Lost my _ key today

Okay, my laptop is old & not getting any younger.  Today I lost my _ key.  I'm trying to write _-mas letters at top speed and can't believe how often I use my _ key . . . things are e_citing, e_tra money, e_tra days off, etc.   It makes me wonder what else I have lost this year beyond my brothers.

I definitely lost time, days go by & I wonder where they went - its Friday, I think its Tuesday; look at a clock thinking its late morning & its really 3:00 and on and on.

I'm so busy anticipating future commitments & plans that I have lost my Now as well.  I used to do things right when I think of them because I forget if I don't do them "Now"; so I forgot the items I wanted to search for on Craigslist; the Zyrtec coupon I was going to use; to pay my internet bill (almost lost that one); to replace the dodad that makes the horn work in my van.  You get the picture.

So I have to fi_ the _-key before my mind e_plodes!

MERRY ___-MAS & A HAPPY NE___ YEAR -

oh, shoot - there goes another one . . .

Just watching Mike & Molly and wanted to share a great line from it:

Everyone has a cross to bear, mine is made of lead & covered in fire ants.

Seemed to apply.

Melancholy

So I haven't written in a while and some of my friends are bugging me to get back at it . . . ironically I'm also bugging the blogger who originally got me started to get back to it as well.  

The truth of it is I am still in a funk from recent events & I can't seem to find my sense of the absurd.  I get some really good jokes in the email; occasionally a kid does something funny but I just can't see the Golden Glow in all the depressing fog surrounding me.   I keep telling myself just hang in until next year; 7 more weeks and I'll turn a corner.  

Maybe if I finish unpacking . . . no really there are still boxes in the living room!

Or go back to some of those old joys I can recapture the Glow . . . then it hit me.  That's exactly what I need.  I need to do puzzles again.

When I was a teenager and faced with a problem, I would do a puzzle with my Mom and we would work and talk - my problem would slip out and she would help me fix it.  She said it helped me to organize my mind, feel like I completed something and to see the big picture.

So I have been doing puzzles all over the place & now instead of a hoarder, I am a puzzler!!  I have 2 puzzles going at home.  I've been doing all kinds of puzzles on the internet to the tune of hours at a time & I've spent a lot of time in the past month or so doing jigsaw puzzles with kids and passing along my mother's wisdom.  

Its like someone threw me a rope & I just had to put it together before I could pull myself up.  Uh oh, here come the tears again . . . but they are of relief not so much sadness.

I vow to once again haunt the thrift stores & garage sales and keep puzzling my way to the top again.

Thank you to my friends for their patience, support and maintaining the distance I need to grieve in private.   Don't worry, I'll work on some punny puzzle jokes for next time.

In Honor of my Other Brother

And so it has come to pass, my older brother, David (here with his 2 kids Joshua & Rebekah), passed just 2 days after Red and I am slogging through the grief and occasionally falling on my face from the weight of it all until the jokes started . . . as follows:

I am talking on the phone to my niece and my Doberman runs past me with a dead mouse in her mouth - right into the house, right up on my bed; I'm screaming and running from her and she is chasing me;

Followed by the lawn mower which ran so well for the past month, won't run at all & the new trimmers I just bought keep getting stuck;

then, a bunch of frogs take up residence on my screened in porch & the Dobie spends all night barking at them;

and, last night, a chamleon keeps me up most of the night running across the wall above my head causing my Dobie (80 lbs) to dance on me repeatedly.

OK guys, quit it  . . . and yes, I can still hear you laughing . . .

Such Sadness

Since February 2011, I have watched (from a distance) my brother deteriorate from multiple cancers and today he left this world for another one.  My other brother is also deteriorating from a spinal injury and will soon join his brother.  I am to be the oldest of the children after 48 years of being third from the top and I am so sad.  For my first 5 years, my 2 brothers raised me, protected me and provided for me and my youngest sister.  They were my link to memories of my mother who walked away in my fifth year and never returned.  For the next 6 years they tormented and harassed me, but always with the jokes.  We would sit around the kitchen table, tell jokes & one liners and laugh until we cried.  My Dad was the ringleader of this band of merry men.   When I was 11, my brothers left for the Army and we rarely saw each other but when we did, we would laugh like maniacs as if we were never parted. 

The party has moved to heaven now and the 3 boys (Dad included) are probably going to torment & harass me from a far until I join them.  I can picture you Red leaning down from the top bunk and pretending to be the windshield wipers on my glasses while I cry.  Miss you bro.

Justifying my Plastic Container Collection

So I've moved and begun the unpacking process.  I've admitted my hoarding affliction and am prepared to overcome it.  Really wish I had faced it before I lugged all the extra junk to the new house . . . but better late than never.

Anyway, I'm unpacking and I open 3 green garbage bags and 1 huge tub of plastic food storage containers and I realize I need therapy.  Did I never throw out an empty butter tub (of any size), Chinese soup containers (those lids are totally leak proof) or the large yogurt containers (about a 100 of these).  The following thoughts have formed:

1.  Who was cooking all this food that had to be stored? Ahh . . . not me.

2.  How much food was I planning on saving at any one time?  Frig is only so big.

3.  They are not see thru so how many would I have to open to find the food I was actually looking for?  Honestly, most of them.

