Mommy Dawg

April Showers

2010-04-09T17:10:00.003-04:00

Some days, it takes a lot of external support to remind me that this is what life is like. Sometimes it all feels so unusual and makes me feel like I am absolutely alone in my circumstances. Firmly grounded in the belief that things could always be worse, I waiver between guilt over my self-pity and gratitude over waking to see another day.

And then I go to therapy. I pay good, hard-earned money to have a heart-to-heart discussion with another human being to reassure me that I am navigating through everything in the best way I know how at any given moment. My therapist delivers this message perfectly each and every time, and yet I always seem to lose the sense of his message as the week or so wears on.

I cannot say enough about my therapist. I wish I would've started earlier, maybe I would've avoided a few pit-falls along the way. I'm almost a year into it and every time I feel like maybe I've done enough therapy, I realize that it's probably best to continue going, continue talking and exploring, continue writing that check.

My brother's condition still consumes me. It's been a little over five months since the world came crashing down and he has made remarkable progress. The sequelae of the ordeal is still very much alive and kicking today in the form of tremendous pain in his feet and lower legs. The nerve damage in those areas was extensive and he still suffers a lot from it.

After trying a few different medications, he has turned to a pain management doctor who has him on something that is absolutely no joke. For his privacy I am not going to "name names." We are talking narcotic pain management at low doses. It would be very difficult for him to abuse this since by law this prescription cannot be given out with refills and is he decides to not take them as prescribed he will find himself in a world of pain before he can obtain a new prescription. So this can't be a willy-nilly free-for-all of pill-popping.

Still, I am scared.

It has tremendously reduced his pain. For that I am thankful. He was able to go to the gym and exercise a little because it reduced the pain so much. I can only hope that more intensive exercise will stimulate the nerves to correct themselves and that hopefully one day he won't need so much medication to not be in total agony.

And still, I am scared.

And I feel a little bit defeated about life over this, and over other things. Is this what growing up means? That people die and get sick and you are left to deal with it? I am still figuring out life as a widow with two kids. I still get random flashbacks about anything and everything concerning Rob's passing. I ruminate over what happened with my brother and what I could have done to prevent it. On top of this I'm juggling kids, chores, work, paying bills, planning for the future.

Sometimes, I just want it all to STOP. Just stop already.

I wish I could rewind time. Go back to a place when there was some sort of peace and simplicity. A time when we were all healthy, alive, and happy.

However, there was no such time to rewind to. At any given time we may have been those things, but not all simultaneously. When I was not yet a widow and I did have a nice house with a dishwasher and everything, Rob was sick and my brother was beginning his path to destruction down in Glassboro. Rewind earlier and my brother was still some-what innocent but suffering in his own way, and Rob, who I didn't know yet, was dealing with his first failing marriage, and I was being tormented to shreds by my ex-boyfriend. Rewind earlier than that, and we were children and dealing with a fantastically dysfunctional home-life.

So let's not rewind. There was no perfect time. There is nothing to be nostalgic over, even though my mind wants to trick my memory into believing so.

It all boils down to now. It always does. Now is the only moment I have any control over. All I can do is keep trying, but remember, I'm paying good money to be reminded that I am doing the best I can...right now.

In Like a Lion

2010-03-06T01:33:00.003-05:00

So I never did make it to Jupiter, FL last month but that's ok. Florida will be there unless some major weather catastrophe occurs and the temperature of the Earth rises to such a degree that the entire peninsula returns to it's former state of submersion under the sea.

Hey, it's happened before and most likely will happen again. This isn't projected to happen in my lifetime. You never know though, right?

Whatever, I'm starting this off with a digression but it's very late and I was awoken from my melatonin-induced slumber by teenage drama and my brain is all over the place.

A lot of things are going on but aren't they always?

First, I need to get the hell out of New Jersey. What was I thinking? Actually, the move back has been beneficial because I am functioning better now that my life rotates around a more normal Monday through Friday routine. I do benefit from working and I really can't imagine how that could have happened while living in Spring Hill. I feel a closeness with my supervisor that would've been hard to match anywhere else at that time and that has made all the difference. To be around the familiar faces, the people who's life stories I have had the priviledge to share, those are the things I craved so much while I was away. My return has built me up into a stronger and better person than I was while I was gone.

But seriously? New Jersey? Why do you make it SO DAMN HARD? The traffic! The taxes! The expense of everything, not just money, but time and patience and mental stamina. I seriously can't take it anymore. Well, I actually *can* take it but it's only because I have a plan to escape your oppressive ways.

Naturally, I will move back to Florida after certain things have come to fruition. I need my parents. I need to be near my brother. And frankly, I just need a break from the madness that is NJ.

I have a special relationship with Florida, that's for sure. I broke my ass to get down there, only to have my dreams shattered into a million pieces. I have spent hours upon hours getting to know Florida. I have poured my heart and soul into learning it's rich history, learning the lay of the land, studying it's topography and lores and myths and economic trends in order to find a home. Not just a house, but an actual home in this place. And it has been both good and evil to me.

My relationship with this place is one that I wrestle with daily. It does not go away. Florida calls out to me, and yet I can't help but be a little mad at it over what I feel it has taken away from me. I work on this mentally every single day. I don't know if it's irony or fate, but the past three men that I have fallen in love with are also lured to this place that is Florida. But even putting that fact to the side, I myself am in love with it.

There is a special connection that I have with it. And let's be straight: it's not the Disney aspect of Florida (barf), nor the lack of snow (because I love snow) or any other touristy reason one would love Florida. It's something much deeper than that, something I can't exactly describe at the moment. It has a lot to do with my family being there while I feel stranded up here. It has a lot to do with unfulfilled goals and dreams.

It's got a lot to do with unfinished business.

And now the melatonin is kicking in again...

The Heart House

2010-02-02T22:02:00.002-05:00

Penny had her last cardiology appointment for hopefully a long, long time if ever. She had her last echocardiogram and passed with flying colors. We are now able to close the door on this issue.

To back track, Penny's dad was born with a very serious heart condition called transposition of the great vessels. Basically, the main arteries leading out of the heart are leading in total FUBAR directions and without surgery most babies would die within a few months if not a few hours. However, by the grace of medical technology, Rob was able to make it through 37 years of life. These days, I believe that kids with TGV will make it longer because the surgeries have been refined. Rob was one of the first to have certain surgeries to treat TGV and his life undoubtedly contributed to medical advancement.

There is no question.

Given his history, the only thing to do was to undergo certain tests during my pregnancy to ensure that I was carrying a relatively healthy baby with 4 distinct and functioning heart chambers with 4 relatively healthy valves with 2 main arteries leading in the right direction. Penny was able to have most of those things but she did have a mitral valve that didn't close quite perfectly after each contraction of her heart. Not a gigantic deal and it may not have ever been picked up if they weren't actively looking for something.

However, after she was born, another small issue was picked up. Penny had somewhat of a patent foramen ovale, a small opening between the right and left ventricles that is totally normal for fetal circulation but which typically closes during the first day or two of life. Usually it closes spontaneously upon the first inhalation of air after birth. It's like a magic switch in your heart that says "now I am a fetus" and "now I am an independently breathing organism."

So hers didn't close for a while. Some people's never closes. Most do.

Her did.

And her mitral valve has become strong enough to shut tightly closed after each beat of her heart, preventing any back flow of blood into her system.

*****

I'll drop the technical jargon for the more human side of all of this.

Rob would've been thrilled to know that he could make a baby with a perfect heart. That would have been the cherry on the whipped cream of the delightful morsel of life that Penny was to him. She was, and will always be, the greatest contribution he ever made to life.

The people at the cardiology center were very kind. The doctor was beyond sad to hear about Rob's passing. He really took it to heart, saying that for them it felt like a tremendous loss. He studied at NYU were Rob had all of his surgeries, studied under the doctors who cared for Rob over the years. He was obviously and genuinely affected somehow by losing one of what he thought was "his own" in terms of patients, even though he never dealt with Rob.

The nurse in me came forward and explained that when Rob was born he was given a prognosis of 6 to 12 months. Months. And that through the hard work of people just like himself, this doctor, Rob was able to enjoy 37 years. Years. And here is the baby that is the result of that. So thank you.

I have gotten uncannily adept at breaking this news to people. I always anticipate it before it happens, I prepare my face for the moment, I break the news, and then I reassure everyone that it is Ok. However, I knew this appointment, and the moment that it would bring, would be especially poignant. And I walked out of there with excellent news about my daughter.

Overall, and I can say this with all certainty, life has been better to me than it has been bad.

*****

Also, I might be going to Jupiter, FL on a really spur of the moment deal. Every cell in my body says GO GO GO and yet I need to sleep on it one more night in case some little voice in me says no...no...no... I hope that doesn't happen but it's super-short notice.

Nearly two months...

2010-01-08T17:58:00.002-05:00

have passed since the last post.

My brother only needed the porta-cath for a few days and a few more dialysis treatments before producing urine and excreting chemicals sufficient enough to be safe for life outside of the hospital. He underwent a nuclear stress test that proved to his doctor that there was no damage to his heart. The porta-cath was removed and he was able to go to my parents new home.

The problem now is neurological. He has a lot painful pins-and-needle sensations in his feet and occasional, random shooting pains in his legs that take his breath away. The go as fast as they come and there is no prediction of when they will occur.

Let me discuss the high points though.

I flew out to Florida with the girls on December 23 because there was no way I was spending Christmas away from my folks. My brother greeted us and demonstrated how was able to amble around without the walker. His gait wasn't steady, fast, or graceful but it was bona fide walking without the walker. Having seen my brother learn to walk once before, 26 years ago, and seeing it again now was a bit of a mixed bag emotionally. I definitely cried, and for at least two reasons. I was both delighted that he could walk independently, at least a little, and so sad that he even had to re-learn this skill in the first place.

Plus, the thought of him living in pain is almost unbearable for me to consider and yet it is so.

The next day we went to the seafood store that had five live lobsters on special order for us to pick up for dinner on Christmas day. The plan was surf and turf, twice baked potatoes, and a few other sides. I tended to the lobsters every couple of hours to make sure that they were alive and that their environment was sufficiently moist and hospitable until the next day when we plunged them into a boiling pot of water.

On Christmas Eve, Penny slept in with my parents in their bed. A total grandparental indulgence, but I didn't balk. It made everyone happy. Penny worships all four of her grandparents and doesn't get to see my parents enough anyway. There was no tearing the three of them apart.

Christmas morning, I woke very early from the morning light. It felt quiet, much too quiet. Tears very gently came to my eyes as I realized that the quiet was from the absence of someone, someone who was always up early and not very quiet himself. Eventually I heard Penny making some wakeful noise in my parents' room, and then start to stir, and then the typical Christmas morning chatter that small children inevitably make, the kind that precedes the noisy opening of presents and exclamations over how generous Santa was this year.

During those moments, I felt so grateful that at least Penny had my parents this year to wake up with since she did not have me and her father to wake with. Mixed in were feeligns of jealousy and joy over my parents' fortune of waking up next to each other for the past 39 or 40 years. Maybe not jealousy, that just sounds wrong, but I don't really know if there is a specific word for the complicated feeling I held for their situation. It certainly wasn't vicious, like envy. It was more like a thought in my head that said, "those people might not have any idea of just how lucky they really are."

The momentum of Christmas morning quickly dashed the acuteness of my feelings of loss away as we woke up Jon and Sadie. It lingered in the background most of the day, just below the surface of everything but not interfering with the joy. It was always right around the corner, even as I boiled lobsters alive and scooped the interior out of the potatoes and poured the wine.
Still, this was the most manageable holiday yet and certainly the best Christmas I've had in years.

The following day, my brother and I met up with childhood friends who happened to be visiting family in St. Petersburg. What a delightful coincidence that we were able to get together. They have both grown into wonderful, interesting people. The older brother, who I spent a great deal of time with during middle school and early high school, designs shoes and has lived in interesting places all over the country. He still retains a love of the Delaware River that rivals my sentiments. The younger brother is studying to be a doctor, an osteopath to be exact, and gave me a quick adjustment of my neck in the parking lot that was gentle and felt like fitting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into their rightful place together.

My brother spent more time in a vertical position that evening than he had in months. Before meeting up with them we had a lovely dinner together. The venue of our meeting was a really great place in north Tampa near the university that served food, had a bar, and featured live music. I think my brother's meeting with the younger brother studying medicine was a positive encounter and he paid a lot of attention to my brother's story and was extremely encouraging.

And he had a beer. Like a grown man would have a beer. And it was wonderful to have a beer with him and just...be alive together.

All in all, it was simply lovely.

I was so sad to leave that Monday after Christmas, not just to return to a short and hectic work week preceding New Year's Eve, but mostly because I miss my family tremendously. I even miss Florida slightly. Ok, more than slightly. It was a bit cold there, but it wasn't a bitter cold. It wasn't the sort of cold that turns me into a hermit. The night before we left, my brother took Penny and I out around the neighborhood in the golf cart to look at the Christmas lights. It was chilly but tolerable.

My brother and I had so many conversations, in-depth conversations about everything: our lives, our blessings and our obstacles, how things may or may not have gone if things had been different, our childhood, our family, and the future. During the visit I just felt so in touch, in-tune with him, and I really came to the realization that for both of us, whatever tragedies have occurred...well, this is the way our stories are supposed to go. These are the words that are written and there is no erasure allowed. It all depends upon how we re-tell the story that matters.

Mostly there was just a profound awareness of how we both came so close to the edge, maybe in different ways, but again, so close to the edge we dangled.

Groggy Chemists

2009-11-10T21:19:00.003-05:00

A little update on the situation.

I went back down to Florida this past weekend to try to be of use. I managed to see my brother Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, and a little bit on Monday. His condition has improved although he is still acutely ill and still on dialysis.

He has made some progress by being able to urinate a little bit and by continuing to take walks with the assistance of a walker and a companion. His urine output is low but it is way better than nothing at all. He has regained some sensation in his feet but it comes in pins and needles now and the motor control of his feet isn't great.

His kidney function tests, BUN and creatinine, are still greatly elevated but dialyis can take care of that while his kidneys repair themselves. The numbers are a bit, well I wouldn't say alarming at this point, but they still kind of take my breath away. The rest of his electrolytes are fairly stable because of the dialysis and some medications by mouth that he is taking.

He requires infusions of IV iron supplementation because his red blood cell counts are low. The kidneys are partially responsible for red blood cell formation. Added to this is the act of dialysis itself on filtering the blood and the subsequent mangling of a portion of the red blood cells as they travel through a filter outside of your body. Inevitably some of those RBCs are going to get smooshed and be unable to do their job, which is mostly carrying oxygen to the cells.

His blood pressure has been high but this is not terrible given the fact that his heart is only twenty-seven years old and a stress test showed that it is, in fact, a strong heart that can handle a bit of an extra load. He has not had any notable cardiac events at all in the last few days.

He had a porta-cath inserted on Monday for his dialysis treatments. Prior to that he had an access device placed in his jugular vein which is good temporarily but more prone to infection that the kind he has now. The portacath was placed during a quick surgery that he tolerated well. He went straight to dialysis after that to flush out the anesthesia, contrast dye used during the procedure, as well as the excess waste of the past day or so that the kidneys still couldn't deal with. A while later he requested food, which he ate some of and tolerated well.

But let's talk about the more human aspect now.

I washed and massaged my brother's feet. He was starting to regain sensation which feels like pins and needles. I was focused on making him aware of where sensation began and where it stopped. I used everything I knew from previous training in massage.

Interestingly enough, the area of most muscular weakness corresponds with part of the kidney meridian that runs through his lower legs and feet. I refreshed myself on that topic and gave him a great massage on his feet, calves, and shins. He was able to identify what he could feel, and couldn't feel and I think it made him more aware of the progress he has made in the past two weeks. Nerve tracks can grow by 1 millimeter per day so we have a way to go but we're getting there.

Coincidentall later on tha dayhe also was able to release 200 milliliters of urine, fairly normal in color. He called me around 10:30 that night to tell me so. What a change from about 30 ml of urine he produced, black as coffee two week ago before the well ran dry. Healthy kidneys put out about 30 ml of urine per hour. So something good is happening.

I didn't see him too much on Sunday because I was helping my mother pack up some stuff for their move. Right before they went on their cruise and events unfolded, my parents had sold their house in the Orlando area and signed a contract on a house near the Gulf. Ironically, my brother is in a hospital about 20 minutes away from the new house.

It's a better area for them. I had mixed feelings at first because it's near where I lived, where Rob died. In the face of this new phase my family is going through, I could care less. What seemed important three weeks ago is suddenly not important anymore.

Jordan and I spent some good, quality time with my brother in the early part of Monday. My brother's surgery to insert the portacath was 1 PM. My parents had to take care of matters related to the move, like setting up accounts with utilities. My brother was picked up around noon and we followed him down to the holding area for the operating room. My parents said their goodbyes and took Penny with them to run errands.

We had about an hour to talk about things before surgery and spirits were high. I was feeling a certain de ja vous being in that environment, a cross between nursing school and the moments before Rob's catheterizations and surgeries. I was not at all uncomfortable, it almost felt natural and the conversation reflected that.

Still, the unknown always hangs above. Will he tolerate the anesthesia? Will he tolerate the post-operative phase?

He wound up tolerating everything. He wound up dreaming about running during his surgery. The little boy that I loved all while I was growing up, the one that was always running, bouncing balls, making noise, he was dreaming about running again. That boy who had a moody older sister, dressed in dark colors and constantly ruminating over the unfairness of it all; that boy was dreaming about his wide open future.

2009-10-28T11:55:00.004-04:00

When the caller ID shows Unavailable on the house phone, I don't think too much of it. But when Unavailable calls my cell phone thirty seconds later I would be a fool not to answer. Unavailable turned out to be a nurse named Heather calling me from a hospital in Florida and asking me if I knew a Jonathan who's last name happens to be my maiden name.

For the third time in the past 2 years, I felt my blood turn to ice again.

They told me that my brother was there in the ER and that he was alive but that they couldn't tell me more. They were trying to reach my parents who at the time were cruising the Caribbean. For some reason I couldn't recall what cruise line they were on but I took down phone numbers and names she gave me and promised to call back as soon as I could get through to them.

I'll keep the details spare but I assure you that it was very difficult successfully connecting with them on the ship at sea and coordinating things that needed to be done to get to Florida. In between making these arrangements I was on and off of the phone with the nurse in the ER trying to figure out what happened.

The HIPAA laws are a great thing in most respects but sometimes they frustrate family members and health care professionals alike. If you're lucky and perhaps say the right things, you can derive a little bit of information which might not relieve you but will at least give you an idea of what you are working with. And what you should be praying for.

I could ascertain that my brother was alive, that this event was not the result of a motor vehicle accident, but that he was extremely sick. Crying and pleading with the nurse, plus promising to never sue, I was able to get her to obtain verbal consent from my brother to give me certain details of his situation. She was able to tell me, through very specific questions I asked, that he had no apparent head trauma, that his level of consciousness was low but that he was able to speak a little, and did not appear to be in pain.

I asked about his toxicology to which she replied, "I do not have permission to discuss that."

So, we know where this is going. We know that my worst fears regarding him were true. And we know that with all of the diagnostic data that I obtained, that he was truly on the cusp of life and death at the moment.

The human body is a beautiful organism. Under favorable circumstances it functions better than a well oiled machine. The flux of sodium and potassium through cells, the lightening speed bolts of neurotransmitters across synapses, the dance of chemistry and electricity that makes our hearts beat in perfect rhythm, and every other minute function of our body that sways through us in good healthy was deeply compromised in my brother's body.

My brother's potassium had climbed to an 8 (normal is 3.5 to 5) and that his ECG showed peaked T waves due to hyperkalemia (increased blood potassium level). They were doing what they could to decrease the potassium but this is very dangerous territory. I knew that my brother was very close to a lethal cardiac event and just wanted to talk to him, to possibly infuse him with calm and prayers and love in case he wouldn't make it.

When I spoke to him on the nurse's phone I just telling him that I felt nothing but love for him and to calm down and to be receptive to whatever the people in the ER needed to do with him. I put blind faith into the notion that they were well-qualified to deal with him properly and that life would deal us a better hand in the next few minutes. Groggily he told me he loved me and the conversation was over.

A subsequent phone call revealed that my brother was in rhabdomyolysis. My brother's kidneys were not functioning. Kidneys constantly filter our blood, assessing the basic chemistry of our bodies and by way or osmosis and active transport ensure that we have the proper amount of fluids and chemicals circulating through our bodies at any given time. From nursing school until now I have considered kidneys to be the complementary set of chemists our body houses to keep us alive and well.

By that time my inlaws had picked up Penny to spare her my explosion of mental anguish and to allow me to coordinate contacting my parents, organizing Sadie and her care of the dogs, and obtaining plane tickets down to Florida for myself and my boyfriend Jordan. During this time managed to establish contact with my parents and discussed my brother's condition with the ER.

Jordan was a rock and his parents were beyond helpful with obtaining tickets for us. I felt helpless and yet I felt completely supported by the goodness of others around me. Again. I can only sum up my feelings regarding the goodness of people by quoting Carl Rogers who said, "when I look at the world I am pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic."

Later that night, when arrangements had been made and there were no more phone calls to make I sat and worried and prayed and somewhat distracted myself by watching the Yankees earn their way to World Series. The magical, schizoid part of my brain again related the victory of a sporting event with a fortunate personal outcome.

The next afternoon I was back in Florida, at his bedside in the ICU, and told him simply "I came here to tell you the Yankees won last night."

***

My brother wound up admitting to me that he had done some cocaine, possibly laced. Cocaine alone can land you in this state because of it's very effects on the cardiac system. It can tax your blood vessels all the way down to a microscopic level, and the kidneys have tons of activity going on at the cellular level. Use of cocaine is heavily associated with rhabdomyolysis.

I cannot even address this aspect right now. It was the direct result of hard drug use. There will be more words on this in the future, trust me.

***

Tonight I sit at my computer in New Jersey. The days have passed by with much improvement, propelling my brother away from a lethal condition and into a future that seems filled with hope if he can keep himself away from what landed him in the hospital in the first place. He's had 4 or 5 dialysis treatments and while his body chemistry needs vigilant assessment and treatment, he is a live and will mostly likely remain so.

My brother's kidneys may or may not function independently in the future. Tonight they do not, but the toxins have been cleared of his system, at least temporarily, and he is lucid. This may be the break they need from the onslaught of substances they ordinarily take in, assess, and discard into urine. Or they might need a longer period of rest. Or they might not ever wake up.

Regardless, he is alive.

*****
I have found myself being strong through this situation. I think the road I have traveled since Rob died has made me a stronger person. I honestly think that is the case. I had a therapy session on Thursday (what timing!) that reaffirmed my suspicion that I was handling everything appropriately. My mind was definitely playing tricks with me afterwards, especially at night with my funny little of habit of not sleeping during times of stress and all the weird little acrobatics and cartwheels my mind can perform under these circumstances

I do not know what the future holds but I know that he is alive and we can work with that.

Love,

Liz

Session Four

2009-07-02T17:02:00.002-04:00

I was a bit less anxious this time leading up to the session. It was a big week in many ways but the one thing that came up last time, and that I was determined to at least experiment with if not carry through at every turn, was to practice assertiveness. I know, how typical, right? Doesn't it always seem like everyone is therapy says stuff like this?

Well, maybe it is a pervasive issue in the human psyche. Or at least mine. But we talked a lot last week about how confrontation and assertiveness can seem like a really scary thing to practice. It can cause discomfort and humans do not like discomfort. Well, most don't. I am part of the most don't.

However, I am trying to build awareness of when the need to assert myself is a must and practicing this very delicate art. I'm trying to do it in a different way. The old way that I am trying so hard to break away from is like this: avoid it until it is entirely uncomfortable and messes my mind up completely, then finally say something in a way that leaves me feeling like apologizing afterwards because I came off like a bitch with pent-up rage.

So that old way will not do. I would rather go to bed at night knowing that I made my needs or my kids needs known, in a fair and kind way. The reaction of the other party doesn't matter as much as feeling comfortable with the way I delivered the message.

I stumbled through this task a little bit this week. I can count one time where I didn't do this correctly, one time where I think I did alright, and another time with stellar results.

The stellar results incident was when I had a decent, human discussion with my landlord over this stretch of carpet at the top of the stairs. The dogs like to think of it as an extended version of the yard and, well, it smelled and looked like hell. The tenants before me either used it as a toilet or the designated coffee spill station and it was just horrible. Every night I would find myself carpet shampooing it to no avail, and every morning when I walked over it to use the bathroom it was a sharp reminder that I was a renter with less control than a home owner.

So I asked him if I could tear it up. No big deal to the rest of the world, but I have always had a very...interesting relationship with my landlords. Always fearful of speaking up. Always not wanting to rock the boat. I know, it's weird and it's all wrapped up in my avoidant personality and my desire to really not be a tenant and to rule my own kingdom (aka HOUSE).

He was thrilled with the idea and basically scolded me for even asking. His words were pretty much this: You are a good tenant, a good woman, and you know how to take care of a house. Do whatever you want and don't feel like you have to ask. Well, alrighty then.

His affirmation and this small gesture, plus a lot of sweat, swearing, and bandaids has taken me miles away from feeling like a person trapped by circumstance to a person who just might be able to enjoy the next couple of years here, before Sadie graduates and it's time to settle back down into my own home again.

I know that ripping up some carpet feels like a silly thing to be so joyful over, but it's huge in my world. We talked about this at therapy and came to the conclusion that it is a small victory in enjoying my life now. My life has revolved around modifying my environment to make it more beautiful and comfortable for so many years now that it made me feel powerless to think that I was unable to do so in a rental. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you know of my penchant for ripping down wallpaper, spackling, painting, clearing debris, planting things, and basically controlling my own domain. I have missed it and it makes me feel very good to gain some of that back.

My landlord is awesome. My desire, wherever I go, is to leave a place a little bit better than the way I found it. I can do this here and it makes it feel a little bit more like a home.

What I Want

2009-06-27T22:38:00.003-04:00

Preface: Things are good. Nothing is terrible right now. In a way I know that I have either everything I need, or at least everything I need right now.

I am 3 sessions deep into this therapy thing and it's good I suppose but it definitely feels like work or some sort. So far I have only good thoughts and feelings about my therapist. He's an older man, gentle and kind in many ways but he also feels very down-to-earth, using expressions like "this sucks" or "bullshit" and such. Oddly (or not) this makes me feel more comfortable. Probably because I am a raging potty-mouth.

I do get a bit tense around Monday or Tuesday because my sessions are on Thursdays. There is always at least one very teary moment. I like to think that these are the moments where we are hitting home in a way, where some sort of progress is being made.

I find the process fascinating. I see the trust building and it's a little bit daunting but it also makes me feel very hopeful. I think a lot of what we are doing now is very task oriented-there are clearly certain things that need to occur before I can move on from this phase and we are identifying them together. However, with my mastery of the art of procrastination, this is difficult. I do have my work cut out for me.

*****

So I really wanted to list a few things here after that I would like to achieve when the I'm able to clear through the greater portion of the muck that I dwell in has been dredged away.

I want my own home again. I want to share my home with those I love and enjoy. I want my home to be an open and welcoming environment. I have this before and I can do it again.

I want to have completely integrated Rob's life and death into my own life and not have it weigh like an anchor on my soul any longer.

I want to be the best parent I possibly can be to my girls.

I want to be able to view life as a series of ups and downs and not take the downs so damn personally.

I want to be able to communicate with anyone, my own personal truths and needs, and not shy away from confrontation. I want to not fear causing people displeasure or disappointment with the decisions I make in my best interests. I want to do all of this in the most loving and respectful way.

*****

I have tons and tons of things to be thankful for. I have sustained loss. I am no longer in survival mode. I am in living mode.

Today

2009-06-11T21:24:00.002-04:00

I started therapy today.

Oh dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into? I know it's the right thing to do, I feel very positive about the therapist, and I am sure it's going to help.

But listen: I fear what I'm going to have to pass through in this process.

One question asked of me today, and it was put as gently as possible, was why did I seek therapy NOW and not THEN. Excellent question. When I think of some of the stumbling blocks along the way, I feel as if maybe I could have avoided at least a few of them. However, I am here today, in whatever shape I am in, because of my yesterdays.

There is work to be done for me to clear up some issues before I can move forward in a healthier way. I *HATE* telling my story, Rob's story, what happened to our family and to myself. I don't know if it will ever get easier telling it. Still, there are things to concerning the grief that have spread out like a giant squid's tentacles, into so many small places in my life. It has brought about changes in me, some actually good and some not so good.

