Anything But Gray

My friend Kim sent me an email tonight and it was really cool. It was a forward and Kim almost never forwards stuff, so I knew it would be good. It was good. It was mostly about attitude and how you see life or how you can choose to view things, just stuff like that. I loved all of it but one part especially stood out for me….

It's Tuesday!

I love

• new pens
• anticipating mariah's new album
• Hubby coming home for lunch right when I was getting out of the shower and deciding that me naked in bed was way more appealing than his lunch. This is probably one of my greatest loves, ever. No little ears around so I can relax and just be myself instead of the worried-they-are-going-to-hear-me mom I usually am.
• afterglow
• creating….my art, not babies!
• the song "Just Fine" by Mary J. Blige.
• morning visits from Ceci.
• new craft supplies.
• Jaime wearing her hair down.

I loathe

• my nails looking like crap
• my house being cold and it being thisclose to spring so we debate on getting more oil or not.
• having to keep a super exciting secret about one of my friends.
• not being rich so I could just roll over and go to sleep after our lunch "date".
• Jaime's school deciding to have to a "skate day" for the entire school on the day I had planned to have her birthday party.
• drama….

Pretty unexciting, but there ya go.
🙂

We made it back.
Flights back were good.
Kids traveled well, as always.
Lucky ducks, we are….those two rambunctious kids of ours travel fantastically.

All in all, the trip was good and we got a lot set up in preparation of our move.
It was too busy but then, we knew it would be. Being so busy was tough. When you haven't been home in 2.5 years, all you want in the world when you get there is to gather up all the hearts you've been missing and spend every single second with every single beat of those hearts…
but it was a working vacation, we had so much to get done and I just didn't have the time I would've liked to spend with everyone. And when it comes to having to divide up what little bit of free time I had, among all of my family and friends back there…that's when the realization hits of how damn lucky I am…there are so many people I love there and so many who love me. 17 years…..I've been gone 17 years and they are still there…..I am blessed. Truly blessed.

The highs…

• My sister….I cannot put into words how much this woman has changed and how much I love those changes….I am so proud of her.
• Seeing my family….my cousin anticipating our move and starting to make THANKSGIVING plans. lol God, I love that girl.
• 3rd or 4th day there, waking up and walking into the living room and seeing Ben cuddled up with my sister on the couch. He had woken up in the middle of the night and went to her instead of Zak and I.
• Jaime and Gabby being inseparable.
• Getting a song sung to me (Good Morning, Beautiful) on my voice mail from one of my dearest friends. (I adore you!!!! )
• "We can just talk….."  he said. And we did. The same as always, a few beers, his truck, in the dark……some things never change. And I didn't have to feel guilty, for the first time in over 10 years.
• Getting lost trying to find the towers with Shelly. Yet again, some things never change. "Dude…I must've been shitfaced because I so don't remember going this way….."
• Going to dinner with Zak, Shelly & Scott and Steve. Wow…holy friggin' wow.
• Steve coming up to see me…..it felt like old times.
• Shelly and I taking Steve's truck and running to get the kids food and leaving the kids with Scotty and Steve. WEIRD.
• Seeing Scotty grown up. REALLY WEIRD.
• the sunshine…..
• the shopping….

The lows

• not enough time to spend with everyone.
• my sister getting a bad leg infection…I just don't like seeing her in pain.
• Not getting to see one of my friends.
• Seeing Scotty all grown up.
• Seeing Main St. and being reminded that it is so all gone.
• not getting to see a hugely important to me couple. They are (were?!?!?!)  like second parents…they are my safe place. My haven…my runaway. And not hearing from them….not knowing what's going on. I'm worried about them and their kids, I'm worried something has happened to someone. I'm worried they are upset with me….I just have no idea what's going on and this is going to keep me awake at night…this breaks my heart….this brings me thisclose to tears and I have to take a big breath and compose myself. I am struggling to deal with this. Really struggling.
• being so busy I didn't have time to blog or check my email.
• That is honestly about it. It was a fantastic vacation.

Today was back to the grind. Back to real life…
Bills, voice mails, cleaning up the house, catching up on blogs and just puttering. Jaime didn't make it back to school, she has a fever and I don't know what's up so I kept her home….

Hopefully tomorrow she'll make it back and everything will truly be back to normal!

After all these years, one of the boys has fallen…or taken a small stumble, I'd prefer to call it.

Bummer

Obviously there are issues going on with him. I hope this is a wake up call for him and he seeks help, again. I'm seriously sad to see there were children in the car. Turns out it was his daughter and a friend. Not cool.

What a DRAG this is. One thing about Bon Jovi that I've always admired is they never seemed to have substance abuse issues that got out of control. Obviously you'd have to be a moron to think they were saints, but they have, with the exception of Alec, seemed to avoid the substance abuse downfall….until now.

I honestly just can't believe it. This is one mug shot I never, ever expected to see….

Jon is gonna be pissed… Heather too, for that matter.

ugh.

this sucks.

Loves

• Sunshine!
• taking my kids to one of my most favorite places in the world and watching them have a blast. Cogshall Park (that picture doesn't do it justice….)
• Spending time at Cogshall Park with one of my oldest friends
• Being with my sister, niece and her husband.
• Watching our kids play together.
• My daughter learning how to ride a bike without training wheels!

Loathes

• Knowing that for the rest of my life, no matter where I go, I will miss someone in another state.
• not being a millionare
• the housing market deciding to go to hell the year we decide to move across the country.
• that I only have 4 days left with my family and friends.
• that choosing to stay home and be a wife and mom does not give you the experience to get into a well paying position in the business world. (it so should….lol)
• Having been here almost two weeks and feeling like it's not enough time….2 weeks after two and a half years….it's just not enough.

