Maybe I'm healing...

Today is/was my Momo's birthday. The last few years have been really really hard for me, the sadness looming in the back of my head, the regrets that I have in regards to her. Each year that has passed seemed to be another reminder of promises broken and time stolen.

(On a side note here, I do want to recognize to Jax & Blaze that I read your blogs about your Grandmothers, and I truly do feel a sadness for your losses. I couldn't leave comments, even though I tried and started them, because I felt that more needed to be said than just a simple "I'm sorry for your loss" but felt it bad form to go into deep response because for me, it was really hard to read those blogs of loss because they reminded me of my own and I just couldn't handle it.)

This year, the threat of her birthday didn't bombard me like the last few. Sure, I realized when I entered the month of June that her birthday was this month, but it wasn't an impending doom or a dark cloud that settled over me and hovered until today. As a matter of fact, June 25th was the last day that I even remembered that her birthday was this month. That was only because I read Blaze's blog and it was only a nanosecond of thought. It seemed longer...

If Natalie hadn't gone into one of her "Heaven!" moments when we passed the old cemetary downtown after church this AM, and asked if Momo was buried there too, I wouldn't have even recalled today was her birthday. As soon as she asked me that, I rolled my eyes and thought my goodness why is she still on this subject? I don't want to talk about it! Then I asked myself why do I have such a bad attitude about it? That's when I looked at the date and saw that she'd be 79 years old if she were alive.

I still have the occasional bout of angst, trying to figure out why she had to go the way she did, why she had to suffer so badly, and the man that treated her like the dirt on the ground is still alive. I still see snow globes and think of her. I still miss her.

Newness!

I have a new nephew! His name is Gavin Joseph and he is beautiful! I'm really excited that he's finally here! He was born on June 18th, at 8 lbs 7 oz. Here's a few pics:

My brother & his new son!

Sleeping in his swing.

He looks excited for whatever's coming next! =D

Sleep baby sleep...Awww

Cleaning Diet 2

Wow 12 lbs down.

I've discovered Calorie Counting, tofu, spinach, and other healthy habits.

I've rediscovered exercise.

I have a clean kitchen, bathroom(s), bedroom(s), and only 1 load of laundry to do tonight.

That is 0 instead of like 8 for the weekend.

Wow.

Yay for me!

What can I do about it?

I have to fill out a Satisfaction Survey. Is this state SERIOUS? How satisfied am I with the state's HELP? Please tell me this is a joke, because there is NO WAY I'm even CLOSE to satisfied but it doesn't give me a spot to explain why. It doesn't even give me an option to chose that I'm NOT satisfied. No scale of 1 to 10. Zilch. That's not a survey. That's a rigged survey. (Sniffs for the crap.)

What is it that Jim Carrey said in Liar Liar when he asked the Towing Guy if he knew what he was going to do about the scratch on his car?

Ah. I remember:

NOTHING. Just piss & moan like an impotent jerk, then bend over and take it up the tail pipe!

I guess that's exactly what I'll do with this "SATISFACTION RIGGED SURVEY"

I Want More...

I want to move. Simple as that.

We've outgrown this house.

It's ugly with nasty 70's panelling in the livingroom and god-awful wall paper.

The girls now have at least room to move in their bedroom since getting them their bunkbeds for Christmas. I think I forgot to post about that when I went through my give-a-rat's-ass-about-blogging phase at the beginning of this year. I shall post a pic to show you how cute it is.

I need a better filing system for my stuff.

I want to move.

"Heaven" is Downtown

Today Natalie sat down next to me & Jennifer on the couch. This is a daily occurance considering she normally does this when she doesn't want to nap. She even starts deep conversations that are totally inappropriate for a 4 year old to be thinking about. Natalie is fascinated with death and wants to be a CSI one day. I know that sounds odd, but she's actually quite serious about it and I find that funny instead of disturbing.

So Natalie sat down (it's about 12:55 pm and she was laid down at 12:00 pm.) and looks at myself & Jennifer. Here's the dialogue.

Natalie: My Grampa was a great man. He was strong.
Silence.
Jennifer: He was? I bet he was, how did you know that?
Natalie: Well, cause my daddy said so. And because he's in heaven and only great strong men go to heaven.
Laughter.
Me: Really? So women don't go to heaven?
Natalie: Yeah, we go to heaven too. But only if we have babies and cook.
Silence & stifled laughter.
Natalie: Ms. Jenny, you know Heaven's downtown, right?
Jennifer: It is? I thought heaven was in the sky?
Natalie shakes her head: No it's not! It's downtown where Grampa stays.
Jennifer starts laughing and says: That's the cemetary.
Natalie: No, the cemetary is over by on our way to wal mart. That's where dead people go too, but Heaven's downtown.
Jennifer looked at me oddly: Well, downtown is another cemetary, that's where your Grampa is.
Natalie (sarcastically): Ummm noooooo downtown is Heaven. That one's not a "cemetary" (as she says this one, she makes the sign for quotation marks.) it's Heaven.
Jennifer: Well why is that one Heaven and the other one just a cemetary?
Natalie: Because that's where Grampa is.

And that was that. She got up and went and laid down on her bed.

Hmpf!!

I'm taking a cue from Jax & writing a letter. I love her letters, and it just seems very fitting for this post. So here goes...

Dear Mr. Rude Standing Guy,

While my family and I were trying to enjoy the Talons game, you decided that it would be a good idea to drink beer all night, be extremely perverse with your language, and stand up right in front of our view of the Arena. I do understand that it is an Arena Game, and that men (for some reason beyond my comprehension) just get into their football, but did you REALLY have to get into your football in front of myself and my family? I mean, come on, standing for over an hour, screaming and hollering, while my fiancee' and our kids (within your ear, btw) are complaining that they can't see.

