Comment on :New study: sports tied to bad behavior in some teens

@TheKidsDoctor New study: sports tied to bad behavior in some teens. http://tinyurl.com/yd7ypt8. Thoughts? @katiesheadesign

   I have raised 2 boys and a girl all participated in different sports.  I have observed various outcomes which at times included the following in my home as well as others:
   Too tired to do Homework which leads to :
anxiety, then insomnia, then irritability, then anger, then ourbursts, then discipline from parents, then rebellion.
   Its apparent that a pattern of negativity can be established if constant intervention  is not maintained by parents setting limits all the time.
  The other end of the spectrum is that when close management and supervision is established and maintained for the students,a very positive outcome can be the reality.
   The positive effects I have observed are that my children  (now adults)can function as being part of a team and therefore cooperate and contribute to the bigger picture in life.  Such as workplace situations, time management, people management, being aware of the needs of others. Just to name a few.

These are my thoughts and observations in response to the article referenced.

A little about Me and KatieSheaDesigns

  

   I am part of something very big; I am a wife to my husband of 26 years, and for the past 24 years Mommy, MOM!, Motherrrrr, or on a very rough day Kathleen (when I have really gotten under their skin LOL)
   I am an entrepreneur since way back when.  I have instilled this desire in each one of my offspring.
   I homeschooled each one of them for various amounts of time, around 10 years collectively.
  According to my children way back then, we were the “different” family in the town :) LOL.
   I truly don’t mind being thought of as “different” because “different” delineates me, us from the rest of the family and the world. I have always taught my brood that what is good for each one of them individually is not always applicable for all of them collectively or others.

   I have seen clear evidence of this statement each and every day while I was homeschooling them. Why I say that with confidence is because I have taught 2 boys and 1 girl to read, write and rithmatic :). Each one of them learned what was being taught when their brains had the ability to process the information. We had many starts and many stops in different subjects.

   What I mean by that is that I followed a state mandated scope and sequence of what I “had” to teach “when” I was to teach it in that order. I tried it “their” way and when that was not the schedule of the said brain at that time, I would revisit it in a week, a month etc and have much more success. Well my children had keenly observed the success of this method and realize that they can be successful in whatever they try because they do not give up on the first, second or third attempt. This does not mean that they will be the best at whatever they are trying to achieve. It simply means that they are learning that there is a “Time for Everything” Eccl 3:1.

   So with all that being said… here “I” am being the entrepreneur that I have been told that I am blazing a new trail after this season of raising my children is just about closed. (Looking forward to giving cookies to my grandkids while my children reprimand me) :).
I have been told many many times that I tend to do things out of the regular order of life and yes I am starting a new business and career right smack in the middle of my said “life” , after I have raised my children and before I sign up for the AARP. ( a little Humor there)

   I will always be “Mommy, Mom , Motherr, and on a rough day Kathleen,  Kathhhh to my husband but now I am the Founder of KatieShea Designs.

   I will be introducing my designs very shortly and I invite each and everyone of you to celebrate the events of your lives with a “Rose designed specifically for “YOU” because there is only one “YOU” and a I would like to reflect your individuality, style, specific event/memory in the design you commission me with.


   I will treat each client with the individuality and attention that I expect .


   MY two motto’s in life: “Never accept poor service” and “Nobody is paying me to take my money”


   I plan to start introducing my designs right here on my Blog so my friends who follow me can be the first to see the kaleidoscope/collage of my designs.


   I look forward to your comments. And please leave your comments, I love to hear from you!!

Thanks for being a part of my life :)


   Mommy, MOM!, Motherrrrr, Kathhh,  on those rough days Kathleen!

 KatieSheaDesigns

 P.S.


I will be blogging next on why I am called KatieSheaDesigns and how/why this business was born.

Dust on the Ceiling Fan

It was Jan 2003 I remember distinctly.

My kitchen ceiling fan was very dusty. I looked up almost every day and made a mental note to clean those glaring white blades with the dust screaming Clean me!!! I really was irked that there was so much that was not getting tended to in my home.

I kept reminding myself that there were way more important things than dust, like my grandmother I was nursing back to health.

