I NEEDED A WIN

This is a dumb story.

I know it's dumb, because it's so very common and trivial and anticlamactic, but still, I'm going to tell it because I needed a win.

Things have been...weird...for the past few months. Not necessarily bad, just...weird. I won't go into it now, or maybe ever, but suffice it to say that when there isn't something to post on social media, life is different.

Anyway, so that happens and then something very small and stupid happens, in my case, my tub got clogged.  A clogged tub is no big deal, but sometimes it can feel like a big deal, ya know?  Our house is old, the pipes are old, and the thing clogs up every once in a while, but this time it felt personal. I was having dreams about it, even.  I tried very hard to fix it the way I normally do, with caustic chemicals and bad language, but it didn't work. 

It wasn't just a regular clog, oh no.  This one was sentient and sneaky.  I thought I fixed it, but it came back with a vengeance. I considered asking Steve to fix it, but he's so busy all of the time I knew it would be a week or more before he would be able to do it.  It got so bad I thought we were going to have to call a plumber and I didn't want to do that!  I should be able to fix this! It was just a clog!!

OK, so after the chemicals and long bouts of fruitless plunging with the various plungers we had in the house, I finally gave up and asked my pastor, who has rental properties as a side hustle, how I should fix it.  He told me I needed a specific kind of plunger and how I needed to go about plunging it.  So I went to Wal-Mart and spent $30 buying the plunger and one of those drain snakes (for extra insurance.) I went home and did what I was told to do, and it didn't work.  If anything, it just made things worse! I also couldn't get the snake thing down the drain! I was down on my knees for I don't know how long using a hand plunger and I'm not going to lie, I almost cried.

I already know it was nothing to cry about, but that's just where I was. 

So I stopped, had dinner, and fell asleep for a little while.  I had given up.  I was done.

But when I woke up, I decided to try one more time.  Of course, this isn't a Hallmark movie, so nothing had changed.  It still didn't work.  I don't know how long I hung over the edge of the tub, plunging and cursing into the pipes, but all to no avail.  I still couldn't even get the damn snake thing into the drain!  WHY?!

I decided I would need to find out what old-ass pipes, installed in the 50s, looked like so I could figure out which direction I needed to stick the drain snake, so I Googled it.  Lo and behold, there was a video that, I swear, looked like it was taken in my bathroom.  Literally, if I didn't know better, I would have thought a strange man had been filming in my house, so I clicked on it.  Basically he said I needed to remove the flippy bit, you know, the thing that you flip so you can take baths instead of showers, stuff a plastic bag down into the empty space, and plunge the drain.  I thought that was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard, but I was willing to try anything at this point.

Y'all, it worked.  In less than 10 seconds, the clog broke free and the tub drained, and again, I almost found myself in tears over the stupid bathtub!  I have no idea how plumbing works, and I had no idea that the flippy thing (which has not worked in years) was a vent, but stuffing a freaking target bag down the flippy bit hole created a vacuum that allowed me to do the thing! I'd spent almost a week and more money than was necessary to fix it, and all it took was a plastic bag! 

So now I'm pretty sure I can do anything.  If you need your house roofed, or your windows replaced, or whatever, let me know.  I'm sure I can find a how-to video online and take care of it for you!  It's amazing what one small win can do, isn't it? : )

IT'S OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL

DAMNIT!

Ok, so you already know that when my computer died a few years ago, we had to send the hard drive and the failed backups to a place where my files could (hopefully) be recovered.  I needed to be able to access my graphic design files. NEEDED TO.  We've talked about this. You know this.

We got the resulting files back from the place, and it was thousands and thousands and thousands of weirdly named, coded files in a series of folders that had no distinguishing names or categories or anything else that might tell us what the heck we were looking at.  I have sifted through them over time, and most of them were completely useless. I didn't know at the time that the computer was saving low res images of just about every button, avatar photo, arrows....just whatever garbage that pops up on your screen while browsing the internet, there was an individual file for it in the folders.  You might already know that too, I have no idea what I've talked about as far as this goes, because it's been an ongoing battle and I'm sure it's frustrated me before.

I'd given up trying to sort through them time and again, because it was just too tedious, and I was getting nowhere. However, knowing I needed and wanted to recover my work from this haystack of suck kept me going back to try and sort through them periodically.  I kept thinking that I could find something usable.  Maybe it would just be fonts, or photoshop brushes, or elements, or anything that could help me, but I thought that eventually I'd find something, ya know?

There was one file folder that, could it be found, would give me at least some of the stuff I'd been looking for. It was a classic case of putting all of my eggs in one basket, I know, but I didn't realize at the time that I was setting myself up for disaster.  Today, I found it!  I was thrilled, because...well, it was my stuff!  I'd have something to get back!  Yay!

BUT NO! PUT AWAY YOUR YAY.  I opened the folder, and inside were files. All of them, save three, were corrupted. The files that would have brought back 15 years of work were useless. They aren't even recognized as anything my computer will open.  All I have is a photo of Mr. Lee, a to-do list from 2011, and a weird photo of myself that I was using to practice an Illustrator technique on.

I kept thinking that I'd find something that still worked, but no, everything else is broken. I am, officially as of today, done trying to find any usable files because there are none. Three years of sifting through files to find out that the files I was looking for wouldn't work.

I'm disappointed of course, and I had a moment today where I was even nauseated about it, but I think deep down I knew they were gone.  It was just So. Much. Work. To. Lose. UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

But, at least I know now. I don't have to sit and click on hundreds of files one at a time anymore. That's something, at least.  Onward and upward from here, right?  Oy.

IT'S NOT OK

Last night I went to the spring concert that Steve had with the community band that he plays with.

The spring concerts are always held in the gymnasium of the church where they rehearse, and so it's a little more loose and informal than say, the Christmas concert that is held in the sanctuary. Also, because it's being held in the gym, the acoustics are not so great and when the band is warming up (which isn't part of the concert, obviously) it's harder to chat with the people sitting next to you.

The organist from our church had driven out to hear the concert and she and I were sitting together talking about this and that. The band was doing the warm up, so we had to talk a little louder than usual just so we could hear each other, but we weren't talking any louder than anyone else in the room. I saw her expression change into one of confusion in the middle of our conversation, and she pointed to herself and mouthed "me?" at someone sitting beyond me, the way you do if you aren't sure if someone across the room is waving to you or not. I had seen a guy out of the corner of my eye waving his hands like he was trying to get someone's attention, but since we didn't know him, I did think anything of it. When I turned my head to see who she was looking at, I saw that same guy that was sitting a row ahead of us and several chairs down looking angry and pointing at us. So I did the same thing and pointed at myself to see if it really was us he was talking to and he said, kind of loudly, "Yes, you, both of you. Shut up. SHUT UP RIGHT NOW."

Ok, so my first reaction was to think "Who the fuck are you to tell me to do anything?"  Also, I don't like being told to shut up like that, by someone I do not know and who I could not be bothering in the least. So I flipped him off and went back to my conversation.  I mean, the hell, right?

