Holly’s Happenings

I was emailing back and forth with my sister last week about my new job. She wanted to know if I still liked it, which I told her I really did. She then asked what types of things they were having me do so far, so I told her about the different things that I had done so far. She then wrote back and said “I could never work there, I’d end up gaining a ton of weight because I LOVE bread”. I had to chuckle after reading that, it just made it more obvious to me that she knew very little about working in the food industry.

I’ve worked a few different jobs in the food industry over the past 25 of so years. One of the things that has never been allowed in any of the food establishments that I’ve worked in is eating on the clock, and although some provided a free meal if you worked a long enough shift to take a lunch or dinner break, others only offered a discounted meal. But the fact is that you can never eat what you want, when you want to. Just about every last food item has to be accounted for, even if it’s something that is thrown away.

And if you think about it, if people who worked in the food industry were allowed to eat what they wanted, when they wanted to, we’d have to use appetite suppressants or we’d probably all end up enormously over weight. And I can tell you that the vast majority of the people I work with don’t even come close to having issues with weight problems.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been on the “outs” with some of my family members over a few things that happened within a few days of my nephew’s unexpected death. At the time it happened I felt angry and betrayed, but as time has passed, I got over it and moved on.

Then a couple of weeks ago my sister called my house telling me she had a “mission” for me. When I asked her what the mission was, she told me that I needed to search my house and find the memory card from my late nephew’s digital camera. She went on to say that she had been at my brother and sister in laws house that night and they had discovered that the memory card from his digital camera wasn’t in the camera, and that no one had touched it since I had brought the camera back to them after making his tribute video.

At first, I totally freaked out, thinking that I was a complete and total idiot for somehow losing/misplacing this. But then I sat at my desk thinking about the day I had it, when I was working on his video, and something just didn’t make any sense at all! I tore my desk apart looking for the memory card and it wasn’t anywhere to be found, so I called her back. When I called I asked her if she had went through his camera bag to make sure that it somehow hadn’t simply been taken out of the camera, then just put back in the bag. At that point she point blank said that she had torn the bag apart looking for it and that anyone that might have had access to the camera over the past two weeks was there that night and they all said that they hadn’t touched it and that I really needed to start looking or people were going to be really ticked off at me.

At this point, I completely lost it. I knew in my heart of hearts that I had nothing to do with this memory card being missing, I knew that when I had his camera, I took the card out of the camera, put it in my computer, copied the pictures from it that they wanted me to use, took the memory card out of my computer and put it back in his camera, then put the camera back into it’s bag and zipped it up. I was so meticulous that day with all of the pictures and stuff while making the video that I freaked out on my kids a couple of times for simply touching a picture or getting hear my desk. I had to be this meticulous because I knew what would happen if anything happened to any of the pictures or the memory card, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.

For the past two weeks I have totally avoided my brother and sister in law, as well as their two remaining children. Although I KNEW I wasn’t responsible for the card being missing, I had no way of proving this, and with everything they were going through, I just felt that it was best for right now if I didn’t bother them. At one point during the past two weeks I received a phone call from my mother, during which she proceeded to accuse my daughter of taking the memory card. I was totally blown away and hung the phone up after telling her I couldn’t believe she had said that and told her I had gone through enough and wished her a good life.

Anyway, to shorten this up a little bit, I heard from my sister in law and nephew yesterday. Although several people checked my late nephew’s camera and had torn the bag apart, never finding the memory card in question, out of the middle of nowhere, “A” memory card turned up yesterday. I quoted “A” because it’s not the memory card that I used from his camera, but it does, however, contain all of the pictures that the original card had on it, many of which I never copied to my own computer.

While we are all very relieved that a card did show up with his pictures, we’re all also very confused! As I said, it’s definitely not the one that I used, and my nephew agrees with me that the original memory card was blue, while this one is black. I also clearly remember the original one being 512 mb, but the one that showed up is only 256 mb.

I’m now waiting to find out if either my sister or my mother are going to contact me to apologize, thankfully I’m not holding my breath, or I’d be the next family member that was 6 foot under!

I’ve sat here all night crying and wondering why such a young and vibrant man is now forever gone from this earth. It’s probably been one of the most painful nights I’ve spent in many, many years and unfortunately it’s only the beginning.

