PS I hate you

OK so last night D3 and D4 and D3's boyfriend and I decided to watch a movie. Our choices were Crash, The Wedding Singer and PS I love you. I know, I know you are thinking wow what quality choices.

So Crash is rated R and I couldnt remember exactly why so I thought maybe we shouldnt find out and really we have seen the Wedding Singer about a billion times so since PS I love you wasnt even open yet and D3's boyfriend had never seen it either we opted for that one.

The movie starts out with Hilary Swank, whom I do not really care for, married to this adorable Irish Guy with a really cute accent.

I am about to ruin the movie so if you didnt see it and want to, and I wouldnt recommend that, stop reading now. Step away from the computer.

So you get really attached to this adorable irish guy in a short time and poof, he is dead. Of a brain tumor. I dont think I have gone into too much detail about this but I was diagnosed with a brain tumor about 2 years ago and I am supposed to be having it looked at every 6 months and yeah well I got busy so its been over a year and lets say it doesnt make me happy or entertain me at all to watch someone dead of a brain tumor.

So over the next year the dead husband sends letters to her from the grave with instructions on how to live her life and ...

ok to be completely honest, me, D4 and D3's boyfriend all fell asleep watching this movie. Only D3 liked it and we took turns whispering loudly, this movie sucks and this is so boring through our sleeping stupor. I realize that it is hard for anyone to accept the opinion of someone who has slept through a majority of the movie but honestly, if the movie had not sucked so bad I wouldnt have even been sleeping through it.

The movie went on way too long and in between my sleeping on and off and pretending I wasnt I realized it was devastating. The idea that you can lose someone so quickly to a terrible illness and then for the next year he contacts you from the dead and guides you on your way through grief and moving on. In the end she meets someone new, Denny from Grays Anatomy and apparently will be hooking up with him after she realized that she does not like Harry Connick Jr who is a weird freak in this movie. It seems like this is what her husband had planned for her.

So it was boring, too long, and seriously devastating. The kids warned me not to watch it like I was a little kid avoiding a terrifying clown scene.

Mom really dont watch it D4 said. You are gonna cry.

No I wont.

Yeah mom this is sadder than the Notebook.

Oh god, nothing can be sadder than the notebook. Nothing, not ever, not no how.
Except maybe Old Yeller.

Yeah mom this is.

I dont really think it was, it could have been but it was so stupid that the sadness of it dissapeared in my complete lack of caring about anything except when the brownies would be done.

I explained the movie to Hubby and he said why you wouldnt want me to do that for you if I knew I was dying?

Of course I would I said. But dont go dying on me anytime soon because you know... not enough life insurance really.

Yeah I am not going anywhere he says.

Lets hope not because I wouldnt even have enough money to live in a cardboard box in Alphabet City.





and the reason I am going to hell is this...

all i could think of doing if i knew i was dying was getting revenge. i would spend the last days of my life writing letters all right but to all the people who have wronged me.

I would make sure that every person who ever pissed me off received a letter from me after I died with every detail of how they made my life miserable. I would say things like... and now everytime something goes wrong in your world know that it is me controlling it from the grave. On every bad day know that I am up in heaven or in purgatory, whatever moving your keys, letting air out of your tires and using your toothbrush to clean the toilets.




Yeah that is what pushes me over the edge from general lunatic to completer maniac. That is what solidifies my place in hell and prevents me from winning the lottery.

Instead of spending my last days with my loved ones I would spend my last days reliving my revenge against old boyfriends, old friends and you know maybe some family in there.

I would create an elaborate plan alright but it would all be for evil.

that is just the kind of girl I am.

My cupboard is pink with polka dots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIpRRZvnJg

check this out and comment if you want.

A final moment for goodbye

On Thursday afternoon we had just arrived for D4's MRI when we saw the news of the plane crash into the Hudson River in New York. It was terrifying at first because anytime you see a plane crash in NY you think... terrorism.

When they first said it was a flock of geese, I was skeptical. New Yorkers have a tendency to make crap up to cover up the fact that terrorists sent that plane into the Hudson. But as time went on it seemed like a possibility that terrorists could have trained the geese to fly into the plane. Ok maybe not but the geese thing is even more terrifying than terrorists because how the hell can you avoid a flock of geese(or a flock of seagulls)for that matter. Unless you move out of the 80's, which of course, blue mascara and all I am not ready to.

