Wings To Fly

Greg returned home from his 2 weeks of work training on Sat. July 23rd. I picked him up at the airport around 2 pm. They’ve closed (actually demolished) the Kiss-n-Fly lot that we always used for drop off and pick up. We still meet in that area just outside of where it is fenced off for construction purposes. It cuts through a lot of the hassle of picking him up at the main part of the airport. He brought me a very cute wallet that says “Federal Agent’s Wife” which looks just like the one he has that holds his badge.
Greg had applied and interviewed for 2 jobs in June. One was running the training dept. in Milwaukee WI. The other was the same job he does now (cargo inspector) but at Midway Airport instead of O’Hare. He has been trying to get tje promotion he was promised 11 years ago. The head of O’Hare had taken him from being a TSA screener and had promoted him to head up the training dept. 22 years ago. This guy told him repeatedly that he would be elevated to the next pay grade in 1 year. He was always praising him for the fine work. Then the guy left before the year was up and when Greg confronted him about it, he said, “I never said that!” This has been such a sore spot and cause of heartbreak for him. Then he had a female supervisor who picked on him for about 5 years. He just got switched to another one 2 months ago! He had applied for several promotions over the years and he never could figure out why he didn’t get them. Several guys who started after him and weren’t as good as he was at the work were given it instead of him. Due to recent events, we’ve figured out that this previous supervisor was the one holding him back.

Greg got a phone call about the Milwaukee job while in Georgia and was told they went with someone internally. This means someone who’s already working in the dept. He wasn’t sure he wanted to commute up to WI anyway. I’d been trying not to freak out wondering if we’d end up moving back up there then. When he got back from GA, he had a message that the person in charge at Midway had been trying to get ahold of him. He called them on Monday and found out that they were offering him the job. He wanted to meet in person and talk over their expectations and his and see what exactly the offer consists of. So Thurs. on his day off he drove down there and they talked. He told them he needed something in writing since he’d been burned before by the TSA. Ever since Thurs. he’s been waiting to receive the offer and finally it came through yesterday and he accepted it! He starts his new job on Monday Aug. 22nd. 🙂

Greg is so happy that all the drawbacks to the position don’t seem as important as they originally did. He is going from being a small fish in a big pond to being a big fish in a small pond. He is definitely giving up A LOT of perks. He now has a 4 day work week (10 hour days) with Thurs., Fri. and Sat. off. He has to go to a 5 day work week (8 hour days). He can still work Sundays which is a big deal to me so he’ll have Friday and Sat. off still. Right now he has a 3 mile commute that takes between 8-11 minutes. To Midway he’ll have a 30 mile commute in heavy Chicago traffic. It takes 40 minutes PLUS depending on time of day. He’ll also have a ton of tolls unless he can find some backroads that won’t add excess time to the trip. By my calculations, even with the raise he’s getting, not counting the wear and tear on his Jeep, he’ll be losing $500 a year by taking the job. Plus losing a day off every week, etc. But his ego needs this and they want him BADLY. it’s worth a lot to me to have him happy.

Maybe the hardest thing for me is if I run into some kind of trouble, he could get home to help me in like 10 minutes. Now I’ll just have to wait until the end of the day no matter what. At first I couldn’t understand why he wanted to leave that bad that he’d give up his days off and the short commute but I realized it’s not about me. He likes a challenge and his current position no longer challenges him. They don’t seem to value him or his contribution like they should. So this is a bit of excitement happening around here with watching hubby stretching his wings to fly.

Last week I heard from my sister-in-law Sandy that my half-brother Gary has been having some health problems. He was up at the cottage alone in northern WI and had some type of attack. He had to be taken to the hospital in Barron, WI and then transferred to one in Eau Claire. They had run tests on him and it looked like a mass in his kidneys. He went home on a plane to Seattle and was seeing specialists and fearing kidney cancer. Looks like the first step is kidney removal but I don’t know any of the details yet. I spoke to him on the phone and he sounded terrible and was on his way to the urologist so we didn’t talk more than a minute or two. He’s 18 years older than me so 72. That’s been on my mind a lot this week too.

It’s that time again for me to donate my hair to Locks Of Love. I get sick of it long, I get sick of it short and I get sick of it inbetween. I’ve got an appt. on Thurs. with Madeline again to get it cut super short. She’s the one who did it the other 2 times I donated it. After I get the haircut, I’m going to get my eyes examined and get new glasses. It’s been 4 years and even though I always use a soft cloth to clean them, my glasses are extremely scratched up. I hope I find some I like! I figure my birthday week is as good a time as any to make all these changes.

Read Full Post »

From Humble Beginnings

I have much to say but not a lot of time. I’ll type as fast as I can and hope I can get in what I need to. We got back from vacation on Sept. 12th and are gearing up for another one in 10 days. We purposely leave our vacations for the 2nd half of the year because at least then we have something to look forward to. Many use their vacation time up in the first few months of the year and have to wait until the next calendar year to take more. There’s something to be said for just knowing you have the time off coming to you.

Mom drinking her coffee in the RV

Our last trip was up to Black River Falls, WI. I think we’ve officially burned ourself out on the place. The first 5 days the temperature was in the 90’s every day! That’s unheard of for that time of year. Of course, we had no air conditioning. It was less than pleasant but we got through it. We ate out twice at the casino and gambled twice as well. Greg & I got away for a few hours here and there to check out the antique shops in BRF and Hixton. Mom didn’t want to do much which limited what we could do. We knew that going in so really weren’t too bummed out about it. One day Greg & I went up to my hometown–Eau Claire, WI. We hadn’t been there in about 15 years.

Dad’s grave

We went to the cemetery and saw the graves of my dad along with his first wife, her parents, my half sister’s dead twins, etc. We found the graves right away. My oldest half sister had gone to her 60th high school reunion in August (mind blowing, eh?) and had been unable to find the graves. We went to see the church my grandma (dad’s mom) founded in 1923. It played a large part in my upbringing. I attended Sunday School, got confirmed and then went to church there until I left for college. My dad had been elder in the church and had paid for a lot of the stained glass windows. We went to McDonough Park which is right by Dell’s Pond. We played there a lot as kids. I saw they had replaced the sign that had been shot full of bullet holes with a new one.

North Presbyterian Church that my grandma founded

We got out of the car and walked through the old neighorhood for several blocks. It was surreal–like walking back in time. Things were the same and yet they weren’t. The area was always poor but now it seemed so rundown. A shop owner had told us not to go there at night because it was dangerous. There wasn’t a soul on the streets which made me wonder. Seeing the house I grew up in was bittersweet…. Things had been changed for the worse. Basically, it looked like someone had ruined the place. It sits next to a large building that used to be my grandparents corner grocery store. It had closed before my birth and my dad had turned it into a duplex (upper and lower apts). We always called it “The Store”. Well, The Store was for sale and looked unfit for habitation.  The post office no longer delivers to the houses, the mailboxes have now been moved to the curb.

