calm

 

I am happy to report that things seem to be moving along in the wedding department and I feel so much better!

After some sleepless nights and lots (and lots and lots) of tears, I finally took it upon myself to email our wedding location and ask them if we could possibly downsize and come up with a package for the deposit amount we'd already paid.

Now this solution occurred to me right at the beginning but I was afraid we'd only be able to have a ceremony there and as we'd had to cancel the rental house, we had no place for a reception meal and couldn't afford to take everybody out to dinner, especially in the Orlando area. And I really didn't want to have everybody travel for the ceremony and send them home without feeding them; I just think that's rude.

Then we thought about a local buffet restaurant here in town. We love that place and go so frequently that we've made friends with the owner and several servers. They have a private room that would be perfect for a dinner and, luckily, it was open on our date so we booked it. This is a really cheap (and hopefully not too tacky) option that will allow everyone to eat their fill and make their own food choices and we should be able to pay for it without causing any problems to our fragile budget especially since we have 6 months to save.

Then, on that sleepless night, I was playing around on the ceremony place website and found a small food package (served out of the most adorable retro trailer) that could be added to the smallest ceremony package bringing the total right to the amount we'd already paid them so we'd be able to offer a little food and drink to our guests especially the ones that might not want to make the hour drive back to our town and the buffet. I feel like this provides the perfect celebratory ending to the ceremony portion of the day and let's get real, the ceremony really IS the most important aspect of our wedding day; I never want to forget that.

I spent an anxious 7 days waiting for the ceremony site to get back to me to see if this would be possible but just this afternoon they finally wrote back and said we could work something out! Now I'll get the beautiful ceremony site plus a photographer (pictures are very important to me) and then we'll head off for a fun dinner and after that we'll have a Halloween costume party at our house and Chris can invite half the town to that if he wants. I know he'd been going around town inviting everybody and their brother to our wedding even though we could only have a set amount.

Now I know that none of this is really important, we could get married at the courthouse and being married to each other would be the only important part...however, I've already done that and I had allowed myself to dream about finally having a wedding with all my family and friends around supporting us and it was hard to let that dream go so I'm glad I don't have to and that we'll still be able to have a family celebration...along with beautiful pictures.

Throughout all the wedding drama we still had to be parents, making sure the kids weren't affected by the drama. We had a lovely Easter weekend and the kids got to go on a couple of egg hunts and visit with the Easter Bunny.

And now I'm going full bridezilla for the next 6 months, focusing on all the little details that nobody else will probably notice but will bring joy to my heart. We don't need any decor for the ceremony, the site is beautiful all on its own, and we won't need much for the buffet and we've already collected all of it. For the party at the house we will finally be able to use all the Nightmare Before Christmas Halloween decorations that we collected last year, things I wasn't sure we'd even be able to use at the rental house but we'll have plenty of room and set up time at our own house.

Through this whole thing Chris kept saying everything happens for a reason. I'm not so sure about that, sometimes I think the only reason is that you're stupid and made bad choices, but it really does seem like this is going to be even better than our original plan, more intimate and personal.

Now, if we could just figure out a cheap but beachy mini-honeymoon to replace the Hawaiian dream we'd been planning. 

unsettled

 

Hello again.

Nothing has really changed, I'm still in limbo and the stress is starting to get to me. I was very grumpy Monday night, feeling like my life is nothing but endless laundry and dish washing and I think I kind of scared the kids with my new, not so pretty attitude. They kept asking their dad what was wrong with me. LOL

I know Chris said to give him 2 weeks to look into options for the wedding but he hasn't done anything this whole week and that eats at me, makes me question everything. I want to dive wholeheartedly into plan B and it seems like he has already forgotten about our lack of wedding plans, like it isn't a priority; like I'm not a priority.

There were a lot of things I wanted from a 2nd adult romantic relationship and a big one was to feel like a priority in the life of the person that was supposed to love me forever. I also wanted financial security and I ain't getting that either.

I know, I'm not doing myself any good with this line of thinking, I'm just so stressed and tired. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I think of is my lack of money (Chris's situation is unchanged - he never had money) and how that might affect my day. I lived this way for the last 10+ years of my marriage, I hate that my life is stuck on this story.

So on to other things - these are my favorite boots in the whole world (with the exception of my very favorite green boots which were lost to me when I couldn't pay for the storage in California after Taz died) and I "lost" them in 2019, couldn't find them anywhere. They were found in 2021 under a stack of Taz's clothes in the very back of our closet, clothes that I just couldn't deal with so I left them there untouched. 