Around 11:45 last night I received a phone call from my sister. As soon as I heard her voice I knew that the news was not going to be anything I wanted to hear, she could barely speak through her tears. She told me that my brothers oldest son’s body had been found and that he had apparently drowned while he was fishing in a local river. It’s been over 5 hours now and I’m still in complete disbelief, it just does not seem like something that is even remotely possible and honestly, I don’t want it to be true!

I’m worried about his parents (my brother and sister in law) as well as my mother. My sister told me that they had to call an ambulance for my sister in law tonight and even though it was obvious she needed medical help, she refused to go to the hospital. She’s had some fairly serious health problems over the past few months and getting the news that her eldest son was gone brought some of her health problems back up to the surface. I also am worried about my mother. She has spent so much of her life giving and doing for her children and now her grandchildren, they are her whole world and this loss is going to take a very hard toll on her!

I know that death is a part of life, it’s been a part of my life for many years now. But knowing that doesn’t take the pain away or make it any less. All I can think of is what a beautiful young man he was and what a wonderful future he had ahead of him. He had been planning a wedding, he was an Uncle to two adorable little boys, a brother, a son, a grandson, a great grandson, a nephew and a cousin, and my heart is absolutely breaking right now! It’s almost unimaginable that I will never see his smile again or stand on my tip toes to put my arms around him and give him a hug. It’s just so impossible to believe that he’s gone! I’ve cried all night wishing that this was nothing more than a horrible dream and that I’d wake up and have it not have happened, but the pain in my heart right now tells me that’s not going to happen. It hasn’t even been a whole day and I miss him so much already!

Rest In Peace Eric, you will forever be in my heart!

On this past 4th of July my mom had all seven of her grandchildren as well as her two great grandchildren together for the first time in quite some time. Usually one or more are missing or her step grandchildren are present as well. So she wanted to make sure to commemorate the occasion by getting pictures of all of them!

I hadn’t seen the pictures yet, mostly because I just haven’t spent much time with my mom in the past month. So I was really surprised when we picked my daughter up from her house Sunday evening on our way home from the races and they showed me that they had printed out the pictures that day. They turned out so awesome!

My daughter also let me know that she and my mom went through several boxes of pictures that mom had found up in the attic. She then went on to tell me about all the pictures of me from my childhood she had seen. It was kind of fun reliving the moments the photos were taken as my daughter was telling me about each photo she could remember. I also found out that there are several pictures of me with my father, I had no clue mom still had pictures of me and dad left. So either this weekend or next I plan on taking a trip up to my mom’s house to go through these pictures. I’m sure I’ll cry over many of them, I almost did just listening to my daughter talk about them…LOL!

I think when I get them home I’m going to scan them into my computer, that way I have the actual pictures but I also have copies of them backed up on my computer. What would be cool after I get them scanned would be to put them into a digital frame that I could set out and be able to look at them or show them to people when they come here to visit! I have many fond memories of my childhood, several of which were captured in a picture, and it will be nice to relive them!

I know that I’m a person of words, it’s actually quite easy for me to find things to talk about in my blog posts. But so many things have happened in the past 24 or so hours that have put my mind in a whirlwind, and for the first time, in a VERY long time, I’m finding it hard to find something to write about.

My mouth wants to scream out to people and remind them to take the time. Take the time to let the special people in your life know just how special they are to you. Take the time to remember that no one is perfect and we all make mistakes and that it’s not our job to judge someone when they make a mistake. And to take the time to be just a little more thoughtful and caring to someone who just might be a little down on their luck in life.

It’s so easy to want to turn our backs on someone when they do something wrong, to cut them out of our lives in the hopes that they, and their problems, won’t be a part of our lives any longer. But the worst part about doing that is that when something happens and that persons life ends, you’re left behind with this huge mountain of regret for the choices that you’ve made and wishing that you could do anything and everything to get those moments back. But they’re gone, forever, just like the person you’ve finally realized was so special to you.

