Shorts

We lived in Hayward for the first 10 years of our marriage. The penthouse condo we bought when B. was 9 months old was immediately worth far less than we paid for it - the builder filed bankruptcy within a month of our closing on the unit. It was 3 bedrooms, 2 baths - 2300 square feet. Had a beautiful 'bay' view. But we had two babies - boys. And living in that condo was like a long, slow torture session. It was OK - but it never felt like home to me. We painted it and bought new furniture. It was still just 'the condo'. Never home. I hated that place. Really hated it.

Finally, the market turned. And my mother died. And the inheritance I received from her was what made bailing out of the condo possible. We actually ended up not 'needing' the inheritance to get into the house - our condo sold in only 3 days for more than we were asking. It was a unique place and I had a feeling it would sell quickly. It did. We were lucky - and I always felt my mom had a hand in how it all just came together. The money I received from her - not a fortune but just enough - was the cushion we needed to just take a leap of faith and sell the condo for whatever we could get for it and move on.

We found this house on Labor Day Weekend of 2000. We had looked and looked and had decided Tracy was where we would end up - we were priced out of new homes anywhere further West, even with the help from my mom's money. And Tracy felt like home. From the very beginning. J. and I looked at the model and the salesperson said 'there's only 3 lots with that model available so don't wait too long'. There were lots of people looking that day - so I went to the car, got the checkbook out of the glove compartment and wrote a check for the deposit. Right then. J. said 'don't you think we should keep looking'? I said 'No. This is it. This is where we're supposed to be. They accept contingent offers (no other builder in Tracy was doing that and we hadn't even listed our condo yet) and I'm done looking. The kids and I are moving to Tracy and I hope you'll be joining us'. And I signed the check and gave it to the lady. J. was 'stunned' - pleasantly, I think. We could have kept looking - there was another new development right in the same area. But I honestly felt like we were led to this place - to this home. I love it so much.

In Hayward, we were close to the Bay. Most mornings were foggy and most days, thankfully, the fog would burn off and the sun would shine. But it was often pretty 'chilly' - especially on the balcony of a penthouse condo. I never wore shorts in Hayward - ever. There were very few hot days and those we had, we dealt with by heading to the pool or turning the A/C on. I had a pretty big 'patio' garden - wine barrel pots with lots of pretty colors. I love to garden - even there.

One of my first Spring purchases when we moved to Tracy was a pair of flowered bike shorts. They are like bike shorts in cut and style but they are 'loose' fitting. I found them at WalMart - a store that I honestly rarely ever shop in. But my quest for shorts that first Spring led me to WM where I found my favorite shorts. I loved how it was so warm (hot) here that shorts were the only thing to wear most summer weekends. Especially before we put the pool in.

This is their 7th Spring in this house. They are still my favorite shorts to wear - they're comfortable and pretty and perfect for bumming around the house or working in the garden. I love those shorts. Mainly because they remind me of that first incredibly happy Spring in this house. Which has been followed by so many other great seasons and memories.

We couldn't afford this house if we were buying it now. At today's interest rates and the market price for this size house, we couldn't afford it. And while I've been thinking and honestly 'looking' at simplifying our life, moving to a smaller home won't be in that equation for now. A smaller home doesn't reduce our mortgage payment - we'd be paying the same amount out each month for half the house. Not worth it. We'll stay put for now. When it's just me and J. someday, we'll move to a smaller home. Possibly in another state and/or country.

But I'll bring the shorts with me. I plan to wear them until I'm too old to garden or putter around my house anymore. They are my 'happy shorts'. More memories in those faded, floral shorts than anything else I own. When Spring arrives each year and I can pull those shorts on again to start another season of planting and working in the yard and spending time outside with the kids and the dogs and J., it's the start of another Spring in this amazing home. With everything and everyone I love.

Media

So, I am THRILLED to hear that Rosie is leaving The View. Which I never watched much before she joined the show and would NEVER watch since. She's a wacko, plain and simple. I couldn't believe ABC hired her to be on that show and I can't believe she lasted as long as she did. To hear that the 'issue' was ABC wanted to sign her for THREE years and she only wanted one - oh my gosh. I can't believe that. Is ABC insane? She's a nut job. I used to love her talk show but she has just deteriorated into a ranting, raving shell of a person. Glad she's moving on and hope her 'career' is over.