All of this is hard to discuss and I really wasn't ready until now. When I really take a moment to exam this, I curl back and block it out of my mind and I think it's time to stop doing that. I need to embrace the joy that I find without randomly flashing back to the pain and loss that has actually made my new experiences, hell-my new life, possible.

The mantra delivered to me over and over again, the thing that rings in my ears daily, the saying that I must believe at all costs is "there is a reason for everything." I was very humble about this in the beginning. I only allowed this to be true, perhaps, for the benefit of future generations, Sadie and Penny, maybe their own children. I believed that my life was basically over and that hopefully somehow the turn of events would allow them to feel some kind of joy, pleasure, or fulfillment that wouldn't have been available to them if our lives had proceeded exactly as I had planned things.

I cannot settle for this. I consider myself as more than a survivor; I am a person who can and will find meaning in her own life through sheer will, good friendship, and an undying spirit. There was nothing that the higher power put in my path that was not meant for me to live through. By and large, most of it has been very, very good.

Spring

2009-05-26T16:49:00.003-04:00

This past weekend I had a little getaway to New Hope, PA. Ok, it might not sound like the hottest vacation spot in the world, but it's a great place to stay for a couple of nights while catching up with friends. Great places to eat, comfy B&B's, minimal driving required during your stay.

Which is great if you do the kind of drinking that I do while vacationing.

And the eating! Dear Lord, Eggs Benedict is a hearty dish for someone who mostly eats yogurt, chicken, fruit, and salad these days. With the occasion KFC drumstick thrown in for good measure. I was not prepared for the price I had to pay for hollandaise sauce. But it was perfect. It tasted so good.

Most of the food was excellent, the wineries were comically horrible, and the massage was to die for. Literally. My massage therapist worked the ever-loving-shit out of my left trapezius and neck that it actually made me cry. No, not in pain, but in the dear-God-you-are-releasing-4-or-5 -years-of-anxiety-sadness-and-assorted-atrocities-variety. Unbelievable.

Seriously folks, I worked out some longstanding mental ISSUES while this fine lady went ape shit on that part of my body. So much forgiveness for the things in life that I have been angry about occurred during that session, it would be too much to tell. But I wanted to document it here and remember it always. And as soon as I feel this part of my body acting up again, I will RUN to the next available massage therapist and we will work it out again.

And speaking of forgiveness and working it out, I have decided to delete a few of my older postings and go somewhat public with this blog again. All of my OG readers can just remember in their minds, if they want and/or can, things written here before. Thank you for reading some of that ugliness. Your comments were very supportive and I appreciate it. I don't believe in changing the past but sometimes personal history can do with a bit of erasure. Especially when it's on the Internet :-P

Anyway, this is a new era, one in which I do not stand by, foot on the clutch, idling. The world can be my oyster if I allow it to be. I am thankful for the good experiences, attitudes, and people that have come my way.

Kittens and Things

2009-05-16T13:23:00.002-04:00

Things have calmed down in my life considerably. I think this has a lot to do with not drinking coffee anymore. I had a cup or two last Sunday after attending an awesome party which involved a bit of drinking the night before.

In case you were wondering, there was no driving involved. There was, however, a shuttle bus which took us back to a hotel where everyone was able to safely sleep it off in safety and dine on eggs and bacon the next morning. And that's when I had a little bit of coffee, but for a week before and ever since then, there has been none.

I can tell you right now that I will never be a coffee Nazi. I can only say from my own personal experience that the change has been profound. I do drink a cup of tea in the morning, black tea which has caffeine. I am told that this has just as much or possibly more caffeine than coffee, ounce for ounce, but I just feel DIFFERENT. My anxiety is minimal, my thoughts don't race nearly as much, my concentration is OK, and I just feel a hell of lot more in control of my impulses.

Who cares about that when there is a kitten in the house?!

His name is Lucius and Sadie snuck him home last Sunday night despite my protests to her pleas over last weekend. As of this writing he is seven weeks old and I love him. He's a grey, tiger-striped bundle of joy with 4 white paws. His eyes are yellowish-green.

When she first found him he was on the side corner of Main Street Lodi and Route 46, tucked up into a guard rail on the exit ramp. He was dirty and terrified, with eyes crusted shut with pus. His belly was hard and bloated and his limbs were skinny. She gave him a few baths over the weekend while I was dancing the night away and possibly making a fool of myself among people I hardly knew but who seemed to like me just the way I was. The kitten I thought I had swiftly rejected was far from my mind but being tended to in the most loving manner possible but my own child.

Her decision to disobey direct orders is probably going to go down in history as the one that makes me proudest.

While getting ready for our day on Monday morning I heard a distinct meow come from her room. We were in the hallway by the bathroom together and I looked at her and she looked at me and she tried to deny the fact that there was a cat in the house but the writing was on the wall. She broke down and begged me to keep him, to just take a look at him, wanting to tell me the story but we were all too busy to get into it right then and there. I told her he was going to the shelter that evening, listing all of the reasons why we cannot keep a cat in this house.

On the drive to work, I started to think that maybe a shelter wasn't the best idea. They are over-loaded with cats just like this one. I have a tremendous amount of respect for animal shelters and what they do and I started to think that maybe, just maybe, we could lighten that load by one cat and take care of matters ourselves. I found myself dialing our vet and before I knew it we had an appointment that evening.

We don't live in a palace, but we do have a little bit of room that can be dedicated for the kitten before he gets too big. We are not millionaires, but there is enough room in the budget to get this guy his shots and get him neutered. We are all busy, but not so busy that we can't take a little bit of time out of each day to make sure that he's played with and feels love.

We already have a few potential placements for him and one in particular feels like it's really going to work but they aren't sure if neutering is in their budget right now. I have told these people that I will absolutely cover the costs of neutering if they want to bring him into their home. I am prepared for this and I really wouldn't have it any other way.

I can't help but feel very good about what we are doing. We took in an animal that would have, in the best of circumstances, become just another feral cat-diseased, malnourished, populating the area with more and more feral cats. Instead, he is now well-fed, playful, attended to medically, and not going to reproduce. Again, my pride in Sadie for over-riding my decision is great, and I am humbled by her wisdom.

Lucius means "bringer of light." Our home has been a lot brighter since his entrance into our lives. Lord knows, judging by the last handful of posts, I was looking for the light in all the wrong places. I feel like the light found me.

Let's Not Pretend

2009-04-20T15:05:00.002-04:00

Relationships issues haven't been the only issues that I've been dealing with.

I am at a major crossroads concerning career and family life. Every single day I drag myself off to work, which is beginning to feel more and more like an absolute dead-end of career with a lot of potential is I felt like scrambling to it at the crack of dawn, standing for 8 or 9 or 10 hours, scrambling back to daycare 2 minutes before closing. Instead, I get to work from 9 to 5 and watch my clinical skills go down the toilet as I fight on the phone with insurance companies and just deal with a ton of other annoying crap.

I will cut to the chase: I am considering leaving work and going back to school, not necessarily for nursing either. I spent the better part of this day on the phone with various administrations and entities, including but not limited to Social Security, my state's insurance program for children, Blue Cross/Blue Shield or myself, and more of the like. I have crunched out two separate budgets, one for the way it is now and one for the way it might be if I left work.

Can there not be a happy medium?

If I leave work, I retain my benefits, but I will only keep my head above water if I stream-line EVERYTHING. I will no longer have to deal with a ton of nonsense, the by-products of the most expensive and yet broken system imaginable. I will have tons more free time with Penny and be more available to Sadie, but I will be saying good bye to a lot of the extras.

All I know is that something, SOMETHING, has got to give. I certainly don't want it to be my sense of sanity that pops loose. Maybe after having a little bit of time to gain perspective I can return to work but in a different way. Perhaps mental health is just too intense for me, hits too close to home.

I don't know if it's the insurance battles and other red tape, or if it's something else like "delivering care" constantly that is driving me up the wall. I just feel like I don't have a minute to myself, a minute to think clearly, or what. All I know for sure is, I feel like I'm clawing for a way out of this mess. Everything feels so complicated and I wish it wasn't so.

I am really good at...

2009-03-31T16:37:00.005-04:00

I am really good at just maintaining.

I am terrible at starting.

I am even worse at ending.

Maybe I can blame it on the time of the year I was born in because Scorpio is a fixed sign. This means that once the project is underway, I am really good at keeping it going and tweaking the bugs out along the way. I know this is a blanket statement and there are a few things I am really good at starting. Meals. Opening bottles of wine. Turning the washing machine on.

When introduced into a broken system, other than my own, I am superb at fixing it, stream-lining it, maintaining it. I derive a great deal of satisfaction out of cleaning other people's messes.

Right now I wish to find direction.

That is all.

2009-03-30T18:12:00.002-04:00

Nearly a month has gone by since I last posted but so much has happened.

Well, the chili cook off went well, it was very nice, and I came in fourth place out of about 20 entries.

Unfortunately, I found out that same morning that my aunt Rose passed away after a long battle with cancer, which has left a huge empty space in our family. She was the personification of grace and class and I really looked up to her. I started writing a fairly long entry about her but it just felt so meaningless and impotent that I couldn't bring myself to post it.

Since then, I've really been struggling with a lot of issues, not even directly related to her but somehow sparked by her passing. A lot of centers around other family issues that I struggle with, some it involves a friend that has disappointed me so deeply (if you are reading this it is not YOU), and a ton of it has to do with the passage of time and how I've been using it, or misusing it, or missing it, or just not hitting the mark lately.

I feel like I'm just barely getting by, mentally and emotionally, and that I am not really living.

One thing I aim to do, after taxes are done, is to really take a slash and burn approach to most of my material possessions. What this has to do with anything I don't know, but I do know that I have my apartment about 50% organized to the way I want it to be and have a fairly large storage unit that calls me to whittle it down mercilessly. I had been working on this a bit last month before the shit hit the fan and I need to get back to it.

I just feel like a lot of my things complicate my life. Their storage is a drain on my checking account since I pay for them to be stored. And let me tell you, visiting that storage unit takes me on a trip back in time that I really don't need to be revisiting. It's like I walk in there and my old life is all packed up looking at me straight in the face. China, clothing, the archives of what I once had.

Reinventing the Wheel

2009-03-09T20:40:00.002-04:00

So I am slated to participate in a chili cook-off this weekend. Don't get excited, I think it's pretty much an laid-back, amateur deal. Don't expect to see me on the Food Network, sweating over a cauldron of chili.

Yet.

I'm going with Kirk to one of his best childhood/high school friends, somewhere back west. I'm told it's "outside of Allentown" whatever that means. This is someone I knew from high school too and they haven't seen me since I was a senior in high school I guess. Should be interesting.

I want to prepare a chili that stands apart from the crowd, yet is totally recognizable as, well, chili. It's not going to be a tofu chili, or a fruit chili, or a Polish chili, or any other kind of chili that is just NOT chili.

I'm feeling a lot of (pleasant) pressure to figure out how to pull this off. I'm sure in the end I will wind up making something that is great and that makes everyone love me for WHO I AM, and marvel over how I have opened their eyes to the unbelievable potential that is in this dish and inside me. Maybe they will sit back at the end of the night and think "she didn't turn out so bad afterall. Hell, she can really make some good chili."

And I'm thinking that with this chili, maybe my whole existence on this blog might come full-cirlce, since it is, afterall Mommydawg's Famous Chili. Or at least it started that way. Hmmm...

This is a lot to expect of one dish, one crockpot full of beans, ground beef, aromatics, tomato base, and whatever else goes in there. But I've been known to conquer my own world one meal at a time and this should be no exception.

If anyone has any ideas of what might help make a nice chili, I'm all ears. Again, it's going to have a very traditional base of beef, beans, tomato, spices. The rest is up in the air. It needs to be a crowd pleaser so it can't be too spicy, too hippy, too far-reaching for the average palate.

Some bullets:

Beef-toying with which type of ground beef might be best (chuck, sirloin, leaner cuts) vs. not ground beef (perhaps chuck steak cooked til it's falling apart and shredded).
Beans (kidney, a mix, or something else entirely).
Tomato (thinking a thicker consistency is best so maybe paste with a little bit of chopped fresh sans seeds and juice).
Aromatics (Needs the fresh garlic and onion but is there anything else I'm missing? Anyone have any opinion of maybe shallots or a particular color of onion or anything else I can't think of?)
Chili powder (Do I go nuts actually grinding my own? How is this even done? Any particular brand/style/etc. stand out to anyone?)
Thinking about making a back-up batch of brown roux just in case it needs a little more thickness and depth.
Beer (I remember having chili made with beer in it once and it was good. What type should I use, if I use it? Something light [not to be confused with "Lite"] and Mexican, like Corona or Tecate or should I got for dark, like Guiness?)
Some other ingredient I'm not thinking of?

Stuff on the side:

Corn bread with cheddar in the mix, half the batch with a slice of jalapeno on top, half without
Very high quality sour cream
Avocado, to slice right on the spot

Salad Days and Other Food Rambles

2009-02-10T19:03:00.002-05:00

I have a lot of very strong opinions about food. If you know me, you know I'm a bit of a foodie. I am not really militant about this topic, I have a somewhat laissez-faire stance on what other people eat. My own habits range from downright awful to fairly good.

I'm just going to list here some of my own thoughts on the topic of food with absolutely no references to back up my ideas. Call them all hunches. If any of these hunches bear any resemblance to reality it is almost purely coincidental. It is all based upon instinct, taste, personal experience, magical thinking, and a few things I might have read that I agree with.

Avocados once kind of saved my life. I was having a bought of, well, I guess colitis or something. I don't know, I never went to the doctor for it so I was never "diagnosed." However, I was really sick with diarrhea for months and dropping weight like crazy. I chalked it up to stress. Anyway, I started working at a restaurant called The Cafe du Soleil (sadly, now defunct) and avocados were frequently on the menu. I tried them, loved them, ate them daily, and got better. I still eat at least one per week. End of story.
Sorry I started the list with a diarrhea story.
Excess sodium is a killer. It's hard on the kidneys, raises blood pressure, and spoils the taste buds. The current standard for the absolute upper limit of a healthy person's daily consumption is now 2400 grams per day. I predict that in time this is going to be lowered to 2000 gram or less. A healthy diet of all fresh foods will supply all the sodium that a healthy person needs. Yes, not enough sodium is bad, but most people are no where near the danger zone.
Ginger ale is the best soda in the world. It is really good with vodka and a maraschino cherry. It's also good alone.
Grapefruits are the most refreshing substance on the face of the Earth to me. You know this is some powerful shit if there are actually medications cannot be taken with concurrent intake of this fine fruit. There are a variety of drugs that don't mix well with grapefruit such as cholesterol-lowering statins, some anti-hypertensives, methadone, and others. Consider grapefruits a medicine of sorts and research whether or not you can eat it while taking your regular medications.
Chicken is an amazing, delicious animal. They are my most favorite animal to look at, mingle with, and eat. They make eggs, which have multiple uses, and they are delicious to eat themselves. I absolutely ASPIRE to have chickens running around my yard in my lifetime. Who knows, maybe actually living among chickens will cause me to not eat them anymore, but I will certainly eat their eggs. I just don't know if I have the heart to take their lives.
I like steak, but I doubt if I could ever bring myself to actually kill a...cow?...steer?...bull? What the hell am I eating? I don't know, but it leaves me with mixed feelings. Still, delicious.
Bacon is outrageously delicious. The best bacon I ever ate came from a farm that raised it's own pigs, slaughtered and butchered them, and then used a very old smokehouse on the property to cure it. Amazing. I also like ham. I ate this bacon 21 years ago and still remember it vividly.
Easier on my conscious is the consumption of fish and other forms of seafood. The only stuff I don't like is anchovies, herring, smoked oysters, etc. I love all fresh sea foods. I am pretty good at preparing it too. From sea scallops, to fresh lobsters, to clams and mussels, to tilapia and salmon-I love it all and cook it pretty well.
There really is no fruit or vegetable that you can name that I don't LOVE. Just try me. I like it. The only one I don't know about is that one fruit from somewhere far away, I think from an Asian location, that supposedly smells like a carcass. I'm not sure that's even food. But I'll try it.
Gerber Meatsticks are really good and I know this because once a month I buy a jar and eat the whole thing within 5 minutes of unpacking the groceries. Way less salty than Vienna sausages.
I am vehemently opposed to the presence of trans fats added to any food product. It's not even food. It's a poisonous substance. Any company that puts that in their foods, usually baked goods, is just taking the cheap and easy way out and doesn't care if it's killing you or not and is therefore not worthy of your money. They're killing you. Boycott these products.
Personal experience has taught me that a salad a day beats a McDonald's a day.
Coffee is an amazing beverage that, at this time in my life, I cannot do without. In the morning. At night it leads to racing thoughts, mania, depression, insomnia, and misery.
I recently tried a chocolate bar that was so incredible that I want everyone in the world to try it and love it. Ok get this: dark chocolate with a hint of lavender and blueberry. OH MY GOD. Dagoba. Try it.
This follows the idea of trans fats, but damnit people...if it's a fat and it's solid at room temperature it's probably not good for you. You're gonna eat it and it's going to be semi-solid in your blood and it's going to stick to your blood vessel walls and still be a solid and it's going to accumulate and build up and maybe some day break off and it's still doing to be a solid and it's going to lodge itself into one of your coronary arteries and you're NOT going to be a happy camper when that occurs.
Olive oil is good.
Butter is better than margarine with hydrogenated oils and it tastes a million times better so you'll probably use less anyway. Because the flavor is THERE.
The benefits of fresh herbs is cooking probably no where near close to being understood. Consider them like trace elements or something.
Honey is an amazing substance. A gift from the world of insects that balances out everything else annoying about insects. A work of art. A labor of love.
My gut feeling is that artificial sweeteners are very, very bad for everyone. I think people just get used to that horrid flavor. Most people, upon trying it for the first time, are completely turned off by that disgusting taste. I think the taste buds can be convinced over time to accept it and I don't know that this is a good thing. Better to train your taste buds to not crave sweet in the first place? There are other flavors besides sweet and I think some of the more subtle flavors out there need to be appreciated.
Sometimes sweet is over-rated.

A Lament

2009-01-21T19:03:00.003-05:00

Right now I just really feel like this family unit is being short-changed by my inability to be two people in one body. These aren't even tasks that I can ask anyone else to help with. These tasks demand that I cross the T's and dot the I's.

I know that we all have our trials and tribulations but I can't help but feel that mine are closer to impossible than most. Maybe that's horribly ego-centric of self-centered or _insert some other term for shitheadedness here_ but...DAMN...sometimes I just want my old life back. It wasn't perfect, it was nearly always mundane, but it flowed.

I keep on reminding myself that it won't be like this forever, but then what? Then the girls, or at least Sadie, will be grown and the "best" years will have flown by while I was practically begging those years to fly by. Penny will no longer fit on my lap and what will I look back to? Moments where I just wished that time would hurry up and take us out of this phase?

It's the red-tape of life that I am caught up in and I greatly resent not being able to divide the labor.

It's my 30's flying by and not really enjoying this time when I'm supposed to be at the peak of security in my appearance, sexuality, career, personhood, and just every other goddamn thing that life promises will happen in to you in your 30's.

It's just everything...

Grandiose or More Grandiose?

2009-01-13T18:25:00.002-05:00

Well, I decided to go private with this blog. If you got an invite it's because I'm comfortable with sharing it with you. Maybe you actually read it on occasion too :-P

Going public with it on Facebook was a Grand Plan inspired by Kurt who writes such a great blog in between all of the other really cool stuff that he's doing with himself. I admire his writing as much as I admire his openness with sharing it. For a while I thought I'd give sharing a try but I've come to find that I just don't want to share it with a potentially wider audience anymore.

The irony is that I seriously doubt that audience has gotten wider. If it has, there is a really good chance that some of the new readers might not be people I want reading it. The Facebook thing has become a runaway locomotive of people I sort of know, people I don't know at all, and people that I feel sort of wishy-washy about. Trust me, there are some gems in there that I'm so glad I found again, but mostly it's like a playground during recess. Not always filled with your best friends if you know what I mean.

I've felt very stifled by having Mommydawg public in the playground so to speak. I hope that this new sense of privacy will inspire me to be more honest and creative with what I do here. Still don't know what that is yet, but it's mine, it's safe again, and I can take the time to figure that out.

I hope this finds anyway reading well and in good spirits. Spirits have been a bit low here, but I'm no stranger to that. We are in the middle of another move again, hopefully one that shows itself to be an improvement, but I don't have to tell any of you how sick I am of this whole process, do I? My level of exhaustion over seeking comfort is high.

New Years Quiz

2008-12-30T22:01:00.004-05:00

Here's something that I like to do a day or two before the New Year starts. I happen to follow a really interesting blog called All & Sundry and she's puts this up and lots of people post back and it all makes for some good reading. I'm hoping that another friend of mine who is a Sundry reader posts one too. (You know who you are!)

A brief synopsis would say that I'm sort of wishy-washy expressing negative emotions, I hate no one, and the song lyrics that have the most meaning to me are at least 4 years old. I also sneak in a reference to some Dead lyrics that are as old as I am. Because I'm an old-fart soul. The synopsis would also lead you to believe that I didn't suffer greatly this year, but if you've been following this blog or been in contact with me at all, you'd know that I sort of did sometimes. Most of it came right from me, as my own response to my circumstances in the form of moderate to severe anxiety.

However, looking back on it all, especially through the eyes of this quiz, it really was more good than bad in many ways. I had problems, I sought help, I solved a few problems, I got better. I think I'll keep this quiz just the way that it is because I feel like it emphasizes the better things that happened in 2008 and just how much better this year was than the one before.

If you're reading this, thank you, and I hope that 2009 proves to be a wonderful year for us all.

Cheers and kisses...

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Bought a brand new car all by myself, and paid the damn thing off and saved myself a small fortune by avoiding years of paying interest.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Any resolutions I made must have been vague and unmemorable so I'm not sure if I kept them. The only resolution I am making this year is to do more karaoke.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No one in my daily life or family gave birth, but some long-lost friends recovered on Facebook had some babies! Yay for babies!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Fortunately I can say no to this one this year. See 2007. Enough said.

5. What countries did you visit?

In my daydreams I've been around the world. In reality I've been in New Jersey and Florida and all the states in between on 95.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

A home that I am truly comfortable in. More patience. More fun.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

It's seriously all a blur.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Moving back home to New Jersey.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Landing me and the girls in a really crappy apartment, but the end of that is in sight.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nothing serious, thank God.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My Honda Fit.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

All of the people who have offered me and the girls love and support.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Those assholes who trampled the security guard to death at the Walmart in Long Island at 4:55 am on November 26 because they just couldn't wait to get their hands on merchandise.

14. Where did most of your money go?

The myriad expenses of moving 1000 miles...again.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Selling the house and not losing as much as I thought I would!

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Viva la Vida, Coldplay

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? about the same, but heavier than 6 months ago. (it's been a yo-yo year, but I feel healthier.)
c) richer or poorer? good question. i think about even or at least close.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Enjoying my time.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

As always, worrying.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Driving and visiting, and overall enjoying myself.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

Definitely.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

As always, Family Guy.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Oh hell no. As always, ain't no time to hate.

24. What was the best book you read?

When You Are Engulfed In Flames, David Sedaris

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Many good ones on Youtube including The Soweto Gospel Choir and David Sides

26. What did you want and get?

A really great little car with awesome gas mileage.

27. What did you want and not get?

A new home of my own, but I'm not pining over it.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

Idiocracy

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I went to Lido's with Kirk and the girls. I turned 34.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Unbelievable, unremitting, unconditional support in the form of phone calls, texts, IMs, and emails before I moved back home from a handful of key people.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Comfort.

32. What kept you sane?

A few really incredible people.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Would it be cliche to say Barack Obama? Well, it's the truth.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Hands down, the campaign.

35. Who did you miss?

I missed Rob the most.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

No one brand spankin new, but I suppose Kirk counts as new and he's pretty awesome.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

Fake sincerity while large sums of money are changing hands is not only unnecessary, it's obnoxious.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Not a new song, it never is, but alas:

Alone inside my forest room
And it's stormin'
I never thought I'd be in bloom
But this is where I start
-RHCP

Alright...

2008-12-23T20:02:00.002-05:00

Quick update on things:

So I found what I think is a really great deal on a 4 bedroom apartment in Lodi. I've gone for a second visit and unless something amazing happens in the next couple of days, like winning the lottery that I don't even play, I'm going for it. It's obviously got the fourth bedroom I've already mentioned but it just feels a whole lot safer and well-maintained than where we are staying now.

The owner of the house and landlord lives downstairs in this two-unit house. He seems sane. He certainly keeps up with the place. All of the doors lock in a sufficient manner. Everything just looks to be a lot safer, more convenient, more in line with the living arrangement that I am after.

Of course I would love to own my own home again. This is my dream eventually. The taxes around here are so high that it's just too difficult to commit to the long term. When I weigh the cost of property taxes with owning a home for at least 5 years-it's just too much dough.

I know this is a great time to buy because of the low interest rates and the depressed housing market. It truly is a buyer's market and I wish I could say that I was sure I was going to be hanging around Bergen county for the next 5 or 10 years, but it just doesn't feel like reality. We're talking a lot of money here! For the cheapest house I spotted for sale that meets the bare minimum of my needs, it's about $7500 per year in property taxes. Multiply that by 5 or 10 and that's an awful lot of coin.

I can't do it. I can't commit to that. In the end it's either equal to or more than what I would pay in rent per month. I need the flexibility to bail out as needed. In the end, if that means losing a security deposit, I can live with that.

My dream though... Somewhere else. Some place where the traffic is not so suppressive. Some place where the taxes aren't quite so high and the yards are a little bigger.

The holiday season in Bergen county really highlights the drawbacks of this area: the impossible traffic, the rush, the attitudes that crop up due to the stress of it all. It's happening all year round, but the holidays cram it all right in your face.

Modern life is an interesting thing for sure, something that should make you stop and think about what it is you're really doing and how close this falls into line with what you really crave out of life.

You can live rurally and maybe commute a somewhat fair distance to your employment and your source of income. Which will really keep the wheels of the life you've chosen spinning and still get the kids or yourself through school.

You can live suburbanly and maybe commute a little less, with a little less of your own personal space. You will live in the middle of everything and be surrounded by strip malls on all sides and still have a fair amount of traffic to deal with. Your taxes might be a lot higher than you deem fair.

You can live urbanly and pay a lot in taxes and have very little personal space. You will be in the middle of everything with perks like mass transit at your fingertips. You will be closer to crime, noise, and pollution.

Is there something I'm missing? I don't feel like I want any of those choices, but if I had to pick one, I think it's be the first one, the rural life. Maybe I just can't shake it out of me. Maybe I just like having a whole lot of personal space.

Maybe in the end, what I really miss is where I grew up.

Decisions

2008-12-15T16:02:00.002-05:00

I have so much on my mind right now that I wish I could just dump in some one's lap and say, "Here, just sort all this out and let me know what you come up with."

To start, I am extremely dissatisfied with this apartment on so many levels I don't know where to begin. The heat is either broken or it's 95 degrees. The complaints about it being so hot up here fall on deaf ears, but PSE&G is sure paying attention. My thermostats are basically useless; I believe that they are put there to fool me into thinking I have some kind of control over the climate.

The downstairs path to my laundry and dryer are a death trap. Period. I fear that someone will find me at the bottom of the dark steps one night with a broken neck, suffocated by a basket of dirty laundry.

The yard is a not-my-dog shit field of broken-ass-CRAP that isn't fit for the dogs or the baby to play in. Interestingly, Rutherford has an excellent recycling program that actually picks up broken appliances. Ironically, the side yard is a homage to broken appliances. Maybe it's art. I don't know.

The lock on my door actually works but there is a pane of glass missing out of the door that's situated perfectly for any jerk to come in unlock. And yet there is a perfectly beautiful door sitting not 4 feet away from the broken one in the enclosed porch, just waiting to be hung by an associate of the person who maintains this place, someone who "owes him a favor." And there it sits. And sits.

(What is with this mentality of "owing favors?" Just pay a professional to do the fucking thing the right way. This excuse makes me really angry.)

