One Foot on a Banana Peel

That’s what I keep telling myself after my unscheduled hiatus.  In March I downloaded a new anti-virus program.  Since then my internet connection has disappeared 4 times.  The three previous times using the restore system feature solved the problem.  Not this time.

After much swearing, gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair and threats to blowup the computer and possibly Bill Gates, too, I did find that my internet connection was firewalled.  Grrrrr.  This was after the third restoration when I had to reinstall the virus program and intentionally didn’t install the firewall because I suspected it was the problem.  Since I didn’t install that one, apparently Microsoft decided to pick up the slack and turned its firewall back on.  I clicked on the nice buttons to make exceptions to the firewall for my internet connection.  Nothing.  Still no internet.  More poking around found a repair button.  I clicked on that.  Nothing.  Days passed and last night in desperation I went over all the wires and plugs one more time.  Nothing was loose or disconnected.  Still no internet.  I gave up and went to bed.

This morning as I was walking past the computer I happened to look at the little black box for the DSL.  The little green indicator light for the internet was no longer flashing.  It was shining steady.  Could it be?  I turned on the computer and waited impatiently for everything to load then signed into the internet…….and held my breath.  Glory be to whatever saint watches out for us stupid people on the internet because my connection is back.  I don’t know why.  I don’t really care why.  It just better last.  A week without internet was like…….well……it just sucked, okay?

It’s Friday, I haven’t gotten caught up with everyone yet, and I’m feeling lazy so I borrowed this meme from Maria.

1) You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?
Pick a child molester.  Any child molester.

2) You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Which one will it be?
My first thought was Weird Al Yankovick, but then I think I’d rather do away with all the rappers who spew hate and violence.

3) Who would you really just like to punch in the face?
I honestly can’t think of anyone I’m that angry with at the moment.  That’s a good thing, right?

4) What is your favorite cheese?
Swiss.  My kids tell me it smells like feet, but I love it anyway.

5) You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient is at your immediate disposal. What kind will you make?
Whole wheat, mesquite smoked turkey, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo.

6) You, Elvis, and Princess Diana are in a dog sled, fleeing across the Siberian wasteland with wolves in hot pursuit. The wolves are catching up fast. Who would you throw out to gain speed and why?

Are we talking about old, fat Elvis or young Elvis?  Cause the man was pretty hot when he was young.  I’d really hate to turn that into dog chow.  However, if it’s old, bloated, drug-addicted Elvis…….he’d definitely slow the wolves down more than Princess Diana.  I also imagine the conversation would be a lot more interesting with Diana.

7) You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice. We are talking no strings attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity?

George Clooney and the new James Bond, Daniel Craig were topping the list until I remembered that Toby Keith was in a movie this year.  Woot!

8) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music celebrity of your choice. Who do you pick?
Again, that would be Toby Keith.   

9) Now that you’ve slept with two different people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a one hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk. Holy Shit. How are you gonna spend it?
Well, first off…..I only slept with one person, twice, but yeah, that would be an excellent day.  Now I’ve got an unexpected $100???  Shoes, baby!  Hot little kick butt heels to commorate my sexy, sexy day.

10) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
The Caribbean.  Don’t know or care which island….just somewhere warm and sandy with a whole lot of umbrella drinks handy.

11) Upon arrival to the aforementioned location, you get off the plane and discover another one hundred dollar bill. Now that you are in a new location, what are you gonna do?
I believe I already mentioned umbrella drinks.

12) Your dream date. Who, where, and why?
Duh!  Toby Keith doing something relaxed and casual because I like country boys.

13) An angel appears out of heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. It is?

Captain Morgan’s Parrot Bay.

14) Okay, girls and gay guys stand over here, guys and lesbians, over there. Girls and gay guys first: You’re in bed with Marilyn, Monroe, Doris Day, and Salma Hayek. Who’s gonna be the lucky girl? And similarily, guys and lesbians: You’re in bed with Cary Grant, Paul Newman, and Johnny Depp. Who’s gonna be the lucky guy? Give your reasons.
Can I be a lesbian so I can pick Cary Grant or Johnny Depp?  No?  Well, then I guess Doris Day.  I confess to liking all her movies and she got to work with that hunky (yes, I know he was gay) Rock Hudson.

15) Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time traveling/phone booth. you can go anytime in the PAST. What time are you traveling to and what are you going to do when you get there?
I’d go back to the late 1960s or early 1970s to my Nana’s house.  I’d just be a kid again and let her love me.  I was always the happiest there.

