A Day for the Dads

On my blog you mostly hear about my mom, but there is an amazing dad behind who I am today as well. 

Coach, dad, confidant, businessman and friend my dad wears all of these titles and without a doubt has one of the biggest hearts I know.  People say that your dad sets the tone for the type of man your interested in and I have to say my dad has set the bar pretty damn high. I've said the traits and quirks that my mom gave me but my loud booming voice, my sense of humor, my way of worrying and my ability to speak to speak to anyone and anything are from him. ( it's safe to say that the two of us in a room together provide quite the entertainment). I thank my dad for everything he has done for me for dressing up like superman and I was super baby, for singing ridiculous musicals with me in the car, for teaching me how to dance, and for being there when I needed him most. I am very thankful to have him back in my life and we have more than made up for lost time. I certainly am my mother's daughter but I am also a daddy's girl.

Today I am also thinking of his dad, my grandpa Cosmo. That man would sing the here she comes miss America song every time I would walk into the room when I was a little girl. He came to the US and barely spoke English when he was a young boy . It was amazing to hear his stories of how he taught himself English and his evolution here in the states and I am lucky to have heard all of those. He was such a classy man as well, I loved when he would put on Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra  and he would dance with me and to this day I still enjoy listening to the rat pack. I have not met one person with a bad thing to say about him. I can see where my father got his big, Italiano heart from, because my grandpa Cos touched so many people in his life. On this day my dad and I were talking about him and remembering all of the great things he's said and done and there's one thing he always said and I keep it with me, my dad and stepmom and little brothers keep it with them.

 "Smile and the world will smile with you. Frown and you are all alone." 

Truer words have not been spoken.

So happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there and especially my own, and hope you are all surrounded by smiles. For all you do you deserve a day for all of us to say thank you.

Thank you

To everyone who has told me a story about my mom or a memory, has sent a kind word, and most importantly to my best friend of 8 years and her amazing little man.

I never post twice in a day, but there's a first time for everything.

I hate inconveniencing people. Hate it. So when I found out  my fiancé would be gone this weekend I thought: it is what is just busy schedules. But for my best friend me being by myself was not an option. She wanted to be sure that my busy mind was preoccupied today and her and little man made today more about a celebration of life than the alternative.

I have to say there are not many things that can make me smile more than the laugh of that little man and being with someone who has been through the good and the bad for over 8 years. Like I said there is always something to be thankful for and those two are more than something.

Bright Pink Lipstick

Six years ago today, and to be honest I try not to remember that day.What I like to remember, all of the reasons that my mom put a smile on a face and still does.

One of the best memories was a tradition that carried on from my childhood until I was 18, the year I lost my mom. I was watching her while she was getting ready to go out and I had had a terrible day. I was maybe 13 years old and the girls at school were making fun of me. Truth be told I was a late bloomer, but my mom always made me feel like I was beautiful, and she said that no matter what happened to never lose my sense of humor and my smile.

Well my mom was a natural beauty, but there was one piece of makeup she always wore, red lipstick. So as I'm sitting there talking with her about my day and she told me to come up by the mirror with her and pulled out bright pink lipstick, and put it on me. I asked why I couldn't wear what she was wearing and she told me "because lindsay lou, you are meant to stand out, and no one should make you feel otherwise."

That night she cancelled her plans, we ordered in pizza and sat in our jammies her with her bright red lipstick and me with my bright pink lipstick and ate ice cream from the carton. We talked, we laughed and we fell asleep in a mini campground we had created in our living room. From then on, we would have our date night when my stepdad was traveling for work.

To this day, I still wear my bright pink lipstick even in the middle of corporate america, because something about it just makes me smile remembering the good things.

Don't get me wrong, I try to always be the strong one about it all and be positive and I have learned to work to make sure that I get one day a year to just let it out. In the end I was there with my mom and saw things I would not wish upon my worst enemy, so it's not always easy to just remember the good, but that doesn't mean I don't try to.

 One thing I do always remember: That my mom loved me with all of her being, and although she didn't win her battle with cancer she fought, and the reason behind her fight was that she always wanted to be there for me.

I think sometimes we all need a reminder and today is mine: There is always something to be thankful for. ALWAYS

Odds

Sometimes they're for you and sometimes they're against you, but in my opinion the odds play a larger role in our lives than we give them credit for.

We always hear "What are the odds of that happening" and typically we view them as a bad thing. A big fan of the discovery channel and nat geo I compare this to the typical odds I see on there: the odds getting attacked by a tiger shark (shark week is a national holiday for me), the odds of getting stuck in a tsunami and so on and so fourth.

BUT what if we looked at odds from a different point.

There are some odds that are a given (not to all, but generally speaking) what are the odds I'm going to have my morning coffee, or go to work every morning (you could set your watch to the fact that these will happen), and there are some odds that are a shoot for the stars, lightening strikes twice kind of odds.

