Happy Anniversary!

Today in History . . .

On this day, 2007, "Make Mine A Cosmo" was originally introduced as www.cos4.blogspot.com! 

The blog was similar to the Seinfeld show.  It was basically a blog about nothing.  With a little focus and the addition of a professional blog design, the little blog about nothing eventually evolved to the blog it is today:  www.makemineacosmo.com

Make Mine a Cosmo is still basically a blog about nothing.  Nothing specific, sometimes the blog is about travel, about make-up and skin care, new products, the weather.  Sometimes the blog is about sports.  Sometimes the blog is political, sometimes it's raw emotion.  Very rarely is the blog about food or recipes, however the posts are often about family.  Make Mine a Cosmo also reviews books and movies. 

Blog Statistics . . .
Since starting Make Mine a Cosmo, the author has:

• lived in three different states (Alabama, Maryland and Texas)
• has traveled to the following countries:  Italy (Rome twice, Florence twice, Pisa, Assisi, Pompei), Spain (Barcelona and Mallorca), England (London), France (Paris and Marseille), Mexico (Cabo and Playa del Carmen), Caymans, Jamaica
• viewed the Sistine Chapel twice
• climbed a Mayan ruin
• swam in a crystal clear cenote
• learned how to paddle board
• climbed Dunn's River Falls
• sipped champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower
• gazed upon the Mona Lisa
• climbed all 284 steps to the top of the Arc de Triomphe
• has had both daughters graduate high school
• has had one daughter graduate college
• has lost a gall bladder
• successfully recouperated from a hysterectomy
• celebrated her parent's 50th wedding anniversary
• celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary to her high school sweetheart
• celebrated her (and her husband's!) 50th birthday
• uncovered some interesting facts about her ancestry

If you've been reading Make Mine a Cosmo regularly, thank you!  Looking forward to another 11 years of blogging!

Transition

My poor baby.  She's having a rough week.  Her gang is breaking up / breaking off / growing up / growing apart.  Everyone is starting to head off to college / or the military so they all got together Thursday night for one last time.  Her friend K has to leave early for soccer.  She absolutely adores him and we are going to miss him hanging around the house.  He likes to make eggs in my kitchen for some reason.  Makes me feel good that her friends are comfortable in our home.  J usually walks in our garage and yells, "Miss Val!  I'm here!" and watches TV in the men den.  So, K is the first to go and it really, really upset her.  And as we all know, T doesn't "do" upset.  So if she has a breakdown, it's huge.
And then on top of everything else, she went to visit an former boyfriend Friday night who was in a horrifying car accident a couple of weeks ago.  They dated for a little bit but decided they would be much, much better off as friends and they still have a wonderful relationship. He has a girlfriend now who's a little immature, a little petty and absolutely hates the fact that he is still friends with T.  As a matter of fact, T woke up on her b-day morning and said, "That's weird.  He's usually the first one to wish me a happy b-day.  He always texts me at 12:01 so he could be the first."  She actually thought the girlfriend was busting his balls and wouldn't let him text T (the girlfriend made him "unfriend" all of us on FB, etc.).  Little did we know, he was fighting for his life in critical condition. 
Miraculously, he's home now so T stopped by the house to visit.  Miss Gayle luvs, luvs, luvs some T-bone and T still has a wonderful friendship with the sister, Ash.  The girlfriend is out of town so Miss Gayle called T and suggested it would be a good time to visit.  He was the passenger in the backseat, the driver lost control and hit the median.  The car flipped several times and he was pinned in the car.  Jaws of life had to be used to get him out of the car and he was airlifted to UAB.  Swelling on the brain, broken ribs, broken wrist.  You name it, he broke it.  T got home last night from their house and was absolutely hysterical.  She said she didn't want to cry in front of him but bawled the entire drive home.  It just brought back a lot of bad memories for T.  She had lost a good dance friend in a terrible accident and all these emotions just came flooding back. 