Grandparents’ corner grocery store as a duplex

It made me think of my last blog post and how I feel like white trash. Or I am white trash. While we were there and for a week or so after we got home, I kept thinking, “No wonder I didn’t make anything of myself. It would be nearly impossible to, coming from that area.” I said it to my hubby and he said, “But you did make something of yourself.” I said, “No, I didn’t.” He said, “You survived. You got out.” I guess that’s something…

My first home

I’ve been buried in laundry and cooking since we got back. I haven’t even been able to work on selling online at all. Mom is taking up more and more of my time which I knew would happen. She pretty much needs help with everything she does now. Some days I run out of patience before breakfast. That’s when you know it’s going to be a long day. I’ll save all the details of that for a future post. Lucky you! 😉

Neighbor’s tree being cut down

The next door neighbor had their giant elm tree cut down last week. Today the tree cutting co. came to drill out the stump. We had ours done 14 years ago. It was a horrific expense at the time, close to $5,000 then. We’re taking Amber to the vet on Thurs. afternoon for her yearly vaccinations. I’m just trying to keep my chin up and my head above water under less than ideal circumstances. Hope you’re doing the same! 🙂

Logs from downed tree

 

Read Full Post »

Embracing My White Trash Existence: It’s Ghettotastic!

I’m going to squeeze in one last post before we head off to vacation. We’ll be unplugged from social media which is always much needed after total iimmersion. The funeral last Thursday went off without a hitch. Sadly, there was hardly anyone there. If anything ever rang true to me was that someone’s value or worth isn’t in the number that attend their funeral service. Aunt Trese was beloved my many and contributed much to her family and society. Yet compared to some of the other family funerals I’ve attended where there was standing room only, this was sparce. I know it was a work day and people had to get off work to come. But most of the funerals are. I remarked about this to Greg and he said it was because most of the people she knew were already dead. 😦

 

That’s harsh but true. Trese was 86 and had lead quite a life. She had been a beautician when she first married and then later was a nurse’s aide at a psychiatric hospital. She had been married over 50 years before her husband died. She had raised 5 boys and 1 girl. She was a tough cookie but also was very gentle and kind. I’ll never forget how much fun we had talking to her and Uncle Frank at family parties and weddings. She was always very welcoming to me which is a big thing in my book.

 

I was an outsider to the Babe family when Greg & I met 30 years ago. I still feel like an outsider at times but obviously less so. The people who have gone out of their way to come up and talk to me and welcome me will never be forgotten. Greg’s Aunt Rosie (who’s been dead over 12 yrs.) was the first to chat with me at every occasion. She made me feel less self-conscious and I would actually forget about the other people around us and just lose myself in things she would tell me. She liked to travel and gamble too which neither of us ever tired of talking about. We took my mom with us to play bingo with her once.

 

Aunt Anne just oozes warmth and love. I’ve always said if I didn’t have the mother I do, I’d want her to be my mother. Aunt Trese was much the same. She was a lot of fun and always interested in how and what we were doing. No one was really shedding tears at this funeral because she was “ready to go”.

 

I often think about how we come into this world with different advantages and disadvantages. Like the family we are born into could be ideal or less than. We could end up being raised in poverty or luxury. We can have health issues or be completely healthy. The list goes on and on. I’m sure you get the idea. I used to naively believe that we all got the same thing, just in different ways. I don’t know if I can explain this properly…like everyone has bad and good things happen throughout their lives but NOT all good or not all bad. You might get all the good at the beginning of your life or at the end. I could give a bunch of examples but the more I write, the crazier this theory sounds. I thought that everything would balance out, either in this life or the next. Obviously, people should be trying to be the best person they can be, no matter what.

 

It just goes to show when I put some of my stranger ideas down on paper (or the internet), they don’t sound as good as they originally did inside my head. Not that everything up there makes sense but it’s a vast improvement over what it sounds like when it leaves its place of orgin. Like the title of this could have been “Dead Aunt…Dead Ant”. Yikes…

 

So getting back to leaving on a trip, here’s what’s happening at my house. Not long ago, I scrubbed the kitchen floor with a toothbrush. Yes, it was that bad and I wanted to make sure I got it as clean as possible. Our floor is ugly and the rust color of the linoleum doesn’t show the dirt which is both a blessing and a curse. Then I got a carpenter ant invasion. I kill every single one I see and even though I go barefoot, I keep a sandal in the kitchen to crush them with. Yeah, I’m classy like that. Everything I tell about seems to paint me as having a white trash existence. <Blink> I guess instead of fighting that, I should embrace it. It’s ghettotastic! 😉 I’ve spent way too much time researching how to get rid of the ants. I’m going to try putting down some (uncooked) grits. Not because they’re Southern which would be funny but because they can’t digest cornmeal and it kills them. While we were sleeping last night, Amber chewed up a 95 year old copy of Pinocchio. 😦 She’s never done that before but has lately been acting out a bit. She’s 7 years old so should know better but I guess dogs will make us pay if they don’t get their way. I will be back in a few weeks with more skintillating excerpts from my life. 🙂

Read Full Post »

The Burden Of Living

I’ve been searching high and low for a spare moment to do some blogging. I need it for my soul. There were a few days this past week that I thought I’d be able to take a few hours to put my thoughts in order. Boy, was I wrong. I’m not even kidding. Something always comes up. So now I’ve decided to just do a quick (but lengthy) post of what’s been happening around these parts.

Garden plant shopping

We have still been having the funniest year for weather ever. The 2 days before June it was only in the upper 40’s for a high temperature. I started wondering if someday (possibly decades from now) the seasons will be switched with the 2 hemispheres like Australia will have our seasons and we’ll have theirs? Global warming and all, you know. In any case, it would make an interesting plot for a book or movie. 😉 We have been alternating the very cold temps with a few days of mid-80’s which is hard to get used to. One day you’re wearing shorts and sandals, the next pants and a coat.

Peonies & bridal wreath in our backyard by koi pond.

Due to the above weather constraints, we got our garden in late this year. We also decided to rotate the crops, planting our tomato plants where we’ve always had our peppers and vice versa. We kept the cucumbers in the same place. We also decided to do about half as many plants and spread them out more. We still do a lot–18 plants each but it’s a lot less than we used to. We always crowded our plants and that makes it hard to weed. Not like that’s one of my favorite things but they should produce more if given more room too. We got our plants on Thurs. May 21st and it took 3 days to get them all planted. I remember when we used to be able to plant everything in a day. We planted the herbs (basil, chives, dill, cilantro, thyme, curry, rosemary) the day we got them. Then planted the tomatoes the next day and the peppers on Sat. They are doing nicely. We usually get some other veggies like squash or beets but this year, we’re keeping it to a minimum. My rhubarb is doing fantastic. Possibly the best year ever. I have 3 plants and they are 3 different varieties. I picked most of the largest (oldest) plant and got 21 heaping cups which I put in freezer baggies and froze. I got 4 new recipes off the internet and the first one I made twice already. I really need to look no further since this is the best use of rhubarb I’ve ever seen. They are Rhubarb Dream Bars and have a buttery crust with a custard type filling. They are good warm or chilled. If you’ve never tried Pie Plant (rhubarb), you’re missing out!

