Category Archives: holidays

Happy Memorial Day

No, I don’t like to participate in neighborhood stuff. Stepford overwhelms me.

I’m often very antisocial when it comes to large groups of people I don’t know. I can rock a small gang, but not a pool full of curious eyes. I knew the girls were probably missing out on a fun time, but I’m too selfish for that. And refuse to fight for seats. So we got them this:

My moods lately have been erratic and I was completely uninspired to do the whole “picnic” theme, but I did manage to cut up a watermelon.

and the girls admired their sunflower garden. Which is funny because I suck and haven’t done any gardening for the first time ever…but the sunflower seeds left from last year already started to bloom. Reward without the work for once!

5 Easters Ago Today.

Easter is a holiday I don’t really enjoy, and this has nothing to do with religion.

5 years ago today was the worst day of my life as I held my 10 month old and was sure she was going to die. We were never given answers as to what happened, or why.

Easter 2007, Brinn was 10 months old. Other than showing signs of a cold and low grade fever, she was fine. I was still nursing at the time, and I thought she fell asleep in my arms. I looked down, and my baby was blue. No breathing. No life. The only thing I clearly remember was the screaming, the panic, and running out of the house to find someone who might know CPR.

Seconds were like hours. By the time my neighbor had her in the grass performing CPR on her, I was sure it was too late. I could hear the ambulance coming and it was unable to locate us. 5 years later, that is still a sound that sends violent waves of nausea through me every time I hear them. As the ambulance pulled up, something incredible happened. She had what looked like a seizure, and started gasping.

5 days in Levine’s hospital- multiple spinal taps, MRIs, EEGS, IV drips and tests with names I’ll never be able to pronounce nor do I care remember, we had no answers.

Three months later at her one year check up, her shots sent her into multiple grand mal seizures. Every fever thereafter caused seizures- it didn’t matter if her fever was 99 or 105. Then her eye started crossing.

Since she turned three we’ve been seizure free, although she suffers from Strabismus and Amblyopia in her eye which is most likely related. (That’s okay, she looks great in her glasses.) So while most people are celebrating a certain rising today, I’m celebrating a very personal and selfish one for myself.

Good Friday.

Today is the first day I’ve had a moment to even look at this page in a while. Since the shop is closed for a few days, I figured I could catch up with some things I’ve been neglecting. Let’s just say my taxes are not enticing me at this particular moment…

So I figured I’d come on here and catch up a little. Not too much, as the 3 people who read this page by accident, my aunt, and my Gram know better than to expect much from me nowadays on here.

I also figured I’d do a little venting (my specialty) and post a few pictures of the kids coloring their Easter Eggs from this morning. Typical awesome blogging content of course. No one else covers these amazingly interesting concepts or topics, right?

We returned from a trip to Italy a few days ago. (I’ll post about that afterwards, maybe…) But the week before I left I really started to feel guilty about not being at home with the girls. I’m finally at a place in my life I could be home if I wanted to, yet I started a business. Duh, what a dumb ass right?

Let me say that I love my kids, but I needed a Good Friday. Being home all day today has been one reminder after another why I LOVE having a job. I’m not just talking about the crying, fighting, mess making, cooking, fighting, crying, laundry, stagnation and plain old boredom of it all…

Yes I am. It took about 5 hours for me to start thinking about and MISSING work. So thank you, Good Friday. I needed this. The bottom line is also simple:

I didn’t miss being at home, it’s that I’m still bored with work and feel like I need to do some major overhauling and revamping. So that’s my next challenge and I’m working out a plan. So that’s that. Basically I’m still crazy, irrational and unpredictable.

For the fam, here are the little ladies working on their Easter Eggs this morning. This mom is not buying all of those stupid kits and junk- here’s your food coloring and a box of crayons. Have at it.

Also, Happy Easter, just in case I forget later.

Hey, Santa? Chill out.

“I know it’s all about the photo op, but my girls wanted to tell you what they’d like for Christmas first.”

Yes. That’s what I snarked at Santa. I was pissed off. I thought I was smart getting to the mall on a weekday when it opened. I was promptly tossed a blinking pager and told to stroll the mall for an hour until it buzzed. Are you joking? What is this, Disney World? An hour later we got back to Santa only to find a line. A line that would take another 35 minutes of waiting. Luckily my mom came along, so I had her get the girls some lemonade and a hot pretzel to entertain them and keep the “hangries” at bay.

It’s finally time. For all of her excitement, Shaye got nervous. REALLY nervous. Even as a baby she was a little shy at first around strangers, she isn’t the ballsy bossy pants that Brinn is. So she hesitated for a second. In that one second, Santa was up off the chair, practically charging at her. He rounds the girls up and heads over to the chair, and begins hollering demands at his “elves”.

“Put her here, set her on this knee, turn the camera like that….” Kid you not, he was not going to say more than hello to them before having this picture churned and out and could be on to the next kid. Isn’t the whole point of going to see Santa to deny that you’ve been hell on wheels all year and beg for some toy you saw on a commercial? Hey Santa? CHILL OUT. He was a little stunned, understandable. Only Heather yells at Santa. But the girls did have a few gift requests (pillow pets, candy and a hamster- that’s another story), and had been so excited to see him, not to mention I waited for an hour and 45 minutes for their 2 minutes of Christmas glory, and managed to blow $200 on shoes they may or may not have needed while waltzing aimlessly through the mall.

Either way, the girls did get what they asked Santa for, we got this cute picture, and maybe Santa remembered to ask a few other kids what they wanted this year, instead of solely focusing the business of pictures.