Stressful Vacations

Vacations are supposed to be relaxing. They are supposed to provide a way of escaping the day-to-day dilemmas and disasters. They are supposed to provide us with an opportunity to slow things down, to get done those things we want to do but which we often don’t have the time to do, they are supposed to provide us time to relax, to recreate, to even escape our realities in some way, if need be. At least, this is true in theory.

Trust The Struggle

Limbo is the best word to describe this last week. I don’t deal with life very well when I’m in limbo. I know from much experience that bad times don’t last, but that realization doesn’t necessarily make the struggles easier or less painful. It might make it easier to simply just endure.

This week of limbo was tough. I have a couple of weeks of vacation (unpaid) coming up. This was the first of those two weeks. I spent the entire week, wondering what the verdict would be on my vehicle. Were they going to opt to repair it, or would they total it. When the estimated cost to repair the vehicle (and it was never certain that it could really be repaired) reached $18,000+, they called me and said, “It’s a goner.”

Every Parent’s Nightmare

It happened Wednesday. I was in a meeting with 25 clients and colleagues. I never pick up when I’m giving a presentation, but this time I did. It was my daughter. She never calls, she usually texts. I went with my gut, excused myself from the meeting and answered the call.

Martha Stewart Mommy

No matter how much you look forward to the day when you no longer have to taxi kids around, text instead of talking on the phone, or hide in the bathroom with the door locked for a few hours of solitude, when children grow up and leave home, it leaves a big hole in your life. I’m not exactly a helicopter mom. I don’t hover over my children. I don’t get my confidence and security from my persona of “Mother”. I believe that as a mother, it is my job to work myself out of a job. To this end, from the time my children were little, I have not done anything for the child that the child can do herself. Or himself. I’m not the world’s greatest mom. I don’t do Martha Stewart birthday parties. I did. Once. It nearly killed me. I don’t like playing the taxi mom, and I hate sports where you have to sit for hours in the cold spring rain and watch your kid sit on the sidelines or daydream in the outfield as, all the while, I’m thinking of the hundreds of dollars I had to scrape together for the pleasure of doing so.

Musings of A Belated Christmas

Today, or yesterday, since I’m writing this in the middle of the night after which these events occurred, was Christmas for my little clan. It happens this way every other year. It is the way of the Broken Marriage. It is the way of The Divorced. My kids have all returned from their other homes. They unloaded, drug their things in, and sprawled out filling every open space in my once empty house. The noise level is unbearably loud, with all four voices often vying to be heard by notching up the sound meter higher, and higher. We are not a quiet family. Apartment life would not work at all for us. Whether, calling up to a child from downstairs or re-telling the latest events that happened while they were gone, the noise is never quiet. Or, it never was, until yesterday.

My secret to success?

White Elephant Gifts

During the holidays this year, I attended a couple of interesting theme parties. One was the Ugly Christmas Sweater party. This is, of course, where everyone wears an ugly Christmas sweater and the sweater voted ugliest wins. I wasn’t going to go, but then, my oldest daughter, who can find any reason to celebrate, wouldn’t let me off the hook. We happened to be in Goodwill one day and I noticed the ugly Christmas sweaters. She pointed to the perfect one. The typical Christmas appliqués, with ribbons and jingle bells placed randomly all over the thing. The buttons were jingle bells and there was even a hole in it were the sweater had worn. Well, once I bought it, I had to attend the party. I was sure my sweater would win.