16) You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule that you put into place?
Bow to your queen!  Uh, seriously…..love one another.

17) You have been given the opportunity to create the half hour TV show of your dreams. What is it called and what is it’s premise?
It’s called Homemaking For The Domestically Challenged and it’s for women who don’t have one speck of Martha Stewart in their veins.

18) What is your favorite curse word?
Poop on a stick!  I got it from my son.  I have no idea where he got it.

19) You have a choice of two doors. One of which you MUST go through. The first leads to a roomful of spiders, the second to a roomful of clowns. Which is it to be?
Clowns.  I’m not really afraid of spiders (except those nasty brown recluse ones) but a whole room full of them might be just a bit icky.

20) Your house is on fire. You have just enough time to run in there and grab one inanimate object. So what’s the item?
My husband.  No, no…..I’M KIDDING!  Not about saving him, just about him being inanimate, though when he’s tired….  Okay, okay, I’d grab the photo albums.

21) One night, you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by mummies. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?
Wonder where Brendan Fraser is when you need him.

22) You have George W.Bush and Osama bin Laden locked in a small room together. It’s airtight, so both are gonna suffocate anyway, but what amusing weapon do you give them?
A box of gumbands.

23) The angel of death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the angel of death is pretty cool and in a good mood and it offers you a half hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. What are you going to do in that half hour?
Tell my family I love them and soak up as much of them as I can.

24) Truthfully, what underwear are you currently wearing?
Purple boy shorts that give me a terrible wedgie.  I hate them but they were the last pair.  The rest are currently in the washer.

25)You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice. What is it going to be?
I can eat anything I want and stay healthy and never ever gain an ounce.

26) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time span can only be a half hour, though. What half hour of your past would you like to experience again?
When my dad and I made peace just before he died.

27) Moses trips on his robe and drops the stone tablets. Commandment 11 is broken off. He leaves it there as his back is killing him. What does it say?
Don’t sweat the small stuff.  Life’s too short.

28) You can erase any horrible experience of your past. What will it be?
Hands down…..when Tim had an affair.

29) Rufus reappears with the time machine and a custard pie. Who’s gonna get it?,
My daughter.  I owe her.

30) You get kicked out of the country for being a time traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super powers. But, you can move to anywhere else in the world. What country are you going to live in now?
Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Australia.  One of those.

31) What part of your body would you change and why?
The whole thing because I got fat, that’s why.

32) You have been eternally banned from every single bar in the world except for ONE. Which one is it going to be?
I kind of liked Maria’s answer….Gilley’s the bar from Urban Cowboy.  That place looked like a ton of fun.  I think I’d like to try out Toby Keith’s ‘I Love This Bar & Grill’ too.

33) What’s the last thing you ate?
A pepperoni roll.

34) Suddenly you have gained the power to float. Who are you going to show this to first?
My daughter cause she’d think it was totally cool.

35) The constant absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radio-active vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the power to resurrect the dead celebrity of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?
Princess Diana.  She did a lot of good in the world and maybe folks would leave her alone the second time around.  Plus it would be nice if she could see her boys.

36) The celestial gates of Beyond have opened. Much to your surprise, Death appears. As it turns out, once again, Death is actually a pretty cool entity and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family member/person of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?
Oh man….I loved my Nana so she’d naturally be my first choice, but then, she did know my kids.  My Pappy died before they were born and my son is named after him.  It’d be nice if he could meet the kids.

37) What’s your theme song?
Redneck Woman by Gretchen Wilson

38) When did you last have sex?
About 30 questions ago.  Don’t you remember?

39) Buffy, Willow, or Xander?
I really can’t say because I don’t know who Willow and Xander are.

40) Who’s up next?
Anybody that wants to be.

The other night there was a big gathering on the campus of the small private college in my town.  In light of this week’s events, I bet you’re thinking it was a candlelight vigil for the victims at Virginia Tech or a discussion about campus security.  You’d be wrong.  What brought hundreds of students out was a debate on whether or not it’s an honor to have their scheduled commencement speaker.

So, who’s the speaker that can stir up so much dissention?  How about none other than President George W. Bush?  We’re a small town and it’s a small college, but we do get a lot of attention from the big whigs in D.C.  That being said, some strings were pulled and favors called in and ta-da!  W is on the way.

The main (and actually only) problem seems to be that a lot of the students disagree with George’s politics (this area is typically a democratic stronghold).  They can’t see how it’s right to have the man speak when they don’t like his politics.  This attitude leaves me speechless. 