I've realized its the odds that make life exciting. Maybe its the things that are against the odds that we really look forward to, the things we appreciate because we never saw them coming.

But hey...  what are the odds of that happening right?

The 6 Year Mark

After losing my Mom 6 years ago this Saturday  my life changed forever and for some reason it really hit me today. It will be the 6 year mark.

Time heals everything. At least that's what they say and to a point that may be true. But I can't help but think how much has changed in the past 6 years, how much I want to tell her, how much I want her to see, and what I would give to have one more girls night with my idol, the woman who has made me into what I am today.

On the flip side, I look back and see how far I've come in those 6 years. How much losing her has pushed me to be the person I am today. Instead of sitting and thinking how I feel about losing her today I really tried to feel blessed. Blessed that I was lucky enough to have 18 years with a woman who was everything and more a mother should be. She was more than a mother, she was mentor and an idol. I have never met anyone who has been so unwaveringly proud of me in life  as she was and her pride in me pushed me to elevate not only my expectations in myself, but forever changed my minds eye of how I see the world (my anything is possible with hard work mentality I inherited from her).  Nor have I ever met a woman who could light up a room with just a smile. (Just watching people how people watched her was something in itself).

One of the best keepssakes I have from my mom is an article written about her after she spoke at UW Hospitals'Jewel of an Evening' event that brought light to gynocological cancer. Here it is.

 For Wendy Peters, surviving and thriving with cervical cancer involved setting goals for herself, like moving her daughter into college at UW-La Crosse. In the process, arguing with her daughter about "totally silly" things made her feel normal amid all the turmoil happening to her body, Peters said.

"We sweated and we fought, but we moved her into college and we did OK," said Peters. "It's the everyday, simple things that just make you happy."

It's true though isn't it? It's the simple, little things that just  make us happy. I have learned the value in everyday from my mother and that life is really too short to be anything but happy. If you don't like something change it, if you want something work for it. I am eternally grateful to my angel of a mother and everyday in the back of mind, in my goals, in my work, in my dreams, in my relationships and more I work to live up to be a person she would be proud of, but the funny thing is she always used to tell me as long as I'm happy she would be proud of me.

She may not be with me in a physical sense, but I am reminded in my little quirks that make me stop and think "god that was something mom would say" that she will always be with me ( and those are the moments when I get the biggest smile ... A smile that I am proud to say comes straight from her).

Mom and I (age 3)

Coming home from the hospital





 

She had a smile that could light up any room

Unexpectations

This morning in church the Father said something in his sermon that got me thinking. When we plan, God laughs.

In my experiance this has been the most frusterating thing for someone like me. I make lists, charts and plans. I like to think that if I have all of my ducks in a row everything will go like I have planned and these plans will play themselves out as I have mapped out in my always busy brain. Plans are my safety net.

The kicker? This is furthest from the truth. Looking back, there have been things that have happened completely opposite of my detailed planning.Things that for better or for worse have impacted the course I had imagined myself on.

The kicker part 2? Deviations to your plans always seem to happen when everything is on course and then this something comes out of nowhere and blows them out of the water. On one side of this, if its negative change of plans it can be a whirlwind, but if it is a positive wrench in the system, it makes you wonder. And sometimes you can't define if it's postive or negative.

I think part of it is that plans bring expectations (how your mind plays out the ideal situation.) Expectations aren't a bad thing, but with plans you sometimes go through the motions with your basic expectaions. But, when plans are broken it's unexpectated, with this comes unexpecations (not a word I know but stick with me) that allow us to see and experiance things that may be scary, but at the same time pretty damn amazing and interesting.

Maybe one thing they have told me is right... Always expect the expectations, or in my experiance "hold and tight because you can't plan for the unexpectations"

Sometimes A Girl Just Needs a Burger

Everyday on the internet, on the tv, in the magazines you hear what's bad for you, and what you should be doing (more often than not, what you shouldn't)

Don't drink Diet Coke, it has aspartame.
Don't use your cell phone too much, it causes cancer.
Don't eat carbs, they make you gain weight. (From a carb connoisseur I'm still waiting for someone to prove this false)

Where am I going with this all? I promise there's a point.

Well I like to consider myself a pretty healthy person, I count red wine and dark chocolate as exceptional health supplements, but in all seriousness I do. So in attempts to improve my health I decided to supplement my typical medium-rare, little piece of heaven burger for a frozen veggie burger for lunch.

For the sake of being completely candid,it wasn't as good as the real thing (more like a cardboard cutout of what a burger should be) and it just made me want a REAL burger. A medium, rare beef burger with pickles, bacon and mustard to be specific.

It's kinda like life. We try so hard to do "what we're supposed to do" that we ignore the things that make us tick, the things that we enjoy just because.

Sometimes we just need to just step back and enjoy life.

Sometimes a girl just needs a burger.