Main » January 2005

January 20, 2005

Our Son's 1st (19th) Birthday.....

Hello friends,
Well Garrett who came to us in September at age 18 is celebrating his 1st birthday with us on the 20th. I'm tempted to put one candle on the cake!!! But he'll be 19. He's a little excited yet wondering what a birthday will be like with a loving family. Frank and I are taking him to dinner, hopefully with G's girlfriend &/or Frank's mom, Thurs eve between school & night school. Then on Saturday we are having a party for him and all the family are invited ('cept Frank's dad, never included, tho Frank does talk to him occasionally), and G's best friend and girlfriend and a couple more friends are invited. I hope they come. I have a feeling one uncle and his s.o. and their 2 kids may skip it. I really want G to feel the family celebrating him on his bday!!

And do I have a card yet? Nope. Gifts? Yup, but need to be wrapped. Cake? Ordering one tomorrow. Balloons? Yup, picking them up tomorrow. Was gonna decorate with streamers, but.... maybe for the party Sat.

I have been soo tied up and worn down helping my mother prepare for her meeting with her atty re her divorce settlement conference coming up with my father(ick) next week. She's been having such a hard time, and I've run to her side several days since the New Year. Today we finished up a property summary & proposed settlement for her to take to her atty on Friday. I have also gritted my teeth, locked my jaw while working on this stuff, as I grow weary and things take longer I just lock my jaw and plow through. My jaw is what has me up now at 5am. Waiting for meds to kick in.

The time before the holidays went really well, the holidays went really well, and since then I'm sooooooo beat all the time. I guess I was motivated by making G's 1st Christmas special and Mom's too without jerk(dad). Now I have to run out while G's in school tomorrow and get him a card and order the cake.

And I haven't looked at bills yet this month and I lost the repair estimate on the truck for the 12/17 accident.....

I'm so scattered. Some fibrofog each day I can deal with, but losing the estimate and now G's bday being here and me being unprepared........I just don't feel myself. Tonight at about 9pm I started feeling a tightening sensation crawling up my arms to my shoulders and chest and felt the beginnings of a panic attack. I don't know why...I wasn't panicked...but I almost lost it.

Nope haven't scheduled the counselor in since the new year and probably should. I hope it's stress over Mom's challenges and not the beginning of unexcusable flares of symptoms, which sometimes pop up.

Well, I should try to get some rest, my jaw's relaxed a bit.

Harried, but here,
Hugs and blessings, Judy

Posted by at 3:52 AM | Comments (3)

January 11, 2005

Wow, how time flies.....Enjoyed the holidays!

Hello friends,

I have trouble believing it's 2005 and I haven't posted since 12/22.

Our family Christmas was good, especially with my father (soon to be divorced from Mom) absent. He always found a way to disrupt any family celebration around holidays or birthdays, even his. Well this year we didn't have to keep our guard up and it was great!

My new son, Garrett 18, was overwhelmed with the love and generousity of Frank's family and my family. Christmas eve with Frank's family: homemade Italian (sicilian) sauce, meatballs, ziti!! Yumm! The the little ones (4 nephews...2 5yrs and 2 10s) take a walk and Santa comes and the fun of watching the kids open their stuff is such fun. Then we grownups get around to exchanging small gifts to each other and all to Frank's Mom too. A wonderful time. After that we come home and open our gifts to each other, again Garrett is overwhelmed, yet I keep a secret gift in his stocking to be opened last at my Mom's Xmas morn. (I was overwhelmed too, my Frank gave me a gold bracelet with little diamonds on the links, very delicate, and a pinky ring to match with 2 links and diamonds.....caught me by surprise!) Then Xmas am we go to my mom's for Brunch (OMG it is soooo good), then we open stuff from Mom, my sis, and my Jen and vice versa. My aunt in Little Rock even sent Garrett gifts! He was blown away.... then when he got to the end of his stocking, it was my cue to tell him, 'Oh here, this got in my stocking by mistake', and gave him a ringside seat ticket to go to a WWE (wrestling) match that came to town 12/28....He was speechless!

It wasn't even the gifts that made me happy for Garrett this first Xmas with us. It was the love and acceptance and inclusion of him by all our family. I was so happy about how things went..............

Then he called his mom in WA state and she really didn't have anything to say to him and it hurt him and I could string her up if she were here. She is so unfit, it's not funny! It took us an hour to get at the cause of his distress, and when he did he sobbed in my arms. Yes I'm getting him into my counselor asap. He's been adjusting well, yet he still has such big issues that we sometimes forget in the day to day grind.

My Frank and Garrett both had colds over the holidays, in addition to whiplash from the car accident. I think everyone is 'healthy' now. Except for me having some post holiday blues. I took down the indoor Xmas decorations this weekend and boxed them away til next year. The regular decor seems barren compared to the fullness of holiday trimmings. But I'm still burning my candles and enjoy the return to 'normal'. The guys took down the outside stuff Sunday too. So glad Garrett could help Frank because I was sooooo tired from what I did. In fact I again forgot my previous post to 'space and pace' and overdid and was in bed all day Monday.

Anyway, that's the scoop and we're getting on with our lives. The horror of the Tsunami victims weighs heavily on our hearts and reminds us of what a precious gift faith, life & family are.

Wishing you and yours a happy new year.....Hugs, judy

Posted by at 3:38 AM | Comments (2)