Sorted

So many thoughts scattered and searching for where they belong. I'm unsure how to file each into it's proper place.

The baby's name is Jace Rocco [The Mothers Last Name]. As far as we can tell he is healthy. I have a few precious pictures of him but don't foresee getting anymore. I'm mostly okay with that, but I did have to take the blurry ultrasound pictures off of the refrigerator because the daily reminder was just too much. Chances are good that he is Chris' son but with no medical or genetic proof, we wait. How long? I don't know. It could be 18 years or maybe he'll never look for the man that was hidden from him. You don't know what you're missing if you never had it...

Nick got a car. A 2003 BMW 3 something, something. It's black, a little worn but he loves it. He also got a job which was a prerequisite for a car and payments on the car will begin shortly.  He likes the independence. It scares the hell out of me!

My best friend who I've worked five feet from for the last 3-ish years was offered another job with hours that she couldn't pass up. I don't know what to do with this yet. If I think too long about it, tears well and threaten to spill down my cheeks. This will inevitably turn into a very ugly cry so I'm choosing not to dwell on it just yet. 

Chris and his girlfriend have been together almost a year. They have big life changes coming up that I'm super excited but tentatively nervous about. She is so sweet and so good for him. Also, our family loves her! Just remember to have patience sweet girl, he needs some work but I did my best.

We're in the process, though not on the fast track to getting our house ready to sell. We need to downsize but I hate moving.  Also, we've lived in this house for 11 plus years. Do you know how many boxes of stuff we're going to have to move? Right now some random, unused items are packed and stacked (or spread around, depending on how you look at it) in our garage.

A couple of quirky things are nestled away too but those will play out as life does.

Let's Not Do That Again

I spent the last four or so months of last year wondering if I was dying of some awful disease. Not the hypochondriac kind, like some terrible Google disease that nobody has ever heard of but a REAL maybe begins with a "C" disease. I had convinced myself that some organ inside me was plotting my untimely demise.

I had mammograms. Ultrasounds. Girly exams. Even my gallbladder removed, which I don't recommend. It's not nearly as anti-traumatic as Grey's Anatomy portrays. The ultrasound showed a gallstone in there that magically disappeared between the ultrasound and the pathologists petri dish. I'm convincing myself that it fell out of the dish and got kicked  under the table in the pathologists office rather than believe that its still rolling around my tummy like a pinball.

I am apparently the worse surgery patient on the planet. What should have been a simple laproscopic surgery with a 3 day recovery turned into a 2 week, use ALL.YOUR.VACATION.DAYS. five month later still not 100% ordeal.  In addition, lets throw in a scope down my throat to see if said gallstone might be hanging out with some friends somewhere in there. The only good thing during all of this was a couple of REALLY nice naps complements of Propofol and a really nice anesthesiologist. I recommend using one of those so things don't go really bad like with Michael Jackson.

Now minus one gallbladder and about 30 pounds I'm feeling almost normal so I'm fairly sure I don't have any life threatening diseases.

My New Years resolution is to see a lot less doctors and unlike most people I'm hoping to put on about 10 pounds.

A Secret

I was never one of those little girls that secretly wished her divorced parents would get back together. I didn't ping pong between their homes each weekend like most kids of estranged parents. I lived with my mom and spent very little time with my dad.

I'm sure some custody agreement buried deep in a divorce decree somewhere says I should have but I just never did. Sadly, I missed out on some very important bonding time with my dad. While I can't get that back, now we have managed to forge a loving relationship.

Over the last year or so I let hurt feelings and angry emotions surface a little more often than I'd like where my dad is concerned. I blamed him for missing important events like births and weddings, which isn't entirely fair given the distance we live apart. A couple months ago he agreed to spend 4 days with my sister and I.

We picked him up at the airport late Thursday evening. I wasn't sure what to expect. I love my dad but we are two very different people and having not spent a lot of time together I wasn't sure we were even going to be comfortable together. It's not as if you can add water, stir and have an instant father/daughter relationship where only a strained relationship existed before. Turns out, you kinda can! We must share enough of something because we are comfortable together. We talked and learned things about each other. Things he regrets and things I needed him to know.