Grandma lived alone by choice. She was.. And still... is a feisty, petite, well put together 86 years old at the time. She looks way better than me even on her worst day. Her nickname has become "Grandma Clinique" obviously because of all the Clinique products she uses.

Well Grandma had a heart attack a week after she buried her younger sister in November 2002 and had quadruple bypass heart surgery the day after Thanksgiving of 2002. She needed to be taken care of when she was released from the heart step down program and nobody had room for her in their homes so... My husband and I transformed our newly built family room to Grandma's apt so we could take care of her. Sounds simple and nice right???

Grannie Annie is a compulsive neat nick who lives and dies by her stomach, the TV show schedule and her rigid schedule of life. She definitely came to the wrong place at my house.

My house was and is the "Circus". We have numerous pianos, keyboards, guitars, computers, art supplies, canvases, projects, fabric etc and visitors! You get the picture.

It was months of coming downstairs and praying she was still alive and she did not die in my house! It was months of medicine trials with reactions that gleaned heart stopping scary reactions. It was months of counting meds out 3X a day, and it was months of 3 meals a day on Grandma's stomach clock and showering her with sights I never wanted to see even in horror film!

My Aunts (who "did not have room for their mother in their own homes") used to tell me I was spoiling her by making her bed and serving her 3 meals a day delivering them to her recliner. I did not realize that they had inside knowledge to the reality that I was my Grandma's personal assistant and that she took time off from life to be taken care of like the "Queen" my Grandpa made her!

As this all unfolded, I was still taking care of my 3 children, my Husband, and heavily involved with a show that I was the backstage director/costume designer for.

My Grandma and my neighbors marveled at how many times a day my red van left my driveway scurrying to fill infinite requests and chauffeuring whomever wherever while Granma designed her menu and TV schedule for the day. Unbeknownst to me, Grandma was also keeping another schedule that slowly was revealed while she was doing her sick gig by me. Remember I mentioned Grannie Annie was... and still is a neat nick, well guess what? Grannie Annie was keeping a list of what "I needed to clean" only to be revealed at her own untimely discretion.

What do I mean by untimely discretion? Well while I was on all fours cleaning up the dog urine that my bichon involuntarily gave up because of a bladder issue, my grandma decided to sit in her chair and let me know that Her dinner "that was sitting only 3 feet on the counter, prepared by me punctually at 5:00pm, hot was getting cold! And...If that was not enough ...while I was cleaning up dog urine 3 feet from her and 6 feet from "her dinner" she said firmly! "When was I going to get her dinner from the counter and WHEN WAS I GOING TO CLEAN THAT CEILING FAN” as she pointed upward in my kitchen!!!

I could NOT believe my ears!! After months and months of devoting myself to the priorities of life and Grannie Annie being "the priority numero Uno" I finally wanted to just strangle her myself!

I adjusted myself and was determined to evict Grannie Annie ASAP. I gave her a rewarmed plate and told myself that the ceiling fan might never get cleaned.

When our eyes finally met, she told me that it was time for her to go home because obviously I did not have the time to do what needed to get done and having her in my home was too much for me because my ceiling fan had been dirty since she arrived and was still dirty.

Grannie Annie sent me to the store for her the following morning. I had not made her bed yet and she was not even dressed. When I arrived home I could NOT believe my eyes, her bed was made, she was dressed and her bags were packed and at the bottom of the staircase.

I asked if my Aunts were over and helped her. Grannie Annie stared at me and simply stated it was time for her to go home and obviously she meant right then, at that moment in time.

We stared at each other with our eyes locked not blinking for what seemed like an eternity.

All of a sudden I realized that Grannie Annie had been allowing me take care of her. All of our conversations came rushing back and swirling in my head.

Grannie Annie was the oldest of 7 in her family. She was her mother's right hand. She had been a caretaker most of her life. Her control issues stemmed from having to demand organization so everything and everyone could function seamlessly. Grannie Annie had lost her mother to cancer when she herself was in her early twenties. She became sister and mother to her siblings and her own children.

While Grannie was sitting in the recliner all those months, she shared so many stories with me that I would not have otherwise known if we did not have that time together.

The story that jumped out at me the most while I was staring into my grandmothers eyes was the one about her last visit to her home by her mother my great grandmother I never met.

