Slow Down * Enjoy Life

I’m sure we would have had a party anyways (had our lives not been turned upside down) so I didn’t want that to prevent me from doing something.  And honestly, after this past Monday I cannot wait to do it again.  Unfortunately I scheduled a minor medical thing for me Tuesday morning so I didn’t drink & eat quite as much as I planned but I still had a good time.  And I think everyone else did as well.

We named it for her and the topic was discussed.  I was semi-prepared for the conversations.  I would have talked more but I was also fine limiting my conversations.  I am positive people hesitate touching the topic because it only results in tears.  I was thinking about getting people to do some scrapbooking while they were there.  Something to pass the time but something that would have brought up a lot of emotions.  I started working on pictures but man that is so difficult to do.  I have so many pictures, so many memories, so I just gave up but will get back to it in the not-to-distant future.

Anyways…back to the party

It’s hard to find a day that works for the majority of people.  So I decided on this past Monday hoping that people would be back from their weekend away or without plans.  Is Memorial Day weekend a good choice, I’m not sure.  60 some people responded that they would be there.  Another 30+ couldn’t make it.  It would have been great to have everyone but there will be other times. 

So for a week straight I watched the weather forecast.  Rain 20%, 30%, 40%, 60% … SHIT!  Of course it was sunny and warm every single day for at least the past 2 weeks.  Even Saturday & Sunday were hot and sunny.  But not Monday.  The forecast only got worse.  One of my friends e-mailed a couple days prior saying the weather would be fine.  I knew she would jinx it.  At just after 11am the thunder and lightning rolled in. 

I ordered a tent, which without the party literally would have been a wash, a jumpie for the kids (and the adults too), multiple cases of beer, 3 pitchers of sangria, burgers, hot dogs, sausages, ribs which I slow cooked and were amazing, pasta salad, mostaccioli, caesar salad, all the other food that everyone else brought, tables and chairs … I was relatively prepared … I just couldn’t do anything about the rain (the rain which ended up flooding some of the guests basements and brought hail to others). 

But the people still trickled in.  And eventually the rain stopped.  We blew up the jumpie, which had pools of water on it.  A majority of the food was eaten.  We didn’t do that good a job on the beer but that could have been because of all the sangria I made or the vodka and jager shots.  That sangria was pretty lethal. 

Usually I’m really good at picture taking, but I slacked a little on Monday.  It’s one of those things I find a bit more difficult to do.  Having the pictures is priceless but it’s just not easy to gather up the effort to take them

Fortunately me and the kids got some pre-rain time in the jumpie when it arrived in the morning.  It was crazy humid though.  We were sweaty messes.

And then came the rain

But I had my helper with me to dry up the chairs.  She was a soaking mess.  But she had so much fun.  It was a warm rain so even though she and I were soaked it really didn’t prevent us from getting things done

Finally the jumpie was up.  I might have to buy one of these things.  Figure as much as it cost and as many kids as there are, the investment is probably worth it because it will be used.  Before inflating it though the thing was had puddles of water a foot deep in places.  It really rained

We got into dress #2 because the other was soaked.  She really was cute but she just didn’t want to take a picture right then so she was pouty

And some of my crazy friends (the kid-less ones) kept things going til close to dusk. They ROCK!

CVSPHARMACY… what does that spell daddy??  So I tell her and then she asks what is that.  I explain to her that it’s store and she eventually gets it.  Then she randomly says this.  And this is very random because she never sees this person but saw him this past weekend.  “Uncle Billy says you need to go shopping, shopping, shopping”.  He in fact said that to her but how she picked that up and thought about it today amazes me.

And then there was this…

Who is Donald Duck’s husband?  I said, you mean wife right?  She said no, husband.  We went back and forth until she agreed with me.  Then we talked about Mickey’s wife.  Then we talked about mine.  She said, I’m your wife.  🙂   But then we got on the topic of Mommy.  She said, Mommy loves me so much.  But then she said this.  I want the angels to bring Mommy home (twice she said that).   OMG!

I think this sums it up …

Another little girl says to my daughter, referring to my brother and his wife walking away from my MIL’s, “is that your mommy and daddy?” She repeated the question a few times.  My daughter finally said, in a hushed voice walking away from the girl (although she didn’t appear to be walking away because of the question, they were simply playing around in a jump house…but who knows), “my mommy is in heaven.”