I digress.

The point is... you are taking off from NY and the pilot says, Brace yourself for a rough landing. People on board said when they saw the stewardess panic, so did they. They interviewed people who said they prayed and people who were just giddy to be alive. As always New Yorkers rose to the occasion and there were many cases of bravery and selflessness.

What do you think about in that moment that you are taking off on a plane from NY and you know you are crashing? What goes through your head as you think this may be the last moment I have on Earth?

I know what you dont think about. You dont think, well I am so glad I didnt have that piece of cake last week because now I will die with thinner hips.

You dont think, thank god I spent 12 hours cleaning my house instead of cuddling with my kids because now I will die with a clean house.

You dont think wow, thank goodness I spent 80 hours at work this week because I will die knowing those papers were filed correctly.

You think of regrets, of time lost and people you wish you had another moment with. You yearn for one more minute to say what never got said and hold your loved ones one more time.

As a mother I cannot imagine that feeling of knowing I would never see my kids again and they would never see me. I cant imagine the pain you feel knowing you are leaving before you get the chance to see them grow up and get married and have kids of their own.

And leaving your spouse alone to handle it all without you. Knowing he has vowed to never love another woman as long as he is alive.

Knowing that your parents will have to bury their child. No parent should ever have to see that.

I felt sick when I saw that plane crash. I felt like I was on that plane. I saw the fear in the faces of those people getting off and I wanted to hug them.

Yet somehow, they all lived. They all got off that plane OK. How does that happen? And why? Were those people just given a second chance? Is this a wakeup call for those 155 survivors of a NYC plane crash?

And will they see the sign? And will they change anything?

Will you when your wakeup call, your second chance comes your way?

Will you?

A fictional short story

Sometimes you find things out that you dont want to. Sometimes information is left for you or falls into your hands and your whole world is turned upside down. Maybe you are overreacting to the information. Maybe you found out the information casually but now reacted so poorly you feel the need to respond. And that is why you have a blog.


Once upon a time there was a beautiful little girl who was born in a far off land. People were slow there but she shined like a light, with a gorgeous tint of blue. She came into a family that loved her more than the sun and worshipped the ground she walked on. Everything they did, was for her and her sister. The Royal Prince and Princess worked hard in those days as they do now. They often sacrificed basic necessities such as food and clothing so those little princesses could have everything they ever wanted. And not just toys and sparkly crowns. NO those princesses were loved like no others with parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who thought they were the two most special princesses in the world.

Circumstances took them away from the slow place far far away and returned them to their homeland where even more people got to shower the girls with love and toys and time. But something went terribly wrong. One of the princesses didnt think she was getting enough. She thought she should have more.

And when the mom and dad added two new princesses to the royal family, they knew they had more than enough love to share but that one princess started to feel like there werent enough crowns to go around.

As the pains of teenagerhood approached the kingdom, ogres and trolls and demons stoned on wild berries circled the castle and longed to take our princess away. We tried hard to save her from the perils of lying down with dogs. We said things like you are too SMART to be failing your princess tests and rejecting your upbringing. We said you are too SMART to throw it away on people who dont deserve your friendship, people who will hurt you and keep you from becoming the princess you are destined to be. We took some of these trolls into our home, invited them to our royal gatherings, fed them from our table, included them in our trips to far off lands. But as trolls always do, they rejected the beauty of our world for the darkness of theirs. They said things like your parents dont really love you or they would let you do this or that. They said those fuckin rents, they think you are dumb, they dont want you to have any fun because they are square. Come along with us into the clean clean jungle and lets get stoned and poison our body with berries and hate and defiance. And they put marks on her body and returned her late to the castle and came into our home and insulted all the princessed who lived there.

The Royal Prince and Princess were out of their minds with worry. Their beautiful, smart, princess that they loved and cared for and cherished had fallen into the hands of the wicked people of the world. She lied. She cheated. She stole. But mostly she lost herself. She lost the amazing, funny, smart, person that she was meant to be. She rejected love. She rejected family. She rejected princess sisters.

And so the story goes that the Royal Princess was broken hearted. All her life she had longed for the love and affection from her little princesses. Sadly the Royal Princess had no sisters and yearned everyday for the comraderie that being around strong beautiful smart women brings. She tried everything. She chained the wayward princess to her bed. She bought her new crowns and new gowns to make her see how much she was loved. She said she was sorry for the way bad things had happened to the royal family but they could get through it together. She tried to love the trolls and the demons and the ogres once again but they would never let her in because people like that are parent haters. They see no value in the experience of their elders.