Did I also mention that the drain from my kitchen sink leaks into the basement? I was told by the above mentioned "maintainer" of this house that he "should've really fixed it while the kitchen was all torn up before" I moved in. He's also not really looking forward to "tearing up the whole kitchen soon" but he'll "have to do it," he guesses. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to not having use of my kitchen for an indefite length of time either. Even though I am a fan of conserving water, I am not a fan of being paranoid that the garbage/collection can down in the basement is going to over-flow into my laundry every time I wash dishes.

***The point to take away from this: I have to move.***

Moving. Again. When will it end? Evidently not for a long time.

Rutherford High School is giving me a big problem with allowing Sadie to go to the technical high school that supposedly welcomes student from all of Bergen county. If only our school district didn't give me a line of bullshit every time I ask. "Oh, we don't send to Tech" says Rutherford. Great. I'm glad I'm paying too much money to live in a shit-hole in a town that's supposed to have one of the best high schools in southern Bergen county.

Tech says "We DO have kids from Rutherford, but this has been an issue, but I really can't say anymore about it."

Nice. This is EXACTLY what I need in my life. Vagueness on all fronts. Love it. I just want my kid to graduate and she is really not interested in much else, academic-wise, then being in this particular program that is supposedly open to ALL kids in Bergen county.

Dudes and dudettes, I don't have the fight in me to challenge the school. I just don't. I would just as soon move out of this dump and into a place that will mesh with our needs a whole lot better. If these people insist on keeping the security, I will understand but I sure hope they apply the money to making this a safer place to live and not on Home Shopping Network or whatever.

(An aside: how does one OWN property and treat it this way? This is beyond my scope of comprehension. Every house that I have owned has said goodbye to me in way better condition than when we first said hello.)

Lodi: probably the next destination because Sadie has friends in that school and we know kids who go to Tech from that town. Tried to get in touch with them today, no dice. Will try again tomorrow. I'm not moving to a town unless I know for certain that they will be cooperative in this venture.

Buying in Lodi: Ok home prices, taxes not Ok.
Renting in Lodi: I have been obsessively checking Craigslist for suitable rentals and nothing yet. I also have a few rental-brokers on the case, nothing yet.

Buying anything: Scary. I really don't know if I want to buy anything that I'm not going to live in for at least the next 5 years. Honestly, I don't even know if I want to be in Bergen county that long.

And don't even get me started on going back to school, work, etc. because it's all wound up in this tight-knit ball of stress. It's like a big web, all of the strings meet in the middle, and if I feel like if I upset one string, the whole thing is going to collapse.

Granted, these are a whole lot of First World Whines, if I may rip off Dooce's perfect expression for this kind of rant, but I can do better than this. I kick myself every day for ever whining about any of the comforts that I felt before. What a finely oiled machine my life once was.

I just feel I lack the stamina, the strength of mind to do any more fighting!

I have been fighting an uphill battle since August 2, 2007 and I just feel depleted. I knew, not even in the back of my mind, but I KNEW when things were falling in to place back in Florida to get the hell out of that nightmare, that the battle was maybe half-way over. I knew that there was a lot more work to be done.

And here it is.

Encapsulated

2008-12-03T21:45:00.002-05:00

I've been looking at some of my saved drafts on the here blog and feeling like a jerk for not ever finishing and publishing these entries. I'm thinking that this month I'm going to just edit them up a bit and put them out there. It'll be like a time capsule!

Stay tuned!

Home

2008-12-02T18:38:00.002-05:00

So, Thanksgiving Eve was spent in Nazareth, Pennsylvania at The Mayor's brother's house. I will say right now that I felt very welcome, the conversation was interesting, funny, wonderful, thought-provoking, and just plain satisfying. Also, it felt really nice to be back (near) my old stomping grounds.

The earlier part of the day was satisfying. I made a banana bread that the dogs ruined while I was out driving to pick up my grandmother. We went to my inlaws house for dinner, which was nice. They hosted about 25 people, with 4 turkeys and a slew of sides. It was noisy and raucous, just like it always was.

I will avoid a blow-by-blow description of the evening but I will state that I now have a better appreciation for the Sidney Funnel Web Spider (which will attack you, Human, just for the taste of your blood!), the movie Halloween, and authentic Cuban cigars. Did I mention that I drank a bit? Yeah...

Anyway, it was fun and I am thankful...

Tonight, Part 450 (Approximately)

2008-11-25T21:55:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been thinking and doing some stuff to move forward with my degree and my career. I've gone so far as to start the application process to the Pie-in-the-Sky State University that I have my highest sights set upon. I've gone through some of the motions and even started the short essay of "Why You Should Let Me Study At Your School." I haven't submitted anything yet because it's not complete, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I have so far.

I had a brief detour last week from this endeavor. I found myself riddled with self-doubts and questions of "why bother?" and other such nonsense.

The question of "why bother?" was answered with "besides the fact that you are, indeed, worth it, you practically OWE IT to the people you serve to move forward in the level of care that you are legally able to provide." I can say this about myself professionally: I crave the ability to do more. I can do more. I can almost run circles around my own job. I crave more responsibility and I want to be the one writing the prescriptions, diagnosing, doing therapy, et cetera.

So professionally, this is what I need to do. Doing the nursing assessments is nice, but frankly, it's too easy. I assess, I fill out a form. I'm not knocking it, it needs to be done. I *LOVE* visiting clients in the home. I almost always find a find to do more than I set out to do. I could keep it simple, gathering vitals and briefly discussing the details of their lives, but I find myself wanting to do more. Sometimes I wish I could just stay with them all day cleaning their apartments and making them more comfortable in their environments, but this is really not nursing. Still, these aren't easy tasks. I think that what I am drawn to are the challenges these people face and where I can fit in with that.

On the other hand, the doing more hand, I think that with the professional and academic track I am on, it only makes sense to further my education and become a nurse practitioner. This means get through the Bachelors, get through a Master's degree geared towards practicing adult psychiatry and get my certification.

I am still not 100% clear on what I really need to do to do this post-Master's stuff, but I do know that before anything else happens, I need the Bachelor's degree.

A few things have happened in the last couple of days that have told me that now is not the time to give up. Now is not the time to say Oh, my life is so hard and complicated, maybe I should just stick with working things out and wait until everything is all settled down and comfortable and then I'll think about school.

Hey, that day might not ever come! Things might not ever be as "stable" as I imagine they can be. And yet time will continue to pass and either it'll pass with me attaining the necessary degrees or it won't.

The only sure thing is that TIME WILL PASS.

I had a conversation today with someone I consider a mentor, a nurse practitioner at my workplace who really kind of helped seal up the deal. She basically reflected the whole idea of just getting back into school, getting the degrees taken care of, doing it now and not later. She gave me some good solid advice in a really concise way. She confirmed what I had been suspecting: NOW is the time.

I've got to at least try to move forward. I've got a solid goal, I've got some good experience, I've got the work ethic, and I've got the passion to work in this field to the highest level of my ability.

So what the heck am I waiting for?

Thursday Evening

2008-11-20T19:00:00.003-05:00

Mood coming around slowly. Feel like I'm shaking out the cobwebs, mentally. Working hard on putting things into perspective.

I've been listening to way too much NPR lately to think that my life sucks. I might have some issues in my life, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm holding it down. Currently, I own no property while the value of property continues to plummet. I miraculously sold a house recently in the very inhospitable Florida housing market. I can afford my rent and expenses. Plus, I am gainfully employed.

We are healthy. We might not be perfect, but we are pretty good. We have health insurance.

There are so many things that I personally crave, that may or may not ever materialize. I think I was a good wife. I want to be one again some day. I wish Penny had a sibling or two closer to her age but this may not ever happen. I just don't want to turn out to be the crazy widow mother of the little girl with no father. I just don't want that to be Penny, or Sadie, or me.

Life has become a constant locker room pep talk. I am the coach and the team at the same time. Some days I'm admonishing myself for all of the mistakes I've made, opportunities squandered. Other days I'm mentally rubbing my shoulders and patting my back and telling myself to just keep pushing and success, in some form, will be mine.

And the team, the other side of me that listens, just keeps on going out there and playing, with and without faith depending upon the day.

Monday Night

2008-11-18T18:15:00.002-05:00

So I've really been feeling the need to travel lately but a few things are getting in my way. Let's get them out of the way before I commence with the day-dreaming, ok?

Childcare
Dog care
No vacation time accrued yet
Affordability
Decisions

Ok, forget all of that stuff. There are solutions to each point I've listed. I just really need to recharge. The last time I went on a real getaway was April of 2005. Rob and I took long weekend to Ocean City, MD and made Penny. It was nice. But returning from that short/long weekend, I was met with some kind of weird information. One) the dogs just need kenneling and not family to watch them and Two) I had just had a future career rug pulled out from under me. So whatever relaxation may have occured while we were gone, it was all negated by the realities of returning.

The next time I go anywhere, I want to come back to relative peace and quiet.

And don't even dare to think for a second that the past couple of years of back-and-forth to Florida even come close to real vacationing. Each one of those trips down to Florida was a fact finding mission filled with town and house hunting and heavy DECISIONS about major life changes. I mean, we may have gone to Disney or seen some interesting things. That's not what a vacation is about. We always came back exhausted, with more questions than answers.

And, please, don't suggest that my trips up to Jersey were vacations either. They were more like brief gasps of fresh air at the surface of my life in the fishbowl. I would hold out there, like holding my breath underwater, until I was ready to crack, order a round-trip ticket, and take a deep breath every time I came up. Evidently, it sustained me.

But really, crying on the airplane every couple of months at the ecstasy of landing in Newark and the horror of landing in Tampa and just wondering how much more I could take...well, that's not a vacation either.

So I think I need a vacation!

For real this time!

Of course I'll take the girls somewhere this summer when Sadie has off from school. I think even prior to that, I need to travel somewhere that is not part of a fact finding mission, or house hunting, something for myself. I need to go somewhere that is just for me.

It might be nice to go somewhere I've never been before. I don't really know that I want to rekindle old memories. This world is huge, but I can't come up with anything.

Dear Internet Friends, do you have any suggestion?

OBAMA WINS

2008-11-05T00:22:00.002-05:00

I want to say this as if no one is watching and everyone is watching.

I just watched Barack's acceptance speech, and frankly, I am moved. After eight years of extreme discomfort and impending doom under the Bush/Cheney regime, here we are. The historical quality of this election cannot be over-emphasized. What an interesting time in history to be alive.

Here we have the first president of the United States of non-Caucasian heritage. You cannot downplay the power of this fact. He won by a landslide. Considering that this group of people attained the right to vote a mere 138 years ago, give or take a few months, this is monumental. It also feels like a very, very long time has passed between the right to vote and the opportunity to win. It has been a long, hard fight up until now.

The landslide quality of this event should serve as a stern reminder to the Republican party. According to the evidence shown today, most of the people in this country do not feel that you are up to the task of representing our country on a national scale. The proof is in the pudding. Take this as an opportunity to re-work your mission. Find what is good in your party, in your ideals, and discard the bullshit that scares the rest of the country away. Smaller government-OK! Guns for every Tom, Dick, and Harry-maybe not so OK! Entwining yourself with the dwindling conservative Christian-right and others obsessed with other people's uterine activities-really, really not OK!

This is our country, and by God I feel it's the greatest one on Earth. This is not a new notion and I am far from alone in my opinion. Certainly the most important, the one with the most influence on the rest of this planet. For good or for bad, that's what it is. It's a huge responsibility. It was borne from the minds and hearts of the greatest rebels that ever lived and by it's nature it is a mutable place, able to change as needed for the good of it's citizens and absolutely responsible to do so. Within the framework of the Constitution, which remains ambiguous in the best of ways to keep the dialogue open and flowing.

It is not too late for the GOP to get their act together and avoid becoming a footnote in history. (OK, I know this is a far-reaching statement but bare with me-other very good political parties have disappeared over time). I am not anti-GOP. I share some of their ideals. Hell, I'm in love with one. I just think that by and large, a lot of people have a very hard time aligning themselves with a party that is mostly anti-choice, and primarily conservative Christian, among other things.

How about if both parties just kind of turned their back on that pre-historic way of thinking? What would happen then? Would we just be left with real issues like the economy, the military, our relationship to the rest of the world? Shouldn't that be enough? Why muddle it with the dark and private recesses of what goes on in our female citizens' uteri and if dudes and chicks want to marry people of the same sex?

Isn't that what God is for? To sort all that out later on? Isn't that, kind of, his or her domain?

We are humans. Let us worry about humankind. Let us take care of each other.

And let the chips shall fall where they may.

Something To Consider

2008-11-03T19:13:00.003-05:00

I have been a fan of Merlin Mann's ever since I stumbled upon 5ives back in 2006. I found the concise entries of bulleted entries funny and thoughtful and really believed he was on to something good in that format. I still believe this. I'm sure he would retch upon reading any of my entries but that's Ok. He made me want to be better, and although this is a slow process I think I might be getting a little bit better at this. If anything, I'm getting a little bit better than the early days of "wow, we ate SUCH a great dinner!"

So I'm completely reproducing something that I read on 45 Folders that I have been taking to heart as of late. I'm think he would probably detest this. I'm sorry for that, but I really think it bears repeating for all of the people who don't really follow him.

Oh, and how did I find him? Not sure. It was probably a link on a blog in a galaxy far, far away. Point is I don't remember. I do know that somehow during that time, probably the same afternoon spent lazily on the couch in the throes of maternity leave, that I also discovered McSweeney's. Both discoveries have stirred a latent desire in me to write a little bit more, and hopefully a little bit better.

Merlin's most important words of wisdom, in my opinion, to date, from Kung Fu Grippe, with my thoughts mixed in:

identify and destroy small-return bullshit; (if it's never going to return what you put into it, say goodbye)

shut off anything that’s noisier than it is useful;
make brutally fast decisions about what I don’t need to be doing; (brutally fast. i need to work on this.)

avoid anything that feels like fake sincerity (esp. where it may touch money); (This is my favorite one and I have disobeyed this rule a nauseating number of times. See next bullet's comment)

demand personal focus on making good things; (I really need to be more demanding. Never again will I get prison gang-raped when buying a car. That's just one example that comes to mind.)

put a handful of real people near the center of everything. (this one reminds me of selecting your wedding party. if there are only a few REAL people, then plan a small procession)

And, so, these are some of the mantras that I aspire to live by. Naked and brutal bits to shape the new view I hope to attain. Because this circular way of thinking and behaving that I've fallen into is doing nothing to push me forward.

Like his stuff or not, it's not important. I like it. I find inspiration in it.

Why Tonight?

2008-11-03T01:43:00.003-05:00

When I truly need nothing more than slipping into the darkness of slumber, why can I not sleep? Have I not earned it somehow? Do I honestly need to hear the silence, see the empty space next to me and wonder if it will ever be inhabited by another soul? Should I, at 1:45 am, really have to face these thoughts?

So why tonight?

With each minute that passes my mind grows more and more fixated on my need to sleep playing against the back drop of everything real and imagined scenario that causes me anxiety and sadness.

I want these feelings to be over.

I want to feel secure in something again.

I am sick of it being 1:45 am, alone, with no one to prod out of their slumber so I can bear just one simple request: hold me.

How I could've had that at one time and how it could've been so forcefully ripped out of my hands, well, it's just a very cruel feeling. I am left to imagine every unthinkably horrible event that could strike the lives of me and the girls by myself in bed late at night. No one is there to remind me how ridiculous these fears are. The reason: they have proven themselves to not be ridiculous fears but something that could happen and that already has happened to us.

The light coming through the window has a very late autumn quality to it. I imagined for a moment that there was snow falling. Discovering that there wasn't snow was almost a relief, and not because it was going to make driving difficult, or that we might slip on ice, or even because we don't really have the proper foot wear yet.

It is because it would've been so beautiful to see that I almost can't stand the thought of seeing it now. I have gone on for months about how much I've missed the snow. And I do-I certainly do. It's just that the discovery of snow falling in the middle of the night is a much nicer thing when someone is there to wake up to break the news to. Just as nice is having someone shake you out of a slumber to spread the good word. I know this to be true.

Most things of beauty are difficult for me to handle. Any of the good times I have are very fleeting. I feel like I'm having a hard time carrying myself through this ugly phase. I have come to start looking at it as if I am crossing some shallow but freezing body of water by way of hopping onto rocks poking through the surface. The rocks are moments of joy that I have to leap to. Sometimes my aim is off or my jump is to short and I wind up floundering into the water. I will not drown, but I am freezing and uncomfortable when I fall short. I can stand on a rock to catch my breath and appear to be on solid ground, but I'm almost always assessing my freezing feet in their wet shoes. Time is the invisible hand that won't allow me to linger on the rock and we, me and time, just have to keep moving.

I do keep moving though. There is no other way. From one pleasant moment to the next, but the in between part is agonizing. The part where I'm up to my shins in swiftly moving water that is so cold my feet have long since gone numb is what makes up the majority of my days.

This is incredibly unfair to the girls. I put my best face on around them, but cry behind their backs. How can they not know? How can they not sense that their own mother?

Will it always be this way. Will I be standing on a rock in cold, wet feet when either of my girls are graduating from high school or college? What kind of condition will I be in when either of them gets married or has children? Will I truly be able to enjoy any of it or will there always be this nagging emptiness in my heart? Will I never regain my sense of balance again?

This is a very frightening and sobering thought, now, at 2:15 am, with Jack Johnson singing in my imagination that it seems to me that maybe pretty much always means no... I am sick of maybes and time-will-tells. I want the answer now.

One Week

2008-10-28T00:41:00.002-04:00

Can I just give my prediction of election here? I could be proven to be completely wrong, but the odds are really 50/50 anyway. So can I just say here there that:

Obama is going to be our next president.

He will be our first African-American president (even though he is technically mixed race).

My own grandmother, a little, old white lady who lived in close proximity to Plainfield during the riots is going to vote for Obama. She is, as a devout Catholic, staunchly anti-abortion, but a life-long Democrat mostly due to FDR leading her family along with the rest of the county out of the Great Depression. I think part of her knows that the pro-life stance is mostly a foil for some peoples' desires to combine church and state. In times like these, and times like those, most people know that the best course of action is to recover our economic state and to keep the judges out of the uteri.

God will sort that all out later.

I think you might be getting an inclination as to how I will vote in SEVEN DAYS.

And what a crazy ride it's been thus far. I love election years. I love watching the inane minutiae of political coverage minute by minute. I stand in fascination of the evotlution of CNN from being a very dry, but reliable source of news to what it is today-pretty much just a cartoon. Has anyone been watching Anderson Cooper? He's the new pundit-eye candy that Dan Abrams was during the 2000 election and 9/11. But he might be gay, which makes it all the more tantalizing.

Mostly, I love the fact that we are going to have a fresh face in the White House, after eight years of embarrassment under the Bush administration.

Enjoy the next 7 days, people. Something good will come out of it. I am quite sure of that.

But remember my prediction. If I am wrong, you can slam me without remittance to your heart's desire. And if I am right? Well, then history will have been made.

My New Reality

2008-10-26T19:23:00.002-04:00

It is safe to say that I am never satisfied. There have been brief moments in life when I have felt content, like on my honeymoon, following the births of the girls, or when I graduated from nursing school. It only occurs after I've crawled across the glowing coals that I've felt even a glimmer of satisfaction.

But like everything, it is a fleeting emotion. After crossing any imaginary finish line, I still have this burning desire in me to define what is next and move towards it. The momentum always keeps me going.

Now what? This momentum has been replaced by confusion. We are here, we are back in New Jersey and I can't make any sense of what to do next. This apartment will do, but it has nothing to do with the life I desire. Work is very good, but I just feel like I could do so much more with the agency. However, for the time being I am limited. It would take a hell of a lot more school to be prescribing medications. I hope to get there, but I don't even know where to begin.

I am itching to buy another house in '09. I want to stay in Rutherford and the next year is probably a good time to pursue this as housing prices continue to fall. By my estimation, and given what I would be bringing with me in cash to a deal, I could actually wind up paying less per month on a mortgage AND taxes than I pay per month in rent. This is a tantalizing possibility.

There is also the aspect of owning my own home again and doing whatever I please with it. Not having to share a roof with another tenant in another unit sounds like heaven. Being able to just let the dogs do their thing in a yard that's not filled with the other tenant's TRASH sounds good too. Not worrying about the baby getting tetanus from the various pieces of jagged metal CRAP sounds really good too.

It is very hard to find a 3 bedroom apartment that allows dogs. I have briefly toyed with the idea of actually placing the dogs in another home so that I could find a different apartment, but this was just madness talking. The dogs are getting along like champs and I could never part with them. I love them with all my heart, even though they spend the better part of their evenings getting scolded for carrying out their canine lesbian sex acts in front of me.

I think a big part of making this decision to buy a house is that it is not something I'm doing with a partner, or even in memory of a partner, or under any sort of spell of grief that is making me think unclearly. It is a very real, very worldly dilemma. As far as wanting a house, really feeling like I need my own home again-it's a very clear need of mine.

There were a million and one reasons why I should not have purchased property in Florida 3 months after my husband passed away. The understatement of the century may have been that I wasn't thinking clearly. I get so angry sometimes over having done this. I wish someone would've talked me out of it. I think once Scott may have gently asked if buying property was really the best choice right now, which I waved away like flies off of a pie. The truth is, no one in my inner circle was thinking clearly. All of us-our grief was so very raw at that time.

At a time like that, all thinking is delusional, magical, and highly flawed as far as the real world is concerned. It's just what happens. The air is filled with special catch phrases: passed away, happens for a reason, would've wanted, and so on.

I've come to pick apart some of these phrases once the magical thinking began to abate and reality set in. Here is what I've come up with:

Passed Away-this sounds quite peaceful, and I believe it was for him, which I am grateful for given how much I loved him and how I wouldn't have wanted him to suffer any more. However, the reality of the situation is, here was a man at age 37 who died unexpectedly, 2 days after moving to Florida to start a new life with a wife and 2 children ages 14 and 1 1/2. So while he may have "passed away," in reality he was severed from our lives in a most horrifying way. Sadie was just getting the hang of the idea of being a teenager and Penny, unfortunately, will have absolutely no memory of this man at all. And not to beat a dead horse, but this makes my job as a mother very difficult.

Happens for a Reason-this one I've come to hate the most. I don't think I can ever utter this to another human being in regard to a death for the rest of my life. For anyone who has said it to me, I'm not aiming this at you. Sometimes there is literally nothing else to say. I've said it to myself over and over again and still come up empty. We were just trying to convince ourselves that the reason is out there some where and will materialize and we'll all be so happy again once we just find that reason. I'm not beyond thinking that the reason might be that I am just not allowed to enjoy my life fully, and that my children don't deserve the deep, rich happiness of having a very good father figure in their lives partnered with a mother who is content with life.

(I will allow this much-possibly the reason will not become apparent until generations from now, long after we're all gone. This gives me a glimmer of hope but only because I am a sucker for genealogy. It's the only theory that holds any water about the Happens for a Reason line of thinking.)

Would've Wanted-this one has caused me the most trouble. This is where the guilt comes in and I wish the whole idea of Would've Wanted didn't even exist in our vernacular surrounding death. We are told, even in the funeral mass we were told, that the dead are in a place beyond space and time. So why are we encouraged to make them a part of our worldly decisions that are ours and ours alone? The dead do not care what you do with their bodies, what you do with the money, what you do with their clothing, or anything else that is of the physical plane. The living, while they're alive, might tell you what they wish you would do in certain circumstances after their gone. I was left with basically this blue-print: make sure that Penny understands football. That was as far as the discussion ever went. And I don't know a damn thing about football. So I'm going to need some help on this one.

So regarding my very adult dilemma about what to do next...whether to seek out another rental (because this place is not going to make the cut come next September) or to pursue the option of buying another house, I can no longer ask myself what Rob would've wanted. Sure, we always liked Rutherford but we always felt the housing prices were a little beyond us. This was back in '04 or '05 when the ticket prices on the homes in every town were completely distorted. Now, they seem doable.

Right now the ball is my court and my court only, and there is no one along side me to make half of this decision, to talk me out of a nonsensical decision or confirm the wisdom of my, or I should say "our" choice. This is really uncharted territory because I have given up on the magical thinking that led me to buy a house in error last time. Reality is what lays before me and we really haven't been the greatest of friends up until now. I recently just met reality when I sold my home in Florida for, um, LESS than I payed for it. It was an awkward beginning, but it was true, and the house IS sold so at least reality is reliable. I guess reliability may be what I need most right now.

Some Things That Inspire Me...

2008-10-22T20:42:00.003-04:00

Ugh folks. It's been crappy night. Is it Monday morning yet?

Ok, I know to the rest of the world, Monday morning is like a dreaded disease akin to cancer or Parkinson's, or maybe just irritable bowel syndrome (IBS! You be WHAT? If you don't recognize this bit, it's time to watch Lady Killers) but to me it's like A NEW BEGINNING! A new week of real productivity. The place where you pick up where you left off on Friday. Time to shire!

So it's only Wednesday, or as some people call it "Humpday" and trust me there is certainly no humping in my household tonight...well, it's Wednesday and I'm already dying for the weekend to be over and to feel the rush of Monday morning. The day I can escape the thought of mothering and laundry and all the other stuff that I seem to belly-crawl through on my own while mortars are exploding all around me. Well, actually, it's mostly dog fur, but still.

Maybe it's just me...

This fracture in my life-home life vs. career. Tonight career is in the lead. Wish I could pull it all together into one nice little package called My Life.

Any CBHer that is reading this is probably laughing like hell. "Career?" they are saying to themselves. And the chocolate milk is shooting out of their nose as they laugh and laugh.

Hey, we work at a pretty damn important place. That's my response. We do a lot of good, a lot of important things. When you see me there, you best be sure that I am doing something I was born to do. I'm not just walking around with that clipboard for nothing. I am being therapeutic every chance I get. Every single word that escapes my mouth is trying to say the same thing: I feel for you. I am trying to understand you. I am trying to help you continue to survive in this crazy world. Hell, I don't know if I can survive this crazy world, but I think I can, and I think you can too. We are in this together.

Sure, I don't have my masters yet, not even my bachelors if you want to know the truth. But I am one human being determined to help as many as possible. As has been said before in this blog, what more is nursing than therapeutic use of the self? That's what I am doing every minute I am there.

So like I said when I started this entry, today kind of sucked. I am going to now turn the topic around to some things that inspire me simply because I need to remind myself every now and again why I wake up in the morning. In bulleted format here goes nothing:

My kids: the toughest job I'll ever love, even more so than the Army IMHO. When they do something great or make any improvement whatsoever, it feels like the gates of heaven have opened up. They are the greatest example of living for something other than myself. And some how, this fills my very self up with the greatest feeling ever. It is truly a magical experience. (The flip side is when they disappoint-this is when I feel the flames of hell lapping at my toes.)
My peeps: Much, much more consistent than the kids, but without the gates of heaven thingy. Well, sometimes they do this, but I usually don't hear the trumpets blaring like when the kids do something awesome. More constant. More supportive. Willing to listen to me complain about the kids. And when they don't meet my expectations, it's just a low-grade kind of disappointment, not the kind that makes me want to stick my head in the oven. Overall, I give them an A+ for consistency.
Family-how is it that I look so much like my mother and my father at the same time? And so does my brother but in a different way. I mean, we look alike but not exactly; we both have a good mix of both of our parents. Far OUT, man. And how is that I can look so similar to other relatives who died long before I was born. I mean, WTF? That is some seriously freaky shit.
Love-it just keeps going and going and going. Where does this come from? What keeps it going? How is that I can feel love for some seriously monstrous people along side people who have done some incredible good? I firmly do not believe that the answer is anything religious, but just part of being a decent human being. This shit really does make the world go 'round. Can you imagine if there was no love? Heavy...
No I am not doing any drugs right now; I don't partake any more. I am truly high on life. And nostalgia. And a little Chardonnay.
The Internet! I have said this many, many times before, but I believe that the creation of the Internet was one of the BEST things to have ever, EVER happened to mankind. How else could ideas be exchanged so readily, so deeply, in such a timely fashion? The Internet is the REASON that my second child exists. The Internet helped me get through nursing school. The Internet is the reason I didn't succumb to a state of complete and total despair after Rob died. Oh Lord, I could go on about the Internet for a long, long time. The friendships I have made, rekindled, breathed life into over the web...there just isn't enough time for all of it.
Work-I'm not aiming to make the average individual nauseous over my glowing review of how much I love my job. As far as nursing goes, it's not top dollar. I could be making a hell of a lot more in the hospital. That's ok. Been there, done that. And the more time and distance I put between me and the hospital the more I come to believe that I DID THE RIGHT THING. At first, it was quite a blow to the ego to leave. It was my choice, they urged me to stay. Trust me, I was not tossed out on my ear. But something inside me told me to go. And I did. And time has proven this instinct to be right on target with reality. Hurray for instincts.
Cooking-If there is one thing that I feel very, very sure about, it's my ability to create a meal that will bring you to your knees. Now listen, I am not the greatest baker, but give me a stove-top, some pans, a decent cut of meat, some vegetables, and a starch and I can usually make a very good meal that will all be served at a uniformly pleasant temperature. I had lost some of my ability and culinary instincts in FL, but it's a bit like riding a bicycle. I am close to being back on top of the game and the end is no where in sight.
And last, being back in New Jersey. The sight of the skyline from the ridge-anywhere from Kearney before the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers empty out into the Bay of Newark to, well, I guess the farthest north I've been lately is Hackensack-well, this view has done a tremendous amount of good for my soul. It makes me feel like I truly live in the center of the Universe. While there is something to be said about the flatness of Florida and I've written before about how wondrous it is to hear the thunder coming from miles and miles away in such a terrain, this is really the landscape that I belong in for...at least the next four or five years.