I was brought up by a man whose thinking was apparently archaic judging by the lack of like-minded folks I run into.  He taught me to show respect.  To my elders.  To my leaders.  To my teachers.  To my neighbors.  To the woman handing out towels for tips in the restroom.  To myself.  I didn’t have to agree with these people or even like them, but I did have to show them respect and courtesy.  There are ways to disagree and accomplish things that are not disrespectful.

When did giving respect go out of fashion?  People still crave it.  Turn on any talk show or listen to a rapper and you’ll hear the reasoning behind the violence as being "they disrespected me."  I have to ask, why don’t you start by respecting yourself?  Stop acting like a gangster who dropped out of school in the third grade and make your momma proud.  Ladies….put some clothes on.  A little mystery is a good thing.  If you present yourself as a ‘ho, the guys are going to treat you like one.

Getting back to the political thing.  I can’t understand how these kids would not be honored to have the President of the United States speak at their commencement.  Whether you like his politics or not he is the leader of this country and therefore for much of the free world.  How many chances will you have in your lifetime to hear a man this powerful speak?  Agree or disagree with him, it will still be interesting.  How could you not want to hear what a man like him has to say?

A few years back, George stopped here on the campaign trail.  My mom’s husband had tickets to hear him speak and he wanted to take my kids.  It meant that they would have to miss a day of school.  I gave my permission.  I felt it was worth it for them to have the chance to see the political machine in action and to meet the President.  I saw it as a great learning experience.  My kids got nothing but grief from their teachers and the administration.  Not for missing a day of school, but for missing to see Bush.  Had they been going to hear John Kerry it would have been fine.  I lost a lot of respect for several teachers over it.  But you would never know it by my demeanor toward them.

It’s just my little, meaningless opinion, but I think we could do with a lot more respect.  If everyone started showing everyone else respect the world would be a much better place.

The voters finally listened and sent him, of the nightmare mohawk, packing.

It’s about time.

I always do, but there are just some times you have to tell everyone, ya know?  Some times she can exasperate me….just stomp all over my last nerve, if you know what I mean.  She can be, and often is, the stereotypical self-absorbed teenage girl worried about nothing more than how good she looks in order to better attract hot guys.

But then there are times like now.  She has been sitting here glued to the television all evening watching everything she can find about the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech.  It’s at times like these that a very humbling compassion appears in her.  She tries so hard to understand not only what the survivors feel or the relatives and friends of the victims, but also what drove the shooter to do what he did.  When she saw his picture, her first words were said in a soft, sad voice, "He looks like someone that people would pick on."  My baby hurts even for him.

She has always been this way.  Even as a toddler, she would be the one to "nurse" me when I was sick.  You know how it is, we take care of everyone, but when we get sick everyone disappears.  Not Meg.  At 2 and 3 she would do what she could and bring me tissues, sit and stroke my head or pat my arm.  When my mother-in-law died Meg, who was just 6, spent the service dispensing tissues to her aunts and cousins and after she walked by the casket for the last time she turned without prompting and gave her grandfather a hug.

It’s the times like that when my heart swells with love and pride.  I know then that we’ll live through these rocky teenage years and that she will be a lovely young woman.

Mothers’ Day??  At the rate things are going that’s what we’re going to end up with.  It is freakin’ snowing out there!  Spring is officially here, Easter is past, the cherry blossoms in D.C. have already been and gone.  Why the heck is it snowing?  I read somewhere over the weekend that if this weather keeps up we are looking at the coldest April 113 years.

People at work are taking it as a sign that global warming is all a load of crap.  I’m not so sure.  Megan did a science project a few years back on the subject and what we learned in the researching was that in a temperate climate (most of the U.S.) global warming would mean bigger swings in the temerateness.  Meaning the winters would be colder, the summers hotter, the rains heavier, the winds gustier, the storms more severe.  As near as I can tell, that’s exactly what’s been going on the last couple of years.  Of course, now they’re saying a lot of this is from increased solar activity so who knows?

I gave Megan the new A.D.D. prescription over the weekend.  It’s a long acting, time-released version of Adderall.  Last night she asked me if I thought it was working.  I said that I did, that she seemed on a more even keel emotionally without seeming drugged.  She said she liked it, too.  Holy smokes!  She’s never said that about any of the drugs we’ve tried before.  I hope it turns out to be a keeper.  We haven’t had much luck.