New Weber gas grill

Hubby got a new gas grill on May 21st also. We’ve been without one since around Nov. We normally grill all year round, no matter the weather. This time hubby wanted a Weber brand which is supposed to be superior to others. It’s a smaller grill than what we had but so much nicer! In almost 30 years that Greg & I have been together,  he’s done all the grilling. I always thought of it as a man’s thing. Now with this grill, I’ve started grilling and found out it’s not hard at all! I’ve been grilling a ton of veggies that I would normally roast in the oven: eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, etc. I’m having a lot of fun with it. I won’t be taking all the grill duties away from hubby but it’s a good thing to know how to use it. Now we can get back to having salmon and sweet potatoes a couple times a week.

Mom at 94

My mom turned 94 on April 23rd. It seems like things are getting harder daily. I don’t know if they’re necessarily harder for her, but they’re harder for me. It is no longer a full time job to be her caretaker, it is a 24/7 job. A lot more “babysitting” and checking on her is needed than ever before. We’ve scaled back our treasure hunting a lot so I’m not gone from her as much. We went out one day the past few weekends. Mom’s latest thing is drinking water. She hadn’t drank much water her whole life. She would avoid drinking it due to her bladder. I know she needs some to keep hydrated but don’t want to force it on her. I’ve always kept a filled water bottle next to her on the couch. She knew it was there but never reached for it. Now she drinks the whole thing and then keeps handing me the bottle. I like to fill it and put it back next to her but she doesn’t remember drinking it. I’m sure you can see where this is going long before I could. She would drink 3 or more bottles of water in row. I had to put a stop to that since the diaper only holds so much. She’s only been in diapers in the daytime for the past 2 days. After she literally “shit the bed”. It had come out of the diaper and was just smeared over the entire bed and her. So doing laundry has been keeping me busy. I finished up everything in the house that could possibly be laundered a few days ago, only to have to do several loads in a row. Her sheets and mattress pad, her thin quilt, a huge load of towels and her nightgown. A month ago or so she must’ve done the same with more solid material because when I went to wake her, she had both hands covered in it and I had to cut it out of her pubic hair. Never a dull moment! :-{

Wood for project.

Hubby’s been busy too since he started a new project. It’s been awhile since he’s done any carpentry. He loves it and misses it. I know he gets a lot of pride and satisfaction by building something from scratch. Lord knows he’s got enough tools for every conceivable task. He’s now making a wooden floor on the muddy outside area along the north side of the house. It’s been fenced in there for years but we can’t use it. We’ve even tried planting in there (onions and beets) but it’s so muddy you can’t walk and it gets no sun. We’d like to use that wasted space for storage. If nothing else for our packing supplies like cardboard boxes and bubblewrap. It would free up a large portion of the garage which we can’t even walk in now since we are saving boxes we may use “someday” in there. I could joke and say that the tv show “Hoarders” wanted to come here to film our mess (I mean house) but they said it was a safety hazard…

Hubby before starting.

We haven’t taken any vacation yet this year and are starting to get antsy. The RV is in the repair shop now for the horn (which turns out it was “unplugged”) and the cruise control which needs to be replaced. Neither one has worked in at least 2 years. Our “all inclusive” warranty lasts until Nov. so I wanted this fixed while we have it. We still have a $50 deductible but we can handle that. The RV dealership couldn’t fix those 2 items since they are part of the engine/motor and not the “coach”. So that was part of the holdup too. Taking it to a Ford dealership that works on RVs. Since we’re trying to get the most out of Greg’s limited vacation time, we are thinking of taking the 4th of July holiday week. Then he only has to use 3 days (30 hours). We’d like to take our anniversary week or my birthday but it doesn’t work out. We’ll probably go up to WI, if we’d gone any sooner, we might’ve frozen to death.

Sky, clouds and sun. This tree now is full of green growth. 2 months makes a huge difference.

May 21st Greg & I went to the doctor. Yes, that was a ridiculously busy day! A trip to the doctor, one estate sale, buying plants, planting herbs, getting a new grill…No wonder I don’t have time to blog. Ha!  It’s been 2 years since I had a pap smear so I just bit the bullet and called. We go in together and it went fairly well. Greg’s blood pressure is forever high even though he’s on 3 blood pressure meds. It runs in his family. The doc added a small extra dose in the evenings of one he takes. The doctor actually said to me, “I pronounce you healthy”. Which was kind of a relief until I brought up my spinal stenosis. The past 2-3 months it has gotten A LOT worse. I used to only have pain when standing or walking. Now I have pain when laying in bed, when first sitting down, when bending over, etc. I used to only have the pain in my legs like shin splints. Now it is more like charley horses and it’s in my back too. He told me to go back to Dr. Hennessy who he sent me to 2 years ago. Then he said it wasn’t that bad but told me to lose weight. I hate to go back when I haven’t lost weight. I may be 5 lbs. down if any. Food is a comfort to me with all I have to deal with. I guess that makes me a failure. I need to find out if I can get an injection that might help. I really don’t want surgery. He scared me a lot saying that if I wait too long, I may have permanent nerve damage and the pain will never go away. Yikes. I got an order for a mammogram and finally called to make the appt. for that. It’s set for Tues. June 23rd at 10:50 am. One thing at a time, I guess.

I’m in love with these 2 dress forms. I call them my dummies.

The doctor told us to stop back sometime this summer to get our blood drawn. He wants to do it after fasting for at least 8 hrs. I mentioned that I heard on the news that you can tell from a blood test if you have cancer. He said that wasn’t true and then got into a long tangent about cancer really coming down to “bad luck”. I guess I should feel lucky then! I also asked about a mole on my left boob that looked suspicious to me. It was embarrassing to have to show him but I was sick of worrying about it. A friend I knew from slams died last year from skin cancer so that certainly puts things in perspective. He said it was fine but keep an eye on it. I told him I wanted to get a bunch of moles/ skin tags cut off. He’s always so brutally honest that he said that it didn’t make sense since they would most likely grow back again in 6 months! I had that happen with one already so I do believe him. After going to Dr. James for 19 years, he finally gave us his personal phone number. I doubt we’ll ever use it but it’s nice to know we can if we need to.

A terrific read.

Treasure hunting has been interesting. We’ve gotten really interested in old books. Preferably over 100 years old. I used to be so fussy about the condition and I still would rather have the binding intact but now if something looks like a captivating read, I don’t pass it up (if the price is right). Which brings me to opening another Etsy shop just for vintage ephemera (books, postcards, greeting cards, stickers, letters, etc.). I call that one Ephemera Addict to compliment my DejaVu Junkie vintage shop. I am also starting a similar shop on Instagram called Ephemera Junkie. It’s not even that I’ve had so much success on there but want to have an outlet to share my love of all things paper. I just finished a swell book from 1926 called My Friend The Dog. It’s a bunch of short stories about collies. They all have fairly happy endings which I like. The world doesn’t have enough happy endings to suit me! In one of the stories, a dog gets in a fight and is injured and it’s 2 weeks before he can “resume the burden of living.” I get such a kick out of the way things were worded back then. It is a sheer delight to partake of the mindset and morals of the past.

