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.

truth again

 

Recently I've been reading some of my old blog posts - specifically ones from 2019. 

That was a hard year, my first after Taz died and before I let other people live in my house and, of course, before COVID changed everything.

I started that year totally broken, I hated spending time on my own so I was trying to fill the hours with any sort of activity. I relied too much on people who probably wished I would just go away but the truth was that I spent 95% of my time alone so I guess I didn't lean on them too much even if they might have felt that way.

As the year went on, I started to get used to being by myself, making my own decisions, doing whatever the hell I wanted to whenever I wanted. Weekends stopped being endless hours of pain and I started to realize I could run around, sightsee or just hang out by the pool and it was no one's decision but mine. There is freedom in that, maybe I didn't appreciate it enough at the time. And the best thing - I could watch whatever I wanted to on TV!

This post, Truth, from 4 years ago really hit me when I read it today especially this part -When I'm not busy distracting myself I realize how very alone I am. It is a literal truth that if I weren't here anymore, no one's life would be negatively impacted...except maybe Charlie. Sure, there might be people who might miss me but only for a fleeting moment but nothing about me not being here anymore would change their lives in any way. 

One of the things I like about keeping a blog is documenting exactly how I felt at a given time because it's easy to forget those intense emotions. Clearly, 4 years ago, I felt lost and alone in the world and I couldn't conceive of a time when I'd feel any different. I was still hanging on to as much of my old life as I could - living in the same house, going to the same job, socializing at Disney where I had so many happy memories. But I wasn't getting enjoyment out of all that, none of it was the same as when Taz was there and I was really only going through the motions, not living.

It was only a matter of time before things had to change and, luckily, they changed so gradually that I was able to retain a little bit of sanity.

As I read those words today I realized that so many things have changed in the last 4 years. I am no longer alone, I do have people in my life who would miss me, their lives would be negatively impacted without me and lives would change.

4 years ago, deep in the midst of the struggle to live through grief, I honestly couldn't see a situation any different than the one I was in and now, it's hard to imagine how I must have felt back then.

It's a truth I need to remember - things change. Just because I felt lost and alone 4 years ago doesn't mean I would always feel that way. Just because I feel rather overwhelmed with the demands of kids right now doesn't mean it'll always be that way. 

Things change because we take steps to make things better. 4 years ago I did whatever I could to meet new people and put myself in new situations. A little over 3 years ago I was so very unhappy with my living situation (those damned roommates that weren't paying rent but felt they had the right to dictate rules about how I lived) that I defied a worldwide pandemic and set about meeting someone new to love and changed my life for all time.

It's all up to me - it was then and it is now. Damned if I'm not about to change a few things.

Bahamas, baby!

 

We went to the Bahamas for our family vacation this year and it was fabulous!

We sailed on Margaritaville at Sea for a 2 night cruise to the Bahamas...yes, the very same one we went on for our honeymoon. It's a smaller and older ship but it had plenty for us. I found another one of those great sales with a buy one, get one and the 3rd and 4th passengers sail for free so we decided to take the kids and make it a real family vacation.

Chris suggested we invite my sister and her family along to join us which was an amazing idea. The best part of the cruise was having her along to make memories with.

Her grandkids had been with her all summer so this was our final summer moment before school started for everybody. The kids were all excited about taking a cruise (and having cousins to play with) but they weren't quite prepared for the fact that sometimes on a ship you have to wait for things like your luggage arriving in the cabin and you have to attend the muster drill even if it's boring.

And so began the 11 year old's descent into pre-teenagerhood. She moped, she drooped, she had an earache that only plagued her when she was bored or hungry but never when there was a swimming pool around...conveniently for her. On our honeymoon cruise we saw every show the ship offered but on this cruise we saw no shows because mopey needed to go back to the cabin each evening right after dinner because she didn't feel good. I was not amused.

Luckily for all of us, she felt peachy keen in the morning we docked in the Bahamas and headed off for our excursion day at a beach resort. There was a lazy river and that's her favorite thing in the world so she wasn't going to miss that. My favorite thing is the beach and I actually went there by myself for most of the morning and it was glorious. Everybody eventually joined me and the 11 year old and I had a marvelous time jumping waves and splashing around and she was feeling just fine.

The resort was gorgeous, everything I wanted the Bahamas to be and it was a wonderful day.

We got back to the ship and we were hungry so we went to the buffet only to find that it wasn't going to open for another hour. We figured it wasn't worth it to go back to the cabin so we sat right at a table, got some drinks and waited.

I guess waiting is too much for an 11 year old and she started to droop once again and then her face was all scrunched up in pain as she looked at us and asked why we had to wait as if we could just snap our fingers and make it all better for her.

The little scrunchy face might have gotten to me if she hadn't just been bragging to her cousin that it was a face she practiced in the mirror to elicit sympathy and get out of doing chores around the house.

Yeah, like that's ever going to work again.

Unfortunately she got herself so worked up that once again we had to leave as soon as we'd eaten and spent the rest of the evening in the cabin because she didn't feel up to doing anything and she's too young to leave by herself. So no shows or dancing or casino for us. I was not happy and have vowed never to take kids on a cruise again. I am glad I have such perfect memories of our honeymoon cruise and had an almost perfect day at the beach this time.

