Tomorrow

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my beloved grandfather's death. I cannot even look at the date on the calendar w/o my eyes filling up with tears. How can an entire year have passed so quickly? How did I survive this past year w/o hearing his voice? So many bad things happened last year but the pain of most have started to fade. The pain of losing Pap still seems as fresh as the moment it happened. There is such a huge void in my life without him. He was my guardian, my protector, my hero. I've felt lost and aimless this year without him. So many regrets....I didn't call more often, I didn't visit more often, I didn't spend enough time with him when he came to Texas....I wasn't deserving of him and his love. My biggest regret is not following my gut and flying to Ohio last April when he went back into the hospital. I looked at tickets. I discussed it with my dad. I talked myself out of it because my dad didn't want to go and I didn't want to go alone. I thought he would get better again and go home again and I'd have a chance to see him in June or July when I came up for my summer visit. Oh how I regret that decision. I resent that my cousin got to sit with him those last few weeks and hold his hand at night when no one else was there. That should have been my job. I'm the oldest and I let him down.

They delivered my grandfather's headstone a few weeks ago and Dad wanted to fly us up there to be there when they installed it. Again, we talked about it and then talked each other out of it. I'm not sure I can go up there again. I adore my grandmother and I would love to visit but the thought of being in that house without him in his chair or at the kitchen table eating an egg sandwich just the way we loved them - just seems wrong to me. I grew up in that house with him laughing with me, teaching me to play cards, singing along with me as we sang "Delta Dawn" and "Candyman", holding my hand when something made me sad, protecting me when I was in trouble with my parents, singing my praises at every turn. He could make me feel like I could do anything.

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the beginning of a very bad week in my life beginning with the death of Pap and ending with the surgery complications and hospital stay with my baby boy. I'm not sure how I survived either incident but really cannot fathom how I survived them both in the same week. E's complications changed my focus away from Pap and probably helped get me thru my grief faster than I ever could have otherwise. E shows no signs of remember anything his little body went thru last June and I'm grateful for that. I'll carry the scars for him in my mind and heart. And I'll put them right next to the scars of losing my Grandpa Jack and my father in law last year too. But the biggest scar is the one taking the longest to heal and it is the open wound I will carry forever until I get a chance to see my Pap once again.

Inner Core

It was an interesting Memorial Day weekend. Hubby decided to enter a golf tourney at the Club (which is a good thing as it gives him a chance to make new golf friends) (but also a bad thing because it meant him leaving by 6:45 each morning and not returning home until about 1:30 or 2p each afternoon). Of course, he was tired when he got home and not much in the mood for social interaction w/ the family so we really didn't see much of him except for Monday when he joined us at the Club pool for a few hours and then at the neighbors for the rest of the afternoon. Honestly, even then I don't feel like we spent any time together as he was hanging out in the pool and I was on the sidelines talking to the gals. Of course, he did some things this weekend to irritate me so I went to bed last night a little mellow about "us". I think we need a vacation together to reconnect. It's so difficult w/ two kids, three jobs, separate hobbies and the rest of life to find time to be together to talk, cuddle or anything else for that matter. After 19 years together, we will find a way to reconnect but it's just a difficult time right now and I'm a bit bummed about it.

I feel a lot of pressure internally to focus on A right now because she's hitting a tough age with puberty, school changes, peer problems, etc. Her and I had a lot of "mom and me" time this weekend which was super nice. My mom and I bought her Wii Fit last week so we spent the weekend toning, aerobicizing, strengthening our inner core, etc. It gave us a chance to learn stuff about each other. She was amazed at my balance and flexibility on the machine. She was bummed that there were games that I could kick her butt on. I explained that even though I'm quite a bit larger than I was in my youth, the flexibility I established at her age still resides in me today. No more back bends and cartwheels, but I obviously have a strong inner core and can do a mean split! I think the more time I focus on her to strenghten our relationship - the more it takes away from my relationship w/ my husband though. Is there a better way to balance both? Maybe my inner core is not as strong as I think??!!

Of course, throw a tempermental toddler into the mix and how can any couple expect to stay connected. We have to tag team most of A's activities because taking E to any school or tennis function is a disaster most days. Usually I'm the one who stays home from all tennis functions and he misses all school functions. E is a walking disaster these days. I really thought we would avoid the typical boy behavior from this one. He hated being dirty, was afraid to do anything that could possibly result in injury and loved to just sit and watch tv, work puzzles or read books. NOT ANYMORE!!!! Now is he all about jumping off furniture, jumping in mud puddles, tearing things up. He's all boy!! Last week, he plugged A's sink and turned the water on full blast which resulted in a flooded bathroom by the time I heard the sound of running water and realized everyone in the house was accounted for and no one should be in the bathroom. Wouldn't have been a big deal except the flooring in that bathroom is the stick-on linoleum tiles which meant pulling them up to dry the bottom and floor underneath and then reinstalling. He's a full time job all by himself.

I guess what I'm trying to make myself understand is that our lives are full right now and disconnects between my husband and I are just part of the path of life. My hope is that we can find some time together w/o the distractions of our lives to stay connected to one another. We are going to a concert together Friday night so maybe that will be a good break from the rest of our distracting lives to be together as a couple!

