Month: May 2016

Seeing beyond the surface

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Last weekend my aunt Jan found a body in the lake in front of her house.

I have always had a love hate relationship with my aunt Jan.

My aunt Jan is bossy, critical, and controlling. She demands that things are her way, she doesn’t ask.

When I was a young girl, we used to have family reunions. Every year aunt Jan would pressure me into playing volleyball with the family even though I told her I didn’t want to because I sucked. Then I would play horribly and she would yell at me for sucking. After that happened several times, I had a “negative attitude” by refusing to play.

Games were played by her rules. I remember a few years back being involved in a family board game when she just announced out of the blue that the game was over. We were right in the middle of the game! It really made me mad, but she packed up the pieces and put the game away.

Every year at Christmas time, she demands that Angel and I sing Christmas songs. “You are singing and you are singing right now”. It makes Angel rather angry. But for some reason, I don’t protest or rock the boat by being disagreeable despite hating being told what to do.

Aunt Jan is a clean freak.

Several years ago a few members of our family along with Jan rented a large tent camping site close to her house. In the early morning hours a freak storm popped up. We packed up our camping equipment then huddled dirty and wet in her garage. She would not let us into her house to use the bathroom because we were too dirty.

She recently hosted two bridal showers at her house. She told the guests that they were not allowed to wear spikes because it would wreck her floors. There was no clutter and not one item was out of place. She made it known that children were not welcome. Children make messes. Both times my oldest daughter (17) was invited, but my youngest (13) was not. My youngest cousin who is also a teenager was not invited. This caused a lot of hard feelings.

Unfortunately, my aunt seems more concerned about the state of her house than she is about her relationships.

You may be wondering, like my husband and daughter do, why I don’t just tell her off. Nobody’s perfect. For all of aunt Jan’s perfectionism she is far from perfect, but we love her anyway. Sometimes I need to look beyond the surface of what I see to what I know. For all of Jan’s negative personality traits, she has some really good traits too. 

Aunt Jan is one of the most compassionate people that I know. She has a big heart for those who are suffering.

Out of my mom’s four sisters, I think that Jan was the one that helped my mom through her hard times the most. She spent a lot of time listening to my mom. I could tell that she truly cared. She didn’t turn away when my autistic brother Matt had some of his darkest days like a few other family members did. I saw that she was there for my mom when she needed her the most. For that, I will always be able to overlook some of her annoying quirks. 

A few days ago, someone left flowers on aunt Jan’s doorstep. I can’t imagine how horrifying it must have been for her to find someone’s body in the lake in front of her house. When I was there earlier this month, the lake was cool, calm, and beckoning. It didn’t look capable of taking a life. 

Sometimes our eyes limit what our mind can see.

 

 

Bear with me

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I had to take the last couple of days off from writing. I still haven’t been feeling all that well. The stomach ailment that I had last week set my acid reflux into over drive. I have been feeling very nauseous as well. I finally broke down today and called the doctor’s office. I was so afraid that I would need to be scoped, instead I was prescribed some anti-nausea meds. Hopefully that will help. 

I have been downright crabby at home, not just because I haven’t been feeling well. Everyone is sick of hearing about it around here. 

Bear with me!

This past weekend, Angel had her last choir concert. It is finally starting to sink in that she will be graduating soon. I have been mopey and crying about this fact off and on over the past couple of days now. I told you I am a mess!

Bear with me!

This weekend is the marathon. I finally have some sliver of hope that I will be able to run it. Maybe I will be feeling better!?! The last couple of days, I did run really fast to the bathroom though. It has almost been 2 weeks since my last run. Tapering down is never a good thing for me. When I can’t run, I get pretty psycho. Yesterday, I was so moody and angry that I broke down and took the dog for a walk. 

Bear with me! Or just say screw it and be a bear with me!

A piece of cake…(or not)

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I thought I was feeling better…

Last night Arabella had her 13th birthday sleepover. Yesterday was also the third day of my stomach ailment. I was feeling better with no problems after eating a bland diet for over a day. I was symptom free. I was finally hungry. I thought I could handle one slice of stuffed crust pepperoni pizza and a small piece of ice cream cake. Boy was I wrong.

The party itself did not go totally as planned. There were a couple of girls that were upset that they weren’t invited, but I had to set a limit. I am not that much of a saint, or martyr, for that matter. I even allowed the girls to sit out in my hot tub without me (a first). It was a cool night that produced a few snow flurries in our area. 

