More amusement from my husband's classy family...

My husband's monther is a bit insane as you all well know.  She requires a lot of work and attention - I think of it as constant entertainment.  Though she can make a fair amount of decisions herself, if left to her own devices she would forget to take her medicine and try to do too much resulting in injury, or just get lost - of course all of these things happen anyway - but we all do what we can do.  My husband has two sisters and luckily for everyone one of them, D, who is a nurse has been willing to let Ricky live with her for a number of years; in a little MIL house thing on her property.  My husband and I couldn't be more thrilled by this because that leaves her up in NY most of the time, but to take the pressure off of D we bring her down here for roughly a month at a time every quarter-ish.  The other sister, B, is the baby of the family and is very typically the baby.  Actually she and Ricky are very much cut from the same cloth as the world revolves exclusively around each of them and only them.  Both totally harmless, but those traits are much more tolerable in a 68 year old woman than a 38 year old one.  So under duress B helps out too, but it's usually when she needs a babysitter (God help her children) or has received enough pressure to take Ricky to a doctor's appointment because D just can't fit this one in her schedule too.  And through it all she complains bitterly about how she is tired and has too much to do and whatever and my husband and D both roll their eyes at her - I suspect D gets into it with her from time to time, but my husband hasn't even once probably since he graduated from college.  He, however, doesn't take any of her drama, which I'm confident B doesn't like.  Anyway... this is the history of my husband's family and yesterday he got this email from B's husband.  It's just so classy I had to share!!!



Dear (Read's husband),

I emailed you because I don't know your phone number off hand and I don't want my wife to know that I'm doing it. 

Over the years, I have kept my mouth shut when you have had "discussions" with B.  It was not easy to do so.  She is your sister and I tried to mostly stay out of it.  However, I'm done with that now.  I have kept my mouth shut many times while you have belittled her, insulted her, patronized her, and talked to her in a generally nasty way.   I know she may be a pain sometimes, but I'm tired of her being upset by you and your sister D. 

I could give a shit if you don't like me or not or whether I get invited to you or D's little silly get-togethers but my wife is very sensitive about these things.   One of the reasons I never go is because of the way you and D treat her.  If you were anyone else, let me be clear about this, if you were anyone else and you talked to my wife the way that you do, I would have kicked your ass a long time ago.  I am so tired of the mounds of guilt that you and D throw B's way constantly about your mother.   I'm sorry that your Mom is not doing well.  Let me tell you something though, my mother is actually in much worse health and in much worse shape--but that's not B's responsibility nor her or my first responsibility.  Our first responsibility is to our children and our family. 

B goes out of her way to try and help and be with her mother because she loves her.  I am so tired of the awful things that you and D say to her about what she doesn't do.   Her mom lives an hour from us.  She gets up to see her on average of about once a week.  That's quite a bit.  That's also time that is taken away from our responsibilities right now--and let me tell you--we have plenty.   In addition, your mother calls my house on average, on average of six (6) times a day.  The phone calls have been going on for years--even before your mom's health got worse.   I tolerate it though.  What I will not tolerate anymore is you being disrespectful to my wife.   I don't care that she's your sister anymore.  If you can't talk to her with respect the way that you would want your wife to be treated, then keep your mouth shut and don't say anything.   Which brings me to your wife.  Now, as I've stated, I don't give a shit if you or D, or your wife like or talk to me or not--it doesn't make one iota of difference to me.  As I mentioned though, my wife is very sensitive to these things.  Now, for some reason or another, your wife isn't talking to my wife and de-friended her on facebook.  What kind of shit is that?   How petty and awful that is.  If you had any balls, you would tell her such and tell her to be respectful of your sister--who is nothing but sweet and kind to her.  

I've said my peace.  If you have anything to say, email me back or call me on my cell phone.  Don't talk to B about this.  It's bad enough I had to take time out of my day for this but I am tired of seeing my wife upset over petty family nonsense and a brother and sister who should be ashamed of themselves.   Pass this on to your sister D too.  

Don't you all wish you had family like this...

My blessings are many…

Since the day after my surgery back in July 2010 through the vast majority of 2011, it’s been the worst stretch of time in my adult life – I guess maybe my whole life as being a kid didn’t suck too bad.  But that same period of time has been the richest of my life as well.  I have been so blessed in that time and I don’t think I spend enough time counting my blessings. 

I am not the winner of the star bandster prize for shear weight loss – but as an emotional eater, I think coming through these 16 months being 40lbs down instead of 50lbs up is miraculous and without the band there’s no way that’s true.  There’s light and hope and promise in my life right now and I’m hoping that can help me concentrate on my weight loss goals in the coming days, weeks, months.  So I feel very blessed to have this tool inside me that’s helped me weather this storm without the absolutely certain weight gain I otherwise would have had.

