goodbye October

 

today is halloween and we've come to the end of october finally. i really love halloween and now the end of october is also my wedding anniversary and i think maybe i set my expectations too high because i'm just really ready to move on to november.

i went to a really fun workshop last week to learn how to embellish jean jackets - i brought in an old pink one that i have. we had our choice of painting a stencil or using a transfer and i chose the transfer because a) it was a design i really liked and b) i figured i'd just make a mess with the paint. i love how it turned out and it was fun to be creative with a bunch of other women although they were all strangers to me. now i just have to wait for the weather to get cool enough to actually wear it.

c played in her first ever basketball game for the ymca and her team won 38-15 so that was exciting. i am still annoyed that we're even playing basketball at the y this season when i'd asked for a break (i don't think i'll ever stop being annoyed about being ignored) but that doesn't mean i'm not going to be there to cheer my girl on.

a few hours after the basketball games we attended the halloween howl in our downtown. we went 2 years ago and had a blast but we were a little too busy getting married last year so i vowed that we would attend this year and made sure the kids had costumes and candy buckets and mentioned the event every few days so that chris knew we were going. it was fun, c's best friend was there with her family so we all walked around together, there was a haunted house which the kids all loved and a ton of candy was being given out. i dressed up as kuromi - hello kitty's naughty friend and got a lot of comments on how cute i was. that's probably why i like this event so much, i enjoy the attention.

and then the next day was our much anticipated 1 year anniversary. well, i guess i was the only one anticipating it. i had a gift for chris - a wallet to replace the one that was stolen earlier this month. this one had skulls on it fairly similar to his tattoo and i had fun picking it out just for him.

i was excited to see if he had any special plans for the day but he didn't and we ended up just going to the ymca so that the kids could swim which was really not how i'd wanted to spend the day. so now i know that it's all going to be up to me to plan birthdays and anniversaries and holidays. i had hoped this marriage would be different but it's not. good thing i have years of experience making the magic for myself.

and now we're on to november which is birthday month for me and many of my family members. i am under no illusion about anybody planning anything special for me but, trust me, i'm going to make sure i have a fabulous month!

October

 

October has been a busy month so far, that's for sure.

My son turned 9 at the beginning of the month and we had a little birthday party for him with some of his school and basketball friends. He had a great time running around at the park, playing on the playground with all the other kids. He's a very social kid, just like his father, so having a bunch of friends around him was the best birthday present he could have.

On the other hand, maybe the remote control car that he got to help build at the mall was his best birthday present. Either way, that kid had a great birthday.

When not picking up all the crap the kids leave behind in the living/kitchen/dining rooms (and trust me on this, I'm doing you a favor by not posting all the pictures I've taken of their piles of things that belong in their rooms and not left out in the rest of the house) I've been busy working on my new hobby - jewelry designing.

I've always been interested in jewelry design and I've taken a few classes over the years but have always lost interest because I don't have a dedicated space to do my work and I never have enough supplies on hand (and no money to buy them) but I've decided to stop with all those excuses and just start building up my inventory because I'm going to start my own little business and work the vintage fairs and craft shows and see if I can sell a few things.

I still don't have a dedicated space (unless you count the dining room table that I'm currently occupying and won't let anybody move my stuff to eat there) and I need to order more supplies but Amazon has inexpensive stuff so I'm just going to allow myself to spend money on myself and not always on kids. My goal is to spend the winter building up inventory so that I can rent a space at the spring Fancy Flea.

Fall I basketball season ended and Fall II has already begun with the first games coming up on Saturday. We will be at the Y from 11 to 2 that day which means any Fall Festivals that day will have to go on without us. I have at least 2 festivals each Saturday that I would have loved to have gone to between now and Christmas but it is what it is.

My nephew/brother, who lives in Atlanta, came into Florida last week on business and we were able to meet up for dinner one night and catch up. We hadn't seen each other in over 5 years so there was a lot of stuff to talk about. We both lost loved ones in that time and we got a chance to talk about that. He was the last member of my family to hang out with Taz and me just a month before he died. We are just months apart in age and spent pretty much every day of our childhood together since his mom (my older sister) worked and my mom took care of both of us kids until we went off to school. I always call him my first best friend and although our lives went off in different directions and we haven't always been close as adults, there's a bond there and it was lovely to see him. I love his wife so I was sorry she wasn't along on this business trip.

This past weekend we didn't have a basketball game or the kids which is probably never going to happen again in this lifetime so Chris and I got to spend a little quality time together for the first time in a while.

There was a car show downtown Friday night with food trucks so we attended and it was a blast. I absolutely love events like this, there were so many fun cars to see and the pizza cone was delicious. 

I don't think Chris loves events like this as much as I do and he, at first, acted like there was nothing good to eat but he finally relaxed and found something that he enjoyed. He loved looking at the cars too and even found a guy that does custom painting on vehicles that might be able to help him fix up his truck when the time comes.

It was a lovely night but it was nothing compared to the next day. I had been looking forward to visiting Gulfport, Florida for at least a year and a half (I discovered it when I was researching honeymoon destinations) and it didn't disappoint.

