Category Archives: tennessee

Our Day Out with Thomas

Disclosure:  My family and I were offered four tickets to A Day Out with Thomas as well as some Thomas goodies.  We were thrilled to participate, as we had already planned on going and getting complimentary tickets was a bonus and an honor.  As always, I don’t accept things that I’m not interested in, nor do I say things that aren’t 100% true, whether the tickets were complimentary or not.

“This may be the last year we’ll get to ride on Thomas,” Tate and I agreed, “Carson just isn’t as interested in Thomas as he used to be.”  We both sighed and reminisced about all the years we’ve spent watching endless loops of Thomas movies and re-enacting great crashes and boiler busting moments with all of Carson and Ella’s favorite characters.

I didn’t really expect Carson to be very excited about our trip to Chattanooga for A Day Out with Thomas.  Since Ella mimics her brother’s every move, we expected that she would also be indifferent about the trip.  But Tate and I, holding onto these precious last preschool years, wanted to take them and hopefully capture the anticipation and wonder of riding Thomas the Train.

In the mail a few weeks before the big day, the kids received some complimentary Thomas conductor hats and train whistles.  I let them play with them for a few days and then stealthily hid them until our trip.  When I pulled them out yesterday morning, they were thrilled with the new (again) toys and hats.  Carson was vibrating with excitement, so therefore, Ella was also vibrating as we headed off to Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.

Despite the dreary, cold weather, our Day Out With Thomas experience was excellent.  The volunteers and workers were nothing but helpful and courteous, trying to make the day perfect for all who attended.  There were all sorts of activities for the kids, starting with a map and a scavenger hunt, and ending with a free gift from the gift shop.  In fact, there were all sorts of freebies like the Mega Bloks, mini Thomas books, and coloring pages they were given.

The kids had a blast in the Imagination Station, where Ella got a Thomas tattoo and both kids played with trains they had set up.  There were plenty of photo opportunities in front of Thomas, as well as with Sir Topham Hatt.  (Unfortunately there were no Lady Hatt sightings.)  The kids played at the bubble station, petted goats and donkeys, played miniature golf, and watched a magic show complete with a cheesy rapping mime homeboy magician.

And of course, we got to ride on Thomas.  Car Two.  We pretended we were riding on Clarabel.  The kids watched out the window during the 25 minute ride, forwards and backwards.  I watched Carson and Ella, and all of the kids in car two, their smiles and laughs.  I’m such a sucker for happy kids, considering that I feel like lately my children have done little beyond whine, complain, and cry and produce nails on the chalkboard behavior.  It was nice to sit back for 25 minutes and watch their quiet, lost in thought smiles.

We ended up spending about 3 hours at the event, we could have spent even more time there, as they also were serving food on one of the stationary dining cars.

This morning, we’ve already studied our Thomas map and colored some Thomas pictures.  I’m back to tripping on Douglas, Emily, and Troublesome Trucks.  Apparently in September there is another Thomas movie being released on DVD, so the kids are already begging that I buy it.

So maybe we can squeeze a few more months out of Thomas yet.  Perhaps we’ll even get to go to A Day Out with Thomas next year.  We can hope, anyway.

Find out more information here.  Follow Thomas on Twitter.


 

 

How we spent Sunday night

Polar Express

Polar Express

Polar Express

Polar Express

Polar Express

Polar Express

Polar Express

Polar Express

Bells

“…the bell still rings for me as it does for all who truly believe.” -Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express

The North Pole Limited, Tennessee Valley Railroad, Chattanooga, TN.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Thank you for all of your kindness and support these past three years.   I appreciate your visits to read about my life, my gripes, and my loves.   Have a wonderful holiday, may it be filled with the hopeful and joyous sound of ringing bells.

(But not the incessant sound of a four year old and a two year old ringing some bells they got on a train ride because WOW.  THAT can be a little annoying.)

Breathing with occasional gasps for air

“Get over it,” I’ve been told.

The move.

“Just get over it,” said with their intended tone of irritation and impatience. As if unexpectedly moving my family should just be taken in stride. Like, oh! Just another life experience to welcome! Like, I don’t have a right to have feelings, very strong feelings, about being relocated a mere seven months after having just moved. I guess there’s a statute of limitations on the amount of time you have to get over entire life upheavals.

It’s been just over one year (a year and two days, but whose counting?) since finding out that we were being transferred to Tennessee and I am getting over it. Getting, but not yet over it. It’s a tall mountain.