Lizslist

2008-10-14T18:35:00.002-04:00

*Free!2 good home-2 small obnoxious dogs, very barky, shed a lot, will easily justify the carpet shampooer you bought during a session of retail therapy-1 slender JRT with problematic separation anxiety-would be an excellent companion to a single man who prefers TV over human company + 1 JRT/Dal mix-the dogification of Jim Belushi's character in Animal House-doesn't just bark but actually cries like a baby! A must see!

*Will work for money-15 y/o who needs to stop asking me for so much money. 'Nuf said.

*Wanted-3 BR apt in R'ford that has been maintained properly. Tenant has a touch of OCD and will take care of property. With a toothbrush. And comet. Lots of comet.

*Tired of bitching under your breath to yourself? Holla back if you need someone to bitch about things with...bitch...

*35 y/o/F seeking wife-no sex involved-but for all the other things wives are supposed to do. Must be very clean/detail-oriented/financially stable/quiet/love kids/wine/ dishwashing/proficiency in laundry skills and foot massaging a must/preference in using bleach/comet over ammonia a non-negotiable MUST

*For sale-entire contents of storage unit MUST GO-you name it, it's in there.

*Experienced cleaning person for hire. No task too big or small. Help me exercise my OCD by giving me a different mess to worry about.

Sunday

2008-10-12T13:54:00.003-04:00

So I've been tracking two people running the marathon in Chicago today. I can't imagine running a marathon, but I think it's something I would like to do some day. I ran cross country in high school and while I did enjoy it a lot, I managed to hurt myself pretty badly. I had to go to an orthopedist who diagnosed me with flat feet and scoliosis and wasn't a bit surprised that I got hurt this way.

After a few months recovery, the cold shoulder from my coach, procurement of custom-made shoe inserts, and a lot of boredom and depression, I decided that maybe running wasn't for me. So I took up smoking pot and hanging out with a bad crowd. It was just so much easier than getting back in to running.

Now here I am, almost 20 years later, and still considering the implications of not resuming an activity that I really enjoyed. I'm still wondering if there will be a day that I can run again. The chances are looking slimmer given the fact that I have a bunion now (thanks again, flat feet).

I'm not going to write too much about this stupid bunion because I think it will become a hot topic in the future. Suffice to say that it hurts just about every day, sometimes pretty damn bad, and I find myself not exactly limping, but babying it in a way that can't be good for the rest of my body.

2009 is going to be the year of medical and dental procedures for all of us. The kids of course need the routine stuff and we're going to get on track entirely as far as that's concerned. The baby is due for another echo-cardiogram before she hits age 5. It's for something that the pediatric cardiologist has labelled as "trivial" but "worth monitoring." The thing is, they can get the best picture of the area of her heart that they want to look at while she's still a toddler, before her internal anatomy starts to change. I say, let's do it while our schedule is open.

Me-yeah, I have a lot on the plate. More tooth extractions. Podiatry. Maybe a bunion removal. I am not a BIT afraid of that. I am most afraid of this stupid foot getting more and more deformed, more and more painful, and hobbling around for the rest of my life, throwing my entire skeleton out of whack.

Yeah, I know, titillating talk here...

Back to the marathon: my co-worker finished a little while ago, but he's always training so that was no big surprise. His time was awesome, in my humble opinion. The other runner I am tracking hit the 30K mark a while back and is moving along toward the finish line.

Maybe running won't be in the cards for me. I would really need to discuss this with a doctor, which irritates me. I feel frustrated with my physical annoyances, which are pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

Most likely, I just need to get a grip.

Rapid Cycling

2008-10-11T23:56:00.003-04:00

I was going to remove the last post, but figured: Fuck it. It is what is it is. And it's the truth.

Well, I've had me a little Louis Jadot, it's midnight, the house is quiet on this Saturday evening.

It is what is it is.

I am who I am.

Let the games begin.

I miss having someone near me, and I mean really NEAR me, to share in my workday antics and anecdotes, who is not a co-worker. Someone who can still be shocked by my stories of just how clinically insane people can be and how I can still love these people with all of my heart. A co-worker will, and HAS, told me that "loving" them is not really beneficial on a clinical level. This might be true....but I doubt it. What is more therapeutic than LOVING someone despite the fact that they are delusional, crazy, out there, completely incongruous with reality. I don't have to join in their delusion to love them.

I just love them.

What better nurse can you have? The one sticking a needle in your ass, hopefully helping you to carry through with the rest of your week when you forget to take your pills, or take them incorrectly. Those pills you eye suspiciously and hide in your cookie jar or toss down into the sewer. My injection will stay with you for a week or so, peak in intensity around day 3 after the shot, and carry you through until the next one so you don't go completely psychotic and wind up in a very bad place if you were relying on pills alone.

What better nurse can you have than the one who draws up the thick serum in a sesame seed oil base, the better to dissipate slowly over time, through the largest muscle in the human body, the gluteus, and ever so slowly release itself into your bloodstream..all the while your nurse is saying a prayer: Please Work. Please help so-and-so maintain a decent level of functioning. Please help him/her to NOT go bananas this week and get evicted from his apartment, start a fight, get arrested, neglect himself, etc.

Until you see just how much these people need this kind of treatment it's hard to understand. This isn't just depression or anxiety or trouble adjusting to life stressor. This is some major biological illness going on. It's hard to explain without getting too clinical, but these people are not headed for "remission."

Remission is a wonderful goal, if sought early on. But we're talking about people in their 40's and up, who have been institutionalized for most of their lives. They need their shots like they need oxygen. For most of them this is their life-long therapy.

Occasionally, I will share with them the fact that I had such bad allergies that I myself needed weekly shots for nearly ten years, and that I understand how it is. Some shots melt into the flesh like a hot knife through butter, and others just hit that particular nerve ending that wakes them up and stays with them throughout the day. In the summer, you have a lot of bleeders due to vaso-dilation and in the winter, when every thing's a bit tighter, you don't see so much blood. But it's all subject to the mysterious locations under the skin that are either inauspicious or favorable.

So you never really know what you're going to get.

Some people only need the shot for the short-term and they graduate away from it as they become less psychotic and more able to take oral medication exactly the way they should. Others are going to need it forever and ever. Like most everything, schizophrenia exists on a spectrum. Our treatments are highly individualized. I've seen younger people do the shot for a couple of years until their symptoms pretty much remitted and they could carry on with just oral meds and keep their live together. I've seen younger people with more heavier baggage in life do great with seeing us every two weeks for a shot. I've seen mostly fairly old people come in every week for their Haldol or Prolixin and do pretty darn good until the next time they were due to see us again.

Sorry to get so nursey on ya'll, but I am finding that work is carrying me through so much of what I myself carry. I live for Monday mornings. I do the very best I can during the weekend, and come the beginning of the work week, I am raring to go.

I have made a lot of weird and tough decisions in my life but if there is one thing I chose to do correctly, it was to be a psychiatric nurse. I am proud of my daughters, I love both dearly, but the only other thing I have left right now, besides myself that is 100% good for me is my career.

The story of how I fell into this job is not something I want to revisit now-but thank God it happened that way. I was able to deal with a somewhat difficult pregnancy while working at CBH. I was able to look after a very sick husband while working here. Because of the flexibility I was able to handle so many issues at home and still complete my work.

It really made me feel like Superwoman.

Have I mentioned lately how great it has been to be back at the best job I have ever had? Despite the tragedy, the year in Florida that just plain sucked, despite the continued feeling of loneliness I experience...to be back in my desk is probably the greatest thing I have ever pulled off in my entire life-aside from delivering two healthy baby girls into this world.

So maybe I have some weird inter-personal shit going on. This will resolve itself. I don't know what the outcome of that will be.

These thing I do know right now: the girls are OK, we are back in NJ, work is more than good, there will be more money in the bank soon, and life is tolerable.

LOVE YOUZ GUYZ.....

Why I Hate Fridays

2008-10-03T21:12:00.002-04:00

There seems to be a pattern with my typical Friday nights. I get home from work, scramble around getting Sadie where she needs to be, making sure people are fed, cleaning up dog crap, looking around at the place and trying to find at least one thing I can do to make it a little bit better. I get the baby to bed, check in with Sadie over the phone because she usually spends the night at a friends, pop open a bottle of wine.

Then silence.

And then a little more silence.

I could turn on the TV but I don't even feel like it so why bother wasting the electricity.

In my past life, a Friday night was normally spent at home anyway, but there was a routine to it that was enjoyable. Usually a pizza would be delivered and devoured. There might be a movie or something worth watching. The lights would always be down low and sleep would hit me on the couch at some point. Peeling myself up from the couch, I would brush my teeth and fall into bed after a hard week at work.

The main difference was-I wasn't doing this alone.

This made all of the difference in the world. This is what made past Friday nights something to look forward to. This is what makes my current Fridays torture.

I try so hard to enjoy every cute little thing that Penny does and says. How lucky I was at one point in time to be able to look over my shoulder at someone else and ask, "did you just see how cute she was?" doing this or that, or be able to marvel together at this precious creature and dream together of her potential.

That is gone. Gone, gone, gone. Where did it go? And more importantly-why? And not "why me?" but "why the girls?"

I can understand why me. Why not me? What the hell have I done with myself that's so fantastic? When I think of all of the time and energy in my life that has been wasted on ridiculous nonsense and selfish endeavors, I can understand fate turning me back into the singleton that I am obviously born to be. Why NOT?

But why these children? I can bear whatever punishments God/fate/whatever wants to dole out to me. Most of my life has been fairly miserable anyway. Is my karma rubbing off on them? That's a pretty horrendous thought.

So if you want to know why I hate Fridays, this is just a taste of what goes on in my life on a day that should really be something to celebrate, even if it's in a very quiet, simple way.

Penny is getting smarter too. When the subject of Daddy comes up, I'm finding that the simple answer that worked before, Daddy has gone Big Night-Night, is just not going to cut it anymore. The other day she asked me if I could wake him up soon.

***

And the heartless wind kept blowing, blowing - LP

How It Went, How It's Going...

2008-09-19T20:31:00.002-04:00

My first day back to work was practically non-productive. I always feel a little guilty about non-productivity and in the back on my mind this was gnawing away at me. I was stopped so many times from staff and clients alike, just to talk and reconnect, which was truly delightful, but part of me kept thinking "you are getting paid for these hours and look at how you are spending them." I voiced this to my supervisor and she laughed it off and I felt a little better.

But you know me. The motto "work makes free" is just in there, in my DNA or something, and I walked around feeling very happy and a little guilty at the same time. I had to keep in mind that this is part of the nature of this industry I belong to, one that involves a whole lot of talking to begin with.

And how nice it is to feel like I belong to something, belong to an industry, again. We all fantasize about winning the lottery, or having some other magic fall on us that would allow us to not work for a year, a decade, or forever. But this work stuff is what keeps so many people going. It was a huge part of my life in the past and the year that I missed working was certainly the worst ever. Not just because of the not working part-but the not working part really made it suck that much more.

So to be back-well, it is really the most incredible feeling ever. I rememeber right after Rob died, aside from the shock and awe that descended upon me over losing my soulmate, I remember just wanting to be back with everyone that I loved so dearly at work. There was so much craziness swirling around in my head that I'm not afraid to talk about it now.

My mind was mostly on cruise control and I would hear the voices of some of the people I worked most closely and best with and sort of imagined, in a very passive way, what they would say to me if we were face-to-face. I really believe they would've said these things and highly suspect that they were thinking these things and I was just picking it up in an intuitive way.

The above paragraph is either very psychotic or right on the money. Either way, it helped. Perhaps it was real or perhaps it was some kind of survival mechanism but it helped me survive.

When I studied mental health in nursing school, I was captivated. I wanted to be right in the middle of that science. However, I had very traditional views about how one's nursing career should progress-with the requisite minimum 5 years on a med-surg floor, followed by the some acute psychiatric experience, THEN outpatient when I was closer to retirement.

As I've said before, certain life events were breathing down my neck which were mandating that I slow it down a bit, strive for the 9 to 5, and enjoy my holidays with my family. Coming to CBH was probably one of the BEST decisions that I have ever made. Besides the perks of weekends and holidays off, I found there the most supportive group of people that I have ever worked with. Listen, the pay is NOT top-dollar but for me it's a salary I can live on and the flexibility to take care of my family is there.

Most importantly, I believe in what I do. Sure, sad and tragic things happen to people. When you are in the business of helping people, you are going to see some sad shit. But it is nothing like the sad shit that happens in the hospital, where things happened that really shouldn't have and I felt sick about it for days, months, weeks...and even up until this present day.

But I digress. I will blame the 2005 Bordeaux that I am enjoying tonight...

I suppose is that what I am getting at is, I have been preparing for this week all year long and it has been so rewarding to come back. I gave a few injections today and did find that it was a lot like riding a bicycle. Somehow it just comes back to you. And I did find, to my delight, that it still feels like I was born to do this work.

I look forward to a few weeks passing by, and people just being used to seeing me again so it's not a big deal anymore. I look forward to blending in with the woodwork again and just being another cog in a great machine that I am happy to be a part of. I'm not very comfortable with being front and center, but I happily endured it because I am so glad to be back.

I really never wanted to be gone in the first place. I cried my eyes out when I gave notice. If Rob didn't die, I'm sure I would've missed this place and just moved on in a fairly smooth fashion because we would've had each other and we would've been fine. However, my husband did die and things were so crappy down in Florida without him. I needed to reclaim something that was MINE, namely my career. Without my career I am lost, I am sort of a crappy mom and homemaker and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

So thank you, Workplace for taking me back. This week, as minimally "productive" as it has been, was a most magical and uplifting experience. I feel useful and productive again. I feel like I am part of something larger than myself again. I will strive to give back to you what you have given to me.

And that's really something that can't be measured at all...

The Final Hours of the Long Hiatus

2008-09-16T20:56:00.003-04:00

Before diving in to what the title of this entry suggests what it should be about, I think a quick recap of the process of the return home is in order. All-in-all, it was sort of painless in some ways and complete and total torture in others. I'd rather not get into the torture part because that's best left behind.

What worked best for us this past year was summed up very nicely through the way in which the move itself was made possible-good people in our corner. It literally took a village to get us home. Between the packing, the loading, the driving, the plane flights, and the countless good wishes that were granted to us-well, I'm not sure how it would've all worked out. To those of you who were able to help with the nitty-gritty side of things-thank you. As I see it, you made a sacrifice for the well-being of this family and it will never be forgotten. To the even larger group of people who offered unlimited support, phone calls, encouragement, text messages, prayers, emails, and just plain old good vibes-without you I really don't know how I would've discovered the will to not fall apart completely.

In time, I am sure I will devote a lot of space to really sharing more of what my life was like as I stumbled through August of 2007 to August of 2008. Looking at these words, I cannot fathom that it was just one year. It was a year that felt like a decade. Nearly every single day felt like a week. Every hour was a day in itself. Time felt like it was moving so slowly, but not in the way that you would hope for. More like in the way you might feel trapped in quicksand and waiting for help.

***

Tomorrow, I return to work. I have no idea how productive I will actually be tomorrow, but my foot will be back in the door. I expect to be non-productive, possibly even counter-productive. Ha ha.

These final hours are a bit bittersweet. Although the reason for my long absence from work is a sad one indeed, there was a freedom in not working that wasn't half-bad. Mostly it made me really, really crazy.

I look forward to picking up where I left off. My work environment, physically, is less than stellar. The building is old. The microwave is always dirty. Sometimes there are interesting insects sharing our space. The computers are slow. Some of the places I have to visit are downright creepy.

For some reason that might be hard to really convey in light of the cons, it's best job I've ever had. It's in the field that I knew I wanted way back in nursing school on the very first day I sat in my psychiatric nursing class. This is the way I know best how to be a nurse and be fully myself, to be the things I like most about myself, to bring about the most effective treatment possible, and to work with people that I hold dear-both staff and clients alike.

And it's just a good night's sleep away from this moment.

100

2008-08-24T13:36:00.002-04:00

This is my one-hundredth post. I'm going to try to not make it a crappy one.

I am feeling so connected, folks. I have Twitter now, and it's even set up for mobile use. Of course it's also featured on this here blog and on FB too. I just downloaded a mobile for FB. I continue to make friends with people on FB that I don't actually know but darnit, they seem worth knowing. At the very least, they are worthy Wrestler opponents which carries an awful lot of weight in my world.

None of this is helping me with the Operation Get Back to Jersey. However, it is making life a little more tolerable and every bit counts. Nah, scratch that---It's making life better. I think that's a better way to describe it.

I have transcended tolerable by now. I am well aware that intolerable days are always around the corner, but those are just days and not my whole entire outlook on life. To be able to say "I am having a sucky day" instead of "my whole life is in a shambles" is a very important distinction.

Gunga Ungula for you Caddyshack fans out there.

Today is Sunday. By this time next week I hope to be deep into Virginia. Wow, that did not come out right. What I meant to say was, I hope to be approaching the Capital, which sounds a little perverted too. In other words, I well on my way home.

Big Mama here is getting a haircut and color on Tuesday. The one I am sporting now just has no style. At least with long hair I could put it up in an accessory, mainly just ponytails with the occasional braid or hair clip. This is just a freak show of blah on my head right now.

I'm going for a deep brown, no red whatsoever. I'm keeping it shorter, no bangs. I need some layers or something. I just want it to look cute for the fall and winter, when I have no tan, and the dark hair contrasts with my skin. I'm sort of starting to form a vision of the kind of style I'd like to sport for the next year. The kind I'm sporting now will not cut it for the work-place or being anywhere other than my lanai, Publix, daycare, my car or any other place borderline agoraphobics frequent.

The remix is still in the studio, so to speak.

Bulleted Updates to Clarify Past Bulleted and Non-Bulleted Updates

2008-08-23T14:51:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I basically had to storm the guidance department on Tuesday during lunch hour, a sneaky tactic, and demand action. It worked. Sadie will be in 10th grade English. Hurray!
We've had a bit of rain here, but nothing unmanageable like an actual Hurricane. Absolutely nothing we haven't seen before, and certainly far from the worst of what we have seen.
New issues have spawned, leaving me nervous and anxious. Again, nothing new here.
I am leaving Florida in one week. The girls are leaving in six days via JH-chaperoned airplane ride. The timing should not in any way coincide with Penny's #2 time, so I think it's going to be a good flight!
Pretty please, will someone by my house?
New level of procrastination in the form of Twitter. I love you, Internet.

A Night Like Tonight...

2008-08-22T21:40:00.002-04:00

Reinforces exactly why I am moving. This might be the third worst day of my life, still a bit far behind the second worst day of my life and miles lagging behind the number one spot, but it's the kind of night where I just want to throw battery acid in my eyes to distract me from my troubles, or maybe stick a freshly sharpened pencil really hard into my ear just to mix up the mood a bit. I can't even blog about what happened because it's partially not my business to tell. If you're that curious, just ask me over email or something and became a captive audience to me tales of strife as a single mom. But not here. Just can't do it here.

Allow me to take my mind off of my issues by completely turning my focus around for a few minutes. If I don't, I will surely go crazy. I've been having Undertoad (see The World According to Garp for the definition) Moments all day long. Probably has a lot to do with going to the funeral parlor to pick up a receipt for Rob's funeral. I mean, they're really nice and all over there, but I just can't get around the fact that that was the last place I saw my husband.

Well, that's sort of a weird way to start your day. I thought to myself about how great it was going to be to hopefully NEVER drive by there again, never see it again, and then I remembered that I still actually own a house in this town. I just might have to come back someday. Also, it's a given that someone else in my family will be having their own funeral there eventually and so I'm sure I'll actually be inside that place again. Hmmm. So, no closure on that end.

So of course just being in there gets the old imagination rolling along. The color of the shirt, literally darkened by tears. People who were, things that were said, the way everything looked, the scent of the flowers, the feel of the velvet-lined chairs in the front row. The very last time I saw him, how sorry I felt that he wasn't going to wake up the next day and take us to the beach.

I found myself driving about, running my errands, thinking about these things in the drizzling rain. I no longer ask the question "why?" but damned if I know the answer. The short answer is: because his body just couldn't do it any longer. The bigger answer eludes me still, and maybe it always will.

I've said time and time again that maybe generations from now one of my relatives, far, far down the line will know. Maybe someone will inherit my love of geneology and twists of fate. They might look through an old photo album filled with pictures of their great, great, great-grandparents and discover the unusual story that unfolded in our lives and see some kind of positive meaning in it for them.

I Just Wanted to Say

2008-08-18T12:48:00.002-04:00

...That I am completely freaking out at the moment over several things.

I cannot get in touch with the freakin guidance counselor at school so Sadie can finally just finish English I (yeah, it was a bad year) which is holding back her completion of the course, which is holding me back from withdrawing her from Springstead, which is holding me back from enrolling her in Rutherford.
There is a fucking HURRICANE coming and I don't know if I should put the shutters up or what. This might knock out my phone, cable, and...internet...
I am so nervous and distracted by the above that I can barely stand it.
Holy shit, I am MOVING in two weeks!
Will someone buy this damn house already?!
All of this leads me to procrastinate on Facebook more than I already do because I don't know WHERE to start with the rest of everything!!!!
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where It's At

2008-08-16T15:26:00.002-04:00

Major strides were taken this week on the road to victory for Operation New Jersey Return (ONJR). The majority of my belongings were packed, for better or worse, onto a PODS container. Initiated in a very organized and well-planned manner, it turned to the usual moving mayhem once my father stepped onto the scene. What began as a well-thought out endeavor with meticulous packing and labeling of boxes quickly escalated, or maybe degenerated is the better term, into semi-random stuffing of my furniture and belongings into the sixteen-foot container.

Some things working for my belongings arriving without everything breaking:

Table legs were removed, everything that could be taken apart was taken apart
China and fragile valuables are cradled by enough bubble wrap to contribute to the Earth's destruction somehow
Most of the heavy stuff was tied into the container fairly well

Some things not working in favor of my belongings sustaining boo boos:

Many of said table legs and removable components of furniture were placed in the container by my father, so I cannot vouch for them being wrapped in bubble wrap sufficiently
Many items appear to be basically tossed into the container in a haphazard manner
I cannot vouch for what I didn't tie down, which is an awful lot of important stuff

I was out there at dusk last night, fitting the last of what I could fit in by myself, which was an awful lot in retrospect. Somehow I was able to get my filing cabinet in by sheer brute force, a hand truck, and the will of God behind me. It is placed in the container, on top of my couch which is sideways. It is upside-down due to the fact that I basically had to roll it in. Crammed around it are various boxes filled with heavy things. Behind all of this lies the contents of my house minus the baby's crib, 2 mattresses, 2 computers, and just little odds and ends.

Inside the house is a skeleton crew of belongings. Just enough to eat at, sleep on, watch TV, use computers, and attend to personal hygiene. We're at the point when it's all about using paper plates and not even having to run the dishwasher. I do, however, have 4 coffee mugs still in the rotation because I just don't like to drink coffee out of anything else if I can help it.

It won't be long now, gang...

Focus Tightening...

2008-08-08T16:32:00.002-04:00

...or is it?

I should be. For the most part, it is. There are still a lot of moments where I've done a box or two and just need to take a break.

People, I am SO tired of this process-moving. It's been going on for so long, with a few months break here and there. The longest I've lived anywhere for a while was in Wood-Ridge, and that was for three years.

Who knows, maybe at the term of my lease we'll stay, or maybe we'll go. I might be doing this again in a year, but I certainly hope for the contrary. I don't especially want to buy another house for a long time. I need to let my life unfold a bit more before jumping into that commitment. I hesitate to do anything major with a big portion of my money other than to put it into something as high-yielding as possible with a degree of withdrawal-leniency.

Today the PODS container came and I am pleased as punch with it. I think I can fit just about everything on there. I'm going to try my best. It hold 7500 lbs. or something. It's 18 feet long. That really should do the trick and if not, well, somethings are going to be left behind. I want to avoid renting a storage facility at all costs. Just don't want to fit it into the budget.

Already I know that my dining room set is not making the cut. It's a nice set. If anyone wants it, let me know, I'll gladly send pictures of it. There's no way it's going to fit anyway and I don't see having two separate eating areas in my future for a long time.

I have a butt-load of stuff in my car headed for the Salvation Army. I'm donating loads of books to a used book store down here. I am thinning out everything and trying to strip my belongings down to what I consider the bare-minimum at this point.

Feng shui tells us that when you discard the things that are clogging up chi that you are making room for better things to come along. Space needs to be created for new things or else it all just becomes piles of junk in your life. Simplify!

This Time Last Year

2008-08-05T19:36:00.002-04:00

This time last year was met with very hard decisions. A lot of my guidance at this time didn't come through intellect but the collective efforts of other people, emotion, and gut-instinct. When you find yourself in Sear's picking out the clothing that you want your late husband viewed in, well, chances are high that you are not thinking with your usual mind. Faced with an array of coffin choices and flowers you want displayed and how exactly you would want all of this to go down, well, it's a different part of your mind that is operating right now.

Right around this time Jean asked me a question that has remained with me to this day. I don't know what she was getting at exactly, but I know that I have thought about this question and my answer nearly every day since it's been asked. The question was something along the lines of what would you wish for right now if you could have anything?

The answer was: for time to stand still.

I wished that I could just put everything on hold, the entire world around me, the pressure to make decisions, the stress of trying to figure out what were the right steps to take. I used to walk around outside at night, very late, when nothing else was going on, just to feel the way the world felt when the tasks of the day had gone to bed. The world I walked through was a surreal one, with my husband no longer a part of my realm. How a life that animated could have snuffed itself out at such an odd place and time; it boggled my mind.

I find that the only way for me to really get through it is to view it and feel it in a very objective manner. No guarantees come with anything, especially things that make you happy. The startling reality of how everything physical and tangible was of a transient nature wore me down and broke me for a while. Because, saddest of all, this includes people.

I worry that this startles people or makes them think about me in a weird way. I've already got enough to worry about over my entry on washing dead men's penises, posted a tad over a year ago. If it makes anyone feel any less weird about my new-found peace with life, please note that I spent the better part of this year in the throes of severe anxiety and moderate-to-severe depression that required medical intervention. I lost at least 65lbs. this past year alone due to NOT EATING ANY FOOD.

I just want to note here that I gained 10 back and feel pretty good physically. If I can maintain, thing will be good. However, I have lost a bit of hair and really hope it decides to come back.

(I ate some Chef Boyardee today. And Italian wedding soup. Think that's good for hair growth?)

(I also got a haircut. I am satisfied with it but could get no good pictures of it today. I think it was the shirt I was wearing. Plus, I get such a skanky feeling every time I leave the beauty parlor, even if it is a high-end place. I feel like I am coated in hairspray, thus I feel gross. It's probably my imagination. Does anyone else ever experience this? Please don't let me be the only freak with this issue!)

I read a book that Laura recommended, called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He's a Facebook friend, by the way. It's a self-help book, but beyond that it's kind of hard to explain what it is. All I know is, it helped me chill.

One of the main themes throughout the book the human perception of time, and living in either the future or the past, and few people living in the present in a way that helps them feel content. I guess that's what the title is all about, the fact that the moment that matters the most is right now.

Reflection on the past is necessary, as is planning for the future, but when I was living solely in both the past and future, the present was taking a beating. I feel like I have put the past in it's place with many issues and trying like hell to take the future step-by-step. The only other choice is to be insane and my daughters deserve much better than that.

