Feeds RSS
Feeds RSS

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Grateful

This is the word I would use to describe my current state of mind. Wednesday, just three short days ago, was a completely different story. Life is funny. A co-worker and friend (Miss M) says this all the time (she's very wise). Wednesday was a bad day for me. I found out that we would not be settling on our new house the next day and moving that weekend (which would be today). I found out that, in fact, we wouldn't be settling until after Christmas and that we'd have to move the next weekend. This threw me for a loop because I have off work the week between Christmas and New Year's, so moving this weekend would have given me tons of time to get settled. Now, we only have 4 short days. I cried at work. I was so embarrassed for doing that, but it just sort of came out. Then I found out some other bad news that just depressed me, but that I have absolutely no control over. So that was Wednesday... So on Thursday night, I was watching Wednesday's episode of Dr. Phil. It was so ironic that this particular episode aired on Wednesday in the midst of my bad day. The show was about kids with Autism. The first couple had an older son with Autism and he was a handful to say the least. The next segment was about kids with Autism coming home from school with bruises, but becuase of their affliction, they could not tell their parents what was happening at school. I cried and cried about these poor people in these horrible situations. I wanted to help them, but knew that I couldn't.

I kept rewinding the show to watch again and again. I wasn't sure why, but I figured I just wanted to torture myself some more. But then I realized that I wasn't doing it to torture myself. Each time I watched these people, I grew more and more grateful for my own situation. Yes, I had some bad news the day before. But truly, this was nothing compared to what these people go through day in and day out. As I was crying for these people, I was also crying because I realized how big of an ass I was being. It was at this point that I went into Charlie's room and just sat there watching him sleep (I could never do this to Elizabeth because just another person's presence in the room wakes her up and it's nearly impossible to get her back to sleep after that) feeling so grateful that he is who he is. Yes, he can be rambunctious, yes he is emotional, but I am now grateful for these eccentricities instead of viewing them as flaws.

Writing this made me think of a fabulous book that my good friend Bob lent to me (which I promise I will return as soon as I have 10 minutes to finish it). The book is called The Secret and tells the secret to getting everything you want. One of the main ideas in the book is how you really cannot receive anything until you are thankful and grateful for everything. I thought that I had been thankful, however, now, I realize that I was not truly grateful for the things in my life. I know that I have a lot to be so thankful for and that I would not trade my life for anything in this world.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Monday Monday, la la la la la la

Monday again. The beginning of another week. Another week closer to Christmas. Only 14 more shopping days! That is not good for me. Considering we don't even know where we will be living come Christmas. We have no tree, no decorations...it doesn't even seem like Christmas because there is no sign of it in this house. We might end up being one of those families who puts up their Christmas tress on Christmas Eve. Heavens I hope not. That is just not good for my sanity. It's bad enough that we never end up wrapping the gifts until Christmas Eve. It never fails. I try so hard to get them wrapped before that, but Christmas Eve comes and there Doug and I are, wrapping the gifts and trying to do it quietly so the kids won't wake up. Then we're up really late and I am dragging all through Christmas day. And I'm so bummed that we still don't have a true Christmas tradition. I tried to start one last year with everyone at our house on Christmas day, but that was a bust. This year, we'll be down in York. While this is not necessarily a bad thing because then I don't have to clean up or anything, but Elizabeth is scared of the new puppy, so it's difficult to enjoy my day with having to keep the puppy away from her and keep her away from the un-gated steps and all of the knick knacks everywhere. And then we get to come home and change our clothes because we have pet hair all over and 3 out of 4 of us are having allergic reactions.

What I love about Christmas is guessing what kind of doozies we will get. Not trying to be mean here, but sometimes it's incredibly funny. One year, Doug's uncle received one of those calculators with the huge buttons (I won't name the giver of this gift, but some of you may be able to guess). As if that was not funny enough, but he got it AGAIN the next year from the same person!

I would love to hear about the doozy gifts you've received. Post a comment about your funny gifts!

Saturday, December 8, 2007

1 friend, 2 friend, old friend, new friend

Life is funny sometimes. People are even funnier. I, myself, have never had tons of friends. I actually have only ever had 1 real friend at any given time, though it's always someone different as time goes on. I've never been good in the "friend" department. My husband, on the other hand, made it clear when I met him that he had a group of friends that he would have forever and that if I didn't happen to like his friends then we would have a problem. As it turned out, I ended up LOVING his friends. What a fabulous group of guys. All with their own personalities and quirks, but all just sincerely nice guys. I still remember my first group experience. It was New Year's of 2000. Doug and I hadn't been dating too long, but he was ready to introduce me to the "group". I didn't know anyone but Doug and everyone else had been friends for years. Talk about being an outsider! And I was super shy, so I was so nervous, I literally felt like throwing up. But, you know how some people can just make you feel comfortable no matter what? Well, that's what this group of great people did. They made me feel like I had been part of the group all along. That's when I knew Doug had a great support system that I wanted to be a part of.

So, that was 8 years ago. We've all changed. We've all had children. We've all moved to different places. We've all grown up (a little)...well maybe not ALL of us, but most. The guys have all kept in touch via iChat and phone calls, but we haven't really seen each other too much. Some have a pretty good excuse...it's hard to visit PA often when you live in Florida. The rest have had OK excuses...we do all have small children and jobs and houses and blah, blah, blah. We finally ALL got together last night, kids and all. There were even some new faces (well new to me). Let me tell you...this group of people, though older and tired from much greater responsibilities, was still the same wonderful family it always had been.

This get together really made me think. Why has it taken so long for some of us to see each other? Is it really that burdensome to make time for best friends? Being a person who never had friends, I find it a difficult pill to swallow that these guys have these friends, but rarely see them and their families. If I had friends like that, I would want to be around them all of the time. I know that life has a way of flying by and screwing up even our best intentions of "keeping in touch", but isn't friendship, I mean this kind of friendship, worth making time for? We only go around this merry-go-round once....shouldn't we make it count?