This mountain I continue to climb hasn’t just been about the physical aspects of moving, the inconvenience, the starting over, the unknown, and the fear that comes with boxing your personal possessions and entrusting their care to someone you hope didn’t pal around with a criminal element. The place where I always get tripped up on my climb up this mountain was and continues to be about the feeling of finally being home where we were in Indiana. The sense that we lived in Lafayette, that our house was our house, our friends were our friends, our city was actually our city. A palpable sense of possession. It was that we felt like were finally someplace that was truly ours.

(And maybe I keep sliding down this mountain because of a smidge of pure unadulterated rage towards THE COMPANY.)

Crossing over the state line into Indiana, the day we moved there, was where for the first time in ten years that I let my guard down. I stopped looking over my shoulder after having run away for all those years from the monster of THE COMPANY with it’s sharp teeth and horrible breath snarling, “You. There. We’re moving your family.”

I feel that snarling monster’s breath on my neck everyday now, again, like I did for all the years leading up to our move to Indiana. I’m bitterly angry with THE COMPANY, but I’m even more angry with myself for having been naive enough to think that a company, whose first priority is to make money and make decisions best for themselves, would finally leave us the hell alone. THE COMPANY is a business plain and simple, I understand that, but I truly believed for those seven restful months in Indiana that we were safe.

I remember one night just a few days after learning about our move, lying in bed curled in a ball as my crying turned into sobbing. My sobs shook my entire body, I couldn’t even breathe and was covered in tears and snot. With my face in my hands, I kept repeating, “please don’t make us move, please don’t make us move, please.” Tate found me and pulled me into his warm chest and told me how sorry he was. I looked into his eyes and screamed through my tears how unfair it was that THE COMPANY was in control of our entire life. Helplessly, he held me and apologized over and over until I fell asleep in his arms.

I knew my tears were futile, I knew Tate and I had made the decision together to move, but I also knew that had we decided not to move, it would have brought Tate’s career to a screeching halt.

Every time I think about that night and my rage and despair, I cry.

The pain is not as acute as it was a year ago. As the months have passed, I’ve slowly climbed this mountain and have embraced my blessings. I’ve made friends here and am involved in lots of different things that keep the kids and I busy. Our home is beautiful, so beautiful that sometimes I can’t believe I live in it. Considering the economy, I’m thankful Tate even has a job and as a bonus, makes enough money which allows me to continue staying home with the kids. Tennessee itself is a wonderful, friendly place to live. I actually really like living here, a lot.

The move, though? I’m not over it yet. While I do live in the here and now, I know better now than to be naive enough to think that we’re actually here to stay.

Checkout lines are no place for non-church attending Catholics

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I am a magnet for Christians.  They LOVE me.   Really, I don’t know why I seem to attract so many Christians, but seriously, they swarm me.  Where ever I go, I always somehow seem to end up talking to someone who really loves Jesus and wants to talk to me about it.  Possibly I have that Catholic look and seem to be in need of conversion or maybe I just have an aura around me that screams “She-ah NEEDS-ah Jesus-ah!”

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Jesus, He’s one righteous dude.  I’m just private about my beliefs and don’t feel comfortable openly talking about God, Jesus, church, or anything dealing with religion.  I struggle mightily with my beliefs and the Bible, but I have the utmost respect for those who are dedicated to their faith, whatever their faith may be.

Something that I’ve learned in the my years living in the south, is that one of the first questions someone asks you upon meeting is, “Where do you go to church?”  At first, I found it quite offensive and intrusive.  Where I’m from, the Midwest, it’s just not something you ask, at least not when you’re first meeting a person.  Religion was always a topic reserved for people that you were very close to and not something to discuss with random strangers.

I’ve grown accustomed to the question and even expect it now.  I no longer stammer awkwardly trying to come up with an answer that doesn’t make Tate and I look like devil worshipping heathens.  Now I’m prepared and typically fib, just slightly, which is wholly different from outright lying.  I tell people that we are Catholic and just haven’t found the right church yet.  The truth is actually that we attended one church since moving to Tennessee and didn’t like it AT ALL and on top of not liking it (AT ALL), Tate and I had to coax our wiggly children into submission with crayons, tractors, cookies and half-nelsons for the hour long mass.  I always make sure to mention when I’m asked about my church attendance, that I attend Bible study every week, though I leave out the part about my initial reason for attending being the free childcare.  (It bears repeating:  FREE CHILDCARE.)

Today at the grocery store I must have looked particularly in need of some Christian intervention.  The teenage clerk, without even saying “hello” asked me, “Did you go to church today?”

