Fabulous Day

I got up this morning and decided to have a fabulous day. I will let nothing stand in the way. : )

It's been so long since I checked in here and I have so much to write about. My son is still causing me some worry and anxiety. He had his day in court over the accident and leaving the scene with property damage. It cost my husband and I a lot of money and I'm not sure my son appreciates what we have done for him. As a parent I guess that doesn't matter so much. I love him unconditionally and I will always be there to help him. I have a plan for the near future and he isn't going to like it very much but I'm pretty sure it's what they call "tough Love" and I will fill you in on the details later.

My youngest daughter is just finishing up her senior year of high school and she plans on going to the community college in the fall. I am so very proud of her. She has had to overcome some obstacles in her life but she has done so with hard work and grace. Recently she went through some extensive testing and was diagnosed with Dyslexia, ADD, an anxiety disorder and depression. Even considering that diagnoses she has made it through high school and is on the honer roll again this semester. (with no extra help or meds)
She is taking a lifeguard class at school and is just about finished. Last week she was at a State Park in CT. (Senior skip day). There was a man swimming quite a ways from shore and he began having trouble. Several of the kids she was with thought he was just kidding around but she was unsure so she swam out (in extremely cold water). When she got to him she told him her name and that she came out to help him, she asked if he needed her help. He said yes and then he went under. She was able to get him to shore and he was okay. He sat on the edge of the water for a little while and got his breath, thanked her for her help and then he left. The kids on the beach all clapped and cheered for her and she felt very good to be able to help someone.
She has had a lot of people in her life that have helped to shape her into the young women she has become.


PROM PICTURE

It does take a "village" and she was lucky to have such a caring and loving group standing behind and beside her.


My oldest daughter and husband are doing okay. They struggle with money issues and keeping afloat, like most of us, these days. They are lucky enough to have a seasonal campsite and trailer in a campground close to where they work. They spend a lot of time there now that the good weather has come. My grandchildren love it there and it's like living on vacation. They are both getting so big.
This is Zachary's first fish.

Life is good. I still have some issues with pain in my upper back and chest. I have had a bunch of tests and they can't seem to find anything wrong. I think I have narrowed it down to pain medicine. It seems to happen a few hours after taking percocet (sp?) or vicoden. The last two times I had episodes of pain I had taken vicoden for tooth pain just before I went to bed. I don't think that causes the pain but I do think that it triggers whatever it is. Almost feels like a spasm or something. Of course the doctor thinks that it is just a coincidence and it's not related. I know what I know and I won't be taking any pain meds. I was going to test my theory but I'm afraid... the pain is just to bad to do it on purpose to myself.
My husband is good and he has been very patient with all that is going on around our house. He finished building a chicken coup for our chickens quite a while ago and I love it. He did an amazing job. The chickens love it too.
If you don't see me here for a while it's because I'm probably attending a graduation. My sister, my two neices and my daughter are all graduating from either college or high school in the next few weeks. I also have a confirmation, a baby shower and family parties to attend over the Memorial Day holiday. Enjoy the good weather. The sun is out and it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. :)
I am looking forward to summer and spending some quality time with my husband. There is nothing I enjoy more than just being with him.

April 2009

I haven't been posting for a while. Just laziness I suppose. This month has been pretty good. We had a nice Easter with the kids and enjoyed spending the day with friends and family.
My parents returned from Florida this week and it is so nice to have them back. We all missed them vry much while they were there and the kids have grown so much since they left.
My son's issues withhis accident have been dealt with and his day in court was yesterday. All I will say about it is that it was an expensive lesson. He has no job and no money so the expensive part lies with my husband and I. I am exhausted. Enough said.
My youngest daughter is all enrolled in the community college for the fall semester. Her high school graduation is early June.
My chickens are getting so big. They have moved from the livingroom to the chjicken coop in the garage. We will be moving the chicken coop out to the back yard this weekend.
Weather is supposed to be in the 80's all weekend and I am very much looking forward to that. My son power washed and water sealed the deck last weekend so I will be putting out my summer furniture on Saturday.
My mother-in-law is due to arrive sometime this weekend for an extended stay. We all look forward to seeing her. She travels in her motorhome and parks in our driveway. She has her own place so it's not exactly like having company. It works out nicely.
I am struggling with my weight these days. Trying very hard not to gain. It's been just a little over a year since I had the Gastric by pass surgery and I've lost 110 pounds. At this point I gain 5 and lose 5 over and over. TOnight is my support group meeting and I need to go.
Tha't all the news fit to report at the moment.

