weekends

 

Sometimes weekend plans work and sometimes they don't.

2 weekends ago we went on a special trip to south Florida. It had been one of the Christmas presents from me to Chris, to travel to the South Florida Fair to see Brandon Davis in concert.

Brandon is an upcoming country singer that Chris discovered a couple of years ago and absolutely loves and we've already been to 2 of his concerts. In December, when I discovered that he was playing a headliner concert at the fair in January, I bought tickets for the 4 of us (it was a kid weekend) and got an inexpensive motel room near the fairgrounds for the night and surprised Chris with the news on Christmas day. He got tears in his eyes when I told him because following this guy's career means a lot to him.

We headed out straight after basketball because it was a 3 hour drive down to West Palm Beach. The drive was a breeze, check-in at our motel went smoothly and soon we were enjoying the sights and sounds of the fair.

The kids and I had a great time playing with Sally while waiting for the concert to start. It was their first concert experience and they loved it. Because we'd been to some of his other concerts he remembered us and talked to the kids, posed for pictures (which I can't seem to find on my phone) and played really great music for a couple of hours. We had used one of his songs "Step By Step" at our wedding because it's about becoming a family so hearing it live in the concert was amazing.

The whole weekend was so much fun and reminded me how much I love traveling and making new memories. Everything was perfectly planned because I'm awesome like that; I just love planning trips.

And then there's this past weekend - epic fail.

I had planned on us attending an outdoor flea market that a new shop in town was holding but Chris forgot (probably never listened in the first place) and planned some work things after basketball without my knowledge that he needed my help with. I watched the time go by and finally said I was going to the flea market by myself but by the time I made it there they had already closed and I was left feeling, once again, like my wishes are the lowest priority and that's not a pleasant feeling. Then, because of circumstances out of his control, Chris had to spend all of Sunday hanging around the house waiting for a repair person so we couldn't even do anything together that day either. And I know it sounds like I'm whining but I'm just so tired of coming in last when it comes to the things I want to do. It was that way all during the Christmas season - I had several events I wanted us to attend and we went to none of them because it just wasn't important enough to anybody but me.

I don't really know what to do except just start expecting to do things on my own. I've already put down a few things in my own personal calendar for the next few months and I'm going to make myself a priority even if nobody else does. Life is too short to waste time waiting for somebody else to put you first. Time to take care of me.

Christmas and New Year's Eve

 

Happy New Year!

I have some pictures from Christmas and New Years Eve that I'd like to share. We had a lovely Christmas day with the kids, they enjoyed their presents, we ate ham (which I really don't like) plus Chris insisted on making green bean casserole and yams (which the kids and I don't like) but Chris enjoyed it all. Later I made biscuits and the kids and I spread them with Nutella which we all enjoyed so at least we didn't go hungry. 

The kids went back to their mother's house that evening and were there until they went back to school after the new year so I finally got a chance to work from home without interruptions which was very much appreciated.

One amazing thing that we did on Christmas morning was to visit each of the 3 ladies that Chris transports at 5am 3 days a week to wish them Merry Christmas and give them a little present. It was a complete surprise to each of them and they were so touched that their transport driver and his family remembered them on that day. These are the same 3 ladies that attended our wedding and each of them calls Chris their "husband" because they swear he married each of us that day. I couldn't ask for 3 sweeter "sister wives" so I'm ok with that. Truly, going to see them was the best part of Christmas day for all of us.

We had a quiet New Years Eve. Chris canceled his plans to do work with his business partner to get the office/shed ready and was willing to go with me to a favorite little town but it started raining as we started out and walking around that town in the rain would be no fun so we decided to go out to eat for lunch and then back home to enjoy snacks and movies for the rest of the night.

Neither of us made it until midnight, we took a "nap" at 9pm. Chris set an alarm for 11:30pm but that didn't wake him up so I turned it off. I was still awake at midnight and he magically woke up at that minute, kissed me and then was back asleep right away, which was actually pretty funny. I didn't mind that we didn't have any party plans, I enjoyed a quiet start to 2023 - the year I reclaim myself.

reflections for the new year

 

December is winding down as is 2022. I always enjoy the beginning of a new year because it's one more chance for a fresh start.

I've been reflecting on this past year - it was quite a roller coaster. It was the year of the wedding and the year I went broke, two things that do not go together.