No, I’m not talking about myself when I talk about cutting someone out of your life, I didn’t make that mistake. But I have several family members right now that are struggling to deal with the guilt of doing this, of turning their backs on someone who needed their help, the help they refused to offer. I’m also dealing with the fact that for the first time in almost 8 years my husband is going to come face to face with several family members who cut him out of their lives because of a mistake he made. But to be on the safe side, we made sure it would be acceptable for him to be present at the funeral this weekend, and amazingly were told there would be no problem with it. Could this be a new beginning? I’m honestly not going to hold my breath! It’s their loss for cutting him out of their lives, especially for something that did not affect their lives in any way, shape or form.

It’s going to be a difficult weekend, at best. Saying goodbye to a person that has been a part of your life for over 30 years is never an easy task. And seeing the pain and guilt that his family members that refused to allow him to be a part of their life for nearly 20 years are now having to deal with will make it even more difficult.

They’ve always said that deaths come in three’s, I know who the first was, and who the second is going to be, but I’m not sure if I want to know who the third one is going to be!

As you know, I lost a cousin to suicide earlier this month. I just got off the phone with my mother and found out that my sister in law’s brother is now in a hospice care being made comfortable for the remainder of his days. This one is going to be a hard one, just typing about it brings tears to my eyes!

I want to try and go visit him in the hospice, but I’m honestly not certain I can! He has been a part of my life for almost 30 years and was my “party bud” when I was in my late teens and 20’s. He’s just 1 year younger than I am and spent 11 of the the past 12 years living on the streets. It was only when he was diagnosed with cancer, about a year ago, that he called his family and asked if he could come home. So take the time to make sure that the special people in your life know how much they mean to you and how much you love them, because one day, they could be gone!

The first time my life was touched by the death of someone I was close to, I was honestly too young to remember how it felt, but I do remember the sad looks and tears on the faces of the people that surrounded us in the room at the time. That was when my maternal grandfather passed away. I won’t pretend to remember when it was, but if I had to make a guess I’d say sometime around 1970. Next came my maternal great grandfather, I don’t remember much about him other than he always had a pocket full of pecans.

Why am I talking about this? I just received a phone call telling me that one of my cousins made the choice to take her own life just a few days ago, the day after her 52nd birthday. She is not a cousin that I am close to, as a matter of fact I haven’t talked to a single member of her family in over 13 years. They never liked me at at my paternal grandmother’s funeral, they made it more obvious than they ever had. Being the person that I am, I simply decided that it was best to cut all ties to them. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought about them over the years, because I have, and hearing that she chose to end her life really bothers me.

She is the 4th person whom I’ve known in my lifetime that has made the decision that death is better than life. Being one of the people that is left behind wondering why, I wish it were possible to make people who think suicide is an option how WRONG it is! I may not have been close to my cousin over the past 13 years, but I do have some VERY fond memories of things we did as children together, and those are the memories I choose to keep close to my heart! I’ve called her parents and offered my sympathy, they took it warmly and thanked me.

So PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE…..if you EVER think that suicide is the answer to your problems, think about a song, written and sang by a VERY young man named Blaine Larson, that perfectly explains my feelings on it! You can watch the video HERE but be warned, it’s a country music song and will possibly make you cry! Rest in Peace CLP, may your demons finally be at rest!

I’m TOTALLY loving how the house is smelling right now! Tomorrow is “THE” day, besides being “my” day, it’s also the day that I’m taking a short road trip with a few family members. It used to be that we’d make this trip once a year, pretty much about the same time, but for some reason we haven’t done this in a couple of years. Where are we going, you ask? We’re going to Shipshewana, Indiana where the most AWESOME Flea Market in the world is at! (If you don’t believe me, just click on that link!)

Anyway, originally it was going to be me, my mom, my sister and one of my niece’s going, but that’s changed just a little bit. Now it’s going to be me, mom, my sister, both of my niece’s and my FAVORITE Aunt! We’re heading out from mom’s house at 6:30 tomorrow morning and have a couple hour drive before we get there. I decided that we needed some yummy snackage for the trip and decided to bake some AWESOME sugar cookies and I also made a really creamy and fluffy frosting to frost them with. We’ll also stop for breakfast on the way, we stop at the same restaurant every time we go! And there will be TONS and TONS of good stuff to buy to snack on as well! By the time the day is over I’ll end up needing some really good weight loss pills to help take off the weight I gain from eating all the goodies…LOL!

