And On The 13th Day...

Good Monday... Good Morning... however you prefer... I prefer whichever way works the best!

We have had quite a beginning of the year...And all in good ways!  One of my cousins on my dad's side, which is a very small side, they're the Rhode Island of families, recently moved two towns away from me if you're counting from my house.  SAME town if you're counting from work.  Yay!!  I get to see her more!  She  moved in with her mum, my Pop's little sister, and I might get to see her more too.  She's a Hermit Crab.  Not just a Hermit, a Hermit CRAB...  She's rad and we love her, but she can be a bit of a crabapple.  4 years in the same town as my work and I have yet to see her due to that fact.  Saw her twice, once at a wedding in Pismo Beach of all places and once at my baby shower for Thing 2.  That was a surprise!!!  It was the best surprise of the day, really.  She took Pop's death really hard and she's one of those people that doesn't want to be reminded of the negative, even if it means staying away from the negative's children.  Hopefully a trend to be changing in the not too distant future... I'm leaning towards Saturday! 

I am still rolling with the changes, REO Speedwagon style, as to having a child born in January...  Atleast it's at the polar end of Christmas and New Years, but still...January.  I have decided to make it less stress and I am now not including the month of January in my yearly budget.  January is a free for all...The "year" will start with my January 31st check, not with my December 31st check as previous years sans Thing 2.  Once I decided on that, my whole outlook on this month was A-Number 1-100%-OK.  Yay!  Nothing extravagant for her bday this year.  Just an intimate family party with some cake, some pizza.  You know, health food.  I'm excited though just the same because it means we have managed to keep the tiny human safe and sound for two whole years.  It's as much a celebration of the day of her birth as it is of every day since... I am a proud mama of this little one and of our family as a whole!  Yay us!

We got our W-2's at work today...You know what that means...the tax man waits for no one...  I get to start my orange tri-cut folder of 2013 tax info.  My tax lady loves me for this, by the way... she LOVES me for this.  I have two more W-2's, the mortgage company info for the house, the bank statement year ends and my 401k stuff to throw in and we're getting our taxes done! YAY!  I know, shut up, I like YAY... it works for me right now. 

I have the taxes all tangled up already and I'm fine with the outcome so far.  I am VERY fine with the fact that the lens that was suggested to me by my lil cuz is coming down in price as we speak.  I love the Amazon Wish List, it's one of my favourite things.  Then there's the whole Flash debacle.  I have been putting off getting a flash for my DSLR since I bought my very FIRST one.  I have a flash for a SLR, and I LOVE it... nothing special, but it's fancy enough for me.  I am not a true dyed in the wool photog, though... so I am not comfortable using the 35mm that was once my gpa's anymore...So it's time to walk away from the past and make the push into the new millennia...14 years after it started, but still...shut up.  I am DYING to get the lens and flash because now that the prices have dropped SO significantly I feel super justified in the purchases.  Then there's the struts for our civic, still need to do that...  we are getting our new phones, and now there is a new deal through TMobile that I am wondering if we should check out.  Getting these phones is going to be just as if not more harrowing than getting our house.  But that's how I roll and that is one of the reasons my hunny loves me!

Wednesday I have taken a personal day to stay within the vicinity of my home and await the arrival of my Pop's elder sister to come into town from several states away with my Uncle and their RV... I LOVE that I get to see them too!  I have gotten to see her a lot I'd say... for someone that lives STATES away.  I LOVE seeing the side of the family that completes my puzzle.  That's what Choners says.  He kinda gets where I fit in with Ma's family...but when we're around Pop's family it's like a game show buzzer going off in his head and it's lovely.

Another reason for us to write off January as a loss, other than Thing 2's bday, this year my favorite bookstore in town is closing it's doors.  They couldn't brave the slow paced sMall that they reside in and have to make a decision.  I have been a patron of the store since day one and will miss them so.  They had GREAT discounts when there were discounts, and it's even better with 75% off the lowest price.  I got THREE bags of books for $24.  And there's something in there for ALL of us!  It was so bittersweet...  So many empty stores in our sMall.  Atleast during Halloween they put one of those atrocious Costume City things in there and it beefs up the traffic something wonderful... I loved how artificially busy it was Saturday with the closing sale. People came out of the woodwork.  Aaahh, small towns...