Life gets in the way and steals time before you even know its gone. The Royal Princess thought there would be time for them to talk, time for them to share, maybe even a long car ride together where for once they could openly talk about the world they live in and how they all fit in. The Royal Princess likes to talk but she also likes to listen. She wants to hear if she is wrong and she wants the chance to defend herself against false accusations or just to say I am sorry.

The Royal Princess is crying now, getting tears of sadness and loss and dissapointment on her computer. A sudden realization of pain has taken over and kept her up all night while she was holding the hair of princess 4 while she puked her guts up all night. Yes even princesses puke.

Sometimes there is time and sometimes the time has gone before we know it. In our world time is temporary, unfortunately we have seen it be taken away without warning. The worst part of losing time is when you had the chance to make it better, make it right. Work on it to make your relationship with someone who actually loves you more than life stronger. It is very easy to blame others for what you are lacking as a person. It is always easy to blame the people who raised you because you know no matter what you do they will always come back hoping for one more chance to have you in their life again. You can whip them and scar them and abuse them to no end because that is what parents do, they come in at the end and pick up the pieces. That is the contract they signed with the stork.

And the Royal Princess is angry. Angry the little princess never thought I was important enough to have a conversation that could make things better.Angry that she searched elsewhere for that recognition that she was right and we were evil. Angry that she was willing to give up something that the Royal Prince and I worked so hard to create. Angry that in this world of divorce and pain and suffering the little princess chose to leave us behind and look away from us for love and support when that is all she ever got here.

Our royal family yearns for the return of our beautiful, smart, funny, amazing, hardworking princess. All of us. Seperately and together we long for the times when our kitchen table was the place to be. We told stories and played games and watched tv together, something that is apparently shunned in the ogre world.

I am not hopeful for her return. She is an avoider. Someone who chooses to walk away when there needs to be words said. Someone who looks into my sad pained face and asks for the keys to the car because she knows I would do anything to make her happy in hopes that she will love me again.

I have never for one minute thought that she was not smart. Never. I am not sure where that came from. I have always envied her easyness with others and her ability to make friends wherever she goes. Maybe I praised her too much for that and less for being smart. She is brilliant. Always has been. All the princesses are. All seperately. All with different strengths and weaknesses. The Royal Prince and I love our princesses but since he has no mind of his own he and I of course think the same thing about this. We are heartbroken.

This is a fictional short story, any resemblence to any persons real or fictional is purely by chance and is probably just the figment of the Royal Princesses mad cow disease. No animals were harmed in the making of this short story except for the damn royal dog who has insisted that we dont love her as much as the Good Dog we had years ago and who has asked to go out 3 thousand times in the making of this short story. I have to go let her out because she is crossing her royal puppy legs.

The End.

Snow much fun with a broken oil burner

I know you will be shocked to hear this but we woke up this morning with no heat and hot water. yeah its like a monthly occurrence. Maybe the oil burner has PMS or something. That's what we need, another temperamental girl around here on the rampage and with revenge on its mind.

So I am home this morning, partly because I just couldnt see driving into Nassau county without showering and partially because there is a freaking blizzard and while I have seen them cancel school on the prediction of snow they chose to keep school on today. I guess they were short on money this month and needed the federal funding.

In any case... I am using this time wisely... to catch up on reading all my blogs that I have gotten behind in. I am glad to see that like me, without school work threatening to shut down my life, no one else has blogged much either. I start school again this week and this semester will be intense. I just got the information for my Cheyenne Language and Culture Class. It is going to be hard and am I prepared to meet with fellow students and converse in Cheyenne? I am not sure I am up to the task, what with the mad cow setting in and stuff.

Anywho... the point is I have had a month off to blog extensively but instead have not come up with one decent blog idea yet. Now with class looming and time becoming restrained the ideas are coming back to me. What is that about? Procrastination at its finest I must say.

So I was catching up on all my favorite blogs and I have to say they all entertain me. But I read the blog of one of D#1 friends in college with a postcard about punching people in the face when they ask about senior year in college. Read Hot Child in the City if you want to see it.

Although I did not go to college and at the age that these girls are at I had two kids I still want to stick my two cents in. Are you shocked really?