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow though! I normally don’t do anything on my birthday, it’s kind of a “tradition” for me…LOL! So it will be nice to get out of the house, and I’ll get to spend some time with some very special family members as well, which makes it that much better!

Well, as much as I wanted to spend today getting the rest of my stuff ready and priced for my sisters garage/yard sale, doing so just wasn’t in the cards I guess. I got a phone call from my mom last night asking me if I’d come up and help her work today. My mom has owned her own cleaning business since the early 1980’s and on Friday’s my sister in law works with her, but my sister in law is sick and mom really doesn’t want to clean this house by herself today. I can totally understand because it’s a HUGE house (like 6 or 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms and a total of 3 floors), so I told her yes, I’d help her.

My mom amazes me! She’s been cleaning houses and offices since just a couple of years after my father passed away. She is now 70 years old and still works 5 days a week, sometimes doing 3 or 4 jobs a day. Us kids keep telling her she needs to slow down and even consider retiring, but she won’t, she says her jobs help her keep her mind sharp and her girlish figure without having to rely on weight loss pills. Personally, I think she’s afraid to stop working, but that’s a whole different post!

So I’ll be heading out here in about 15-20 minutes and won’t be home until later this afternoon. If you’re the person that left me a comment on my Boost Mobile Update post, I promise that I will get back with you when I get home today, so bear with me! I’m more than happy to work with you about this situation, I just have a few things I have to take care of this morning (i.e. my mom). Have a great day everyone!

WOW, I honestly can’t believe it’s Saturday already! I have no clue what it was that made this week fly by so fast, but I sure hope it doesn’t happen very often! Weeks that go by as fast as the past one did totally throw me off, they really do!!

I guess all the running around I did with my sister in law this week probably added to the week going by so quickly. I’m used to the “schedule” I have and two days this week were spent with her, helping her out. Then there were a TON of phone calls that I had to make as well as some online stuff.

Thankfully we were able to get a lot of the major financial stuff taken care of. For a little while it didn’t look like her former bank was going to cooperate with her in preventing someone getting their hands on a pension payment that is due to be deposited into her bank this week, but after several phone calls she was able to get that worked out pretty good! I was quite astounded at the attitude the lady at her new bank took when we were trying to make her understand that it was not possible to make the changes on her direct deposit ahead of time because this was a spur of the moment move. I get the feeling that this lady has never dealt with someone who was in the type of situation we were talking about, and out attempts to explain it to her seemed to fall upon deaf ears.

We need to find a few more things to get her settled into her new apartment, such as a small microwave and either a love seat or a pair of small chairs. She’s also looking for some sort of a desk or computer table that will allow her to access a computer from her wheel chair without being too awkward.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I’m REALLY glad to have her back in the area! Yes, because of being in a wheel chair she does need more help than an able bodied person, and because of living alone she does get lonely and calls often, sometimes for silly reasons. But you know what, I feel honored that she calls me when she’s lonely or when she needs help, and it makes me feel very good to be able to help her out and keep her company!

I’ve gotten so used to spending weekends here at home that this past weekend kind of knocked me off “kilter” LOL. We honestly do lead a very simple, almost boring life. We love being at home and we’re not the type to be out on the go, especially on the weekends. My husband works long and hard hours during the week and looks forward to getting in some much needed relaxation over the weekends.

Saturday was spent helping his sister unload a moving truck. Nearly four years ago she moved away from the area, against EVERYONES advice, and moved into the home of her ex husband. You know, there is a reason why someone has an EX spouse, but I guess as years go by, they can tend to forget that. So when we got the call that she was doing a “fly by night” move when her ex was out of town for a few days, we knew that she had finally realized why he was her EX! So we got the truck unloaded and got the important things put back together, like her bed, the entertainment center and TV and her cats…LOL! My hubby then took her to the store so that she could pick up some necessities that would tide her over until the next day.

We were “up and at ‘em” yesterday morning and out of the house by 9:30 heading up to my sister in laws, with coffee and a few other necessities in hand. We then spent the rest of the day getting everything unpacked and organized, making sure that she could reach the most important things from her wheel chair and that other items that she might need could be reached easily with her grabber things…LOL!