She had told me this event repeatedly while she sat in "the Recliner".

Her Mother had traveled the train, ferry and bus to come visit her over in Jersey. When she had arrived she found a wonderfully prepared corned beef dinner with all the trimming. My grandmother made her mom sit down and be served her like a queen. Grannie Annie said that was her only memory of her mother ever sitting down to a dinner that was cooked by someone else and also her mother allowing her daughter to serve her. That was her mother’s last good meal and the last time she ever visited Grannie Annie.

Oh my goodness, I was floored. My Grandmother had NEEDED someone else to take care of her just for a short time. She was way way overdue! Nobody had taken care of her the way she needed to be taken care of since her own mother died!

It was as if she read my mind. She finally broke the silence and said " I cannot let you take care of me any longer because I will never want to go home." I started to cry and hugged her. I told her she did not HAVE to go home. She told me she did. “She had things to do”.

I smiled at Grannie Annie and hugged her some more.

40ish Moms and perimenopause . What I'm in menopause!!!!

I just got off the phone with my best friend who is also 40ish, and realizing the same things as me.  I likened our lives to being put in a spacesuit and shipped off to Mars then dropped off. 

But.....before they open the hatch to drop us off we are told that we have to leave the spacesuit there and enter into this new environment completely unknown to us without the protection or the support of the space suit that enables us to get from earth to Mars. 

We are also told that we have to quickly become adept to the new environment with all of the factors that are so foreign to our bodies on earth.  We will have to breathe differently, find out how to live on this new planet and do it all ourselves etc.  This will mean dealing with our bodies reacting to all that is new and not be able to get any help while we are adjusting....sink or swim we are told.   Oh... and by the way we cannot feel sorry for ourselves, show any emotion, miss anything or anybody from earth we must just go on. 

And Yes one perk will be that we CAN have an interplatetary cell phone that we can only receive calls from the earthly people that need to ask questions or directions,,,just incase there were still some lose ends. It  should be NO surprise to us that we can only RECEIVE  "I Need" calls because that is what happened on earth.  Bonus:  if we receive too many calls on Mars we are then told  : "We did not do our job right on Earth".  I in turn am thinking... we did too much and that is precisely why we have been dropped off on Mars in the first place.   Just thinking outloud  ...clearing my throat......

We are told that all that we did on earth really does not mean anything because it really was all for nothing.  We were just foolish enough not to invest into learning about Mars while we were still  functioning in our earthly familiar environments.  The spacesuits were simply to make our transition FROM earth to mars as comfortable as possible for that brief time.  It was our jobs that we failed at ...not to have realized that all the while we  were on earth we should have been preparing for the next planet.

 Oh... by the way....nobody let us know that there was another planet we were going to be dropped off at after our usefullness was spent.

To all the good mothers and wives out there who have given selfishly to your family wake up and listen.  You too could be on Mars so do all you can to prepare for it.  Just in case....

Take care of yourself and your needs Now.  Do not wait til everybody else is taken care because ....everyone else will just continue to ask of you what you do not have to give so .....you take it from your reserves.  Then when the reserves run out you get to go to Mars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh and get an occassional phone call from earth.... :)

Anthonyism # ??? LOST COUNT

The other day my 2 oldest offspring were discussing "Why does Mom  make Anthony the 22 year old's lunch every day to take to work or college"?

Anthony (the 22 year old) replies to the older 24 year old sister (who lives in her own apt and still brings home her laundry and shops in my pantry and fridge)... Mom does not have any one left at home but me and she wants to .......NEUTER ME!!!!!   LOL LOL LOL    Well after laughing so hard we were crying, I explained to my daughter that he meant  NURTURE  HIM.  The sick part is I can follow his train and his train is not exactly on the tracks....

Example of Anthonyisms

Anthony  @17 years old was going to the prom and asked me to order him a Croissant.  I promptly ordered him the Corsage that he wanted.

Anthony @ about 11 years old was having a conversation with my husband in the car about entertainers that are quirky and demanding of others.  Anthony's response was:  I know Dad, there are a lot of Whitney Houstons out there.  My husbands eyes popped, rendered speechless by this child clearly speaking another language that he did not understand!!  So...  I translated for my husband from "Whitney Houston" to Prima Donnas because Anthony was really thinking about Madonna but meant Prima Donna aka "Whitney Houston".  Well you try to follow that train!!!  Exactly!