We still don't know what we're doing for the Big 10...  and we also made another financial decision.  To cancel our New York trip next year so I can get LASIK... I am just about Legally Blind and I am a candidate and Ma works in Optometry and can get me a deal...but with the things we have going on this year, I would really like to get my eyes done next year.  I almost bit the bullet and did it this year, but it would cut too heavily into our, lets say, profit margin...Still not sure how to incorporate photos into the blog to make it interesting... so I'm considering that heavily and hopefully that will improve with the new upgrades to ol' Betsy.  Other than that, everything's good.  Rolling along at work... I need to get in for a trim, keeping the short 'do... 

First Pic...

Having fun with the 'do...

These are my wascally wabbits...

 

And one of them will be two :*(

 

 

Two days....

Two Years!!!

 

and always with the squishy face!!

Your services are no longer required...

What seems like long ago in a land far, far away and also like yesterday at the same time...my Pop left us for an ethereal plane where he can play guitar and harmonica simultaneously...cause he couldn't seem to do it here on Earth... 
My Pop and I had a connection..  the kind of thing where I didn't need to call  him every day because I knew things were good with him and he knew things were good with me and if he ever got the notion that I was holding something back he would check with Ma.  Funny...because they had to get divorced to become best friends...  Weirdos...
He said something to me once that I switched around to help  me cope with losing him...
I once complained about not getting very much attention from my mother.
At the time I felt I lived with her because I had to, not because I wanted to.
As the years went on with me, Ma, the THEN husband and my elder sister, I noticed the pattern.  I didn't really NEED the attention that she was getting from Ma.  It was negative attention.  I didn't get attention because I didn't need it, not really.  And because I didn't go to Ma with every single little thing, when I DID need her, she was there because she KNEW it was important stuff if I was going to her with it. 
So, when I lost my dad too early for my liking...I thought about it.  Why the HELL would God take my dad from me? He wasn't a bad person...  he was a good guy...why do bad things happen to good people and all that crap... I went through it all. 
And I thought about it..  in terms of my coping mechanism, I thought to myself, "He left because he knew I didn't need him anymore."  Pop was always smarter than the average Papa Bear...  He was a brain ninja...he'd throw his little verbal ninja stars and the shit would HIT you out of nowhere.. or he'd tell you how things were going to turn out and no matter how much you didn't like it or thought it was wrong... turns out YOU were the one that was wrong my friend...  Therefore, he must have known that life would go on just fine for us all without him.  He was such a blessing to my step mom, and step siblings lives, turned them around really...  he did his job.  It was time for him to sit back and watch his work from a better POV (that's movie people talk for point of view, yeah I threw that out there).
And now you know how I cope. 
Now, for my other dad...  Felipe... definitely taken too soon...and I'm trying so hard to apply the same addage to losing him as I did to losing Pop.  When I saw them after Pop was gone, we went to their house for dinner.  They made me a sympathy dinner of my favorites, bacon wrapped shrimp and chile rellanos and I cried on Antonio's shoulder and I cried on Felipe's shoulder until there was a big wet spot on his designer shirt and he told me that if I ever needed anything I could come to them anytime...and he meant it...and I did.  And from then on I really truly thought of him as a father figure.  The man had so much love he was giving it away and I still feel great honor for being one of the many recipiants.  I can't even say I'll miss him because it's not the right word. Not by a long shot.
I can think of a million people who needed him to stay ...  but I can think of one that will be just fine...
My fantastic husband is fantastic because of three people... His mom, his dad, and himself.  And there's alot of his dad in there because he was the odd job, different job type of guy and always seemed to be available to Antonio when he was little.  Sort of like how Antonio is with our kids.  Funny how the acorn doesn't fall far from the nuthouse...
Antonio and Felipe didn't really have a lot in common. It seemed to me that it was hard for Felipe to relate to his son..because he was raising a completely different person from himself.  Felipe lost his father when he was young and Antonio grew up with both parents.  Felipe had 6 brothers and sisters and Antonio was an only child, spoiled rotten to the core unlike Felipe.  He even took to taking in kids (family, friends of Antonio's, friends kids) who were going through a tough time or a little troubled themselves because he had a lot of wisdom for kids like that but he couldn't really pass it to Antonio because that wasn't Antonio's world...
And Felipe realized something as Antonio got older...  he didn't radiate the need for a positive male figure like young Felipe did...because Antonio already had it...  He didn't need to look any further than his own living room.  Or right behind him, which is where his dad always was.  And always will be.  And that is how I am comforting my husband.  His dad left because he raised his son up right... and there was just nothing else he could offer him. 
Of course, his wife won't be comforted by that because she has lost her soul mate...and you'll never "not need" your soulmate.  Harley will be missing out on time with her grandpa who couldn't have loved her more if he tried and Marysu... we'll be able to tell the stories..it won't be the same but it'll have to do. Hopefully she'll be comforted by what will surely be tears streaming down our faces during the tales...
I'm sure it sounds odd, but someone knows something we don't...and maybe that something is that we really will be just fine without them and they knew that. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...
Now, here is your pink slip, you can pick up your last paycheck in the HR department...