This community is truly an amazing blessing.  I set out hoping to find a few blogs that could maybe help me learn more about this little thing I had put inside me since I have an idiot for a doctor.  I’ve some how lucked into not only finding the information I was looking for, but also finding some of the most amazing women I’ve ever met in my entire life.  I’ve been blessed with lots of new friends – people I could go and have gone to visit all over the country and the world.

In addition to this amazing community as a whole, I’ve met a few specific people with whom I feel so tremendously connected that I can’t remember my life without them in it – and I can’t imagine what my life would be like without them in the future. 

I’ve worked hard this year to remain open to the universe – ready to accept the lessons I’m to learn.  I do truly believe this part of my journey has been far more important than my current weight loss efforts and it’s that certain belief that’s kept me sane about the rest.  I think this year has been about emotional development and as Farrah just said tonight “sometimes you can just only do so many mental things at a time” and I’ve had a lot of balls in the air that take up way more than their fair share of my pitifully inept emotional energy.  I’ve met some amazing people this year that I not only connect with because they are fun and funny but who also happen to be far, far, far more emotionally wide opened than I am and I have learned so much from them.  I’m still far from where I think I need to be, but these emotional lessons I’m learning have been blessings heaped upon blessings, and the fact that these amazing people are ready, willing, and able to keep being right there with me as I continue to try to learn more – to try to become more open emotionally, more able to appropriately access my emotions is the biggest blessing of all. 

I don’t know what I must have done in some past lives to have been rewarded with these amazing new friends this year, but I’m damn glad I did.  To find open minded, beautiful, emotional people who accept you for you who are, who can laugh with you and cry with you, sing off key with you while very drunk, and still accept you for who you are – every bit of it – and more than that – love you for who you are – flaws and all - It’s a damn beautiful thing.

My family is a blessing.  I have two amazing boys who remind me every single day what true beauty is.  They are fun and loving and smart and mischievous and funny and witty and flat out insane and I couldn’t imagine anything better than knowing how much they love me every single day.  I have a husband who loves me, who wants to figure out the road back together, who’s working hard to make that happen.  I have a wonderful sister who loves me and supports me no matter what. 

My friends who have known me for years continue to bless my life each day with their love and support.  I don’t know how I could have survived this past year plus without the people who’ve known me all along who have been able to remind me who I’ve been all this time – what I’ve wanted all this time.

And then there’s Farrah – who probably fits in all the categories above.  She has a band and has answered countless questions.  She’s certainly family.  She’s wide opened emotionally.  I don’t have the language for emotions and she’s been my translator countless times – she translates easily between Read and emotions - or Read and others where emotions are involved.  She absolutely loves me no matter what I do, who I am, what I whine about – she can’t help it because I’m fabulous, of course.  But she’s that person in my life who knows where all the bodies are buried.  She knows me.  I was going to write further about that – but that’s it.  She knows me.  And she loves me.  She has an open and flexible mind – ready to hear me out, ready to tell me the hard truth if I need to hear it, ready to go behind my back to point my husband in the right gift direction.  Ready to laugh at me or with me, or both – whatever might be appropriate.  And I truly can’t remember my life before I met her and there’s no way I could imagine my life without her in it.  It would be a dark and lonely place.

So – here’s to the next year.  I hope to be able to move forward with my weight loss – but if instead I continue to move forward with my emotional development I’ll absolutely consider myself truly blessed and successful. 

I thank each and every one of you who has given me pieces of yourselves this past year, I hope to continue to earn your love and trust as you have already earned mine.  Mine is a truly blessed life.

Could my dreams be coming true???

You all know just how much I hate love my dog, right???  Well tonight I came home to this mess...

Do you think it's safe to start celebrating???

BYOC!!! Bring Your Own Crazy!!

It’s Friday and that means it’s time for another installment of Draz’s BYOC! That’s Bring Your Own Crazy!! We answer 5 questions in an effort to get to know each other better and to give our blogging brains a break! Copy and paste to your own blog if you so desire – and ENJOY!


She did a Thanksgiving themed BYOC this week (it was Jenny’s idea)! 

1. What is your FAVORITE part of Thanksgiving?

The production, absolutely the production!  I love all the smells and the cooking and trying to time everything so it’s all done at the right time.  The small talk, the football, the crazy family stuff.  And grandma’s stuffing – that smells, tastes, is thanksgiving to me.  

