They say 40 is the new 30.....

and if that's the case, I'm quickly approaching my 29th birthday. I know, it's really my 39th, but hey - worth a try!

Right now I'm not having any issues with turning 39 this year. That may change though as time goes on and this time next year I may be singing a different tune. When I was in my teens and 20's I always thought that 40 was so old. Like it was two steps away from senior citizen discount age. Yet here I am, 369 days away from being 40, and I don't feel old at all.

I've been living this life for 14, 238 days and think I've got at least another 15,000 in me - God willing - and plan to live every one of them the best I can. Not just for me, but for my family and friends.

In these 14, 238 days I've accomplished a lot, missed out on a lot, been too scared to do a lot, lost a lot of people, made a lot of new friends and wished I'd done a lot of things different.

But, when it all comes down to it I can't think of one thing I would change if I had the chance. Believe me, I've thought long and hard on this one over the years. And although I wish I could change the circumstances of a few situations (how and why I've lost those I love - to cancer, suicide, horrible car accidents) I've been made stronger because of them. I've been made to realize that these things do happen to me, my family, my friends, and that I don't live in a bubble where bad things only happen to other people.

You know, it's a hell of a ride but.....It's My Life......Like it or not

Another year almost at it's end. As usual, it's been up and down but for the most part a good year. I can't think of anyone that died - which I think is a good thing - except it's bad if someone did and I can't remember it, so that has potential to start an upward swing. Although, my husband's grandmother, who is 93, just told our 10 year old when she was there to visit at Christmas time that she wants to die. And my grandmother, who is 82, had a small stroke a few months back and is now paranoid about doing anything for fear it may happen again. So, here's to hoping 2011 is funeral free but I have a feeling we'll have at least one.

I am SOOOOOOOO glad the holidays are over. It seems that every year I dread it more and more. Not the actual holiday, but all the crap that goes on before hand. All the shopping and running around and crabby crazy people. And this year I determined that, more then ever, my daughter is spoiled rotten! She got nearly everything on her list between her birthday (she's 10 now!!!) on the 20th and Christmas. But, that's all a part of her being an only child.

I'm heading into my 3rd year on the job and at times it seems as if I've always been here. I still miss being closer to home at times but I know that I can't do what I'm doing in the town where I live, that option just isn't there anymore. And, I'm less than 25 miles away from home so it isn't too bad as far as the amount of time I spend in the car each morning and night. Realistically, it's 25 minutes, and that goes pretty fast. Especially since we're not in a highly populated area. I mean, this isn't downtown Chicago traffic I have to deal with, even on the busiest traffic days. I do have to admit that the amount of road construction on the stretch of interstate I travel has made me a little postal at times though.

Personally, life is going pretty well. My family has mellowed out for the most part (there are still a couple of total bitches that think they need to stick their noses where they don't belong) and we're co-existing pretty well. We don't have the big family gatherings we used to have and I don't have as much contact with some of my cousins but the ones I want to keep in constant contact with I do. And that's what matters.

My parents just headed back to Arizona yesterday after being here for the holidays. I told Dad to take as much snow with him as he wanted but by the looks of things he didn't want any. It is supposed to be warmer today, in the high 30's or low 40's, and things are melting away a little. But we're still a long way from spring - and I hate that. Hopefully the airfare will stay reasonable and me and the Peanut will make our February trip to AZ this year. So far it's looking promising, I just need to clear the dates with work.

Well, I've managed to stay sane (or at least it appears that way) for yet another year. Let's see what 2011 brings.

Just me again...stopping in to bring things up to date.

So, it seems the winter weather has finally decided to stay out of Illinois - which is nice since it's April. It's been typical Illinois though since the first of the month; Hot and humid in the 80's to chance of snow and highs in the 30's - all in the course of one week! Isn't that fun!?! Makes for a very grumbling me, I know that for sure. This is the time of the year when my not so seasonal seasonal allergies kick into full gear.

I'm still pretty bummed out that my daughter and I didn't get to make what is supposed to be our annual trip to visit the 'rents in Arizona. The airfare was just insanely high and I couldn't validate spending $500-$600 for the two of us to get away for less than a week. Granted, we wouldn't have to rent a car or pay for a hotel so the other expenses would have been minimal, that's still a lot of moolah for a short trip. Last year our round trip tickets were just over $200. Yeah, hard to swallow $500-$600 after that.

The family drama seems to have died down, which is a little comical to me after everything we've all been through. I think that after Aunt Jill died and Uncle Dave started his "new" life some eyes were opened and things finally seen from a different perspective. She died the end of November and by mid-December he was hand in hand with his new lady friend making up for the last four years of his life that he'd lost (his words). What a dick. Karma can sure be a bitch and I'm hoping in his case she's a bitch with a vengence. Terrible to say, I know, but after she suffered for so long dying a slow and painful death and having to deal with his bullshit on a daily basis I hope he goes the same way.

