The Early Years

Some day, my kids may (or may not) find their way to this blog.

I've been writing things because at my age, "as one gets older, one's fears subside and what seems more and more important is to be known."

I stole that line from The Bridges of Madison County movie, an all time favorite of mine.  Francesca had a life changing event in the middle of her life that had her looking at her choices, her future; and while she chooses to stay with her own life, she wants her children to know about this, and leaves them a letter along with journals describing those four days.  This is the digital age equivalent of that for me!

I research genealogy and family history because the past of my grandparents is so sketchy, full of stories and half truths, and when it comes right down to it, there must be many skeletons in the closet to justify all the secrets that those who went before me have kept.

Even my parents, and I've lived around them for 50+ years now, had things that were their own as adults and individuals that us kids didn't know about.  Or maybe we were just young and involved in our own selves, not paying attention to them as real people -- they were "the parents".   Which makes me wonder what my own kids know about me.  I know that I probably raised them like my parents raised me:  best foot forward as a parent, putting their needs, their learning, their growing, above my own wants and needs.  To me, that's as it should be.  If I wasn't willing to do this, I saw no reason to have kids in the first place.  Which is why God probably entrusted me with special needs kids, if that's how one chooses to look at it.

Things might have been different if I'd stayed married to their father, if he and I had more things in common, if, if, if.  So many if's that don't really matter any longer, they're part of the past.  It wasn't all bad, there just wasn't enough good to balance it out.

Holiday seasons seem to bring out the reflective side of me.  I don't know if my kids wonder why I didn't stay with their dad.  We married when I was only 19 years old.  I may have seemed mature for my age, but in truth when it came to relationships, I floundered just like everyone else.  I was overweight growing up, and when I finally got a boyfriend, I thought it was forever - the only one I would ever have!  (see?  kids get dumb ideas!)  I'm sure that was a lack of self esteem issue.  But after we married, it was easy to see that we had different ideals on family and raising kids, and we stuck it out for close to 10 years.

We had our challenges with our kids, they had more needs than an average kid might have.  And it always felt like meeting those needs was left up to me.  When Tanya was born, my parents watched her.  I would get up and get ready for work, drop her off, pick her up on the way home.  Once I got home, it was time to cook, clean and get ready for the next day.  Here I'd be, tired and hauling the kid, the diaper bag and the car seat up the stairs only to find their dad sitting in his fav spot on the couch, TV on, with a Pepsi and a bag of chips.  And I remember thinking to myself "how is this fair? I work hard too!"  But I kept on keeping on.  It was a trip to visit his parents in Arizona that woke me up.  I got up one morning, Tanya was an early riser, and always rambunctious as she was learning to walk.  We went into the living room.  His dad walks in, snaps on the TV, grabs his coffee, sits in his chair, starts watching TV and hollers for us to "keep it down".   And I just couldn't see that as my future.

Does that make me a little nuts?  Intolerant?  Judgmental?

I know those are two simplified scenarios, but it was a daily occurrence and one I didn't think I could handle for the next 20, 30, 40 years.   I wanted to do more than work and watch TV as life went by!

Holidays, errr -daze

For The Sake Of Our Brother 

In a stable, in a manger

In the cold winter's air

In the arms of his mother

A child's lying there

In a city, in a village

Though the years have gone by

The child still remains

With the dream still close by

And each year on this night that child reawakens

And each year on this night that hope re-begins

That the dream he has offered might one day be taken

Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Lost Christmas Eve" has become one of my all time favorite tunes to play, to get me into the Christmas spirit.  It's become very difficult as year after year my holidays are spent working, prepping a BigBox store for the rest of the world to shop and create holiday magic for their own families.  I've worked retail for 16 holiday seasons now, and I've spent a total of two of them with family.  One because my father had been hospitalized in 2004, and 10 years later when he died.  Neither one of them were the joyous family gatherings they should have been.  Mind you, I'm not complaining (much!).  It's just a difficult life that anyone in any kind of service industry has when holidays are here, and we're not able to spend it with family.  

So thank you to those who provide services so that others can have their happy holidays:  

hospital staff, hotel staff, restaurant staff, retail staff, safety/city services staff.  

All deserve so much more recognition than is given!

 Family is the reason for the season!

Tired, but Thankful

Yep.  That's pretty much how it's been.
It's weird:  because I've been in retail for 15 years now,
I know what's coming this week -
the week from hell!
So I'm feeling tired in advance, if that's possible.
I took an extra nap both yesterday and today,
knowing that if I'm going to survive this week
in any way, it's because I got the extra rest
to make up for what will be missing between
Brown Thursday and Black Friday.

I know that retailers are catering to people who feel
they need to 'do' something after a big afternoon meal
on Thursday -- but they forget that in order to bring
people those products, it takes an army of retail workers
to get the job done in the weeks' prior - and including
Thanksgiving Day.

So to all of you who work retail -- and any other fields
who routinely don't have this weekend off --
thank you so much for giving up your own holiday
so that millions of others can spend money and make
corporations richer than they already are.

Of course, those heads of corps,
they're probably all enjoying the holiday with family.
Lucky them.

Be thankful.  Not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day.

Holidays, Wanderlust, and Sadie

Here we are, in the full swing of Holiday prep .... well, ok, maybe not all of you.  But anyone who's worked retail knows that there's a lot of prep that goes into making a successful sale during the Brown Thursday / Black Friday events!   Truckload after truckload of product rolls into the store and it all needs to be sorted, priced and prepped to be ready to pull to the floor in time for the sale.  There's a lot of planning and execution going on - at the same time, trying to run a busy business with the day to day stuff as well.   Which in most cases means OverTime!  I rarely complain about any overtime that comes my way -- although I've been known to turn it down if they ask me to do something that I'm not thrilled with doing (culling produce comes to mind!)

But what also happens during this time of year is stress levels begin to climb.  And we all feel it.  I usually can get through the day without feeling the effects -- until I climb into a warm car and let my body relax a bit.  That's when I know that I've been holding in the stress all day.  By the time I get home, I feel worn to a frazzle.  It's about all I can do to toss a meal together and eat in front of the TV with my feet up.  This is the time of year when I think about a good friend who used to eat soup straight from the can with a plastic spoon.  (You know who you are!!)   Definitely no clean up!  And it's ready when you're ready.  I can totally see the benefit of that!  Since we've been in the warm temps up until today, it was easy to suffice with tossing some ham or turkey on a whole wheat roll and call that a meal.

Sadie doesn't let me drudge around too much, however.  She's constantly nagging me from the time I get home until sunset -- that's when we take our evening walk.  I've been forcing her to go just a little bit further than we've been doing because we both need it.  And it helps our sleep patterns as well.

Last weekend, I got an idea in my head and so Brian and I hopped in the car - with Sadie - and drove to Calif to see my mom.  I was there in October, but Brian hasn't seen her in quite a while.  Last time he was "home" was for Dad's funeral, so he was feeling the need to go.  With him along, there's no one to watch Sadie, so we opted to drive.  A missed exit on the freeway and we ended up 30 minutes out of our way -- but that's ok, I love to drive.  We got to see places we hadn't seen before.  And it created ----- no, it sort of jump started my wanderlust again.  I miss doing little road trips and checking out new places!

This weekend will be the only weekend in a long while that I'll have two days off together, what with the holidays and all, so I am hoping to make the best of it.  I'm going to clean/organize things so that there's very little for me to do after work, other than eat, and walk.  It's my goal for the next 6 weeks to reach a new level in steps counted on my Fitbit - 80k each week is the goal.  So far this week I'm at 77,372.   I can do those 3K steps in my sleep!  (Well, sort of. haha)