And  that was just a few :)

Again I am scared because I CAN TRANSLATE!!!

To Risk

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss

To love is to risk not being loved in return,

To hope is to risk despair,

To try is to risk to failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow,

But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.

Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.

Only a person who risks is free.

A Dash, it says so much and so little.....

Monday, October 5, 2009


Quote #274


Monday, October 5, 2009


There'll be two dates on your tombstone/ And all your friends will read 'em/ But all that's gonna matter is that little dash between 'em...

-Kevin Welch
 
Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of my Grandfather's death.  I had been pondering IF I was going to go to the Cemetery yet another year and put the rock on the tombstone to say I was there (something my old Irish family traditionally does when they visit the dead).  I had wrestled with it because last year when it was 20 years that Grandpa had been passed  my Aunt Eleanor was still alive (my mother's youngest sister) and now she is buried almost right along side my Grandpa.  I have been to the cemetery this past July 5th and already experienced her tombstone and I trembled then.  It was surreal to me that SHE was in the ground ceasing to exist.  

Back to my Grandpa.   Grandpa had been THE most important man in my life until I met my husband.  Grandpa was always there for me.  Towards the end of his life we were even more close than when I was growing up.  He loved my husband and was thrilled I had gotten married to a "nice man" like my husband.  He loved his great grandchildren and wanted daily reports on their progress.  Hence the Daily AM phone calls, always following up on the children, how and what I was doing, advising me and researching whatever needed to be found out for me or the children.  My Grandpa was one of a kind.  He did not have a college education because in those days you did not get scholarships for track and football and his immigrant parents made their way here, thats where it stopped.  So he shared what he had with us.
By the time I was in my teens I knew so much about WWII.  We sat for hours as Grandpa explained in detail the different battles that had occurred.  Some combat he partook in.  The Kamikazee he shot out of the air that could have sunk the whole battle ship he was stationed on. 

You see Grandpa was an unusual soldier.  He went into the War at 30 years old and 3 children home.  He said every day as he went to work in NYC while the war was going on; people stopped him wherever he was and asked WHY a big strapping young man like him was not serving his country.   He was torn between country and Family.  Then they were starting to call men in and his  draft number was coming up soon, so he enlisted in the Navy rather than be drafted.  He was so upset but rather than be put wherever the military decided to assign him, he signed up.  He felt the navy would give im a better chance in coming home alive to take care of his 3 daughters and wife.  


Fastforward, he obviously made it and lived to have  granchildren and great granchildren.
I grew up with an unstable (unaffectionate towards me) alcoholic father that was unpredictable in all things.  My alcoholic father singled me out to corporal punish and make me an example all the time.  He loved my sister because she was this little delicate blond who idolized him no matter what he did to me, my mom , her or my brother.  I became the defender and the confronter and my Grandpa did not know the full scope of things that happened to me until I was much older.  When my parents split, I had been traumatized because I witnessed and stopped my Father from murdering my mother and my baby brother when I was 6 years old.


After that horrible day, I had closed up to all male affection.  It took years for me to even allow my Grandpa to hug me.  He worked hard during this time to draw me out and respected my space.  He knew that I had been violated emotionally and physically and it would take time to reach me if at all.



So.....We played endless word games and we drew together on the heavy cardstock he brought back from the book bindery. He always brought all kinds of books for me to read without covers on of course, because thats what had to happen to the discarded books before they left the factory. He always told me I could do whatever I set my mind to do because I was a thick Irishman LOL. Todays age it means stubborn and I have also been told a steamroller by others. I guess my Grandpa chose to see this as a positive attribute of mine that some see as an exhaustive detriment.


  He always cheered me on with any accomplishment whether it be scholastically, sports, writing awards etc.  He made me feel valued, respected and that it mattered that I was even born.


This is how Grandpa affected my life and I am just a small piece of the dash on the headstone.



 That dash on the headstone between his birthday and his death represents so much life. Its amazing that when all is said and done, a DASH can be so powerfull, so final and so cold.