Ah, Rutherford, here we come. Please be good to us, for we will be good to you.

Contact Paper

2008-08-04T15:16:00.003-04:00

Now that worlds have officially collided, due to the fact that I have linked FB up with this blog, you might know that I have had some real estate negotiations going on, plus a cabinet refacing job done.

First, what was I thinking, opening my blog up to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on my friend's list? I guess it's just that I really don't care who reads it. I mean, if you're reading it thank you for reading this but I never really expected to pawn it off to this particular audience that I am possibly writing to at this moment. Which could possibly be 2 or 3 people, but anyway...

Second, the deal fell through because the buyers couldn't get a mortgage. Nice. Please do not put in an offer on my house if you do not know if you can borrow money or not. Why not find out first how much money people are willing to lend you. THEN you can go find a house within your price range. Or you could rent for a while and build up your credit. Go on freecreditreport.com and figure out where you went wrong and how to correct it. THEN go shopping for a house.

No one is going to finance people with bad credit anymore. Money isn't what it used to be less than five years ago. Financial responsibility is a big interest of mine. Here are a few of my personal tips:

Use your credit cards wisely, but do have them. Do not carry a balance unless absolutely necessary. My Amazon Visa is my favorite because for every amount of dollars I spend, I get actual certificates in the mail that I can use on anything on Amazon.com. I get a lot of free stuff that's important this way, particularly books.
Decide if you're going to be the kind of person who carries around cash or mostly uses plastic and stick to it! Avoid the ATM at all costs. Do have a debit card to a checking account (you should really have one of these if you don't already).
Try like hell to put some money in a CD or a money market account. Do not touch the CD until it matures. If you do not need the money at the end of six months, roll it over, and just keep on doing that for a while. Every six months you basically have to decide what to do with the money-roll it over or use it in a different way.
Small loans are a great way to build up credit.
Maintain some kind of communication with the folks you share any outstanding debt with. Try to work out some kind of deal, such as small monthly payments, to avoid having them sell your debt to a collection agency. Sure, they'll stop calling you, they'll literally sell your debt to a collection agency for a fraction, cut their losses, and move on down the list of people they have to call to settle debts. This gives them even more of an excuse to raise interest rates. Just tell them you'll give them $20 a month and for God's sake, stop using this particular line of credit.
Start small. Do not follow some link on the internet offering you unlimited money, especially if they charge you a fee to tell you that you have been denied a mortgage. This wastes everyone's time. If you know your credit is shaky, just try to correct it before putting an offer in on a house and you'll spare everyone a lot of time and anxiety.

My cabinets are done being refaced. Thank God. They look great and will hopefully persuade someone to buy it. However, what a hastle not being able to use the kitchen for 4 or 5 days. We at out too much.

I decided to put contact paper down on the shelves inside the cabinet. I know I sound like a whiny bitch by now, but it is a complete and total pain in the ass. It is almost impossible not to have bubbles between the surface of the shelf and the paper. I'm trying to just roll with it, but it is time-consuming and I don't especially like doing it.

And right about now, I have to return to it.

One Year

2008-08-01T21:44:00.002-04:00

I have written entries for a year now dealing with life as a young widow and it's impact on my life and the lives of the girls. I have cried, prayed, complained, and somehow found strength through writing about this. This entry is not going to be about me, but about a very amazing person that I found tucked away in his own little corner of the web. It would be the obituary that I would've written, although Andrew Meacham of the St. Petersburg Times did a pretty good job of that almost a year ago, even if there were a few factual inaccuracies along the way.

My late husband, Robert Alan Shaw III was born on March 23, 1970. I always joked with him that he was made during the summer of love. Do a little math and you'll know that he was in fact created in June of 1969, when his parents were fresh out of high school and engaged to be married. This pre-nuptual conception was greeted by some members of the family as not the best news in the world, given society's views on pre-marital conception. However, most of the family was thrilled to tears and his father's family welcomed his mother into their household with open arms. He was to be the first grandchild on either side of the family, an honor that I myself hold in my own family, which is a very special position indeed.

His mother had a bit of a rocky pregnancy but managed to get through it. By way of Cesarean section, Rob made his entrance into the world, but it was blatantly obvious right off the bat that something was very wrong with this baby. His color was blue and remained that way even after he took his first breath, signalling a heart defect of some kind. His poor mother didn't lay eyes on him for days because at that time it was customary for the hospital staff to shield the family from their sick babies.

Rob was diagnosed with transposition of the great vessels. His parents were told that he would most likely not make it to his first birthday, but as his mother Audrey told me "I never really paid much attention to that." They raised nurtured him along day by day and saw him through four heart surgeries, the first two being successfully performed at six months of age and at age three. Rob's surgeries were very cutting edge, ones for the books-literally. Rob and medical technology ran a neck-and-neck race with each other.

Aside from all of that, he had a really pleasant childhood. With a sister 18 months younger than him, baseball games, sledding, friends, Christmas presents, a nice family, several dogs, he had the most solid foundation any of us could ask for. He lived in a small town where family was always around the corner, had a grandmother with such a deep love for him it can make me cry just thinking about it, and parents who were devoted to just living a straight and narrow life, life was as stable as it could possibly be.

Rob's other condition kind of started to take some shape to the outside world around age 4 or 5 in the form of misbehavior, defiance, odd quirks, tenacity, and repetitiousness that challenged those around him. According to family legend, he passed certain milestones at a very young age. He was walking, talking, and potty-trained before all of his peers. In retrospect one has to wonder if the dopamine receptors in his young mind were running full speed ahead, but it really doesn't matter. Here was a child carrying a very poor prognosis from his doctors, enduring God knows what kind of pain and suffering, but at the same time hurdling through life at an unprecedented speed.

The high school years were good to him. He made many meaningful relationships that literally lasted until the day he died. Most people around him wish him well even though he was mouthy, confrontational and would always have a joke at someone else's expense. He carried this trait into his adult life and somehow people loved him for it.

After graduating high school he worked a few jobs before starting college at New Jersey City University. Most notably, he was the chef at a restaurant in Westwood called Our Daily Bread that this parent owned. He turned out to be a great cook, very meticulous. He made the best breaded chicken cutlets I have ever eaten. Throughout our relationship I mostly cooked, but whatever he made was the very best specimen of it's kind in looks and taste. You could take a picture of it for a magazine and happily eat it afterwards. This was just another good example of attention to detail.

He DJ'ed for a few years with his old buddy John Avery. I know he had a lot of fun doing this. He had a huge record collection and I'm sad to say we had to part with it before the move to FL. He kept a handful of records that meant a lot to him, so at least I have that.

Before marrying me, he had the good fortune of convincing another girl to tie the knot. Lorenza was his college sweetie. They were together for 10 years, I think 3 of them as husband and wife. She is a very petite girl, maybe 4'11" which complimented his 5'4" height. She was borne of Italian immigrants from Hoboken. They spoke very little English, which made communication difficult, but I understand that the mother-in-law made very good food. He raved about the spaghetti sauce that she made, either with bracciole or crab and other crustaceans.

He had some brothers-in-law, one he liked an awful lot. Evidently the one he like married a Russian girl and Rob was in their wedding and had to hold a crown over their heads during the ceremony for a very long period of time. The bride was Russian, I think it was some kind of ritual. He remembered sweating a lot and having to change hands many times while holding the crown.

So they married, yeah I've seen the pics, they both looked really great. He already owned the 2-family house in Lodi and they lived there for a little bit before buying the house down by the shore in Brick. For whatever reason the marriage didn't work out and Lori got the house and the dog, Phoebe.

He moved to an apartment in the shore area and they worked out their divorce. Not long after he moved into the bottom unit of the Lodi house and worked as a Webmaster at WANDL, a software company in Bound Brook, NJ. This is where he working when we met. I was a CNA (certified nurse's aide) at a very nice nursing home in Califon, NJ and taking classes at Raritan Valley to become an RN.

When I met him, I was fresh out of a catastrophic relationship and he was newly divorced. He was just a handsome picture on Yahoo personals that I surfed next to. He was from Lodi. I wondered how far that was and decided that it was in fact pretty far, but there was something about the profile that really caught my eye so I decided to say hello.

That was back when he was bleaching out his hair. He looked really good. The profile pic was of him, up against the cabinets in the Lodi kitchen. His hair, so blond, his eyes so big and blue, a white T-shirt on. He looked edgy yet approachable.

We exchanged a few emails and then both departed on vacations for a few days. He went to Atlantic City, on a fishing trip I believe, and I traveled up to Provincetown, MA for the first time with Kevin and Tamara. Tamara and I toasted "to Bobby" in our motel room over some vodka shots. I think we both had a feeling that this was a person of significance in my life.

After the return from our trips, we graduated to sending each other IMs on AIM. This was when my screen name of Smilemaster2000 was born, in the late summer of 2001. As JustRob2k1, he was able to tentatively admit to me that he was divorced and that he had a heart condition. One night, he asked me to just ask him ANYTHING and I told him I wanted to hear his voice. He faltered a bit, but gave me his number, which I scribbled with a spare piece of Sadie's crayon onto some page in a loose leaf notebook that I still have.

973-594-something-something-something-something.

We built a relationship with each other through technology. We messaged every night, emailed every day. We asked each other a million and one questions and played backgammon. It was a beautiful way to get to know someone. Even back then I thought, if this is the guy I marry and have kids with, this will be an excellent story to re-tell.

He courted, we dated, we took our time. He didn't' tell me that he loved me until July of 2002, almost a year into our relationship. This was fine with me. I don't believe in pushing this. We were vacationing in Bermuda, a cruise, or first vacation together. While frolicking on the beach, the phrase was uttered by him first, but I think he already knew that I loved him back. Still, it was a big risk. Prior to this, he had filled his mouth with many, many stones on the shore, all polished smooth by the ocean's salty waves and time. He looked at me and smiled and loads of small, oval rocks fell out of his mouth. I don't think I have seen anything quite that funny since.
Then the words were said and I knew that I had won over a heart worth fighting for.

He met Sadie a few months later, and the rest is history. We got engaged on Saturday, March 22, 2003. I remember receiving many phone calls at work from him to find out if I was definitely going to be able to get off from work early that day, since I usually worked until 7pm but was planning to leave 3 instead. There was an urgency about it. Of course we were working short-staffed, but this was for his birthday and I needed to get off early because we had a Nets game to attend!

he usual routine ensued upon arrival to the Lodi house. I suppose I took a shower, maybe even bringing Evie along with me for our weekly doggie bath. By that time, that was routine that had taken hold. Followed by that was a sort of unusual snack of fruit and cheese piled high upon a platter. There was so much of it and yet he continued to urge me to eat. He barely ate any of it.

I spied a small, squarish object underneath the grapes and instantly knew what it was. Having spied it so early into the grapes and cheese, I didn't know when to pretend that I noticed it. While popping grapes into my mouth on the floor, I saw him grow very restless, breathing harder, turning paler, and looking mildly sweaty.

To break the tension, I pretended to notice the foil covered square for the first time. Taking it from me, he got down on one knee and proposed to me in a very time-honored way. By now, he was pale and sweating, and goddamn it-yes of course I would marry him, but at that point I was more worried about his condition than anything else.

After his recovery from the tension, we studied the ring together and he spoke of how it came to be. Evidently he and Jon went into the diamond district of Manhattan and picked out just the right rock out of a collection of loose stones. The gem weighs 1.01 karats, if of decent grade, and cut beautifully. He had it placed in a very simple Tiffany setting on white gold, which was the only bit of criteria that I provided. I like the look of silver, white gold, or platinum against my skin and I like one very cool rock as opposed to clusters of rocks. Armed with this knowledge, he created a perfect ring.

Our engagement was 5 months long and I was in the trenches in nursing school. I knew that after this experience, coordinating a very respectable, traditional wedding of 95 people by night and learning how to be a nurse by day, that I could pretty much coordinate anything that came my way. Everything about that day was beautiful, from having to fire my limo driver on the spot for showing up in a piece of crap vehicle at my parents' house, to traveling across the state of New Jersey with a veil on my well-coifed head while wearing sweat shorts and a T-shirt, to the hand-crafted ceremony, to arranging my bustle, to needing bridesmaid's assistance to manage the dress while taking a pee, to throwing the best party I've ever thrown, to making our way back to Lodi for a few hours of sleep. We honey-mooned and slept it off in Cozumel.

During this time, Rob was an employee of Globalshop, Inc. He worked here from roughly the time of our engagement until the day he died. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

After our return from the honeymoon, we hit the ground running with selling that house and buying something a little bit bigger, a little better for a family. We fixed up Lodi completely and listed with Foxton's. In a short time we had a buyer and then negotiated with his parents to buy the house he grew up in, in Wood-Ridge.

While living there we conceived Penny. We had a little scare with her, very early on, but that turned out to be nothing. During this time Rob had his yearly check-up with his cardiologist who felt the need to refer him to another colleague because something didn't sound quite right upon auscultation of his heart. It was no secret that he had a very pronounced murmur. You could hear a very unusual swish with every beat if you laid your head on his chest. This was no surprise, because the last surgery was about 15 years in the past, and these procedures and these prosthetic parts do have a shelf-life.

The docs didn't want to do anything until after the baby was born, but they didn't want to wait to long either. The only hold-up was the pregnancy, really. During the pregnancy, he had two cardiac catheterizations to map out the course of his circulatory system. His left lung was found to be basically non-functioning, pretty much robbing his body of blood that could potentially be delivering oxygen and nutrients to the rest of him. There was talk of removing the offending lung but they tried a different procedure instead during the second cath, which seemed to improve his oxygenation somewhat.

Penelope Lynn Shaw was born on January 2, 2006 by Cesarean section after a night of very hard labor. Rob was in misery due to an eye infection and had to help me use the bedpan between bouts of laying down with his eyes closed , over and over again, for many hours. Labor was being induced by Pitocin, my bladder was full constantly due to IV bags of saline running at full force, and the epidural was working fine in all parts of my abdomen except for my left groin, which was taking a beating from the contractions. According to the fetal monitor strips, Penny was not enjoying the ride either.

The decision was made very quickly to remove this baby through surgery. We both got our heads on straight about this rapid turn of events. I wouldn't let him watch them cut me up. Once she was out I told him that I was fine and to just get over to the baby and enjoy her. The operating room erupted into oohs and aahs and the baby crying and the doctor telling me that she was the biggest baby he'd ever seen!

The nurse called out that she was 10 lbs. 15.6 oz. and that she looked great. I knew that her size was the result of my beyond indulgent eating habits, but I was still proud. Even prouder still was a man who stood 5'4", always the smallest and physically weakest kid in his class, who had done his part in making the biggest baby either of us had ever laid eyes on. And she was his! And at that moment, he began loving someone more than he had EVER loved someone in his entire life.

He was a good dad. He was extremely attentive to her, careful with her, gingerly even. The way he babied those perfect chicken cutlets in the frying pan-well, he was even more of a perfectionist with her. Sure there were those times when he was caught on the bathroom floor, in mid-bathing duty, frozen in fear of the mustardy baby poop all over his socks, but that was my duty to solve that problem. But the after bottle naps in the easy chair, the getting on the floor and playing, the stroller rides, and bubble baths...those are the areas that enjoyed most and excelled in.

I know for a fact that he discovered a perfect love through her. Yes, of course he loved me and Sadie, but there was something that he found in the baby that he really couldn't have found anywhere else. I was not jealous. I truly didn't want him to love me more than, or even as much as, the way he loved the baby. I count it among the top 5 important things I've done in my life-to help create a person who showed Rob the truest, most simple meaning of what love is.

When Penny was about 4 months old Rob had his last surgery. For some reason, I never doubted that he would survive it. The surgery itself took an eternity. The first time I saw him afterwards he was unconscious, had a tracheal tube, another tube coming out of his nose draining bright red blood, was hooked up to a staggering number of meds, and was enveloped in a big white cocoon thingy to warm him back up. During an open-heart surgery they drop your core temperature pretty darn low to keep your cells' metabolic demands as low as possible while your blood is being processed by a machine to perform gas exchange and some other stuff. Your heart is frozen in it's place while they work on it, your lungs are functioning through a ventilator, your kidneys are supported by drugs, and a host of other very interesting things are taking place.

Let us fast forward through the long recovery, the stress it placed on us as a family, his frustrations over having quite a few physical limitations for the next 6 months. It was hard but he made it through. He began to enjoy more time outdoors, walking, doing yard work. Our personal mantra all throughout the worst of it was that once this was all over, we'd sell the house and move to Florida. It was his dream and I was at a point where it didn't really matter to me where we were, as long as he was happy, we'd all be happy. He had suffered so much and just wanted to live out the rest of his life somewhere that he really loved.

And that is exactly what he did. I used to feel as if he delivered me to Florida for some reason and that some kind of future laid her for me. Well, it did, but it wasn't what I was expecting. But I suppose it is true that both his life and his passing have each started a new kind of life for me. I am not ashamed to admit that I changed because of him.

People get very hung up on not wanting to "change" for another person, but how can it not happen? You meet the right person, someone you love deeply, and you probably will find yourself facing some opportunity to change something for positive reasons. Maybe it's kicking bad habits, or allowing your ambitions to grow, or being able to give of yourself on a deeper level.

When someone you love very deeply unexpectedly leaves your life, especially through death, you will face the very worst feelings imaginable. It's very ugly and raw, filled with opportunities to have overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks at the drop of a hat. I had to learn how to overcome that and it made me a much stronger person than I ever was before.

So, yeah, the right person can be a catalyst for a life change.

These days, I feel more like it was my job to deliver him to Florida. He fell asleep and passed away most likely feeling as if he made it, he really, really made it down here...finally. I am sad that he did not wake up the next day and see us down here with him. Still, he passed away feeling that he would be absolutely see us, and we could start our new lives down here.

That is actually a beautiful thing if you think about it.

Recharged Batteries

2008-07-30T23:09:00.003-04:00

Fresh back from a trip up north. I have made firm living arrangements, secured work, and made preliminary arrangements for transferring Sadie to Rutherford High School. I have a lot of legwork to do this month, but remember, this time last year I was doing the same type of things under a lot more pressure.

I remember the similar tasks I was coordinating about a year ago, even less really. I had a $10,000 deposit on a beautiful house in New Port Richey that I had to negotiate my way out of. I had a funeral to arrange. I had two girls and two dogs to lead through times of unprecedented grief that needed a navigator through life.

I almost feel apologetic bringing it up for the umpteenth-million time, but I need to remind myself sometimes. Some people in my life feel the need to remind me of how hard it's going to be to coordinate the move in one month. I know this very well, but that's not the aspect I chose to focus on. If I can make every 6 out of 7 days highly productive ones, than I believe that I can pull this off.

This week gave me a good opportunity to sit back after the work was done and just enjoy being up north. I mostly walked around Brooklyn, just being quiet and observing life. I got to ride on the subway quite a bit, which I found enjoyable. I barely drove my rental car, which turned out to be an expense I could've done without, but not driving for a handful of days was actually very relaxing and I felt kind of good about not consuming gasoline. I swear to God, my legs and butt are definitely in better shape from all the walking!

I bought a CD on the street from a guy standing in front of the Virgin Mega-Store, peddling CD's featuring positive hip-hop. He seemed like a nice guy and I knew I had a 5 in wallet. Turns out Je' Willie's CD is really, really good with no F-words. Evidently he has a Myspace page but no Facebook. I told him about some of the great artists out there who spread by word of mouth, just some homemade music like his, who have managed to do a couple of things and gather a following. I mentioned Noel Gourdin and David Sides and promised to write to him on Myspace.

So here I am, back in Spring Hill, but now there is no question that I won't be here for much longer. There's so much more I could have enjoyed about living in Florida if things had turned out differently. My heart has hardened to all of that beauty and it's now more of an endurance test, the last leg of a marathon. I have surrendered to the hard work, sweat, tears, and effort of the beginning and evidently even the middle. The wind is to my back and the momentum is high. We'll be sailing back any day now...

Today, July 22

2008-07-22T20:56:00.002-04:00

Today, in many Christians churches, it is the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene. Who was this woman? Many believe that she was a prostitute who repented and became a follower of Jesus. Many more are starting to believe that she wasn't even a prostitute at all, but an uncounted apostle and follower of Christ. And there are even some who believe that she was the wife of Jesus, his right-hand-man so to speak.

A brief scan of the wiki page reveals that no one can really agree on what or who this woman was, she may have been a hairdresser from Magdala, she may have been a whore who changed her ways. One thing is in agreement-she was the one who went to Jesus' tomb after he died and discovered that he was not there. And even more profound, she was the first person that he exposed himself to after he came back to life, before he ascended into heaven.

Pretty heavy stuff, huh? He must have thought the world of her to choose her as the first person to reveal himself to. She is the one who delivered the message that he had risen from the dead to the rest of the apostles. Can you imagine having to carry that message? People would think you were nuts!

I have always identified with her-misunderstood, woman of ill-repute, a past cloaked in mystery, closer to the source of goodness than most people realize, a person who repented and rose above her failings and went on to become a very important figure in spirituality. I love the fact that we cannot agree on who she was and what she did. This is part of her mystery.

According to scripture, she stood at Jesus' feet while he was nailed to the cross, along with his mother and his aunt. This tells me that at the very least she had some kind of relationship with his mother and family, to share in this moment of intense grief. Does it matter if they were just good friends or if they were sharing a bed together? I don't think it does, and like any other relationship on Earth besides my own, it's none of my business.

Whether you adhere to Christian beliefs or not, well...that's not the point. You've got to admit at the very least that Jesus had a pretty important role in the history of humankind. Whether you consider him the Messiah, a prophet, or just kind of a cool guy who wanted people to behave well towards each other, he was important in some respect.

And personally, the idea of Jesus having a woman like her behind him kind of fills me with personal hope. Maybe she was the unseen cog in the machine behind the man who caused so much controversy in his day, controversy that continues into the present. I love the fact that we are still debating whether or not she was a whore. Nothing excites people like a woman of ill-repute.

*****

Want to mention quickly another feast day that occurred almost exactly one month ago, one that might be equally important. We're talking about none other than St. John the Baptist. He just happens to be the dude that baptized Jesus himself.

Ok, so a wee bit of biblical history here. His mother was St. Elizabeth, a cousin of Mary's. She and her husband had tried in vain for a long time to have a child but no dice. Finally, in rather advanced age, Elizabeth was able to conceive. After Mary had the dream that she was with child with the son of God, she went to visit Elizabeth. While walking through the door and greeting Elizabeth, the fetus in Elizabeth's belly did more than the usual rib kick and this startled Elizabeth and filled her with some kind of magical glee that they were in the midst of a very special fetus indeed.

Obviously John was born in the summer and Jesus the following winter. They were cousins but didn't really know each other...yet.

John was performing baptisms in the river. Jesus came to him one day to be baptized and John proclaimed that he was certainly not worthy to baptize the son of god! Jesus convinced him that that was a bunch of bull, and so it was done.

John went on to become beheaded by King Herod for saying some nasty about his wife, which may have been true anyway. This was probably not a good move. John was believed to be a prophet in many religions, and the fore-runner of Jesus in most of Christianity. Beheading this man certainly held no good karma at all.

One of the reasons I bring it up is because one of my best friend, Scott, his middle name is John and his birth date is the day before John the Baptist's feast. I have pointed this out to him, and he doesn't really feel that his mother intended this at all. Yet it is as it is. I like to think that it's the part of the order of the universe that he should have such a special and simple middle name.

John-what a simple same. It's a same that exists in almost every culture. Yahya in Arabic, Johann, Jan, Jean, Giovanni, in various parts of Europe. Yet so much lies behind it. It's one of the most common names-hell, I have over 6 close relatives that have some for of this name.

*****

Again, it doesn't matter if you are Christian or something else. These are important people in history. I happen to have my own beliefs regarding all of this, and they do sort of fall into the profile of Christianity, but also someone with a deep respect for the history of humankind.

A Few Random Thoughts

2008-07-17T11:49:00.003-04:00

Sometimes it's easy for the busiest person to feel like they have no life. I have vacillated between feeling like I've got no life at all to feeling like I might have the most special life that one could hope for. I think the truth lies somewhere in between.

There have been times when I've stared at the computer screen at 3:30 in the morning and felt like I had nothing in the world. There have been times when the computer screen has let me see some beautiful things from people who care about me. There have been moments spent changing diarrhea diapers that have made me feel so daunted by my lot in life and times when Penelope has smiled her father's smile that reminds me that life truly does go on into infinity. I've stared at the stars and cried and asked God, "why did you do this to me?" as much as there have been times when I've looked up at the night sky and felt like I was part of something so huge, beyond myself, that it has literally brought me to tears of joy.

The internet is a blessing, people. It is the reason that I met my husband. It connects us. Do not fight against it or question whether it is good or bad for human socialization. It IS. It is part of the grand design. Use it for good and you will be blessed.

The internet helped me finish my current degree and will no doubt help me tackle the next one. Not everything can be done on the net for what I want to do, but I can get a lot of the extraneous stuff out of the way from the comfort of my laptop. It is not a substitute for real experience and the nursing classes I face in the future, but anything that is based upon mere theories can be dealt with this way.

The internet is full of maps to places you might want to go. You can let your imagine run wild with trips to Halifax, Nova Scotia or Anchorage, Alaska and anywhere in between. You can chart your course and fantasize about all of the beautiful things to see in between. You can find restaurants worth eating at and imagine the meals you might eat based upon the menu you find. You can look up available lodging and read other people's experiences while staying there.

In short, you can let you imagination fly.

The web is chock full of good artists who would never find wide spread exposure otherwise. Find that old song that you haven't heard since high school on Youtube and transport yourself back in time to the first moment you've heard it. Discover the person with just a piano and two hands who is giving your favorite song on the radio a new treatment. Learn more about the things you have always been interested in and realize that there are thousands of people out there who love it just as much as you do.

God bless the internet. It has done so much for me. I know this isn't my first post extolling the virtues of the internet. For some of us, it seems like an old idea, something we tend to take for granted. Don't take it lightly, it's probably the most powerful tool aside from ourselves that any of us actually have. For a few dollars every month, the world is at your fingertips.

And You May Ask Yourself "My God, What Have I Done?"

2008-07-12T17:47:00.001-04:00

That's what I'm asking myself right now.

See, I just linked up this blog to my Facebook profile using the Mirror Blog application. A few thought are running through my mind.

First and foremost: more exposure. Why? Um, I don't know. But it seems like a good idea right now. Maybe one day I'll be put up ads on my blogs and generate money a la Dooce or Sundry. (does sundry even make ad money on her regular blog? maybe it's just the other ones she writes.) HAHAHHAH, that's a laugh!

Secondly, maybe it will make me WANT to write more frequently, knowing that there might possibly be a wider audience. This is not a bad thing to aspire to.

Thirdly, my FB peeps have become important to me. They deserve to know what's going on and I'm willing to share. I think.

Fourthly (is that even a WORD?), I've had a FEW glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and it seems like a REALLY GOOD IDEA right now.

So, the people who are wrestling me, pimp-fighting me, sending me roses, green patch stuff, and so on, here's the real scoop on who I am and what I've been up to. For some reason, I really felt the need to integrate the two. For every gift I send and every Hug Me! I give and every person I buy on owned, there is a real person behind it with a very real sentiment that isn't easily conveyed through Facebook. Just know that I care about you as much as I care about all of God's creatures, that you are loved, and that I am real.

Love,

Mommydawg

News: Sad and Happy

2008-07-11T14:42:00.003-04:00

I would first like to start this post by saying that I just found out that my friend Scott's father passed away. To hear him cry broke my heart and we cried on the phone together for a few minutes. I don't know what it's like to lose a parent but it must be...something like finding out your spouse has died. It's different though. Grief is universal, but what we grieve for is highly individual.

I never met Henry, but given the kind of person his son turned out to be, I would venture to say that he was a good man. I have heard so much about him, most of it very, very positive and wish I could thank him in person for creating such a wonderful friend in his son. I have been privy to many intimate details about this man that I do feel like I knew him.

So, Henry, thanks for being a good husband, father, and person. The world was a better place because you were in it. You now exist in a way that we can only wonder about and I have total faith that whatever it is, be it heaven or the belly of a new mother, that it's exactly as beautiful as you deserve.

*****

No crass prose here today. I'll just give you quick, bulleted updates on my life.