We had family time. REAL FAMILY TIME! I watched my mom and him talk and laugh easily. They shared smiles over the blond curls of their first great grand daughter. All of their grandchildren in one place at one time. We took pictures. Many, many pictures.

Tracey got a tattoo and mine will follow shortly incorporating dads handwriting because we determined that we didn't have anything that said "Love, dad" and now we do....permanently.

It was nearly a perfect weekend.

For a few minutes right before he got on that plane to go home, I was that little girl secretly wishing her parents weren't divorced.
 

Two Peas

Since the early days of elementary school when I was writing notes to the new girl with the phrase "Do you want to be my friend?" circle yes or no at the bottom in shaky print, I think I've been searching for that friend who just gets me.

Every grade, every new school brought new friends. Most drifted away over time, in fact I can't really think of any that I made the effort to stay close to. Facebook has made it possible to find and reconnect with those that I care to but still, those relationship are often long distance and on some level artificial. The small details of life shared online are hardly what friendships are built on. At least the ones that I am looking for.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that being friends with me is A LOT of work....stop laughing....the first step is admitting you have a problem, right?  From minute to minute mood swings and nearly unprovoked tears to fits of uncontrollable giggles.

My husband is legally obligated to be my best friend. A detail of our marriage vows that I'm sure he overlooked when he agreed to marry me. Too late now!! He'll always be the one who holds me together when I think I'm falling apart. The one who sometimes just stands there not knowing what to do when the tears fall but who's very presence keeps me from crumbling. But that Y chromosome keeps his brain from understanding the female in me.

In May of last year (or actually long before that but for the sake of this post lets go with May) my job out grew me. To keep me from losing my mind and my job the powers that be at my company hired someone to fill the open position. Let me just say the my life hasn't been the same since!

I knew she was applying. I had met her once, liked her. She was nice. I, for the most part had worked by myself. What if I didn't know how to work with someone else? What if we didn't have anything in common? What if we didn't have anything to talk about? Or worse, what if she didn't like me?!

What I never thought was "What if she became everything I didn't know I was missing?" There was no uncomfortable-ness. All there has been is this awareness that we should have been sisters. How had we not known each other forever?

We are two peas in a pod BUT so very different. Where I have extreme weaknesses she has intense strengths. I talk over her (which drives her crazy). She is beautiful just the way she is but refuses to see it. I cry All.The.Time.  She survived a loss that would have destroyed me.

Then again, we're not so different...we can dissolve in fits of giggles for almost no reason. We both love fiercely and often have to remind each other that anger is not nearly as important as love. We finish each others' thoughts with a look. We've been known to sit on the floor and pout then not be able to get up because we're laughing too hard.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be because she is exactly where she is.

I  love you Peapod!!

Weighing and Sorting

Deep in sleep, I could be having the most perfect dream and BAM  that damn scale scrapes the tile as it's pulled from it's home under the shelf in our bathroom! There I am wide awake until I hear it put back where it belongs. Every.Single.Morning that he gets up before I do that scale is pulled out. I can't explain why but it leaves a sickness in the pit of my stomach. Why does he care so much what that number on the scale reflects? Our bodies fit perfectly together. Don't they? Maybe he's not as sure as I am. THAT  thought scare me to death. I've voiced my concern. Or maybe I whispered it because I'm very, very afraid of the answer. My curves that so completely complemented his are now met with thin limbs and vanishing love handles. He's healthy and happy but my mind (and it's accompanied craziness) goes to gaunt and sick. He assures me he feels better and more energetic than he has in years but still that scale scraping that tile floor reminds me of everything that I have no control over.

In my current swirling mind of mess, lets throw in a call from my ex husband.

Long story, short. I used to give him back the child support that was automatically sent to me by the Social Security Administration because, well I felt sorry for him. A couple months ago he pissed me off and I quit giving it back. Anyway he called to tell me he was going to be evicted because he can't pay his rent with what is left (approximately 600.00 a month). I get it. That's not a lot of  money. What it boils down to is I created a monster. Can we afford to keep giving him the money that the court has decided is child support? NO! But, I can't let him be homeless either. Doesn't divorce mean I no longer have to worry about any facet of his life? I'm sure it does in some language. Am I going to help him? Probably. For how long? I don't know.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Writing Through It

Thick, darkness bubbles around me. Threatening to pull me under. I know it's there but I fight to keep my head above it. I'm not sure what triggers it or where it comes from. I do know it's uninvited and it scares me. I don't know how long it will stay or how far down it will pull me before I kick my way to the air above gasping just to fill my lungs with anything that allows me just a moment to breath without feeling like I'm suffocating.