The hell indeed.  The man got up, walked in front of us and went off on a tirade about how we were being rude and disrespectful, and how we needed to leave if we couldn't shut up.  I was completely baffled, because we were literally two of probably 100 people in that room talking, and we weren't yelling or making anymore noise than the rest of them, and the concert hadn't even started yet!  I have a pretty quick temper, so my instinct was to jump up and get into his face and tell him to leave us alone, but for some reason I didn't do that. Just looking at this goon, I realized if I did that, he would have hit me. I have no doubt of that. He was scary.  His face was all bruised up like he'd recently been in a fight, and he was wearing a wrist brace, and something about him made me realize that he wasn't all there in his head.  He wasn't like the mentally disabled people I deal with at work, but he was not mentally OK.  I'm not sure what I said back to him, although I couldn't stop my smart mouth anymore than I could stop a train with my bare hands, but I do remember telling him that sure, we'd stop talking, would that make him feel better?  I guess it did, because we walked back to his seat like he'd just told us what for.  That made me mad, because now I knew he felt vindicated for yelling at two women who were literally doing nothing, and something like that would make him feel comfortable doing it again to someone else.. It was weird and scary, because it came out of nowhere.

Halfway during the concert, the man got up and walked behind us and put his hand on my shoulder and leaned down and apologized for being rude. He did that to both me and Karen, and I have to say, that was just as scary and weird as the yelling thing. All I could say was that it was OK, and he went back to his seat.

But you know what? It wasn't Ok. He yelled at us for no reason, he picked us out of a crowd of others to...I dunno... make himself feel big and important.  He scared Karen, and she is the kind of nervous tempered woman who would let something like this upset her for a long time. Also, and what I didn't know until later, was that Anthony (who was in the back of the room and saw what was going on) walked up behind us while the guy was yelling at us to leave, and that was when he walked back to his seat. So that guy was the kind of asshole who doesn't mind yelling at women and telling them what they should do, but when a man comes by, he acts as though everything is fine.

The worst part to me, though, is that he scared me. He had no right to do that. I should be able to go to a fracking concert without some random dude deciding I'm talking to loud for his taste and jumping on my case. I shouldn't have to tell a person like that that everything is OK when it isn't, just so that nothing else happens. I am angry at myself for being scared. It makes me feel small and weak and ineffectual, and I am none of those things. I shouldn't need a flipping bodyguard to listen to music!  I'm tired of being afraid someone is going to hurt me all of the time. I have to deal with that at work, I shouldn't have to deal with it anywhere else.

I wish I had a clever way of ending this, but I don't. I am still embarrassed that it scared me so badly, and I'm mad that such a small and unimportant situation, which is fairly tame in the scheme of things, unsettled me so much.

NOOOOOOOO

UGH.  You know how sometimes you can be going about your day, just doing your life like normal and suddenly remember something that happened years ago and be freshly horrified about it?

This morning, I was at work and suddenly remembered that about 15 years ago, a woman from our church told me that she had Porphyria (a terrible blood disorder that ultimately led to her going insane and dying.)  When she told me I said "COOL!" because I had never known anyone who had it, and the only thing I knew about it was that it was probably one of the things that created the myth of vampires. 

I didn't mean it was actually cool, and even then I knew it was an awful disease, but I...I don't know why I said cool.  I guess it was the vampire thing?  Maybe?  I don't know, but I had successfully blocked the memory because right after I said it I knew what an asshole thing it was to say.  THe look on her face, y'all...  I'm not even sure what brought the memory back, but I've felt very uncomfortable about it since.

Please know that if you ever get sick and tell me about it, I genuinely do care. If I say something like "COOL!" it's only because my brain hasn't caught up with my heart yet.

via GIPHY

SNICKERS!

Last week we took care of a friend's puppy!  It was kind of a mess, in more ways than one, but the mess and biting aside,he was a very sweet puppy. 
The puppy belonged to one of Steve's coworkers, and she had gotten the dog (Snickers is what they named him, but don't believe that should be his name*) only a couple of weeks before. They were planning on taking Snickers on vacation with them, but only realized when it was too late that the condo they'd rented had a no-pets policy. Steve offered to let him stay with us, which I was 100% on board with, and so she brought him to us the day before they left.  Snickers is a 9 week old yorkie that is roughly the size of a large rat. He was the smallest dog I think I've ever held, and that includes both of my own dogs when they were puppies.  We realized, only after getting him home, that Snickers could actually get lost in our house. He also doesn't know his own name yet, so if we did lose track of him, he wouldn't come when he was called, and panic would ensue.  I lost him thrice.  We tried (unsuccessfully) to barricade him in the living room, just so we'd know for sure where he was, but Snickers is apparently part Yorkie/part ninja, because he could get inside and over almost everything we put in his way, and disappear without a sound.

Y'all, that dog owned me from the second we brought it into the house. He required constant attention, which wasn't terrible because, you know, puppy.  He hated when I didn't have him in my lap, or when I got out of his sight. I tried letting him run around while I was doing house things, but I found that when he did that, he was constantly under my feet or going potty in various spots in our house. That was the peeingest dog I've ever met in my life!!  He. Peed. Everywhere. He was also very bitey. VERY BITEY.  I kind of expected that, because that's what puppies do. They chew on everything, but man, he had tiny, sharp teeth and he chewed on me constantly. He chewed on my necklace, my neck, my hands, my arms, my pants, my hair...anything he could get into his mouth he chewed on.  I finally had to find a thick pair of mittens that he couldn't bite through and wear them when I held him.  He licked my face raw on one side and would suck on my earlobes.  It was weird! 

Now, having said all of that, it might sound kind of miserable, but it wasn't at all. I loved him!  He was tiny, and he had that sweet puppy smell, and he let me hold him and carry him around. Early in the mornings, he would whine and bark and howl in his tiny puppy way, and I'd get up and hold him on my chest, and he'd go back to sleep and cuddle on me.  It was so sweet!  We would also sit together in my chair and I'd ask Alexa to play Queen songs, and I swear, the dog loved them. Every time I did that, he'd get really still and doze off when the music was on. Nothing else I played did that to him, just Queen. It seemed to be the only thing that would calm him down!

I sent daily photos to his owner so she'd know he was still alive, and he didn't like to be still long enough to take pictures. He especially didn't like that I would try and put props on him, but he didn't have a choice. See:

I don't care what anyone says, he was a tiny Wookie.

We finally had to let him go back to his family. I won't lie, as much as I loved him, he was a handful and I was glad to have my life back. However, I do miss him. My mom said that it sounded like what it was like to have grandkids. You love them and miss them when they aren't around, but you don't mind so much when they go back home!

Lots of people have asked me if keeping him made me want to get another dog. People are weirdly invested in my getting another dog for some reason.  It didn't, at least not yet. I'm still too sad about our boys being gone. I know we will get another one someday, probably more, but my heart still isn't ready yet!  For now, I'll just love as many of other people's pets as I can. I'll get there. :)

*Snickers didn't seem like his actual name. I don't know if it was because he wasn't my dog and I didn't name him, but the name didn't fit. I kept waiting for his "real name" to come to me, and it finally did. That dog's name (Snickers to his family though he may be) is Chewy. Not Chewbacca, regardless of the fact that he was a teacup wookie, but just Chewy. It might have been because of all the actual chewing that he did, but that was the name that I accidentally called him, so I know that's what his real name is.

EXPO WEEKEND

Two weeks ago Amy and her younglings (who are not really that young) came to visit and we went to the Huntsville Comic and Pop Culture Expo!

It's literally been years since Amy and her family came to Huntsville to visit, so we were very glad to see them.  Since we were going to be spending the weekend at the Expo, we got hotel rooms at the Embassy Suites, which is attached to the civic center by a walkway, and also is close enough to downtown to walk wherever we needed to go!  No Car Weekend!  Woo-Hoo!