The girls really enjoyed the hot tub. In fact, almost all of them wanted to stay in it after Arabella wanted to get out. This, and a few other little things, caused some hard feelings. “Nobody wants to do what I want and it is my birthday party” kind of feelings. Arabella became angry and spent some time alone in her room after yelling at her friends. 

The kids came in with wet towels and suits which got water all over the bathroom floor. That wasn’t a big deal except for the fact that one of the girls slipped on the bathroom floor, fell backwards, and hit her head on the sink. Great, concussion watch! I specifically told them no stitches since that is precisely what happened at Angel’s 13th birthday sleepover. Should have added no concussions or broken bones. Besides a few cuts, scratches, and a big bump on her head, she was fine.

I kicked Paul out of the house to spend the weekend with his mom who has terminal cancer and his step-dad. He doesn’t have the patience for all of the noise and excitement. Alex left too to stay overnight at a friend’s house. Angel and I ran the party. After Arabella yelled at her friends, she was so upset that she wanted all of her friends to go home. Angel and I told her that she needed to apologize and get along with her friends. Eventually she did and I thought that at midnight I could finally go to bed. Wrong again!!

Right after midnight, I got sick again. Too much rich food after being sick. I spent the next 2 hours sick. In fact, I was the one that stayed up the latest at the sleepover without any acknowledgement. After that, I was up sick every couple of hours. When I got up at 6:30 AM, I was dismayed to find a couple of the girls awake! Screw it, I had to go back to bed for awhile. I woke up at 8:00 AM to strange noises in the kitchen. Half of the girls were eating a concoction that contained sugar, brown sugar, and hot chocolate with milk poured over it. Gross! 

I thought most of the kids would sleep in until 10 just like Angel’s sleepover. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!! I had planned on having them roll out of bed around 10 with a large brunch waiting for them of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and English muffins. 

Then we would be off for an afternoon excursion at a swimming pool 20 minutes away. The plan was that I would swim laps at the pool while they had fun. I have my first triathlon planned without a lot of time spent swimming yet. C’mon, there was snow this morning. Do you think I am going to jump into open water and start swimming?!? Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes my expectations are too high. Okay, okay! Quite often. Okay, more like all of the time. 

Maybe someday I should write about what I expect followed by what really happened. That actually might be interesting. And I thought that my expectations were realistic!! You know, kind of like that one time when I ran my first marathon. I thought that I might qualify for the Boston instead of barely finishing. This reality check is starting to make me crabby…now back to the story..

So I made this huge breakfast and salivated the whole time watching them eat while I was eating my bland diet. Oh sure, by that time my stomach was feeling just fine. However, I was dead tired from being up half the night because of it. After I cleaned the kitchen and threw in 3 loads of laundry, Angel and I took 2 cars to take the girls to the pool. We couldn’t fit everyone into one vehicle. The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. After the girls went home late this afternoon, I had to crash.

Yeah, I am ready to run a marathon next weekend. After this weekend, it should be a piece of cake (or not). Seriously, what can be more difficult than having 3 teenagers in the house?? Hmmm..

  

Sick pranks

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Finally, I am feeling a lot better! Not 100%, but my fever is gone. I am almost ready to host a house full of 13 year old giggly girls. The house has been cleaned and sanitized. I haven’t had a stomach ailment like this since I was 6 months pregnant with Angel. I remember spending the night in the bathroom curled up on the linoleum. Before that, I was really sick with food poisoning the day that Paul and I had dinner plans to announce our engagement to our parents. I’m sure this time you will easily forgive me for not being very descriptive in my writing about this. Lol. It was bad enough that I lost 6 pounds in two days. 

Of course, just because I spent a couple days sick doesn’t mean that my stories end. In fact it was quite the opposite. The day I got sick, Angel received a text from someone posing to be my son’s drug dealer. It seemed like Angel intercepted the message in error. It had drop off points and pick up times for a rather large amount of drugs. She texted me a screen shot and I went ballistic. Paul came home briefly for lunch and then had back to back meetings scheduled for the rest of the day. We spent a good chunk of that time troubleshooting the situation. Do we call the authorities? Who was texting these things? Was it true? Then how did they end up texting Angel instead of Alex? What the hell were we going to do? Could our son be a drug addict or dealer? 

It was all a very horrifying experience to deal with for several hours while sick with a fever. It was decided that I would have some sort of intervention with my son alone when he got home from school. Paul couldn’t cancel out of his work meetings last minute. After two hours of sheer agony over this, Angel called and told us that it was just a “friend” playing a prank on her. Apparently her “friend” borrowed another girl’s phone to prank Angel because she thought it would be funny. The girl whose phone was borrowed had a guilty conscience and confessed the situation to Angel. Guess what?? I didn’t find the whole situation funny. I am so angry about it that I never want to see that girl again unless it is to apologize to me. 

