Time to Tuck Tail and Go Home

Well since our renters have left us in such a bind, we've been looking for ways to make things work out. We don't want to go into foreclosure on that house. The way I see it, we borrowed that money so we are obligated to pay it back. That and I really don't want to add to the already rocky real estate problem. So while the house is on the market, I will move back to Arizona and live with Tim's parents. Fun times. At least we'll be able to continue making the mortgage payment while the house is on the market. Maybe even get some money back into our savings and pay off some debt. There really isn't much debt, but those damn renters we had in the house left it in such a mess that we spent what little savings we had and racked a credit card back up.

So the plan now is... at the end of May, I'm going to pack up my children and go back to AZ. Since Tim is deploying anyway, he will just go straight from AZ to DE and stay in the house while we're waiting for it to sell.

I have mixed feeling about the whole thing. I know my in-laws, specifically my mother-in-law, will drive me batty. But I'm thrilled that my kids are going to be able to spend time with Nana before she leaves us. She's at an age now, where human bodies just give out with no notice. We love her and want to make the most of the time we have left. I'm also really excited to be near my Dad again. Being so far away from him has been hell for me. We've always been very close and I can't wait to be able to see him on a regular basis again. I miss him so much.

So we've started making plans. Today we are going to check out some storage units. The majority of our belongings will stay here in GA until we get orders again. Then the movers can just go pick it all up from storage. We just need to find a place that they can get a semi into. Tim's 67 Chevy will also go into storage. Hopefully we can keep everything at one place, but who knows how that will pan out. Tim is taking my old truck and his motorcycle with him. I'll keep the Burb. See? Plans are forming as I blog about forming plans.

I'm only taking what I will absolutely need to subsist in AZ. It's proving to be really difficult to sort through my belongings and decide what I don't need. I love my things. Tim and I have worked so hard for what we have and it just sucks that I can't take it all with me now. So basically I'm only going to be able to take enough things to furnish 2 rooms for me and the kids and my kitchen stuff. I can't live without my stand mixer.

We've already worked out an agreement with my inlaws. They really are wonderful people at heart. Just different than what I am and I expect that may cause an argument here and there. Anyway, I'll pay them a small rent and take over payment of some utilities. One big condition I had for living with them is I want to do the cooking and grocery shopping. Neither of them had a problem with that. I'm a damn good cook if I do say so myself! Last condition I had... I have to get cable internet as soon as I get there. It's crack. I can't live without it. I'm not sure what they have now, but I do remember it being slower than molasses on a cold winter day. I can't deal with that. I like my crack/cable. I like instant gratification.

Now that it's a reality, it's so bittersweet. We will be closer to family that I really am going to need to get me through the 6 months Tim will be gone. But I love Georgia. I'm going to miss it. The people are so damn friendly here. And of course I will miss Dena. She has proved to be a very good friend, and people like her are so hard to come by. To use her own words, she's good people. I'm very sad to be leaving her and am going to miss her horribly. But Arizona does have phenomenal Mexican food and that does make up the difference a little.

I'm still torn though. We wanted to stay here. To retire here. And to finally settle down here. In Georgia. Where even the worst of days in winter isn't much below 40. Ahhhh I'll miss that. In Arizona, we'll be far enough up the mountain to experience winter. Almost full force. It does get cold there, and the wind coming off the mountains can be brutal.

Long story short, I've still got a lot of mixed emotions about the whole thing.

Smoosh & Sniff, Diagnoses, Day Spa & Shattered Pieces

It has been the craziest few days. By crazy I mean I'd pay someone to do this all for me. That kind of crazy. It rained for almost 4 days straight. That means, the little critters that belong outside we're looking for somewhere dry to hide out, and my house is all of a sudden the safe haven for a bazillion little tiny ants. ANTS! Creepy crawly things. Nasty critters. Yuck.

So we figured the best way to get rid of these ants is to figure out what they are first, and go from there. It turns out there is a very odd way to identify these little bastards. Smoosh em and sniff em. I am not kidding. There is such a thing as an Odorous House Ant. So anyway, you smoosh the ant and sniff it. If it smells like coconut, it's an odorous house ant. Picture me and Tim, smooshing these ants and then smelling them. They smell like coconut. So at this point we really have 2 options. We can either bait the little fawkers and hope they take the poisons back to wherever their home station is, or we can start smooshing em up, get the house smelling nice and coconutty, then start drinking umbrella drinks.