We got our PO Box in Nashua this morning. WEIRD.

Zak is off talking to broker's about a job. REALLY WEIRD.

The vacation is flying by…seriously. It took us a full week to adjust to the time change. I was staying up until like 2-3am because I just wasn't tired, my body was still on Alaska time. Finally, we've all adjusted. Nice. right in time to go back. lol.

I thought I would be blogging and emailing more…but there just hasn't been any down time hardly at all. It's insane how go, go, go it's been. Which, I knew it would be but I thought I'd have some down time in the evenings….nope. lol

But honestly, I love it and wish I could stay longer!

Seeing a friend of almost 20 years. Cool.

Seeing a carseat in the back of same friend's pick up truck and realizing that whoa….this guy that I've known since the 10th grade is all grown up with a wife and kid. Very cool.

Cruising our old stomping grounds with another friend, this one of about 19 years and hunting for another friend of ours, so very cool. Cruising the roads we've been down a thousand times before, laughing over old memories, talking about our "now" lives, is awesome. It's funny that a lot has changed in that town over the years, but enough remains the same that if an old song comes on the radio..one of our songs (and boy did we have a lot of them!)  comes on, I feel 17 years old again…driving around with Shelly, raising holy hell. lol

We wound up finding Steve (the other friend..:-) ) and we went over to his house and hung out with him for a bit, just talking. He told me to go look on his fridge. I go look and there is a couple of pictures of me and him up on it. I was surprised and very touched.

The comfort of old friends, the familiarity of your old stomping grounds and the realization that after almost 20 years, you still matter….it's a feeling that you can't really put into words. The best I can come up with is the Cheers song….

"Sometimes you wanna go/where everybody knows your name/and they're always glad you came"

Cheesy as it is….that's all that going through my head. And it just feels good.

I'm late…but it's still Tuesday, so I'm doing it.

🙂

Loves…

• Spending time with my sister and her family.
• Watching my kids play in the sunshine.
• Watching my daugher and my niece play together
• Drinking dunkin' donuts coffee
• finding the absolute perfect school for Jaime and perfect neighborhood for us.
• Knowing I'm going to see all my old friends in a matter of days.
• being in the same time zone as J.
• being back home.

Loathes…

• not being able to get ahold of a couple that I adore and wondering what the hell is going on….
• not being able to get ahold of one of my friends and being worried about him.
• being a grownup and realizing that no, I can't shop for everything in every store there is.
• constantly eating dunkin' donuts donuts makes you fat
• my mummy not being here too
• my brother not being here.

It's late so this is the best I can do, for now. ha!

I'm sitting at the computer, Ben is cuddled up in my sister's lap and I'm listening to my sister read to him. Jaime and Gabby are upstairs playing, they are supposed to be going to bed, but they won't quit playing. They have been inseperable since we've arrived.

And my heart is happy…seriously happy.

today was a good day.

I so love being "home".

Whoooo-hooooo!!

We made it!

The kids did FANTASTIC. They had listening issues in the airport but they aren't accustomed to being required to be right at our side, so it was partly that and not just them being disobediant. They loved the plane rides and they did awesome.

We wound up not overnighting in Seattle because they fit us on the red eye! So we actually arrived this am at around 6. It was awesome to get here sooner. We napped a bit and unpacked some. Jaime and Gabby have been inseperable since we got off the plane, LITERALLY. Jaime wanted to ride in the car with Gabby on the way out of the airport and they got back to Niki's and have been playing awesome ever since. LOVE it.

My cousin, her son and my Auntie drove up from the cape to spend the night and to visit and it is just so wonderful having all of us together.

My sister is cooking my favorite childhood dinner, the kids are playing and life is good.

So all my "back home" people, be listening for your phone to ring. TIME TO PAAHTAAYYY!!

ha!

The hours before we leave on a trip.

I alternate between being super excited, super stressed and super worried.
And throughout every one of these moods is the screaming thought..
I JUST WANT TO GET THERE.

It is such a LONG trip.
I hate it…I'm so tired of doing it.
I have flown across the country 30+ times…
What I would give to have just a two hour flight to get where I'm going.
Instead of this all day, jet lag inducing trek across the freakin' country.
It is physically a draining trip, but emotionally it's rough because I am so friggin' impatient!
From the second I step on the plane, I am just dying to get there.
And this time we are sleeping over in Seattle.
We decided to try to break it up this time, hoping that might make it easier.
We are also taking the straight through flight, this time. We've never done that before, gone straight from Seattle to Boston. Four hours is typically my limit on a plane…right about there is where I start getting hot, tired, pissy and just sick of being on the plane. And with this flight, there's 2 more hours to go at 4 hours. ugh.
I'm hoping having the kids will help make time go by fast. I'm hoping keeping them entertained will keep us busy…
lol.

I'm not too worried about how the kids will do because they have always been very good travelers..but this 6 hour flight IS asking a lot of them, so we'll see.
They are really excited and that's cool.
They went to bed really easy tonight, which is a miracle in and of itself right there and I am so thankful they did. Because this is the part of the trip where I start getting really stressed out and kids refusing to go to sleep would not have helped that, at all. So this is a good sign, for me. A good omen….and hopefully it's an indication of the trip going super smoothly.

Fingers crossed!

I didn't get a chance to see Kim or Danielle and I'm bummed, I had wanted to see them before we left…but other than that little bump in the road, everything is good!

Now I'm gonna go try to relax my mind and get some sleep.

Go do this….it's neat….

Awareness

Tell me what you think…
I think it's very clever…I'm impressed.
Then again, we all know how easy to amuse I truly am.

Nah, I kid…..it actually is really cool.