My heart aches for what these kids and my own child have to go through with the future so uncertain. I think the benefit I had was that I got married so young, I didnt have time to worry. By the time I had graduated high school I knew I wanted to marry hubby and I knew I wanted to be a mom. I started college the year I graduated high school and I wish I had stayed and finished so I didnt have to do it now but I think I knew it wasnt for me. I didnt have the sense to look that far ahead into my future and worry about what not having an education would mean for my life.

So at least in that sense you girls are one step ahead of me. You will always have that piece of paper that proves that you survived 4 years of stuff that only you know how you made it through, and I dont mean just the education.

Would an education have helped me deal with all the tragedies that befell our lives over the years? Well obviously I could never know that. What an education would have meant to me then and what it means to me now are two very different things. I learned about things by doing them because I had to. I learned hard lessons about money and people that still haunt me to this day.

The fact is... while it is impossible not to do it... looking back and looking forward are big time wasters. You cant change either one. You can be prepared for worst case scenarios but lots of times if you prepare for a flood you will encounter a drought. If you save for a rainy day, there will be a tornado. Life doesnt look at your preparation and say Ok... they learned this in school, and here is the task to accomplish.

There is a great story about having a special needs child. I think it is called Going to Holland or something like that. The idea is that when you prepare for a baby it is like preparing for a trip to Italy. You learn how to speak Italian, you cant wait to see the leaning tower of Piazza???, whatever, you look forward to pasta, and prosciutto and cannolis. You get on the plane anxious to land in this place that you have longed for your whole life. And then when the plane touches down, the pilot comes on and thanks you for flying and hopes you enjoy your stay in Holland.

Holland you scream. No I wanted to go to Italy. But its Holland where you are and after you stop freaking out you realize Holland has tulips and wooden shoes and windmills and being in Holland is not so bad. You sometimes yearn for Italy but Holland has nice things too. And you get used to Holland and you even learn to love being in Holland and before long you cant imagine life without being in Holland.

Is this making sense to anyone other than me, because I am having trouble typing as fast as I am thinking and I think it might be confusing.

Reality is a hard blow to our plans. Man plans,God laughs. Have you ever heard that before? You can plan every detail and just know things will turn out like you planned and yet someday you land in Holland and you cant speak the language and you dont know where to go and you worry.

and that is why it is not what you learn along the way... it is the person you become along the way... it is the way you handle lost luggage at the airport or a broken oil burner at 5 in the morning or an unplanned trip to Holland.

There will never be a way to make sure nothing goes wrong... but there will be a way to learn from every single one of those life lessons and make better choices every time.

Here are my suggestions for the future...

1. Teach people how to treat you and never accept less than you feel you deserve. If someone repeatedly disrespects you as a friend, a boyfriend, a parent, a sibling, a boss, an employee, whatever they will continue to do it as long as you allow it. And it doesnt have to be rude or hurtful, you just need to state in no uncertain terms that you feel you are being mistreated and you will not allow it anymore. But you have to be prepared to walk away because people just dont respond how you might want them to. They may feel embarassed by your confrontation of them or they may feel that you are wrong or they may just be people who are not willing to learn anything in life. It is up to you then to make that decision as to whether you want to continue the relationship at the level it is at or walk away. It may be equally as hard to choose but feel good about the way you leave it. Dont burn bridges. Leave or stay on terms you find acceptable.

2. Save for a rainy day. Start as soon as you get your very first paycheck putting away a percentage. 10% or 20%. Get used to living without it. You will never regret this decision. trust me on this one. A savings plan is something that I have just started now that I have turned 40. And for me its a little too late. I have tens of thousands of debt I have to pay off with that money. it came from years of saying... what the hell, lets charge it. Save save save.

3. Ok now this is going to sound like a contradiction to number 2 but try to put this in perspective. When hubby had cancer I decided everyday would count. If we couldnt afford to do something fun, we took the money that should have been for the electric bill and spent it on the FUN. Looking back, yes, I have a lot of debt that is haunting me, but heres the deal, I never regret one day that we took the money and spent it on fun. Not one. Those memories are what makes me smile right now as my toes are freezing from the cold because the heat is off. They will make me smile as I hand the oil burner repair man my secret stash of cash that I have been saving so we can go to Europe. And then I will probably charge the trip to Europe anyway because what is another 10,000 dollars worth of debt at this point. this may very well be our last trip as a family because D1 will have to eventually get a job and then D2 will graduate next year and go her own way. D3 and D4 will go off to college and life will just get harder to control. Its our last chance for this kind of life changing memory. Are you seeing my point here? You can put money in a cracker box in your pantry for Europe but when the oil burner breaks you have to take it out and give it to the man who holds the wrench. He has all the power.