We had such a wonderful talk last night about how people change, relationships change, priorities change.  She's upset because the dynamic of their group will change.  It's all part of growing up.  I told T that the friends she thought would be there for her won't and it will disappoint the hell out of her.  And the person she also thought of as a so-so friend will step up when it matters and it will surprise the hell out of her.  I also told her that once a lot of these kids get out of their high school cliques and their comfort zones, they will be totally different.

Friends since Kindergarten

The ZachPack

These 2 knuckleheads have been friends for ever.  He raids my fridge often. 

I do love me some weekend !!!

What a wonderful, busy weekend! This weather is amazing and I love the slight chill in the air! The windows are wide open and sleeping has been very snuggly & cozy!

T had her senior Halloween dance Thursday night (there was some really, really creative costumes!) and from there she & Cosmo drove to ATL to spend the night. She had a 7 AM (Eastern time) flight and landed around 9 AM. She was met at the airport by a grad student (who, on Sunday, met w/ producers of MTV's Real World for an audition) and met the lax coaches and her freshman host for the weekend. They had lunch and she was supposed to go to class w/ her host but it was cancelled. She practiced with the team that afternoon (they had snow flurries during practice!) and the coach took the whole team out for dinner. The football team played away this weekend so Saturday morning she somehow participated in a charity kick-ball tournament on campus and went to the soccer game with a couple of the girls. The grad student and her host drove her back to the airport and she landed in ATL around 9 PM Saturday night. She really liked the campus, she really liked the dorms and she really liked the weather. She called from the airport before departure and we had a really deep conversation about her expectations from college. She's got a lot to think about, the decision is entirely hers but she made some extremely mature observations about the schools she's visited so far and I think, in the end, she'll make the best choice based on her needs and her personality.

Saturday night KJ had her 12th b-day party and we celebrated w/ a tailgate theme. Cosmo set up the TV and the Wii outside, we had a roaring fire, we roasted hotdogs, we had the popcorn machine going and made s'mores. Her invitations were cute and had a poem about "let's see who cheers for who on game day" and everyone wore their favorite team colors / jerseys. All the kids were pretty into the Alabama game and afterwards played the new Wii dance 3 game. Friday she has a costume party to go to which is going to be a problem. She hasn't even begun to think about a costume which is very, very unusual for her. She usually starts thinking about her Halloween costume during swimsuit season. Looks like we'll be hitting Party City or Halloween Express this week!

Wildcard (as somewhat predicted)

This is one bad MamaJama

Well, last night a coach from one of the schools that T put in her "discard" pile called the house to talk to T about a visit (this is the school that doesn't have T's exact major but does have a similar program and some potential internship opportunities). I was pretty impressed. They talked for a long, long time and T has previously told this coach that she has concerns about their lack of her major. The coach is still very interested in T and really wants T to visit the campus and workout/practice with the team. She's offered to set an appointment for T to meet with the head of the department and set a career path in motion for T. The coach is very aware that T has a crazy fall schedule with dance team, lacrosse practices and other campus visits planned but she's being very persistent. Which is good. I like persistence.

Proud Mama Bear (and Poppa Bear, too!)

Addendum: Holy cow! Good thing senior year only comes around once in a lifetime. I have shelled out a small fortune for T this week: graduation announcements, deposit on the Spring Trip and senior yearbook ad. I really wish school administration would learn to spread this stuff out over the course of a couple of months. It's September. Do we really need to be ordering graduation announcements and caps & gowns already?? Seriously?? Yearkbook ad? Can't we do this in January or something???

So proud of both of my girls! Even though KJ's volleyball team hasn't won a single game yet this season, she hasn't given up. It's so easy to become angry at her teammates or become complacent because she knows no one is going to be able to return the volley, but she still has been giving 110% on the court. Every week we tell her she needs to be a leader, she's the only 6th grader on her team and she needs to show the less experienced girls how its done! She had school photos today and looked so pretty when she went off to school. I like her hair long and she had on new jeans and a pair of brown mary janes w/ a slight heel (I have no idea where these shoes came from; I had never seen them before but she said she found them in her closet. Huh! Amazing what you can find in there when you clean!). I can't believe how grown up she's getting! She's so funny and sassy and keeps us in stitches. She comes up with the funniest things sometimes!