My friend the dog. Aka Elvis.

On that note, I’m going to step away from the computer and resume the burden of living. 🙂

Read Full Post »

Pulling A Brian

I’ve been working on a post about the #20beautifulwomenchallenge. I put it down for a week due to being busy with life. I came back to it today and don’t know where I was going with it. So I’m putting it aside while I do a catch up post.

It’s never good news when the phone rings after 10 pm at night. That’s what happened on Wed. Feb. 4th. Greg answered the phone and I held my breath. It was his sister Linda calling to say that their brother Brian (who just turned 57 last month) fell down in his kitchen and was in the hospital. His wife had gone to bed and was calling to him and when he didn’t come to bed and didn’t answer, she came to check on him. He was lying in a pool of blood. Apparently, he passed out and didn’t even put his arms out to break his fall. He literally did a faceplant. He didn’t break his nose but had 5 skull fractures in his face. They took him to the hospital and he didn’t regain consciousness until like 3 am. He doesn’t remember anything and has a concussion. He spent a week in the hospital, a few days of it in ICU. Then on Wed. Feb. 11th he was discharged and sent to a nursing home! He needs all kinds of physical therapy. Basically relearning a lot of things. After a week there, he’s doing a lot better except for mastering how to eat with a fork. 2 things stuck out to me that I’ll probably never get the answers to: Did his glasses break? (maybe that’s part of how he cut his face) And What time do they go to bed?! The fact that all this took place and they got him to the hospital and alerted the family and it passed around to relatives, all by just after 10 pm?! He’ll be in the nursing home for at least 30 days since that’s what his insurance will cover. Now we say, “Be careful, you don’t want to pull a Brian.”

This is another example of how life can literally change in a matter of seconds. You can be doing fine and have something just terrible happen that can impact your life for months! A woman Greg works with tripped over her own feet in her kitchen and fell and broke her hip and elbow back in Nov. She’s almost 70 (yes, a lot of old people work with my husband. They just won’t ever retire!) and has been off work ever since. She had a hip replacement since the bone just shattered. About a year ago she had fallen in a parking lot while on work time and broke her wrist and was off work for a few months. Then another guy my husband worked with in a different dept. fell out off a ladder last June. He was trimming a tree and in a split second he lost his balance and fell off. He broke his back, legs and at least one arm. He came in after the first of the year to put in his notice that he was retiring. He’d been off since the accident. Plus everybody knows someone who had a horrific car accident that changed their lives.

It really gives a person pause to think of all this. I’m overly careful as it is but can you ever be TOO careful?! Apart from living life in a bubble, there are plenty of things that can and do go wrong. Now I’m going to go back to finish the other post before something dreadful happens! 😉

 

Read Full Post »

Vacation Recap

Today is a day of recovering from our vacation. We got back yesterday afternoon and things went about as well as they could under the circumstances. No devastating accidents with the RV or Jeep. No physical illness for any dogs or people. We had the best weather that money can’t buy! It was like Indian summer the whole week. It is expected to be beautiful at home here this whole week too. The summer we never had. 🙂

We took it easy and slept in most mornings. We ate every meal for the 10 days in the RV. Twice we got carryout of barbequed chopped beef brisket from Joe’s Texas BBQ in Green Bay. Otherwise we got some ground beef from Maplewood Meats and made hamburgers on the George Foreman Grill. We hit 2 cheese factories so we came home with plenty of good cheese we can’t get in Illinois. Mom didn’t want to go along on any excursions so we set her up on the couch in there and she watched tv, played games on the ipad or browsed through magazines while we were gone. The dogs kept her company.

The highlight of our trip was apple picking the day before we left. We got 2 bags of Honeycrisp apples for eating and a bag of each of the cooking apples–Courtland & McIntosh. It was the perfect temperature to pick apples and they were as lovely as can be for surviving the past year of crazy weather.

We also did some treasure hunting which we spread out over the week. We hit 3 Goodwills, 1 Salvation Army and 1 antique store in Green Bay and 2 antique malls in Appleton. We found some amazing goodies that it will take us awhile to get hung up all over the house. My new favorite obsession is religious art.  I can’t put my finger on why it struck a cord with me at this point in my life. In the past, I wouldn’t have glanced twice at it. Now I find it mesmerizing. In the future, I’ll do a blog post with pictures of some of my favorite pieces.

I didn’t take any pictures on vacation which makes it almost not seem like vacation. If you don’t have visual proof, did it happen?! 😉 My iphone4 is completely maxed out on memory. I had to delete a bunch of apps (& I don’t have that many to begin with) just so I could do an update for our online banking app. It wouldn’t let me go  into it until it had been updated. So I was stuck getting rid of things so I could get online to pay bills! Yikes. I guess that’s one of the things on my agenda is to get a new iphone. Trying to decide on the iphone6+ or going with iphone5.

We stayed outside of the Oneida casino and actually did get to go gambling a few times. We took Mom along every time and we all played next to each other. After trying this and finding it too annoying having to feed money into both her slot machine and mine, we started playing on the same machine together. Surprisingly, it was actually fun! I let her have the main seat and I pulled up a stool next to her. I fed the money in and we took turns hitting the spin button. I didn’t mind if she hit the button more often which happened a lot. I’ve never seen anyone play as fast as she did. If I didn’t watch her, she’d hit the “Max bet” button or “collect” by accident. It was nice that we were able to get her out in public several times over the course of the trip.

We didn’t gamble on the weekend and instead we relaxed as much as possible. We sat in the RV with all the windows open and read antique books! That’s another thing I never cared about before and now I just love them. It fascinates me to think a book made of paper can survive to be over 100 years old! It has given me the idea for a fiction book I want to write if I ever get time. I might have to make time for it since even hubby thinks it’s a fabulous idea!

Last month there was a multi shop sale on Instagram for vintage sellers. It was the first one and I did it even though I only had time to put on about 10 things. 54 shops participated. Tonight there’s one for this month and I didn’t even bother signing up. This time 90 shops are participating. I knew it would stress me out to try to get things photographed, measured, weighed, etc. in time when we’d be gone beforehand. I could’ve worked on it while we were away but then it wouldn’t have felt like vacation.

This week is going to be busy. Tomorrow I’m giving Mom her bath. Tues. I’m taking her to the ENT doctor to get the wax removed from her ears. The girl that usually works on the hearing aids left in March! I was so shocked. We’ve been going to see her for over 9 years. So now someone else is going to check her hearing aids after the appt. Hopefully we won’t have to come back again but you never know. Wed. I’m taking Amber to the vet for her vaccinations. Elvis has been battling allergies on his feet for 2 months now. I had to pick up more cortisone pills to take with “just in case”. He had a flare-up just before we left but after a few days, it cleared up. Now that’s he’s home, I can see it’s going to be coming on again.