Gulfport is a little beach town on the bay (so the beach has a harbor view, not an ocean view) with a downtown area full of restaurants and quirky shops. The town motto is "Keep Gulfport Weird" so you know it's a perfect town for me.

Since we didn't have the kids this weekend we used this day as an opportunity to celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary a week early and I had stumbled on this restaurant that looked perfect for an anniversary celebration. It had atmosphere up the ying yang plus it looks very similar to a restaurant in Carmel so it gave me warm, fuzzy feelings since I love Carmel so much.

Although it had the perfect romantic atmosphere, the food didn't live up to the hype which means we'll probably never eat there again but I sure enjoyed the views and luckily Gulfport has many other restaurants to try.

We finished our visit with ice cream (always a winner in my book) and then left town after a perfect visit.

Just a little ways from Gulfport is a scenic rest area, also on the bay, which also gave me Carmel vibes with the water, rocks and pine trees. If I had drinks and snacks, I could stay there all day just enjoying the water views and peace. If I didn't have to drive through Tampa traffic to get there, I'd probably want to go every day.

Sunday we did a little shopping so that Chris could get 2x4s to rebuild our deck railing and I found the cutest jacket at Walmart. Now, I live in Florida and it's rarely chilly enough to need a jacket and I have a shit ton of other jackets (including Taz's beautiful leather jacket that he picked up in China) so I didn't NEED this jacket but I wanted it...badly...and I'm kind of in a mood to give myself treats these days so I got it and now I just have to wait for the temps to get out of the 80s so that I can wear it.

So that takes care of the first half of October, can't wait for Halloween/anniversary weekend...well, maybe not the hours we'll be spending at 2 basketball games on Saturday but I'm sure the rest of the weekend will be great.

Dreams

 I had a weird dream last night - actually a couple of weird dreams.

The first one took place in Walmart and I'd found a big piece of chocolate shaped like a wedding cake and I wanted to buy it for our upcoming wedding anniversary but there wasn't any money in our bank account. Chris was there and he felt bad but there was nothing he could do.

In the second dream I was in Disney World with Taz and although we didn't have annual passes anymore, we bought tickets for a weekend and Taz surprised me by getting a hotel room at the Polynesian Resort which we'd never stayed at before but was always one of our favorite places to hang out.

I didn't even think about the fact that Taz was in my dream until I woke up and then I was kind of surprised he showed up in my dreams again. I sincerely thought he'd left after the last big dream I had about him.

In that dream he showed up after all these years and I knew he'd been dead but I don't think he realized why he'd been gone. I hung out with him a little and then I had to tell him that I was now married to someone else and our time was over. He gave me a sad little smile and then walked out of the door and when I woke up I figured it was symbolic and it meant I would never see him again.

Good thing I don't make my living by interpreting dreams cuz I was big time wrong and there he was again.

It's always a little weird when he shows up, but nice too. I enjoy a chance to see his grin and have some interaction. I imagine that my dream about Disney World was because I really miss aspects of my old life and, with the rose colored glasses of memory, it seems like it was less complicated than right now...and Disney World was a big part of that life, a place we both loved. So I guess my mind just needed to spend a little time in a safe place and that's good.

Life is weird and grief is hard and I'm not sure I'm doing a good job with any of it these days.

basketball

 

I may have mentioned that we've been involved in basketball with the YMCA. J, our 9 year old, has been playing every weekend for the past 16 months while Chris has been coaching.

That's a helluva lot of months.

I was all excited about basketball last summer, I was the one who made sure we got J signed up. Then Chris volunteered to coach and he LOVES it. It has become his passion and I fully support passion but 16 months of practice once a week and never having a Saturday free to do anything and extra "practice" sessions thrown in every week has worn me down. It wouldn't be so bad if it just lasted for a season or two but it's been every damn week for almost a year and a half now.

I wanted to take a break this summer like so many other coaches and families were doing but Chris wouldn't hear of it.

So I asked him if we could take a break in November and December to have our Saturdays free to do holiday things as a family and he agreed to it.

Until he started coming up with all sorts of excuses of why he shouldn't take a break and then he encouraged our daughter, C, to sign up for basketball with the older group and then he made a bet with J that if he kept his room clean (something that has been very hard for him in the past) he would get to play next season and suddenly, not only is J signed up for basketball but so is C.

This means that not only are we NOT taking a break next season but we'll be doubling the amount of time we spend at the YMCA - 2 practice nights and up to 4 hours of games on each Saturday between now and Christmas not to mention all the extra Sunday afternoons Chris sneaks in there.

I am sincerely not happy about this; it's kind of a serious thing and it's caused a lot of sleepless nights for me.

So, I've got choices to make. I didn't want to become a couple that spends a lot of time apart, doing separate things with their free time but I really don't want to spend every single damn Saturday (and Tuesday and Wednesday nights) at the YMCA so I'm going to figure out what my passion is and see where that road leads me.

I will be there for games, I still support the kids, but during this holiday season I might miss a couple games if some holiday event is taking place at the same time and I'm going to work on my own hobbies in the evenings instead of going to practices. I just have to find the balance for my own peace of mind.