My Mother's Birthday - She Came Out of the Closet

What a day of opposing ordeals!

1. I was on a complete roll at work, email directly through lunch, processing and progressing = then bam, out go the lights and I am sitting in my cube in the pitch black. No power from 1 until 3:45, internal panic over what I wanted to be doing - actual work, but instead I did nothing all afternoon.

2. The lack of work all afternoon gave me time to dwell, on the day, my life, my marriage, my violently rumbling stomach that seems to be having a negative reaction to the stress. I want to go to the Ash Wednesday service tonight, but instead I am seriously considering getting drunk and saying F it all.

3. The power comes up just in time for me to get to the bathroom, also in the nick of time.

4. I decide to go home and celebrate my mothers birthday with a little wine, but I get home and my husband is already 1/2 way through a bottle of rum and wants to talk.

5. I inform my husband that I am sick of his self pity and negative attitude and I am sick to death of being sad then he takes his meds and passes out. Then I decide to completely feel sorry for myself and just cry, I cannot stop - there is part of me that is crying for every thing, my family, my mother, my life. I cannot even have a drink and I am such a mess I cannot go to church. (I guess I got a lot of whine! )

6. It is my mother's birthday, I pull her ashes from my closet and weep for her. Sob that I am the only person on the planet that mourns her still. I miss my family. Then the phone rings and it is my niece and one again she has managed to call me at the moment I am low, she wraps me up in my mother's voice and laugh. She again is there for me and I realize that my mother lives through her, and her uncanny ability to know when my heart aches.

7. I hang up the phone and I stand alone in my quiet house, then there was a knock at the door. My granddaughter and her boyfriend arrive, she needs to practice in my car for her drivers test on Friday and as I sat beside her and looked at her. It was just one of those moments that you have to just freeze in your mind and hold forever. She was so beautiful and in that moment I knew I am never alone, this sweet child and so many others completely fill my heart and my life.

I Have Received An Academy Award!!!!!!!!

Ok, not an Academy Award but an award none the less, and since lately I have been rewarding myself with candy bars and cookies, this has got to better! I received it from themom, and I adore her for it!

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

Since I have not 8 blogs that I 'follow' nor 8 blogger friends some of these are just drafted because I have found them interesting. I have several blogs I follow but they may not be aware, they will be now:

http://www.adamsinarizona.blogspot.com/ (A Musing mom...)
http://ideallyme.blogspot.com/
http://veggiemommy.blogspot.com/
http://littletragedies.blogspot.com/
http://kookycatguy.blogspot.com/
http://mommasaysthefword.blogspot.com/
http://anythingsaid.blogspot.com/
http://mylifeasastayathomedad.blogspot.com/

And You Thought I Just made this Stuff Up

"What have you done to it now?"

"It wouldn't slide on the carpet."

"So you put caps on the legs?"

" Yeah, works great now!"

You Know You Are A Red Neck If your Dining Room Chair has Leg Extensions

While I was at church working on my GPS ( God Positioning System, I am so funny aren't I? I also had this thought that we should call vanity plates, text plates, because they were our first Text Messages, or maybe text should be call vanities? It was early and my mind was also straying) Fat Cat was busy apparently routing through neighborhood trash.

He found a 1960's style end table that he now has cleaned up and put beside his chair in my family room - which matches nothing and looks ridiculous. Then he took a chair that probably was bought at the same time as the table and sat beside it in someones house since 1965. It has gold padding if that is a clue. Now Fat Cat has decided that it will be the perfect chair for his spot at the dinning room table. OMG. Now it is a LIVING ROOM chair and since it is too short for the table, that presents a problem. But not for Fat Cat. While I grocery shopped, did laundry, watched a movie on and off, Fat Cat found some PVC (white mind you) pipe that would give him the 8 inches more than he wanted for each leg. He whittled (yeah, that's right, whittled) the 4 legs down to the fit in the pipe, which he then puttered with them, gluing and screwing them until he got them all even (it took several tries and he lost about an inch of height) Then he spray painted them brown - did I mention he did not open any windows and the paint fumes were awful? He also keeps spraying the thing with room freshener, because, well it smells like a wet basement and a little like cat pee. Then he realized he now needs bracing, more pipe, more screwing, and then auto bondo (you know the stuff they use to fix car dents and cracks? that stinks and needs to be only used in a well ventilated area, not a dining room- in a house- in Ohio- in the winter.) Fortunately he had used up all the brown spray paint on the leg extensions, so I was spared any more of that smell. Even the dogs were choking and all i thought was if one of those pups drops dead I am running out the door.

He spent hours working on it. Really hours. I made dinner and he was all excited about sitting in his basement smelling, extended leg, white PVC braced, nailed up, gold, bondo'ed, cat pee chair. So excited, that about 1/2 way through the meal he chokes (on the smell or the food, doesn't matter) and pukes up like Vesuvius all over the table, my plate, and of course, the chair. I just got up and scrapped my plate into the trash and pitched him a towel. The day had started out so sweetly.