A part of you has grown in me. And so you see, it’s you and me together forever and never apart. Maybe in distance, but never in heart.

Darren and I are watching coverage of the earthquake in Haiti.

It is unimaginable to me. 

People lying dead in the street, trapped under tons of rumble, devastated and destroyed.

They show pictures of the children, talked about a seven year old boy trapped under a hotel.

My head swarms with thoughts of my boys being hurt, harmed, taken from me.....

Sadness.  So much sadness.


Tonight, Jacek shared that he never ever wants to grow up and move away. 

Tonight, I don't want him to either.

Whatchoo Lookin At? Wordless Wednesday

 

 (Do you think anything is funny?  Geesh. Tough Crowd)

 

(dur...'nuff said)

Smuck Smuck Smuck

I woke up in the early morning from the nagging in the back of my skull.  I glanced at the clock.  It was only 4:16am.  I was getting a *smucking* migraine.  Great.

My alarm went off at the normal time, 6:30, and I pretended not to hear it.  I tried to squish the pulsing in my brain by pressing my forehead into the mattress as hard as I could while chanting *smuck, smuck, smuck* over and over again.  It didn't help much at all.

I took an Excedrin migraine once I made it down into the bathroom.  They only numb the migraine but numb enough so that I can walk around, albeit like a zombie, but walking around nonetheless.

I had a play date to get to today.  I was not about to let a migraine stand in my way.

Thankfully, the boys were very cooperative and we made it out the door with only minor incident.  A side effect of the Excedrin migraine is that it gives me the shakes.  My hands shake, uncontrollably.  I dropped everything I picked up.  I needed to pay very close attention to what I was holding or it would wind up on the floor.  Nothing got broken.  Just dirty.

Play date was nice.  Loud.  But nice.

Today was school day for Jacek.  So, after play date I dropped him off at school and continued home to put Aidan down for nap.

Once he was napping, I put dinner in the crock pot, warmed some chicken tenders for lunch and tried to relax but my head was still getting the best of me.  I instead watched absolutely *smucking* ridiculous TV. I haven't watched daytime TV in a really long time.  I think I've been afraid to, not wanting to become a statistic of stay at home mothers watching day time soaps and trash talk TV.  Oh, and eating bon bons.  There's so many of "us" that do that.  
I watched almost an hour of some infomercial on a freakin juicer.  It was like a horrific accident on the highway.  I couldn't look away. 
Then I watched some poor *smuck* walk away with a whopping $5 in his case on "Deal, or No Deal".  The poor guy was so excited at one point in saying "No Deal", he broke the cover right off the deal button.  *Smucking* a$$hole.

Sometime between 2 and 2:15, which is when I need to leave to go and get Jacek from school, I decided it would be great to EAT every single last peanut butter cup in the stinkin plastic Candy Cane thingy that the boys got for Christmas.  I ate them like there was no tomorrow.  Then I felt sick.  Well, DUH!  Apparently I like to make myself really work for my goals.  I just can't wait to get my fat a$$ into my sweats and start running in March.  Who am I kidding?  I'll be walking and dragging my fat A$$...not running!

Later, I was upstairs playing with the boys and their train table.  Aidan thought it would be fun to hit Mommy's head with a train.  Earlier at play date one little boy (name withheld for he is a minor ;o)) decided it would be fun to throw a block at my head.  It's like my migraine attracts flying and flailing objects.  Both objects *smucking* hurt.  (It's ok Candace, I'm just poking fun)

So, here I sit.  I realized today that I need to get more pictures in my blogs.  I took my camera with me today.  It sat on the table during play group.  Now I think it's sitting on my stove.  Boooooo to me.  I get a big fat F for effort today.  I *smucking* suck.

When I have my migraines I always feel so cloudy.  It's like all the nerve endings in my brain are all firing at once.  Yesterday I tried to sign up to be part of a clinical research for migraines.  I didn't qualify because I have migraines with aurora, which means mine occur with visual disturbances.  Lucky me.  I'm on a waiting list...to be researched.


Anyways...out of all this crap that happened today I think I realized something.

Migraines

MAKE

ME WANT TO

CURSE LIKE A SAILOR.

*Smucking* Migraines!

