I was in a sorority.
The Pi Beta Phi house in Boulder, Colorado.
Turns out, The Pioneer Woman was a sorority girl, too.
And, a Pi Phi to boot!
She’s got a new cooking show on the Food Network coming later this summer and her recently released book, “Black Heels to Tractor Wheels“!
{I found out that she is a Pi Phi in the Spring 2011 edition of my The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi magazine}
home is…sisterhood.
Today we went to one of my happiest places on earth.
Vail.
From the time I was my children’s ages I spent a lot of time up in Vail…Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. This continued throughout my 30 years in Colorado.
When I drive up the East side of Vail Pass it is like pure magic. And, when I drop over the West side into the Vail Valley it is like coming home. Everything about it is awesome…the views, the smell, the sounds.
I wanted to share this with my kids as soon as I could.
Today was the day.
It was a quick trip into the village. Across the covered bridge. Up Bridge Street to The Toy Shoppe. The same toy store, with the same Hello Kitty toys, keychains, and vanity license plates for kids bikes as 30 years ago.
We made it up to peek at the Vista Bahn and watch a couple of skiers come down the mountain. Then the kids were ready to move on.
And move on we did.
We drove up to the Cordillera where my aunt and uncle have a beautiful home. We had lunch with my aunt and uncle, cousin and his fiance.
We played, talked, reminisced about fun had in Vail together, and just enjoyed eachothers company.
Everybody was happy. It was magical.
Thank you to my mom for driving us up and back.
Thank you to my aunt, uncle, cousin and fiance for entertaining my kids.
Thank you to my wonderful kiddos for sharing one of my happiest places on earth with me.
home is…going to a happy place.
The kids crashed last night.
Then both woke up around 1 am and wanted to be snuggled, but would not snuggle with me in the same bed. Thanks to Meme for snuggling with the little guy so I could snuggle with baby girl.
Eventually everybody got back to sleep and woke at a decent hour for the day.
We woke up to an unexpected (for me, at least) snowfall. A few inches of the white stuff had fallen and was falling as baby girl and I headed up for breakfast.
In Portland, schools would have been closed for a snow day, but life went on here in the foothills west of Denver.
The deer were eating their breakfast outside.
We shoveled the snow.
Tried to play with the deer.
Threw snow in the air.
Went sledding.
Built a snowman.
And, watched the snow melt.
We also took a trip to Whole Foods and Target, played with the remote control Jeep, and took naps (baby girl and I took naps while Meme played with the little guy).
The kids are sleeping and I am headed to bed soon…lets hope everybody sleeps through the night. We have a big day planned for tomorrow with cousin Sha-Sha! And, we may get more snow tonight!
Oh yeah, we also saw a coyote running up the draw before we went out sledding this morning!
home is…fun in the unexpected snow!
I will be running here…
With my momma friends from here…
(if you are there, look for us in our team shirts with the above picture on them)
home is…running in the rain with good friends.
We are now a month in to a new year. There are some who make resolutions…are you sticking with them? I don’t actually make resolutions, but I do set goals. Of course, a general goal is to become a better person. Inside of that general goal are smaller ones…being a better wife, mom, sister, daughter, friend. I am constantly questioning and evaluating how good I am at any of the roles that I play. I never really feel that I am doing a good job at any of them. I’m not looking for sympathy…it’s just how I feel. Not sure where this comes from, but it’s just how I feel.
Anyway, yesterday I read this blog post and it hit home.
Over the years I was hurt by friends that I thought were my BFF’s. Eventually, I think I just decided that it was better to not get too close to my friends. Not to mention, before high school my parents almost got divorced/separated/whatever, but decided to stay together. Needless to say, there was a lot of turmoil at home, but nothing that I felt that I could share with a friend…at least nothing I thought they would be able to understand. So, I think I stayed distant for that reason.
I played sports, got good grades, went to parties, had boyfriends, and always had girl friends, but never a BFF. Why? I don’t know. (Maybe part of it was because I always had my sister as a BFF since we were just a year apart in school)
What I do know is that I wasn’t perfect. I made mistakes, but I didn’t deserve what happened to me halfway through my senior year of high school. The blog I read yesterday put it perfectly. In some ways I feel that I was “Heathered”, too.
I actually watched part of the movie Mean Girls 2 the other night on ABC Family and it made me sad. Girls are mean. And, it’s not true…they aren’t just being mean because they are jealous (what my parents used to tell me)…they are just MEAN!
It is almost 20 years later, and I still feel like a bad person. I made a mistake, but they made it worse. I cried everyday at school. I couldn’t eat in the cafeteria that I ate in for 3-1/2 years. I ate lunch alone. Stayed home from parties that I used to be able to go to. My sister was my lookout and only confidante. Eventually, I found new people to hang out with, but come on, this was my senior year in high school. It was miserable.
I hope I can teach my daughter to not be a mean girl and protect her from those who are. I need to feel good about myself so I can teach my daughter to be a strong girl and grow up to be a strong woman who believes in herself no matter what other people think about her or do to her. I need to find something within myself that makes me feel good about being a friend. I need to believe that I can believe in myself…as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, and any other role I play in this life.
That’s all I have for today.
home is…believing that you can believe in yourself.
Well, technically, a former diva. We called ourselves diva’s at the design firm where I worked before I left to be a stay-at-home-mom. I don’t exactly know how it started as I began after the fact (maybe one of the original diva’s can fill in the blanks). In the last couple of years some of us have left, some of us have stayed, and some new diva’s have come along.
Last week, we had a diva night. Needless to say, it was too much fun…
home is…being a former diva.
stephany taddeo 