Everyone got here on Friday night, and we took the opportunity to walk around Big Spring park and talk and chase the ducks around for a while. Pretty much everything was closed by the time we got back, so we retired to regroup the next day for the Expo.

Actually, on our way back to our rooms via the slowest elevators in the history of elevators, I recognized one of the special guests that would be at the Expo. Ming Chen, who is kind of a renaissance man and one of the guys on the show Comic Book Men, a reality show based in a comic book shop in Red Bank, NJ. If you're one of my constant readers, you'll remember that Steve and I visited there when we visited New Jersey. Ming has always been my favorite on that show, but I genuinely didn't expect to see him right in my hotel!  I said hello, but was immediately distracted with a dog that came out of one of the elevators (of course) so Steve struck up a conversation with him and had a quick chat. Ming seemed to be a very nice dude, so I'm glad he got to visit with him a bit.

Saturday was the full day we planned to spend at the Expo. Can you believe that I didn't wear a costume?  Steve wore a costume, Amy wore one, Kate wore one, but Sean and I just wore our nerdy shirts (Hogwarts Alumni REPRESENT!) I would love to cosplay at a con someday, and to be fair Amy did offer me one of her costumes to wear, but I didn't have the right shoes or have hair and makeup planned. Aside from that, I haven't found a character that I think I look enough like to cosplay as. Granted, I know that isn't really important, but I'd at least like to find someone I kind of favor to dress as! Come on, Hollywood! You need more chubby brunettes with big, brown cow eyes in your sci-fi stuff!  Help a sister out.

Anthony met us in the lobby, and we headed into the vendor hall!  TBH, that's my favorite part of going to cons. There are so many local artists who can make amazing stuff. I was determined to find something special as a souvenir, and I did, but someone bought it out from under me!  I'm so mad!  I hesitated! You never hesitate in the vendors hall!  UGH!  We walked around and enjoyed people watching and browsing.  Look, even if you aren't into Sci-Fi or pop culture, and you'd rather chew your own face off than participate at a convention, you should still go sometime. The people watching is so freaking fun, and the costumes on display are very impressive! Although this particular Expo isn't huge, there were still a lot more people there than last year, and the level of participation was impressive.  The guests lined the hall, and there were lots of fun people there.  Besides Ming Chen, I actually rode in the elevator with one of the best comic cover artists in the business, Arthur Suydam, several of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were there (and I think the Pink Ranger had the hots for Steve!), voice actors, professional wrestlers that I loved when I was a kid (I met Jake "The Snake" Roberts, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was there as well) and Gil Gerard (the OG Buck Rogers) was there too, but I didn't get a chance to meet him. Lou Farrigno was also there and that guy is HUGE. I mean, you'd imagine that he'd be big and muscly, but you'd have to see him in person to really appreciate it.  It was a lot of fun!  

We skipped out in the afternoon to get lunch and coffee (I finally tasted Korean barbecue and it was great!) and we went back to our rooms to rest for a bit, because we were going to a hockey game that night.  The game was a lot of fun, and I think it was the first hockey game that Kate and Sean had ever been to. As far as I know, they enjoyed it, which was great!  Stupid me, though, had to leave and go back to the room because my allergies were making me very stopped up and dizzy and it was hard to watch the puck go back and forth without wanting to puke. Of course after I left, the Havoc made an amazing shot and won the game and I missed it! BOO! STUPID ALLERGIES!!!  Afterwards, we all got together in the hotel restaurant and had dinner before going to bed.  It had been a long, but very enjoyable day.

Sunday we got up to do it all over again. :)  It was a little less crowded, but no less fun.  We walked around and saw and met people. Amy wore an amazing costume of Idris, the female form of the TARDIS, which I covet. :)  We didn't spend all day there, though. By that afternoon, everyone was tired and Expoed out, I think, and Amy and the kids had a long drive back home.  So we wondered around outside for a bit and then said our goodbyes.  It was a great weekend!

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I find myself a little blue these days.

Don't worry, I'm not going to detail my own issues, but I am finding that many other people I care about are going through such awful things right now and there's nothing I can do for them. It makes me feel helpless and like there isn't a lot of good happening anywhere.

That's stupid, I know, because there's always good, but it feels far away and I can't seem to find many silver linings these days. Every time I turn around, something else bad is happening. Literally, I keep getting bad news about people I care about.  I also find myself feeling this weird mixture of being very glad and being jealous of other people who seem to be moving forward and accomplishing important things and being happy. I don't want to feel like that. I just want to feel the happy for them part.

Anyway, enough of that. I'll work through it, but it feels hard right now. I feel dumb for feeling like I do because other people have it so much worse. I know life doesn't suck completely, though, and I'll prove it!

2) I've been looking through the photos that are available on my Facebook page, because sometimes I like to check and see what other people see if they happen to be looking for me. I'm beginning to wonder if it looks like I am in some kind of polyamorous relationship with Steve and Anthony because we are always together! We hardly go anywhere without him.  That's fine with me and not a complaint, but for the casual observer, I wonder how that looks.  

I mean, I like Anthony a great deal, but no. That...that...no.  Haha!

3) Speaking of Anthony: he, Steve, another friend that was in Spain with us and I (God help my grammar on that) went to a curling class!  We'd been trying to get into one of those classes for a couple of months, but they were always full. We finally got in one, and it was so much fun!

Granted, curling is a strange thing for people in southern states to do, since there is very little ice, but there is a curling club and they give lessons every month or so to get people interested in forming teams for their league.

I knew nothing about the sport going in, except for the little bit I watched during the Olympics, but we learned a lot about it in the short time that we were there. I know why it's called curling, now, and I know that I suck at sweeping, because I am not fast enough to keep up with the stone, but I'm fairly good (balance aside) at throwing it!  I got to be the "hammer" for our team when we played a round after the preliminary lesson, and I was one of only two people to manage to get the stone all the way across the ice. I did fall on my face a lot, but that was part of the fun!  We plan on going back and taking the next level of lessons on the 30th, which will teach us about it in more detail. I don't think we'll be joining a league or anything, but it's a lot of fun to play around and learn about it!  I'm excited about going back!

Just FYI, the sport was developed in Scotland. I thought it was a Canadian thing. Also, there is drinking involved, but I abstained and you all know very well why. :)

4) Our church basement flooded a little over a week ago!  We were pounded with almost 12 inches of rain over a few days, and the sump pump in the basement wasn't working properly and there was two or three inches of water down there! It was a mess, but once the pump was fixed and the water wasn't continuously coming in, a bunch of people came in and cleaned it out. Not me, haha, but others!

A reporter from the local news saw our Facebook page and wanted to do a story about the church flooding. I know it was supposed to be a fluffy, feel good piece about people working together and all of that, but the pastor said no.  He wasn't interested. I waited until I heard back from him before I answered her (I'm the page admin and get the messages) and I was as polite as I could be telling her that he was not interested, but damn, she was tenacious.  I know reporters have to be like that, but for what she was wanting to do a story on, it seemed a bit much. She finally left me alone, but I thought I was going to have to get aggressive. I'm sure her journalism teacher would have been proud of her!

5) There's a slim chance we might be going to Germany with the band next year. I hope so! I haven't been there yet. There are still so many places I'd like to go!