Last night Megan and I left the house a little before 7:00 to pick up a few things at Wally World and grab some Chinese take-out.  We got back just a little after 8:00 and as we were turning into the drive I looked over at the shrubs sitting atop our front retaining wall and about gave myself whiplash with the double-take I did.  There, lying in the mulch under the shrubs was a yellow lab or golden retriever mix.  As soon as we stepped out of the car several neighbors wandered over to ask about it.  I had no answers.  I’d never seen it before.  It was just lying there looking at me with the most pathetic expression.

I’m a dog-lover and I really am good with animals, so I eased my way over to it keeping low and talking softly to it the whole time.  I couldn’t see any obvious injuries, but it never offered to move and was shaking quite violently.

Speculation was rampant among the gathered crowd.  Hit by a car!  Ate some of that tainted dog food!  Poisoned!  Etc.  I didn’t know, but I kept edging closer and finally was able to reach out and touch it.  It seemed to welcome the touch and allowed me to keep stroking its head and feel enough to find a chain collar and license.  I checked with all the neighbors I knew who had similar dogs.  It wasn’t theirs.  So, my next step was calling all the shelters, the state police and a couple of animal control officers as well as two vets.  No one answered the phone except for the police, who "don’t do dogs" and gave me another number to try.  The vets don’t make night or weekend emergency calls.  The shelters were closed.

Meanwhile, the neighbors were calling everyone they could think of with the same lack of success and some of the ladies were getting pretty worked up.  My phone was ringing off the hook.  I’d put some blankets on the dog because it was getting colder, but I was afraid to try moving it and Tim didn’t want me to bring it in the house anyway. 

I was beside myself worrying about this poor dog and kept going out to sit with it, stroking its head and talking to it.  At some point I took a couple of dog treats and offered them.  They were gobbled up quickly, so I went in and got some food.  That also disappeared in seconds, so I produced another bowl of food that didn’t last long either.  Next thing I knew the dog was up and moving around.  Within minutes it was running all over the yard, but still sticking to me.  I guess we were buds.  The ladies across the street suggested that maybe it was in diabetic shock and the food helped. 

To make a long story a little shorter, those ladies decided to take the dog home with them for the night and this morning they took it for a walk and by some miracle ran into someone else out for a walk who said he’d seen a sign for a lost dog in the next neighborhood over.  They rushed over to check and sure enough it was the dog.  She’d only been missing since about the time Megan and I left to go to the store.  So, my bud is back with her family (five kids!) tonight.

I didn’t blow away in the wind, though I did come close yesterday on my way to work.  A sudden and very strong gust took my car off the road.  If you know anything about Pennsylvania highways you’ll understand how lucky I was to be on a stretch of good road with wide berms.  I was able to get back on the road with no problems.  Aside from the wind, we’ve run the weather gamut in the last two days.  Sunny and warm yesterday morning, rain and hail yesterday afternoon, and snow today.  Phooey on this!

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Megan brought her report card home yesterday.  Sigh.  It is not good.  It is not even close to good.  It is, in fact, her worst report card ever.  She had two F’s and two Incompletes.  I think it is safe to say that she has failed algebra and English for the year no matter what she does in the last nine weeks.  Those incompletes probably mean she will have to take those classes over, too.  God….how do you fail gym?  All you have to do is show up, dress and make a show of participating to pass.  It would be so easy to just lay all this on the A.D.D. doorstep, but there’s more to it than that.  The girl is, I’m sorry to say, plain old lazy.  She doesn’t want to make any effort at anything.  If it isn’t fun and/or easy, she’s not interested.

Well, let’s just say the proverbial poop hit the fan and the fallout is going to take a while to clean up.  Her Royal Highness is now totally and thoroughly grounded on school nights, I disconnected the cable from her television, she absolutely, positively has to show me her agenda daily with all assignments written down and then show me the completed work.  None of this I did it at school stuff.  She still has to bring it home and show me.  If she doesn’t, then she loses a day on the weekend.  And if it comes down to it, I will arrange for my mom to pick her up from school every single day so that if she doesn’t have her books, Mom can send her right back in to get them.  And the final thing?  If her grades don’t improve significantly in the last nine weeks, we will sign her up for one of those study places (Sylvan Learning Center) and she will go to tutoring through the summer.  I don’t care if the school sends her to summer school, she will still go there.  And lastly, if the school decided to hold her back a year we’ve informed her we will let them because it is no one’s fault but her own that she is in this situation.  She is the one who has continuously chosen to not do her work.  Oh, I almost forgot.  A call to the pediatrician resulted in a new prescription for a higher dosage of Adderall and also we’re going to try the time release version.  To say that Meg is not a happy camper is putting it mildly, but Momma and Daddy aren’t too happy either.

