Monthly Archives: January 2013

This Is Stan

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Early in December I had my first encounter with a fan.  It was exciting.  Then it wasn’t.

Sheepdog and I brought all of the kids to have breakfast with Santa at our neighborhood clubhouse.  We go every year, even though the older ones complain about having to wake up early and put makeup and nice clothes on (duh… because everything after November 1 becomes a potential Christmas card photo-op).  Stop your griping and moaning and sit on the nice man’s lap, but anyone who is thirteen or older has to sit kinda off to the side.  Anyway…

The kids told The Big Guy what they wanted for Christmas and we made the ornaments and we ate the eggs and bacon and donuts and we smiled for all of the pictures, so it was time to go.  As we were herding the kids, I saw the new editor of our neighborhood newsletter across the room.  I asked Sheepdog if he would mind getting the kids into the car and told him I would be out right behind them.

I said goodbye to Mr. Editor and thanked him for another wonderful event, but first he introduced me to a new neighbor.  Well, first he told me I was “difficult to edit,” but that is beside the point of this story.  He told me the man’s name and then told him mine, followed by “she writes an article in the monthly newsletter.”

There was a pause followed by recognition.  The man said very nice things, but he didn’t make a lot of eye contact.  I was uncomfortable for a second, but then it dawned on me that maybe he thought of me as an actual writer and this was my first experience with an admirer of my blog, someone I did not know prior to publishing.  For just a second, my mind was whirling with dreams of celebrity and fame and universal accolades and recognition.  At almost the same moment, Sheepdog was finally done gathering our charges and putting on their coats and hats, so he paged me as he headed outside.

“Stacy, I am putting the kids in the car now,” as the door closed behind him.

Still smiling inside my perceived fame bubble, I started to excuse myself and tell the man that it was nice to have met him when he stammered out with palpable excitement, “Wait.  Was that Sheepdog?”

“Yes.  That was my husband.”  Snap back to reality.

“No way!  That was Sheepdog!  I love him.  He is awesome!” said the man, this time with lots of eye contact.

I guess he wasn’t my biggest fan.  Pop went my own fame bubble, especially when he added, “Sometimes I really feel for that guy…”

Hey-Girl-Ryan-Gosling-Blogger

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Huckleberry Mountain Adventures

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

It was August of 1991 and I had just moved to Morgantown for Round 3 of my college experience.  I promised myself (and my parents… because they forced me) that this time would be different and I was going to focus on classes and learning and actually graduating from college.  Not just the fun stuff like partying and boys (which, for the record, was pretty fun).

In an attempt to follow through on that promise, I walked into my Intro to Biology class and took a seat right up front.  Normally, I would sit somewhere in the back so the professor would not necessarily know that I was too hungover to show up for a lecture.  This time, though, I planned to show up every day.  It was a pretty large class – almost a hundred students – and people began filling in every other seat, all the way to the back of the lab.  Then, just as class was about to begin, an old man came in and sat down in the seat right next to me.

Now, when I say “old man,” you should realize that I had the perspective of a self-centered twenty-year-old, so anybody who looked like they could legally buy me beer was automatically “old.”  It turns out that this particular old man was only about thirty.  He kept whispering ornery and sarcastic comments to me throughout the class, and even though he used the word y’uns way too often, I decided that we should be friends.

So friends we became.  We would talk before class and we got to know each other pretty well.  He had been happily married for a few years and his wife, now a pharmacist, worked as a paralegal at a local law firm.  I naturally looked to him for advice and approval when Sheepdog and I started dating a few months into the semester.  It was not hard to see the Marine in him when he met my fiancé for the very first time.  Protective and annoying, he was like the big brother I had always wished for.  We all became very good friends during our time at WVU.  And it was no surprise when he was the one who stood next to Sheepdog as his Best Man at our wedding.  It was also no surprise (especially to the girl who originally befriended him for his ornery ways) that his speech included the wish for our marriage that “all of [our] ups and downs be between the sheets.”

Afterwards, Sheepdog and I moved to Alabama for work and then back to New Jersey to be closer to my family.  The Marine hadn’t yet graduated, so he and his wife (and their awesome kid/ golden retriever, Gracie) stayed in Morgantown.  When we traveled to West Virginia to visit Sheepdog’s family, we would often work in visits to see the Marine and the Paralegal/ Pharmacist as well.  But once we started having our own kids it got harder and more inconvenient to make that extra stop.  And since we kept having kids, our get-togethers became less and less frequent.  They moved away.  We moved again.  And again.  Ironically, we all ended up in Georgia at one point and they came to visit us, but it was not the same.

Then last spring, we caught up with them at a couple of art shows where the Marine was selling bowls that he carves from reclaimed wood.  They invited us up to their home in North Carolina and we all went up the mountain to visit them last May.  We went on long walks and made jam and s’mores and told stories around the campfire.  It was awesome.

We had so much fun that we invited ourselves back this past weekend.  We rode on the 4-wheeler and hiked some new trails and watched the playoff games in front of a roaring fire with an awesome spread of layered nachos, buffalo wings and pizza.  The Marine took me out to his range and let me shoot his .40 pistol, as always emphasizing safety and reinforcing proper technique.  We compared abilities to assemble and disassemble things while blindfolded under pressure in the dark (things like heavy fire or conditions involving vomit or poop) – him an M-16, me a crib.  Still protective and annoying.  Still just like the big brother I had always wished for.

There are many times in my life that I live in the moment.  Then there are times when I am a little more contemplative.  This weekend had both.  I continue to be amazed by the seemingly random circumstances which have brought certain people into my life.  And I will continue to be grateful evermore.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Happy Birthday, Kid A!