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Would you like to know something that sucks?  I've realized that all it takes is one person to misunderstand something that I've said and get angry about it, and for about a month afterward I'm going to be double checking and explaining myself to everyone, just in case there is more than one way to interpret what I said. I didn't actually realize I was doing that so much until this morning, and now I'm annoyed at myself. It's a part of my anxious nature, and I am tired of it.


I know I shouldn't worry so much about things like that. I know that rational people figure if they are misunderstood, then it's the other person's problem. I just hate anyone thinking I'm being mean, especially when I'm really not intending to be. Being purposefully mean to people makes my stomach hurt and I feel awful about it for days afterward.

Yeah. I realize I'm over explaining myself here, too.  Don't worry, it'll pass.

2) The weather has been freaking terrifying here lately. 

It started getting warm much earlier in the year than it normally does, so for the beginning of February we've had some beautiful, spring-like days. One day it was almost 80 degrees, which is nuts to begin with, but mainly it's just been an early spring.

I guess we may be paying for it, though, because since Sunday we have had terribly wet and wild weather. It's was sleeting and then started raining almost non-stop, we've had thunderstorms, and last night I happened to be up late and the wind was blowing so hard I legitimately thought at one point the windows in the living room were going to blow inward.  It was scary!  We usually have weather like this is early April and May, but it's rare this early in the year.  I hope this doesn't mean it's going to be super tornadoey (shut up, it's a word) and then be 90 degrees starting in April. 

3) Apparently, some lady came to church last Wednesday night and hid so that she could sleep in the church once it was locked for the night.  This is not the first time someone has attempted this, but it is the first time someone successfully accomplished it.  Well, until she came out of hiding to go to the bathroom and she set off the alarm. One of our deacons had to come up to the church and meet the police, and the lady was caught. I'm pretty sure God worked it out so that I wasn't the one that had to come in the next day (It was last Thursday) because I don't think it would have ended well for her.

I have a fear of this exact thing happening, because sometimes I'm the first person to come to the office in the mornings.  I know people think I'm joking when I talk about grabbing the bat I keep behind my desk and investigating strange noises, but that is not a joke. Obviously that's the stupid, white lady thing that happens in horror movies right before the monster rips out her spleen, but since I have a responsibility to the church, I do my best to check things out to make sure everything is ok.  If she had managed to stay all night and I'd been the first one in and found her here, there is a very good change that poor lady would have gotten hurt.  I don't want to end up beating someone to death if I can help it.

As it turns out, it's a very sad story. The lady isn't mentally well and no one is sure if she has a place to live, or if she's scared to stay at her own place for some reason, but she felt safe at the church and figured that she would just sleep here. I'm sure wherever she was hiding was much nicer than wherever she normally sleeps, but unfortunately we can't allow stuff like that to happen. We aren't a shelter, and we can't allow people to wander around in our building all night. I'm not sure what happened to her, or where she ended up, but I hope she found a place to go where she felt safe. To be honest, it's all to easy to imagine doing the same thing if I were in her shoes. 

Sometimes this job hurts my heart so much.

4) Y'all, I hurt my stupid back again. Our circuit class got cancelled when our instructor was injured, so I haven't been doing enough strength exercise to keep up the gains I made with upper body stuff. I don't know enough about how to do that myself anyway, so any weight training I've done since was just sort of guessed at. Since I didn't want to completely give up altogether while we're waiting for the class to resume, I decided to do the most basic of what I was taught and do planks.

I forgot that was the stupidest thing I could do. I've hurt myself that way before. I don't know if it's the particular muscle group that is used or if I'm going them wrong without supervision, but I pinched a nerve in my back again and it is causing all kinds of problems.  I already have a bum back, but when I was doing those classes, I was working the right kinds of muscles in the right kind of order to actually help my back feel better.  Now that I haven't been doing that everything hurts all of the time, and with the new pinched nerve, it's worse.  I'm not incapacitated, but it's just one of those nagging pains that never goes away. My back feels like it's literally on fire.  If I sleep weird, which I did last night, I also wake up and it feels like my entire body is full of ants. It's the same feeling when your foot goes to sleep, but everywhere!  I hate it!

I know I should go back to the spine doctor, but she wants to give me shots in my spine. IN MY SPINE!  It might make me feel a little better, but I can't stand the thought of it. Not yet.  *shudder*

Anyone want to come and give me a massage? :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Look, let's just get this out of the way. I know that it's odd that a 41 year old lady took a day off to celebrate her own birthday, but that's what I did.  I took that day off and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

My mother always made sure that I had special birthdays growing up. We didn't have much (although I didn't know that at the time) but she always made sure I had a cake and gifts, and when I got older and we had a little more money, I had the requisite roller skating parties and sleepovers, and one magical year I even had a Showbiz Pizza (AKA Chuck E. Cheese) Party!* 

This is accurate.

After I became a teenager the parties stopped, but my birthdays were still treated as something important by my parents. My mom always made a special dinner for me, and every year until he passed away, my dad would wake me up singing happy birthday.  Granted, I often have had bad luck on my birthdays, which led me to boycott them for a while, but the memories of the good stuff always stuck. I think that's now why I like the idea of "doing something" for birthdays, because I fondly remember so many of my own from being a kid. Not just for me, though. I like to make a little fuss for all the people I love on their birthdays to pass that along. Everyone deserves to feel a little special to celebrate being alive, I think. 

Since I didn't want to subject anyone else to possible disasters, I decided that I'd take the day and wander around to do whatever the wind told me to. Really, that meant I got to sleep in and then lie around for a while watching YouTube videos (a habit I really need to break myself of) until I decided to get ready and go out!  My mom called me to sing Happy Birthday (she took over when my dad died) which was my cue to get out of bed, and Sara sent me flowers, which were delivered while I was mostly undressed.  Sorry you had to see me like that, delivery man!  I got in my car and drove to the only place I really planned on going, which is an Asian market on the other side of town. I know that sounds weird, but I love going in there and buying stuff that I'm not 100% sure what it is or how to fix it. That's always kind of an adventure in itself.  Of course, I did go there looking specifically for something I'd seen on the internet, but I also managed to find several other things that looked interesting.  I didn't buy anything too weird, but now I have an ass-load of instant boba tea, Haw Flakes, and pandan flavoring. (Yeah, still not sure what that last one is, but it's green and I'm going to use it on something.)

 

Next, I was planning on going to a fancy-ish shopping center and walk around for a while, but the universe decided (and by that mean that I didn't turn at the right exit) that I should go to downtown Huntsville and have lunch there instead.  A lot of hipstery places and boutique shops are starting to open up in the the old business district down there, so I also decided to walk around and see what I could see.  I went to lunch at a tiny place that I've been trying to get Steve to go to for months, but he never seems interested enough. It's called Domaine South, which is place on the square that sells wine, cheese and sandwiches. I think you're supposed to have a reservation, but since I was alone, I snagged the last seat at the bar and had a nice ham sandwich and an amazing piece of cheesecake. From there I walked across to the Harrison Brother's Hardware store and looked around for a while, and then I walked in and out of some of the places I'd never been before.  It was nice and relaxing, really. I ended my excursion by getting hot chocolate from the hipster coffee shop on the corner and then went home and took a nap.

The nap was important. I'm an old lady now.  Heehee.

