Sometimes A Girl Just Needs Flowers.

When I met Dominic I had a bumper sticker on my car that read
"My only domestic quality is I live in a house" so he knew what he was getting into.

I am not a domestic goddess by any means. I like when my house is clean, I like to do some household chores but my heart is rarely into it.
If it wasn't for the boys and Joseph's twenty million appointments and Derek's 30 million illnesses I would have been a working mom long ago. I am glad to be with them and raise them and happy when people compliment me on them and their behavior I find it makes me feel I must be doing something right. But my heart is really more into bringing home the bacon and cooking it not so much.

My friend Carla is a cleaning machine. She said to me once "I stayed up till midnight Windexing everything that needed it in my house. Everyone was a sleep and it felt so good" and I get that for her it's a sort of therapy. She can cook amazing meals and bake wonderful cakes my boys ask for! Her house is always clean and tidy. She does a lot. But rarely is she appreciated to the fullest extent that she deserves. I don't even do as much for her as I wish I could.
She's having some rough spots now and I feel bad for her. She doesn't deserve any of the things that are happening to her. She's not perfect and has never ever claimed to be but she's had more than her share of crap.

When I think of all she does for some of the people in her life and yet it's not enough for them and they ask for more or don't even realize how very different it all could be for them without her in their lives I cringe.

Today as I sat about and played with the boys too much, did not fold the laundry and did not clean as much as I should have I thought of her and how Dominic would probably give his left arm for me to be like Carla. I guess I would like to be more like Carla too. Not just for her cleaning and amazing cooking abilities but to be more like the wonderful person she is.

I often tell Jenn and Val and Buffie we will all be sitting on a beach some place some day sipping fancy drinks, our kids grown our hubbies off happily doing whatever they wish (James plaing a video game, Chris out fishing, Ivan watching college football etc) and we'll be happy to be on the other side of these days in a happy place and know that we survived all of "this".
Today I formally invite Carla to join us. She has a standing invitation her drink order has been placed, her chair is set up and ready right along side of us.
I know she'll get thru all of this the good, the bad, the ugly of it all. I don't know what life will be like for her on the other side but she and her daughters will make it. I know this much is true.

I don't have a fancy purse. I don't own my own home. I have never been to Hawaii. But I have great friends and that at the end of the day is all that really matters. We have had our issues but at the end of it all we stay friends.
I think today she just needs some flowers so here you go.