screen door

I long for the sound of a slamming screen door. YOu know the sound... an old wooden framed screen door with a spring. Nothing says summer like the sound of a slamming screen door.

Weekends are GOOD!

My weekend was very good. I got to spend some quality time with my husband and we did some fun things. Sunday morning breakfast out and then a few errands. I spent some time working on a quilt (first one) with my daughter. It was good to spend time doing something with her. My husband is working on the chicken coop. This week we finally met our neighbors down the road and they seem very nice. They have chickens too so we stopped over to see there coop and get some ideas for ours. They stopped by our house yesterday afternoon to see our baby chicks.

I am going to be calling the doctor today to ask about some issues I am having with pain. I think it may be my ulcer or maybe even a kidney stone. It's not constant pain, but when it comes on... OMG It's very very intense.

But all in all "Life is good".

A quick post

Time for a quick post. Everything is pretty good in my world, I am still struggling with parenting teenagers but I guess that is to be expected. The latest disaster on that front is a car accident. My son was in the city late at night with people he shouldn’t be hanging around with. Those two things alone were enough to get him in trouble with me.

The story begins with a call from the police asking if my son is home, do we know where he is. Well its 2:30am and he isn’t home. We don’t know where he is but we track him down on his cell phone to tell him to call the officer. Oh by the way the officer wouldn’t tell us why he was looking for our son. We suspected it couldn’t be good at 2:30am. We find the boy child and his story goes like this… “Mom, I’m not sure exactly what happened because I fainted or blacked out or something. I ran over a fence and I woke up to “Fred” slapping me in the face. I was sooo freaked out. I sat there in my car for a few minutes and then I drove “Fred” home and went to “Sam’s” because I didn’t want to drive all the way home. I’m not feeling very good.” Hummmm sounds suspicious to me. I tell him to call the officer and I give him the number. I ask him to call me back as soon as he talks to officer. Now I am AWAKE.

Wait for two hours and son calls home. Officer is satisfied that son isn’t under the influence. Thank God. Tells him they know it was him who drove through this yard because he happened to leave his license plate in the fence. (Only my son could be so lucky). Now the story gets even better. The house belongs to a Judge. Not only that but the house has some damage too and it’s protected by the historical society.

My husband drove to the house to look at the damage and it isn’t real obvious where the damage is. So hopefully it won’t be too bad. We are just waiting now for a summons to come in the mail. I’m afraid that I can’t rescue him from this one. He will have to suffer the consequences of his actions.

Well enough with problems in my life.

Last weekend I resurrected my grandmothers Singer sewing machine from the basement of my daughters house. It was in rough shape. I cleaned it all up and oiled the machine. The machine is in a table, it’s actually a nice piece of furniture. I painted the cabinet and reupholstered the seat cover. It’s working like a charm and I am starting a small quilting project on my own at home. I am really having fun with this. I joined the quilting class and have started working on a table topper to match my kitchen curtains.

The second thing I am working on is learning all I can about chickens. We moved to the country from the city where I had lived all my life two years ago. I have been thinking about getting chickens for some time. I only want 5 or 6 chickens. I have been reading all I can find and talking with others that have a small flock of backyard chickens. I am hoping to be able to get them just before Easter. I want to take my Grandchildren with me to get them and let them be involved with getting them set up in their new home. The chickens will have to live inside for the first month so we will have time to build some kind of a coop in the backyard. I have done quite a bit of research on that too. I already know what I want it to look like and I have a good idea how big it needs to be. I think that my husband and I will start working on that this weekend. (hubby isn’t at all excited about chickens but he is going along with it)

If you are wondering if I am crazy… maybe I am. If so, it was the teenagers that drove me round the bend!