Steve came home from work and he brought me a birthday cake. A real, live, birthday cake!  Not once, before being married nor after, has he ever done that. I realize that it probably sounds like I'm being snarky, but I promise I'm not. I thought that was nice and I was surprised! He doesn't usually do things like that, so it was both weird and very sweet. Since we usually don't go out on my birthday (as Valentine's Day is kind of a pain in the ass to try and go out during) we were going to grab some dinner and bring it home, but decided on the spur of the moment to go to a local hibachi place before things got too crazy. I really like the food at hibachi restaurants, but I do NOT like enduring the show portion of things. I know that makes me a stick in the mud, but unless I know everyone sitting at the stove-thing, it's always awkward and you feel the need to talk to strangers and Steve never talks to anyone, and I end up having to interact, and I would just rather enjoy my dinner and enjoy the company of the person I came with.  Also, I like to get my food all at once and not have to eat one thing at a time as the cook finishes it.  At any rate, we got to eat good food and go home and have cake, and that was a nice way to end the day.

Now, if I might be allowed to be a bit sentimental for a second, I do want to say that the best part of my day wasn't the cheesecake, or the exploring, or even the nap (although that was way up there) but the fact that so many people that I love were a part of it.  I got messages, phone calls, and a video that I loved wholeheartedly.  I've been reminded - often - over the past few months that you don't get to keep people forever. You have to love them and enjoy them while they are with you, so it wasn't just that they remembered me and reached out (and I know how easy it is to forget about people who aren't near you all of the time) but that they reminded me that they were still there in my life and I love them even more for that. 

So until next year, happy birthday to me! :)

*That was my 9th birthday in 1987. I had an accidental mullet, permed, from a bad haircut and I wore a wildly patterned button up shirt that Weird Al Yankovick would have been proud of. Oh, and a pair of sky blue Converse high tops. I don't remember that birthday specifically because it was at Showbiz Pizza, but because I was dressed as Screech from Saved By the Bell.  No pictures survive, so don't even ask. Heehee. 

I hug you.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) For Steve's birthday, I ordered two DNA kits from 23 and Me.  I knew that he'd been curious about his heritage for a long time, and since they were running a two for one special, I thought that would be a fun thing for us to do.

If you've never done a DNA collection sample, it's kind of gross. You have to spit in a test tube, and not just a little spit. You have to give them a LOT of spit!  I don't like to spit on things, but it was for science!  We sent our samples out on the same day, but Steve's came back first.

Everything was just as Steve figured his would be. European and Scandinavian, plus a few odds and ends here and there. He was thrilled!  As far as he's concerned, he is a Viking.  Heehee.

Mine were not as I suspected, but not in an exciting or exotic way.  We are supposed to have a significant Native American portion in our family, but nothing that indicated that was in my DNA profile.  I already knew that there isn't a specific, say, Cherokee, marker for DNA or any other specific first nation tribe for that matter. I'd read somewhere that was because the peoples that eventually became what we think of as Native Americans came from somewhere else thousands of years ago, so the DNA profiles for them would show up as from some other continent. So I expected to have that kind of marker in my DNA, because my great, great grandfather was allegedly full blooded Cherokee. Well...not so much. My profile said I was 99.5 percent European.  Specifically, English/Irish, French/German, Swiss and Scandinavian.  The closest thing I had to what I could consider a connection to any Native American connection is .2% Filipino (and that was categorized as Native American/East Asian.)  I also have .3% African, but I'm pretty sure everyone does.

So no surprises there for me!  I'm not Japanese, or Russian, or the great, great, great, great granddaughter of a Spanish conquistador.  I'm a little disappointed, I guess, as I'd hoped my heritage was a bit more exciting, but hey, "I yam what I yam" and I guess that's not so bad. :)

2)  Speaking of the (alleged) Native American members of my family, my sister is following up on some leads that are supposed to connect us to them and she's found a lot of information about the people were are supposed to be related to. I don't have all of the information yet, but she did tell me that our (alleged) however many great grandfather Old Tassle had two brothers, Double Head and Pumpkin Boy, and those guys retaliated against some white settlers that were causing a ruckus, killed them, and then ate them.

Man, I hope we are related to them! Why would anyone want a nice, normal, calm set of ancestors when you can have CANNIBALS?! Amiright?

3) So tomorrow is my birthday and I've taken the day off of work to do...I don't know what yet. We all know that my birthdays can be a bit of a disaster, so it's best if I don't carry that juju magumbo into my workplace. There are things I'd like to do, but who knows if any of them will happen?  Making plans is sometimes a recipe for disaster.  Maybe I'll go out and get myself a birthday cake!  Maybe I'll sit at home in my pajamas all day and watch YouTube videos of people unboxing things! I'd like to have a fun day, because if you can't treat yourself to fun on your birthday, when can you?  We'll see. 

4) Oh, y'all, I was scared to death last week while I was at work.  I was alone in the building, and I heard what sounded like a closet exploding open and things falling everywhere.  It was loud, and it was a very scary thing to hear when you're someplace alone. I checked the two offices right next to my desk and decided that whatever happened, it was out in the church itself.  I grabbed my baseball bat and started investigating.

I don't know if you've ever had to walk into a bunch of dark rooms in a big, empty building, but it's nerve wracking. There are literally dozens and dozens of places that someone could hide if they had a mind to, and since I can't see every door into the place, there was a chance that someone had walked into while we had other visitors going in and out. If they were there and hadn't said hello to me, it wasn't a good sign. 

So I'm walking down every hallway, flipping on lights, kicking open doors, and clutching a bat in both hands, because I was ready to beat someone's ass if I had to.  It was very tense.  It got even worse when I opened one door, and a baptismal robe (person shaped, of course) swung out at me. I nearly wet myself.  So, after I walked everywhere, upstairs and down, and didn't see anyone, much less whatever had made such a loud sound, I was starting to think I was going crazy.  You don't hear a sound like that and it be nothing, you know?  I finished my search and was just about to make another round when I happened to peek into the pastor's office. It was his stupid golf ball clock. It had a pendulum that caused it to move a tiny bit and over time it would occasionally slip off of its nail.  It did so and took another framed picture down with it, and golf balls exploded everywhere, which is what made the sound.  On the one hand, I'm glad there wasn't a stowaway in the church, but on the other, the clock pretty much exploded and scared the crap out of me in the process. After being poised to whale on someone with a baseball bat, picking up golf balls and bits of wood was practically anti-climactic!

5) I feel like there was more I wanted to talk about, but I can't remember it right now.  Eh, I'm an old lady, it'll come back to me at some point!

I DON'T KNOW

I have not been myself the past few days.

I'm not sure what is going on, but I have been feeling very odd and on edge, like I'm waiting for something to fall on my head.  Does that make sense?  As I posted elsewhere, I feel as though I'm in mental cover-my-head mode. Like I'm expecting something bad, maybe, but don't have any reason to.

Nothing is going on, as far as I know, and I have no real reason to feel like I do, but something feels "off" to me, and it's making me all jumpy and defensive and I'm beginning to get on my own nerves. All last week, I felt this way, just kind of prickly and growly.  I even got called out by a friend for being kind of an asshole (and to be fair, I was - and they used nicer language than that - but calling a spade and spade, that's what I was being!) Granted, at that time I was irritated at my boss for changing budget stuff again, but geez, that's just part of working with other people. I don't know why that made me get snippy at anyone else.  I've felt bad about it ever since. :(

I feel the way I usually feel when I'm around someone who is upset or angry, because I can pick up on that kind of thing at close range, but I haven't been around anyone like that lately. I used to be able to depend on my spidey-sense, which felt a lot like this, to let me know if someone that wasn't physically close to me having a problem, but that hasn't been a thing I could rely on for a long time. My spidey-sense is on the fritz, I guess you could say.