Put the house on the market. Listing price below what I paid. Felt like a punch in the stomach.
Who cares? It's only money. Far worse things to lose. There's more where more it came from. We'll be F.I.N.E
Decided to rent instead of buy. This provides optimum mobility and freedom, something I need. Very, very comfortable with this decision.
Won't be paying property taxes for a while!
Looking in Rutherford, East Rutherford, and Lyndhurst. Had a good conversation with a landlord in Lyndhurst today regarding a 4 bedroom apartment that is very affordable and sounds nice.
Coming up north from July 24th to July 30th. Staying with a friend in Brooklyn. Going to have loads of fun, put down a deposit on my next living space, attend to some human resource stuff at work, and get the ball rolling with enrolling Sadie in a new school district. Won't be able to do any socializing on the western side of the state, but that's what the rest of my life is for.
Considering many possibilities. Want to volunteer for the effort to clean up the Meadowlands. Even if it means picking up garbage piece-by-piece. Something I've wanted to do for a while and will now make a priority.
Talked to some dude at Fidelity and have the ball rolling for moving some money around to better places.
Been cooking more and eating better. Drinking less.
Reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Great book, even if it IS on Oprah's book list. Even if you find it to be mumbo-jumbo, it's written in a very relaxing style and could possibly help you fall asleep feeling kind of glad to be alive.
Love you all!

My Life, the remix

2008-06-24T12:40:00.003-04:00

Well gang, I am fresh back from a New Jersey trip which has breathed a tremendous amount of life back into this tired soul. I wish I had had a chance to do some west Jersey, eastern PA fun, but it was all centered around Bergen county and a bit of NYC. This time around we had no health crises or lost documents or major calamities of any kind.

(Well, in typical Liz Shaw fashion we did have a very bizarre occurrence the morning I left. I opened the garage to an almost infinite number of MAGGOTS on the garage floor that my mother had to rectify for me. At 6:30am that is really not a welcome sight, but there was a plane to catch and I wasn't going to let 1,000 maggots from dampening my spirits!)

Another beautiful get-away filled with great friends, good foods, lots of support, and a plethora of good vibes. I only cried once! I'm able to drive past my old houses and feel content with how I left them and happy for the people that inhabit those very special places. I think I have desensitized myself to these sights. I have driven past them so many times that I no longer feel the loss.

The places I hit: Lodi, Wood-Ridge, Rutherford, Hackensack, Englewood, Secaucus, Suffern NY, Manhattan, Brooklyn (especially Coney Island!).

The things I did: ate at Pizzatown, USA, Bonefish Grill, browsed houses to buy in Wood-Ridge, went to the Mermaid Parade, had margaritas, martinis, and beers, played around on Facebook, connected with some awesome people (you know who you are!!!), traveled by air with two kids, rode on trains and subways, and harnessed a lot of positive energy that I managed to bring back to FL.

The people I saw: JH and Mariela, family, LW, SM, KAS, NANA!!!, my sister-in-law and her husband, RAS senior...would love to have seen more but time only allows so much.

What I learned: that I'm totally going to be able to pull off this move, that something positive lies within me, that I don't need to hate FL to move away from there, that happiness isn't just right around the corner---it lives inside of me for ever and ever. There will always be good days and bad days, but that overall my life is composed of good. That it is perfectly acceptable for me to be content despite the crazy things that have gone down. That I am capable.

Whoever the heck has been praying for me and wishing good things for me, and I know that there are at least a few of you, THANK YOU! I am returning the favor. Right now, I have a lot to focus on, but I promise that I am wishing the same for you!

Also, anyone interested, please join Facebook. It is fun!

Love all youz guyz...

Jean, and everyone else...

2008-05-28T16:51:00.003-04:00

Can I rip this off, straight out your blog?

"The right way to wholeness is made up of fateful detours and wrong turnings." CG Jung

I am sorry I missed your birthday. I am sorry I missed everyone's birthday. Can I say that I am probably the worst friend that anyone ever had?

I think of everyone, EVERYONE, on a daily basis. I include everyone in my prayers and in my rosaries. I know you think of me too, but the words are hard to find. But my thoughts...you are all in my thoughts.

I've given up on a normal life. But a special life...well that's what I think I am living. I just want everyone to know that even if I'm falling short on being the friend that everyone deserves, well, I am thinking of all of you. You are all in my hearts, not just for being my friends but for being there for me in your own way during my time of devastation.

Things aren't always all bad. I have some nice days here and there. I have some inspiration here and there. I keep telling myself that I have a lot to look forward too. I keep telling myself that I will pull it together and be a better friend to everyone who has supported me during my darkest hours.

But the anxiety that grips me most of the time---the meds can only do so much and prayer helps me for little while. What else is there? I have 2 healthy daughters and I myself am in semi-decent health and my dogs are a comfort and Facebook has been fun. But as a widow, I have countless and endless tasks. I am sorry I can't be there like I want to be for the wonderful people in my life.

I shun fun. I almost want no part of it until I return to my home. I resist any of the beautiful things I can do down here for either sleep or work on my home. I don't want to meet anyone new. I don't want to see what's beautiful around me. I fixate on returning to my home. I obsess over returning to my old job. I fixate on New Jersey, the place where I was born and feel I belong.

If you're reading this and I know you, trust me, I love you. If I don't communicate as frequently as I should, it is my fault, not yours. I have no idea how long I can continue committing the faux pas of not writing back when I should, not congratulating you on your successes, or empathizing with your setbacks. Basically, I am still partially crippled by my losses and still trying to make sense of what has fallen upon me and the girls.

However, I will continue praying for our triumph over our loss. I will keep moving forward with the only plans that give me hope. Do not think of me as a lost cause. I am a Scorpio and my life is supposed to be filled with re-birth after re-birth.

I love you ALL.

And lastly, I will give you some DMB lyrics to reflect upon:

When I step into the light
My arms are open wide
When I step into the light
My eyes searching wildly
Would you not like to be
Sitting on top of the world with
Your legs hanging free
Would you not like to be ok, ok, ok?

When I'm walking by the water
Splish splash me and you takin a bath
When I'm walking by the water
Come up through my toes
To my ankles
To my head
To my soul
And I'm blown away

I can't believe that we would
Lie in our graves
Wondering if we had
Spent our living days well
I can't believe that we would
Lie in our graves
Dreaming of things that we
Might have been

Would you not like to be
I can't believe that you
Would not like to be
Would you not like to be Ok, ok, ok

***

That's what I want, for all of us to at least be Ok.

xoxoxox

Box of Rain

2008-04-28T17:15:00.003-04:00

I've almost been looking for an excuse to post the lyrics to this beautiful song on this blog for a while. It's a Grateful Dead song written by Robert Hunter with music by Phil Lesh. Any Deadhead knows that this song was composed in honor Lesh's father while he was dying of cancer.

I just found out that during the crafting of this song, Lesh would visit his father in the nursing home and bring along a guitar and practice. Not sure if it was the bass guitar or what, since Phil is a bassist, but something tells me the guy is as comfortable with six strings as he is with four.

Box of Rain
Robert Hunter and Phil Lesh

Look out of any window,
any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining,
birds are winging or
rain is falling from a heavy sky-
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?
this is all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon, long ago

Walk out of any doorway,
feel your way, feel your way
like the day before
Maybe you'll find direction,
Around some corner
where its been waiting to meet you-
What do you want me to do,
to watch for you while you are sleeping?
Well please don't be surprised
when you find me dreaming too.

Look into any eyes
you find by you, you can see
clear through to another day,
I know it's been seen before,
through other eyes on other days
while going home--
What do you want me to do
to do for you to see you through?
It's all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon, long ago.

Walk into splintered sunlight,
Inch your way through dead dreams
to another land.
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted
with words half spoken
and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do
to do for you to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain
and love will see you through

Just a box of rain-
wind and water
Believe it if you need it
if you don't just pass it on
Sun and shower-
wind and rain-
In and out the window
like a moth before a flame

It's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
or leave it if you dare
But its just a box of rain
or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long, long time to be gone
and a short time to be there.

My Own Chemical Romance

2008-04-22T19:11:00.002-04:00

Chemicals...can't live without 'em. Sometimes...

The Lexapro has been good to me. I trudged through about 3 or 4 weeks of feeling very disconnected with the outside world, including children, household chores, and assorted obligations breathing down my neck.

I would like to say that I awakened after week 4 to the dawn of my new, better mental state but that isn't exactly what happened. Instead I found days that I could actually accomplish a thing or two and feeling a little bit proud of myself. Still, there are many non-productive days tucked in between to know that inertia is always hanging around. In so many ways, I know I owe it to the Lexapro to get anything accomplished at all. Prior to this, there was pretty much just inertia.

Some days I feel so inert that I just can't do much of anything besides sit and think. I still have this. I will consult with my psychiatrist over these kind of days, but I also have to be honest and include the days when I am unstoppable and accomplish tasks with ease, tasks that formerly used to send me into a tailspin of despair. There are certain things I am facing, while not ominous, are actually very big in that they require me to contact someone, explain my entire situation for the millionth time (not fun) and move forward with separating Rob from his earthly holdings.

These tasks make me face the fact that he is gone from the earthly realm and remains in eternity, where finance, retirement, ownership of property, daycare, dishes, report cards no longer exists. I need to take over these earthly obligations and responsibilities one by one. If I were someone hired to do this for another person I could knock these jobs out in days. But since we are talking about my late husband, it is beyond difficult to carry it through. Every task carries a heavy emotional burden that I am only capable of doing piece by piece.

Anyway...My Chemical Romance...

This is a band I have grown to love lately. I consider them straight up rock n' roll. They are popular amongst the kiddies, but to me they show a lot of promise to carry on with their gig for a while. If you don't listen to them give them a try. I would love to hear what people have to say about older acts that they remind us of.

I would like to quote you some lyrics that have become my anthem the past couple of months...

From Welcome to the Black Parade:

We hear the call to carry on, we'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone, believe me
Your memory will carry on, we'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated
You're weary widow marches

***

In other news, Sadie and I have been attending RCIA classes with the goal of getting her baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church, along with receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist. The baby can just get plain, old baptized with little hullabaloo but Sadie needs to attend an adult class consisting of about 1or 12 other adults who for one reason or another need or desire to become fully initiated.

We are learning, or in my case re-learning so many new (um,rather old really) and interesting concepts. Sadie is completely cooperative and engaged in the topic. Her performance at high school this year has been rather dismal so it is encouraging to see her take a class and actually show interest in it. It's been good for both of us. I think we will go to mass soon so she can see what that's like in light of her new education of the our religion.

***

I have been doing tons of things with the house and yard. Too much to mention at this late of an hour. Basically I want to have the house on the market in about 2 months. I want it to be a top competitor in the market, in it's price range. I want a quick sale. These are the things I pray for and move towards. I want us to be back in NJ as soon as possible.

***

I vow , after my return, to have Visentini ravioli every single Thursday night unless work is taking me out to Chakra or the Stoneyfield Inn. Or maybe the Ivy Inn or McCormick's. This alone would soothe my soul in ways I can't describe. The freshness of the pasta and delicateness of the ricotta filling...perfection. A happy Italian cloud in your mouth. This would go a long way in healing my heart and making me feel normal again. I would like Sadie to have this be a tradition in her life again and I think Penny deserves to feel that ravioli joy too.

***

God Bless.

What's New?

2008-04-03T19:12:00.002-04:00

I hope the Easter holiday was good for all of you who observed it.

The day of the resurrection also happened to be my late husband's first posthumous birthday.

Holidays are normally a little rough on me because I usually host, and since his death hosting has been a nightmare. I always forget to put out or prepare something important. I usually wind up drinking as I cook and then by dinner having a spoiled appetite and a weepy disposition.

This Easter I decided not to host and to find a venue for a decent Sunday brunch. I opted for an Easter brunch buffet at a local country club open to the public. We lingered for hours, talking and relaxing and making many trips to the food tables. For $25 per person, no dishes, no food preparation, it was a complete bargain.

No one but my parents came back to the house, which was spotlessly clean thanks to powers of 10 mg of Lexapro daily, or maybe a very timely episode of motivation that can't otherwise be explained. Me thinks it's the Lexapro. For the first two weeks I was on it I was completely lethargic. When I would have flare-ups of anxiety I would take an Ativan too (0.5 mg) which would make me more tired but would kill the anxiety. I didn't take too much Ativan during this time because I actually felt zombie-ish. To a friend I described it as feeling "disengaged."

A LOT was going on at this time with Sadie. There were some very low-points which gave way to new ways of understanding each other. As a family, she and I, we have a lot of work to do and it's going to take a lot of time and patience, but I see how our relationship could grow. It will never be "normal" simply because I gave birth to her when I was a child, but it can still be an extraordinary relationship (and it is).

Penny is growing and improving upon herself every day. She seems to have an awareness of her father but some kind of knowledge that he is not coming back. He will probably become some kind of mythical influence in her life. I don't think this is avoidable. The important thing is what kind of myth I teach her. Can I help her to find him as some sort of spiritual influence in her life.

This is huge, people. What do you think? At this point she mostly associates him with pictures and with her Spiderman plush toy. Is this healthy? Eventually I will get her into some kind of therapy, play therapy or whatnot when she's older because...God...how do you grow up without a father?

This Is Not A Lovesong

2008-02-14T20:09:00.004-05:00

Valentine's Day...hmmmm...where to begin?

Best to jump right in.

I've been anticipating this day for months now. I knew it would be hard. Not that Rob and I were the kind of people who dropped big money or did really exciting things on this day, but it was always observed in a special, kind of quiet way. I have a stack of cards bearing beautiful sentiments hidden in my closet to remind me of this.

In late August I purchased the Linkin Park CD Minutes to Midnight and knew that one particular song could sum up exactly how I felt about this whole Valentine's Day thing. I am a big LP fan thanks to Rob. They are one of those bands who have the eerie ability to strike a chord with my present situation in life-whether it's 2001 or 2008 or any year in between.

I spent the evening on YouTube looking up video footage related to this song. They haven't put out their own official video of this song but I was able to catch some concert footage, some bootleg, some not. A lot of people made picture slideshows with the song running in the background. My favorite clips were the amateurs-acoustic guitar renditions, close-ups of fingers strumming electric guitars while the music played in the background, and stripped down versions of piano and voice.

~Valentine's Day~

My insides are turned to ash, so slow
And blew away as I collapsed, so cold
A black wind took them away, from sight
And held the darkness over day, that night
And the clouds above move closer
Looking so disatisfied
But the heartless wind kept blowing, blowing

I used to be my own protection, but not now
Cause my path has lost direction, somehow
A black wind took you away, from sight
And held the darkness over day, that night
And the clouds above move closer
Looking so disatisfied
And the ground below grew colder
As they put you down inside
But the heartless wind kept blowing, blowing

So now you're gone
And I was wrong
I never knew what it was like
To be alone
On a Valentine's

Short Scoop on the Big Win

2008-02-06T09:56:00.000-05:00

Alright, as you all know, I try my hardest to be a decent football fan. I fall short of this most of the time. I did manage to watch most of the game even though I fell asleep for about 5 minutes on the floor during the third quarter. I couldn't help it. Those darn pillow cases are just too soft.

Anyway, it was entertaining to hear my brother and my father debate the plays and keep the commentary rolling. I love listening to sports talk even if I don't understand it too well. There's something comforting about it, probably harkening back to childhood or maybe even far back into when I still lived in my mom's belly. It's been going on around me for as long as I can remember, yet I never quite paid attention to the content as much as I absorbed the tones of voice. I suppose this is why I fell asleep.

At the end when Plaxico caught that pass tears sprang to my eyes, which I hid from everyone. The energy in my house was pulsating. By brother, smelling of a little too much bear, professed his un-dying love for all present, ran circles again around my house with both fists in the air, and then bent down to kiss me and tell me how much he loved me. My parents were clearing delighted. After the game Plaxico was interviewed on the field and although I couldn't hear his voice over the din of my home, I could see he was crying. Tears flowing down his face.
This caused me to cry in a private, bittersweet celebration.

Wiping away tears, I called my friend Laura. We celebrated over the phone while I stood outside, my neighborhood erupting into cheers, the blowing of airhorns, and the setting off of fireworks. All these displaced New Yorkers and Jersey people still have love for their favorite teams up North.

A call came in from JH, which I took, and we celebrated on the phone. I think we both knew that this victory meant a lot more to us than just the Giants winning the Superbowl. It was something that would've delighted Rob endlessly. Like JH said in his comment to my last entry, I also prayed to him during the game to somehow give those guys a hand. A loss would've been crushing. What I choose to believe is that he heard the call and came through.

Sneaking in an entry

2008-02-03T17:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I had an entry prepared regarding Penny's birthday. I got distracted. The condensced version is as follows:

It was a good day. She got lots of presents and had fun. A bunch of people were over so it was the usual manic scene in my world: a little too much food, a lot of fussing over the too-much-food, some nice memories, some awesome out of town guests, a bit of crying over the fact that Rob couldn't be there, exhaustion, some guilt over not being able to enjoy it the maximum, and then the comfort of my Calvin Klein bedding to take me away from the day for another year.

I do recommend CK bedding highly. It is worth the investment. Whatever gets you through the night...is alright...alright.

The Superbowl: I'm praying for Big Blue to take it all the way today. Not that I care tremendously about football. I just think that with Rob watching from his corner of the universe, wherever that may be, he'd naturally want the Giants to win.

I almost can't stand the idea of watching the Superbowl, but in this family it's a holiday up there with Christmas and Easter. This was always a big day for us. For me it had to do more with the food I was preparing, but for Rob it was all about the love of the game.

Well, this year it's homemade macaroni salad, the old Ebner's Shoparama recipe. Add to that some slowly cooked BBQ spareribs prepared in an oven AND a grill (they're on the grill right now and smelling mighty fine!), burgers, dogs, wine, beer, and soda.

My father, brother, and Penny are probably heading back from Hernando Beach. My mom is out walking. Sadie is at a friends house. The dogs are hovering around the grill, praying that the ribs come back to life and throw themselves onto the patio floor spontaneously. I'm alone on the lanai, just wondering how the hell I got to this point in life.

If Blue wins, I will surely bawl my eyes out. If they don't, it will be another example of working so hard and coming so far for...for what? An anti-climax? In which case I will my bawl my eyes out for them, thinking, "I know. I know boys. All that work to get to the top of whatever and then this."

I mean, listen, I think losing a husband is way worse than losing a Superbowl. IT IS! Trust me, it sucks. That's the only way to say it. But they can always try again. I can't. But I imagine that losing a Superbowl is amazingly heart-breaking.

Well, they're all back. I guess this entries done.

Keeping fingers crossed for the Giants!

Things of Significance

2008-01-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

Another bulleted entry. Another easy way out.

Broke one of my nails off! It was a two-part process. First, on a Wednesday, I jammed the tip of my nail very hard into the wall while I was groggily reaching for a sweat jacket that was tossed next to my dresser the night before. ('Cuz that's how I roll these days.) The pain was immediate, intense, eye-opening. A little bit of blood oozed out from around the nail bed. The following Friday Penny succeeded in kicking my nail while I had the audacity to change her diaper. The nail needed to be removed immediately because it was sticking out of my finger in a way that made me feel slightly nauseous. It looks so pathetic now.
Fixed a very special antique lamp that is shaped like a jaguar. It's green. I wonder if Free ever saw it? It lived in the Woodruff's bus during the summer I camped out in it. It is super-cool and as soon as I discover the whereabouts of my camera batteries (or just by new ones when I give up) there will be a pic.
Had my pool drained and refinished. It looks incredible now. The pool people are coming daily to scrub the sides, add the acid, clean the filter, and check the acidity levels. I am far too disorganized at this point in my life to deal with it. Besides, their fee is very reasonable and the are British, not Floridian, and they are a small breath of fresh air for a couple of minutes a day. Incidentally, I do most of my face to face socialization with contractors and the girls behind the counter at Walgreen's.
Gone to Walgreen's on a daily basis!
Started a bunch of bathroom painting projects that are not yet finished. This will give my brother something to do when he gets here Sunday. He is going to be living with me...probably for a long time. If he's still here when I leave for Jersey in a few years, he's going to be obligated to stay here and pay me rent until it's time to leave it and sell it. I've been doing him A LOT of favors lately, because he's my brother and I love him, but I might need some favors eventually too. He has an excellent opportunity to live an independent life here without the scrutiny that would naturally occur when living with parents. He has a good chance to grow and I hope he does.
Read a couple of really good books. I read Hiassen's Lucky You and Tim Dorsey's Hurricane Punch. I read for the second time Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. The copy I read was Rob's from his college years, in which he underlined and made small notes in the text. That's a pretty nice way to read a book.
At the moment I am about 3/4 of the way through a book tited A Prayer for Owen Meany. John Irving, the author also wrote The World According to Garp and The Ciderhouse Rules. He's written more but those are the ones I've read. All incredible stories. Owen Meany was the first one I'd ever read. It was a gift from my friend and mentor, Pam as a birthday present in the fall of 2002. It's a story that changed me. When I'm done reading it maybe I'll be able to articulate just how that happened. The Owen Meany character reminds me of Rob, from his small stature to his unusual voice to his honest and brash nature. The way Owen's story ends, how Rob's story ended, and the nature of my own life story at this time-not entirely similar but enough to think about. More on that later...

End of the Year Thingy

2008-01-01T20:33:00.000-05:00

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?

I got a bird’s eye view of a lot of things that I’d prefer not to even remember.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I kept some of them. I did lose weight. But I didn’t calm down much like I had hoped.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Some people at work had babies, but that’s about it.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes, my husband.

5. What countries did you visit?

Is Florida considered another country? It’s like another planet as far as I’m concerned.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?

I would like to actually regain the intense focus and ambition that I had in the earlier part of this year. I would like to have more peace in my life.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Probably the biggest one would be August 2.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

It doesn’t feel like an achievement anymore, but packing up our entire lives as a family and moving out of state.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Any time that I may have lost sight of how precious life is.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? 

Nothing big.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Size 8 jeans. Oh and a slammin’ 4/3/2 with an inground pool on half an acre, flanked by conservation land, a retention canal on a dead end street that happens to be right in the middle of the daily migration of 3 tortoises. Oh and sand cranes. And frogs and slugs and all kinds of creatures I happen to like.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The people who rallied around me after Rob passed away.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Not even worth mentioning. Just watch the news.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Household expenses, moving expenses, relocation expenses.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

All of the promise that the move had to offer.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?

There are always a few answers to this question: “How to Save a Life” by The Fray, “Leave Out All the Rest” and “Shadow of the Day” by Linkin Park, and “Little Lovers So Polite” by the Silversun Pickups.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?

Sadder,
Thinner,
About the same

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Slowing down, smelling the roses, picking daisies.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Bickering, quarreling, fuming

20. How did you spend Christmas?

With my parents, inlaws, grandparents, and the baby, cooking, drinking wine, and trying to make the best of it.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?

Next question.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Never just one answer for this one. The Office, Scrubs, CSI (just Las Vegas really), NCIS, Sunrise Earth, Sponge Bob, The Backyardigans, Animal Precinct and the news. Ellen. Martha Stewart’s show. That’s about it.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No. That’s a good thing, right?

24. What was the best book you read?

Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Silversun Pickups.

26. What did you want and get?

Recognition at work.

27. What did you want and not get?

Spending the rest of my life in paradise with my husband.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

I never got out to the movies so I didn’t see anything really current. However, I guess I’d have to say that I really enjoyed Little Miss Sunshine.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I just tried to get through the day. I may have had a couple of nice phone calls. Nothing special. I turned 33.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I think we all know the answer to this.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?

Jeans, t-shirts, some skirts, some nicer tops, just trying to look like I give a crap for once.

32. What kept you sane?

Lots and lots and lots of emails and phone time and text messages. I love technology.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Wow, that is hard to answer. Most of them I just don’t have any use for and doubt their sincerity. Maybe Bob Barker, because I think the whole spaying your animals thing is very important and it’s the kind of issue that a celebrity can tackle with sincerity and with actual results.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

The war, the economy, and as always healthcare.

35. Who did you miss?

My husband, and also everyone I left behind in NJ.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

I’ve met some people that I’ve know for a while with new eyes, and what I’m seeing is beautiful.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.

It is sometimes way too short. Don’t waste another minute on anything that gives you guilt or pain if you can possibly help it. Don’t wait for happiness to find you. Seek it.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Love is the answer, at least to most of the questions in my heart.
-Jack Johnson, from “Better Together”

The Season

2007-12-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

Would it be shocking to say that I am having a hard time getting into the spirit of the season?

Today is December 21 and here's where I'm at: I put the tree up yesterday, very begrudgingly. It was very hard for me to even concentrate on doing it. I kept walking away from it, sort of cursing under my breath, each time I plugged one of the cords to the main electrical line in the tree.

So far there are about a dozen shiny Christmas ball ornaments put up on the tree. At least all of the lights work but that's kind of a no-brainer since it's an artificial tree with built-in lights. Thankfully someone stuffed the tree skirt in the box with the tree last year so that was easy enough to find.

This is the third year I've put this tree up by myself. Prior to this year, Rob would've been sleeping in his recliner with our little gas fireplace blazing next to him. Most likely there would've been an empty bowl that once held ice cream on the side table next to him. Possibly candy wrappers. I would've be huffing and puffing my way down the stairs, quite possibly bursting at the seems with pregnancy. Both of those years I was a little bit ticked off about him sleeping through it, but I always understood why he had to sleep. It always made a funny story anyway, dragging the Christmas tree down two flights of stairs. I would brag about being a tough Slavic chick.

In retrospect, I'm glad I never nagged Rob about that. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a little bit of a nag when necessary. I sort of selected not to be a bitch about the Christmas tree. He loved Christmas so much and I knew he would've been awake to do it if he wasn't so very tired. Both years when he woke up he'd say groggily, "I thought I told you to wait for me."

I think this might be the last year I use this tree. I'm just not into it anymore. I might buy a new one after the holiday is over when everything is marked way down. It might seem like an unnecessary expense, but I'll donate the old tree to the Salvation Army and just start over.

: : : :

I've been working on a menu for Christmas day. My parents, inlaws, grandparents, and Aunt's boyfriend are coming over. I spent a fortune at Publix today. I am baking a ham, a quiche, an onion tart, and cinnamon bread. I think a chocolate cake is going to be made as well. I am also making potatoes, Brussels sprouts (hey it's related to cabbage-it goes with ham!), and carrots. I have assorted cheeses, crackers, and vegetables to put out. Plus olives and pickles.

Would making deviled eggs be overkill? I bought a lot of eggs today and can't decide if I should make some deviled eggs. I think it would be a nice touch, but it might put me over the edge to make a dozen deviled eggs in the middle of everything.

: : : :

Did I mention that I have about 33% of my Christmas shopping complete? Not good. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to resort to gift certificates for everyone. It's the only way I can get it done and at least I can stay within budget. I went out to Linens N' Things and Old Navy in the hopes of finding some presents. Although I found a few things here and there, I managed to spend hundreds of dollars and really not get anywhere as far as presents go. I wound up buying 2 nice curtain rods with curly-cue finials on the end and some really gorgeous drapes. At least my dining room looks a hell of a lot better.

Was it necessary? No. It was completely unproductive as far as accomplishing Christmas shopping. It sucked up a lot of time and money. What can I say? For this whole week I've been walking around in a daze, dreading Christmas, doing everything I can not to think about it. Meanwhile, time marches on and brings me closer to a day when I'm going to be hosting people, cooking a big meal, exchanging presents...all under the hardest of circumstances.

Midnight Marauders

2007-12-17T20:25:00.000-05:00

The other night I dreamt of bears. Sometimes when I dream it is like watching a documentary. Usually dreams like this involve animals. I'm not even in the dream; it is something I'm watching. A narrator's voice will guide me through what I am seeing. In this case it was a bear. It looked like a grizzly I guess, sort of a golden color. The narrator was rattling off details about the bear that I don't really remember. It's always a generic man's voice, by the way.

That's when I actually woke up to the sound of Winnie growling. Evie's hearing must not be as sharp as Winnie's because Winnie is always the first to wake up. Her ears are three years younger than Evie's.

Winnie was staring intently through the blinds covering the sliding glass doors in my bedroom into the lanai. Peeking through the slats I saw two HUGE raccoons on the lanai. Half-asleep and half-doped on NyQuil (fighting a cold) I couldn't believe the size of them. I looked at the clock to see that it was 4:00 am.