Then I got a new diagnosis. Not only do I have FMS, but I also have RLS. My legs can be fine all. day. long. But as soon as I lay down to go to sleep, they hurt. They feel like little bugs are crawling on them. (Yes, I know this could be happening with my little coconut ant infestation.) They feel like they have run a marathon, with that achy, jumpy feeling. It SUCKS! So I get a new medication for that. The bad news is it makes me high. The good news is, I'm very happy when I'm high.

Changing topics, try to keep up. I've been telling Tim for the past couple months I need a break. I need a break from kids, from housework, from responsibility. The big problem was, I didn't know what to do with myself. It's been so long since I had purely 'me' time, that I didn't know what to do, where to go, who to talk to. Nothing. I was drawing a complete blank. All I could say, was that I needed to get away. Just for a few hours.

So Tim, being the resourceful and incredibly sweet (loving, thoughtful, creative) man that he is, booked me a 3 hour appointment at a day spa. 3 WHOLE HOURS. 3 hours where it really was all about me. No kids. No cell phone. No responsibility. Nothing for 3 whole hours! It was absolutely amazing. He promises me that I get a trip to the day spa when he gets home from any trip that we net family sep pay on. Major bonus for me.

So I got there and they had me change into a robe. Let me just hang out and relax for a few minutes. The lights were very low everywhere in the place and the music was something so subtle that most of the time I was hardly aware it was there. Purely awesome. Anyway, I got this mud rubdown that felt incredible. Followed by a very long massage. The masseuse was familiar with FMS, so she recommended something between deep tissue and Swedish. All I know was it felt incredible. I can't even begin to explain the state of relaxation and total unawareness I was in. I was able to forget every single problem I had for a few hours and it was absolutely phenomenal.

We went to dinner at Chow Baby for the second time in 2 days. Because it really is that awesome.

We got home, Tim was taking his Statistics midterm and I was feeling up for some new bodily mutilation. So I send a text to my girl Dena to ask her where a good place to get inked or pierced is. She calls me back from the hospital. She fell and broke both her ankles. Her right ankle was a clean break and they may not even have to cast it. Her left ankle is in really bad shape though. 3 bones are completely shattered. As I type this, she should be in surgery to get things put back together with plates, pins and screws. It figures, the one time I ever shut my cell off (for the day spa) all hell broke loose. She tried to call but only got voicemail. She did find another neighbor to watch her kids and dogs though.

So I went over to the house to ask the boys what they wanted to do. They both wanted come to my house, so I loaded up kids, the kennel and one dog. The other dog refused to come inside and we couldn't catch her, so she stayed outside at Dena's all night. One on of the boys was finally able to catch her this morning, so now I have 2 extra boys and 2 extra dogs. Talk about a crazy, full house.

On a side note, Tim bought a trailer yesterday for his motorcycle. Then today he found the exact same trailer somewhere else for almost $200 less. So he's on the phone now to see if he can either return it or if they will price match it. Fun times.

It's been a long and crazy couple days. I'm having a hard time being patient waiting to hear from Dena. We all (her boys and I) just need to know she's okay. That she's going to be okay. She has to be okay. She's all those boys have. Their closest family is their dad in NC. Grandma is undergoing chemo in NY, and their uncle is with Grandma. So D has to be okay.

Youthful Delusions

It's funny. Or pathetic. Depending on how you choose to look at it. When I was about C's age, I had big dreams. Huge dreams. The world was going to be my proverbial oyster... even if the thought of oysters just gives me the heebie jeebies. Yuck.

Anyway, I was going to be one of those beautiful supermodels. Barbizon (I think) was going to make me famous. I would be tall, graceful, and dropdead gorgeous. Heh. I was going to drive a slut red Lamborghini Diablo. Or maybe a Ferrarri. Although the Ferrarri didn't have near the appeal as that Lamborghini. Holy hell I thought that was the most exotic car EVER! And I was going to own it. I was going to drive that thing like it was nobody's business. And I was going to have a blonde, bronzed body surfer boy look-a-like boy toy to keep me company. I had no idea why I wanted the hot man at the time, but I just knew I needed an 'accessory'. That's basically how I thought of it/him. A gorgeous accessory that I could trade in on the next hotter model if I saw fit.

The reality was, I was this geeky, Orphan Annie-esque kid. I had red hair that my mother insisted on cutting in a bob and then perming herself. Even at that age I knew I looked like a friggin idiot. Me with my curly bob haircut and my sisters 1970's castoff courdouroys. I was awkward (just the word awkward is awkward), gangly, homely, and everything I didn't want to be.