We finally headed home around dinner time, to get a few things taken care of here before heading to bed a little after 9. I felt bad that my husband had spent the bulk of his Fathers Day working hard, but I knew that as much as he would have loved a nice set of Callaway golf clubs and a day of R&R for Fathers Day, he was just thankful to have his sister close by again.

It’s no secret to those that know me that there is no love loss between my step father and I. He came into my family while I was in my first semester of college, right after I graduated from High School. I had gone WAY away from home to attend college, all the way to Florida. A few weeks before final exams started for that semester I received a letter from mom letting me know that my soon to be step father had moved into our home and that while I was home on Christmas break, they were going to get married.

While I wasn’t completely against this man or my mother getting married again, it was obvious when I got home from college that things between he and I weren’t going to be peaches and cream. It took less than 2 years before he and I had both finally had enough of each other and after a major fight between us, I packed my stuff and moved out!

That was more than 20 years ago and I wish I could say things between he and I have gotten better, they haven’t. We have, however, learned how to tolerate each other when there are situations that we have to be near each other. But after talking to my mother this afternoon, I’m honestly not sure I’m going to be able to ever be around him again.

In a few weeks my children are going to head out to the east coast to spend a month with their older sister. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with something special that my husband and I could do for a few days while the kids are gone, but everything I’ve checked into has been way out of the price range that I had in mind. My friend Lisa suggested that we go camping, but sleeping on the ground or even on an air mattress isn’t anything either of us can do anymore. So she asked me if I knew of anyone that had a camper and if I did, maybe I should think about asking them if I could borrow it.

The only people that I knew who had a camper are my mom and step father, so I called mom after I knew she’d be home from work this afternoon. While she thought the idea of my husband and I doing something special while the kids are gone, she said that there was no way my step father would allow us to borrow the camper. When I asked her if she thought it would do any good if I asked him personally she went into this “Holly, I don’t want problems and I don’t need any more reasons for him to get mad at me. I love you, but this is just not going to happen”.

While I respect my mother and the decisions she makes, I can’t help but hope that she has shopped around for cheap term life insurance for my step father because with all of the anger and bitterness this man carries around with him on a daily basis, I have no doubt his days are numbered. No, I don’t relish the thought of my mother burying another husband, but I do look forward to the day that I don’t have to be judged by this “Holier than thou” Christian man! Sorry mom, I do love you, but I have put up with this long enough!

I thought I’d give you a little bit of an update from this post where I went on a semi rant about how I was tired of everyone blaming me for the problems in my family. While I do take the blame for the wrongs that I have done, a dysfunctional family doesn’t happen just because of one person.

I did, for the most part, cut off communication with my sister for almost 2 weeks. After getting an email reply from her that said “Fine, good luck”, I replied back to her simply saying that there is no need for her to talk to me that way, that I’ve dealt with what I’m going through for most of my adult life, I’m used to the road blocks and hassles, but that I do get through them. She, of course, couldn’t accept that and came back with a “Talk to you like what, I was just trying to help” reply. As much as I wanted to write her back and give her a piece of my mind, I decided that it was best to just keep my mouth shut! Amazingly, after receiving daily calls from my mother prior to the email exchange with my sister, the calls from my mother also stopped. I love both of them very much, but I am so sick of the game that they play going back and forth telling each other what I’ve said to them. I wasn’t angry with my mom, I never once did anything but listen to her suggestions and use the ones that I could. But she “assumed” that since I wasn’t very happy with my sisters “interference”, it meant I wasn’t happy with hers either, and nothing could have been further from the truth!

As much as I hate to admit it, taking a break from both of them actually alleviated quite a bit of stress from my life and allowed me to put the focus on things in my own home! I feel like I’ve made some good progress with the kids! We’re not arguing as much as we had been, and they are actually doing a decent job keeping up with the chores that I give them. My daughter has made HUGE progress when it comes to her room. Last Sunday she and I cleaned it from ceiling to floor, washing walls, throwing stuff out, etc. I’m THRILLED to say that her room is still as clean as it was when we finished up last Sunday, which is major for her! She’s done a wonderful job of putting things back when she’s done with them, putting away the clothes that she’s tried on but decided not to wear rather than letting them pile up on the floor and putting away the clean laundry that I give her. She has also done an awesome job of following my rule of having nothing to eat or drink in her room other than water. There has only been 2 times this week where she didn’t follow that rule, but she was quick to bring the dishes out of her room when she realized she shouldn’t have them in there!