As much as we enjoy our short roadtrips to our home state of Wisconsin, we’re happy to be back below the cheddar curtain! 🙂

 

Read Full Post »

The Cat’s Meow

 

The oddest thing happened that I simply must chronicle. On Memorial Day evening, we were staying up a little later than usual since Greg was off the next day. Around midnight we were watching some type of trash tv that I look forward to like “Catfish”. All of a sudden, I looked down to my left and saw a cat walking next to where I was sitting. This wouldn’t be strange at all except we don’t have a cat. We have 3 dogs. I’m on the left side of the couch with a small end table between me and Mom’s loveseat. I hear a “meow” so I had looked up and when I saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It turned right around and went back the other way. I turned to Greg and told him a cat had come in the house! Meanwhile, all 3 dogs were laying in the room with us (sound asleep) and oblivious to this feline visitor! 🙂 Greg & I got up and started searching for it in the house and then went on the deck to see if we could see it in the yard. The dogs came too but didn’t know what all the fuss was about. Greg said he didn’t see it and started to say that maybe I’d imagined it. Don’t you love husbands?! He plays a Mah Jong game on his ipad and it makes animal noises so he thought it had been the cat’s meow on there. I told him I was sure of what I’d seen.

I bet everyone is wondering how on earth a cat could get into our house in the middle of the night. I’ve blogged before about the Magic Mesh we have on our 2 sliding glass doors. In place of a screen door, a screen is attached by velcro and held together by magnets. Since we have a fenced in yard (5′ tall), we want the dogs to be able to come and go in nice weather. They can let themselves in and out to go to the bathroom, chase squirrels, sun themselves or just run. You can imagine how much of a slave I am to opening the door for them if we didn’t have it. They all insist on coming in and out at different times. It could be one after another but not together. You just start something and they want in or out. So we’ve been in love with the Magic Mesh since we first tried it a few years ago.

At bedtime that night (about an hour later), I took Mom up to bed and Greg takes the dogs out. The dogs immediately found the cat and chased it up onto one of the fence posts. The cat sat up there taunting them while they barked and jumped. Greg took a leaf and tickled the cat’s nose and it jumped to the other side. As far as we know, it hasn’t been back since. The funny thing is I’ve been wanting a cat for years! I had one as a kid. Greg thinks the dogs wouldn’t be good around it but I think they would. We’d have to introduce it slowly. I’d hate to think what would have happened if the dogs had woken up when the cat came in. It would’ve been like a scene out of “Christmas Vacation” where the dog is chasing the squirrel in the house.

It really caught us off guard thinking how lucky we were that it wasn’t some other wild animal that came in like a squirrel or skunk! I’ll keep you posted if the cat returns and we end up adopting it. 😉

 

Read Full Post »

Fair Warning: A Gripe Session

 

The more I want to sit down and write, the more things get in the way. I was literally fantasizing about being able to blog the other day. Writing is something that costs me nothing but time and makes me so happy. Yet time is in great demand in my life. So much happens from one day to the next, I’d easily have enough for a blog post daily but I have to just hit a few of the highlights of the past several weeks when I’m able to get on here.

My husband doesn’t hear from his family very much except when someone dies. Even then, they don’t always tell him. I’m not kidding. The entire family “forgot” to tell him one of his Aunts died. That went over well. Last Friday, he got a phone call that the younger brother of one of his closest childhood friends had died suddenly. His brother told him Paul was only 48 and it was a massive heart attack. Paul had been a meteorologist in Milwaukee for many years and about 10 years ago started working in the financial planning field. That’s quite a jump in occupations but I’m all for whatever makes people happy. Paul was in great physical shape, was married with 3 kids. Later that day, one of Greg’s other brothers called to see if he’d heard the news. This time he was told that Paul was 50 and had a massive stroke. Of course, now we don’t know what to believe. I guess the details don’t matter when the outcome is the same. It’s typical for him to get conflicting information from different family members.

We saw online that the wake and funeral are on Friday. It’s really unusual for Catholics to have it all in one day. At least in WI. All of the ones we’ve gone to have the wake the night before and funeral the next morning. Having it all in one day works out more conveniently for people like us who are coming from out of town. I know my hubby’s first reaction was to attend the funeral. I hate funerals but if hubby decides he needs to go, I will try to support him.

On Mother’s Day, hubby was at work and got a phone call from his older sister. Their cousin Bernie was found dead at his mother’s house that afternoon. He was only about 49 yrs. old. We don’t know what he’d died of but he’d led a troubled life. He was a felon and couldn’t find a job. Now we have to wait and see when the funeral will be. I can’t see going up to WI twice in one week or even 2 days in a row. Maybe we’ll luck out and both will be on Friday so we can pay our respects at both.

So much of my blog feels like it’s about death or dying. I never wanted it to be that way. May 3rd, one of my slam friends I’ve known since 1993 passed away. She had been plagued with health problems on and off for years. She’d had back problems and various skin cancers that kept growing back. April 3rd she’d sent out a group email to everyone in slams that she now had liver cancer and only had a few weeks to live. She told everyone not to send her any cards because “Get well soon” doesn’t quite cover it. I never knew exactly how old Shirley was since she’d never wanted to give her age. Now I’d guess she was about 25 years older than me. It was still shocking. Even though I didn’t  have time to blog, I took the time to write her a really nice email. I told her what she meant to me. I didn’t want to have any regrets. I wanted to let her know she made a difference and would be missed. Not to speak ill of the dead but I’m going to. I didn’t know if she was in a ton of pain or was bedridden or not. I didn’t know if she was spending her last weeks doing things she loved or was confined to her bedroom. She told me the pain hadn’t started coming yet but didn’t elaborate further. I knew she was angry and had an attitude about being in an impossible situation with the only way out being death. I offered her a chance to write a post on my blog about anything she wanted. How she felt about dying, what she wanted to be remembered for, memorable moments from her life, etc. She basically answered with “No need to email me anymore. I’ll be closing my AOL account this week.” Ok, I know when to let something go. I had simply made an offer which I’m assuming only another writer could appreciate. If someone offered me that opportunity now, I’d be euphoric. I get that everybody’s different. She either didn’t want to vent or didn’t see the need to do it publicly. I was closer to Shirley than anyone in slams or so I thought. The way I found out she had died was getting a forward of a group email from someone else in slams. Apparently, she had kept emailing this one person up until her death. Good for her. But then this person (who I’ve known well) didn’t even bother to send me the email that she’d died. Ok, so I’m not in slams anymore. But I was a big part of them for 30 years. I know I shouldn’t be bringing this stuff up but I need to get it out of my system. I have so many conflicting emotions about people and relationships, I don’t know where to turn.