Quiet Frustration

So I am quietly frustrated with a few aspects of my life right now....my boss and my husband. Of course, my BFF will read this and say..."not so quiet, just frustrated" so let me explain what I mean by "Quiet Frustration". The two things in my life frustrating me the most both seem oblivious to their frustrating behaviors and I don't have the energy to bring it to their attention. To do so, would mean getting into long discussions and both offending parties would assume I am just being a) hormonal; b) childish; c) ridiculous; d) judgemental; or e) all of these and more. I really do enjoy my job, my coworkers, the type of work I am doing but my boss frustrates the heck out of me and I'm not sure how much more I am willing to take?? Does one walk away from a fairly good career just when the higher ups have started to take notice of hard work and extra effort? Should I let one person cause me so much stress that when he is in the office - I swear I suffer chest pains, anxiety and headaches?? When he travels - no chest pains, anxiety or headaches. See the correlation?? I guess this is just one of those - push me to the breaking point items in life we all face at one time or another. There will come a day when I will just walk away......my only in-office coworker almost did just that last Friday and it about scared me to death. I do not want to be the last cockroach on this dying ship. Yes, as a cockroach - I will survive when the ship sinks but what is in store for me then?

The other cause of great frustration is my husband. He doesn't know how to read blogs so I'm pretty safe on this rant..... he is traveling more on business lately and has increased his tennis and golf outings when he is in town which leaves me with the kids every evening, all day on the weekends and on all holidays. I have never begrudged him his outside activities and I know the business trips are necessary in this business but when I show the least level of frustration or any need to get away myself - he either makes me feel bad about the way I feel or he gets angry with me. My old hubby that used to sell cars was never like this. He had no outside activities besides work and an occassional Sunday golf outing so besides him having crazy hours - I could schedule outside activities for anytime he was off work or getting off early and he would never say a thing. Now that he works normal people hours, he seems to be making up for lost time by booking his life so full - there is no time left for mine. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited he has friends and things to do.....but I want and need my time too. The frustrating part is the way he seems bothered by my need to have 'girl' or 'me' time all of a sudden. This has not been an issue for him for over 16 years of marriage and now it is. I want my old hubby back. Maybe that is selfish>?Maybe it is okay that he have his time after all these years of my time? Maybe I am being hormonal? Maybe I'm making too much of this?

Or maybe I'm frustrated because I cannot or will not voice these frustrations to either of the annoyingly frustrating men that occupy 24/7 of my life. Sometimes venting to my BFF or other friends is enough - sometimes it is not. If it weren't for the chest pains - it probably wouldn't be taking as much focus in my brain but I think somethings got to give and it's got to give soon.

Touching Base

Just so my faithful blog readers know....I am still alive and well but extremely busy and find little time to blog these days (or read, scrapbook, clean, relax, etc.). Tennis season ended for awhile last Sunday. The Saturday matches will start up again in June but will be on Fridays thru the summer and Team Tennis on Sundays is over until the fall!! This past Saturday, A played in her first two day ZATs tournament which is a big deal in the junior tennis world. These are the tournaments were you get points for your wins which in turn gets you ranked state-wide as a junior player. If you win these tournaments, you are "Champed up" which I'm sure I'll understand more if that ever happens. I think she did very well for her first big tournament but during her final match popped a few ribs out reaching for a short shot. The beautiful part of the story is that she got to the ball and made the return. The bad part is she lost the point anyway and we had to make a trip to see my friend, Dr. T, to pop those ribs back in place.

A has also kept me busy this week with school projects. It was Teacher Appreciation week and I decided to be "Super Mom" this week and make all her teacher gifts rather than buying stuff. So I choose the less expensive but much more time intensive method of kissing up to the teachers. Wednesday was the day for a sweet treat for the teacher so I bought some big candy bars and then made wrappers for them on the computer which read "Thank you, Ms. ___ for a great school year". This should have been an easy project but it turned into a major nightmare because all the templates I could find for the wrappers were on Microsoft Publisher and I don't have that. So I downloaded a free trial, downloaded a few wrappers and finally started to print about an hour after I intended to start only to have my printer act up. I wouldn't feed my matte finish photo paper. I decided this is the last year for candy wrappers!! Thursday the kids were supposed to bring flowers - easy, right? Well I decided that since real flowers die - homemade paper flowers were a much better idea. So I print some various sized flower template, we trace them onto different (but coordinating) scrapbook paper, punch a hole in the middle, crinkle the sides, ink the ends and insert a piece of green pipe cleaner for the stem. They were absolutely adorable but they also took much longer than I had anticipated so instead of doing one for every single teacher - we picked the three 5th grade teachers, the librarian and her old 1st grade teacher who is having her first child next month and we decided must have our cutest blue flower!! Since "create" is my word for '08, I am proud of myself for tackling these projects rather than just buying something but for a working mom w/ two jobs - this is more than I want to do again for a very long time!!

E is sick today which figures since we have VIP passes to the Long Drive competition at the Club tonight. My dad bought the whole family passes and this was going to be my chance to meet my brother's new girlfriend but it looks like I'll be the one staying home with my sick baby boy while the rest of them eat some fancy appetizers, drink booze and schmooze with the celebs (like Tony Romo) that are supposed to be there. Oh well, a mother's work is never done..........