Oh how I rejoiced when I found these boots again when I was clearing everything out of my house after selling it. I put the boots in a box of important things that I couldn't live without. Last week, a year after the house sale, I finally got all my boxes out of storage including the "important" box. Guess I could live without all those things after all. LOL And there were my beautiful boots! I'm wearing them today at the office even though the temperature is soaring and it was so humid this morning. I don't care, I've been without these boots for years now and I'm going to wear them no matter what!

Having my things around me once more is both comforting and unsettling at the same time. Seeing the things I care about brings me joy but it also brings memories and sometimes those memories are hard to take. So many questions about why things have happened this way, it's overwhelming at times. Grief is funny, it hits you out of the blue at the oddest moments and when you least expect it.

I'll be ok...I'm always ok.

limbo

 

Ok, so when we last left dear Jonni she was dealing with the loss of all her hopes and dreams...that about sums it up, right?

So maybe that's a tad dramatic but it's kind of how it feels. I was so excited for this wedding, my first real wedding, and I had worked really hard to find something that was romantic and sweet and for far, far less than the average American wedding costs.

But, when you're broke, you're broke and even the cheapest wedding costs too much so I canceled the things that would refund my deposit. Our ceremony/reception venue isn't one of those things, they are keeping the deposit and we get nothing. We probably could opt for a smaller/cheaper package at the venue that would cost about what we've already paid so we wouldn't have to shell out any more money to them BUT the smaller package doesn't include a cake or food the way our package did and I just won't ask people to travel to a wedding just to see a ceremony (even though that's the most important part) and then send them on their way without feeding them. That seems so tacky. But we can't afford to provide food so as much as I'd like to still have the wedding at the place we fell in love with, I just can't.

Plus, what's a wedding without cake?

So we're trying to think of a Plan B that would still allow us to be married surrounded by our family, and just a few friends, and also feed them but do it all on a McDonalds budget. We've batted around a few ideas but, at least right now, all of them seem a little sad and pathetic to me...or maybe it's just me that's sad and pathetic.

Everything makes me cry.

Chris says he wants to try to come up with options that will save as much of our original wedding as possible. I don't think it's practical but I'm willing to let him try. He says if he doesn't come up with something in 2 weeks we'll look into the sad and pathetic options. I don't know if I can last 2 weeks in this limbo; it's kind of killing me.

Part of me wants to just go to the courthouse and do the deed but the other part of me thinks I'm an idiot. I've done that before and was so looking forward to a real wedding with family and friends this time. Plus, we could never get married without the kids.

Despite all this drama (and it extends far beyond the cancellation of the wedding) we had a nice weekend with the kids. On Saturday we took the dogs to the park and walked the 1 mile trail. Charlie barked at every other dog and Maggie was fairly uncontrollable, running and jumping and lunging at everything and nothing. The good news is that they both wore themselves out enough for me to get a picture of them sitting quietly together. I don't expect that will ever happen again. You can't even tell how much Charlie loathes Maggie in this picture.

We are flat broke and I honestly don't know how we'll survive on a monthly basis but at least we have each other and our family.

devastated

Plot twist

Due to an unforeseen financial setback, we can no longer afford the wedding we were planning and we've had to cancel everything. It wasn't even an expensive wedding, but now we can barely afford anything.

I can barely function, I'm so sad and I have no idea what the future holds.

It's just really shitty. 

loss

 

A year ago today I walked out of the front door of my house for the very last time.

I was forced to sell it before there was a foreclosure because I wasn't able to pay the mortgage by myself and the people that had been living there with me hadn't paid any rent for months and weren't taking any steps to change that situation. I was able to hold on to it as long as I did because of COVID but those protections were coming to an end and I had no choice.

It was a painful decision to make, giving up the place I'd loved for over 20 years and the last place Taz ever lived. I had hoped that I'd be able to live there with my new family but that didn't work out because of custody issues.

If I'd listened to my mother decades ago and purchased the home owners insurance that paid the house off in the event of the death of a spouse, I'd still have the house. But I was just a young adult and the idea of death was just so far away and improbable.

Stupid, I was.

But I can't change any of it so on to the good news - we cleared out the storage unit where all of the stuff from my house had been stored for over a year! And by "we" I mean Chris did it all, just like he pretty much did a year ago when we moved it all out of the house.

Most of the boxes have gone into our spare room and I'll spend the next year few weeks going through them but the first boxes I'm going to tackle will be my books, my old friends. I figured out that I boxed these books up over 2 years ago, right before the roommates moved in when I was clearing out most of the house for them so I haven't seen these books in a very long time and I miss them.

We bought a new bookcase over the weekend and Chris and the kids surprised me by putting it together while I was driving home from work yesterday. It was such a sweet gesture because they know how much this all means to me.

Having some things from my old house/life around me again is soothing to my soul. Already some of my kitchen stuff is being put to use and some of my decor items are displayed and it makes me smile just to see it all.