Over our vacation, on my Mom’s birthday, I got a nasty email from one of my half-sisters. I have 3 half-sisters (S, J & D) and one half brother. My mom helped raise all but the oldest girl (D) who introduced my parents to each other. The middle girl (J) who was 14 when my parents got married, has always hated my mother. All the kids had a seething anger that their mother had died of brain cancer when they were young. They resented my mother trying to replace her. They couldn’t have treated her worse if she had stabbed the woman to death in front of them. They would’ve resented anyone that came into the house that still held their mother’s presence. My mother bent over backwards for those children, was generous to them but tried to discipline them as well. My father stayed neutral and didn’t back my mom up. He didn’t want to get involved in a dispute of any kind. It was just a horrible situation. In addition to working as a long distance telephone operator, she did all of the cooking, cleaning and laundry for the entire household. She also had to help my father “handle” S who was diagnosed as schizophrenic in her early teens. Not much was known about the mental illness in the early ’70’s but it was a nightmare to say the least. Anyone else might have crumbled under the pressure. To say it was a thankless job was an understatement. She had to host holiday dinners, buy gifts, sew clothes, you name it. To add to her stress, she had me when she least expected it. To give you an example of what her life was like, she had to walk to the hospital to be induced to deliver me. I was 2 weeks late. She had to walk to the hospital which was at least 10 blocks away. The 2 youngest girls walked with her but she (at 9 mos. & 2 wks pregnant.), had to carry her own suitcase to the hospital!!! A decent human being would offer to carry it. Or just carry it without offering. But no. They wouldn’t do a thing for her, it was all for them. There is so much more to this story but I’m only telling this for background. This middle sister (J) badmouths my mom at every turn, even though she hasn’t seen her in over 30 years. Talk about not letting something go!! We have emailed jokes but I would really rather not be in contact with her. She is pure evil. The worst thing is she calls herself a Christian. She is a bible banger. She has been my main inspiration for being turned off of organized religion. She spouts bible verses but leads a life filled with hate and has a tongue that spews venom. She has never forgiven anyone for anything in her entire life. I get how hard forgiveness is. It has taken me decades to forgive some things. She lashes out at everyone she’s ever known. She regularly attacks her oldest sister for her weak moral character & sins of the past. This oldest sister is very religious too and repeatedly forgives J for her viciousness.

This time, out of the blue, J sent this scathing email about what a horrible person my mother is. She did this simply because it was her birthday and she couldn’t forget that. She couldn’t just move on with her life and be glad she hasn’t seen Mom in 30 years. Instead she feels the need to inflict pain on me, probably hoping I tell my mother what she said. Obviously, I’m not about to do that but it did ruin my day. It was just so sudden and unnecessary. I’m not going to repeat the vile things she said (which were untrue). My first reaction was to forward the email to my older half-sister and half-brother and tell them because of this I want nothing more to do with any of them ever again. I had it written out and decided to wait and not hit send. I decided to do nothing. I wasn’t about to email J back because she wanted to get a rise out of me and I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

I would like nothing more than to cut off all these half relatives from my life. Is it the right thing to do though? My happiest years were when I had no contact whatsoever with them. I don’t have other relatives though. It’s not like I have so many relatives that I can disown some and still have a bunch of others. Aside from them, I  have 3 cousins and that’s IT. I don’t hear from the cousins either. My mom gets a Christmas card from the 2 girl cousins. I’ve tried to keep in touch via email with them but they don’t hold up their end of it. So I gave up.

J is the type that if I blocked her email, she would make it her life’s mission to track me down and heaven help me if she ever found my blog. I shouldn’t have to defend a 93 yr. old woman to someone who has no concept of what life was like then for her or what life is like now for her. In the throws of Alzheimer’s. I’m not about to tell J that Mom even has that. It would probably delight her to no end. There are many people who I feel have wronged me over the years and no matter what, I’ve never wished them ill. I just don’t want them anywhere near me. I don’t sit around thinking of ways to extract revenge or poking pins into a voodoo doll in their likeness. I try to enjoy what life has to offer because if you’re busy hating, you’re wasting time and missing out on some really good stuff. Stuff is the technical term. 😉

Which brings me to the matter of in-laws. My hubby has a huge family as I’ve said before. I have FEELINGS about most of them. Some good, some not good. I’m not going into detail at this time. I wrote this 2 days ago and debated even posting this stuff. I really don’t want to make things worse (none of them read the blog or even know about it as far as I know) but these feelings keep surfacing over and over. Maybe if I exorcise my demons by writing about them, they will go away?  I’d really like advice on how you reconcile when you try but the other person doesn’t or maybe you both try and the relationship isn’t what you want. How do you live with it not being the way you want? I can’t control how others act or how they treat me. I have to either take it or not associate. Or is there a middle ground that adults who aren’t me can deal with?! I assume I have high expectations of people but other times I think it’s not me at all.  I don’t think I’m being overly sensitive but I hate to sit by and watch them treat my husband differently from his siblings. I have to pretend I don’t know we were shunned from a party or some event. I’m not saying we would go, I’m saying we are treated differently. Well, we are very different. We like to give presents to his family which they never refuse. Yet, I don’t think I’ve gotten a single thing from any of them in over 20 years. Obviously I don’t need anything and that’s not the point. I guess what it comes down to is they don’t think of us. Which on some level, I think we like. We like living removed from the hometown most of them still live in. We like having a life away from them but I know that even if we lived in town, we wouldn’t be treated the same. Does everyone have these complex family relationships? Do you feel ill at ease around some relatives? I know it’s hard to get a grasp on what I’m talking about without being told actual specifics. I used to have high hopes that the weird relationship dynamic with the in-laws would resolve itself over time. I’m not that naive anymore. It will always either be like this or maybe worse.

Maybe I should carry a pie bird around in my pocket. So at least when I’m venting, it will look pretty…Thanks for hanging in there with what was basically a gripe session. I don’t want it to sound like I’m that unhappy, I’m not. Just a whole bunch of things culminated at once to bring these thoughts into my head.

 

Read Full Post »

Frostbite Football

2014 came in like a polar bear bringing massive snowstorms and sub zero temperatures. I grew up in NW Wisconsin where weather like this was no big deal. It was expected and dealt with with a minimum of whining. Since moving to IL 18 yrs. ago, it’s been many years since we’ve had a severe winter. Some years we get next to no snow and we’ve grown accustomed to bellyaching when the temperature gets below 20 degrees. Sunday morning we woke up to a foot of snow. Later that night the temps dropped like a stone and we woke up Monday Jan. 6th to -17 degrees below zero. (If I knew how to make the degrees sign on here, I wouldn’t have to put the minus AND write below zero. Oh well.) Actually, we woke up at 8:15 am to the electricity going off. Most people would sleep right through a power outage but my husband sleeps with a bi-pap for sleep apnea and when the electricity goes out, it shuts off suddenly and leaves him gasping for breath. There is no way to ignore it. So we kind of panicked. Obviously, we don’t like being without electricity anytime but when it’s dangerously cold (the windchills were -45 degrees below zero), it’s a whole different ball game. The furnace stopped and almost immediately the house began getting cool. We hadn’t even turned the heat down the night before because we knew it would be too hard to get back up to a decent temp. Hubby reported the outage to ComEd and the recording said 2 hours to restore. After an hour, he called again and signed up for their text message updates. He also turned on the gas fireplace in the living room so we’d have some heat. The next update said it was a downed wire and it would be 2 pm. Luckily, it came back before then but we still put up with it for a few hours.