AND, while I'm carrying on about Rosie, I'll also add that Alec Baldwin is an incredible jerk. Have I lost my temper with my kids? Absolutely. Have I said things to them in anger that I regret? Of course. Do my 'moments' with them last for minutes and get more and more vile as time goes by? No. THIS is why Kim left him. THIS is WHO HE IS. A bullying, cruel buffoon who fathered a child. Biology made him a dad. But there isn't anything about him that is a decent parent. I hope his career self-implodes and we never hear from him again. And if Kim's 'side' did leak the tape - good job. Time for America to hear what you have been dealing with for YEARS. The man is in serious need of counseling and anger management. And he should be kept away from having any contact with his daughter - ever. I doubt she wants to be anywhere near him and it serves him right. She is old enough to decide who she does and doesn't want to talk to. Leave her alone. You big jerk.

Mugs

No secret to anyone reading this blog that I enjoy Starbucks. I have 'changed' my preferences from the frothy, fat & sugar filled frappucinos or lattes to the more 'lean', less expensive black iced teas.

I do, however, own and love a selection of mugs that are from Starbucks - and particularly gravitate towards their 'Spring' selection - just in time for Mother's Day, they always have pretty, large floral pastel mugs that I just love. I get one or two every year and little by little, Starbucks mugs are replacing the variety assortment we have owned before. Souvenir items or mugs from former (or current) employers are being replaced with pretty Starbucks mugs. They make weekday mornings a treat - open the cupboard, select today's pretty mug and start the day with happy thoughts and lots of coffee and vanilla soy milk. Pretty mugs make me happy - a small thing but it makes my day 'better'.

Today, we had to take Chloe back to the groomer - we took both dogs yesterday where they spent the afternoon - but the 'new' groomer forgot to trim Chloe, so we had to take her back. It was an excuse for J. and I to spend some time - just the two of us. We went to Linens and Things to get a new bath mat and a new shower 'storage shelf'. We went to Starbucks and had some iced tea. I picked out a new pretty mug - SIXTEEN ounces!!! It's GREAT. We also went to the outlet mall and each got a couple new 'short sleeved' shirts. We hardly EVER get to shop alone. And sitting in Starbucks people watching for a bit was fun.

The return trip to the groomer was already paid for the day before. The return trip accouterments cost a bit more. But it was a nice afternoon with my best friend. Those don't happen too often lately. But they will in retirement and we're only eight years away!!

Linens

A couple weeks ago, we swapped out our winter bed linens for Spring. The down comforters were taken out of their duvet covers, fluffed and aired out and then packed up in plastic bags for the summer. I had placed a bid at the 4-H spaghetti dinner for a beautiful spring-like quilt in shades of green and purple and I won. It's lovely and beautifully made and was to be my 'Spring/Summer' bedspread. Fairly light weight and just a bit of warmth when/if needed.

Of course, mother nature had other plans and shortly after the linen swap, the weather turned freezing cold again. It is bitterly cold outside with winds that are blowing down trees and sending the crazy 'Tracy tumbleweeds' skidding across the streets. And our bed linens are now completely inadequate. I have been freezing the past couple nights.

I hadn't quite gotten around to packing up the small electric 'heater' I had during the winter - so last night, I turned it on to warm the room a bit. I thought I had used the setting where the heater would turn off the heat when it hit a certain temp - but instead, I just hit the 'heat' button. I woke up at 2AM and felt like I was in a sauna. 'Cuz I was in a sauna. It was a balmy 79 degrees in the room. I shut off the heater and turned on the fan - to cool down. Which worked until about 4AM when I woke up cold again.

My nights have been all about 'temperature' issues lately anyway, because it appears the hot flashes that I thought I'd finished with are back in full force. They wake me from a dead sleep and leave me feeling like I'm burning from the inside out. I spend the night going from comfortable to hot to cold to hot to cold - you get the picture. Sleep has become sporadic, at best. I think I'm averaging about 4 solid hours a night with 2-3 hours of 'dozing'. If I wake up after 4AM, I've been typically just getting up because if I go back to sleep (and that's a big if) and then have the alarm wake me up at 5:30AM, I'll feel horrible - I'll just be getting back into a good sleep about the time the alarm goes off - so I've just learned to not torture myself and I just get up. And even if I try to go back to sleep, I pretty much don't. I know the alarm is going off shortly (and the shortly gets shorter and shorter as the time creeps by) and I just can't get back to sleep.

I'm adjusting to this lack of sleep. Thankfully, I appear to not need as much sleep. I am rarely tired before 10PM and even waking from 3AM on fairly regularly, I'm still 'OK'. I do look forward to weekend mornings when I can just sleep in as long as I want - so on those mornings, when I wake up before 5, I do just go back to sleep and sleep until whenever. Heaven.

So it's Friday - and I get to sleep in tomorrow. So I'm heading up to bed shortly.

Sleep well.

