time! At first my mom and I took a train ride into Chicago to meet up with my sister and from there we had a sleeper car to New Orleans. We had a blast on the train and met new people.
Once we got into New Orleans we dressed up for a night out on Bourbon Street. In retrospect I really did not enjoy Bourbon Street, there were a lot of people there-mainly because of the Saints game that coming weekend-and the atmosphere was beyond the “party” life. There were young ladies dressed up in night gear and wanting men to come and see them, I felt sorry for the girls and their circumstances in life that led them to do what they were doing. We did stop by a Jazz night club and the music was wonderful and then off to a piano bar and then back to our room to get a good night’s sleep for our cruise.
Our First day----------AMAZING! I feel in love with the adventure and realized I am more adventurist than what I thought. The food was fantastic and I did not have to worry about gluten type foods because all the food was fresh and accommodating to my needs.
Tomi------Tomi was our breakfast waiter and each time he would see us he remembered our names and would call us, “My love and my lady”. I loved being spoken to like that!


Calvyn---Words can’t describe how much I love Calvyn. He was the “Fun ship” man and held a lot of the activities. He is truly the funniest person I have ever met-besides me of course (Ha ha). Below is a photo of me and Calvyn. My sister and I made T-shirts that said.. " Calvyn's Groupies" and we hung out with him and got to him some more-he made this very memorable for me!




For me, I have never seen the ocean or any major bodies of water except the Mermac River-LOL so I was amazed how the beauty of Cozumel Mexico. I loved swimming in the salty water and the waves were huge I wish I could have swam in it longer, but I enjoyed every minute I was on the beach. I came back with a super nice tan! Jealousy was evident by all my peers-ha ha



Well for now I must go, I will do another post to tell you about my trip! :)

To be continued............

Today

I am a very lucky women! I have a wonderful family, and when things happen in our world to other people it only makes me more thankful that I have been given this day to spend it with my kids and husband! At the end of the day I always think..." if only I would have made time for this and that" or " was that tv show really more important than reading with my son?".... I create many opportunities for "do-overs" and I don't think its so bad to want to make changes, what's bad is that I often beat myself up with negative thoughts about what kind of mother/wife I am; this creates an obstacle in which I overeat to overcompensate for the feelings that negative feelings that I create. I have been learning to change this and its working! I am becoming a much more dependent women who is learning that my self-worth is not dictated by feelings but by the person that I am and the person I want to be!
My marriage has had good days and bad days, lately many of those days are good ones. John and I are reaching new levels within ourselves and are not so "dependent" on each other and that is bringing a new level of confidence in our relationship. I believe in him and he believes in me.. ( kinda sounds like a Kenny Rogers song--lol)Thanks babe for our 16 years of marriage!
I am also lucky to have Hannah and Johnny! What else can I say about my kids. They drive me crazy-------but I love them!
I am leaving for Mexico tomorrow, perhaps that is why I am being sentimental today.. I just want the world to know that I am a lucky women!

New Years Eve

To ring in the New Year, John and Hannah were able to go to a Hockey game---The St.Louis Blues Hockey game! I was supposed to go with John and my sister and her husband but I got sick and did not want to go. My sister did not want to go without me so my husband took Hannah and my brother-in-law took Becky ( his daughter) and they had a great time!

Johnny and myself along with my mother played games all night long! I love playing games! We also watched "Trapped in Paradise" one of my favorite winter movies. I laugh so hard! My mom and I laughed and laughed and laughed!

The Measure of a Man

I am finding out that I really enjoy blogging..I don't know who truly reads these, but I like writing about my life and later my kids and their kids can see how truly "nuts" I was.. LOL


I have always loved John, but lately I am learning a new kind of love for him. Respect, honor and pride for him. Its a much deeper love that honestly scares me to think about. I am a guarded person and he has "torn down the walls to my heart" and I love him!

If anyone knows my husband, you know the challenges he had in his younger years. He hates to talk about it, but I love him for it. He is a fighter! He has courage! He is an overcomer! He is a hard worker! I mean look at him, he started off as a city worker and now is a boss over the water and street dept.. and he is in his BA degree program. Wow!

Ok, so I love my husband.. its my blog.. don't read it.. LOL

Today, we went shopping. John has discovered this new love of wearing nice clothes.. I mean ties, and all.. He looks really good in them..:) and we were at Kohls and they had jackets on sale.. a 200 Chaps Jacket for 80.00. He has been wanting a nice jacket to wear with his nice clothes all he has is his work jacket. So, I told him to try it on just to see how it would look.. WOW, YOU should have seen his face. He knew he looked good. He felt proud and it showed! He was just beaming. I asked him if we had the money to pay for it because I wanted him to have it and he said no. :( Well then I remembered his mom gave him money for Christmas and I reminded him of it and he said he was saving that for my cruise. How unselfish is he?
I would rather go on the cruise with no money than to walk out of that store without his jacket. It was his Christmas money! He never buys for himself and by golly he was today!!!!!!!!!

I totally convinced him to buy the jacket. It looks great on him! Thanks Mom for the Christmas money you bought your son a jacket. :) LOL next on our list is a new pair of shoes..

I have seen many changes in my husband and I don't think he is changing who he is only he is becoming more confident and I am proud of him. ;)