4. Be willing to change plans mid stream. Dont ever feel stuck in a decision you made. D1 never like BU but she stayed. Maybe it was right, maybe not but the point is that at anytime that you feel that you have made the wrong decision, it is never too late to change it. This includes the person you marry, the job you land, the city you move to. I believe many people realize at the time right before they walk down the aisle that they have made a bad decision, But the guests are there, the band and the flowers are paid for and it seems like an impossible task to walk away and change your mind. You can!! I am telling you, I know people who stay in unhappy marriages and people who stay in terrible, mindless jobs because they dont know how to get out of it. Seriously, it is hard.The task may seem too enormous to even consider. When I turned 40 and thought about going back to college, I thought holy crap, this is going to take me forever. Or at least 4 years maybe 10 at the rate I am going. But here is the deal. 4 years will come and go either way. so will 10 years. You can start the change now and in 4 years you will have at least made a dent in your change. Or you may surprise yourself and be done sooner than you thought you could. The fact is nothing is so permanent it cant be changed, oh except for a tattoo with someones name on it. seriously think about that before you make that committment. You could end up trying to turn your I love Billy Bob tattoo into an I love Brad Pitt one and frankly that could take forever to turn Billy Bob into Brad. For serious!!

5. Always listen to your mother. Ok not always, but always be willing to listen to advice from people who have come here before you. It is very easy to deny that older folks like me have any value to what they have to say but really sometimes something may stick and you may be able to use it later. As a mom I never want to see my kids go through trauma. I wish I could tell you the right thing to do and how to avoid sadness. I cant... but sometimes I can say... seriously if this guy is a creep now, he will be a super creep when you are sitting in the cold waiting for the oil burner repair man or when you cant find your golf clubs at the airport. Listen and use what you need. That is what advice is. I advise you what I think and you decide what is of value to you and what isnt. Listen carefully though, there are hidden gems in the experience of your elders.

Ok... I think that is enough advice from me now. Dont stress about the coming years. there will be great stuff, there will be good stuff and there will be stuff that sucks the life out of you. Just know that you will get through each one because of who you are and the person you have become on this crazy road we call life.
What is it that they say? come into this world crying and all the people around you smiling and leave this world smiling with all the people around you crying. then you have truly made your mark here.

You are on your way... Its the journey, not the destination. Enjoy every minute of this moment because it will not come your way again anytime soon.

Slow and Steady wins the Race...

Do you believe in signs? Ghosts? Angels?

I always have and while I dont always know what they all mean I am sure it is me who is just not understanding it clearly but if I just put all the pieces together maybe something will make sense.

A few days ago at work I referenced the story of the tortoise and the hare when I said to my friend Mike, something like slow and steady wins the race and he said "Really?" and I said no probably not but that is how we have been feeling at work, like tortoises. We burned ourselves out with our superior customer service during the holidays making sure all the overweight white trash women in the south got their bears. Now we are fried.

And we feel like eventually we will catch up again, slowly and surely. yeah except Mike had to bail us out yesterday of a giant hole but its all good now. Slow and steady.

So in the car yesterday D#3 tells me how they are studying the story of the Tortoise and the Hare in English to show how lifes lessons are taught through literature. Second reference, ok, a little wierd but probably just coincidence.

At work yesterday I proudly displayed my Biggest Loser calendar which is supposed to give Ellen and I inspirational tips for losing weight. Other than "Have your mouth wired shut" I dont have much hope for these little tips but in any case, being totally unable to follow the rules I looked ahead a few days on the calendar and it went on and on about the tortoise and the hare and in weight loss the only way to really lose is slow and steady, all tortoise, no stomach stapling, diet pill addict, liquid dieting hare. Just tortoise... slowly chewing lettuce. UHHH

So today I am sitting in my new morning spot McDonalds, and I am reading the second book for my memoir class and low and behold I get to this part and... yeah you guessed it The tortoise and the hare story.

Now I know you are thinking the same thing as me, what does this all mean. Is it that turtle soup is better for weight loss than Rabbit Stew?