My first reaction was to share this sighting with someone. I ran into Sadie's room to tell her that the biggest raccoons I'd ever seen were out on the lanai and did she want to see. She told me to go back to sleep.

All I had to do was turn on the porch light to send them scampering away. They swiftly fit themselves under the baby screen that surrounds the pool and disappeared. I was so freaked out by this occurrence that it took at least an hour to fall back to sleep.

The bandits were after the dog dishes full of food that I had so stupidly left out on the lanai. I fell asleep before remembering to bring them in for the night. The raccoons must have thought they hit the jackpot with these perfectly uniform crunchy morsels, formulated for sensitive stomachs I might add.

In bed I kept thinking about how they could have gotten in. I hadn't seen a torn screen in the lanai. I envisioned one standing on his partner's shoulders, manipulating the latch on the screen door. I couldn't make any sense out of it and fell asleep for a few hours to dream strange dreams with lots of people and dialogue, but nothing worth remembering.

That morning upon brief investigation I noticed that one of the screen was, in fact, ripped. So it's going to cost me some money and it was stupid to leave the dog food out, and I should have known better. However, it was almost worth it to see gigantic raccoons that could magically make themselves so small as to fit under a net that's almost flush with porch floor. It was a pretty interesting brush with nature that I don't necessarily want to repeat.

Is it over yet?

2007-12-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

2007 has been a very difficult year. I am ready for it to be over with. Not that I'm going to be doing anything spectacular on New Year's Eve, trust me, but I am really feeling like it's about time to begin a year over from scratch and work through a lot of things that need attending to.

Since my last entry we have suffered another very sad passage. One of Sadie's friends from her new school passed away. His name was Grant Aleo and he was one of the first friends that Sadie made at Springstead, along with his girlfriend Alex. I had given him and Alex rides home after school many times before Sadie began taking the bus. He was a sweet boy, soft-spoken and he'd always talk to Penny on the ride, which I found endearing.

(Jean-in terms of a general appearance and vibe, think of our dear friend Pat from back home.)

The morning he died Sadie called me from the bathroom at school, with a very bad connection on the cell, crying hysterically. All I could here her say was the word "died" in between tears and static. I began shaking and barked into the phone to text me. Her text came with the horrible news: Grant died last night.

I immediately texted her back to just go to the office right away. I raced to the school crying. My heart was swallowed up with grief all over again, for I have had a fresh taste of just how awful and final death can be. I kept thinking about his family and all of these confused kids who counted him among their own.

With minimal delay I retrieved Sadie from school and we spent the rest of the day in a stupor, intermittently crying and walking around like zombies. How absolutely unfair it is that someone so young could have their life snuffed out in an instant. All of that promise of what lies ahead absolutely gone.

For the record, the girl driving was not drunk. This was a rumor that began circulating immediately. She is currently still in an ICU following reconstructive skull surgery. Grant's was the only fatality. Sadie's ex-boyfriend Ronnie was in the crash and was in the hospital for 2 days for a concussion and he looks like he's going to be fine. The fourth passenger, another girl, was discharged from the ER the night of the accident.

The kids have been tremendous. They have been visiting Grant's family from the get-go, which his mother and father find very therapeutic. For the first week after the accident kids gathered by the dozens or more to hold vigils at favorite hangouts. They have collected hundreds of dollars for the families affected by the accident. They held a lovely vigil at a park where over a hundred of them gathered to give speeches and be together. On the day of the funeral they let off at least 99 red balloons, maybe more, at 7:32 am in the high school football field.

Following that was the funeral, the first I've gone to since Rob's. I drove Sadie and her friends Vince and Samantha up to Bushnell National Cemetery where the masses gathered for a brief service followed by paying respects to the family. More red balloons.

I cried so hard watching those balloons go and watching the coffin get loaded on to a truck with the flowers for burial. I asked Grant to please say Hello to my husband, and Grandma Shaw, and my Aunt Tootie, and her husband, and some other relatives and friends if he should happen to bump into them, if that in fact is what happens when you die.

And then I thought that maybe that's not what happens at all. Maybe our souls just continue to recycle themselves into other lives. Maybe Grant's just getting ready to give life another try in another form and maybe my late husband is already back on Earth (or possibly still in someone's belly) a baby somewhere, starting out fresh.

Either way sounds like some kind of salvation.

Filling in the Blanks

2007-12-01T19:59:00.000-05:00

The problem with not updating often is that so much of life goes by without documenting any of the content and then when I finally do get around to writing entries they sort of stand out there alone, like naked bombshells. Instead of watching, or in this case reading, my life unfold in a sequence that makes sense, it appears that I am literally jumping from points A or B to some Martian coordinate.

The problem with updating often is that a lot of times I just don't have anything nice to say.

Don't get me wrong, I am hell-bent on enjoying motherhood no matter what. These girls are only going to be children once and the last thing they need is some batty widow of a mother living in the past and feeling sorry for herself and dragging them down with her. Judging by how quickly fifteen years has passed since the day Sadie was born, I'm expecting Penny to be wearing make-up and driving and causing trouble in the blink of an eye. It just goes too fast for me to waste any time not trying to enjoy it.

Right now the girls and I are at a point of comfort among each other. It hasn't been easy-we have had some very hard moments figuring out how to deal with ourselves and each other in Rob's absence. We are slowly finding ourselves and picking up the pieces. Very shortly my brother is going to be moving in with us, for better or for worse, which should make life interesting and hopefully a little bit easier. Probably a bit less lonely too.

You should know that before sitting down to the computer I was watching boxing on the Spanish channel. And before that I was watching Cops. And before that, Dr. G Medical Examiner. By myself. And now I'm contemplating finishing painting the bathroom OR...maybe doing some number and logic puzzles. So yeah, life is a little boring sometimes.

Also at this moment, ta-da, I am in the middle of a family feud that I need like a $!*#ing hole in the head. I really would rather not spell out the particulars here, but I would like to say that absolutely no one in the world has the right to scream in my face in front of any of my children. Naturally my anxiety level is off the charts because of this. I feel like for each step forward I make towards personal progress, something or other outside of myself drags me back a step or two.

There have been a lot of really strange things going on around here leading up to the latest debacle and I have been trying so hard to keep in mind that people get very confused and crazy by grief, but there comes a point where you really can't accept certain things, no matter what the reason is behind it. I hate to even discuss these things so obscurely because it's just not fair to the reader. Let me just say that all of this crap is just making me hate being in Florida more and more each day.

Big surprise? I painted beautiful pictures of how beautiful it is here and how friendly the people are but there are things of beauty in New Jersey and life is not made of cheery 10 second conversations in Dunkin Donuts alone. Every time I go anywhere I pass signs for places that Rob and I were supposed to visit. Every highway I get on leads to a place that we were supposed to find together. It is very depressing and makes me feel very bitter.

And then one day, after one or two fairly unbearable events occurred, I realized that, goddamn it, I am an adult woman with good career potential and the brains and will to coordinate just about goddamn anything I desire in life, plus having just inherited my husband's set of brass balls (because someone's gotta have them)...I realized that I don't have to stay here forever. Staying in Florida is optional.

What relief I felt when this revelation appeared!

In this day and age, people move all over the place all the time. This is what airplanes, trains, and cars are FOR. This is what the telephone and internet are FOR. I do not have to live here just because my family does. And people do not have to like my decision. This is not a requirement. This is my life, I'm presuming that it's the only one I've got even though I still cling to the very Buddhist idea of rebirth.

Well, how about if within this life of mine, I stage my own rebirth? It's really my job create my own happiness. No one else is going to do it for me.

Talking Turkey

2007-11-25T22:26:00.000-05:00

Wow. What a week I had up north. I was all over that Garden State-from the meadowlands of Bergen County to the rural suburbs south of Philly to the mean streets of Jersey city and the mountains and pastures of my old home, Hunterdon County. I was up and down the Turnpike and Parkway and criss-crossed east and west over routes 78, 22, 46, and 3. I took the long way to my grandma's house on route 21 going through the center of Newark just to remember what it looked like.

I got to see friends, family, places, things. I had some great lunches and dinners and visits. I even got the chance to scope out a tattoo parlor for my next important piece of work. Best of all, I didn't lose anything important this time around. In fact, I don't think I lost anything at all.

The return home to Florida-very hard on me. I cried in the airport and I cried on the plane. I cried looking out over this state that used to be home, which still seems to hang on to my heart, calling me back. Looking out the window of the plane in the dark, watching Newark, and all of New Jersey for that matter, become nothing more than lit up highways as the plane climbed higher and higher until the clouds finally separated me from my old home, waves of sadness rushed over me as the tears fell.

I miss it. My heart is there. Florida has been kind to me, but New Jersey is my homeland. And that's all I'm going to say on this topic for tonight. Trust me, we'll revisit this topic again.

Having said that, I hope everyone had a beautiful Thanksgiving. Love you all...

Coming up North Again

2007-11-16T16:47:00.000-05:00

I have been beyond swamped at home. I would love to get into the minutiae but I barely have time to sit down to put in an entry to this blog. Suffice to say that I am busy.

For some reason, I just can't take the thought of being in Florida for Thanksgiving. I want to see my grandmothers. We are taking a flight out of Tampa tomorrow and will be in Newark in the early afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't have any delays.

In other news, today was Sadie's birthday. Impossible to imagine that 15 years have elapsed since the day she was born! But, with a sigh, it is true. She was in a really great mood all day long and got to do some stuff that she wanted to do with friends, and got some presents, and many phone calls. I felt a little bit bad cutting it all short earlier this evening, but she was a real champ about packing and giving me a hand for the trip.

I'm hoping that when I return I'll be more in a writing mood. I do have some new developments on the home front that are worth addressing, but that's for another entry. Have a lovely Thanksgiving everyone...

Long Hiatus

2007-11-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it's really hard to jump back into this thing after being gone from it for a while.

How about a bulleted entry to get right down to the main points?

Had a full set of fake nails applied, or should I say installed, onto my fingertips and had a pedicure.
Arranged for all of the animals in my life plus my parents' birds to be cared for adequately in our absence.
Fielded a lot of obtrusive questions, advice, and observations from various family members.
Packed up myself and the girls for a journey up north.
Cried on the airplane on take-off and landing, not out of fear or anxiety, but out of wonder for how beautiful the world looks down below.
Drove past both of my old houses in Bergen County and cried some more.
Dined with friends and family and overall had a great time.
Lost my rental car at the Garden State Plaza and completely went ape-shit before finding it in the correct parking garage. In the rain. And cold. Holding the baby in one arm and a bunch of shopping bags in the other. Perhaps I shed a tear or two during the ordeal.
Woke up very early on the 28th and drove to East Stroudsburg where we managed to get totally dolled-up for the wedding.
Wore fake eyelashes for the first time.
Walked down the aisle as a bridesmaid.
Had many ginger ale and vodkas.
Decided that I really don't like Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Lost a bag of important papers that I'd rather not talk about.
Left the car seat in the rental car and figured it out that it was gone during my first attempt at checking luggage for the flight. I had to take the airtrain back to Hertz where I ran in like a maniac, not just crying but pretty much mentally decompensating, and begged them to go look for it now. The manager retrieved it for me fairly promptly and we made it back in time to check it in, change a diaper, and board the plane.
Arrived home with both daughters, all of us in one piece.
Obtained my dogs from the kennel.
Had my fingernails shortened and re polished in order to be able to carry on with my life like a somewhat normal human being.
Recovered from the various stressful events that occurred during the trip.
Prepared Sadie for her homecoming dance.
Nursed the baby through a bout of diarrhea.
Moved all of my belongings to my new home in Spring Hill.
Continue to live like an animal out of boxes and eating bad food while trying to sort everything out.

Each one of those bullets above could have been an entry in it's own right. I wish I would've just made myself write it down when it was fresh because each of them contains a story. I'm thinking in particular about the dinners with friends, the nails, the diarrhea, and the move.

Sadie's Hair

2007-10-18T16:57:00.000-04:00

I promised pics of Sadie's new 'do ages ago and have slacked. Things have been busy, but I'll save it for another entry. Meanwhile, ici:

Still the asymmetrical cut, not too much different, but the color is the main difference. She loves it. I like it quite a bit too!

And yes, she's a big Hello Kitty fan.

New Hair and Other Things

2007-10-12T11:37:00.000-04:00

In preparation for the wedding, and also to just improve my style situation a little bit, both Sadie and I got our hair done yesterday. I've had a chance to take some pictures of my own new coif but Sadie was so busy yesterday after school that I didn't have a chance to take pictures of her hair. Well, I did take a pic with my phone but that's it.

Sadie tried tae kwon do with her friend yesterday. They did two 45 minute sessions yesterday and she loved it. She wants to start going every Tuesday which pleases me greatly.

Although it is very refreshing to have a haircut, I wish I looked a little bit different than I do. It is still kind of my same basic, boring hairstyle that I always wind up reverting back to when I neglect to get it trimmed regularly, like a normal human being. Which happens a lot. I think next time I'm going to be more daring with the color. Overall I'm just glad that I have a fresh new 'do and there's still enough hair to have them put it up for the wedding.

Here are the best examples of what I can offer of the cut and the color:

See, not that much different. But better.

Spring Hill

2007-10-06T22:09:00.000-04:00

I didn't ever plan on living here. The plan was to move to a house in New Port Richey, about 20 miles south of here. It wouldn't have been that far really, but it would have been a little bit closer to Tampa and just a few miles from Tarpon Springs.

I had been to Spring Hill before when I was younger since my grandfather lives here. I found it ironic that Rob's grandfather also lived in this town, having moved here around the same time my grandfather did. In the summer of '04, I believe, while we were all on vacation down here-his parents, his sister, my parents, everyone-his folks bought a house in Spring Hill as a winter home.

His parents closed on the house I am living in on the same day that we closed on our Jersey house. They bought it to rent out, but it took on the more immediate purpose of sheltering me and the girls during my brief hiatus from home-ownership. It has been a godsend.

I used to scoff at the idea of living here. It is very Florida-cracker meets Northern Exodus to The South meets various other groups of people. It's on the Nature Coast. It's a little bit rural, a little bit town, and absolutely no city. There are no tall buildings, only strip malls and residential properties. It lacks the sleekness and the cool vibe of Tarpon Springs and New Port Richey.

Still, I like it here! The people are very friendly. I have had some very positive interactions with strangers. I'm not good at making friends so this is about the best I can hope for right now. It carries me a long way actually.

The benchmark moment had to be the day I walked into my bank down here with a fairly sizable check from the sale of our Jersey house. I was alone, by choice. They actually had a greeter there to see if she could help anyone who walked in, which was me with this check that Rob had so thoughtfully and fortunately signed before passing away. When the woman asked if she could help me, I literally burst into tears with this check in my hand and quietly and briefly explained my situation. She soothed me and shushed me and brought me up to the counter like a little chick under her wing and helped me get squared away.

There are have been other moments, similar, although usually without the tears. I got Sadie into high school, on schedule, for the very first day of the school year. That was no easy task, with the doctors' office up north who just wouldn't fax over her medical information and other related obstacles. I had to rely greatly on the efforts of the Public Health Clinic down here, which does an amazing job of getting kids immunized and seen by doctors during the 2 weeks leading up to the first day. However, the wait there is excruciating. Since then it has been pretty much smooth-sailing as far as Sadie's school goes. Her freshman year has been very good so far.

And while, no, I never dreamed of living here, it is much better than I imagined. It is a very laid back town. There are a lot of elderly people, especially in the area that the new house is in. There are also a lot of families with kids. There are also some tattoo parlors and barbeque pits and they sell beer and wine in the grocery store.

Maybe I just belong here right now.

For you out there who like to get lost in wiki, please visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Hill%2C_Florida

Some Pics from Last Weekend

2007-10-04T07:50:00.000-04:00

This past weekend JH and his girlfriend Mariela came down to Florida for a visit. We had a nice time. On Saturday we had a leisurely breakfast before heading down to Tarpon Springs for a little shopping, strolling, and lunch. I replenished my supply of sea salt body scrub and treated myself to a few cigars. No, I didn't stand around and smoke a few cigars during the outing. I brought them back home for the occasional sleepless nights that surely lie ahead.

We ate lunch at a place called Snookers. This place has indoor and outdoor seating, a big tiki bar, and an alligator pool. It touts Floribbean cuisine on the menu and pretty much delivers just that.

At one point we walked past a fudge shop. Mariela, who is not originally from the states asked "what is fudge?" This pretty much sealed the deal that we would have to go in and show her exactly what the excitement over fudge is all about. I must say, it was good but it wasn't the best I've ever had. It was a little granular and not as smooth and creamy as it should've been. I wonder if the humidity has anything to do with the consistency. Should I just seek out every fudge factory in Florida to test my hypothesis? Probably not a good idea with me being in a wedding and all in less than four weeks.

Let's just say, it did answer the question "what is fudge" in a satisfactory way, but not it didn't convey the excellence which usually would accompany the answer.

Well, I could go on and on dissecting the meals we ate but who wants to hear about that. The point is, my friends came in to town and it was a real treat to see them. We got out on Saturday night for some drinks. Penny spent her first night apart from me in her whole entire life by sleeping over her grandparents house. Aside from the fact that I worried constantly about her-picturing her running around wildly crying at 11:30, 12:30, 1:30, etc.-it was a little bit comforting to know that IF I ever decide to treat myself to a night or two without the girls, she will probably survive without me.

So here are some pics:

JH-how's this for a moody, brooding, contrived, fakely pensive, faux-candid self-pic? Go ahead, get your digs in :-P

Weekend Update

2007-09-30T19:56:00.000-04:00

This weekend was quite pleasant. On Friday night I went to Chili's with the realtor to look over a contract, sign it, and discuss the plans of the next week or so regarding the house. In the end, I think I got a pretty good price and that if the inspection go well this is going to be a very good investment. Most importantly, it's going to make a good home.

The color from the outside is very pleasing to me. It is a muted teal color, more on the green side. It is a nice cool color, but it's very saturated, not too pastel. It is a one story stucco home with some nice, curvy architectural details. But with very clean lines and pretty much no intricacies like trim or anything. The landscaping is all pretty mature, the grass is thick, and there is shade. My hopefully-future-home has some trees with Spanish moss and a retention canal in the back.

As soon as my name is on the deed I will post pictures. Until then, please deal with the minute details that I love about this place. I am finally feeling pretty excited about it and want to share!

I am very pleased with the tile work in that house. The common areas have nice 18" tiled floors and the bathrooms all have good tile work in the showers and tub. I have spotted some wallpaper that's going to need removal but I have done this SO MANY TIMES that I feel like it's just something that has to happen when you move in to a place.

Usually it starts with me staring at the seams in the paper and getting slightly annoyed by it in a subconscious way until I find myself picking at the seam with my fingernail and before you know it-well, you better get yourself a can of primer, some paint, some big sponges and solution to wipe off the paper backing left behind. It is a pretty messy and fairly annoying project but in the end it is very gratifying. The paper is gone, you've washed the walls down like a baby's bottom so it couldn't possibly be cleaner, and you have a beautifully painted room.

I did this all throughout the Wood-Ridge house, even well into my pregnancy with Penny. Rob came home one day and the wallpaper in our bedroom was just gone. I was about 6 months pregnant, up on a ladder, finishing off the last pieces near the ceiling when he discovered what I had been up to all day. It was probably around this time 2 years ago.

I knew that it was time to do it because I was still somewhat agile and the air was very crisp and I knew it would dry out the room quickly. Besides, once the baby came it would be too late, plus it would be in the middle of winter. And then I knew that once the weather got better, it would time for surgery. We were pretty sure we wanted to move after he recovered so it was the right time and I just felt like pulling all of the wallpaper off the walls. And it was so worth it. We painted the room a peach color, my idea of course. Rob wasn't really a big lover of the color peach, but it worked. We got some striped orange bedding and with our very dark wood furniture it looked pretty awesome. We had two big windows with sheer beige curtains and orange valences, a picture hung between them-a black framed print of Andrew Wyeth's Master Bedroom.

What a beautiful room. Sometimes I can't stand thinking that I'll never be back in that room ever again. It still feels so familiar-carrying a laundry basket into it, chasing dust bunnies out of its corners, putting away our clothes, or straightening up Rob's shoes.

Today!

2007-09-27T19:14:00.000-04:00

Ok, the disclaimer: I had a beer and two glasses of wine at Johnny Carino's...SO...I will try to keep this brief to avoid foot-in-mouth sydrome, but I just needed to blog about this day because it has been sort of monumental.

First, I made a formal offer on a house today that has already produced a little bit of favorable feedback from the seller's real estate agent, but I will probably not know the full scoop until today or tomorrow. When the deal is done I will post pics of the house and more details. Until then, keep you fingers crossed for me because this IS the house I would like to live in and play Martha Stewart with for the next 10 or 15 years.

Second, as mentioned earlier, I had dinner at Johnny Carino's this evening. Sadly, Johnny's is going out of business. All Johnny Carino's will be closing on Friday and re-opening months from now under a different name by the parent company. This makes me quite sad because this was the restaurant that my late husband ate his very last meal-baked tortelloni (large tortellini) and he enjoyed a nice evening with his parents, reminscing over the Wood-Ridge house and just having a real nice time with them. I have been going here once or twice every week in his honor and I am really, really sad that this will be put on hiatus for a long time.

Please, if you ever eat a good, fresh ravioli or nice piece of really fresh mozzarella cheese, pause to think of this man because few things in life made him as happy as very simple and fresh Italian food.

And third, tonight is the one hour season premier of The Office. I have been living off of anticipation for the new season of this show for the past week now. I am have fantasizing about the possibilities and potential plot twists for a while. I just can't WAIT to see a full hour of these office shenanigans!

What is going to happen with Jim and Pam?

Is Roy going to resurface and whoop Jim's ass?

Are Dwight and Angela going to make their office love affair known to their coworkers? Or are they going to grow even more secretive?

("NO COOKIE!" "But what if I'm hungry?")

Do Kelly and Ryan stay together or does he finally just ditch her? Oh, she'd be a wreak, but she'd get over it!

And Michael----ahh, Michael Scott, man who combines my two personal favorite names into one twisted Regional Manager-Michael, now that you've got Jan, are you sure you really wanted such a crazy, Martini-driven vixen in the first place? HAHAHAHAH!

Todd Packer? Will we see more of you? Will you make a cameo or two? I loved you in Anchorman and I love you even more as Todd Packer.

I'm thinking about all of the awesome characters on that show-Phyllis and Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration, Stanley, Creed-you old hippie pervert-I love you!, Toby-the scapegoat for Michael's quiet rage, Oscar, and all of the guys in the warehouse. I miss all of these characters that would make me laugh like crazy every Thursday night, comfortably from my old spot on the couch in my Wood-Ridge house, with my husband and daughter and their bowls of ice cream.

Laughing Together

2007-09-25T09:38:00.000-04:00

I am having a kid-free morning and loving it! Is that an awful thing to say, as a mom? I don't think so.

My inlaws took Penny with them when they came to pick up Sadie for school. This was at 7 am. I have been enjoying the blessing which is ALONE TIME so much. It is pretty rare these days, I can get it when I need it but I always feel guilty asking. However, when it's someone else's idea I feel no shame at all!

After they left, I promptly finished up taking care of the dogs and left the house for the YMCA. I went on the treadmill for a bit and burned some calories. I still feel a little bit-OK, VERY-awkward there but it is getting better. I think tomorrow I might take a beginner's cycling class since Penny is going with her grandmother for the morning to some kind of toddler thing at the church my father-in-law works at.

WOO HOO! TWO DAYS IN A ROW OF FREE MORNING TIME! CAN I GET A WITNESS!

One of my favorite pleasures in life right now is listening to the Steve Harvey morning show. This is good radio. I love talk radio, but kind of got sick of Stern a couple of years ago when he moved to satellite. I am not too keen on most morning radio talk shows because they are just too...I don't know...stupid, I guess.

Steve Harvey seems like a good guy and pokes fun at a lot of things but isn't venomous. Plus, they play a lot of R&B in between bits and without getting into it too much here, I am starting to like R&B again. LOL. What, that's not cool? I like dramatic lyrics, OK?

My favorite part of the show that I try to hear every morning while driving around, drinking my Dunkin Donuts coffee and feeding the baby bagels from the driver's seat is when they read a fan's letter asking for advice about a particular life topic. It's very juicy! The problems are always very personal and really serious-like marriage, divorce, family, children, abuse, whatever. It's not so much Jerry Springer-type issues with the cross-dressing, gender-bending issues. These are problems that real people have, people who are trying to live intelligently and do some good.

I love the way Steve Harvey addresses these problems and answers these people. He cuts right to the chase and tells it exactly like it is and sort of gives a verbal ass beating when it's called for. He's never mean or nasty, he's just real. I think if I ever need a verbal ass beating I am going to write the show a letter with my issue and just follow his advice.

I think the best part of this routine is that some of the things on the show actually make me laugh out loud, which the baby loves, and mimics in return. She has no idea why I'm laughing, but that doesn't matter. All that matters is that we are laughing together.

2007-09-24T20:46:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow my realtor and I are going out to look at a home for a second time. I am bringing my father-in-law along so that he can look at it and assess whether or not there are any structural or related issues lurking around the corner. Sometimes I tend to miss these things. Of course I would have an inspection done if I buy it, but I'd like to just skip this process if, say, the hot water heater is ready to burst or the roof is ready to cave in.

The house is very pleasing, aesthetically, and it's on just enough property for a single mom like me to handle. The lot is about 1/3 of an acre but it's very private in the back, coming up to a retention canal and facing a small conservation area across the street. The neighbors on one side have a nice, white vinyl privacy fence. I sure hope the neighbors on the other side won't mind if I put one up too! I'm going to have to, for everyone's sake, with these noisy dogs of mine.

The other house that I am interested in if this one doesn't pan out is very nice too. It's on a little bit more property, 1/2 an acre, with a good fence and lots of trees in the backyard. This house is vacant and very clean on the inside.

This is all very exciting but it's very sad for me too. I have never had to make a decision this large before regarding money and property-alone at least. I can get my father's input, and I can bring my father-in-law along, but ultimately, this is going to be my house, it is a big investment and commitment and it's definitely a very odd feeling being in the driver's seat.

***

Aside from all of that, I think the lime is almost ready to be picked. Jon and Mariela will be in town over the weekend so maybe I can find a way to share it with them, if it is in fact ready to be picked. There are many limes on the tree, but this one by far is the nicest. It's big and plump and just starting to give a little bit under my fingers when I squeeze it. I am half-tempted to buy a very small bottle of very good tequila and just leaving the girls with my inlaws and having a little tequila tasting at my humble abode. Maybe by then, I'll know where my next permanent residence will be. That'll be something worth celebrating.

Yeah, I think that's what I'll do.

Florida Wildlife

Photos, photos, photos

2007-09-15T16:53:00.000-04:00

I have been wanting to use the camera, but the batteries have been dead for a long time. As a reasonably intelligent human being I probaby could've solved this problem a long time ago but I am intermittently paralyzed by inertia. Since Sadie and I were going to Ybor City today I decided to apply myself to this minor problem, and voila, fully charged batteries and pictures taken!

I almost gave up on uploading any pictures at all until I pressed forward a tiny bit and found the cable that connects the camera to the computer. More success. Here are some pics. Many are not of very good quality but I figured they are worth a look anyway.

The Girls

Old Kitchen

Old Lady

Shirley Temple

Messy

Evie

Winnie Carlos Winnie

A Little Blurry

Lovey Dove

Some More Words for Today

2007-09-11T18:56:00.000-04:00

It almost feels selfish not to say something about what day it is today. Here we are on the sixth anniversary of 9/11 and no one really seems to know what to do about today. Should we mourn as a country, should we move on, what should we do.

Well, damned if I know that answer to that, but I don't think it should ever just go back to being an ordinary day.

The best thing that I can do on 9/11 is to reflect on what was going on in my life and how the events of that day affected me and to feel compassion for the multitude of people who were affected in the worst ways possible. I didn't lose any loved ones to 9/11 but I'm very sorry for the people who did. Such a terrible act of hatred. There's really no way to make any sense out of it that I can see and I just hope that all of those souls and all of their families are finding some kind of peace with the passage of time.

What I remember about that day, in my own very insignificant way is as follows:

I had been living at my parents' house for the millionth and hopefully last time for about 6 months. I sought solace there after a rather heated and violent ending to a dead-end relationship. I had started my prerequisite courses for my nursing degree and life was fairly easy. I was working as a CNA at Littlebrook Nursing Home in Califon-a lovely small facility in the rolling hills of New Jersey, where Hunterdon, Morris, and Warren counties meet.