Over the years, I morphed into a larger (although still not Barbizon tall), more grown up Orphan Annie. Hair is still red but there really is a God because my mother has not touched it in 15ish years. Still awkward, and anything but graceful. But somewhere along the way, I grew into 'me'. My skin fits better now and I've learned to be comfortable in it. I can marvel at how a real, grownup me still manages to trip over her own feet, run into things, and be just an overall klutz. Grace eluded me. Grace took a look and decided I would take entirely too much effort and you just can't make a 'me' graceful. Or elegant. Or blonde for that matter.

I can't nail down the date and time that it happened, but somewhere along the way I just accepted me. And realized I'm not so bad afterall. I drive a Chevy instead of a Lamborghini. My boytoy is a husband and more Italian romeo than blonde surfer boy. And I'm a far cry from supermodel what with my tendency to tattoo and pierce random bits of skin. And it's ok. Well, mostly. I still want that Lamborghini Diablo. Holy hell that car is sexy. Rawr. Heh.

Back to Normal

Well as normal as things can be around here. Tim is finally home. He was gone for 31 days this last time. Just up north, still in country, so safe.

When we still lived up north and he was flying regular missions, I never actually depended on a time that he would be home. I lived by, "I'll believe he's home when I can see the whites of his eyes." So many times I got my hopes up that he would be home at a certain hour, only to be disappointed when it came and went with no sign of him. It was never his fault, but rather the fault of an often tempermental airplane, that sometimes just didn't cooperate. The thing would leak and groan and just be a overall POS. There were many times when I would be sitting at home thinking it was about time that he came home, and then he called to tell me he was still in Spain... or Germany... or, well other places. So basically he'd be sitting on an airplane for hours on end, just waiting to see if it could be 'fixed' in time to take off. Then when he found out they couldn't fly it, it was usually close to the time I was expecting him. So after the first couple missions, I figured out that Tim just ain't gonna be home until I see the whites of his eyes.

Now, he hasn't flow like that in almost a year. But I still have that 'whites of the eyes' mentality. Even if he is flying on a commercial airline, it's hard for me to believe he's going to be home at a predetermined hour and be excited about it. It's just not 'normal' for us.

When Tim is away, I'm forced to be it all. I have to take care of things on my own. He can't just drop everything at the drop of a hat and rush home to save me. I've had to learn to adapt to this lifestyle and I 'get it' now. Pipes burst, trees fall, kids get hurt... shit happens. On a fairly regular basis.

When he's home, we make the most of it. When he's gone, we miss him like crazy, but life does go on. C still has to go to school. I still have to go to the store, make dinner, bathe kids, etc. Life still goes on when he's not home. We can't just stop everything and wait. Hell, if we did we'd wait forever.

What matters now is he's home for awhile. At least a couple weeks. It's not long enough, but we will make do. I'll take what I can get. We will have our 'normal' with him home. When he goes, we'll have our 'normal' without him. It won't last forever. It can't last forever. Some day, he'll walk in that door, and he'll be home to stay. Some day, I won't have to let go, so that he can go do what he does elsewhere. Some day, he'll only leave for the day and then be back home again. I miss him. I miss the little things like being able to sit down to dinner next to him. Just having him here. Just knowing he's going to walk in the door at the end of the day. It's crazy how much those little things mean, and how much I took them for granted. Until I realized those were the things I loved. Those were the things that meant the most. I need for him to walk through the door each night and sit down to dinner with us. I need for him to be there at night, just so I can reach out and touch him. And I need him to give me that kiss goodbye each morning, the one where I'm not even hardly awake, but I'm aware that he has taken the time to kiss me. To tell me he loves me. To tell me goodbye, but only to come home that night to kiss me. To tell me he loves me. And to tell me hi.

It's the little things I miss the most when he's gone. I continue to exist when he's not here, but a huge part of my very being is missing. He leaves this huge gap in my life that nothing can quite bridge. It's lonely without him. A kind of lonely that the best of friends can distract me from, but can never quite fill. The days are a little longer, a little more solemn and serious. The nights stretch on forever. We count down the days until he's home. We exist, just in a different way.

Cue the Violins

So now that my blog has been broken in, good and proper, I figure it's time for that requisite post about me.

I started this for a few reasons. I like to write, but for some reason my hands are failing me and typing has gotten easier than 'writing' in a traditional sense. I need somewhere to talk about this whole FMS thing, because quite honestly I think my family and friends (this is your cue to stop reading if you don't want to hear it) are probably sick to death of hearing about it.