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Seventeen is the atomic number of chlorine.  It is the seventh (lucky) prime number.  When you turn seventeen you can see an R-rated movie or donate blood.  It is the year when Harry and the other wizards came of age.  “Seventeen” is a song by the band Winger.  And it is the total number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5).

Today is Kid A’s 17th birthday, so this one’s for her…

Born in a blizzard.
Middle name rhymes with “fire.”
You made me a mom.
Parenting Experiment #1

Me with Parenting Experiment #1, January 1996.

Happy 17th Birthday, Kid A!

I love, love, love (most of the time) navigating this crazy, winding path of mother and daughter with you.  My birthday wish is that you will always remember what brings you peace and happiness, and that you make time for whatever it is each and every day.  I love you unconditionally, forever and ever.  xo Mom

Well, crap.

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

So I have heard that nobody can watch the first video because of an error on YouTube regarding copyright infringement.  Which sucks because I paid for every single song I used in that video (don’t ever steal music, kids).  So now you can’t see how awesome I am at moviemaking (Shout out: iMovie!).  I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Or maybe this will work (I do not give up easily)…

Happy 2013!

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Hello, friends!  Oh, how I have missed you all.  And I have missed writing my stories, but you know the drill… December is a big, fat, hairy beast.  And it defeats me every single year.  It is my white whale (Call me Five Baby Mama).

I did my best to make our holidays uncomplicated, yet memorable.  Full of quality family time, but not so much that we feel the need to move to a deserted island with no forwarding address afterwards.  I did the planning and decorating and shopping and wrapping and delivering in small increments all month long so I wouldn’t be stuck down in the basement at 2AM on December 24th with nothing but scotch tape holding my eyelids open while I tried to assemble some crazy plastic contraption with more parts than there are letters in the Chinese alphabet.  But December still got the best of me.

The kids started getting sick back at Thanksgiving.  I have hand-outs from our pediatrician with the following titles… the stomach flu, croup, infectious mononucleosis, and pneumonia.  Fortunately, there was no cross-contamination and everyone got their own special disease.  Trust me, that did not happen by accident!  And they were all sick at different times, so the “sickiness” seemed to last forever.  A big shout-out to Kid B for staying healthy!

Then came December 14th and my heart broke so hard and loud that I felt it on the outside of my body.  I don’t normally watch the news because it feeds my anxieties in a very unhealthy way, but no one could escape the horror story.  My tears did not stop falling.  They still haven’t.

Then came Christmas Eve and our new family tradition of Chick-Fil-A and peppermint milkshakes, and our old traditions of Sheepdog re-telling the story of Jesus’ birth and me reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and putting out a note and cookies for Santa.  Our Christmas morning was full of smiles and hugs and Skype and wrapping paper and joyful noises.  We are very, very, very blessed.

Kid A asked Santa for a vintage typewriter for Christmas. The Big Guy delivered an awesome one with keys en Espanol

Kid A asked Santa for a vintage typewriter for Christmas. The Big Guy delivered an awesome one with keys en Espanol.  Click, Clack, Moo (egg nog).

Then, since I couldn’t manage to get out of it, we had Christmas dinner for thirty people at our house.  No, I’m not kidding.  We had to find thirty places for thirty heineys to sit and eat.  And we managed to pull it off!  So on the night of December 25th, Sue, Tom, Bonnie, Joe, Tooker, Josh, Stacy, Ellie, Braden, Molly, Abby, Cal, Cam, Keri, Charlie, Foster, Luke, Nora, Rob, Kelli, Wilson, Phoebe, Mallory, Quincy, Brandon, Becky, Brady, Cooper and Eden all listened (most without giggling, although Brandon always fails at this) as Reverend Bob gave the blessing.  Then we sat down and ate together and laughed and shared stories and memories and made some new ones too.

And speaking of holiday memories… one of my biggest projects this December came in the form of a request from my dad.

Many, many years ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, he fell deeply in love with a girl named Sue Speed.  He loved her so much that he asked her to marry him when they were just nineteen years old.  And being a dumb boy, he did it in a fairly unplanned, unromantic way… in the backseat of a car, with his pregnant teenage sister and her baby daddy up front driving.  In the middle of the Cardiff Circle.  Luckily, Sue Speed loved him back so much that she said YES anyway, and they have been together ever since.

But my dad has always regretted not having proposed with more style (partly because my mom tells him he should).  So, this Christmas he had my cousin Ashley design my mom a fabulous new ring, with both old stones and new ones too, and he asked for his daughters’ help in planning a new and improved proposal that would knock her socks off.  And we did it.  We gathered together as many old (and some new) pictures of our family’s Christmas memories and I put together a DVD that showed them off and then featured our Top 10, with Number 1 being the lame proposal (which we so fabulously re-created using Rob and Kelli as “Uncle Bobby” and “Aunt Janice”), and at the end my dad turned to the camera and asked for a re-do.

We played the DVD on Christmas Day when all thirty of us were gathered together and at the end my dad walked over to my mom and re-proposed.  He got down on one knee and talked about everlasting love and still getting excited to see her when he was driving home from work every day and it was sweet and romantic and my mom thought he was nuts.  Luckily, she still loves him back so much that she accepted once again.

So, here for your viewing pleasure is the fruit of my labor and a peek into our crazy family antics…

And then I recorded the new proposal…

I am so proud to be a part of this big, goofball family.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.  Here’s to happiness and health in the new year.  Wish me luck in 2013…