The one where I update via lists, you try to figure out how I didn't drink myself to death but then say Awwwww at the happy ending

Five years ago today, I moved with The Boy and The Girl to another state to be with Thing. My Thing took us out to dinner last night to celebrate and commented how it doesn’t feel like it's been that long and I agree. So we took a few moments to look back and realized how far we’ve come. After our whirlwind romantic meeting and beginning, we went through a ‘rough patch’. At least that’s what we called it at the time. Looking back on it, we had an 18 month spell that was so stressful (some good, some bad) that, honestly, it’s a wonder that we all came out of it alive let alone to be has happy and at peace as we are today.

Some things I blogged about at the time and others occurred after I ended my blog. But, looking back, in an 18 month time period:

1. I found out I had skin cancer
2. I quit smoking
3. I moved with my kids to another state
4. I bought my first house
5. I found out my skin cancer was back
6. The Boy graduated from high school
7. The Girl had surgery
8. I got married
9. The Boy went through his own ‘rough patch’ and got his ass kicked out of the house.
10. I got laid off from the job I had for more than a decade.
11. The Boy, forgetting that he was no longer a minor, did something incredibly stupid, spent the night in jail and got charged as an adult.
12. Someone stole and used my credit card number.

To make things more interesting, those last three things happened all on the same day.

'Rough patch' my ass....

We, basically, have made over ourselves and our lives since then.  It was a slow process but entirely worth the wait and the work.  I may get into details in the future but suffice it to say, today:

1. My last 3 check-ups have been cancer free
2. I have celebrated the 5-year anniversary of not smoking
3. I've gone through 3 home remodeling projects plus another $5k or so in the yard and I absolutely love my house
4. I'm still married and still think my husband is the sexiest man alive
5. The Boy shares a house nearby with a room-mate, has a fulltime job and will graduate this time next year with a culinary degree
6. The Girl is still a gorgeous blonde and came home with straight A's last period.  She's discovered a talent for playing music and currently plays violin, recorder, guitar and piano.  She's trying to talk me into buying her a flute for Christmas.  She heads to Middle School in the Fall, which I can't think about without hyperventilating.
7. I started my own business which, while having a very slow start, has grown quite nicely over the last 3 years and is now self-supporting.  I've also been teaching the last couple semesters at the local community college, which I like WAY more than I thought I would.

I heard someone discuss a while back about making choices between what we want now versus what we want most.  If you ponder that for a while you realize:

1. that seems really simple
2. we can incorporate that in pretty much every single decision we make
3. that is really fucking hard to do

And you'd be right. What I want now is to drink a bottle of wine, have a cigarette and throw things at my neighbors.  What I want most is to be healthy and not be as big a jerk as my neighbors.  What I want now is to take the day off and enjoy the nice weather.  What I want most is to have a successful business and get paid so I'll sit here and do the invoicing instead.

After I'm done fucking around on my blog, that is. 
I said it was a slow process, didn't I?

Beginnings and endings

Three and a half years after The Paperweight walked out on me, a 14 year old and a 3 year old....
Three and a half years after I started this blog....
The Thing and I got married.
And yes, it was perfect.

So, and you have probably seen this coming, I've decided to end this blog.
While I still, on numerous occasions, want to stab The Paperweight (and many others) in the head with a fork, the original reasons for this blog's existence no longer remain. I'm sure at some point, since I still have an attitude and a big mouth, I will want to blog again. But it won't be here. And I have no idea when.
And this is under the assumption that I can think of a cool blog name again.

Until then, enjoy your life.
I know I will mine.

MIA for just a little bit longer

Be patient. Good things come to those who wait.

Like my wedding to The Thing.

July 18, 2009 10:30am

Wish us luck. :)

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it turned into a butterfly

Things are starting to get better.

The Girl's surgery went well and without complications. Her follow up appointment is tomorrow and we are hopeful.

I'm getting married in less than a month.

My company had a change of heart and reduced my salary reduction from 20% to 12% - a much more bearable amount to live with. Or without, as the case may be.

I'm getting married in less than a month.

Girlfriend has pulled through her ordeal as well (the one she never blogged about but at least she's blogging again so yea!) and now that it seems to be over I can admit that 1) I was really really fucking scared and 2) I'm a little disappointed her boobs didn't get any bigger.

I'm getting married in less than a month.

I couldn't have said it better myself

When it was done and you went to sleep, I lay awake and listened to the clock on your nightstand and the wind outside and understood that I was really home, that in bed with you was home, and something that had been getting close in the dark was suddenly gone. It could not stay. It had been banished. It knew how to come back, I was sure of that, but it could not stay, and I could really go to sleep. My heart cracked with gratitude. I think it was the first gratitude I've ever really known. I lay there beside you and the tears rolled down the sides of my face and onto the pillow. I loved you then and I love you now and I have loved you every second in between. I don't care if you understand me. Understanding is vastly overrated, but nobody ever gets enough safety. I've never forgotten how safe I felt with that thing gone out of the darkness.

-Lisey's Story, by Stephen King

June is almost as bad as April except no one's died but it's only the 9th so we'll wait and see

To follow up;

The Paperweight was green with envy. However, this has only served to make him even more of an utter ass than he is normally. And we thought it wasn't possible...

But The Boy did graduate from high school Hallelujah! and Amen!
And he had this thing scheduled for this week that would take care of what he was going to do with the rest of his life. However, that too was shot to hell when I spent Saturday night with him in the Emergency Room (in MD, which, as we all know, doesn't take our PA health insurance) and he was diagnosed with a separated shoulder.

The Girl (and while I appreciate all of the advice, if we're to the point that we're being referred to specialists, we are obviously way beyond bubble baths and wiping procedures) has been diagnosed with Vesicoureteral Reflux and is scheduled for surgery and next week.
And on top of that (as if surgery wasn't enough), while I actually went through the process of finding the only in-network urologist in this fucking state to make my crappy ass health insurance happy, I still received a call yesterday stating that the said crappy ass health insurance has deemed it unnecessary and has denied authorization (ie. they won't pay for it).
So if you haven't clicked on the link above, do so now and read all about the permanent kidney damage. And remember that sonogram she had to have? It's already showing that her left kidney has been affected. I wonder what it would take for them to decide it is necessary?
We've decided not to wait and let her right kidney go while we find out and instead I forked over the $600 advance to the doctor. Hospital bill to follow.

Oh, yes, which brings us to my income. While I did survive (so far) and was not one of the 10 people let go by my company recently, I did get, for my decade of self sacrifice and hard work, a 20% pay cut.
No, there is no decimal between those two numbers. I actually said 20%.

I've also been dealing/avoiding an issue with Girlfriend which is not my story to tell, so I won't.
But it's bothering me.
Because I love her.

And I think I caught the damn Swine-Bird-Mad Cow-H1N1 fucking flu at the fucking ER because I woke up Sunday morning with 3 golfballs worth of shit in my throat, ears, and sinuses and it hasn't gone away. Every inch of my body has hurt since then, I've gone threw 2 bags of cough drops, 2 boxes of tissues, Advil by the handful and I have a boo-boo nose.
But do you know what the worst fucking part of it is?
I had tickets to the Nine Inch Nails concert tonight that I've been waiting for forever and I couldn't go because I'm running a fever and will passout shortly after posting this. Seriously, Thing even has The Girl sleeping over at the neighbors because I'm in no condition to do anything.
Except taking large quantities of cold medicine and think about licking Trent Reznor's biceps.....mmmmm......

Beer IQ

Let's see if Bob can get a perfect score on this...