It was a year I tried hard to help people and ended up feeling taken advantage of more than once. A year when my family had my back and Chris's family was a disappointment. 

All of this has me reflecting on changes that need to be made in 2023. I've decided on 2 words for 2023 - balance and boundaries. 

I've never been very good at setting boundaries and I blame my early childhood for that. My dad's job required us to socialize with people from the association that employed him and my mother taught me that their wants came first and that mine should be last (to be honest, I don't think it ever occurred to my mother that I had the right to have any wants of my own) and I've been putting that lesson to use ever since. I always go to the back of the line, so to speak, and try to make everyone else happy usually at my own expense. I do this unconsciously but sometimes I also do it deliberately, knowing that I'm hurting myself just so that someone else won't be inconvenienced. Because of my training, it's hard to know someone is upset with me but I have to learn that "friends" that have no problem inconveniencing me so that THEY won't be inconvenienced aren't friends at all, they are just users and I am DONE with being used.

So this next year, while I'm trying to re-engage with things that bring me joy, I'm going to also be working on maintaining boundaries with people that are all take and no give because I can't continue to put everyone else first at my own expense. I want to be a generous, helpful person but I'm going to be judicious with that help and not hurt myself in the process.

What are some of the things I've already planned on reintroducing into my life? Definitely more time for reading. I love to read and haven't really done much of it the past couple of years but that's going to change. I'm going to give myself permission to make my room off limits for the kids from time to time so that I can lose myself in a good book because that's so essential to my well-being. I fell in love with reading in first grade and used to come home from the library every week with a huge stack of books and read every one. My mother used to go back to that first grade teacher every year at back to school night and thank her for teaching me to read and instilling the LOVE of reading in me. 

I'm also going to start singing again with my chorus from the old neighborhood. They practice on Monday nights and Mondays are one of the days I drive into Orlando to work. The rehearsal spot is on my way home so there's no reason not to go there...except Monday night is also basketball practice for James and I stopped going to rehearsal to be there for his practice but as long as I'm there for his games, I think I can skip practice a few times.

This one may seem a little weird but I'm going to indulge my little girl side and play with dolls. These are not just any dolls but Disney Nuimos which are little Disney characters (mine is Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas) that you can buy clothes for and pose them. I don't want to collect the dolls, I'm happy with just Sally, but I am giddy about all the cute clothes! They are all the rage on Instagram and I've already gained new followers by posting just a couple of pictures over the Christmas holiday. It's a silly thing but buying the clothes, setting Sally up in scenes and taking pictures makes me happy for now.

Speaking of pictures, I got this sweet retro looking camera last year when I still had money. It's all the newest technology but it looks old and I love it. However I have barely used it because I am a little intimidated by what it can do so I vow to teach myself to use it this next year and take it everywhere.

I took a digital camera class 3 years ago with Taz's camera but, unfortunately, it was old technology (he bought the camera in 2005) and the instructor told me I'd be better off getting a new camera. I didn't want to hear that in 2019 but eventually I realized I really needed to upgrade and that's when I bought my retro beauty. Now I think I need to take another course and watch a ton of You Tube tutorials and just start taking pictures and see if I have any talent for this. I think I have a good eye but I need to work at it.

And of course I want to write. I have 3 book projects in various stages of development - a book about the WASP female pilots in WWII which is based on a lovely woman I knew in Carmel; a book/memoir about my life since Taz died; and a book about the building in the picture - The Tuck Box of Carmel. It was built in 1926 to be a shop but instead it became a restaurant and has been in business ever since. Its 100th anniversary is coming up soon so I have just 3 years to do a book about its history, a project I have been dreaming about since 2012. I had done a lot of research when we lived in California but I think I lost all of it when I couldn't make the payments on our storage unit and lost everything so I have to start all over again. Luckily the Carmel newspaper's back issues are all online so I just have to buckle down, find some time to myself without distractions and get that research going all over again. Then I have to budget for at least one trip to Carmel to take pictures (where that previous idea to learn to use my camera comes into play) to supplement the ones that I already have from Taz. The Tuck Box was our favorite place and he took lots of pictures for me over the years. I would love to do the book and also work with the City Council of Carmel to have a day to honor the 100th anniversary of this special place. I've had this idea for over 10 years but now is definitely the time to start working on it because I'm pretty sure I would never forgive myself if I missed that anniversary.