Arctic Temps

We’ve gotten so spoiled now that ever being uncomfortable is not acceptable. When my 92 1/2 yr. old mom was growing up on a farm in MN, they didn’t even have electricity until she was in high school. No heat except a woodstove so it was almost like sleeping outside. You’d go to bed early under a thick quilt just to keep warm. It’s amazing anyone finished school back then. Who would want to do homework if they had to do it by candleight or oil lamp and were freezing?! Anyway, I’d be more tolerant of the power outage if we lived in the country, far from civilization. We live in a highly populated area and pay a fortune for utilities and everything else. When it came back on, I was half expecting it to go out again. We’ve had problems in the summer where we’ve lost electricity for 24 hours once and 3 whole days a few years ago. It’s another thing we’ve survived and lived to tell about.

Decorative ceramic molds from Italy

I had such high hopes for getting things done while on “staycation”. Instead we did too much huddling under blankets looking at the Christmas lights and watching Netflix. I made a 20 lb. turkey with all the fixings on New Year’s Day. It was too cold to walk the dogs except for about 2 times. One day we played with them in the backyard and I took pictures. Hubby built me a shelf that runs the length of the wall in the kitchen above the sliding glass doors to outside. I needed somewhere to put stuff. It wasn’t like he built it and we filled it up over the span of a week. He built it and we filled it completely in about 5 minutes. I love it and need more storage solutions since the house is so tiny and my collections are getting so big. There were very few estate sales during that time but one we went to had a bunch of decorative ceramic molds from Italy. I had a few that I’d gotten like 6 months ago and was thrilled when I found these. We hung them in my vintage kitchen.

Tails wagging the dogs

After the Packers won their Dec. 29th game and made it into the playoffs, hubby joked that he wondered if he could get tickets. Tickets went on sale at 3 pm the next day and about 5 minutes after that, he headed to his computer to the Ticketmaster site to see if he could get them. He yelled to me that he got in and should he get them? It was on a timer of a few minutes so I just said something like, “Sure, if you want.” I never know for sure what hubby will do. He’s much more spontaneous than I am. I plan as much of my life out as I can, weighing the pros and cons of everything. A thought just pops in his head and he acts on it. I guess that’s what makes us a good pair. We even each other out. 🙂 So he ended up getting 4 seats in the endzone. Section 104, row 46, seats 15-18. Ten years ago, we had taken his older sister Linda and her husband Ken to the playoff game at Lambeau Field. They had such a good time (as did we) that they still talk about it to this day. So we figured we’d ask them again. Linda had cancer (hairy cell leukemia) a little over 3 years ago. She did some heavy duty chemo and knocked it out. She’d been in remission until last fall. She did a different course of chemo and seemed to be better. Hubby called her right away to see if she could go. Due to the cold weather they were expecting at the game, she didn’t think her health could take it. She is going to the doctor’s this week to find out if she’s all clear so she probably wanted to wait until she got the go ahead to do things like that. We were disappointed but understood. Next hubby called his brother Brian and asked him if he and his son Mitchell wanted to go. They live in Green Bay and know all the shortcuts to the stadium and where to park, etc.

Our view of Lambeau Field

I really had no business going to the game. I hadn’t had time to think it through. As soon as I knew we were going, I started worrying non-stop. It’s a 3 hour drive from where we live to Green Bay so that’s 6 hours in the car. Then 4 hours for the game and back and forth to the stadium and dressing in layered clothing. The weather reports were forecasting a foot of snow before we left (which did happen) and made me think 3 hours wouldn’t be enough time to get up there with the snowy roads. They also said that it could be as cold up there as the Ice Bowl in 1967 when the Packers played in -13 below temps. Luckily that didn’t turn out to be the case. It was 5 degrees at kickoff with -10 below windchill. All week I was a bundle of nerves and I didn’t sleep the night before at all. Eek!

Me all bundled up

I could write 100 pages just on the fearful thoughts that went through my head. I hoped Mom would be fine if I was there to get her up in the morning and put her to bed at night. We got up at 8 am and did our usual routine. I made Mom 2 sandwiches and put each on a separate plate covered in saran wrap with a note on top: “This is your lunch. Sausage & cheese sandwich and cut up pickle. Eat after 1 pm. Yogurt also.” The 2nd plate: “This is your dinner. Peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Eat after 7 pm or when hungry.” I would’ve preferred to leave her a hot meal like soup or turkey leftovers but didn’t want her using the microwave. About 10 days before this happened, she stopped microwaving her coffee in the morning. She’s been drinking it cold! I asked her why. She said, “It’s too much trouble.” I don’t think she remembers how to use it anymore. It turns out she only ate her lunch. I asked her why, “I didn’t know it was mine. It could have been Greg’s.” I also wrote her a note I left on the kitchen counter about us being gone and when we’d be home. I said we’d try to be back by midnight but if we weren’t to stay up. Not go to bed. To sleep in her recliner in the LR with blankets on top. I also wrote her a note telling how to fix the computer if it gets fouled up when she’s playing her slot machine games. All week I’d been teaching her how to turn the tv on with the remote control. We weren’t going to have her do any channels, just turn it on and off. I wrote how to do that and taped it to the underside of the remote. It turns out she never watched it. She doesn’t remember things I tell her 30 seconds ago, why did I think what I told her before we left would sink in? 😦

Funky Packers Pants

I wrote on the kitchen note to let the dogs out as needed. I worried all week that she wouldn’t let them out at all and they’d crap all over the house and she’d step in it. Then I worried that she’d let them out and forget there are 3 of them and leave one out in the super cold weather and they’d freeze. We locked the front door when we left so she couldn’t open that by mistake and let the dogs in the street. I was worried the snow would delay us until like 6 in the morning. I was afraid the electricity would go out and she’d freeze home alone. I was afraid that we’d get in a car accident and get killed and no one would find her for who knows how long. Everything at home went fine and we made it home by 12:20 am. Mom was standing in the LR when we got home. I asked her what she was doing. She said she was getting ready to go up to bed. So we made it just in time! I ran over to her and hugged her and told her I missed her. As far as I know, she didn’t have any trouble with the computer while we were gone and the time passed just fine. The dogs were great, she had just let them out when we got back. They kept her company. I was so relieved that it went well but I don’t know if I’d leave her for that amount of time again. 14 hours was too much.