I don't know, but I wish it would go away! I want to feel normal again!  I'm ready for normal. I'd like to go back to the things I was doing before the December from hell, and I'd like to enjoy stuff and have fun, and not feel like I'm anticipating something bad!  UGH!  Y'all!  This sucks.

I'm sorry to complain. I just have this feeling something is off it's axis, and I can't place my finger on what it is, and it's like an itch I can't scratch!  I know it'll pass, as all things do, but I'm afraid I'll run everyone away from me before I can figure it out.  I don't want that! Just bear with me...I'm working on making this better! 

(On a completely different and much nicer note...I learned to make biscuits this weekend! They were good and they didn't burn or anything! There is hope for me yet!)

I still hug you!

ETA: It isn't PMS. Shame on you for thinking so! :)

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I am not good with words.

I have always wanted, very badly, to be the kind of person that can say things that would help people.  If someone is hurting or sad, I want to be able to sit with them, or write to them, and be able to say something that will make it better.  Problem is, if I am emotionally close to someone (and those are usually the people I want to comfort the most) I feel the things that they feel and that renders me kind of stupid.  Seriously, when I am sad, I can't express myself properly, and if someone I love is sad, scared, nervous, or anything like that, I catch it and I can't say anything helpful. I go completely off the rails. I end up saying the most bizarre and cringe worthy stuff in an attempt to help them and that tends to not help at all. 

What I seem to be good at is doing, or at least trying my best to do. You need a hug? I got you. My hugs have been honed by almost 41 years of squishy, southern womanhood and I will try very hard to squeeze the sad right out of you. I will go out of my way to make you laugh if I feel you are sad, to the point of probably seeming like a bit tactless, because I want you not to be sad. You need me to cook you dinner? Clean your house? Walk your dog? Try and poke food into your face if I don't think you're eating? Tell you a long rambling story about how I once fell down in front of everyone in the lunchroom and inadvertently did the splits in a puddle of school mashed potatoes? I can do that! I will buy you useless presents or make you something out of my seemingly endless stash of arts and crafts supplies if I think it will help, even if it doesn't really. I will send you a hug over email if I think you need one! I will also sometimes stand back and not say anything, because the knowledge that my words can't help makes me too afraid to say anything, and that sucks because I want very badly to help and it's a helpless feeling when I can't and I don't want to make it worse.

Why am I telling you a thing most of you know?  Because I didn't 100% understand this about myself until recently. I mean, I KNEW, but I didn't KNOW, ya know?  Realizing a spiritual gift is a little like finding out about a new super power and not knowing how to use it. It's my own kind of origin story, and I'm just trying to reign it all in now that I see what is going on. I suppose I'm mainly telling you this because if I come at you from nowhere with a gift, or food, or a weird story, or if I jump on you with a hug, I'm trying to help. I know it sometimes makes me seem like a golden retriever that no one ever trained, but please know it comes from a good place and it's because I love you very much and want to make you happy.

Geez, I really am like a Golden Retriever. Makes me reconsider my thoughts about reincarnation. What if this is my first human form?!  That would really explain the clumsiness, shedding, and the irresistible urge to fetch. 
 
2) Y'all...I need to lose at least five pounds and it is not happening! I know what is going on, though. I'm way out of practice of doing the things that keep the weight off. From Thanksgiving to New Years, we were not home very much and cooking and eating became catch as catch can.  Desserts became something I indulged in when I had managed to mostly give them up before. Also...potato chips. They are my kryptonite. I also pinched a nerve in my back the one day I was able to go to the gym to take my class, and my arms went numb for a while and I couldn't grasp anything, so lifting weights was out of the question and running only made it worse.  I am slowly trying to get back into my good habits, but it's hard! It's nice just to eat without worrying about everything you put in your mouth and going out to eat when you don't feel like cooking is great. Exercise is hard and sweaty and not as much fun as people make you think it is. I think back to the 6 months of being hungry last year and it makes me want to stuff my face even when I know better and at the same time not eat at all because I don't ever want to go through that again.  Ugh, I just need to work harder. The people at the weight loss clinic will not be happy with me when I go back to weigh in!  They can bite me though, because I am working on it!  Heehee...they can bite me, but they won't, because I'm way too fattening right now.

3) We have been binge watching the show Vikings on Amazon Prime, and I am surprised that I kind of love it.  Steve has always been fascinated with ancient Norse culture and history, so finding a show that is done by the History channel (making it a little more accurate than say, HBO, where I'm sure it would become a vehicle for gratuitous sex and nudity -not that there's anything wrong with that if that's what you're looking for *ahem Game of Thrones*- and drawing from real history as well as mythology) was a lot of fun. Granted, I have to take a break from time to time because it's kind of violent and I don't like mainstreaming stuff like that, but when it's not violent, it's great!  It has also sent me down a Wikipedia wormhole reading about the genuine historical people that it depicts, and now I know way more about Norse/early Anglo-Saxon history than is probably useful, but I have no regrets. You should watch it if you get the chance.

4) I know that parenthetical sentence above is a lot of grammatical nonsense (as is most of my writing) and I apologize. Don't come at me. I'm not good at words!

5) I hug you again, but for different reasons than before.

YAY

The days seem so odd now that we don't have a holiday to look forward to, don't they?

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that it's all over and I am not expected to go anywhere for a while, and I can cook my own dinner, and I don't have to prepare for anything big. I'm not complaining!  It's just that everything feels so quiet.

Steve is traveling for work for a couple of days, so things are even more quiet than usual, and that's OK, too.  I'm going to do whatever the heck I want!  Well, maybe not everything I want to do, but certainly as much of it as I can.

Three cheers for no big holidays for a while! 

You can use this quiet time to prepare for my birthday.  :)

I hug you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

If you are reading this, it means you survived the holidays.  Congratulations!

December was, as you know, not so great this year, but we persevered as well as we could. By the time Christmas rolled around, it had gotten a little less grim in our neck of the woods. We spent the holiday quietly, with our various family, and it was nice.

We had dinner with Mr. Lee on Christmas eve. Steve grilled steaks since the weather was warmish, which is one of the nice things about living down here. Also, since we have Mr. Lee's older 3D television now, we asked him to bring a movie that he wanted to watch. He brought Doctor Strange, and I'll be honest, I enjoyed it a lot more in 3D! We saw the regular version in the theater, but it really added a lot to it!  Also, I love Benedict Cumberbatch, so win-win.

We spent Christmas Day with my mom and it was planned to be a very low key sort of day. Tommy's birthday was Christmas day, so I knew it was going to be very bittersweet. We didn't have anything big planned, just lunch and gifts and hanging out with the family.  Everything was fine, except for one really weird, uninvited guest.

