Recently I had the opportunity to take my kids back to my parent’s house for a visit.  It was absolutely wonderful to just relax, read a book, and let my family watch my kids.    One lazy afternoon Mackay drew my attention to all the trophies in my parent’s room above their bookcases.  And she asked me what they were, and why we had them.  Most of them are from my older brother, the basketball star.  But three of the trophies were mine from growing up.  Why we still had them I have no idea.  I felt close to zero pride for the gold painted plastic. Case in point:

Trophy #1: My very first trophy.  A beautiful, well-shaped gymnast doing a handstand graces the top.  My name gold plated on the bottom.  I knew I didn’t deserve it when I got it.  My mom put me into gymnastics (I was SO excited), but even after a year was never able to do a cartwheel.  To this day I still cannot do a cartwheel.  At our final gymnastics event of the year all the girls in the class learned a “routine” and performed it, one by one, as a solo.  The routine was packed full of cartwheels.  Unfortunately for me these cannot just be faked.  I even remember parents giggling through my performance.  And I got a trophy?

Trophy #2: My friend wanted to perform a duet on the piano for a competition coming up that weekend.  It was SUPER easy, we barely practiced.  We went to the music store for the competition, armed in the same shirt, skirt and shoes (you can do this when you’re best friends).  Our parents didn’t even come.  We played our duet, the judges oohed and aahed over our matching outfits, and we left.  And were called back later that day for the “finals!”  We were so excited.  We went back, played our super easy song again, and won first place in our division.  My trophy even has a “1st” on it, and it’s kind of sparkly.  I’d be proud if I had actually tried, or practiced.

And trophy #3: Probably the only one that means something, but the smallest trophy I own.  Growing up I always loved to write.  I was always writing stories (granted, usually they came from a story I had just read or a show I had just watched, but still).  I entered one of my stories into a district-wide competition at school, either about a woman becoming president or going to outer space, and my story was picked as one of the best!  I’m not sure if I got honorable mention, or actually placed in top three for my school.  But I won a trophy, and that’s sort of all that mattered.  The day I accepted it was during an assembly in front of the whole school.  I was death-bed sick with the flu at home, but my mom made me get dressed and go to school just for this assembly.  She didn’t tell me why, I had no idea I had won anything.  And I was a little more than perturbed when I had to stand on stage in front of the whole school so light headed and nauseous.  Oh, and my outfit was SO ugly, and my hair wasn’t done, I remember.

So trophies.  I can almost sum them up as a semi-meaningless way for us to compare ourselves to our friends and family so we can feel bad about ourselves.  That, or in the process of making others feel bad we find our own sense of pride.  Does anyone else agree with this sentiment?  Does anyone else still have their childhood trophies?  I think if I had really excelled at something I would be more proud, but mine just shout “MEDIOCRE!”  every time I see them.  *Aah.*  What a lovely walk down memory lane.

The ugly truth is I usually push myself so hard during the week working every waking hour I have, that when the weekend comes I completely crash.  Yesterday was no exception.  We had been at church for over 5 hours.  Much of which involved chasing my kids around wearing a dry clean only dress and high heel shoes.  And as soon as we got home my husband left again.  I felt like my body and my mind were nearing death.  I was in my pajamas, (in the middle of the afternoon), sprawled out on the couch, flipping through the bonus features of Monster’s Inc trying to keep my children entertained when a loud banging was heard at my door.

My first thought was, Who has the NERVE to bang on my door like that. And then I remembered, Oh no, my door isn’t locked! Just as I got up off the couch to lock the door from whoever was thinking about intruding, the door OPENED.  I was frozen for a few seconds until I recognized the police uniform.  There’s a fire in your building, he said in alarm, Get OUT NOW! I was in my pajamas, and Zack didn’t even have a shirt on (from the Tomato Basil Soup we had for dinner).  You have time to get a shirt and shoes for your kids.  But get out now.  There is a meeting place outside.

I yelled at Mackay to get out, but she ran out the door and then directly back in to be by my side.  I grabbed a shirt for Zack and fumbled trying to find two shoes that matched.  ANY two shoes.  As soon as I found some I handed it all to Mackay, picked up Zack, and we ran out of the house.  My mind raced as I thought about what in my house I would want to keep in case our entire apartment became engulfed in flames.  I ran back in and grabbed my camera as quickly as I could, hoping the police officer didn’t see, for fear he would yell at me.  The tv and many lights in the house still on.  Outside I saw where a group of people had gathered together, so we walked in that general direction.  I sat my kids on the grass and put Zack’s shirt on, told Mackay to put on her shoes, and attempted to tie Zack’s shoe laces, to no avail.  I was stunned at the lack of neighborhood we had.  Everyone was standing around, but no one talking.  Me being the only one with children, I thought maybe someone would come to see if they could help, to see if we were okay.  People hardly looked in our direction.  Of course Nate wasn’t home.  Four fire trucks pulled up all around us, so I picked up my kids and decided to walk to our neighbor’s house.  I didn’t want to sit there all alone, and I didn’t feel that my kids needed to watch.  That’s when I realized I had no shoes on.  Great.

As we were walking briskly to our friend’s, Mackay never stopped talking.  She told me about that one time when she was at the doctor’s office and the firemen came in and made them all get out because there was a fire and she almost died.  Of course none of this ever happened.  But I just agreed with whatever she said, my mind somewhere else completely.  I felt the tears welling up.  Partly because I was walking around in my pajamas without shoes on.  I felt so helpless.  I kept it all together as I knocked on their door.  But as soon as they answered the tears came in abundance.  We’re okay, we’re okay. I kept saying.  And I brought my camera. How silly, out of everything in our home, that was the only thing I could think of grabbing that was of importance.

As I was trying to calm down, the kids already at home playing with toys, I had my friend’s husband call Nate.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together through the phone call, and didn’t want him to be more alarmed than he needed to be.  He arrived in minutes.

We found out the fire in our building was the absolute furthest possible apartment from ours.  What a blessing.  And the fire was contained.  An even greater blessing.  We were eventually let back into our home, we picked up our kids from our friend’s, I gave her shoes back, and we were welcomed into an apartment that looked just like it had before.  With the lights and tv on.  But the smell was terrible.

My house still stinks, but I’m grateful for family, friends, and all of my stuff.

I felt I just HAD to show you some images from our trip last weekend to South Carolina.  We had an absolute blast!  Oh my goodness, but the homes we saw in downtown Charleston were breathtaking.  And every single one was that way.  Oh how I wanted to move in to one!

And I just had to share this image because it is so humorous.  Oh, the perils of handing a random stranger your very expensive camera and asking them to take a picture.  I’m pretty sure three different people tried about 15 times…  And this is one of the best ones we got.