I told Angel if she gets anymore prank or harassing calls this year that I am changing her number. First, the guy that was stalking her, then some unknown person posing as a friend, and now this. 

How could someone think that something like this could be funny?? 

That is what I call a sick prank!  

A few good things did come out of it though. First of all, the allegations against my son were not true. Thank God! You don’t know how relieved I am about that. I was thinking such horrible things about him. Nothing about that was right. Second of all, my kids are not afraid to come to us with problems. We generally know what is going on in their lives. Once Angel told her “friends” how upset we were about their prank, they felt really bad just like they should. So in the end, maybe the prank was on them. Sure makes them look like idiots!

Snow slumber

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I am still sick. I still have a fever. I spent most of the day sleeping. Tomorrow Arabella is having a sleepover for her 13th birthday. The house is trashed. The laundry is piling up. I haven’t showered in 2 days. But I don’t want to cancel the party if I don’t have to. I am feeling better than I was yesterday. 

To tell you the truth, what parent wants to have a sleepover with tons of teenagers in the house?? Crazy! 

Angel had a 13th birthday sleepover. It didn’t go well. I should have learned my lesson after the first party. Angel’s friend had to leave after the first hour for stitches. But Angel had a party, so Arabella is having one too.

Angel and her friends did some pretty crazy things as well. They played truth and dare which resulted in several bras being dipped in the toilet and placed in the freezer. HHmmm, okay, I will have to remind her of that when she calls her sister immature. Lol. They also ran around outside in the middle of the night. Arabella won’t even be able to do that because it is supposed to be cold with a mix of rain and snow. 

Snow in the middle of May!! Why!?!

human

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Today I’m sick. 

My body aches. I’ve been up half the night. I haven’t been able to eat or take more than a sip of water. 

I’m afraid that I will miss my daughter’s senior banquet tonight.

I will miss my last training run before the marathon that I had planned for today.

I am too sick to work. 

Being sick is wrecking all of my plans. I don’t like this. I want to fight it. 

I don’t have any control. I’m (gulp) only human.

I must rest…..

The (not so) little things

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This past weekend we took my mother-in-law out for Mother’s Day. I also took Friday off to spend the day with my mom. We went for a massage then I took her out to Red Lobster for seafood. The rest of the week previous to Mother’s Day, I spent being a mother. I watched my kids perform more days than I didn’t. It was fun but busy, busy, busy.

Paul was gone almost all of last week for work. I was happy to hear that our business friends missed me. They said that Paul was downright boring without me around. I suspected that. LOL. I am the one that is up for anything. Well, except zip lining. I would never do that. I received a message from a friend saying that she missed me at the conference and hoped I was having a great Mother’s Day. It really meant a lot.

Saturday Angel went to state for her solo and ensemble pieces at my old college campus. It was strange walking through those halls again. I haven’t been on campus since I graduated 19 years ago. Nothing really changed much on campus, except for me. I am not the same person that lived on crackers, minute rice, and macaroni and cheese. I was thinking about that as I was sitting in the same location that I used to eat my meager snacks. It was strange being there with my daughter who is close to the age I was back then. Some day I will have to tell you some pretty good stories about my psycho roommates, but I have so many more stories to get through before that.

By the time Mother’s Day rolled around on Sunday, I just wanted to stay home!

We did go to church on Mother’s Day. I sang a solo about motherhood, my two daughters performed in the Mother’s Day celebration as well. Then I forced the kids to stay home and spend time with me. We played indoor and outdoor games. We even went for a family walk around the neighborhood like we did when the kids were small. Except, of course, this time they were not sitting in a wagon, stroller, or in a back pack.

I took joy in the little things. I didn’t want gifts or jewelry, I just wanted everyone to get along for the day. I thought the day went pretty well, except it could’ve been warmer. 

I received my favorite Mother’s Day gift several years back. I told Paul that I wanted him to put up a clothesline for me in the backyard. I have a bit of a laundry fetish. Since my old washer started smoking, I’ve been wanting to write many posts about my joy over my new front loading washer. But I thought I would spare you from that. You’re welcome! Angel and I sat in front of the new washer with a bowl of popcorn for the first load. We lead pathetic lives in WI. I’ll blame it on the cold climate and lack of sunshine. 