Do you have a "Bucket List"?

This may seem like it’s coming out of left field but as I drove to work this morning I was listening to a CD and I started thinking about things I would like to learn how to do. I would like to be able to sing just one song really well. (you have to know that when I was in the choir at church as a youth they told me to stand in the back and hum). I have little confidence that I will be able to accomplish the singing thing. I would like to learn how to play the guitar. We do a lot of camping and playing the guitar around the campfire is something that I would like to be able to do.

Last week I went out looking for new curtains for my kitchen. I really just need valences for one window and a sliding glass door. I found just what I was looking for at Country Curtains they were perfect for my décor. Golden colored with a rooster print in brick red. I loved them. I needed to buy 5 valances, when I got to the store I found out that the valances were $22 each. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t justify spending over $100 on valances. I decided to check out a fabric store in the next town that I had driven by several times. I went in and asked the owner if she had any fabric with roosters on it and she pointed me in the direction of the Waverly Fabrics along the wall. I found almost the identical fabric for $11 a yard. I have not sewed anything in several years and I do not own a sewing machine. The owner of the fabric store helped me figure out how much fabric I would need and she helped me pick out the thread. I told her I was going home to attempt to sew these curtains by hand. She told me about walk in sewing classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening from 6 to 8 that she runs and how she would help me make the valences. The cost of the class is $10. I was so excited to get started. I went Tuesday night on my way home from work and did all the cutting and some of the sewing. Last night (Wednesday) I went back and did more of the sewing and I am almost done. I may have been done already if I had been doing them on my own but Laurel, the owner of the fabric store, is a bit of a perfectionist and I had lots of opportunities to get acquainted with my seem ripper. If the seem wasn’t just so I had to take it out and do it again. My valances are going to be beautiful when they are done. This is a picture of the material

I’ve met some nice people at the Fabric store in the classes and many of them are working on quilts. That is what I want to do next. So I will add learn how to quilt to my bucket list too.

I want chickens. I imagine that may sound strange to some people but I want to have a few chickens in my backyard. My husband thinks I have gone round the bend and he wants me to explain why I want chickens. I just think it would be cool and the kids will think it’s neat too. I want to get them for Easter weekend as a surprise for the kids. I have been reading as much as I can find on the internet about raising chickens and I have some good ideas about building a small chicken coop. I will be ready by Easter for the chickens to arrive. Now I just have to figure out where to buy them. That’s all for now.

It’s time for me to put my dreams and wishes away and do the work that needs to be done. I am dealing with a difficult situation with my son and he takes up a lot of my energy right now. Be well everyone.

Pilates

Have you ever been to a Pilate's class? I went with my sister yesterday and I have to say it was a lot more enjoyable than I expected it would be. I am sore today and in the weirdest places.

My plan is to go on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays for two weeks and see if it's something I will stick with. I have two weeks to decide before I have to actually sign up and pay.

After work I have a support group meeting at the Weight Center and then I am going to meet my daughters to see a movie. They want to see Marley and Me. I have already seen the movie but I am looking forward to spending some time with the two of them.

I can hardly believe that February is coming to an end. We will be changing the clocks for daylight savings on March 8th. It will be nice to have more daylight.

Have I mentioned lately that my husband is a really good man. He really is, things have been tough with my son and my husband couldn't be handling things any better than he is. I just wish my son would get his act together. I'm tired of taking care of him.

This weekend I will be at the UCONN vs Notre Dame basketball game. It's close to the end of the season and it should be a good game.

Enjoy the weekend everyone.

What makes me smile?

It's a balmy 54 degrees, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. It almost feels like spring is in the making. I know it's still long way off but today I can see he light at the end of the wintry tunnel. That makes me smile. :)

Back from Sunny Florida

This is a picture of me last week.

This week I am home in very cold Northeast. Work has been very busy and the boy child is still causeing me grief. I think there is just to much reality here for me. Unfortunately I can not go back to Florida. My life as hectic and crazy as it is; is here. At least for now.