So here goes. Last warning. Turn back now if you don't want to hear another word about Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS).

I was just diagnosed with this in January, but my rheumatologist thinks I've probably had it to some degree my entire life. Being diagnosed means that I finally have some relief in knowing it really isn't all in my head and there are options to treat it. Being diagnosed with this means there is no cure, no understanding, and some of it really is all in my head.

You can google it for all the information you never wanted to know about it. But from a real human's standpoint, this just sucks. I wake up every single morning not knowing what exactly is going to hurt, yet knowing something is going to hurt. I don't know whether my stomach is going to be cooperative that day, or if it's going to make me believe dying on the can really can happen. I don't know if I'm going to be mentally 'there' that day, or if I'm going to forget that I sat down to blog by the time I sat down to blog. I don't know if the anxiety is going to make an appearance or not. And by make an appearance I mean grab ahold of my train of thought and run away, make my heart beat so fast it feels like it's going to leave my body, and make me have hot flashes that leave me soaked and freezing. I don't know if I'm going to be in good spirits, or crying over the oddly pretty colored pills I have to take each day. (Seriously. There is a purple one, some pink ones, and some white ones. They color coordinate with the weekly dark green one.)

The worst part of it all is... I don't know if I'm going to have the energy to cope with it each day. It is mentally and physically draining. Not to mention emotionally. I'm on my personal roller coaster and I am ready to get the eff off of it already. I really was hoping I had something fixable. I was prepared for surgery, PT, injections, you name it. I was ready for it. I wasn't ready when my rheum doc said, "This is not going to kill you, but it is probably going to cripple you."

So lets recap. Hello, I'm me. I 29 years old and I have FMS. There is a great 'Letter to Normals' that describes this better than I could have ever hoped to.

Two Parallels That Never Intersect

This has been on my mind a lot lately. Am I a good mother. People constantly tell me I am a good mother but if you ask me... I guess my answer would be "To which kid?"

This whole parenting gig is a lot easier with J and I. They are easy. They are my textbook children. They develop and learn things in the order the book says they should. Often, if I have a question about them, I can ask another mom to get the perfect answer. J & I are easy kids. It's easy to be their mom and I usually know the answers and know how to 'do it'.

C is another story. A lot of times I don't feel like I've been a good mom to him. I don't feel like I really even know him. He has never been a textbook kid. I've never been able to turn to books or other moms regarding him. I love him to pieces. It isn't a question of whether I love him or not. It's a question of how do I be a 'good' mom for him? With C I'm constantly second-guessing my decisions and methods. It's frustrating.

Like we are traveling on paths perfectly parallel to each other. We're always there, side by side, as we go through our day to day lives. But our paths never really come together. He's always so close that I think maybe I can finally reach him, but he's just always a hair away. There is always that little something that makes him harder to reach.

Which means I spend a lot of time wondering if C knows how much he means to me. I tell him all the time, but he doesn't hear me. Almost like we are speaking different languages and while he hears the words, he doesn't understand or feel them. So C is always right there... right next to me. It always seems like, soon, I'll be able to reach out and then I'll connect with him. But 'soon' never gets here. Tomorrow he'll be just as close... but just as far away.

It's Not All Bad... All The Time

In light of some things that have happened recently, I keep having to remind myself that it's not all bad, all the time. Even though the last few weeks I would rather just stick my head in the sand and pretend the rest of the world just doesn't exist. I have to keep reminding myself that there are some good things in life. Sometimes I have to look awfully hard to find them, but they are there. And sometimes I have to brush the dust off of them and polish them up a bit... but they are there.

My husband is always here. Even when sometimes I don't want him to be... he's here. He has made it perfectly clear that no matter how psychotic I can be, he's sticking around. He tolerates my heated rants, even though I think he's laughing on the inside. And even though I rarely admit it, I do need him on some emotional level that I'm still not entirely familiar with.

My kids are always here. Even when, like at the moment, they are picking on each other, fighting, screaming, and making me wish I was a drinking girl... my kids are here. They are, despite the occasional rottenness, my children. They each have their undeniable charms. It never fails to amaze me, how when I'm really down in the dumps and ready to just throw in the towel, these little humans can make it all go away. They wrap their little arms around my neck and give me snotty, slobbery kisses that just prove that it's not all bad all the time.