Look, our family doesn't do drama. That's just not who we've ever been as people. Pretty much anything that ever came our way was dealt with quickly, which I can only just now appreciate, but all in all, we have always been like good diamonds: Conflict Free. ;)

Everyone was there except for my youngest nephew and his girlfriend, and so we hadn't started eating yet when someone knocked on the door. We thought it was Seth, but it turned out to be my paternal uncle's wife's brother. Did you follow that?  So, no one even remotely related to us at all.  The man is...not right.  After years of drug and alcohol abuse, resulting in a lot of trouble with his own family that caused them to disown him, he is an incredibly muddled, hostile, unhinged (not violent, but has that potential) sick old man.  I don't think I'd ever met him face to face, so when he walked into the house, I didn't know who he was. I was under the impression that he was a friend of my mom's husband, so when he walked in, I was pleasant to him and went about my own business.  It wasn't until I saw my mom's face that I realized something was wrong.  The man, who literally has no ties to our family even remotely since my father passed away, decided to stop at mom's house and tell her he was sorry about her losing her son. Nice, right?  No, not really.  I mean, yes, that part was nice, but he turned that opportunity into talking about himself and all of his problems, and that he didn't have any family and wow, look at all the food you have, and a litany of other problems and people that he didn't like and who had wronged him, blah, blah, blah.

My mother, being the saint that she is, told him he could eat with us because (as she told us when the guy was safely out of the room and we were quietly saying WTF did you invite him to eat for?!) she felt sorry for him and that is what Jesus would want her to do.

Take a moment and love my mom for that, won't you?  She's too good for this world.

Now, I might not have minded so much if I hadn't been reminded by my sister that this man had, after my dad died and we were still trying to settle his affairs, stole his farm equipment and sold it off before we had a chance to take inventory of it. It's bad enough for him to be a thief, but the fact that he stole my deceased father's stuff before he'd been dead two weeks (which incidentally would have become MY stuff since I inherited the farm portion of the property) infuriated me. We never pressed charged on him or even called him out over what he'd done (we should have, but by the time we realized the extent of what he'd done, it wouldn't have done any good and we were still shell shocked over Papa's death to do much) but we didn't want to cause a fuss.  I won't lie, though, I have resented the hell out of that for years from afar.  I can't stand a thief or a liar. I was unhappy with the fact that this man who had treated our family so poorly was now sitting at the table talking trash about my uncle and cousins, likely because they wouldn't let him come over and mooch anymore, but we were as welcoming as we could be because as mom said, that is what Jesus would want us to do.

Sometimes I think Jesus asks a bit much.  Heh.

So he ate and talked and lied and rambled and we all sat there uncomfortably. My mom's husband was PISSED. He didn't say anything, but he was very uncomfortable with the man being in their house, so he wouldn't even sit down. He kept pacing around, muttering. It was, by far, the most bizarre Christmas lunch I've ever sat through, but soon enough, the man stood up and said he had to leave. That he didn't mean to impose, or some such thing.  It was just so WEIRD. Towards the end, I started laughing because I was so uncomfortable and had to go into another room. Eventually, though, he was gone and we locked the door.

After that, the day was nice. We played a game called Spoons, which got kind of violent, but it was fun. We exchanged gifts, sat around and talked, and then we came home.

For new years, we spent the evening at the symphony listening to songs by John Williams, which was good, and I barely made it to midnight! Haha.

By the end of 2018 I buried people I loved, gained too much weight, lost the drive to do a lot of things that I usually enjoy, and missed my friends so much it hurt, but I made it out of the other side with only a few scars. I don't make resolutions, as I am not good at keeping things like that, but I do hope that this new year will be good and fun and prosperous, and full of accomplishments and adventures and most of all happy and full of strength and love for myself and all of you.

Happy New Year! I hug you!

OY

Ok. Let's...let's just hope that things will calm down a little bit around here.  Please?  Ok? 

I mean, I know it could be worse.  It could be a lot worse.  Things have been sad, and busy, and busy with sad stuff, but for right now, right this second, things are calm.  Lots of people have it worse than what I've been going through, and I'm going to keep that in mind every time I start feeling overwhelmed.

Yesterday we buried a wonderful lady.  Aunt Brenda, the lady that we always go and stay with on Thanksgiving, passed away Sunday morning after a sudden health issue no one knew about caused a problem.  She and I were close. After my lovely mother-in-law passed away 12 years ago, Brenda became a de facto MIL to me. We talked a lot, and sent each other gifts, and it wasn't until she was gone that I realized how much of Aunt Brenda had been enmeshed my daily life.

It's like waking up and realizing a chair you sit in all of the time is missing, and you have to work around the knowledge that the chair isn't there anymore, and you keep walking to where that chair is supposed to be and it isn't there, and you have to think "well, shit, it isn't there anymore." and then you have to alter your course and find someplace else to sit that isn't as comfortable or convenient, and it throws you out of whack for a while.

She would probably hate that I'm comparing her to a chair, haha!  You know what I mean, though.

We traveled to Georgia on Tuesday for her wake and stayed until Wednesday for her funeral. I'm very glad that she had a closed casket, because I want to remember her the way I saw her last, and not in a coffin.  I sang at her funeral. It's one last thing I could do. Steve played his trumpet, which was nice.

Also, just for fun, I got some bad news about a close friend of mine and I can't help her at all with it.

I'm sorry if I'm framing it as being about me. None of this is ultimately about me and I know that, but people I love are hurting and I can't help them and it sucks.  Sitting around knowing you can't help is bad.

However, up til this point, I've managed to stay relatively gangster. When other people hurt, you just have to stuff your feelings all down and be strong for them, and I think I've managed that so far.  I don't think I've really had time to process all of the things that have happened in the past three weeks, but hopefully that will happen soon. I'm tired, and sick of being sad, and I would like to have some time where I don't have to think about all the bad things that have been going on, but that will have to wait because Christmas is here and we have to go and do a million things and if we didn't do those things we'd hurt people's feelings and there would be lots of questions and I just don't have the capacity to deal with that because the first moment someone questions why I don't want to do some big Christmas thing I think I'll snap and be rude out of sheer exhaustion and hurt someone's feelings and I really don't want to do that.  It's not even that I want to isolate myself or anything like that, it's just that I'd like so much to not have to think about everything shitty that has been going on, you know? 

But...for now, I'm fine.  I'm just fine. I'm gangster. However, I have a feeling that if anyone looks at me wrong or hurts my feelings in any way, I'm going to very much crack apart. 

via GIPHY

Not because I want to, but because there is just a lot of feelings in here that want to get out and I'm not letting that happen, damnit! 

So, that's where I am right now. I'm OK. I'm just full of all of this and it needs to settle. I'll be fine, I promise.  I think I'm just being selfish.

I hug you.

A FAMILY STORY -OR- THE (DAMN) YANKEES WANTED TO STEAL MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHERS AND SELL THEM TO A SIDE SHOW

That is not just a catchy title, you guys.

I'll be honest, I don't know an awful lot about the history of my family. It's not that I'm not interested in knowing about it, but no one ever seemed to keep many records. We always heard stories about how we were related to this family or that (because we came from a small southern community that didn't see fit to marry outside of the county lines) and occasionally we'd hear a fifth-hand anecdote about how this cousin might have been buried alive, or that relative was sent to live in a mental asylum because they hit menopause and got a little emotional, but information is sparse as far as any real concrete history of our family goes. 

While we were staying with my brother before he passed away, one of the things that we did to pass the time was look through boxes of old pictures and news clippings that my mom had stashed away in a closet. My sister found a newspaper clipping, from a 1993 edition of the formidable Athens News Courier with a story (a story which I thought would have been brought to my attention at the time, but was not) about two of my great grandmothers. This was a story that would have tickled me to death as a teenager, and honestly, it kind of tickles me to death now. It's so rare that I find out real stories about my ancestors and its a bizarre story to boot!