This one is going to be hard - travel. I love to travel, I crave it but I just don't see it in my future again and that makes me sad. I was blessed during my years with Taz that we traveled all over and we both loved it so much. I have lovely memories but I would really like more. I don't need to travel around the world (although I would love that - getting to Kenya is still at the top of my bucket list) but I would at least like road trips in the US. Chris doesn't crave travel the way I do and there's never any money so this is probably only a dream but I'm never going to stop trying to make it a reality. The above picture is a sticker I got for my bedroom wall so that I never forget how much I love Paris and travel.

There are many more things I'd like to do this year but those are the top ones I'm going to work on as we enter a new year. I want this to be a year of growth and change for me, I want to look back at the end of 2023 and see how I've taken control of my story and guided it in the direction of a strong, happy, healthy, creative me.

balance

 

Only a few more days until Christmas! We're all ready with the kids' presents but I actually haven't gotten things for Chris. He got an early present, something he wanted for basketball, and I have made surprise plans for all 4 of us to go see a favorite singing person at a county fair in January but I'd like to get a couple more little things for him. I haven't been able to get out by myself this week because of the kids so I'm hoping I can have a little time to myself on Saturday, just an hour should do it.

I'll have all the time in the world to myself on New Years Eve during the day. I had this great idea that Chris and I (the kids will be with their mother) would get a bunch of snacks in the house and do a movie marathon all day with each of us picking our favorite movies but yesterday Chris informed me that his best friend and business partner was coming over that day to work on the shed that was just delivered and that they are turning into an office. I know they need to work on it but it irks me that he made plans for NYE and didn't even bother to ask if I had anything planned for the 2 of us. We so rarely get time together and our last 2 New Years Eves have been less than romantic so, yeah, I had plans and I'm not thrilled he didn't even think about it.

But I'm nothing if not flexible so I'm already on to Plan B - something just for me. It fits in with my new mantra of balance. I'm going to spend the day doing the things I used to do, things I love. I think I'll drive to a cute little town just an hour away and visit the Saturday market there, have lunch at my favorite French bakery and shop in the vintage store next door which is my absolute favorite place. The town is adorable and they have these big swings in the middle of the street so you can swing and people watch.

It's the sort of thing Taz and I used to do all the time and I went there several times by myself after Taz passed but I haven't been there in over 2 years now because it's not the sort of thing Chris would ever think of doing. So that's where the balance comes in - I need to do the things I love from time to time even if I have to do it by myself.

Yesterday I wrote down a list of all the things I love and that I haven't been doing lately. I'm going to figure out a way to do something from that list once a month whether it's with the kids, just Chris and me, or just me.

1. Travel

2. Read

3. Visit cute towns like Mount Dora and Winter Garden

4. Explore new cute towns

5. Flea Markets

6. Vintage Fairs

7. Movie Theaters

8. Fun restaurants - definitely don’t have to be expensive

9. Festivals and Fairs

10. Food Trucks

11. Historic Research

12. Visit Historic Sites

13. Adventureland stuff

14. Beach

15. Zoos

16. Sing

What I’d like to start doing:

1. Learn to use my new camera

2. Take photos

3. Vlog

4. Bake

5. Jewelry crafting

6. Sew

7. Write a book or two

8. Make hats

9. Learn to fly

10. Develop an Adventure Character

I wanted to put it all down here so that I can refer to it from time to time to remind myself; it's so easy to lose myself in all the day to day tasks and I don't want to let that happen again. I'm not getting any younger and I don't want to turn around and realize all I've done for 10 years is take care of kids and the house and I've forgotten to take care of me.

One fun thing I did recently was drive to Alabama to see my brother in his 40th anniversary performance in The Nutcracker ballet. He's been playing Herr Drosselmeyer since the first performance in 1982 and he's kind of a legend in his little town.

Chris, the kids and I went to see it last year and we all loved it. Chris talked all year about how we were going to see it again this year but in November he suddenly realized he had a basketball game to coach at the Y that day. He's been coaching James's team since June and this past season he also coached the older kids. Basketball takes up every Saturday but I had hoped he'd realize that spending time with my family and seeing Eric in the Nutcracker was more important and he could miss one game. Apparently I was wrong, as soon as he realized there was a conflict with basketball he never even considered going to Alabama. I was hurt, disappointed and angry because my family has done so much for us and was there at our wedding when his family couldn't be bothered but he made a choice to make basketball his priority.

