Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and yet another thing I’m thankful in my life for is the man in my life, Mark. We’ve spent the last thirteen years together, through the good, bad and the ugly. We’ve worked hard to maintain our relationship and while it hasn’t always been pretty, the one constant thing is that we love each other and are willing to work through any obstacle. Trust me, there’s been many.

This past month hasn’t been a pleasant one for me. I’ve had a lot of personal issues in my life to work through and when I think I’d see the silver lining in the clouds, they’d blacken back up. I’m not an easy person to live with and some of the things I do, Mark doesn’t always understand. But just when I think he doesn’t get it, he goes and does something like this. I can’t share the entire card with you, but I can share some of what he wrote.

Hedr,

If you are wondering why I bought this card blank, I can assure you it’s not because I have numerous words of wisdom to throw into it. It’s only because I didn’t have my glasses when purchasing it.

 

The rest is about stuff being beyond my control and him having faith in me. And that is why I’m thankful for him, because he always manages to make me laugh. Even in some of my darkest hours.

PS He calls me Hedr because of my friends little boy who couldn’t say Heather. It’s stuck for twelve years.

There have been a lot of changes in the past week for me personally. Some have been good and some not so good. I joined in on a thing on Facebook in which every day until Thanksgiving, I was to say what I was thankful for. I did it for a couple of days and then stuff happened and stopped. I know it isn’t Thanksgiving, but my brain is mush and on overload, so while this was in my head, I wanted to get it out.

In speaking to my mom today about some of my concerns she said something that made me cry—made her cry too—but it was precisely what I needed. I love my mum. We don’t always see eye to eye and we’ve had some obstacles to overcome. But she said to me, you know what, Rae? When everything is said and done and the dust settles what matters is that you were true to yourself and more importantly, if everything is crumbled around you, it’s okay. You still have your family and your friends—the ones YOU chose to be your family. THOSE are the things that really matter, because if you don’t have them, who do you have? She said she could not have gotten through the last thirteen years without me—thirteen years ago, my step-father died and it was rough. She went from being a stay-at-home-mum to working full-time to support her. She’s retiring in December and faces the unknown once again.

You won’t often hear me say, “My mum was right.” Because we agree to disagree on a lot of things—finally—ha-ha. But even when things were bad between us, she was still there for me. She might not have been there the way that I needed her to be, but that’s okay.

So today, I’m thankful for my family. All of them. Good, bad, and the ugly. The ones I never see, the ones I longed for a relationship with, the ones I sometimes can’t stand, the ones that have disappointed or hurt me. I’m thankful for them. I’m also thankful for the friends whom I’ve made my family. The ones I chose. Without you—and you know who you are—there are weeks that I couldn’t get through without you.

What are YOU thankful for?

In all likelihood this’ll probably go down after I post this. Actually surprised it’s still up. But you’ll all see it eventually, right?

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love decorating, baking, shopping and wrapping. It allows me to go back to my childhood, I suppose and live vicariously through my children. I had one more year of Santa in my house. I knew this would be my youngest sons last year of believing. I thought I had time. I was wrong.

My guy over-thinks. He’s ex Army, OCD, and have I mentioned that he over-thinks? While I don’t want to say he’s Ebenezer Scrooge or anything, he doesn’t get into Christmas quite as much as I do–two different backgrounds. So, he thought up something, which was fine, but where he over-thinks the practicality of things–he doesn’t think sometimes in simplistic and when you have an eleven-year-old child, you have too. He screwed up last night and when I mouthed shut-up like on the Chef Boyardee commercial and he asked me–loudly, why are you telling me to shut up?

Um, because you’re dumb?

But I didn’t get to say those words. With tears in his eyes, my not-so-little guy realized there’s no Santa and told his dad as much. Of course, I had to cry too. But I explained that Santa is in your heart. He looked devastated. I had to go outside for air, because I was so angry. The Man doesn’t get it.  He thought that explaining to him that he couldn’t believe until he was seventeen and that there was a natural order to which you found out…would soothe my ruffled feathers.

It didn’t.

Somehow, Christmas, or at least the part of the excitement and wonderment is going to be a little less.

This site will be down for a couple of days as things got majorly screwed up with the hosting. I’ll be back.

Whoever said life gets easier when your kids get older LIED. Seriously, I think I had more time when they were younger. Now? Not so much. Add in helping out my eighty-three-year old grandmother who tends to be more demanding than my children and well, I’m putting the miles on my new van.

I don’t know how much I’m going to be blogging in the next week–then again, I haven’t really had too much to say that doesn’t involve ranting, whining, swearing or all of the above. But Friday starts the mayham. Someone asked me if I ever slept. I’m thinking not too much the next week. The good news is, the play my daughter is in will be over Saturday night. The bad news, she’ll find something else to participate in. Which is fine. But I still have two other kids. One of which has a new job and needs mom to drive him back and forth. And while the idea of him driving is becoming easier to see–it’s just not in his immediate future–or atleast not immediate enough.

This is my schedule:

• Friday: Taking the GMa to her first of MANY dental appointments in the morning. It’s the girl’s debut in Pygmillion as a bystander later that evening. A smaller part, but she has to start somewhere.
• Saturday: Clean house for Sunday. The boy works and then there’s the Play
• Sunday: House Party of sorts. There’s a lady in the area who makes the coolest country signs…and I’m a sucker!
• Monday: GMa back to the dentist.
• Tuesday: Getting up at o’dark-thirty to take the boy down to the Federal Building in Pitts to be sworn into the DEP for the USAF
• Wednesday: Editor Pitch with Denise Zaza from Harlequin Intrigue
• Thursday: GMa back to the dentist

I think I missed a dental appointment, will have to look at my phone…but you get the gist. I’m taking the laptop. I HAVE to squeeze in some writing time.

How about you? Are you busier than busy?

This is what I want for Christmas. :D  Thanks, Emma!