4.  I don't go anywhere, so I don't take food with me. 

5.  I have teeny tiny tupperware . . . was I really saving a tablespoon of something?

So you see its become some sort compulsion, but I can honestly say its all unconscious.  I don't shop products wondering what would fit in it after the original item was gone.  I don't hit thrift stores for rubbermaid or tupperware containers.  I always, and this is a compulsion, return containers to original owners if I take food home from their house.    I can always find a justification for collecting a specific container too, which deeply bothers me.   Chinese soup containers are tall, skinny and I'm not kidding, leak proof.  I don't eat soup so why am I saving them.  Square, rectangle ones are stackable in the frig; butter tubs hold 1-2 servings of whatever, and on and on it goes. 

So they are all going to the recycling guy . . . well, most of them, or some of them, maybe a few of them; ok 10 of them.  And don't get me started on my thousands of buttons in 5 different cookie tins or my entire 3 shelf cupboard of glass jars for canning, in all kinds of sizes.

Hey, one affliction at a time.

Its Been Awhile

Its been a bit since I've been here.  Its been hard to find the joy in my days lately.  Laughter has been hard to come by . . . yet, I've laughed harder in the past month, than in the past year.   A recent family gathering reminded me why I moved $3000 miles away.  What you caught that money symbol by the 3,000 number?  That's because my family is all about the money, the price, what we have, what we spent, what we hoard, what we leave behind for the others?  How are the poorer relatives judged . .  . by the job, the car, the marriage, the children, and THE MONEY!

Anyone who knows me, really knows me, doesn't wonder how I fell from the money tree at a dead run and never looked  back.  Much to the dismay of most of my family,  I have given away all my money, my belongings, my heart, sometimes my dignity; in favor of The Golden Glow.  Every time I relinquish my grip on something I cherish to someone I cherish more, I get that warm glowy feeling that feeds my need to do it again, and again and again.  Its addictive but its my joy. 

A recent example, I "paid" the children who I live for, a special dinner for getting good grades each grading period; which means a dinner at the restaurant of their choice.  My youngest niece (7 yo), Sarah, has a decision-making issue - and likes to milk any Aunt Dana event for as long as possible.  So, on her day to do a special meal, she was asked where she wanted to eat. 

First, we had to sit in a Kohl's parking lot for 15 min while she chewed over her choices ~ Denny's, Ihop, Friendly's, etc. We whittled it down to Ihop or Denny's but we had to stop at Ihop to review the menu and see if they serve Macaroni & Cheese.  They do not. 

And so it was off to Denny's.   She reviewed that menu  for 15 min, even though she wanted the Mac & Cheese 15 min earlier.  Surprise, she chose Mac N Chs.  She talked endlessly through the meal, stretching it out as long as possible; asking for numerous refills of her soda & toiling endlessly with her milk shake dessert.  The process took about 1 1/2 hrs, but it was well spent. 

For $10 (kids eat free on Tues at Denny's), I spent 90 min laughing hysterically at the social commentary of a witty 7 yo.  I could barely eat or get a word in edgewise.  "Did you know that Jr Luther Martin King freed the slaves, and  somebody killed him because they wanted to keep their slaves?", asked my Sarah.  Nope and on and on it went.

My memory of that dinner will last way longer than anything I have or ever will purchase.  That Golden Glow will never wear off.   I just wish my family would stop trying to put a price on it . . .

Texting

Its time to share my opinion, and mine alone, on texting.  I'm old school with regards to writing.  Long flowing letters filled with information and emotion.  I find Texting, cold, short, impersonal.  I just can't get into it.  I still try to type long flowing missives, but they don't fit in the space allowed.   Guess that's the problem - allowable space. 

I've never been one to respect borders or fit into anyone's definition of space, except, perhaps, outer.  I think and live big; I talk loud; I take up my space and more.  I exceed my own expectations and I hold others to that level as well.  I see more than the words written and feel more than the message conveys and texting only leaves me wanting.  I want a conversation, an answer and affirmation.  Instead I am left with questions not answered; feelings not expressed; and doubt as whether the message was even received.

Beyond that frustration is one more . . . I am an English teacher trained in 4 years of Latin conjugations and 2 years each of Spanish and Italian.  I hate, detest, deplore and scream at misspelled words.  I know texting is shorthand, its meant to convey a quick thought or answer a short question . . . but it is extremely difficult, almost utterly impossible, to not want to send back a reply  including the correct spelling of a misspelled word!

K, im dun now.

A friend

A friend of mine has started a blog rejoicing in the blessings of her family. 

I want to write about everything else.  Hence, this blog

I'm going to use this forum to be talkative, loud and obnoxious, because my inner circle finds me very much amusing; and the outer circle might like a good laugh or two at my expense. 

. . . so

tonite, I took my nephew driving (his 5th time out), as we passed his first "oncoming" car, I about burst at the look on his face - sheer panic and then determination to get through it.  I am reminded of driving lessons with my dad.  It was all just panic, panic, panic.  I spent $1000 on driving lessons  from one of those companies after one day on the road with Dad.  A few years later, I taught my younger sister.  No mailbox was safe and NY still hasn't passed that left on red law yet.  Please feel free to comment with your first driving "experiences", I need something to read in the car while we practice!

I did, however, share with my nephew, the most awesome moon I have ever seen, and we both took a moment to appreciate it;

then I reminded him to put the car in park so it would stop rolling away . . .