Stress Has Been Ruling My Life

I have declared this a stress free weekend.

Stress has been ruling my life for almost a year.  

I have been losing sleep, eating way too much junk, and I spend way too much time being angry.

To make this weekend stress free I have decided that I am not answering emails, answering phone calls from certain people, and I am going to go to a couple of special events that will make me happy.  

I am hoping it will make me have a better week next week and start me back on the right path.

"Daring Cheryl"

I have been trying to pick a theme for my 51st year.  

My 50th year was the "year of me." It was a good year.  I enjoyed doing things for myself. 

As April approached this year I gave it a great deal of thought but was still struggling with something that just "felt right," when I read "Daring Chloe" by Laura Jensen Walker.

I have always had a lot of "fears," so I have decided to tackle some of them this year. 

Some of my fears are just silly, others I just have never tried, and some I just did not want to do alone. Here is the list I have to date, and I will be adding to it as the year goes on.

1. Drive to DFW Airport.  Yes, I knew I could drive to the airport, but the signs always freak me out.  I cannot read fast enough to find where I need to go while driving.  Recently my BFF needed a ride home from the airport and I just could not do it.  I started sweating and feeling sick to my stomach, etc.  I finally had to call Loni and ask her to do it. I decided that was just silly. 
   
   I am proud to say I have already completed this "DARE."  Loni guided me the other night and I drove to the airport and picked up Stan.  It was a great help that he came in on a Sunday night.  Loni was the perfect guide, talking me through the airport and explaining how it was laid out etc.  I think I could do it by myself now if I had to in a crunch.  I know I would still do better if someone went with me and helped with the signs if it was during a busy part of the day.
   
2. Change a tire.
   
3. Drive to Fort Worth Zoo.
   
4. Ride Dart train to Downtown Dallas.
   
5. Try new food at regular restaurants. 

There will be more things added as I think of things I want to DARE myself to do, but this is enough to get started.  

My friends have all agreed to support me as I DARE myself.  I think it will be a good year.

A Friendship Lost

It's amazing when 2 strangers become best friends; but it's sad when 2 best friends become strangers .From James Reed Crawford's Facebook page.

This has happened to me recently.

At first I cried. Then I went into depression, followed by doubting everything about me. Anger hit, and overwhelming sadness along with a great deal of confusion.

It was hard to explain to my boys.

It was terrifying when I was in the hospital and they asked if I had a Medical Power of Attorney and who had the power and I lied. I now have to work on having all my legal papers changed.

Now I just am. It took a long time for me to become me, and that is who I am. Given a choice I would rather be happy with myself instead of spending my life trying to be what others want me to be.

Still Celebrating

I have been celebrating my birthday so much since the beginning of April there has not been time to blog.

For those of you that are counting, I am now 51, and so far it has been good.

I found out my heart is like that of a 20 year old.  YEAH!  My blood work has also greatly improved.  I just need to keep working on getting healthier.

I spent lots of time during April with my loved ones, always good for the heart and the soul.  

Before my birthday date, I spent a great day at the "Quilt Mercantile" in Celeste with BFF, and then went back for another great day with Laurie the following Friday. I have had a trip there planned for a year and was thrilled I got to go and spend some of my early birthday money.

Mina took me to lunch before she left for CA because she had to be out of town.

BFF was here for my birthday weekend as well as Loni.

Loni learned to play some of my favorite games so I now I don't have to bribe the boys to play with me, and we still have lots of games for her to learn. 

My oldest was here to celebrate turning 20 (we share a birthday).  I will admit I was disappointed that all the gifts he wanted were not things I could hand him to unwrap, but I know he appreciates all of the things he picked out that I paid for, and hoped he would enjoy.

Youngest was here for the weekend and made his famous "GiGi's Red Velvet Cake" for me.  It was delicious as always, and yes, he makes the cake and frosting from scratch.  Thank you Loni for going to get the ingredient we forgot.

I received a box of gifts yesterday from my aunt, and still have something coming from the boys.  My boss asked me how long my birthday was going to last, and I told her I didn't know, but I wasn't complaining.

Family Lost, Now Found

My brother is nine years older than I am.  Most of my cousins are older than he is or just a couple of years younger.  Many of my cousins were parents themselves when I was born, and I was closer to my first cousins once-removed than many of my cousins. 

By the time my dad died, he only had one sibling left, a sister in Ohio.  When Raymond became ill, I lost touch with her and her husband due to the fact that I was overwhelmed with taking care of Raymond, the boys, two households, etc.  By the time life settled down again, I did not know what had happened to her.  

I also did not know the married name of any of my cousins.  As a child I just knew them and their spouses by their first names.  Plus once we moved away from Ohio, I did not see many of them again.  

After Raymond and I married and moved to Texas, I was able to see a couple of my cousins when we went home on vacation and learn their married names. However, one passed away and the other one I keep up with through my aunt only.

Last night I was playing around on the internet and looking through some of my files and I came across the married name of another cousin I haven't seen in probably 35-40 years.  I decided to try to find her on Facebook, and I did.  I learned that my dad's sister and her husband are still alive, as is my other cousin.  One of the first cousins, once removed that I used to play with lives in Texas.  

Today, I found another cousin, this time on my mother's side.  It has been at least 30 years since I have seen him and his wife.  

I am thrilled to be able to find some of my "lost" family.  I called one of my aunts today and asked her if she remembered any of my other cousin's last names.  Unfortunately, the only one she could remember was Smith, that one may be tough to find. 

A Different Kind of Easter

This was a different kind of Easter weekend for our family.

There was no coloring of eggs, or an Easter egg hunt for the very first time since 1991.  Although it made my heart sad, I was also glad.  It was getting pretty hard to hide eggs from boys that are taller than me and keep them from being smashed from size 12 and 14 shoes.  

I did not even see the youngest.  He stayed on campus to get community service time (it was canceled) and study.  

The oldest did spend Friday night and was here for a good part of Saturday.  Saturday night he came back with his girlfriend and some others came over.

The girls and I made craft day into a stay over so that they could go to Sunrise Service with me.  QueenJ could not be here with us, so it wasn't quite the same but it was still a beautiful day.

Jason delivered a wonderful message to us all this morning and the youth did a fabulous job.   

After the service we went to breakfast and then each of us went on our separate ways to finish up Easter day.

I took a nice long nap, did some laundry, and worked on the baby quilt.  I also had a nice chat with my brother and a friend.  

I thought this would be tough to get through this day without the usual traditions, but it actually turned out to be an okay different kind of Easter.