I grabbed a book from my closet this morning to read during my lunch time. It was a book of inspirational stories and I thought it as a good choice giving the muck my brain seems to be drowning in lately. I thumbed though a few stories but couldn't focus on any long enough to get though them. Just then a St. Anthony medal fell out into my lap. I'm not really sure where the book came from or who the medal belongs to but there it was in my fingers just when I needed it.

So I'm going to try something. I'm going to write though this. I'm going to keep writing until all the black and thickness and anxiety gets manageable. I have to believe that it will happen.

I went for about and hour walk after work. I listened to music that I liked and as loud as I wanted and I just walk and walked. I thought about how lucky I was, it was about 70 degrees. I even found puffs of dandelions that I HAD to pick and blow the seeds from.

 I found pansies that reminding me of my grandma.

And before I went back into the house I looked up to see that the moon was smiling at me.

I wish I understood the pull of the panic and anxiety that scares me so. I wish I could control what it does to me but until then I'm just going to write though it.

Comfort Zone, Party of One

Being pushed even slightly out of the boundaries of  my comfort zone turns me into a blob of hyperventilating, anxiety filled, sweaty palmed mess
 
"What ifs" plague me like certainties of impending disaster.

That wouldn't be such a problem if my comfort zone wasn't a teeny, tiny space with room for little more than just me. Pushing me beyond it doesn't take more than receiving something unexpected in the mail. Like a summons for jury duty, which happened last month. That means I had a WHOLE MONTH to completely stress myself out about everything I didn't know about the courthouse, the parking lot, security, judges, criminals, attorneys. OhhhhhEmmmmGeeeee!!! What if I had to talk to people? What if I went in the wrong door? Or forgot to take some sharp object out of my purse and got stopped at the metal detector? I even considered pulling out the "I have Panic Attacks" card to get out of it. But I didn't, I went. And more importantly, I survived it. Yes, I sat there shivering like I was sitting in a freezer because I was sweating like I had just run a marathon (you know, if I knew what it was like to run a marathon) in an air conditioned room.  I was 95% sure I was going to throw up so I made sure I paid very close attention to where the restrooms were even though I never left the room....even when my bladder begged me to.  I was terrified of getting lost and not being there if they called my name. By the way, they never did.


I don't remember a time when I wasn't this way. I dreaded the first days of school beginning in June, about 2 minutes into summer vacation. Most kids were just thrilled to be out of school for the summer but my childish brain was conjuring up every terror filled possibility of the unknown of the following September.

I'd love to be the type of person who dreams of adventures. But with adventures comes EVERYTHING outside my comfort zone. Luckily, I have a soul mate who's not afraid of unknowns and who doesn't know anything outside his comfort zone. He'll share his comfort zone with me when he can and when he can't, me and my sweaty palms will just have to get thorough it.

Ink

I was never much a fan of tattoos. They were fine....for other people. Not so much for me. All I really knew about them was that they were applied with NEEDLES. Needles that buried ink deep under the skin like a hole punch. NO THANKS!!  Paper cuts make me nauseous. Blood makes me dizzy with a side order of seeing giant black spots and hearing loss, potentially causing my body to hit the floor. Tattoos of any sort were never on my to do list.

Until I turned 44. I don't know why it happened. My reactions to the above have not changed but still after seeing a particular design (originally found by my beautiful niece) those things didn't seem as important. Apparently I am now invincible. I googled placement ideas and settled on my right foot. Then I  read EVERYTHING google had to offer on foot tattoos. They fade, they hurt (A LOT), they probably aren't a good idea for a first tattoo placement. Perfect, sign me up!

There was a tiny bit of green shading and the whole thing took maybe a total of 20 minutes. The time spent worrying about the pain was time wasted. It was kinda like an annoying burning sensation but I wouldn't really calling it pain. I delivered two full term babies after several unmedicated hours of labor each. This was worlds away from THAT pain.