2. How many Thanksgiving family events will you attend?

Not a one!  Last year we were in Disney World with Mickey and this year we’re staying home just the four of us.  Though I did invite our neighbor’s to join us yesterday when I was on a field trip with Jason.  I think we’ll still do the whole thing, but we’ll see, maybe we’ll just order pizza.   

3. What’s your biggest Thanksgiving tradition?

Um… I’m not sure we have one.  Other than Grandma’s stuffing, and her broccoli cheese casserole.  So… just food!

Then we immediately go back to decorating for our Christmas party which is always the following weekend. 

4. Do you Black Friday shop the day after Thanksgiving?

No.  Fucking.  Way!  You could not pay me enough to go out on that day!  Even getting our tree which we often do, just so we have the maximum time to get it all decorated before the party, totally sucks the life out of me. 

5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in real life and in blog world.

Real life – hmmmm.  Definitely up and down.  Husband has been in CA all week and now he’s in Vegas for a couple of days of fun – he’ll be home late Saturday night.  So, of course I’m tired of being alone with my cute not-so-little kids.  There were baked goods to make, basketball practice to attend, a field trip to attend, an amazingly stupid production for ‘international day’ that nearly had my eyeballs fall out of my head.  So there was some serious stress going on in there.  The upside of that stress, though, is that for the first time in my life I was totally feeling it appropriately.  I’m such a closed off person emotionally that I just can’t touch or be touched by emotional things in lots of profound ways – but this week when I was stressed, I felt it.  My muscles were tense, my heart was in my throat, I was nauseated, I couldn’t eat for a few days.  It was awesome!  We’ve crossed most of the hurdles and much of the stress has abated – though, there’s always tomorrow, right.

But I can say that yesterday’s field trip to DC was totally fun!  We went to the Capitol and the US History Museum.  The museum was fine… eh.  But, I hadn’t been to the Capitol since I was a kid and that was totally cool!  We toured the building, had a great tour guide, learned tons and got to watch the Senate for a while.  Senator John McCain from Arizona was speaking which was totally cool.  First to speak while we were there was Senator Carl Levin from Michigan – he was really just reading their bill into the record and his tone was extremely dry.  McCain was far more animated (which of course tells you something about the animation level of Levin) and it was great to be able to tell the kids that the man they were seeing talk had run for President during the last election.  But.. really the building itself, the history that surrounds it – it’s just completely awe-inspiring.  I’m so lucky to live in such an amazing country.  Just one more thing to be thankful for!

Blog life – well… uh… I sort of suck.  I’ve just been too consumed with the real life stuff to barely get over here.  I’m hoping to catch up this weekend in between more Christmas decorating.

I hope everyone has a brilliant Thanksgiving!!

A little life contemplation...

Hi all...

How's it going?  I was going to do some more blogging prompts but I find myself sitting here with my head in my hands contemplating the meaning of life - so perhaps I'll start there.

Okay - maybe not the meaning of life but the future of my marriage.  See... the rest of the world knows my husband as St. Dan, the husband all other husbands are measured against (I kid you not).  But you've all mostly only heard about how suckish he is.  And both parts are true.  He's a good an honorable man - but he sucks at emotions and connection worse than I do and that is seriously saying something.  And I'm at a place in my life where I want and need and demand emotions and connection.

The truth is - I've changed, not him.  And so far he can't keep up.  For a long time he wasn't willing to even try and was, in fact, completely angry that I'd even suggest needing something from him beyond being a good guy who can keep our schedule extraordinarily well.  I need love and connection and emotions and trust and the safe place to come home to - the place that is warm beyond all others.  The problem is - he's got no idea how to give me any of that - in fact, I'm not sure he even knows what that means.  But there's a bigger problem.  I've been the one doing all the work for so long... where I reach out to him and he slaps my hand away, mad that I would bother him in such a way.

I've gotten amazingly stubborn - completely refusing to do anything else.  I can't be the one that reaches out anymore.  I can only bang my head against a wall so many times - and I passed that number a long time ago.  But... and here's the bigger problem...  It's just occurred to me that we might be at an impasse - at the least we have a serious problem.

1) I'm not sure he's capable of doing anything.  He's not sure what to do.  He's not sure what I want.  He has no idea how to give it to me even if he did understand it.  He's deathly afraid of failure - enough so that it keeps him from trying sometimes.

2) I don't think I trust him enough to hear/trust/see/feel whatever he might do.  My walls towards him are big and thick.

Don't get me wrong - we're getting along pretty damn well at the moment - but I don't think I'm in a position to really hear anything from him if he could figure out something to do and I don't think he's really in a position to actually do anything anyway.