I told you in my last post about how excited Madison was to be 5 years old. This is what she said to her mother on the morning of her birthday. "Mommy, I am sooo exicted to be 5, I waited my WHOLE life to be 5." I can't say the same thing about my age but maybe we should all take a lesson from Madison and just be excited about what is going on in our lives today. Look for the good things!

Going someplace warm and sunny

I am heading to Florida this weekend to spend some time with my parents. It will be a nice change from the below 0 temperatures we have been experiencing here in the North East. I am very much looking forward to this trip.

I've had a good couple of weeks. My children are all behaving and work has been good. Today is my grand daughter's 5Th birthday. She is so excited about being 5. It is like some magical number for her. I guess when you are 4 turning 5 is a really BIG deal. Tonight I am taking them out for dinner at Madison's favorite place to eat. It should be fun.

I am taking the day off tomorrow to pack and get ready for my trip. My flight is very early on Saturday morning so I need to be up and out at the crack of dawn on Saturday.

Unfortunately for Madison today is the day that my first husband died of brain cancer. He died on her first birthday so my children have a tough time reconciling the celebration of a birthday with a terrible loss. It's hard not to smile when you are with her over her excitement of being 5. I hope that we can all concentrate on that tonight.

I hope you all stay warm and happy while I am sitting on a beach in southern FL.

calming down

Today is a much better day. I have calmed down and I am trying hard to keep things in perspective. We are starting today with a clean slate. My son is home and has been told that he needs to follow the rules, see a counselor, get a job and pay us back the money we have lent him.
I am looking forward to the weekend. Hubby and I are going to a comedy show tonight with friends, it's a fundraiser for the local fire department.
Tomorrow my daughter has a basketball game in the morning and I expect we will be snowed in for the evening. Sunday I will get a chance to sleep late and enjoy a quiet day at home. I hope you have a great weekend wherever you are.

How do you know what to do?

Here we go again. My son moved home Tuesday night after being asked to leave my niece’s apartment. He isn’t working and doesn’t have the rent money. He is very low at this point and needs medical (psych) assistance. However, he has not health insurance at this time. He has (I should say that we have) filled out paperwork for state insurance. In MA it is illegal not to have health insurance and the state offers health insurance to the unemployed and folks without it on a sliding scale basis.

He has been home for two days and already both my husband and are so upset with him that it is difficult to get any work done and think of something other than what to do about him. My husband told me today that we really need to get some outside assistance to deal with him.

I spent the day home with him yesterday and he had a melt down. His girlfriend broke up with him, he has no job, no prospects for work and his car is in the shop. He talks about how no one cares about him and he tells me that he thinks about killing himself. He spent most of the day yesterday crying

The car is the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. My son took the car to a place that told him it would cost almost $700 to fix the problem. Our mechanic told us that it shouldn’t cost that much so he came to the city and towed the car to the small town where we live. He called my husband this morning to tell him that the only way the car could have broken the way it did was if the car was being abused. He said that someone would have to be going about 80MPH and hit something hard for that to happen. HE also said that with all the stuff in the car he had a hard time towing it and it was a pig sty. Then to top it all off, he (the mechanic who we actually bought the car from) asked my husband why we never got the car inspection sticker? Now that is a good question.. We gave our son the money to get the inspection sticker and he told us that he did.

He has been home for two days and I am already at a loss about what to do. I even made a call to the Army recruiter today but they will not take him without a high school diploma. He has a GED. He would also have to agree to go and go through a battery of tests to see if he was emotionally stable enough to go. He isn’t. So where to go from here.

I’m sure that other people have similar problems with 19 year old sons. I know that we can’t be the only ones struggling with these issues. Or are we?

What do you do with a mentally unstable 19 year old that absolutely can not take care of himself? He can’t hold a job and he definitely has a problem with reality and telling the truth. I swear he believes some of the lies he tells us.

Happy New Year

It’s been a while since I posted and I’m not sure why. Have I run out of things to write about? Has my life become so boring that I don’t bother? Maybe my weight loss has come to a complete stand still and my weight loss was the original purpose of writing in this blog. I’m not sure why but I lost interest and got lazy.