I’ve also got to say that my son’s attitudes have really calmed down as well! He’s been much more receptive to me when I ask him to do things, and if he does get an attitude with me I simply look at him and say “This will stop now”, which usually gets him to snap out of his attitude pretty quick. He’s been an awesome helper when I’ve asked him to do things and he’s also done a much better job at tuning his sister down when she’s doing things that he finds annoying, which is a major step for him! There have also been many more times over the past week or so that the kids have been getting along than times when they were fighting with each other, which is a major improvement!

Hopefully we can keep things going, but I also know that it’s not very realistic to expect things to always go well. But it sure has been nice!!

Well hello there! If you don’t mind, I need to pick your brain for a minute and get your thoughts about whether or not you think something would be appropriate. I’ll try to keep this short, but no promises, OK?

Here’s the deal. My niece just had a baby on Thursday, and I’m now a Great Aunt for the second time. I had every intention of making the near 2 hour drive last night to go visit her and the new baby at the hospital, but I ended up coming down with a KILLER headache that was on the verge of a migraine. But anyway, this post isn’t about me, it’s about her, sorry for getting off track there.

So this is my niece’s second child with her first being just 2 1/2 years old. She’s currently a work from home mom, or at least she will be when she goes back from her maternity leave. I’d love to get her a plant or something special to commemorate the birth of her 2nd child. I’m a mom of two who also happen to be 2 1/2 years apart age wise, so I know and remember how rough things were when my daughter first came home.

So when thinking about getting my niece a nice plant or some beautiful flowers, I can’t help but think about the fact that live plants and flowers do take time and care if you want them to stay green…LOL! I was wondering if it would be appropriate to get her a beautiful flower arrangement made with silk flowers instead? That way she has pretty flowers that don’t require daily watering or ones that will die. But I’m just not sure if doing something like that would come across the way that I see it or not. So what are your thoughts, how would you feel if a family member gave you a beautiful silk flower arrangement for your special event? Me personally, I prefer them over real flowers or plants, but that’s because I have a VERY brown thumb…LOL!

Well hello there! How was your weekend? I figured I’d better stop by here and give you an update as to how things went yesterday with the kitchen cabinets as well as how the rest of the weekend has gone. First, WOW, is it just me or did this weekend just completely fly by? It honestly does not seem possible that it’s Sunday evening already!

Anyway, back to the cabinets, sorry, my train of thought just isn’t what it should be some days! Amazingly, without doing ANY measuring before hand, the cabinets that were given to us fit PERFECTLY on the wall that we put them on. I questioned the method they decided to use to hang them because I knew that it would damage the wall and cause more work for me after they were up, but the guys wouldn’t listen to me. They used a 2 inch strip of board to use as a guide for the bottom of the cabinets and they put it up with screws, and sure enough, I now have several holes in the wall that I have to patch from where they first put the screws in, then realized they missed the studs and put a second set in that did hit studs. Other than that, the cabinets look FANTASTIC and I can’t wait until I get the time to get them painted!

My sister, of course, just HAD to go into town while she was here, and wouldn’t take no for an answer when I said that I didn’t want to go. Just because she has to run into town and pick up things does NOT mean she needs me to come along and hold her hand! I swear she’s just not happy sitting still, every time she comes down here she has to go to some store or another. It’s not like she never comes down here, she’s in this area at least once a week. But since our niece is due in a little bit more than a month she wanted to go to a new baby boutique that she had heard about. Yes, I did enjoy myself, but I’d much rather have been able to stay here and help the guys with the cabinets and keep an eye on the kids and the dogs!

I managed to drive up to Michigan Saturday morning in the midst of a snow storm to meet my mom for some shopping and spend time with her. My mom is just a couple of months away from becoming a great grandmother for the 2nd time and I swear if you didn’t know other wise you’d thinkit was her very first grandchild that was about to come into the world…LOL!