Comfortable

Today is Grandma's 84th birthday.  Kristen, myself and the boys went to visit her at the nursing home.  I hate having to say that.  Nursing home.  All at once I'm flooded with memories of smells and images of the elderly that sometimes line the halls at that place.

She looked good.  Grandma.  For 84, she looks really good.  The doctors say she has dementia but I often question this diagnosis.  Mom and Dad seem to think she's getting worse.  I have yet to see that side of her.  Whenever I visit, she's pleasant or at least similar to how I've always known her.  Seeing her doesn't make me reminiscent of the day when she was more herself.  She seems to me to be the same Grandma I've always known.  She was funny, a little rude, and a little crass.  

What I did notice was how differently she was dressed.  Grandma always dressed up.  She always had a colorful blouse on with a brooch.  Sometimes a scarf, always a hat.  Sun bonnets were her specialty, she always had one on. In the off chance she would take it off, I always seemed to sit on it by accident.  Boy, did that make her mad.
She always appeared stiff to me and sometimes I actually could hear the rustle of her clothes.  They never felt soft or comfortable.  As a child I always wondered if when she got home she put on comfy pajamas.  I never saw her in pajamas really.  I knew Grandma as the well dressed one in the family.  Certainly, no one else dressed the way she did.  Always in her Sunday's best.

When we arrived at her room today she was in bed, wearing a gown and white socks.  Not much else.  Her hair was messy and she wasn't wearing her glasses.  Later after the nurses came they dressed her in a really cute blue sweatsuit.  For once I thought, she looked comfortable.

but I wondered at the same time how uncomfortable she must feel.

Jacek and Aidan didn't get close to her.  She was saddened by this.  As much as I wanted to push the issue and make Jacek go and hug her, I didn't.  He watched her every move though.  I hope he remembers her.  I kept saying how silly she was.  Great-Grandma is so silly, isn't she?

I'm not good with removing images from my mind.  Once they're there, they stay.  I hid in my parents room when I was 12 after calling 9-1-1 for my father because I didn't want to see him die.  I didn't go into the hospital room after my Grandfather passed, I stayed outside and cried while everyone else went in and said good-bye.  Images stick.  I want my last images of my loved ones to be ones I'm used to, ones I'm comfortable with.

I don't like seeing my Grandma not able to be herself, time erasing bits and pieces of who she is.

I know little of my Grandmothers life.  I listen to stories told by my mother and father. There's been more bad then good.  I've known her for 32 years and have formed my own opinions.  She has always been a good Grandmother to me.  I have always felt her love.

I never want to be in a nursing home where my loved ones have to come and visit making me feel worthless and unimportant in the grand scheme of things.  I never want to be so close to letting go and not be allowed to because for some reason my body is staying healthy while my mind deteriorates.  I don't want to see my Great-Grandchildren look at me with fear in their eyes.

I want my family to be comforable knowing I lived my life and I lived it my way, happily and with as much honesty as I could muster.

I love my Grandma but I hate seeing her in a nursing home. I hate that she doesn't get to wear her Sunday's best anymore.  I hate that once she's gone I will not have any Grandparents.

I hate that life is sometimes nothing like we hope it to be no matter how much we hope.

I hope my Grandfather is waiting for my Grandmother.  I hope he has one of her Sunday's Best, pressed and waiting for her.

I hope when the light shines on her, she is dressed in her Sunday's Best, wearing her butterfly brooch and her sun bonnet with the hat pins on her head.....dressed in her idea of comfortable.

because it is when we our comfortable that we are truly ourselves.

Happy Birthday Grandma.  I love you.

Retracing my steps

I spent my morning talking with Darren.  It was nice.  I mentioned to Darren that my fear of writing honestly is back. He reminded me that this is my blog and I began it as a promise to myself.  I started to get caught up in the things that don't really matter to me, worrying about whose reading and sad that the daily comments are few.  What does matter, the whole reason I've come this far, is that I've been honest.  Open.  and Honest.   With myself.

I lost track of that for a bit.  It might happen again.  I know Darren will reel me back in.  He's good like that.

I     am    writing      for     me.    Damn it!    Me.

For those of you who do follow and who do read...I am writing for me, for an outlet, for a continued attempt to become true

not followed or famous.

Darren always get me to talk.  He gets me to talk even when the voice in my head advises me to stay quiet. He does't even ask questions really.  I just spill my guts.