I wasn't going to miss my brother's anniversary performance so I made plans to go by myself. Chris has to give 30 days notice if he's taking the kids out of the state so I asked him to go ahead and give the notice just in case he changed his mind but he never did so even when he realized he probably made the wrong decision, there was nothing he could do about it.

I was angry the day I left, at 6am, for Alabama and I cried for the first 2 hours of the drive but then, as I got closer, I decided to get over it because I was on a road trip - my most favoritest of things to do! I entered into the spirit of travel and completely enjoyed being out on the open road by myself.

Taz and I made this trip several times to visit my family so I stopped at our favorite gas station because it's familiar and also because they have the most amazing leather purses there. I found one I just had to have and I was definitely in the mood to give myself a little treat.

I left early in the morning so that I could make it to town by lunch time to meet up with my brother and his new wife along with my nephew and his wife. We had a fabulous time at lunch, lots of laughs and great food. I was so glad I'd made the effort to get there early enough.

Afterwards I left all of them to spend a little time shopping in town where I found a perfect UGLY sweater for the contest we were having at work. I went back to the motel and enjoyed having the whole space to myself for a few hours before the performance. I watched some Netflix and then took a nap before getting ready and heading to the performance at 7.

I was up for breakfast with my brother and his wife the next morning and then I headed home. It's a 7 hour trip so I didn't make it home until dinner time but, once again, it was fun being out on the road and it reminded me how important it is to do things that bring me joy. I would have loved to have my kids and Chris with me but being by myself is fun too.

By the way - I won the Ugly Sweater Contest at work the next week!

preparations

 

That's me in all my glory sans makeup because I'm working from home this week while the kids are out of school on break.

We get them this week then they go back to their mother next week until school starts up again in the new year. I love having them here but trying to do accounting work while they are in and out of my office/bedroom to tell me about the latest video they just watched or how they are doing at their newest game is challenging to say the least.

I think my problem is that I'm a pretty quiet and solitary person and when I'm working I don't really like to be disturbed so working with them in the house is difficult at best. Some days aren't so bad and some days I end up with a raging headache and a desire to yell...but I don't.

That wasn't really what I'd planned on talking about - I wanted to talk about getting ready for Christmas. We've been out and about getting excited about the upcoming holiday. We have around 15 inflatable blowups in our yard, although I don't have any pictures of them, and our tree is up although it doesn't have any ornaments yet.

Chris and I finished our Christmas shopping this past weekend and he wrapped all the presents while I wrote out the names. He muttered a few times about how he didn't like wrapping presents until I finally muttered that I don't like doing laundry, folding clothes or washing dishes but I do it several times a week. He was quiet after that and just kept wrapping. 

I think we're going to wait until Christmas Eve to put the presents under the tree because we have a cat that would probably love to unwrap everything just out of curiosity. We call him Satan or Demon Child and he's the only one of Willow's kittens that we kept. He, ingeniously, kept his true personality under wraps until he knew he was staying and then he unleashed his inner wild child. Our other 2 cats could care less about the tree or presents and Charlie is always good but Satan is...well, Satan.

We didn't have a lot of extra money for Christmas this year so we did most of our shopping at Five Below (everything in the store is $5) and Dollar Tree (everything in the store is $1.25) and I hope the kids aren't too disappointed. I think we got some nice stuff but it's not the things they are always pointing out when we're in Walmart. Last year I still had savings and we let the kids loose in Walmart so that they could point out what they wanted and we went back to buy some of it. This year we didn't even want to raise expectations so we haven't asked what they wanted. They are getting what they get and they'd better be happy with it.

One thing we are going to do this Christmas is let them be Santa for other kids and go pick out presents for 2 very small children we know who won't have much of a Christmas if they don't get some help. I think buying things for other children will do my children some good. I spoke to them about all of this a few minutes ago and they seemed excited about the idea of being Santa.

I hope being Santa will help me a little too. I have felt a little taken advantage of for the past couple of years - people took advantage of me while living in my house, I've loaned money to family who apparently have no intention of paying it back or even being grateful and seem to think we exist only to help them out of the problems that they keep creating for themselves, other people ask for a little help and when that is willingly given they ask for more and more help without trying to do anything for themselves. I want to be a generous, giving person but I don't like it when my generally helpful nature is abused and then I just don't feel like helping at all. So playing Santa to two toddlers should help give me balance.