I love looking at this tattoo and even now, about a year and a half later I still consider it one of the coolest ideas I've ever followed through on.

Side note: It's now become kind of a family tattoo. My niece, my sister and I all have them on the top of our feet. I think it's safe to say we all think they are perfect.

I like the infinity symbol but I wanted something that incorporated a heart so I combed the internet for my next design.  A couple of months after I declared my first tattoo a success I found it. Or so I thought...

 

 

This one I may have been a tiny bit hasty about. It's not my favorite. I love the color but it's a little more tribal looking than I'm crazy about and truth be told in my brain it resembles an 87 instead of an infinity symbol and heart combination. The thick lines hurt more that the first tattoo and I had to almost physically restrain myself from kicking the tattoo guy in the junk. I got through it, I can't say it was worth it. I'm mostly stuck with it unless I have some kind of cover up done but I'm just not that worried about it. Soooo...it is what it is.

 

I was content with the two...until Saturday. I went with a friend who had an appointment to get her tattoo. As we sat waiting for her turn I felt that familiar itch again. I knew then that I was leaving with fresh ink.

 

I haven't actively been looking at design ideas but poking around pinterest I found one that was scroll-y and delicate. It's probably what I wanted when I settled for the one I put on my left ankle. The one that I should have given a minutes more thought about then changed my mind. But didn't.

 

It took a little over an hour and hurt like I can't describe but I am enamored with it. I am fairly sure that it is my last but since I didn't plan to ever get my first, who knows.

 

 



Wickedly Wonderful

Way back in October I had an opportunity to purchase tickets to the Broadway production of Wicked. I knew that this production was perfect for my mom and I. Many years ago we saw Cats together and it's a very fond memory that I will never forget. I wasn't passing up the opportunity to have another experience similar to that one. The tickets were pricey but I was able to put them on a payment plan of sorts. My employer offers a payroll deduction that is taken over several pay checks. January 20th seemed so far away that I really almost forgot about them.

Kinda like when I was very young and school clothes were put in layaway for several weeks before school started in September.  Days before school started I excitedly remembered that I had a whole new gloriously beautiful wardrobe just waiting behind the counter at Kmart.

Except let me tell you when we got to the theatre and found out that our seats were front row, that Kmart wardrobe? It became every dream outfit at Neiman Marcus!!

I'm not sure who was more pleased with our experience, me or mom. But had the tickets been quadruple the price, and I knew how much we were going to enjoy our afternoon together I would have sold a kidney on Ebay to make it happen.

We were practically in OZ!!

The only thing between those brilliant performers and us was the orchestra. Granted some of the lyrics were drown out by the musicians but seriously, can that even be a complaint?


I am the proud owner of a Wicked soundtrack CD, which has been on a 19 song, 1.1 hour rotation for the last several hours and a purple souvenir t-shirt which I will most certainly wear like a 12 year old girl with her first Justin Beiber concert shirt.

But what I cherish most from this afternoon was the time spent with the special women that God allowed to be my mother. Sure I tell her I love her and I have no doubt that she knows but sharing times like these together is what I want to remember above all. The play was amazing, yes. But sharing it with my mom?

That was BEAUTIFUL!



A New Year, A New Me

I think I've finally found a name that suits my little corner of the internet. I've changed it twice in the 2 and a half-ish years since I planted the little seed and tried to cultivate it into something that resembles a blog.

Having slept through the midnight New York City ball drop we didn't have much fanfare to greet the incoming year in the early hours of 2013. An early work hour of 5 am for my sweetie meant he was home in plenty of time for us to enjoy some beach time before the sunset this evening. We walked holding hands watching people in bathing suits, dripping wet oblivious to the chilly (at least by Florida standards) air.

I made myself stop and just stand there. Looking, really looking at what any other day I probably would have just walked by. I don't make New Years resolutions. It's a sure set up for failure. But today I decided that too much time, too many days, weeks, months, years have past where I have missed details. Details, like how red the lifeguard shack at the beach is.