Alot of my guts revolve around a few certain things so Darren tends to hear the same stuff repeatedly but he doesn't seem to mind. 
This morning was no different.   Sparked by a total off handed comment on a completely different subject the feelings came rushing back.  I am always so sad when we first begin talking about it, then I get upset. The anger quickly turns into hurt then into resentment and then I end up back where I started.  No where.

Some days I really miss her a lot.

Some times I get the urge to go and knock on her door but I hesitate and the moment passes.

I know that life is short.  I understand we only get so many chances.  I know that certain things are worth fighting for and I know she is one of them but I suppose my increasing feeling of defeat is beginning to weigh heavy on my heart.

In my mind she needs rescuing.  In her mind I doubt she sees things that way.  In fact I know she sees things differently.

Having relationships with people means that you have to accept certain things.  With this one though I guess I refuse to....for no other reason then I want things to be different, so very different.

I try to apply "It is what it is" but it doesn't fit here, if it is what it is, then it's crap. 

Most of the time I am ok with the way things are.  It doesn't occur to me that the "feelings" are still lingering until I realize that things should be different, that I WANT them to be different and somtimes I so very badly need them to be.

And then I think,

she's ok with the way things are. 

And that really, really kills me.

Pep Talk

I spent the day wrapped up in our finances and am burnt out.  I think the same thing happens every year.  We start with good intentions, with new focus and steadfast determination.  Yet every January when I say I'm reassessing our finances I really just copy over the same budget which we stray from so defiantly year after year.

I know we don't mean to but we've begun to make the same mistakes.  It happens.

We also have a bunch of the same things on our to do lists AGAIN.  We have a few projects that got re-added because they still haven't been completed.

Although change happens all around us not everything is different.

Not every task is met with resolution.  Not every old habit can be broken the first time we vow to break it.

But each time we begin again we promise ourselves

that we'll

try.

One of the easiest rules in our family to follow and the most currently reinforced:

TRY

TRY

T R Y

Five Question Friday

I'm trying to make some "connections" here in blogland so lately I've been participating in others blog posts.

Today I'm sharing in the fun over at Mama M's...My Little Life.  Five question Friday.  Check her out, she's pretty funny.

1. What's your "comfort food"?  

Funny to have this question because I totally just wrote about it last night
..check it out here.

2. Do you send Thank You's (handwritten or email)? 

 A friend of mine(who's awesome at sending thank you's) just recently wrote a thank you note and delivered cookies as a thank you to a neighbor.  That neighbor then sent her a thank you card for her thank you card and thank you cookies.  

Nothing quite like a little crazy country neighbor to remind you to lock all your doors and windows at night!

A thank you card, note, or email can be a very powerful thing.  I certainly have good intentions in this department but I admit that lately I have begun to slip.  I am not a strict follower of the etiquette guidelines but I think it's very important especially when you have children, to thank those that give to you, your family and your children.  A simple thank you reminds us of all of "simpler times".  Who doesn't want to be remembered as being kind and appreciative and thankful?

3. If you had to be trapped in a TV show for a month, which show would you choose?

Wow, um,  I have no idea.  Something very entirely different from my real life.  Although, I think I would enjoy following Jo from The Nanny around and watching her in action.  I can only think of "reality" TV shows...Big Brother, Extreme Home Makeover...is that weird?  Wonder what that says about me.  
C.S.I might be neat.  I'll go with that. 

 
4. What is your favorite online recipe site?

Lately, I've been borrowing cookbooks from the library and friends and copying the recipes.  I do regularly visit all recipes because I have an established recipe book there and I got all my Christmas recipes from them, everything was scrumptious so, all recipes gets my vote!

5. If you had to choose: "Friends" or "Seinfeld"?

Seinfeld, just not my cup of tea.  It never captured my interest and believe me with the amount of friends I had and have that "loved" the show, I had my share of opportunity to fall in love.  Never did.

I always stop surfing if I see Friends is on.  I may not stop and watch it but I always stop for a few seconds.   

That was fun!  Although it took me almost 2 hours and 2 timeouts for Aidan to get this posted.
Now, I'm gonna go make lunch for them gooberbutts and will be back later to blog hop and hopefully make some blog friends.  

Happy Friday y'all!