♫♪Grandpa...Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ole Days...♪♫

I never thought I would find myself in a world without Grandpas...It's a weird notion...and I never thought about it.  I took for granted the fact that mine and Antonio's parents had us at early ages...and that we were having our children early and that they would be surrounded by grandparents and so much more love than they would get from us.  Wow... I couldn't have BEEN more wrong.  Just added it to the laundry list of things I have been wrong about and moved on...  When I grew up, I had my pop's dad, my mom's mom and her third husband who I lovingly referred to as Grandpa Davy and my mom's dad was more like a watermark on our lives because his wife was bat-chit crazy mang. 

When my mom got remarried, even though I could have cared less for the man, I really liked his parents.  I loved is parents...they were my grandparents.  I loved how his mom insisted on getting everyone's addresses in line at the grocery store.  I thought it was ridiculous, but I really loved it. It screamed the time she came from.  My Grandma Mary was very progressive and very few things came from her as a shadow of the past.  She wouldn't step foot oustside in her housecoat and she wouldn't receive guests without filling them food...other than that, she had some very progressive thoughts.  Loved it.  I had sooo much grandparent love it was ridiculous.  I even remember telling Grandma Mary that...  I was happy I had so much multigenerational experience to fall back on.  And of all things that I wanted for my children that I did or didn't have as a child...  they won't have that.  They have their grandma's.  That's it.  As of probably this weekend, they will be in a world without Grandpa's.  My pop was taken from us when I was 22...  Yeah, I had him for a while...but I wasn't done with him yet. 

Luckily, I had an awesome fiancee (husband now) and his family was awesome...  I thought, I know that if I ever needed anything in the dad realm, I could call my future father in law in an instant and he would drop what he was doing to help me.  So, I said goodbye to my pop and figured that you just can't have too many good things in life and someone decided before the levee broke that something had to go...  And now, my beloved father in law is talking to his wife about taking him off life support because he is ready to leave behind his disease riddled body. 

My daughters, Thing 1 and Thing 2, are in very different positions... Thing 1 is 6 and a half and can remember all the times she spent Friday and Saturday at Grandpa and Grandma's and spent all day Friday with Grandpa cause Grandma works and all day Saturday with Grandma cause she needed to get her time in before Mom and Dad (which am us) came to scoop her up.  She is in a difficult position because she loves her Grandpa and doesn't want him to go.  Thing 2 on the other hand will never know her Grandpa and will only hear the story about how he held on as long as he could to see her born and feel her soft little feet on his cheek because he couldn't hold her hand. 

When one door opens, a window closes and so forth... I can checkerboard a pattern proof of this in my life.  So I can't be too surprised...  I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop because it always does.  I don't necessarily lead my life in a manner expecting the worst...but I am always prepared for it for the most part.  I know life can't go on perfectly, so I am not terribly dissappointed all the time when things don't go my way.  Pleasantly surprised is always a good way to be...  and particularly bummed is a common occurence.  Fine.  I can deal with that.
But when I can't deal with it...I get my hair done...Or I polish my nails. Or change the laces in my shoes.  It's these small things in life that I CAN control completely that help me get through the organized chaos of my life.

Meanwhile, here I sit, work completely done waiting for a phone call from my sweet sweet partner in life who hasn't dealt with this at all and will definitely need someone at his side when it does...because it will...and it'll hit the poor guy like a ton of fuckin bricks.  And that is why I am here, I am here to catch him when he falls... I feel damned lucky that I GET to catch him when he falls. That's why I'm his wife :) 

On a completely different note: did you know that you can find Transformers the original cartoon on at 4am?