First off, I suppose I need to explain why I keep saying "my grandmothers" in plural.  My family tree kind of joins back together in a certain spot.  My great-great-great grandmothers on both my mother's side and my father's side were sisters.  Actually, they were part of a set of triplets, born in 1862, and thought to be the first set of triplets born in the state of Alabama.  Their names were Melissa, Artimisa, and Narcisa Smith and they were the youngest of 21 (gulp) kids born to Roland and Elizabeth Smith on a plantation close to Cherokee, Alabama in Colbert County.

First off, I had no idea that any of my relatives ever lived on a plantation.  So...yikes. Until reading this story, I was under the impression that all of the people in my family had once been po' white sharecroppers and Native Americans, with some randos from other places thrown in for good measure. However, apparently this branch of my family tree had some money, and a plantation, and triplet daughters that were a very unusual occurrence at the time.

As you know, during the Civil War northern troops came down and burned and pillaged a lot of the plantations and farms of the people who lived in the south. They were not stand up guys, obviously, and when they got wind that there were triplets in one of the homesteads, it got back to the Smiths that soldiers intended to kidnap their daughters, probably to sell them to a circus as a side show act.  Roland Smith then took the time to build a false wall in their house where the hid the girls whenever the Union soldiers were nearby.  The fact that representatives from a county fair had also been after the family to allow them to display the girls in their own side show made the family aware that the threat of the Yankee soldiers very real, so according to the article "Fearing for the triplet's safety, the family left their plantation home and moved to Madison County, just over the Limestone County Line. They fled in the night, crossing the Tennessee river on a ferry, and traveled on to Madison County by horses and wagons."

Neato.

The Smiths then settled on a farm in Madison County, where the girls lived altogether until they were 21 and unfortunately Artimisia died of Pneumonia.  The other two girls, Melissa and Narcisa, went on to marry and have babies and those babies grew up and met and some of them got married and somehow I am a result of that craziness.

That is really all I know about the family, but I'd love to learn more.  Also, knowing that the family had 21 children probably explains my very complex, very interconnected list of cousins around these parts. The only other things of note that I found out was that Melissa (my maternal GGG Grandmother) had really thick ankles, so I guess I know where I got those from now.  The more you know! 

SIGH

Do you ever feel like life is just taking the piss?

Yesterday morning we received word that the husband of our cousin, one of the ones we visit every year in Georgia, passed away after a fairly short illness.  He was only 45, has two teenage kids, and was doing fine until he got sick in October.

I can't even imagine how our cousin is feeling right now. How do you suddenly have to live without your partner of 19 years, the father of your kids, all unexpectedly? My brain won't even wrap around it.  It makes me feel sick for her.

So it looks like this will be a two funeral week for us. We started out the week with one, and we'll be traveling to another one in Georgia for a couple of days at the end of this week.

I'm so, so, so tired of being sad.

LAST UPDATE

For those of you who have been keeping up with the story of my brother and his illness, I wanted to let you know that he passed away Friday night, just before 9:00 PM.

It was peaceful and everyone in our family was there with him when he passed.

I wish I could be poetic, and write some wonderful, elegantly worded essay about him, but I can't do that. At least, I can't do it right now.  It's still too new and it still stings too much.

I told a friend of mine that I have a lot of feelings that I don't understand about all of this, and that is true. I haven't understood any of this situation from the very beginning. I don't believe it is meant for me to understand and right now I'm ok with that. My brother was the person who least deserved to suffer, but for some reason he did. The universe is a weird place.

His memorial service will be tomorrow and I already wish it was over. Not because I don't want to remember him, but I need time to remember him on my own terms; without the music and the preachers and the people telling me "He's in a better place" or "He's healthy now" or any of those platitudes that well-meaning people say at funerals.

He was my brother. He was good and happy and the weight of the world and all of its problems never touched him. He had the purest soul of anyone that I ever met. I loved him so much.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

At least for now.

Thank you.

A NEW UPDATE

Just to let you know, because I know that some of you are keeping up, my mom called me today and told me that my brother is not doing well at all. 

The Hospice nurse told her today that he is basically wearing down and is probably not going to last much longer. They said that before when he first got sick, but he's physically wearing out now and the signs are getting clearer.

I don't really know what to say other than that, but I'd appreciate your prayers and good vibes for my brother and my mom.

SIGH

OK, just a heads up, I'm about to have a little pity party here for myself.

I feel like a failure.

Anyone who has been around these parts since January of this year knows about the rather extreme weight loss program that Steve and I were a part of. It wasn't fun.  It was hard, and awful, and hungry and depressing, but it worked.  I lost over 40 pounds and, I'm not going to lie, I was kind of proud of myself.  Granted, anyone who basically starves themselves will lose weight, but I felt like I was doing it in a relatively smart way: medical supervision, with a support group and an educational class to teach about nutrition and exercise.  It had all of the elements of a successful program that would provide long term results.

I think for almost everyone else in the program it has worked, but for me not so much, and it's all my fault.

Ever since Steve and I were released into "Maintenance Mode" which basically means that we are no longer under weekly supervision, things don't seem to be working out so well.  Some things are fine, as I'm way more aware of the things I eat, I go twice a week to pretty intense circuit workout class, I rarely eat fast food anymore (maybe 5 times since January,) I hardly eat sweets, I eat more vegetables and less carby stuff now than I ever have in my entire life, and a good half of what I consume in a day is hospital approved meal replacements.

Despite all of that, I am still not doing something right, even though I can't really pinpoint it. I know it has to be a lot to do with what I'm eating, as I do eat at restaurants and don't always make the best choices when I'm there.  I have a weakness for salty things, and although I don't do it often, I'll occasionally have a drink if we go out with friends. I'm so tired all of the time that when I don't specifically have gym class, I'm usually sleeping as much as possible so that I can make it through the day without falling asleep at work. Even though those habits aren't even at the level that they were, my weight is creeping slowly upwards and I am ashamed of myself for it.

I know I shouldn't be, because there are probably way more things I should consider being ashamed of myself for, but I can't help it. I worked so hard to lose this weight and now I'm just...failing...at food. I spent so much money and time doing the danged program and now it feels like I wasted all of it.  I know I didn't, as I saw results, but for them to be so easily lost is disheartening.  What's even worse is that when we do go to our monthly meetings, I see everyone doing their thing and it seems so effortless, and I'm just sitting there slowly melting back into a blob of personage by the second.

The thing is, that my shame isn't specifically just about gaining the weight back, although that is something I desperately don't want, but the fact that I couldn't be disciplined enough to maintain the weight loss I'd achieved for even a month after being let go from the program. I'm not back to where I was in the beginning, but if the trend continues, I will be and I don't want that.

I'm just so disgusted with myself, you guys!  I know that if I work at it, I can find some kind of groove to get back into, but right now it seems kind of hopeless and I'm just so frustrated.  I can't just live on meal bars and dietary Yoo-Hoo for the rest of my life. I can only do as much exercise as my body will let me.  I'm just...ugh.

I'm sorry, I know that in the scheme of things this is a very minor blip on the screen, and I hope that I'll just figure out what my issue is and fix it, but right now I'm just so disheartened. 

That is all.  Pity party over for a bit. :)  I hug you.