My little girl is almost done with the third grade. It doesn't seem possible. It sure is nice having a 9 year old who is (mostly) self sufficient though. She's starting to get more and more sassy with me, and we have our days believe me, but at the end of the day she still calls me Mommy, still gives me a kiss every morning in the drop off line at school, and still walks up and gives me random hugs just because she loves me. I can't imagine what I ever did before her, and it's the most wonderful feeling in the world!

Hi!! Remember me?

My oh my it's been a long time since I put up a post. So long, in fact, that I had to go through all the steps to figure out how to get back in to this thing because I had forgotten my username and password!

So, what's new with me? Quite a lot and not so much.

The drama in my family continues and I had thought that when the time came, meaning when my Aunt with cancer that stirred all this crap up finally lost her fight with cancer, it would all fall to the wayside. Yeah, that didn't work. She passed away on Friday, November 27, 2009. She was 55 years old. She had a hell of a run with it and it was good for a long time but the last couple of months she had been in and out of the hospital on a regular basis and was moved to hospice about a month ago. It's kind of bitter sweet. I mean, I feel good about her being at peace and finally done with the pain but at the same time I wasn't really as prepared for it as I thought I was. I think most of that is because I had to hold myself together for the sake of my daughter. She knew Aunt Jill was sick but I hadn't told her exactly how sick she had been recently. If there's anything I've learned in this journey of motherhood with her it's that the less information she knows leading in to something the better off we all are. I mean, I could have told her I was just waiting for "the call" but all that would have done is make her a blubbering mess. We got our crying out and were able to move forward. This one I can explain. She had pancreatic cancer.

Work is chugging right along. It's the holiday season which means this is the time a lot of people decide they can't stand to be with their spouse anymore and want a divorce yesterday. It's a pretty crappy way to have to go through the holidays, especially if there are kids involved, but it's job security for me folks. Sorry.

Things on the home front have been more or less status qua. We've had our ups and downs but we're still plugging along. We celebrated our 11th anniversary in September by doing nothing. He thought we had agreed not to buy anything for each other so I got a card, the exact same card I got for him as a matter of fact. Apparently I missed that conversation that we had just like so many others that we've supposedly had in the past. Don't know, I guess my crystal ball is on the fritz.

The weather here in Illinois is starting to feel like winter. Which I hate. And I'm having a real hard time getting into the Christmas spirit. I've only bought 2 gifts and have absolutely no motivation to do anything more. I suppose it would help if I had lists to go off of and didn't have to be the one to do all the picking and buying for the family. But, there again I screwed myself and can't complain, even though I still do. It pisses me off when my husband and his brother get credit for the gifts for their parents when it's me doing all the dirty work. They typically don't even know what they've bought until it's unwrapped. At least my mother-in-law knows how it happens that she always gets what she wants but hasn't asked for.

That's about it for now. Gotta get back to the grind!

Life isn't always better on the beach

I'm sure you've heard the commercial for South Beach Diet....Life's better on The Beach...I'm here to tell you, sometimes life sucks on "The Beach".

My husband and I did South Beach last year and we each lost a great deal of weight. I got under 130 and he was in the 180's. You know, you get to the size you want to be, you start picking up the same bad habits you had that made you decide to do this in the first place....so, you guessed it, we're back on.

I started last Monday and I have to tell you. I think it's much harder this time around than it was before. Each night before I go to bed I'm starving. That can't be helping. I have lost about 6 pounds but my will power is beginning to get weaker and weaker. I feel like I'm about ready to turn into an egg, or lettuce, since that seems to be all I've eaten for the past 7 days. OK, so I exaggerate, but not much.

I think it's harder because I don't go home for lunch, can't go home for lunch. I work 25 miles away from home so I have to pack a lunch at 7:30 in the morning. You know, it's really hard to decide what to eat for lunch when I can't even decide what I'm going to eat for breakfast. And THAT choice is a no-brainer Egg Beaters or real eggs. Oh, I have a selection of cheeses to add too, really difficult. For lunch I've been getting a salad from Subway with no dressing - hey, that's really tasty! Seriously, I'm at the point where I don't care if I eat lettuce ever again.

But, the weight is coming off. And, regardless of how difficult it is, I'm going to finish out my 2 weeks. I've already come this far, I can't quit now.

5k

Well, I survived my first 5k on Saturday.