Insanity wears no clothes

As for the game itself, we had an amazing time! The Sat. before the game, Greg & I went through our closets and found everything we’d need to bundle up for a cold game. I wore long underwear, a pair of colored jeans, a pair of sweatpants over that and some nylon rain pants. On top I wore my mom’s long sleeved turtleneck sweater and wool sweater vest. Plus my white coat, sheepskin hat, Mom’s scarf and 2 pairs of gloves. I fine the whole first quarter and then slowly more and more of me were getting cold. We’d brought something to sit on and blankets to put over us in the stands which helped. I had on 2 pairs of socks and my snowboots. My toes were the first on me to get cold, followed by the rest of my feet and my cheeks. By the last 5 minutes on the timeclock, even my legs were feeling the cold. I was worried about losing toes. Not because I thought I would but because there was a joke going around on Twitter, “I can’t believe I got Packers playoff tickets! And I only lost 6 toes!” I made sure I kept moving my toes inside the boots. Plus we were standing up and shouting a lot which gets the blood pumping. If there’s a once in a lifetime experience to be had, it’s going to a Packers game at Lambeau Field. I’ve done it 3 times now (1986, 2004, 2014) and it’s like nothing else on earth.

Sea of fans

Even though San Francisco beat the Packers 23-20, it was a close game. We had great seats and could see everything well. Half the fun was people watching. The Green Bay fans are so hardcore and intense. They dress like idiots. All kinds of team apparel was worn plus there’s always one fool in the crowd that has his shirt off no matter the weather. My favorite part was watching this guy ahead of us, to our right. After first quarter, he took his shirt off and only wore a hat. Then he would put mittens on briefly and take them off. He made it until halftime topless and then put his shirt on. For about 10 seconds and took it off again! We were joking that his pants would come off next. He lasted through halftime and then disappeared. We figure he either passed out from drugs (it HAD to be drugs, I don’t think you can be THAT drunk!) or was in the ER. Back in 2001, Vince McMahon tried to start up another football league in the USA called the XFL (extreme football league). Hubby and I were so excited. One of the teams was the Chicago Enforcers and hubby got season tickets the first year. We were thrilled to get in on the ground floor of something. The games were Jan.-Apr. and the Jan. & Feb. games were very cold. There was a guy at every game ALONE who always was shirtless. No matter the temperature. Anyway, the turnout for the XFL was poor and it only lasted one season. The NFL was against it the whole time which didn’t help. Some people say they’re football fans but we really are!

Love & Football

Now that we’ve had almost 35″ of snow this season and 22″ since New Year’s, the news is forecasting flooding this weekend. Starting Friday there’s going to be several days of mid to upper 30’s in a row including lots of rain. Gah! Our basement floods when you look at it sideways so I don’t need to be worrying about this for the next week. We’ve been having such insufferable cold that just getting to 30 degrees would feel warm. It’d be great and it wouldn’t melt all the snow in one batch. But no, we need to go from one extreme to another. Looks like Mother Nature has her period again!

Read Full Post »

The Email No One Else Would Ever Write

Last night I wrote an email that no one else would ever write. That’s how much I hate miscommunication. That I’d rather come off as brash, tacky or crass than wonder for the rest of my life where things stand. I have always hated being in limbo or not knowing something. It’s one thing to wait if you know you’ll eventually get an answer. It’s a whole thing to know if you don’t make the first move, no one else will and you’ll just be left second guessing yourself to eternity.

I also hate vague blog posts so for your sake, I’ll go into more detail. This particular instance involves a wedding from a month ago. When we went to WI for the homecoming football game on Sept. 27th, we saw a whole bunch of my husband’s family. They all asked asked us if we were going to the wedding the following day. We didn’t even know whose wedding it was! We found out it was a cousin’s daughter. This cousin was probably closer with my hubby than with his siblings. It was hard to believe we weren’t invited since we’d been invited to her other children’s weddings. The point isn’t that we should have been invited or even that we wanted to go. We just had no way of knowing if she had sent us an invitation and we hadn’t gotten it or if we had intentionally been left off the guest list. We understand that they can’t invite everybody and since we live in another state (IL), maybe they just decided to draw the line there. More likely an invitation was sent but never delivered to us. We have terrible mail service and know for a fact we don’t get all of our mail. We also get lots of mail to wrong addresses which verifies the PO’s incompetence. Anywyay, I was worried that she’d think we’d snubbed her by not RSVPing or anything. I didn’t want to wonder or have her wonder about this indefinitely. I felt like things would be awkward the next time we see them and I didn’t want that. It’s too hard to bring this up in person at a funeral or something so figured I’d just handle it.

Most people would just let it go and not think of it again. Instead, I’ve always been the type to dwell on stuff like this. I like to be on good terms with everyone and do whatever I can to straighten things out. Actually, in the past I would’ve just fretted about this endlessly and agonized over what to say about it and when. Now I’ve reached the point in life where life is too short to let things go on. I prefer to be straighforward about things and not pussyfoot around. On the ride back from the football game, I told hubby to call his cousin the morning of the wedding and wish her, her daughter (the bride) and the whole family well. Hubby felt funny about it. So did I. So he didn’t do it. I told him I wanted to email her and just tell her where we stood. He said it was fine with him if I did.

This cousin and I send email forwards back and forth. I had sent her one a week or so ago and she emailed back to thank me. It was pictures of fall foliage so she said it was pretty and hoped we were doing well… That just made me think there was no time like the present to address my concerns. I hit “send” and felt liberated. This quality of standing up for myself and confronting issues to resolve them has always been inside me. When I was younger, I was too afraid to look bad and was embarrassed to voice my thoughts.

Nowadays, I’d rather someone think ill of me for being a loud mouth who confronted someone to clear the air than think bad of me for something I didn’t do like ignore their wedding invitation.

I just wish I’d learned this lesson sooner. I know it’s not for everyone to deal with things head on. Most avoid “getting into it” with someone and sweep everything under the rug. I just can’t do it anymore. All my life when I would stand back and not speak up to make things right, I was the one to suffer. I would be the one to lose out. It seemed to only bother me. An incident on the school bus in 7th grade still haunts me. At the start of 7th grade, a new girl from another part of WI moved to town and lived down the street from me. Since she was new, I sat by her right away and started talking. We were fast friends and I was so happy. I can always use more friends. Someone else who had never liked me since grade school, one day took this new girl aside and said I had spread nasty rumors about her. I hadn’t but she believed this other person and never spoke to me again. Or explained why she stopped talking to me. I heard through someone else that that’s what happened. I was too afraid to confront the new girl and tell her that this other girl was jealous of our being friends and intentionally broke up our friendship. Instead, I sat by everyday on the school bus, watching the new girl get on and off the bus. Feeling bad every single time. We were never friends and I felt like all through jr. high and high school, she always thought badly of me. This new girl went on to be very popular, a cheerleader in high school and on the Homecoming court. I feel like if things had played out as they had meant to, without interference, my life might’ve been significantly different. I might’ve been part of the popular crowd. I don’t know if my life would’ve necessarily been better but it would’ve been different, for sure. I know this type of thing is common during the school years. I just wish I’d had the courage to rectify it instead of wishing it was different. This is only one incident that has happened to me. There are probably hundreds where I wanted to ask someone why I never heard from them again but let it go. I don’t want to be in the dark anymore. I want to know. I want to be in the light.

Read Full Post »