It's not easy integrating two households which is probably why we put it off for so long. We've bought some new things this past year that makes some of my things not needed but luckily I work for an organization that houses the homeless so I can always donate the things that I no longer need and they will be part of a fresh start for somebody else.

As I look around at my things snuggled next to Chris's things I know that although there has been a lot of loss in my life, there has been even more gain. I have a new house that we are renovating together, a new family and definitely a new future - one I never could have imagined. There will be more tears along the way, I will always grieve for Taz and our old life but that doesn't mean I won't fully embrace my new life and create many more memories along the way.

On a related note, I REALLY miss my swimming pool especially since I just got a new swimsuit that I'm in love with. I think I see a water park visit in my future!

peace

 

Good morning from my office!

Ever since COVID we've been given the option to work from home part of the time and since I have a very long commute, I've chosen to work from home 3 days a week and in the office the other 2 days. It works out well because I find myself looking forward to my office days as a nice change of pace. I enjoy the interaction with my supervisor because there's always a lot of gossip important news to catch up on.

But my real favorite day of the week is Friday when there is nobody else in the house when I wake up and I can throw on just a shirt and panties and sit in the living room doing my work with absolute peace and quiet.

I value peace a lot, sometimes probably to my own detriment because I have often sought peace at any price. It will come as no surprise to anybody that knew him that Taz had a temper with a capital T. I did not grow up with anyone with a temper so living with Taz's frequent outbursts was an eye-opener for me. He wasn't often mad AT me but he was mad AROUND me and the volume was the same and the yelling battered my soul. I often felt like I was walking on eggshells just waiting for the next thing that set him off. I would plan every aspect of our lives down to the last detail just to make sure there was nothing to upset him but it was always the details I couldn't control that messed up that plan.

Peace is what I crave these days and I'm blessed enough to have it most of the time. No more yelling, no more anger, no more rage, no more walking on eggshells.

Chris shares many traits with Taz, I think they would have liked each other, but his most important trait is what they don't have in common - he brings me peace. He has a temper about stuff in the outside world but he never brings it home. In the almost 2 years we've been together, he's never gotten angry at me and not only that, he's encouraged me to let him know when I'm not all that thrilled with him and we talk about it and he never blames me for feeling that way. It's been refreshing.

I value peace, it's what I crave, and I used to work very hard to have it but now it just comes naturally and that's such a blessing. Our daily life is full of laughter and love and most of the drama comes from the interaction of two growing children who love each other but also get on each other's nerves. Our grownup relationship has plenty of excitement but little drama which maybe explains why when drama does happen it seems magnified for the moment. But quickly we slip back into the peaceful pattern and just enjoy each other's company.

A year ago I was getting ready to sell my house and was busy packing up the last few things. Those things have been in storage this whole time so this weekend it's going to be time to open up the boxes and incorporate more of my things into our home and get rid of the things I really don't need anymore. I think that's one of the reasons I've been feeling a little unsettled, I miss having some of my things around me, especially my books. I've been in a sort of limbo for a long while now and it's time to incorporate the old life and the new and figure out who Jonni is in 2022.

On another note - it's just 7 months until the wedding! I haven't done a lot of planning since we settled on a date and place but now it's finally time to get into high gear wedding planning mode so that's probably what my next few posts will be about.

trust

 

Many years ago Taz dropped a piece of paper on our bedroom floor and I found it. It was an email he had printed out from a former coworker and she was going to be in town (from Virginia) so they were planning on getting together for dinner. It was all innocent, her new husband was along on the trip, except that he had told me he was getting together with his friend Michael that night.

And that was the moment I stopped trusting him. 

Trust is essential in a relationship and I hated second guessing everything he said from that moment on and I truly don't believe he lied often (although there is a night when he was on a trip in Virginia and I couldn't reach him and he never called and he said he accidentally left his phone in the car but that's hard to believe and I'll always wonder if he was fucking his friend Venihlde...) but there was always that seed of doubt and I know it affected our relationship.

 I always asked myself if my life with him was better than it would be without him and the answer was always the same and I stayed and now I have a lifetime of happy memories and only a few bad ones so I can't help but believe I made the right choice.

And now I find myself in the same spot, my trust has been broken over something stupid but if lies are told over something basically (but not completely) innocent then how am I ever to trust that they're not being told over bigger things?

I have been given a guarantee that this will never happen again (and Chris's guarantees are like gold, so much stronger than a promise in his eyes) and otherwise things are great so it seems like the answer is simple...but nothing is really ever simple, is it?

In other news - I have finally gotten around to watching the 2nd season of Emily in Paris on Netflix and I want to visit Paris/France so badly!!