So if he can't do anything.  And even if he could I couldn't hear/see/feel it.  We're dead in the water.

It turns out - I really want to save my marriage.  And being dead in the water seems like a zero sum gain.  Which means I might just have to break down and do something again.  Of course that scares me too - cuz - really how many times can you reach out only to have your hand bitten off?

But...  I was reading something I'd written a few years ago about how we'd had the best year of our marriage ever - this was 2008-2009.  That's not that fucking long ago.  How did it go from being the best year ever to being the worst??  Lies... hands being bitten off... more lies...

But... what I was writing about - the thing that was working was just a subtle shift by me.  Giving him more power - letting him lead - asking his opinion more.  Nothing earth shattering - it was little stuff and I remember the benefits far outshining the effort by either one of us.  I so don't trust him with me right now - but maybe... just maybe I can give this a try.  It seems pretty low risk and my memory along with what I wrote about it says the payoff was really good.

So there you have it - no writing prompt tonight.  Just a little life contemplation.

A slow and low day...

Man!  I suck at this NaBloPoMo stuff... It's not for lack of desire, I swear it.  I'm just an idiot sometimes.

I went out with my friend Jen last night and man was that a much needed evening!  I've known her for... hmmm, a long time.  Since before I got married.  So, I guess, pushing 20 years ish - of course, we met, and I got married, when we were very small children.  Anyway - she knows me so very well, and has known me for such a long time over the highs and lows of life.  Our marriages, our kids, the insanity of our in laws; we've shared it all.

She knew me way back when, when all my emotions were all blocked off.  She was there when I was suffering with depression.  And she's watched me come into my own with respect to really owning who I am; including all the parts of my personality - and wanting to learn to express and own my emotions too.

And because we've watched each other grow and learn for all these years, there's just not much we can't or haven't talked about (if anything).  So we spent 5 or 6 hours drinking and talking about what's going on in our lives and the emotions involved and what there is to learn from this and that.  All the while, of course, laughing and having fun.  It's always so nice to reconnect with her and I have no idea how or why we let life get in the way of keeping more closely connected.  OH... And we're talking about going to Jazz Fest again in 2012 - Yippee!!  I love NOLA!

But then today..... having nothing at all to do with Jen - I'm in a mood.  Do you ever have those days where despite your best efforts the world is spinning out of your control?  Where you think things are going isn't the case?  That the plans you made for your day, just don't pan out?  Today has been one of those days - top to bottom.  I can't say I was hung over, because I wasn't really - but I'd had plenty to drink last night and I don't know about you, but I never sleep well when there's lots of alcohol churning around in my body.  So... while I got some things accomplished it was a very slow day.  And then of course when I went to feed the dog I discovered there was no dog food.  Guess who fed the dog last?  It wasn't even one of the kids - it was Dan.  Did he bother to do anything about it - or even to mention it.  Uh, that would be a nope.  And can we guess where he is??  In California.  So the downside was I had to go out when I was busy being a lump - but the up side was it was a beautiful day here in MD and I got to drive to the store with my top down - yay!  So maybe I can say he gave me a little gift - the gift of a nice drive with fun music with the top down in November.  There aren't that many left in 2011.  (Dear husband - if you are reading this and think it's okay to offer me a "your welcome" for your little gift - think again :) )

And then - every person I spoke to today (except Farrah) has said or done things I wasn't expecting - at least not on my 'I just want to be a lump' day.  When I'm here at home alone for a week - with no one to even bounce things off of.  I think my brain is too muddled to handle things today and as you all know - I truly and profoundly hate drama.  Of course my solution was to break out the wine.  Wine makes everything more clear (that's true, right?).

And speaking of Farrah - that poor thing was stuck in Laramie, WY for a long time today.  She and her family were trying to drive back home to Bum Fuck, WY from Denver but discovered the roads were closed.  Then they were opened.  Then they were closed again - all due to high winds blowing the snow across the roads.  (man am I glad I don't live in WY).  They got stuck there last night and were able to spend the night at a friend's house - but then headed out today only to have to turn back.  I haven't heard from her in a few hours (which does not make me happy at all) but when last we texted they were heading home at 5 mph.  I sure hope they make it soon!!!

Christmas decorating has officially started...

It's official... the madness has started.  A couple of weeks ago Husband brought the boxes of stuff in from the garage so I could begin to begin... but it took me until this evening.

Here are a couple of pictures of the boxes filling the living room before I started..

Step 1 for me is always to empty out all of the boxes and put everything out and then I decide what to put where.  So here's some of the stuff I emptied out tonight...