Anyway, Paul constructed a clothesline for Mother’s Day. Nothing relaxes me more than hanging laundry on the line and watching it billow gently in the breeze. That very summer, I received a call from the gas company worried that our gas meter was not working right. I told them that I wasn’t using my gas dryer as much anymore. Then they thanked me for going green. Hey, at least my fetish saves the planet! LOL. 

That year Angel was taking an art class in school. She wanted to make me a necklace for Mother’s Day. We came up with the idea that the cord for the necklace could be a clothesline. Then she designed a pair of shorts to be hanging from the clothesline. Maybe that is why I like sailing. There is nothing like watching sheets blow on the lines. Hmmm… 

Sometimes it is the (not so) little things in life that mean the most. 

Our last supper

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Paul and I decided to take his mother Martha out to eat for one last Mother’s Day celebration where we can all be together.

A quick recap…Martha has stage 4 lung cancer that has already spread to her brain. This will most likely be her last Mother’s Day. Plus we were able to go out with all of our kids. This will also be the last time the kids are all living at home since Angel will be in college next year several hours away. So this was the big hurrah!

We took the family out to a Japanese steak house for hibachi. Martha doesn’t get to enjoy fine dining often and was very happy for the opportunity to go out. She was very sick earlier in the day from her chemo, so we weren’t even sure the evening out would happen. We thought about just cooking a nice meal at our house. But since this is the last time, we decided to go to a small quiet restaurant and make it memorable.

We had a wonderful hibachi chef. Arabella even tried some raw tuna sushi to get ready for her trip to Japan this fall. She is very brave. Martha was wearing a baseball cap to cover her bald head. Paul made sure that she received a special chef hat that they reserve for birthday parties. I took a lot of pictures.

When we received the bill, we were told that Martha’s supper was paid for. Someone at the table next to ours covered her bill.

Paul went over to the table and thanked the man. They embraced. Later the man followed Paul into the parking lot. He told Paul that his mother passed away a few months ago from cancer. He wanted Paul to pass on this generosity someday to another person going through the same thing.

Once again, the two grown men embraced. Total strangers sharing a moment of sorrow over their dead and dying mothers on Mother’s Day weekend.

Together they wept in each others arms.

I have never seen two big masculine men sobbing together in a parking lot before. Complete strangers for a brief moment sharing the same pain.

It was very moving.

 

A little down

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I think I am depressed. 

One of the signs of depression is losing interest in hobbies. What if you just can’t do the things you enjoy anymore?? 

If I spend too much time at work, type a lot (write), shuffle cards, or work jigsaw puzzles my carpal tunnel acts up. My hands ache. I need to wear a brace. If I exercise with weights, sometimes I can’t grasp them. Several times a week my hands just let go of items and I drop them. I’ve dropped my phone several times. Lately, I’ve dropped containers of foundation or eye shadow shattering them into powder so I have to throw them out. I have problems opening lids on jars. 

Sometimes my acid reflux gives me a hoarse voice and sore throat which makes it very difficult for me to sing, another hobby of mine.

I have enjoyed running and competing in races, but now my knee hurts so much that I might have to cut back or stop altogether. 

It seems like everything that I really enjoy doing to deal with my stress is being taken away from me. 

I feel depressed that my daughter will be graduating from high school in a few days. She is a lot like me. We have so much in common and have become close friends. Now she will be moving several hours away and starting a new life without me. I am happy for her, just sad for me.

My relationship with my other two kids sucks. My son is currently failing all of his core classes. He is angry at us or depressed when we give him consequences. The hard part is that he has a brilliant mind, but is too lazy and unorganized to put any effort into his studies. I have no control over this. My youngest daughter and I have nothing in common at all. She takes pride in annoying me and arguing with everything that I say.

Work is stressful. Running our own business, having employees, and demanding customers takes a lot of energy.

My mother-in-law has terminal lung cancer and at best has a few months to live. 

I am starting to see my own parents age in new ways that worry me.

Every organization that we belong to thinks that they are the only organization that we belong to. Everybody wants our time, our money, a life blood commitment. 

My husband and I have both been irritable and stressed these last couple of months. I honestly don’t know how much more of this we can take. Instead of people helping us through these difficult times, they drain us of whatever we have left.

So, yeah, I guess I am feeling a little down. 

  

My friends…

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Sometimes I wonder, I sit and think. 

I have 3 close friends. None of them know that I have this blog. You probably know more about me then they do. Isn’t that funny? 

I am a private person, although it probably doesn’t seem that way to you.

Sometimes I wonder if they stumbled across my blog, would they like me?

Would they like the real me?