Daughter #1 has made both of her parental units very, very happy. She got her most recent ACT scores back and we are all just over the moon! She killed it. She totally killed it. Unless a wild card pops-up after her Naples tournament this fall, she's got it narrowed down to 3 schools . . . two of the schools want her for lacrosse and each of the schools is different from the others in size, location and setting. One of the school is a super large university, one is a smaller school and one is mid-size. One is up North, two are in the South. It will be very interesting to see which direction she goes. She's got some tough choices ahead of her but whatever she decides, we are incredibly proud of her!

“You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does..." -- Tom Petty

Whoa !!!

Busy week and a big weekend coming up. Trixie had a much need groom yesterday, T got new Bnettes boots and I had to pick them up from the shoe place, KJ's had volleyball this week and we've been having fun planning her friend's surprise party. Tomorrow, along with the rest of Hoover, we'll be sweating our butts off at the big game. I've also been doing some errands/shopping for the annual Bnette/Freshman Dance Team dinner. I like to do the table decor.


Of course, I'm really looking forward to the actual football game, sitting with friends, watching T at half-time. The first game of the year is always exciting and the ESPN factor makes it even more thrilling! I'm just not looking forward to the crowds, the parking situation and the God awful heat!

Last night T was asked to homecoming so at some point this weekend we'll be dress shopping. She's usually pretty good to shop with. She usually goes in with an idea or a color in mind and runs with it.

Today she & Cosmo are on a college visit (under duress). Seriously though, it's her first campus tour and it will give her a good comparison for when she goes on her campus visits up north 2 weeks from now. I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that she's a senior. Last night a friend sent an e-mail about early planning stages of the the big grad party. I'm excited for T for the all the fun things she'll experience this year but part of me wants to take it really, really slow. I know this year will go by waaaaaay too fast.

After the campus tour, T has to head over to our cross-town "rivals" to interview some of the football coaching staff, players and students to get their prespective on next week's game. She interviewed Nibs the other day and asked his opinion on the "rivalry." She said she was going to walk around Spain Park in her orange sparkley, Bnette boots and interview everyone while holding the huge Bucs logo field flag. The kid's got spunk, that's for sure!

Whoop! Whoop!!

First day of school and it sounds like everyone had a great day! KJ said she had no problems opening her locker, lunch was fine, PE was fine, it was all good. She said she knew alot of kids in all of her classes and met some new kids. I'm so glad!

The weather today was absolutely amazing! A little cooler this morning, no humidity and there was a nice breeze. Kind of felt like fall; a little football weather in the air today. Which segues nicely into my next topic: football!

Yesterday was Fan Day at the mall. The football players, the cheerleaders, the pep band and the bnettes were there to kick off the 2011 football season. It was very crowded which is a good thing! The players signed posters and I'm sure it was a little awkard for them being on display but the little kids really look up to them. I stood off to the side w/ KJ while she got some of the boys to sign her poster and they were all very gracious and humble and most of them said, "thank you for coming out today, Go Bucs!" A couple of the boys knew who she was and called her "Little Cos" which aggravates the crap out of her. I think it's cute.

T got another "official" letter in today's mail from a school in OH. The coach saw her play in FL and is interested in getting her up there for a visit. She sent T a very nice letter about how she didn't grow up in a lacrosse "hotbed" and she knows how difficult it is for kids from non-traditional areas to get noticed. We'll have to do a little investigating on this one, not sure if they have her major. But hey! It's all good! We so incredibly proud of her and so happy that she has several options for college. As my brother reminded me, she's the first one on both sides of the family that's ever been recruited for a sport and that's a pretty damn great accomplishment! Not too many kids can say that! I'm also proud that she's paving the way for the next generation. Maybe things will be a little easier for Alabama lacrosse girls (and boys) in a few years. She amazes me. She's our little engine that could. When that girl puts her mind to something, there is no stopping her. She is so focused and determined. I'm 40(something) years old and am no where near as focused as she is!