Um.  This bears repeating, too.  The clerk?  As in the cashier, the employee of the store, also a teenager, asked me if I’d been to church today.  Which I should mention is variant of the regular, expected question, “Where do you go to church?”  This unexpected alteration was quite disconcerting and really caught me off guard.

“No,”  I replied, not feeling like I really owed this kid any sort of explanation.  Though I’ll tell you the reason that we didn’t attend church today was because Tate and I stayed out until almost 1 AM the night before, cussing and drinking, Tate was hungover as all get out, I was tired, and we had never even planned to attend church anyway.   So there!  Ha!

And that’s when the teenage clerk asked (you are SO not going to believe this), he asked, “Why not?”

Oh my freaking hell, he asked “Why not?!?!?”  Who does that??

I wish I was one of those really quick witted people that can come up with retorts on the fly, but I was flabbergasted!  My reply was lame.  “Because,”  I said with an irritated glare.

Oooh, I really showed him.

Except that I didn’t, because he wasn’t done with his line of questioning yet.

“What?  You just didn’t get up in time?”  he asked, completely clueless to the lasers shooting out of my eyes into his forehead.

I swear it just might be easier to start going to church.

Less Staff Sergeant, More Loosy Goosey

Wilderness at the Smokies

I’m a person who feels most comfortable in the confines of schedules.  Occasionally I can be sort of flexible with my scheduling.  For example, we usually eat lunch between 12 and 12:30, bedtime is between 8 and 8:30.  We go to the library either on Tuesday OR Thursdays.  See?  SO FLEXIBLE.

Click here to read the rest of the review for Wilderness of the Smokies!

Spring well spent

spring days
I have my eyes closed and my face is turned into the warm wind.  It’s here.  I can feel it, spring.

Such a fickle season, spring, barely stopping by for a visit between the too long visits of gloomy winter and the scorching heat of summer.  Those precious few days when spring actually visits are spent outside, only outside.

“Hey Mom!” Carson exclaims.  “I have an idea!”

“What is it Carson?”  I ask, though knowing what he’s going to say.

“Let’s eat dinner outside, okay?”

So we eat dinner outside.  Because we can.

Spring, stick around for awhile, will ya?

*****

I drew hopscotch on the patio for the kids, at Carson’s request.  I don’t even know how to play hopscotch.

“Mom, we hafta get a rock.  See?  I fro it and jump.”

Ella tries to mimic Carson, but still doesn’t quite have the balance to jump.

They both fall down, one with skinned elbows, the other with a skinned ego.

With the warm weather, I suspect there will be a lot more of that going around.

*****

My stance on early bedtimes is wavering.  I can concede (Finally!) that sometimes it’s okay to stay up late.

Instead we play outside (because we can) until what used to be their strict bedtime.  Around and around, Carson totes Ella in his monster truck.

Battles over whose turn it is and crying that lasts a little too long over minor scrapes clues us in that it’s time to go inside.  They barely put up a fight, their sun-kissed bodies are simply too tired as Tate and I scoop them up and carry them inside.

*****

At the end of a busy day of playing outside, I hold her tightly on my lap before bathtime.  I press my nose into her hair and smell dirt.

That’s the sign of a day well spent.

Those people

People have moved into my house in Indiana.

I don’t know if they bought my house or if they are renters, really, it shouldn’t matter.  I mean if they bought my house, hopefully they’ll care for it and love it as much as I did.  But if they’re renters they might not love it as much if they don’t own it.

I feel like I need to whisper this next part.  It’s embarrassing to admit.  And sad.

As long as my house was still for sale, still uninhabited, I had this hope that maybe, maybe circumstances would work such that we’d get to move back to Indiana and slip right back into our old life, have our old friends, and just forget this whole move to Tennessee.

Those people, living in my house, I don’t even know them, but oh how I resent them.  I feel so angry at them, for taking MY house, for taking my friends, for getting to live the life I want to live.  They will be able to walk across the street for a cup of sugar only to end up staying for dinner.  I probably won’t get to even see my neighbors again, likely ever, but they will.  They will get to vacuum my frise carpet and bake in my double ovens and wash their vegetables in the vegetable sink in the island.

I don’t want to know if they have children.  I don’t want to think of THEIR children sleeping my in MY children’s bedrooms, I don’t want to think of them taking my children’s place at the neighborhood get togethers.

This is so ridiculous, I know, but what I don’t know is how to get past all this anger about the move.  It’s been months and it still feels as unfair as it did in September.  Why did this have to happen?  WHY??  I don’t want to be angry at those people who are living in my house, because I KNOW that it’s not MY house and hasn’t been since we sold it to the relocation company in November.

I guess it’s just that those people took the maybe away.