Oh that isnt what you were thinking...

Well last night before this 4th reference hubby thought it meant I should walk to
7-11, which is like a mile away and buy a lottery ticket for last nights drawing. I assured him if it meant walking to 7-11 it was for Ben and Jerrys and not no stinking losing lottery ticket.

Slow and steady... what could this possibly mean.

Well for one yesterday my Wii Fit insulted me, like it does everyday by asking me why I thought I was so fat. No really it did. and then it gives you choices, do you eat too much?, do you snack alot? do you exercise too little? Well because there was no All of the Above answer I answered eat too much because I think that is the most damaging and it said maybe you should slow down and chew your food slower.

Then when I was trying to beat D#4's score on the dancing game, it said maybe you could improve your rhythm by stepping off the balance board slower. Really Wii Fit, maybe I should put you in the blender and watch you grind up into little tiny pieces and laugh out loud, oh you silly Wii fit maybe you should break apart a little slower.

I guess slow and steady does have a lot of meaning in my world. I am finishing school, trying to pay off debt and trying to lose weight. All those things I guess will take time but I have trouble with that...time....

when Hubby got cancer time changed for me. It really did. The future to me is always uncertain. Always. No matter how many years go by and how healthy hubby is, I will never make the mistake of wasting a moment today on something that I could easily avoid until tomorrow when it doesnt suit me.

I dont wanna....I dont wanna...That is my mantra. Actually is Ellens mantra but I am sure she wont mind if I stole it.

I envy the tortoise, having the ability to see the goal, see the future ahead and work at an even pace until he gets there. On the other hand, I love the Hare, Oh wait there is something I want, let me go full speed ahead until I get it...Oh wait something shiny. Distractions, beautiful, sweet, procrastinating distractions.

They both have their place in my life. I know I have to lose weight, I am just unhealthy and that is bad. But the long road ahead is too far for me to see. I need results. when the Wii told me last night I had gained 1.8 lbs this week, since Monday, I wanted to eat a candy bar. Slow and Steady? Screw you. Forget it.

But I resisted. And now I will dedicate myself to the long road of losing weight and hope I can slowly and steadily lose weight. Yes a sausage mcmuffin with egg is on the diet. It only has 300 calories. Yeah it says so on the wrapper.

Somehow though I want to race ahead full speed, spend all my waking moments playing the balance games on the Wii Fit and trying to break all the records and knock all the kids off the top spots.

Either way...I will spend the next few days obsessing over this sign from above or below or somewhere or someone else and maybe i will realize what it means or maybe I wont realize until years later, this is how signs are. Sometimes they reveal themselves, sometimes it takes forever. You are lucky if you get to see what the signs in your lifetime mean.

I know why hubby had cancer, I dont know why Tizzy fell or Jeff died, I dont know why my kids had to suffer through such tragedy but maybe someday I will understand the tortoise and the hare.

But for now I will look out for turtles and bunnies and make sure they arent sneaking into my house at night resetting my scales and taking up the top spots on the Wii.

Oh no you silly wabbit, Wiis are for kids.

New Years 2009..its gonna be a happy new year!!!

That time of the year has come when we need to reflect on the past year. Laugh at how poorly we followed last years resolutions and make preposterous new ones that we will quit by sometime in February. I for one think the mania should stop.

Somewhere somehow all of these holidays that we now celebrate had meaning. They had spiritual meaning and community meaning.

Now just Hallmark meaning.

Even New Years. The diet books, the health clubs, the laser hair removal... all they want is our money.

Its a fresh new year and its a life marking. Another year has gone by and what have you done to make yourself a better person? What have you done to make someone elses life better? Can you look at the last year and say that you have grown (and not just in the waist)?

In my head I started this blog like this...


I wish I was 16 again...

I have a lot of reasons and I will continue with that thought in a minute, but this past year has been hugely successful for me on my terms. Last year before I turned 40{which is how I mark my time... in decades, the 80's being my favorite of course)I made a list and for the most part I think I accomplished most of the list give our take my own spin on them.

Here is the list:
Put all my pictures in photo albums
Go back to school
Pay off half of my debt
Lost 20 lbs.