Morning

It is 5:04 AM - I've been awake since 3. Finally just decided to get up and get going.

I am sitting here reading blogs on the internet, feeling a bit chilly but warming up with my vanilla soy latte (that I made AT HOME with my cool milk frother) and feeling content and thankful.

It amazes me how a human being can go from the lowest of lows (where I was Monday) back to contently content in just 48 hours. Our psych-ies are amazing creatures.

Damn

Sometimes, I just despise blogger.

I just wrote a terrific post (at home on my lunch break) and hit the wrong key and lost the ENTIRE thing. I don't even know what I did, where it went or why I lost it. It has happened before and it makes me sooooo mad.

I will try to recreate but the redos are never as good as the original.

Sorrow [Redo]

I am at home on lunch, lest you think that I am blogging on company time.

Yesterday was an incredibly challenging, difficult day. I had thought since I was in briefly on Wednesday last week that I would be 'over' the shock of C. I was wrong. I stepped into our building, saw his cubicle and the tears started. There are flowers, pictures, hand written notes and his obituary carefully placed in and on his cubicle walls. I checked my voice mails - and somehow made it into the 'saved' messages - and the first voice I heard was C. telling me that he was on his way back from lunch but he had a flat tire and so he didn't think he'd be back 'cuz 'I need to take care of my bike'. The bike that killed him. Tears commenced again and didn't let up for most of the day. I was a wreck. I wasn't doing a good job of 'leading through adversity' but I did the best I could. We all muddled through the day.

My frustration, anger and sadness about C. is showing itself in the usual way - with my family, I am short, out of patience and frazzled. I do my best - do what I can do but find the parenting component of my life to be particularly challenging. The teen years are fraught with issues and I struggle to deal. It's always a struggle but particularly when grief and sadness is lurking in the corner. Add to that a healthy dose of overwhelmed (with work) combined with a fair amount of (never far from the forefront) insecurity - I am the most securely insecure person around at times - and I can go from sublime to freaking out in a matter of hours. OK - minutes.

I know this to be a low. It will pass. The lows always do. I muddle through my days, try to get through it. Make extra efforts to 'take care' of myself - take vitamins, get some extra sleep, eat better. I even went for a walk yesterday. Trying to acknowledge to myself that I am in need of TLC and care and it starts with me. I'm worth it. I get up everyday, get myself to work, help get the kids out the door to school. What I'd rather do is crawl into bed, pull a pillow over my head and stay there for whatever length of time it takes for this 'interval' to pass. But I won't. I have two children to set an example for and myself to answer to - so pulling the covers over my head and 'ignoring' what will be a challenging day - is not an option.

B. and I talked for close to an hour last night after we'd both gone to bed frustrated and pissed. I went back into his room and said 'B., I don't think two people should go to sleep angry at each other so lets try to talk this through'. We made a bit of headway in sharing our respective 'positions' about certain things. For now, I reminded B. that we are his 'directors' and following our 'directives' is his job. It's not a job he likes nor wants to have - and frankly, it's not a responsibility I am particularly enjoying either. His adulthood will be here soon enough and when he is an adult, then he can give himself directives and choose to follow or not follow them. But until then, he lives by our 'rules' and our instructions. Plain and simple. It is what it is.

It is what it is - may be our new family phrase. You do what needs to be done. It's called life - it's a messy, complicated quagmire of opportunities and challenges and there's no way to get through but to just get through. Even the challenging times. Especially the challenging times. It's our responsibility as humans - to make it through for ourselves. For each other. It's the best we can do. It is what it is - some days incredibly challenging and you spend the day wanting it to be over and dreaming of other happier times. Other days sublime - which you never remember when you're in the midst of a crashing low. But if you just hold on and muddle through, you'll get to the other side of the 'bad day'. A bad day is just a bad day. That's all it is. It feels like a lot more than that when you're in the middle of it. But in the end, it is what it is - just a day that wasn't that great.

The memorial service for C. is Saturday. For now, my goal is to get through that. And the reception after which our district is hosting for the family. It will be a long, painful, sad day - but we will pull together and get through it. This new district is my 'new' [work] family and we will make it through. We want to honor C. and his memory and let his family know how much he was loved and how much we will miss him. Just get through it. That's my goal. One day at a time - or an hour at a time, if that's all I can manage.

We miss you, C. You are never far from our thoughts. Oh, and by the way, we found your 'secret' stash of Kit Kats and Reese's cups yesterday. For now, we have left them where we found them. We each took a couple and ate them while saying 'we can't believe he never shared'. And then we laughed and said 'of course he never shared. He worked in an office of all women. If he had told us where they were, he'd never have any left'.