How cool and soft the sand felt under my feet, between my toes. Where the shells stopped after being plowed in by the waves, much like drifts of snow fresh from the edge of a shovel.

 

 

The seagulls were still. Their normally loud call was quiet like they were daring me to notice. I did notice. I heard the giggling of the kids in the cold water and the splashing as they tried to out run the chilly waves.

 

This year I'm going to fall more in love with him.

Learn more about me.

 

And write more about it here.



 

 







 

 



Forcing It To Fit

 

 

You know that cabinet in your kitchen that just can't hold one more item?  It's probably a high small cabinet that's out of reach because it's not used often but it's there, containing random items that need a home. Mine is above the fridge and requires a chair to even open the door.

 

I keep my food processor up there. The one that I use about once a year to make the salsa that I love but that I'm generally too lazy to make. While it's nestled up there out of the way, it doesn't really fit. The door doesn't fully close. I've forced it to fit, breaking small pieces of the plastic cover and scaring the inside of the cabinet door.

 

Broken. Scarred.

 

It's not a cabinet door or kitchen appliance. Some days it's me. A small part of my head that I shove feelings or emotions in that I just don't have the strength to deal with daily. Occasionally, in a weak moment when I least expect it, a jagged piece with sharp edges tumbles out before I am able to prepare myself. A sharp shard that I thought I had careful tucked so far behind the loosely closing door that it certainly couldn't fall out. But fall out it does.

I scramble to collect all the scattered pieces. The scrambling is exhausting. The shards cut deeply but I continue to scoop them and tuck them away. Wiping the tears that fall even when I try desperately to ignore the burning pricks behind by eyes.

When the pieces are safely tucked way, I can smile. 

I know that forcing it to fit will cause another small piece to crack, creating another jagged edge and maybe even creating another scar. But it will only be seen from inside and it will all fit again this time too.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dents and Scratches

About a year ago I got an offer from Groupon for a microdermabrasion at a spa more than a little ways away from our home. It was a good deal and my sweetie offered to chauffeur me so I paid for it and promptly moved it to the back burner of my brain.

As I've mentioned in previous posts my first marriage put a few dents and some pretty deep scratches in my self esteem and even though I've completely moved on from that phase of my life when I look in the mirror those leftover scars are still there. I'm mostly able to cover them but every now and then.....

Anyway as the expiration date crept up I figured it would go unused like the many pair of shoes that I HAD TO HAVE (then never wore) or that perfect dress that I bought (then wore once to find it didn't fit perfectly). If it weren't for the MANY reminder emails, that's exactly what would have happened but my husband is not as wasteful as I am so he scheduled the appointment.

I went to the spa, it was pleasant enough but they couldn't do the procedure that I had paid for with my Groupon because my skin type would have broken out like a teenage girl plowing thorough puberty. My body sometimes forgets that I am 40 something and should be WAY past the acne stage of life. Instead the esthetician (fancy word for facial lady) decided I would enjoy an oxygen facial. Basically they forced vitamins into my pores with oxygen. It was nice but what she said next set the stage to start repairing the damage that my self esteem has carried for so long.

She could make my skin smooth (something I haven't seen since I was about 12 years old). SIGN ME UP!! I scheduled a follow up appointment and left. In the car on the hour drive home I cried. Not breath-taking sobs, just a cleansing stream of tears that for anybody that knows me was inevitable.

This past Saturday, which should be mentioned was also my step-brothers wedding day, I went back to the spa for a chemical peel. A drive that should have taken about an hour, took me almost two because I am directionally challenged and can't read a map to save my life. Luckily I gave my self enough time to allow for my several detours and U-turns. I arrived at the spa with 10 minutes to spare. The procedure took about an hour and I left with instructions to leave the chemical on my face about 8 hours then remove it gently with water. Anyone who's been to a wedding knows it can last several hours and the 8 hour mark passed with the chemical still on my face (covered with make up, of course).

I really don't know how long it was left on past the recommended time but my face now looks like I either A. was a guest at Chernobyl or B. was left adrift a raft on the ocean for 3 days. To say it's RED is an understatement and now on the 2nd day since the procedure it is starting to peel (hence the chemical "peel" part of the process).

I'm a flaky, itchy mess. BUT, underneath it I am beautiful. I know that because my husband tells me so, every chance he gets.