So D1 spent months over that summer of 2007 putting my pictures into albums. I started school in 2007 and I have about a year a half left until I complete my Bachelors of Science in Biology and Human Services. I have accumulated more debt BUT...I am working on a budget now and it seems to be working. And I lost 23 lbs. (Yeah so I gained it back, there is nothing in there about keeping it off)

I feel like this year has been truly a good one, no one died, no one fell off a mountain and only one person I know got cancer and he seems to be doing well. That is how I measure my world. By tragedy. No big ones this year. Great News.

We safely avoided a major disaster with you know who almost becoming the you know what....

(sarah palin becoming VP)Whew that was too close for me.

I know some people will say that the economy crashing was not a good thing, but I think it really only affects people who had money to invest, no one who has all their money (12 dollars) hidden in a cracker box in their pantry.

Back to my reasons for wanting to be 16 again...

Although its a new year and I feel good about everything I have done this past year, the things I have to look forward to in the New Year are well, kinda boring. I dont mean boring in the sense they are meaningless or stagnant, I mean they are just not things that excite ME.

When my dog died in 2003, I tried to explain in therapy why that was so crushing. Besides losing one of my favorite children, (she never talked back or stayed out until 430 in the morning) it was the end of an era.

No more family of 6 with the perfect dog and the white house with the fence. No. It was gone. The life I loved was gone. I had opened the store and I was working 90 hours a week. The kids were growing up and moving on. My therapist tried to say that there would be new good things but honestly I dont see that.

Sure I look forward to the days when Hubby and I have some free time and we can travel and eat filet mignon because who cares when you only have 2 people to feed. I may even give Clover a piece(my new very bad dog).

And I am happy to say that Hubby and I do still enjoy time together. I am not looking forward saying Oh no what are we going to talk about when the kids are gone. Its not that at all.

I just have loved my life for the past 25 years.

I was 16 when hubby and I started dating. It was all new and everything we did was special because it was the first time. First date, first meeting the family, first holidays. We got married at 18, had D1 at 19, D2 at 20, D3 at 25 and D4 at 27. We bought our first house when we were 22 and 23. Then we bought the house we live in now when we were 26 and 28. We watched our kids go to school. I was a girl scout leader, class mom, pto member... all these things are things I loved to do.

Some of the kids still talk about the potato latkes that I made every year for each kids class. (you gotta spread the judaism where you can here)And our girl scout camping trips that blew all the other troops away.(yes I do recognize that this probably isnt the essence of girl scouting but man we kicked ass as a troop)

I loved being a mom. I still do but as my kids need me less and less, I feel slightly out of the loop. I am a pain in the neck when I want to know something I think my kids wont tell me. I am overinvolved, oversharing, obsessive compulsive and I just cant help it.

I spent years knowing their every move. Hubby and I were the sole influence in their lives until they went to school and then of course we taught them to secretly judge and stay away from the undesirable bad kids.

"Oh isnt that sad that that girls parents let her wear makeup in elementary school, they must not care about her, I love you too much to ever let you look that trashy"
and on and on.

In a million years I would not want to go back to high school. I did not have any good friends and the person I was is not the person I would ever want to be again.

But once I met hubby and he and I began the path to our life together, it has been full of... well its been full of life. We have lived.

And I know it is so easy to look back and see only the good things and gloss over the bad but I dont think thats true. I see the bad and believe me some of it was really bad. Some of it was probably the worst things I could ever have gone through in my life. I hope to never see some of the things that have happened to this family ever again.

But I know there are other things that I will never see again and that makes me so sad.

I am over 40 now. Halfway to death. On the back side. Everything i do now has to count in double time because its going quick.

I want to make resolutions, not for some personal fitness place to make money or a diet program to sell me cardboard food.

I'm Giving Up My Vices
I'm Going Back - Back To School
Eviction Or Not
This Week's Been So Hot
That Long As I've Got You
I Know I'll Be Cool


The plan I want to make is to become a better me by this time next year. I want to experience things that make me glad to be alive. I want to see my kids enjoy their life and not feel regret for the things I wish I did when I was their age, but never quite got around to it. I have to back off. They are moving forward like I did when I was their age, with a bright fresh look at whats to come and the endless possibilites that only growing up offers.

I am all grown up now. No more neverland for me. I have to head in the direction of adulthood for real. but maybe just maybe I can keep some of that childs spirit alive, maybe that is what keeps you younger longer. Maybe I can watch how they do it and put my own little backwards spin on it. Maybe you can too...

Tag your it!!!