Since Christmas has been over my mom has been out buying everything a baby will need from clothes, diapers and bibs to bottles, burp wrags and toys. It’s nice to see mom get this excited over stuff, it gives her something to do other than work for a change! And as surprising as it is, my niece wasn’t too upset over finding out that her second child is another boy. I know that she reallly had her hopes up that it would be a girl this time, but she’s just as excited that her son that just turned two is going to have a little brother!

And as always, when I go to the hospital to see the baby after it’s born, I’ll have to say the line that I stole from Monica on Friends, “I’m your great Aunt Holly and I’ll always have gum”, LOL!!

My husband and I were talking this weekend about “things”. You know, those reality type things that provide the ups and downs for all relationships? Things like bills, and the reality of the fact that I need to make the decision about whether or not I’m going to continue to travel down the road of life with my beloved and trusty Honda. We always talk about this kind of stuff this time of year. Why, you ask? The answer is simple, it’s Income Tax Refund time!

Our “original” plan had been to use our refund this year to pay for a seriously over due major family vacation to the sunny state of Florida. When we first started talking about going to Florida it was because my sister had offered to let us share their time share condo with them. Since the condo was already paid for, the only thing(s) we would need to pay for would be the trip to and from, half of the car rental for the week and anything else that we planned on doing while we were there (i.e. Disneyworld, sight seeing, etc.). Now, all in all, that’s a great deal, especially when you consider that a weeks lodging while on a vacation is at least half the cost of the trip. But I honestly dreaded spending a week under the same roof with my sister and her abusive husband, as did my own husband and children.

So then we started talking about taking our own trip, especially when we discovered that the week my sister had the condo was not the week the kids were on break from school, and I couldn’t justify pulling them out of school for a vacation. I checked into a week near the Orlando area, but just wasn’t sure that’s where I wanted to spend my time. I’m more of a “kick back and relax” kind of person, than an amusement park/sight seeing person, so the thought of spending a week on a beach held more appeal to me! And when I started talking to my husband and kids about it, the beach actually appealed more to them as well.

Unfortunately, reality is kicking in and with the things that need to have major decisions made soon, my husband and I realized yesterday that our vacation simply isn’t going to happen right now. What figures is that I had just a great deal on some really nice travelpro luggage, but I might still grab that because somehow or another we WILL take a family vacation this year, so we will still need to have luggage!

I was talking to my mom on the phone this morning and she asked me if I wanted the set of matching recliners she has in the living room. Well of course I did, they’re awesome recliners and would look great in the front living room. But when I asked her why she was getting rid of them, what she told me completely put me in shock!

My mom is your typical “old school” person and has had the same furniture in her living room for over 30 years. Now, before you go EWWWWWWW you need to know that other than being a little faded from the sun, the furniture is in near mint condition. It’s still very comfortable to sit on and has no holes or signs of being thread bare at all. And since she just turned 70, I honestly did not expect to hear her say that the reason for getting rid of the recliners was because she finally decided it was time to replace her 30+ year old furniture. What shocked me even more was that later, when I was talking to my sister about it, my sister said that the new furniture our mom picked out is a more contemporary furniture style, which she said she couldn’t believe mom chose…LOL! Way to go mom!!

With the New Year closing in, there are several things that I realize are must do’s in 2008! My husband started a new job a few months ago and starting January 1st we’ll have new health insurance, so I need to contact our doctors and make sure they accept the new insurance. I also need to get some term life insurance quotes to replace the life insurance my husband lost when he lost his job, and rather than just having life insurance on him, I’m going to get quotes for coverage for both of us.

The one really cool thing about the family get together for my mom and step dad this past weekend was the fact that everyone brought in a bunch of old photos from when we were younger to go through. There were photos of me from one a summer trip to the lake when I was about 8 or 9, my sister found one of her standing in the trash can “talking” on a phone that didn’t work from when she was 4 or 5 and my brother found a picture that was taken the year that he first started dating his wife. She was in 4H and had just gotten done showing her horse and was still dressed in her horse riding apparel when the picture of the two of them was taken. I also got to see some neat pictures of my step siblings from when they were growing up. Since we were all 18 or over when our parents married, except my little sister, I never knew what they looked like when they were little. The funny thing is, none of us have really changed that much, except for wrinkles, weight gain and gray hair…LOL!