The Right Decisions

I missed putting words here. I guess I thought I didn't really have anything worth writing. But I do and it clears space in my mind to think of other important things like How my youngest kid is turning 15 in a few short days or How lucky I am that my honey's youngest daughter referred to me as "mama" the other night and my heart hasn't been the same since. Important things!

I started this blog to have somewhere to put my feeling about Her situation.

That seems like a lifetime ago. She has made decisions and choices for her and her family that are far beyond her 24 years since that post so long ago. And she's becoming an amazing woman for it. She knew what was right for her (despite my 2 cents, thankfully) and is continuing to bloom in so many wonderful ways. She just knew!

Earlier today I learned of another young woman who is making choices that while they might not be popular, are right for her. Postponing an event that was creeping up faster than she was prepared for. Because she holds in her heart a million pieces of mine I would support any decision that she made but I am so very proud of her for realizing what is best for her. She is braver than I was at her age. I made choices that felt comfortable and expected but weren't necessarily right for me. I wanted so desperately to dive into the future that I missed out on just being me.

It's taken a lot of years to shake off all the layers of wrong those choices left me with. But what I am left with now is SO right. Love that I only read about in fairy tales, relationships that are healthy and nurturing and people who don't just take up space in my life but enrich it.

My girls? They are strong, independent and more than capable of making the choices that are best for them. It's hard to make decisions that you're afraid other people may not understand or agree with. It's those not so easy options that make me so very proud of both of them.

Ouch!

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that I've had headaches F.O.R.E.V.E.R. Not just headaches but headaches! Stay in bed, in the dark, with the covers over my head and pop prescription medicine like Pez headaches.


Not such a big deal when I was single or newly married but throw a kid into the mix and I don't care how much it feels like your body is going to start hurling everything you ate since you were two years old, that kid has to eat. 


Kids are like super spies! I don't care how fine you tell them you are when they are 3 or 4 they smell weakness and POUNCE!


It didn't take me long to channel this ability and teach my 3 year old toddler to rub my forehead until the pain was bearable. His little hand would massage my forehead for a whole half  hour of cartoons without batting an eye. I think I had the only pre-kindergarten child on the planet that would stand in the door of my darkened bedroom and ask me if I had a headache. Whether I answered or not he would crawl up next to me and start rubbing my forehead. He saved me from scooping my brains out through my ears with a melon baller many times.


Fast forward 17ish years and he is the only person who can massage away a headache that is threatening to dislodge my eyes from their sockets and send them sailing across the room. And he still knows when I have a headache long before I ask him to rub my forehead.


The only times in my life that I didn't have headaches was both times I was pregnant. I think that's called the Michelle Duggar Headache Relief Plan. Not very practical for me. I'll just stay with the visits to Dr. Awesome and the forehead massages that my first born has perfected.

Three Weeks

Three weeks ago today I watched as life support was discontinued and my sweet step dad slipped into Heaven. By the time we let his body go his soul had already been our guardian angel for two days.

Mostly I'm okay, we are okay. I have a pretty amazing family!

But then, standing in the checkout at Walmart a man in another check out puts his fishing tackle on the belt to pay for it and I feel the sting of tears that I know will refuse to stay behind my eyes.

They are rubber worms with hooks for God sakes! Hardly worth tears. But my fish-lovin' dad won't be buying any more damn rubber worms and that hurts. A LOT!

I tried to focus on the screaming kid beside us or the lady with the tattoo above her butt crack that said "In God We Trust". Anything but those fishing lures. I somehow managed a couple of errant tears but for the most part I didn't crumble at Walmart. Success, I guess.

When will fishing lures just be fishing lures and Sundays just be Sundays?

Heavy

My mood is heavy, my heart is heavy.

Like the clouds outside my window weighted with rain waiting to fall. No rumbles of thunder just gray, water filled fluff overhead. Bearing down, pushing so hard that it threatens to squeeze every breath from my chest.

I wish there was some place to go that took the heaviness away. Just for a while. Instead, I drag it with me filled with the weight of loss.

Even letting tears escape down my cheeks doesn't release the burden that my heart keeps firmly in it's grasp.