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Is there something going on with Pepe le Pew lately?  If you don’t remember he is Warner Bros’. amorous skunk character who always fell for the lovely lady kitty who somehow managed to get a stripe painted down her back.  I’m asking because lately I’ve noticed I get at least 10 hits a day from searches for him.  I used a picture of him once back in the fall when the dogs got sprayed by a skunk.  Is it an anniversary of some kind?

Aside from the Pepe le Pew thing, most people end up here through normal searches, but a few stand out from the crowd.  To all the people who were searching for info about the choking game, I hope what I wrote helped you out or that the links pointed you in the right direction.  To the person looking for directions to make their own paper bag luminaries….how disappointed you must be.  There’s not a thing crafty about this site.  And for all of you who ended up here due to searches for "beach babes," "naked teen females," or the "jerry springer boob video" (uh, wouldn’t that be all of his videos?)…..you bunch of pervs!  Isn’t there something better you could be doing with your time?

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Have a great weekend!

Batten down the hatches! Trim the main sail! Thar’ she blows!

Aside from feeling a bit pirate-y this evening, I’m trying to make a point.  IT’S FRIGGIN’ WINDY HERE, PEOPLE!  We live in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains and something about the topography seems to guarantee an abundance of wind.  In other words, it’s nearly always breezy here.  But there are days like today (quite a few actually) when the wind sounds like a speeding freight train streaking endlessly past the house, around the house, over the house and behind the house.  Anything in it’s path weighing slightly less than a pregnant hippopotamus is relocated a minimum of three yards away…..if it’s ever seen again at all.  40 to 50 mph winds are nothing.  It’s just a little breezy.  Talk to me when the gusts approach 100 mph.  We’ve had a couple of storms like that.  I admit, those were scary.  Anything that causes the walls in your house to move is scary.

Other than the wind, it’s been a quiet day.  I went to work, but didn’t do much otherwise.  I’m feeling better from the cold I had over the weekend, but I can’t shake the cough.  Megan stayed home.  I found her on the couch when I got home from the morning run.  She said she was sick to her stomach.  I don’t know.  We’re having a lot of problems with her and school.  Academically, that is.  Socially, she’s doing better than fine.  I have to get a prescription filled so she can try yet another new A.D.D. drug.  Maybe this one will help.

If you don’t hear anything from me in the next few days, I’m……..

Family.  Is there anything that dredges up more emotions?  Thoughts of family can bring feelings of love, joy, comfort, safety, security, but also, anger, hurt, insecurity, anxiety, and even hate.  Our families are where we came from.  They helped to make us who we are.  Sometimes we’re okay with that.  Sometimes not.

I’ve been thinking alot about family (my family in particular) the last few days.  Holidays will do that to me (plus I just finished reading a book whose central character was part of a huge, loud, loving Italian family).  The thinking has made me feel kind of sad and…..poor.

My memories of growing up are wonderful.  On my mother’s side of the family I was the only grandchild and I grew up secure in my place in the family.  From an adult perspective I can admit that I was spoiled, especially by my grandmother, Nana.  Everyone should have a Nana in their lives.  No one has ever loved me as totally or as unconditionally as that woman did.  She always had time for me.  She would play make-believe, eat endless picnic lunches, build dams and catch crayfish, skip stones, let me raise chickens in her yard, take endless walks through the swamp and woods surrounding her home teaching me about nature, hug me when I hurt (and even when I didn’t), encourage me in everything I did, talk to me about the important things, show me how to just sit and enjoy, and correct me when I needed it.

My mom only had two sisters and they didn’t have any children, though between them they’ve had five husbands (so maybe it’s a good thing they didn’t have kids).  My aunts are only 14 years older than me.  When I was little they were still kids and had plenty of time to play with me.  We were close.  I was close to three of the five husbands.  Family get-togethers were so much fun with all of us joking and playing games. 

My dad’s family was smaller yet.  His father had passed on before he married my mom.  Grandma was from the old school.  Rather stern, strict and old fashioned.  She took care of me from time to time, but I don’t remember being close to her.  Maybe because I wasn’t my dad’s biological child?  She had a stroke when I was 10, that took away her speech and movement on her right side.  She lived in a nursing home for the next 11 years.  Dad was 16 years older than my mom.  His sister, my Aunt Peg, was three years older than he was.  She had two sons.  The oldest is only a couple of years younger than my mom and the younger is 8 years older than me.  Still, I felt like I belonged to a very special bunch of people, because there were tons of second and third cousins around.