Happier moments from the cruise before we were hit by Hurricane Pre-teen.

All in all, it was a lovely vacation and getting to spend it with my sister made it perfect for me.

Summer fun - part 2

 

And now Part 2 of How I Spent My Summer Vacation although I definitely haven't been on vacation...yet. LOL

Now y'all know I LOVE the Fancy Flea vintage shows and I vowed to make it to every one this year and, so far, I've made good on that promise.

The July show is always my favorite, mostly because it's INSIDE in air conditioning which, in July in Florida, is like being in Heaven. Or maybe it's just that being outside is like being in Hell so inside just feels like Heaven.

Anyway, the show ran Friday and Saturday and I knew we'd be too busy with basketball to get there on Saturday so weeks ago I requested Friday off from work. I went by myself because the kids were with their mother and Chris was working and sometimes it's more fun to visit a vintage show by myself anyway so that I can meander and visit a booth more than once without any particular reason. This show had 2 full convention rooms full of glorious stuff, all quite drool-worthy.

I loved looking at every single item and went around the convention rooms several times but there just wasn't anything I loved enough to spend money on so after a couple of hours in Heaven, I went home empty-handed.

I made up for it, though, because I later went to a local store and treated myself to a couple pieces of clothing. I felt like I had earned it by being so self sacrificing at the Flea.

We all went to see the Barbie movie the next day, even James although he didn't make it into this picture. Cadence and I wore our matching pink Barbie shirts and got quite a bit of attention. I didn't think the movie was as funny as I'd expected it to be so I can't say I loved it but Cadence thought it was AMAZING so I'm glad we all went. Every 3 months Cadence and I have a Girls' Day and this was our special event. We "allowed" the boys to accompany us...mostly because we figured they'd think it was torture and that was funny to us.

And then the next day the most glorious thing happened - we went to the beach!

Chris is not a beach person but the kids and I love it so he drove 2 hours so that we could spend the day splashing in the water and adding to our seashell collection. The weather was perfect with a little breeze (at least until the big rain storm came in later that afternoon) and we had the best time. My little beach loving soul was finally happy and I loved every minute. I am going to insist that we go at least every 2 months because why put up with the horrendous Florida summers if you're not going to enjoy the wonderful Florida beaches?

And that won't be my last beach trip for the summer because we're ending the season with a bang - a real vacation for us and my sister's family. Remember how we took a real quick 2 day honeymoon cruise right after our wedding? Well that cruise line ran a special earlier in the year for 2 for 1 cruises again AND kids were free so we all booked a family vacation right before school starts up again. I've never vacationed with my sister (and her grandkids and her husband) before so this should be all sorts of awesome.

Can't wait to tell you all about it and show pictures!

Summer fun

 

The summer has pretty much flown by and, for the most part, it's been quite nice. We've definitely had some fun times and lots of laughs.

Chris and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary together by getting away for one night in Orlando and it was the perfect night because, for once, I had all his attention. We found a really cheap motel right across from ICON park and got to ride the big ferris wheel and see all of Orlando spread out at our feet. They let you stream music through their speakers so we slowed danced to our song hundreds of feet up in the air. It was all so much fun that we swore we'd do something like that more often. Of course we haven't but it was nice to think we would.

The very next day the "honeymoon" was over because we picked up our grandson for the week. Chris took him to an arcade museum so that they could play pinball and video games for a couple of hours.

Our grandson enjoyed spending time with us but he was really looking forward to spending time with Cadence and James...until they actually arrived and then he and James fought for the next few days in between the times they were getting along well enough to play. It was a long week.

So long and so stressful of a week that I couldn't wait to drive away on Friday to meet up with my sister for a long-planned girls weekend! We had so much fun together, discovered a new favorite restaurant and got matching tattoos. She is my most favoritest person in the world and I'm so lucky that we're related. For so many years I lived too far away for us to hang out together and now that we're just 6-ish hours away from each other we plan to see each other as much as possible. 

This time we each drove 3 hours and met in the middle of nowhere Florida and discovered a place we want to come back to again and again...and maybe sometimes we'll even bring our husbands.

The next weekend was Fathers Day and we took the kids to play a round of miniature golf. It was hot and humid and Cadence and I almost passed out from heat exhaustion but we all had fun.

The next weekend my sister and her family came down and we went to my mother's nursing home to celebrate her 101st birthday. We got her out of bed and had a little party in the dining room. 

And then the next day we celebrated Cadence's 11th birthday at Main Event with her best friend.

By the time that weekend was over, I was seriously exhausted but luckily I had a little 4 day weekend to look forward to because of the July 4th holiday.

I finally got to treat myself to that sushi I'd been craving since May. It's not my favorite sushi restaurant but it was good and satisfying and it felt so good to do something entirely for myself.

I'll talk about the rest of July in the next post - I had a lovely visit to the summer Fancy Flea and we, finally, got to go to the beach!