I'm ready for sunshine to peek through and remind me that this heaviness won't last forever. Or perhaps it will, but a gentle reminder that there will be moments that don't feel like I'm being swallowed by quicksand. Even tiny, fleeting moments. Just some chance to catch my breath.

Webster's definition of strong is "having or marked by great physical power".

My definition is "waking up everyday in grief and surviving".

I'll Be Missing Him

I woke up feeling the now too familiar heartache of loss just seconds after opening my eyes. What began as small cracks have opened into great, painful, open wounds on my heart. I stood in the shower letting my tears mingle with the hot water raining down on me. I begged God to let me understand why a man that was so gentle and loving could be taken so early in his life and with no warning. Aside from knowing that He made his death as easy on our family as He could I'm still searching for the why. There is no answer.

How can the man who made my mom so happy and who became a Dad to my sister and me be gone? He was here last week on this very day! And now I'm forced to accept that God called him home MUCH earlier than we were ready for.

I watched my mom use every ounce of strength to comfort others while enduring her own devastating heartbreak of losing her husband today. I watched her accept condolences from the many, many people who's lives were touched by the great man that was my Dad. He wasn't my father but he was my Dad in every sense of the word!

I heard the words "it gets easier" and "it won't always hurt this much" but blended with the tears and the heart ache, I'm  just not convinced. Life will go on but there will always be a gaping hole left in my heart by the missing piece that he took to Heaven with him.

I do thank God that he took him peacefully and with little or no pain and that he let him be my Dad for 25 years or so but I could have used another 25 years.

That still wouldn't be enough.

Mine

Seventeen hours in a car, covering 5 states is hard!

Traveling with a 14 year old who has a serious lack of attention span is equally as hard but just as he did as a baby, the car begins to move and he is asleep in seconds.

Several times I turned in my seat just to stare at his long and lanky body curled up on the seat. His eyelashes are so long (the kind of long that woman pay for extensions to get). His lips are full and pink. And a shadow of what will become facial hair much too soon is just starting to dance across his face.

Around his shoulders his baby blanket is wrapped loosely. A quilt with cars, buses, airplanes and trains on one side and primary colored dots on the other side. I started the quilt when my oldest son was 3, long before my second son was even a glimmer in my eye but I'm a little bit of a, okay a huge procrastinator. I carefully quilted each vehicle with tiny stitches over the next three years. What? I had a kid who demanded my undivided attention to watch him build legos. How was I supposed to quilt tiny stitches in between lego towers and " Hey mommy watch me. Watch ME. WATCH MEEEE."?

Anyway besides the tattered quilt he was also wrapped in a blanket with his future high schools name printed in huge letters in the center. It was a strange juxtaposition. The baby that he was and the young man that he is becoming. I may have shed a tear or two watching him sleep. Willing him not to hurry the years by but enjoy being somewhere between a child and an adult for as long as nature will allow.

It's frustrating to watch him struggle in school and elating to watch him bake a cake that turns out just as he imagined. It tickles me that he still loves his baby blanket and I secretly hope that he takes it on his honeymoon because it reminds him of me. I love that he likes to travel with us but I know that he won't always. I'm enjoying this summer trip with him.

It's fun watching him experience things that are just starting to stretch his wings. It reminds me that we are making memories that will always  be remembered and that he is mine and that I am lucky to be his mama.

Tsunami of TMI

This post has been bouncing around in my mind for a couple of months. Since I purchased this>> www.divacup.com. I've started and deleted, started and deleted.

Somewhere in my upbringing I misplaced the filter between my brain and my mouth (or fingers, in this case) and have been known to share TMI or let things slip out that shouldn't but this is my blog so here comes an avalanche of TMI.

***If girly stuff embarrasses you or icks you out, don't say I didn't warn you***

Like every woman knows, the story we get in the 5th grade about the joy of becoming a woman is CRAP! What it really boils down to is one week out of every month YOUR GUTS ARE GONNA FALL OUT of your delicate lady flower!! You're going to bloat up and you will kill and crawl over the body for a Hershey bar. And lest you think the other 3 weeks of the month are any better, prepare for mood swings that are capable of causing buildings to crumble and tears that choose random TV commercials and Hallmark cards to cause rivers of wetness to streak down your cheeks.  Yeah, I didn't read anything about that in the cute, little, pink print covered booklet that was handed to me in the 5th grade while all of us blushed with embarrassment.