Rob and I had just met a few weeks prior to this date. We had been emailing and talking on the phone for a little while before we met. I was absolutely head over heels in love with him and trying to figure out how to A) make him aware that I WAS THE ONE, and B) not freak him out with my manic, almost stalker-like habits regarding falling in love. My stomach was in a constant state of semi-nauseousness, I couldn't sleep, I was giddy, I was a little on the manic side-all positive symptoms of me falling in love.

I literally could've talked to him on the phone 24 hours a day if he was game for this. I absolutely couldn't get enough of him. Life was beautiful because I had found an amazing person to pour romantic love towards. He wasn't scared of the idea of dating a single mom and he was very interested in me as a person.

Beautiful.

That Tuesday I dropped Sadie off at school and went for my usual cruise. Let it be known that I am very fond of long drives, cruising, getting lost and then finding my way back home. So this was what I was doing, although there was no getting lost even if I tried. And I did. Mostly I would listen to music or Howard Stern. That morning I must have been listening to music because I didn't hear the news on the radio. Most likely I was listening to Smashing Pumpkins. It would just fit the picture.

I stopped at the Walmart in Clinton for something and I remember thinking it was kind of strange to see a group of about five or six managers kind of huddled around, hearing one say "I don't think it was random." There was a gravity to his voice, when mixed with these words just seemed quite dark to me. The impression was fleeting, so I paid and left.

When I got home, my brother Jon was awake, on the phone, and the TV was on. Considering the fact that he was awake before noon, I became a little bit concerned. My best friend at the time, Tamara, was on the phone and giving him the frightening news that something really awful was happening in New York, in real time.

At that point the first tower had been struck and no one really knew what in the world was happening. My brother and I retreated to the deck out back momentarily. The sky was clear, the weather perfect. When we came back inside, the second tower had just been struck. It was quite obvious that this was intentional. It seemed like minute by minute some new and awful thing was happening. The Pentagon, the plane crashing in Pennsylvania.

I called Sadie's school and was told that they really didn't have any specific disaster plan. The secretary told me if I would like to pick her up that would be fine. Darn tootin' I'd like to pick her up. It's the fucking end of the world, thank you.

I tried to call my mom, I tried to call my dad, I tried to call Rob. All circuits busy. For a LONG time. Just my luck, I meet the guy of my dreams and it's the end of the goddamn world. If you know my abysmal history with relationships you'll get the humor in that.

Thank you God, for not making it really be the end of the world. For me though, on that day, it truly felt like it could've been. I've never been so frightened by anything in my life, at least not in a global sense. Over the next couple of days not a plane was to be seen in the sky. Everyone I knew or knew of made it out of the city and back home unscathed. The little country airport by my parents' house let no planes into the sky for quite a while. The air was simply inhabited by the birds and insects while everyone tried to make sense of it all.

***

Some pics for your enjoyment:

At work, looking cute, with a really nice shirt (I love a man who wears good shirts)

Pleased as Punch

My Girls

***

Do I always have to hear that song "How to Save a Life" by the Fray when it is totally inconvenient to just break down and cry? How long is this going to go on for? I mean, can I please just go in to Staples and buy my things without hearing this song and having to walk around really, really slow, and try not to cry (which is impossible) and not even be able to concentrate on what I'm supposed to by, much less where these things are located while I can't even see with the tears in my eyes, lump in my throat, and my new friend named Nausea?

Is that a run-on sentence or an obnoxiously long rhetorical question?

The Eternal Search for Answers

2007-09-11T09:38:00.000-04:00

I hope that in twenty years when I look back on this time I'll feel confident that I did the best I could. I'm trying to tune every step I take to fit that wish. Most tasks are slow-going and I've found that I really can't do much more than perform one or two administrative tasks and unpack one or two boxes every day. Some days I only get a fraction of that done. Between toddler-tending, desperately trying to meet the needs of a fourteen year-old daughter, and maybe just trying to do one good thing for myself each day (mentally or physically) I have my hands full.

And the dogs! Don't forget the dogs! They have needs too. Mostly they just need lots and lots of love and affection. They have been SO good these days, getting along famously without a bit of friction. The good thing about the dogs is that when I've exhausted Sadie and Penny's quota of doting I can turn to them. They are bottomless pits when it comes to receiving all of the extra love I have right now. In return they give me their silly dog smiles (um, yeah, dogs DO smile) and can dish out every little bit that they can take.

Desperately I look for meaning in everything-in my environment, in my interactions with people, in dreams, in the things I read, and the songs I listen to. I stretch my imagination to its limits. I have returned to the younger version of myself-the one that looks for signs in everything, who talks to spiders and birds, who believes that thunder is God's way of letting me know he's still there.

Lately...

2007-09-07T09:42:00.000-04:00

We are starting to form some kind of routine. This is the only way to survive. Without the girls I think I would be a total mess-undisciplined, nocturnal, drunk, and probably suffering from poor hygiene. With the girls I make meals, loosely adhere to a sleeping schedule, find reasons to smile, and occasionally crack the whip.

People ask how I'm doing and my basic response is: up and down. This is true. There are moments when I am lost in total despair and then there are moments when I am totally confident that I will remake our lives into something that is happy and full of meaning.

There is a lime tree in my backyard with ten or twelves limes ripening on it. I keep on checking the biggest one every day and it still feels too firm to pick. I know nothing about growing fruit, but maybe I'll learn a little bit more about that through this tree.

Penny has taken to climbing on top of the dining room table every time I'm not looking. She likes to shake the salt and pepper shakers. This morning she got to the table while I was doing something and broke a bowl that I had in the middle of the table. I was nice, part of my Noritake Colorwave set, a large, shallow bowl that I used to serve vegetables or pasta during holidays and other special dinners. She cut her thumb while doing this. It's just a small cut but it was bleeding a lot. She ripped off the first band aid and started bleeding again. We're having more success with the second band aid.

Sadie is doing pretty well in school and with friends. She's tending the rabbit that my father-in-law found and it appears to be thriving. We are anxiously awaiting her new bedroom furniture. She has a lot more homework than she is used to but she's taking it like a champ. If she keeps her GPA in a decent range she will be eligible for a trip to Germany with her German class in April. It's really nice for her to have something like that to look forward to.

We are also getting ready for my sister-in-law's wedding. The three of us got our dresses, had them fitted for minor alterations, and just need to pick them up about a week before the wedding. In the meantime, I need to watch what I eat so I can look as awesome as possible in this dress.

Which leads me to another thing-we all joined the YMCA. I haven't actually gone and used the facilities yet but I can see it in my future. Perhaps we'll go this weekend. They have a child care area that will watch children for 90 minutes while you do whatever it is you do there. I am very interested in taking spin classes. I heard that it's intense and burns a lot of calories. I like the fact that I won't have to actually jump around with other human beings. I am not ready for that yet. At any rate, it looks very clean and everyone seems very friendly.

Time to start another weekend. I really have no internal distinction between weekdays and weekends. It's all a blur to me. In some ways it feels like only yesterday that Rob passed away-so much of my feelings are still very fresh. Every morning when I wake up I feel so sad that I will not see him today. Then I realize that it's been five weeks. Still close, but yet so far from the last time I ever saw him.

2007-09-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

Sending a prayer into the atmosphere
Answered by the crickets and the frogs
The air responds to me
Wrapping around this soul of mine
An equal exchange, give and take
As the warmth comes into me
Mingling briefly with all my tiny pieces
And swiftly retreats back to home

2007-08-23T10:30:00.000-04:00

Today is our anniversary. Four years ago today Rob and I got married. I started this post by typing "today would've been our four year anniversary." The italics I have just added as an after thought. I deleted that line and rewrote it. It is still is our anniversary.

Not would've been, but is.

It is impossible to really celebrate this day, at least today, but I can honor it. I started by cleaning my engagement ring. I haven't done this for months and months and it had accumulated all kinds of gunk around the area where the stone meets the setting. Months-worth of soap residue, latex glove powder, hand lotion, and whatever else lurks beneath had gathered underneath the diamond and it didn't sparkle as brightly as it should have.

So I got myself some jewelry cleaner and soaked it and scrubbed it. It's much better. I love this ring as much now as the day I got it and maybe even a little bit more. Any ring would've been a lovely choice but he put so much thought into this particular ring that it breaks my heart to look at it again and think of it's story.

The way I was told was this: JH went with him to the diamond district in New York and he was able to hand select the stone which is just a perfectly round cut diamond just a hair over one karat. It was a loose stone among others that he selected for whatever reason, probably a combination of price, size, cut. He decided to have it placed by itself in a simple Tiffany setting on white gold. If you know me, you know that this solitaire arrangement is exactly what I am about.

A few months before that he asked me a few vague questions about what kind of rings I liked and what I pictured an ideal engagement ring to be. He also took me into a jewelry store and had my finger sized. This lead me to believe that something really good was headed down the road, but I maintained my patience and never pressed him for anything. He surely must have known how much I loved him and wanted to be with him forever without me having to nag him for a ring or drag him into jewelry stores pointing out what I liked.

All I ever told him was that as far as rings go, I preferred solitaires with one really good stone. Because of my profession I needed something easy to don and remove gloves and to keep clean. I am also a simple person with very simple wants and needs-the ring really fit me perfectly. I feel like it also fit our relationship perfectly. I see it as a symbol of us. It is one singular, beautiful thing.

Four years ago it was a lovely day for a wedding. Together, we did a fine job of coordinating the event in five month's time. Our determination was to throw the best party that either of us had ever put together. I really think we pulled it off.

There are so many more memories I could pull out regarding August 23, 2003 but I will have to revisit them another time. The baby is finally napping and I have to find something productive to do. Task lists are weighing heavily in mind and deadlines are breathing down my neck. Until I return to this topic, enjoy a picture or two or three...

A scan, not the best quality, but I will never get over the look on his face. So happy.

Getting ready for the big event with JH

Honeymoon in Cozumel

2007-08-21T15:07:00.000-04:00

I don't even know where to begin with this post.

Or with life.

I have so much unfinished business to take care of. On the other hand I have rushed through so many vital tasks that I can hardly catch my breath. We are in the middle of major, life-changing shit here people.

For starters, Sadie started high school yesterday. She was worried sick about it the night before. So was I. That morning was a little rough getting organized. Somehow we managed to get there on time.

When she got out of the car I told her I loved her, as is my habit. She told me she loved me too and shut the door behind her. As she rushed off to homeroom I watched her for a few moments and then felt so acutely lonely. This was a moment that someone else would've liked to have been there for too. I let a few tears go, but the baby was in the backseat and she needed breakfast.

Turns out that Sadie had two good days of school in a row. She is taking German and Geography as her electives and the rest of the classes are just the usual required courses. She has made a few friends. She told me today that she "loved" this school. This helps to mend my broken heart just a little bit.

Also, friends help mend my broken heart a little bit too. I have had some good visitors, good email, good conversations, good communication in general. I've had one or two bits of drama but I cannot let things like that overshadow the good will and intentions that have been poured into our lives.

And it reminds me that people are mostly good.

Taking it One Day at a Time

2007-08-11T21:54:00.000-04:00

Today was the first quiet day we had in a long time. I took a ride around the neighborhood and it's not so bad. I took a walk around 2 o'clock but it was pretty hot so I cut it short.

I think swamp ass was invented in Florida.

But by the same token I like it hot outside. Everything feels very alive and thriving down here. There's a lot of green wherever I look. Lawns are wide and trees are dripping with Spanish moss. What do they live off of? Tree bark and humidity I guess. Lizards crawl all over the lanai screens and sidewalks during the day. Frogs are abundant at night. Sometimes I spot sand cranes in pairs in the backyard here.

Also, the people are nice. In the drive through and at the stores they call me honey and I think they actually mean it. If a stranger were to call me honey up in Bergen County I'd either be running for my life or in a rage over their sarcasm. But here-I think they actually mean it. And I miss being called honey so I will not only put up with it but cherish it too.

St. Petersburg Times Article

2007-08-09T10:53:00.000-04:00

The St. Pete times ran a nice piece on Rob with a beautiful picture that I knew he would've liked. He had commented many times "damn, I look good in this picture." The online article doesn't feature the picture and there will come a time when that online piece either expires or otherwise becomes unavailable so I just wanted to put it all together in one place where it will always be accessible. I'm pretty sure that everyone reading this blog has already read the article, which isn't 100% historically accurate but it's still a really nice tribute and I'm very thankful to the author Andrew Meacham for doing a very nice job.

Human trivia bank embraced computers, '80s songs
By ANDREW MEACHAM, Times Staff Writer-Published August 7, 2007

He might never have moved to Florida.

Rob Shaw liked the house in Wood-Ridge, N.J. It was a place where he and his wife could bring up their two daughters. But at the end of the walkthrough, his Tourette's syndrome kicked in. The sudden tics and utterances took the Realtor by surprise.

"Oh, do you have that strange disease?" she asked.

Rob told the Realtor he would rather die than buy a house from her.

He found a warmer welcome in Spring Hill near his parents.

Shaw and his wife had recently picked out a house. They were set to close on the home soon and planned to celebrate by touring Florida: driving to the Panhandle, then to the Everglades and finally hitting South Beach.

They never got the chance.

Shaw died Thursday at his parents' home in Spring Hill. He was 37. Last year he had heart surgery.

As a student teacher at Jersey City State University, Shaw had briefly managed to get inner-city high school students engaged in Hamlet.

But he passed on a teaching career and found a niche in computers. He had thousands of '80s songs in his iPod. A human trivia bank, Shaw inhaled movies, often lacing his conversation with lines from Tombstone, Die Hard, Porky's or American Pie.

He was a diminutive neatnik at 5-foot-4 who favored khakis and Polo shirts. He took out everyday frustrations with rants that reminded co-workers of George Costanza in Seinfeld. He needled them, too, sometimes hurting feelings, but making up for it later.

"The humor was not to cover his Tourette's," said Robert Lotz, who worked with Shaw at a marketing company. "But the attention was already on him. Instead of people staring at him or feeling sorry for him, he wanted to connect with people."

Shaw liked surprises. He proposed to his wife by hiding a solitaire diamond in a plate of fruit. And when she passed her nursing boards, he gave her a Dalmatian puppy.

"My life was chaotic before I met him," said Elizabeth Shaw, 32. "He brought a safety and peace and the hope that everything would always be okay."

The moving truck with all of their belongings arrives tomorrow.

Andrew Meacham can be reached at 661-2431 or mailto:ameacham@sptimes.com.%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E%3Cp%3E.biography%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3ERobert

Biography

Robert Alan Shaw III
Born: March 23, 1970
Died: Aug. 2, 2007
Survivors: A wife, Elizabeth; daughters Sadie and Penelope; parents, Robert and Audrey Shaw; a sister, Nicole Shaw; and grandfathers Robert Shaw and Nicholas Lisanti. Donations should go to the Tourette Syndrome Association, accessible online at www.tsa-usa.org/; or the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, www.brainbank.mclean.org/.

A Review

2007-08-07T23:59:00.000-04:00

I was re-reading some of this blog just now and going over the last one I wrote in NJ before the teary train ride to FL. In a way the subject matter in the beginning of that entry pains me to read-talking about my old aspiration to be a mortician and then how I wound up caring for the departed later on in life anyway. How cold it might seem to some people. I'm not really here to apologize for that because it is what it is and anyone who knows me knows I am not a cold person. Still, I wanted to make it clear that that sort of work is really an act of love-at least, it was on my part. I know that is a difficult concept to convey, but it is true.

But still, when I wrote that entry, how innocent I was to the heartache that comes from this kind of experience. And I can't help but feel chills regarding the timing. Chills.

I have talked with a few people about the coldness I felt when I found out about Robert's passing. A blast of coldness and my blood literally turned to ice. That is the only way I can describe it. I wish I could erase it from my memory. I wish I could just banish it and make it go away.

Now this is the paragraph where one usually shows the brighter side or the blessing in disguise. I am afraid that that is probably going to elude me for quite some time. However, I will say that everyone's support and good wishes and positive vibes are keeping me afloat. This may be the worst thing I have ever experienced, but I try to remind myself that the children are healthy, I have a roof over my head, and a lot of good guidance from those older and wiser than me.

Robert was my Doc Holliday. He was my Captain Miller. He was my huckleberry.

Now I just have to earn it.

(JH, Thank you in advance for allowing me to blatantly rip off a few very beautiful things you said about Robert in his eulogy. You are a daisy...)

The Best of Times

2007-08-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

Ocean City

The Pool in Spring Hill

Better Together

2007-08-06T07:41:00.000-04:00

by Jack Johnson

There's no combination of words

I could put on the back of a postcard

No song that I could sing

But I can try for your heart

Our dreams, and they are made out of real things

Like a, shoebox of photographs

With sepiatone loving

Love is the answer,

At least for most of the questions in my heart

Like why are we here? And where do we go?And how come it's so hard?

It's not always easy and

Sometimes life can be deceiving

I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together

It's always better when we're together

Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together

Well, it's always better when we're together

Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments

Just might find their way into my dreams tonight

But I know that they'll be gone

When the morning light sings

And brings new things

For tomorrow night you see

That they'll be gone too

Too many things I have to do

But if all of these dreams might find their way

Into my day to day scene

I'd be under the impression

I was somewhere in between

With only two

Just me and you

Not so many things we got to do

Or places we got to be

We'll sit beneath the mango tree now

It's always better when we're together

We're somewhere in between together

Well, it's always better when we're together

Yeah, it's always better when we're together

I believe in memories

They look so, so pretty when I sleep

Hey now, and when I wake up,

You look so pretty sleeping next to me

But there is not enough time,

And there is no, no song I could sing

And there is no combination of words I could say

But I will still tell you one thing

We're better together

Tagging Myself

2007-07-28T15:04:00.000-04:00

Jean posted this on her blog yesterday. I cannot resist things like this. Too bad my other 2 readers aren't bloggers. I know f0r sure that their 8 random facts would be a very good read.

I've been tagged by “You-know-who-you-are-and-you-know-what-you-did!”

Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Random Facts and Habits about Liz:

1. I seriously contemplated being a mortician when I was too young to even know what goth was. I wasn't even trying to be cool, I actually wanted to do this until my father told me that he couldn't live with the idea of me washing a dead man's penis.

2. I have gone on to wash more dead men's penises than I can remember...for, like, way less money than a mortician.

3. To me, the best smell in the world is the smell of amniotic fluid and newborn baby all mixed together. I wish they made a perfume that smelled exactly like it.

4. Once in nursing school, I had to pick up an obstetrician's yarmulke and put it back on his head when it got knocked off by a forceful jet of amniotic fluid. That was kind of wild.

5. When I was a child, about 8 or 9, there was a good 6-month period of time where I became obsessed with even numbers and symmetry. I would tap one leg and be compelled to tap the other. I would move one hand and have to do the same movement with the other hand. I would think a thought, then think it again to keep everything even. I guess I was stressed out or something.

6. I enjoy cleaning up really big, bad messes-if they don't belong to me. I have often thought about abandoning my career for work in cleaning up really awful messes-the kind where you need to don biohazard suits. I could also see myself successfully running a very nice ice cream parlor.

7. I love every fruit and vegetable known to mankind.

8. Like a true Scorpio, I thrive on change. I enjoy creation and destruction. Beginnings and endings. I get bored in the middle.

Resolutions

2007-07-19T19:26:00.000-04:00

We've all hear of New Year's resolutions, and yeah, I made a few this year that I've loosely adhered to. They include:

Gossip Less-I've kind of failed miserably at this
Lose Weight-I've done this, thank you very much, but I'm not done yet
And something else that I can't think of at the moment

How about some relocation resolutions?

Exercise more
Reach my goal weight within the next year
Read more
Write more
Get a new tattoo over my old tattoo

Today was a great day. I wasn't nearly as productive at work as I should have been. It's hard to concentrate. I get side-tracked easily. I get wrapped up in conversations that I don't want to bring to an end. I want to cram every bit of friendship and dialogue into each moment that I possibly can. Chances are high that I might not see any of these good people again.

I have a goal for one day next week and I hope to fulfill it. For years now I've been wanting to photograph certain areas of Hackensack that I feel really attached to, places I don't want to forget. They aren't necessarily the most beautiful sights in the world and my camera skills are very much limited to pointing and clicking. Still, these places have a special meaning to me and I should capture a few shots before I go.

More Reminiscence

2007-07-18T16:48:00.000-04:00

This week is turning out to be quite manic. Not only in the running around like crazy sense, but in the swinging pendulum of emotion sense. I have been talking too much, but not enough. I have been missing New Jersey as I stand in the middle of it. I have been thrilled with the idea of basking in the warmth of Florida, yet in the back of my mind have been terrified of the hurricanes I am bound to endure.

And I've been using the word "I" way too much.

Explaining to my clients that this will be my last week has been very emotional for me and for some of them too. They're used to staff turnovers, but that's no consolation. Some of them seem genuinely upset to see me go and they've been letting me know. And I can't help but feel a pang of guilt when I explain my situation, that I'm going to go live happily ever after with my beautiful family 1000 miles away so we can all be together. I feel so incredibly fortunate to be able to do so, but it feels kind of awful explaining this to people who, for the most part, have very strained family ties. In many cases this agency is the best family they've ever had and it hurts to leave that.

*******

On a different note, I dug up some goodies from the past that I'd like to share:

From PA with Love

A little too into fire-building, perhaps? Bet you didn't know that I was more than a novice fire-starter.

I will always be very proud of this fire creation. We used a huge cardboard tube to craft this baby. Save all the big cardboard tubes you ever come across and wow your friends with a fire tunnel. Go ahead, take the credit for the idea!

Sisters-in-law gone wild

A cool pic of me and JH

Running at approximately 25% capacity

Recalling and Building Intensity

2007-07-17T21:25:00.001-04:00

I've moved around a bit. It all started when I was an infant. We moved to Washington State when I was a baby so that my dad could attend Gonzaga Law School. I don't remember that move because I was so young, but earliest memories start to take shape there. I do remember leaving and a few subsequent visits that followed.

We came back to New Jersey shortly before kindergarten began. Relatives who remembered me and not necessarily vice versa welcomed us back, acted like people who knew me in a past life. I think that might be where my fascination with reincarnation began. Surely I had seen this kind people before, but where? when? Answer: my infancy.

Through various apartments in Central Jersey to our first house in Kendall Park to our last house in Alexandria Township to now, I have had a lot of practice with breaking my life down to it's basic elements, sorting, filing through, discarding, and neatly fitting it all together. I know that books are heavy and they go in small boxes and that you can use your socks to fill in the gaps in between your fragile items. I know how to configure my personal items together like a jigsaw puzzle. I know that it's a really good idea to be liberal with the packing tape and to reinforce the box on the bottom before even loading it up.

After leaving the family home in Alexandria I wandered over to Phillipsburg and back to Alexandria on several occasions. The last residence I had in P'burg was not half bad actually, one of my better apartments. My boyfriend at the time and I had the top 2 floors of a 3 story home with 3 entire bedrooms, 2 whole baths, a cute kitchen, a balcony overlooking our quiet street, an extra loft-type room, lots of closets, and full use of the basement for laundry and hanging clothes. Oh yeah, plus a garage. And the yard was good.

But even all of that space, for $750/month, no less, couldn't save the situation.

I returned home for the last time. We kind of made it work. I enjoyed cooking dinners for my family and being in a very comfortable house with all the trimmings but try living with your parents after years of carrying on your own stupid life and all of your stupid habits and ways and see how well that all fits together. I dare anyone to try it for one day. You'll look for any reason to occupy yourself outside of the house. Anything.

Shortly before 9/11 I met my husband online and then in person. March of 2003 we were engaged. Sadie and I joined him in Lodi in May of that year. We married in August 2003 and spent the next year in that house as I finished nursing school

We moved to this house in Wood-Ridge in September of 2004 and here we are, a baby, a major surgery, and many bouts of laughter and tears later. We have had 2 tenants under our roof. We have hosted many holidays. I have cooked several turkeys, a prime rib, an infinite number of mashed potatoes, and several birthday cakes. Hundreds of presents have been opened under the Christmas tree that magically appears in the corner after my husband wakes up from a nap, a fake tree that I have lugged up and down 2 flights of stairs, even when I was ready to pop with pregnancy. But in his defense his heart was so bad he could barely maintain a healthy pink color, much less lug around a Christmas tree. And I needed the exercise badly.

So very shortly we are going to be leaving New Jersey for good. I can't imagine ever returning. I have spent most of my life here and I feel like I have absolutely made the most of it. I have loved this state like you wouldn't believe, and there have even been times when I thought that I couldn't possibly live anywhere else.

Most of that feeling came from living so close to the Delaware River for so many years. I have loved that river for a long time. I have fished it, swam it, tubed it, thrown countless roaches into it, contemplated it, fallen in love in it, water skied it, driven along it and over its bridges, skipped rocks into it, dipped Sadie's feet in it when she was just a little tiny baby. I will miss it. I hope I can visit it one more time before we go.

What's another word for update?

2007-07-12T21:30:00.000-04:00

Gimme a break, titles are hard.

Next week starts my last week of work at my happy little outpatient mental health center. When I gave notice a few weeks back, I completely broke down during the conversation with my boss. I have poured my heart and soul into this job. And I have had the opportunity to treat myself to some of the most amazing lunch breaks of my career.

I have no idea how I could ever capture this experience somewhere else.

Time marches on. I will find something that brings me great joy in the future. I have to tell myself this over and over to avoid feeling swallowed up by the great, black unknown.

One thing I have decided-if it feels like shit, run in the opposite direction. I had a phone interview that made me feel like shit and I'm not pursuing it. It was not in behavioral health care and it wasn't terrible but it wasn't that typical feeling mommydawg gets when it's meant to be. A feeling that maybe only complete and total flakes like myself feel. Something akin to the stars being in perfect alignment, or the sum of the numbers on my social security card adding up to the address of the future job's headquarters, or some other eerily similar detail that I invent.

C'mon, you know you do that shit too. Everyone does. Everyone looks for similarities, things we share in common with the things we really want.

*****

Sidenote: Blogger NOW will autosave your post as you type it. This is genius. Thank you, Blogger. You read my mind.

*****

Carl Hiaasen writes a very sharp column for the Miami Herald. It's really just Florida news, but Florida is blessed to have such a great journalist and author exposing it's sordid details and making art of it all. If you haven't read any of his books yet, not only should you, but you should also just read one or two of his columns to get a flavor for his attitude and his stance on things. He's definitely one of the good guys. And then you should rush out and get one of his books. They are kind of a quick, easy read but incredibly entertaining without being...I don't know...commercial-novel fluff.

*****

So yeah, we're moving. And this takes a lot of figuring out, but we're getting there.

*****

Next time-pics. I am on the wrong laptop and it's not configured to share files with the other laptop. Which husband is playing Boggle on at the moment. He's sitting next to me finishing a bowl of ice cream. I am finishing a glass of Pinot Grigio. The baby is sleeping. Sadie is talking on the phone. Life is good.

3 Months

2007-06-20T20:22:00.000-04:00

I've been so bad about keeping up with this blog for the past three months but I've been pretty pre-occupied with Sparkpeople. I am amazed that this website is free. If you are like me and you have absolutely no will-power, very little self-control, and love to lay around and eat cheese and drink wine then you should give it a try.

Can I also just say that we are having some really annoying problems with the connection in our house? It makes it so very hard to log in all of the food I eat and exercise I get, plus anything else fun I might want to do through the internet. One second you're connected the next *poof* the connection is GONE, baby. I was wrongfully accused for many week over doing something "wrong" with the computer. Excuse me? I have been on the internet since, like, 1996 or something. I think I know how to click a damn link by now. Silly me, I didn't know that there was a wrong way to DO that.

My husband now believes that it is the router. Yippee. We are not getting a new router any time soon. We have a house full of everything to pack up and move to Florida.

Let me just say that I wrote a good post yesterday that I was unable to upload due to the problem I just mentioned. It told of my weight loss, dietary changes, exercise, and a few other things with some funny stuff thrown in. Part of the entry was bulleted and, I like to think, mildly amusing.

Sorry. Sorry for taking so long to write and sorry that the network administrator in this house is failing miserably at his job.

Still, we have done SO MUCH in the last 90 days. We have sold a house. We both gave notice at work. We have watched Sadie graduate from eighth grade. We have had a lot of fun and been under a lot of stress. We ate lots of good meals and we did some yoga.

Good times.