At the end of today, after we have decided to sell our house, after we've agonized over which path to take... we'll still have our family. It takes incredible amounts of patience and 'humble' to admit that it's all we really need. As long as I still have my incredibly geeky husband and my 3 weird little kids... it will be okay. I can live without all the extra fluff and the house in a state I never want to go back to. That stuff really doesn't hold much value in the areas that matter.

I've got my husband. I've got my kids. So how can it be all bad... all the time. I promise to return my pessimistic, snarky self tomorrow. But today I'm having one of those weird, sentimental (almost optimistic) moods. Heh. Don't get your hopes up, it WILL NOT last. Seriously, if I keep this up I'm going to have to add some violin background music. Blah.

Happy Birthday Me

So it's almost over. I spend the whole year denying this ever happens. If anyone asks me about it, I'm denying it all. I did no such thing. I had no such thing. Today didn't happen. It was just another day.

When I was growing up, birthdays just really weren't important. They were to me. I wanted it to be an important thing. "Look I've made it in this crazy household for another year!! We should really celebrate because I survived for a whole 'nother long year." Or something like that. Dad tried so I give him credit. But I always got the idea that it was just a pain in my mother's arse. The fact that I dared to have a birthday once a year seemed to either piss her off, or she just didn't care. She was notorious for getting mad over something stupid and cancelling holidays, birthdays, refusing to go to weddings/recitals/school programs. So it stands to reason at some point a kid would give up hope. That finally happened (yes I was slow) the year of my 15th birthday. Somehow Mom managed to drag herself out of the office long enough to go to dinner for my birthday. I remember asking if I could go to the mall with my friend for a couple hours. She said no, I was grounded. After dinner she took my friend home first, then dropped me off at home, and then she went back to the office. My Dad was a cop and he got stuck working on some case or another. I understood why he wasn't there and I accepted that because I knew he would have rather been with me. Dinner with my Mom was a waste of time for all involved though. I knew she would rather have been at work. She knew that she should at least make an effort to look like she cared enough to celebrate her youngest daughter turning one year older.

Five days after my 15th birthday, I was in my 6th period English class. I got a call from the front office that my Mom was waiting outside for me. I walked out and the first thing I noticed was that Mom was sitting in the passenger seat of her car and Linda (one of the employees') was driving. I got in the car and Mom was crying. Crying to hard to even tell me what she was crying about. Linda told me my Grandma had died that morning. March 16, 1995. That was the one year that my Grandma did not call me or send me a card for my birthday.

On February 20 of that following year... a very good friend of mine called me. It was his 21st birthday. We talked for a few minutes and I told him Happy Birthday. He said he loved me and hung up. I found out the next morning that he shortly after we got off the phone, he walked out in his front yard and killed himself with his father's shotgun. He had called at least 2 other people that I know of to tell them that he loved them. But what he didn't tell any of us, was that he was hurting. He had the strength to reach out to let us know he loved us... but he couldn't tell us he was tired.

So sometime between March 11, 1995 and March 11, 1996, I quit having birthdays. I quit bothering. I quit telling people. I quit celebrating. My Dad and my husband always remember. They always try to make it a good day for me. But I always remember a long string of just purely rotten birthdays.

The Aftermath

I knew it could be bad. But I still wasn't prepared for what Tim had to tell me as he walked through what was once OUR home.


The leak in the bathroom that ruined some of the flooring. I can handle the issues with the tub surround because... well we have always had issues with that. But what's with the missing shower head?


The babies room... rewind about 3 1/2 years or so. When we knew we were expecting J, Tim busted his butt to make the perfect baby room for our son. He took out a wall to an adjoining storage room (for lack of better words) to make the room bigger. He had to raise the floor some really weird amount of inches to make it level. He mudded and sanded for days. He painted. We ordered brand new carpet. It was the first room in the house to get nice, new flooring. Once we decided on a theme, he stenciled little bumble bees around J's room. Just here and there. There is a long narrow window in the room which we were afraid J might fall out of when he got mobile, so Tim built a little picket fence around it. It was a sweet, comfortable room.


Today... there is a tear in the carpet. An animal has peed and poo'd all over the room. It stinks. It's ugly. From babies room to pig sty.


The rest of the house pretty much as we expected for having had renters, with the exception of a nearly 12" tear in the master bedroom carpet. A few stains here and there, a little grime, a few smudges on the walls. Acceptable things. The back yard is full of holes... except for the one place you'd expect a hole in the ground, the pond. It's covered in rocks. There are tire tracks in the lawn. Oh and who can forget the floater in the toilet. Seriously? Who DOES that?