I think BALANCE will be my word for 2023. I need to find balance between my new life as a stepmom and doing some of the things that bring me joy. I feel like I've lost a little bit of myself over the past few years. First I was just figuring out how to survive after loss and then I became part of a new family with more responsibility than ever and I'm still just trying to survive. More on this another day but basically I really don't do all the things I used to - the things that I love, the things that make me ME and I miss it. I feel like all I do is take care of kids, cook, laundry and dishes along with trying to fit a full-time job around all of that. Oh yeah, and basketball which is devouring our lives. All the little things that I like to do like travel, vintage fairs, flea markets, Christmas festivals and singing just seem to fall by the wayside because there's no time left after doing all the other stuff. I need to find balance between everybody else and me before it becomes more of a problem than it already is.

Honeymoon!

 

Our honeymoon was absolutely perfect!

It wasn't long - only 3 days - but it was magical from start to finish.

I found a 'buy one get one free' deal on a new-ish cruiseline, Margaritaville at Sea, and found that we could both cruise in an oceanview stateroom for less than $200 which is cheaper than a room at the beach so I jumped on it and booked it in June.

Then life came along and it looked like we might not even be able to go because Chris's ex-wife no longer has transportation (her engine is busted and she can't afford to get a new one) so Chris has to pick the kids up from her house on the days she has then and take them to school and then bring them back to her again. If he didn't do this, her solution is to just keep them home and have them miss school.

We had carefully planned our few days away for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday because those are her days and in June, we had no idea this car issue would come up. Even in August, when school started up again, we had no idea we'd still be dealing with this in November but we quickly realized we couldn't leave town and let the kids miss school.

Luckily we have a great friend who offered to be transportation for the kids on those days so we still got our little time away.

We drove to the port on Wednesday morning just as soon as we dropped the kids off at school. You're allowed to board the ship around 12 and we arrived at 1 which was perfect because there were no lines and we walked right on.

It's an older ship but it's beautifully maintained and it has cute decor with a Jimmy Buffet/Parrothead theme. I feel like it was the perfect size for a short cruise and easy to navigate.

The first thing we did was sign up for the unlimited soda package and the 10 alcoholic drink package because we knew we really wanted to unwind and have a good time. The soda package gives you a shark or alligator cup and we purchased a "blender" cup for fun. The whole Blender thing comes from a Jimmy Buffet song that says "there's booze in the blender, and soon it will render, that frozen concoction that helps me hang on." It's going to be a cute souvenir and we can bring it back for future cruises and get discounted refills.

Our room was very nice, spacious for a cruise ship, and had a big round window so that we could see the ocean. The bathroom was cute and had the tiniest shower which could only hold 1 person at a time. There was a TV but we never watched it.

The food was awesome and plentiful. We spent a lot of time at the buffet which had plenty of yummy choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner although the first night we ate at the restaurant because they had escargot for an appetizer and I LOVE escargot. Chris was less than enchanted by the little snails even though I assured him it tasted like butter and garlic and there's nothing bad about that.

But the buffet kept us coming back especially since we chose to sit out on the back deck of the buffet for the amazing view...and the fact that the bar was right there.

The shows were great, the sing a long piano bar was so much fun we did it both nights, the comedian was hilarious and he even made us part of his act. There was always something to do or live music to listen to each evening.

The ship docked in Freeport, Bahamas the next morning but we didn't have enough money to book an excursion so we decided to enjoy the quiet, almost empty ship and it was so relaxing. We took a couple of naps in the room (we were honeymooning, after all) and a couple up on the pool deck just enjoying the perfect weather in the Bahamas.

We roamed all over the ship and took pictures of the two of us and then we ate some more and took in another night of shows.

I know I had a lot of complaints about the wedding reception but I have not a single complaint about the honeymoon because it was (and I know I've already used these words a lot) absolutely perfect, simply amazing and wonderfully magical.

I'm sharing a picture of my breakfast the last morning because it was my favorite - bagel and cream cheese with smoked salmon (lox) with the new addition of smashed avocado. Simply scrumptious!

We disembarked on Friday morning after having to hang out on the pool deck some more because there was a back up at Customs. What a pity, we got to relax in one of those comfy couch-chairs for two while waiting. Finally they called us and we had to wait in line a bit but finally got through. Next time I'll know to get an Express Pass so that we can get off the ship earlier but then again, who wants to leave Paradise any earlier than you have to?

What a way to start our married life!