hurricane

 

There's a hurricane (Ian) headed this way so that's been consuming my thoughts lately.

Yesterday the track looked like it was going to come right over our town which was of great concern. Our county ordered a mandatory evacuation and I wasn't even sure what we were going to do.

I had decided that my office in Orlando was the safest place but Chris's job as a first responder requires him to stay and help evacuate nursing homes and hospitals so he wasn't going to be able to drive an hour to my office in case he was needed here. Plus the kids will be with their mother when the storm hits and he didn't want to be so far away if they needed help.

I didn't want to evacuate all the way up there without him so my next option would be shelters but I really didn't want to do that by myself either so it was a great relief when the storm track started to shift today and now it looks like it will be hitting land further south of us and while we'll probably get a lot of rain, it won't be going right over us.

Fingers crossed it stays that way!

So to distract myself I'm going to talk about wedding stuff.

We've been busy picking up decor items for the wedding/Halloween party. We've decided to give people cups to take home with the plates, all decorated with sugar skulls.

I have my bouquet, Chris's bout and bouquets for all the bridesmaids ready to go.

I found these Nightmare Before Christmas shoes for Chris yesterday and, surprise, he actually likes them and wants to wear them for the ceremony. That's the theme of our ceremony so the shoes are perfect and will probably be quite the conversation starter.

I have these cute shirts for us to wear the day before the wedding when we host our families for a bbq the night before. I saw them months ago and knew I had to have them because they go so perfectly with our theme.

Speaking of families, Chris's brother and family (10 people) called the other day to say none of them would be able to make it. It was a huge disappointment for both Chris and me but I can't dwell on it. I'm really not happy about the decisions they've made but I can't change it.

That's our cake topper - I just love it! Chris's oldest daughter is going to make our cake. The design is going to be her surprise for us and that's just dandy with me because she does lovely work. I can't wait to see what she comes up with.

I had worried that Chris's older kids wouldn't make it to the wedding because his daughter is out on the road with her trucker boyfriend and his son might not make it a priority but I've been assured that both of them will be there. The younger kids have no choice because they will be with us - ha ha ha.

I'm just about ready to order wedding clothes for the kids - purple polo shirts for the boys and a pretty purple dress for my younger stepdaughter which mimics the neckline on my wedding dress.

Speaking of wedding dress, I texted the person that has had my dress for alterations since June and she said it wasn't completed yet but she would get in touch with me soon. I hope it's very soon, I want the dress finished and safely with me.

And we've had one little bump in the road - kind of a big one really. The person that was supposed to marry us had to back out because of a mandatory work event. I asked someone in my family if they would consider doing it because it's so easy to get "ordained" by the Internet and all they'd need to do is sign the marriage license but they seemed to think it was too complicated and so I withdrew the request and said I'd make other arrangements. I must admit, I was kind of ticked off that they were making it more complicated than it really was. But now I've been told they "hustled" to get their real ordination papers and would like to marry us. Well great but why didn't *they* tell me this? The last communication I'd had was that they thought I should make other arrangements and they hoped it wouldn't be too complicated for me. Never once did they say that they were working on getting their papers because they really wanted to do it.

The petty part of me wants to just turn them down and find my own officiant but that's pretty stupid of me and would just cost more money that we don't have so I'll just let it go. I wish there had been better communication and that the person involved had actually TOLD me they were still working on being able to do it. The way they left it with me they clearly didn't want the hassle and just wished me luck finding somebody but apparently lots of communication was going on between everybody else.

I'm not going to worry about it anymore, I have a bunch of things to deal with before the wedding - the hurricane, of course and then right after that on Saturday we're throwing an 8th birthday party for James with 18 8 year olds and I can't get out to order the cake or make plans until Friday because of the hurricane. It will be awesome no matter what. Can't wait to share pictures.

I'll visit again after the hurricane moves through, hopefully I'll still have power!

family

 You know what's really fun? When your fiance gets a call from his brother to let him know that none of his family is coming to the wedding - not the brother, sister in law or his 3 kids still at home or his two adult kids with their husbands and children.

That's over 1/3 of the guest list gone. 

I don't care that the wedding attendance is smaller, heck, I LOVE small weddings, but I DO care that Chris's family can't do this for him, be there for him. If they wanted to they could find a way.

I fully expect that other members of Chris's family will pull out at the last moment as well. Thank goodness my little family of 4 are excited about coming and already making big plans with their costumes. I appreciate them so much.

I have friends that haven't been able to make it and I totally understand that, it's not the same situation as Chris's family knowing about this for over a year and then backing out at the last minute.

At this point it's only going to be my family, Chris's adult kids (fingers crossed) and my best work friend along with a couple of friends of Chris's from his work...although at least one of those people is notorious for making plans and then not showing up so who knows.

The good thing is I will no longer have to pay an overage charge for having more people than the package allows for at the ceremony venue AND it's such a small group I think we might be able to pay for lunch after the ceremony before we head back for the Halloween party AND because we just fed all those people we can cut way back on what we serve at the party so really win-win.

Except Chris has to live with the fact that he wasn't important enough for his family and that sucks and I'll never forget it.

connection

 

"She could damn well have stayed home; SHE doesn't have a connection to the kids."

Those were the words of Chris's ex wife when she realized I would be attending the school open house last night to meet the kids' teachers.

So, bitch, I don't have a connection to the kids? I have only been loving them, feeding them, doing their laundry, buying their school supplies and clothes, buying Christmas and birthday presents, planning their parties, listening to their hopes and dreams and nightmares, helping with homework, soothing their fevers and upset tummies, taking them on adventures, laughing with them and dreaming about their futures for over 2 years. 

I think part of the problem is that I've been kept in the background up until a few months ago, never going with Chris (at his request) to pick them up or drop them off so it was easy for her to pretend that I didn't exist.

I've always wondered about that, however, because if I had kids that were spending 50% of their time with another woman I sure as hell would want to get to know that other woman to make sure she was good enough for my kids, there's no way I'd go for 2 years without making contact.

To be honest, she's still never acknowledged me even when we've been in the same car heading to basketball games. She's never looked at me or introduced herself or even said hello when I've tried to catch her eye; it's quite bizarre and it's only going to get worse as the years go on.

And Chris just wanted to avoid all of this conflict as long as possible because he knew she wouldn't react well. They've been divorced for over 4 years and she was the one that went outside of the marriage but she acts like I'm a homewrecker even though I only came on the scene 2 years ago.

So I just needed to record this because her words have been going through my head over and over again since she said them last night. I have no connection to the kids as far as she's concerned...but luckily I don't give a crap what she thinks.