Somehow, I don't think the story that the boys got in 5th grade was quite as misleading!

If you didn't click on the link up there heralding my latest purchase go ahead and Google the images of  "Diva Cup".....I'll wait.

Traumatized yet??

It's similar to a silicone Dixie Cup that is inserted into the vajayjay during a period to ummmm...collect what would be traditionally absorbed by a tampon. Quite the visual I know, I warned you.  Anyway, it can be left in for 8-10 hours and makes the dreaded monthly visitor a little more tolerable as you don't have to know the location of EVERY.SINGLE. ladies room in EVERY.SINGLE store/restaurant/gas station that you visit. I was a little hesitant at first but I read, oh, about 54985498 reviews and only found about 4 that didn't recommend it. Good odds, I thought. So I bought it, did I couple of trial runs (don't think too hard about that, it's kinda gross) and waited for Aunt Flo to visit.

She did. It worked. Until....I tried to coax the cup out of my girly bits. I reached and reached and reached. I'm fairly sure I was somewhere close to my sinus cavity but it was NOT THERE! Now besides learning that teachers in health classes are liars, I was pretty sure that I learned that there is no where to go up there and that there is only one way out.

I pushed full term babies out of my nether regions certainly I could dislodge a small silicone cup. But, NO! It was GONE! Common sense, though sometimes elusive to me, gave me firm awareness that this was NOT a problem that I could ask just anyone to help me with. And by all that is holy, no way was I going to any medical professional and admit ANYTHING was lost up in my lady bits.

That only left my husband, the one who promised to love, honor and cherish me until death do us part. I'm pretty sure that he promised to help me avoid any potentially embarrassing medical procedure to extract errant items from any body part too. I may have dreamt that part but anyhow, I knew I had to wait until he got home from work.

I pictured him laying in the bathtub, wearing a miner's helmet with the headlamp at full beam and a pair of freshly sterilized salad tongs and me standing over him with a foot on each side of the tub.  Kinda like when a car is up on the rack and the mechanic is standing under it to repair a broken part. Or one of those claw games where you snag a stuffed animal and it drops to the door to be retrieved.

As luck (and a little gravity) would have it, pacing like I was going to tell him I was pregnant instead of just admitting that I may have something stuck somewhere near my brain by way of my love cookie, I felt....well I'll just call it movement.  I'll spare you the details, yeah I know why start now but you can thank me later. I'll just say no salad tongs or crane claws were necessary to save the day.  I could have kept all this to myself and not looked quite so crazy but no, I shared it with my sweetie and all of you! Lucky you, huh?

I haven't lost it since and it really is one of the best things I've ever bought on the internet...except that one really cool sex toy...but that's a story for another day.

Juggling

I'm beginning to see my life as a circus. No, not because my house is filled with side show freaks, although if I find another chin hair I may be classified as a bearded lady. But because I'm becoming a world class juggler.

Juggling is hard. Keeping all the balls in the air takes practice. But imagine juggling fiery balls or razor sharp knives. Juggling relationships is akin to that.

If I were to lose my grip on a ball and it bounced around on the floor or rolled under the furniture to live forever with the dust bunny families that have taken up residency there, no harm done. Not maintaining perfect juggling of personalities or family members that I'm required to keep far enough apart that we live in relative harmony has far greater consequences. Beside my need for an early refill of Xanax or an emergency visit to Dr. Awesome. Tears are shed and things are said that can be far more painful than mis-juggling razor sharp knives.

There are conflicts in my family that if left without buffers could open into Grand Canyon sized chasms. I've pretty much made it my life's work to be responsible for keeping that from happening.

It's a challenging task and every now and then I unintentionally drop whatever I'm juggling at the time and people get hurt. Things get said that can't be pulled back before they cause a heart to hurt. Words that damage things that band aids can't fix.

This is my Big Top and I will stumble though being responsible to keep all the balls in the air until I just can't do it anymore or until someone loses a limb, then it's somebody elses turn to juggle.