If I'd been alone, I'd have said something to your rude self. But my fiancee' feels the need to defend my honor if someone is rude to me and would not allow me to ask you to please be seated. Then to make matters worse, you bring your 5 or 6 year old daughter onto your shoulders and I KNOW you know that you were blocking our view because you looked straight at us more than once!

I just wanted you to know that I think you are a rude pompass idiot who thinks only of himself and not of others around him. Did you not think that we would want to see too? Did you think that we were just wasting our money to go to a game that we couldn't even watch? Fun sucker! It was so hard to keep the game light hearted when everytime I looked at my family they were trying to look around you, moving seats, clearing their throats, and mentioning the fact that they couldn't see quite loudly.

Whatever the case, I was very thankful for the ending buzzer. It meant I didn't have to look at your ass stuck in my face anymore. And trust me, it was NOT a nice sight!

Sincerely,

Joy

I found my new layout.

THIS IS MY LAYOUT!

I couldn't deal with the blue.

I tried.

One day was enough. **Sob**

Pink+Black=Joy's Personality!

Boo. Hiss.

People crack me up.
Wait!! Let me rephrase.
Supersticious people crack me up.
No one thinks twice when it rains on any other day. But when it rains TODAY...(Ahem, Friday the 13th)...it's got some underlying, sordid, conspiratal reason.
Sure. Go ahead. Be supersticious. I just walked under 2 ladders with a black cat staring straight at me while breaking every mirror I look in and spilling salt and cleaning it up rather than tossing some over my shoulder.

Yes. I'm the same chick that called Candy Man and Bloody Mary after watching/hearing the horror tales.

The Cleaning Diet.

So it was time for a change. I'm not liking it...yet. But I didn't finish looking through all the blog backgrounds to find the PERFECT one. I'm a freaking pink girl. I love pink and black. I'm missing my pink already but I think I'll survive. After all, it IS just a blog, right?

Psht whatever.

So I'm training myself this week and next to get my house in order and maintain it. That means laundry, cleaning, pantry, etc... ARGHHH have I mentioned before how much I.HATE.CLEANING.?? I really really do. I cannot stand it. There is so much I could be doing besides cleaning. Talking, blogging, Myspace addiction. Eating. Working out. Swimming. Watching TV. I won't bother to write SLEEPING in here anywhere because anyone that knows me would know that's a lie, because I rarely sleep as it is.

Why does cleaning have to be SO MUCH WORK? I mean, it didn't take that much to MAKE the mess, why does it take so long to clean it up? I pick an outfit, wear it, put it in the hamper. Done. But to clean it...gaw...Dump, sort, wash, dry, fold, hang, put away. And I NEVER hear the buzzer. And I ALWAYS forget about it, so I've got one load in the washer that is getting a little smelly and a load in the dryer already cold by the time I remember that HEY...I was doing laundry!! Oh well.

But this week has gone really really well. I am no longer embarassed by my bedroom. I can leave the door open now. WOW. I never thought that was possible. And if my bed sheets weren't so outdated, I'd post a picture.

My List of Goals:

• Learn to clean as I go.
• Learn to maintain.
• Lose weight. (For those of you who went through with this with me last year...shut up)
• Drink 8 ozs of water each hour. (I have a note on my fridge to encourage water drinking)
• No bread. Eww. I always hated this rule/goal.
• Let go.

I recently read somewhere that if your house and your car are in order, your body shortly follows. I'm hoping this is true. Because I'm ready to be happy with me and my home. I'm not making any promises of what I'm going to do, but what I am saying is that this is what I'm doing so support me or don't, just don't make me listen to the negatives...

Yikes.

So today I start 2 workers and that is supposed to free me up so that I can train myself to keep the rest of my house (meaning the non-business part) clean. Hey, if I can make sure the business aspect of my house is clean and presentable at all times, I should be able to pull this off, correct?

We'll see.

Seriously, wish me luck. I'm soooooo gonna need it!

Talk to the Hand

This is Natalie.

Cute, huh?

My wonderful best friend in the whole wide world (cough cough Jennifer!) taught my daughter "Talk to the Hand" last week. Now parents are fully aware of the repercussions of teaching a 4 year old sarcasm. One of those repercussions are that it puts consistentcy on the back burner. The other repercussions don't come until later in life, when the cute sarcasm stops being cute and starts pissing you off in that slap-her-in-the-face-if-she-says-that-to-me-again way.

So this morning, Natalie comes up to me and gives me a great big hug, her eyes still droopy with sleep and her nightgown disheveled. She literally looked like the cutest, cleanest hobo child I've ever laid eyes on. My immediate thought was "Awww, I wish she would always be like this. She's wearing me out acting like a 16-24 year old. Sigh. At least I have this moment of hugs and just waking up is the perfect time with her because she's sweet and calm."

As SOON as I finished those thoughts she gets this cheesy grin on her face and says "Guess what, Mom? (she didn't wait for me to guess, go figure) I found something even BETTER than Talk to the Hand!"

I was silent for a moment, thinking OMFG what? Instead of uttering this, I looked at her and said "And what's that?"

Cheesy grin again, "Talk to the FINGER!!!!" And up went that middle finger in all it's glory.

So here is my 4 year old daughter, supposed to be ANGEL but FARRR from it, short bobbed hair, big blue eyes (I'm so excited they are changing to green!!!), teeth exposed from one end of her mouth to the other, and that bird finger [that she isn't aware is screaming "F**K YOU!" at me] proudly shoved in my face.

After the initial shock, what do I do?

I laughed my friggin butt off.