Today is the first Monday of the New Year. Today is the day for listing my resolutions and hopes. Today is hopefully the new beginning I need to kick start my lazy butt back into gear.

On December 11th and 12th we had a terrible ice storm here in the northeast. We were very fortunate in that we only lost power for 24 hours and all the trees that fell did not hit and structures or the pool in our yard, others were no so fortunate. Several homes in our area were without power for up to 13 days. Many schools have been closed since December 11th and the students are going back today for the first time since then. A lot of them had a 2 hour delay this morning because of ice and sleet that happened early this morning. We are expecting more ice on Tuesday night this week. Everyone is nervous and on edge as we wait to see what will happen next.

I had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s with my family and friends. My two grandchildren were so much fun on Christmas morning. I loved seeing the excitement of the little ones. Madison couldn’t believe all the presents under her tree and she is still wondering how Santa got all that on his sleigh. Zachary is just 16 months old and he was happy just to play with the boxes and bows.

We had a family party at our house the weekend after Christmas with all of my family. My two brothers and their families and my sister and her daughter, and my closest friend and her family that we consider a part of our family all came for the afternoon. My parents are living in Florida for the winter so they were not able to join us and they were missed a lot.

New Years eve my husband and I spent a quiet evening at home. We watched a couple of movies and went to bed well before midnight. We must be getting old. On New Year’s Day we took a ride down to the casino in CT and had a very good time. We spent about 5 hours there and actually came home with a little more money than we went with. I was so happy. I tried to talk my husband out of going to the casino because I really wanted to buy a new recliner for our den. We had the money for the recliner but if we took it to the casino we would no longer be able to buy the recliner. We ended up being able to do both. I LOVE my new recliner and we had a nice afternoon of entertainment at Foxwoods.

We all managed to get through the holidays without getting sick or getting laid off. My son is still struggling with trying to find employment and not having enough money. I expect he will be moving home soon. He can’t afford to be out on his own and I am done financing his car and apartment.

My youngest daughter is doing the college search thing and enjoying her senior year at high school. This is an exciting time for her and its fun to watch her enjoying this time in her life. She is very involved in sports so there is always something fun to go and watch her do.

My husband and I took our youngest daughter and my niece to a UCONN men’s basketball game this weekend and had a good time. UCONN won so that even made it better. We have some connections to UCONN and my daughter has applied to go there in the fall. I don’t know that she will get accepted but we are hoping.

My brother has lost his job due to this lousy economy. I wondered how long it would take before it affected our family. It didn’t take long. I will say that after spending the day at Foxwoods casino on Friday you would never know that there was a bad economy. The place was packed and finding a parking place and a slot machine was close to impossible. We stopped on the way home for a few things at home depot and again the lines were long and people are still buying stuff. I’m sure that it is going to get worse before it gets better. I only hope that we can keep our jobs and keep paying our bills.

The news of the weekend has me worried about President elect Obama and all that he will face once he takes office. Hamas and Israel keep bombing each other, the economy is sucking pond water, our service men and woman in Iraq need to come home, and I’m sure there are numerous things that none of us even know about yet. I do not envy him the job that he faces at the end of this month. Why would anyone want that job?

I also read that John Travolta’s son died this weekend while on vacation. How awful. I have lost a child of my own and I know that pain that goes along with that. I pray that he and his family will find the strength to move forward and find peace. What a terrible way to begin the New Year.

I arrived at work this morning to chaos. This is what always happens after a long weekend. Everything is piled up and it’s stressful. I managed to get through the morning and now I am going to take my lunch break and go get my hair cut. Tonight My husband and I are signing mortgage papers to consolidate tow mortgage loans into one and get a lower interest rate. We will end up saving about $200 a month on payments and every little bit helps.

My weight has remained the same for months now. No surprise to me. I have been eating junk and way to much sugar. Starting today I am back on the weight loss wagon. I walked at the mall this morning on my way to work. I brought my lunch and I will not eat junk today. One day at a time.

I am going to Florida at the end of the month to visit my parents and I want to lose 10 pounds before I go. Wish me luck.