No one but me heard what she said 🙁

I’ve written about it before but this past weekend reminded me so much of exactly what was going on that weekend last year.

There were little things like starting a new season of bowling.  Something we never would have done living in the city but in the burbs with a couple kids … it was our Friday night out.  So as we went shopping for flowers that Saturday and Sunday we joked (seriously) about buying a ball and some shoes.

That Friday at bowling … she loved me so much!  I can’t even express it in words.  We were just having fun, laughing, enjoying the short amount of ‘adult’ time we had together that night. 

We shopped for flowers that weekend and worked to plant them in the yard.  We spent probably a couple hundred at K-Mart purchasing an assortment of random flowers and packed them into the Pathfinder stacked amongst two kids, us, and a double stroller.  Then we went to work planting them.

We weren’t able to finish that weekend … and after that tuesday it was the furthest thing from my mind.

This past weekend I bought a bunch of flowers again.  The house is still for sale although I’m not being overly agressive about it.  Trying to keep the house clean for showings is far from the top of my list.  And I am not very interested in selling for a loss.  So I spend most of Sunday planting while the kids were at Grandma’s.  It wasn’t easy.  My back hurts from whatever I did to it weeks ago.  And every minute was a raw reminder of what we lost.

This Wednesday is 1 year.  I cannot F’ing believe it.  I don’t want to.  It’s impossible to wrap my head around it.  A big group of people will be at mass with us Wednesday morning and then to her families house.  It’s awesome to have such caring people but I would rather have her here instead.

I gathered up and printed out just over 330 pictures for a SIL’s birthday today.  The whole process of going through all those pictures wasn’t much fun.  The book was nice though.  I think she needed it, I hope she did, or maybe I needed to make it for her.  My FIL passed away in 07 (her dad) and then Cari.  She’s only 12 and her life hasn’t been easy…and is way more complicated than just that.  I’m not really sure how the book will impact her.  I could barely put the pictures in and when she started flipping through the pages I could hardly keep it together.  Thankfully another sister took the book so she could open the rest of her presents.

The past couple weeks haven’t been easy.  I think about Cari constantly.  Some days things happen, it reminds me of something and it’s like it happened yesterday but it really happened more than a year ago…DAMN!  Like the dishes in the dishwasher.  Then came out wet the other day.  Either me or the kids changed the settings on the thing and now they aren’t drying all the way.  Cari would give me crap about that.  It was easy to lean across the counter and accidentally press the buttons but for some reason she assumed I was changing the settings.  She would nag at me about that and I would nag back … I miss that.

Until something is gone I guess you sometimes just don’t know what you have.  I don’t think I took anything for granted.  We had fun.  We were building a family.  We expected to live long together.  Our complaints were minimal and if anything something we did just to liven things up when we didn’t have anything else to do.

And now … man. 

I didn’t want things to be different.  While I like change, I like little change, not BIG-MASSIVE-CHANGE-EVERYTHING-CHANGE (or however you might say it). 

We were in love.  Absolutely.  We were each other’s best friend. 

And while I think all the time that I need to fill that void…somehow…I can’t imagine myself truly doing it.  The amount of time and effort it took her and I to build our relationship…it wasn’t over night.  It wasn’t 10 years either.  It’s one thing to be single in the city without certain responsibilities, and another to be in my situation.  Maybe I just shouldn’t be worrying myself about that.   But in the midst of all the other craziness it’s something that allows me to take my mind off some of the difficult stuff.

I’m not looking forward to next week. 

I still think I need to just dump my job.  I mean, I just want to work part time but still make around the same $ that I’m making today.  My new boss, the unqualified candidate they hired to take over for the guy they canned, starts monday.  If it isn’t smooth I already have my resignation written up, I just need to print it.  I’m that serious about it.  And if it isn’t to my liking I’m going to do it sooner rather than later.  Other than pay I’m not gaining anything out of this job and more than anything I hate bitching about it.

So…that isn’t even all I have to say but I should probably try to sleep (or at least relax for a bit)

Oh yeah…this past Mother’s day…how about we skip that holiday next year