The weather was rotten (raining with 100% humidity and about 75 degrees), I hadn't eaten anything since lunch time Friday and I was recovering from a killer migraine.

But, hey! Guess what?!? I got 3rd place in my age bracket! Yeah for me!

I finished in 32 minutes and 45 seconds, which to me totally rocks for 3.2 miles, especially given the conditions, and I'm still walking and talking.

The down side is that one particular person I was aiming to beat instead beat me. I had him until mid way in when I had a dizzy spell and walked for a couple minutes to get my breath back. When I started back up again I quickly passed him again but then the hill before the finish line got me and I had to walk again.

I picked it back in again when the ground evened out but by then I had nothing left for a kick at the end. In the end, he beat me by about 30 seconds. He was no more than 10 feet in front of me and I couldn't do it. That hurts. What hurts more is that he's 66 years old and so remarkably out of shape. But, he's in a running club so he knew more how to pace himself early on so he had some juice left at the end. I gave it my all the whole time.

But, all in all, I'm happy with it. Now I know what I need to work on for next year!

Time flies

Again, I've tried to catch up on recent events by posting but somehow life gets in the way. So, I'm going to try to get up to date in one fell swoop.

FAN OF THE GAME, NOT OF THE TEAM
Last weekend we made a whirlwind trip to St. Louis and caught a Cardinals game. We're Cubs fans, so I didn't really care who won....as long as it wasn't the Cardinals. So, how do die hard Cubs fans end up at Busch Stadium watching a Cardinals game when they aren't playing the Cubs? Elementary my dear, we were at a surprise 40th birthday party. One of the couples of our normal "group" relocated to the St. Louis area about a year ago when he took a new job. They're both originally from the South, he's from Missoura (yes, he pronounces it Missoura and proclaims it to be the "correct" way) and she's from Arkansas. So, since May she'd been planning this surprise party for him and there were 3 couples from home that made the trip for the surprise. She rented a skybox - SWEET - so when the game went into a rain delay for about an hour at the top of the 8th we could have cared less. The bad part was that the beer got shut off already. The good part is that the beer got shut off already - I'd have been a bigger mess than I was to begin with. I ended up with a terrible stomach ache and called my evening short at 11pm while all the others continued on into the wee hours of the morning. And I didn't even drink any booze from mid-way through the game on. It was strange, and took a couple days to get myself back to feeling 100%.

ATTACK OF THE SUPERBUG
Last Monday I got a phone call at work from my mom who indicated that my sister was going into surgery, asking if I could pick my niece up from school at 3pm and keep her for awhile so my sister could recover and get some strength back. So, I took off at 2pm and still ended up having to wait in the traffic line for pick-ups at the school. I never picked my daughter up from school so I haven't experienced that huckle f#ck of a deal. I finally got into the parking lot and parked so I could walk over to get her from her teacher. When I walked up my daughters 1st grade teacher looked at me in a panic and said "You're in the wrong place!!!" I told her I was there for my niece and we found her and away we went. Ends up my sister has MRSA, the icky bad staph infection that basically eats your skin off. She had a pimple like bump on the back of her leg that got infected and they ended up having to remove approximately 8 inches of gunk from her leg. And the wound is nasty nasty nasty. My mom borrowed my digital camera so she could take a picture for me to email to my sister-in-law who is a nurse in charge of wound care at a nearby huge hospital. Against my better judgment, I looked at the pictures. Lets just say that I won't be feeling the need to eat hamburger at any point in the near future. Its gross, it's 4 1/2 inches across and at least 4 inches deep and it's in a V pattern. Oh yeah, it's an open wound because that's how it has to heal, from the bottom of the V up and when it gets close to healing all the way then she'll get stitches to close it up. Ugh, nasty.

SCHOOL DAYS
School started up on the 22nd so we're into the start of the second "full" week. So far so good. My daughter has 2 teachers since one of them is retiring at the end of the calendar year. They worked it out this way so that when they return from Christmas Break they aren't starting with a new teacher, they'll already have had her for half days the first half of the year. I can't believe the things they learn in 2nd grade now...cursive, multiplication. I wonder if they make Cliffs Notes for parents of grade schoolers on what they're teaching now so we don't look like fools. I seriously think kids are much smarter much earlier than when I was in school.

END OF SUMMER
This past weekend we had so much going on that yesterday was just a nothing day. I only left the house twice and spent the rest of it laying in the recliner watching TV. I was nice but at the same time it ended up being the longest day of my life since we had nothing going on. Labor Day has always been the mark of the end of summer here in Illinois. I'm NOT looking forward to the cold weather that's around the bend. I hate it. One of these days I'll move to someplace where it's 80 degrees year round. One of these days.......