Tim comes from a large Catholic family.  He is the middle kid of seven.  There are a lot of issues there, but when I met him the family was close and a force to be reconded with.  His sisters were my best friends.  His mother was like a mother to me.  In fact, I had the close emotional relationship with her that I’ve never had with my own mother.  We were always doing something with someone in the family…..if the whole family wasn’t getting together.

It was great growing up (and even getting married) and knowing I was a part of something bigger than myself.  Of being able to say, "I’m Al and Mary’s granddaughter" or "I’m Jack’s daughter" or "Yes, (pick any of my sisters-in-law) is my husband’s sister" and people knew what that meant and knew a lot about me without anything else being said.

It was great having all those built-in relationships.  The people to do things with.  People who knew where you were coming from.  People you might bicker with, but you knew they’d be there if and when you needed them.  Same as you’d be there for them.

Then things changed.  My mom’s dad died and my aunts and their husbands bickered over the inheritance.  Both got divorced shortly thereafter.  Both got remarried in short order.  The inheritance issue came up again and pitted us and my parents against one of my aunts.  My aunt has moved passed it and gets along with my mom, but she and her husband (who is now deceased) decided they hated us and blamed us for them not getting their way even though Tim and I let my mom and dad make all the decisions concerning the sale of my grandfather’s property to them.  It’s been over 20 years, the husband has passed on and she has moved to the other side of the country but she can still barely be civil to us.  My other aunt simply moved away and I rarely see her.

When my dad died it took a lot of the wind out of the sails of his family.  My cousins, who already lived out of the area, came home less and less.  I see them only once or twice a year now.  When my aunt passes away I don’t expect I will ever see them again.

Tim has always been the "black sheep" of his family, but they always treated him well and included him, if not in the same way and to the same degree they did the rest of them.  I think that is why when he and one of his sisters had a falling out (more like WWIII) he took it so hard and became very bitter.  We were estranged from the family for three years.  Now, we speak again and do some things with them, but even after the death of both of his parents (which helped to repair relationships as much as they are) there is still distance.  It will never be the same.

I guess I’m just rambling around here, but maybe it’s because I’m older and wiser or just older, but I find myself missing what our families used to be.  I wish it was still there and I feel like I’ve failed my kids, because they only had a precious few years of that with Tim’s family when they were small.  Megan missed out on my family completely.  They don’t remember the good times and they aren’t especially interested now.  Family doesn’t mean to them what it meant to me.  I feel like they’ve really missed out on something important.  It’s hard not to be sad…and angry, but at whom, I’m not sure. 

So, are we the only ones in this boat?  Do all the rest of you enjoy big, loving families?  Or has it gotten harder and harder as the years go by and circumstances and distance pull you apart?  Are families as "got-your-back" as they used to be or is there more of an every-man-for-himself mentality?

Hey!  I’m still here.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to be or not.  I wasn’t able to log onto the internet for a few days (or do anything that required an internet tie in).  Somehow or another my server got wiped out.  I had no idea how to fix it, but my computer minded son showed me how to restore the system to an earlier date.  Whew!  Big glitches scare the poo out of me so I’m glad this one turned out to be easy to fix.

Not much has been going on.  Our weather went from sunny and 70 on Tuesday to snowy and 30 today.  Blech!  Who wanted winter back?  Trying to find a bright spot in it, one guy at work advises getting the onion sets ready to plant.  He says this is the onion snow.

Ashlei’s family (and therefore Matt) moved last weekend in order to get Ashlei’s little sister into a better school district.  Matt says the place is nice with lots of trees.  As soon as it warms up again he wants to have us down for a cookout to meet Ashlei’s family.  That would be nice.  I’m the only one who hasn’t met any of them.  Maybe I’ll have more peace with everything once I actually meet the people Matt’s chosen to live with.

Today was the last day of school for Megan and I.  We don’t go back until Tuesday (actually I have to drive a 15 minute run Monday morning but that’s it).  We were supposed to have had Tuesday off, but are making up a snow day instead.  I don’t have much to do for Easter.  We are going to Tim’s sister’s place, which isn’t what we’d normally do, but it will be a chance for Ashlei to meet some of that side of the family.  My mom and John are going, too.  They aren’t happy about it, but it’s the only way to see Matt since he can only be with us for part of the day.

Well, I am off to bed.  I feel like I am getting a cold.  It might be allergies.  Or not.  At any rate, I’m tired and achy.  Goodnight.