So that's it. I think. I don't know. I imagine we'll find more as Tim gets into cleaning and repairing. It's heartbreaking. We spent the first part of our marriage in that house. It was a home full of memories, and now, well now, it's a beat down rental house. It's not our home anymore. We couldn't go back there, for several reasons. Just knowing what these people did...

Who Does This?!?

It's heartbreaking. To see that something you have worked so hard on, broke your back over, cried over, and reluctantly trusted to someone else just callously throw it away. When they abuse it, beat it up, and tear it apart... well it hurts.

My house. The house where Tim and I spent the first 4 years of our life together. We had some nasty fights there. We cried together there. We built our family in that house. We slaved over it. Painting, refinishing, laying down new floors. We took this ugly little house and turned it into a beautiful home.

In February 2008, we made the decision together that he would volunteer for orders. We knew that time there was limited. So we decided the best thing for us, as a family, was to volunteer to go somewhere we wanted to be rather than take the chance that we could get orders later to somewhere we didn't want to be. Sunny versus a snowbank... or something. In March he got his orders, and by June we had moved south.

We tried to sell it. I could whine about how the economy screwed us, but the economy is screwing everyone in some form or another. No sense in preaching to the choir. Ultimately, we rented it out. I rented it out. It was slim pickens. So I picked the ones that I thought were going to work out best. Ones that I thought would appreciate the house and take care of it. Maybe even polish it up a little bit more.

Fast forward to this weekend. No rent. No phone call. I had been trying to call them and we hadn't heard anything. Since Tim was in town, he decided to drive by. Lo and behold there's a damn U-haul truck in the driveway. So they left. Not such a big deal.

Leaving I can deal with... what came after, I can't.

So Here I Am

So here I am. I've been talking about doing this for months... make that years. I need a place to put my words. I've got all these things/thoughts just flying around in my head and since I can't get them out through my mouth, I thought maybe... just maybe I could put them all down in cyberspace. Where they are safer from prying eyes than if I would put them, say, under my mattress.

Last night I was thinking... how do I do it? How am I juggling being all the things I'm supposed to be. I have 3 awesome kids, one with a learning disability. I have this sweet, loving man... who in a moment of lust/blindness married me on the fourth date. I have friends (granted most of them live in my computer) who I can bear my soul to. And I have... well I guess I'll call it my 'religion'. So how do I manage them all? I don't! At least not all well, all at the same time.

My husband. As I write/type this, he is flying on a 'big aeroplane' as he would say. It's what he does. It's what he loves. I always joke, that if that plane were a woman he would definately leave me for her. He loves his plane, with all her oddities and tempermental problems. He loves her... I mean it. He would be devestated without that plane. He knows it in and out. It's because he is so good at his job that I get to do what I do best. Sit on my rear and do a whole lot of nothing. Or at least it seems like that at the end of the day.

My kids. Three of them. C just turned 9 and it seems like almost every day is a battle. Somewhere along the way he has discovered he is his own person and that mom doesn't rule the universe. Things were so much easier when he thought that I really did hang the moon. When he still thought the sun rose and set because I told it to. Okay well not quite but you get the jist. He's growing up. Turning into this little person that I sometimes don't recognize for all his 'grownupness'. He has his battles (read ADHD), but he has stuck his chin out and met it head on.

J is going to be 3 this month. He is totally different from C. He wants to learn everything he can and conquer every mountain, just as long as I'm there next to him. He is fearless of most things, but not quite ready to let go of my pantleg. We had our first playgroup today, but that is for another time. Another post. J is the lovebug. He is the one who wants to be held, hugged, cuddled, and just 'be' with me. ME!

I is the little lady in the house. She has everyone wrapped around her little drama-queen finger. She's 18 months now and she already has the world at her fingertips. At least she thinks so and none of us are brave enough to tell her otherwise. She thinks she can do anything and usually she does just that. No way my girl is going to let her brothers get the best of her. But at the end of the day, she's looking out the window for daddy. At the end of the day, it's daddy that she wants. At least I got my mama's boys.

So that's my family. There is the reason my sun rises and sets each day. They are my everything. I'm going to stop there before things get really corny.

I'm... well I'm me. I don't make too many apologies about it either. I'm painfully shy in person, but outrageously outspoken once I know you, or if I'm hiding behind my computer. I promise not to be too snarky, sarcastic, or opinionated... at first anyway. I promise not to make too many smart ass comments... in the beginning. More about me later.