Burial.

Today is the day my cousin is being buried in Iowa.  I was unable to make the visitation or the funeral, but I got in touch with my sister, who was at the visitation yesterday and is currently at the funeral.  My mind flashes back to the cold February day in 1994 when I walked into the church for my mother's service.  The pews were packed with people, which made me happy to know that so many people loved her.  I remember the choir I was involved in sing Amazing Grace, which was a favorite song of my mother's, and I remember being at rehearsal earlier in the week.  My then-boyfriend's mother was in charge of the choir, and she counseled the kids not to look at the family lest they begin crying too.  I locked eyes with one of my closest friends during that song, and neither of us cried.  She told me later that she had to keep her eyes on me because I was the only one not crying, and that gave her strength.  I took it as a compliment. 

It saddens me to not be there for my family.  I lost touch with that side of the family not long after my mother's death due to my father and I having a falling-out, and every time I talked to someone, they would tell him where I was, so I ceased all contact.  He died in 2006, so now I feel more comfortable reaching out to them again.  I feel stupid for letting one person get in the way of my having a relationship with the rest of the family, but I also at the time considered it self-preservation because my father was certifiable and he knew how to shoot a gun. 

I wish I could tell my aunt and uncle in person that the first year is the hardest.  Too many times you think, "I really need to talk to _____," and then it dawns on you that they're no longer around or else you would have.  Each time, it's a cold slap to the face.  I was lucky enough to have a car briefly, and it was a blue Chevy Cavalier convertible.  I remember a semi-warm day in May when I took the top off, and I looked up at the sky and thought, This is the first real spring day without my mother.  The Year of Firsts, I call it, and it's a bitch.  The first birthday you celebrate without your loved one.  First day of fall.  First of each holiday.  I want to tell them to expect these things because I consider them to be universal, even though I honestly only have my perception of grief, and losing a mother as a daughter is different than losing a young daughter as a parent. 

Lots of people have posted memorials at the funeral home's website, and there have been some really nice things said about my cousin - loved her family, great multi-tasker who cared for the family and the home without missing a beat, always smiling and a happy woman.  We don't tell people often enough while they're alive what we love about them.  So go do it.  Right now.

Again?

February's been a tough month.  My mother passed away 18 years ago this month, and I found out today that my cousin was killed in a house explosion in California on Friday.  She was 31, and she was married with 2 children, ages 2 and 4.  Her husband and children were ok, but the ceiling caved in on her and killed her.  I have no more details.  On one hand, I would like more details because maybe those are better than the details my brain has conjured up.  On the other, finding out more details may reinforce the thoughts that they were right.  I've spent most of the day crying for her and for her family.  I haven't seen her face to face since my mother's funeral, and the strongest memory I have of her is at the funeral.  The family and friends were all in the basement of the church after the service, and people had finally let my dad and me settle down.  Dad couldn't eat, but I was finally starting to get a small appetite back, so I sat down, and my cousin was somewhere very near me, and she looked at me and burst into tears.  I numbly ate something off my plate while she buried her head in her mom's arms.  At the time, it didn't mean much, but after years of reflection, it's come to mean a lot to me.  She was shaken and grieving along with me.  Now, I'm the one shaken and grieving for her.  It honestly scares the shit out of me.  I think most people don't expect to die.  Even though we know we will, and we have death all around us, we never think it'll happen until "somewhere in the future".  I have faith, but the thought of leaving my little guy before I'm ready is heart-wrenching.  Not seeing him grow up, exposing him to that pain of not having his mother around....you never want to leave that pain for your child, but usually the decision isn't ours.  Her death was tragic, and my heart aches for those little boys who will grow up without her and eventually hardly remember her.  All they know now is that Mommy's not coming home. A poor toddler wails and wails for his mom, but he has to be comforted by Daddy or Grandma or Grandpa.  It's never the same as the original safety net. 

Restless again

I tend to read a few blogs, and I especially like to keep up on personal finance blogs.  But yesterday, the wind was taken out of my sails when I read that one of the bloggers had paid off his mortgage in just 5 years.  The house was around $175,000.  In five years.  Today, I found out that another site had been sold back in 2009, and he had also paid off his mortgage.  This situation makes me feel many things, not the least of which are envious.  I want that!  But I also kinda feel like their sites may no longer work for me.  Someone who's paid off the mortgage doesn't have the same issues as I do, I think.  I could be wrong, but I need to think about it.

Happy December

Had my first moms' night out meeting tonight at my place.  Our basement flooded last April just as we moved in, and we finally were able to get it refinished about a month ago thanks to hubby's parents.  They are handy folk, much more than John and I. 

I should be in bed; I can hardly stay awake.  But I just needed some time to myself, and I have this perfectly lovely spot in the basement.  It's delicious time to myself that I want to relish.  Relish is too strong a word right now; I just want to chill.

Being part of the moms' group has been great for me in some ways.  I've met a few moms that I really connect with, and I've formed a pretty tight bond with one of them.  Our sons are similar in age.  Once she joined, I sent her an email saying we should plan a playdate, and she responded.  We had similar pregnancies, similar births and similar recoveries.  We also now have similar hair styles.  She's such a bright chick.  I will always have a hard time saying lady when referring to people my own age.  It's for older people.  My people will always be chicks.  But I digress. 

Sometimes I feel like an epic fail.  I have a job now that I enjoy quite a bit, but the day is coming when much will be expected from me.  In 2009, we gave an award to former President Carter and his wife.  It drew 7,000 people, which was awesome, but next year it will be my turn to get everything ready and finalized and sometimes it's a lot to chew.

I feel like a bad mom.  My greatest fear is dying and leaving Luca.  Hubby will be fine without me, and Luca will be fine, but to not see him grow up, to not share in his life just brings me to pieces.  And I see it so often, that flicker of life that has gone out before the wick is all used up.  Someone I watched on TV committed suicide a couple of weeks ago, and it stunned me.  Never in a million years would I have thought this happy guy was not so.  He left behind a daughter who is not yet old enough to read.  That stings my heart.  I can understand pain, but not that much pain where leaving your family is easier than working through it.  I hope to never be in that dark place.

So anyway, to decompress...one of these moms just blathers on and on and on.  I thought it might've been just me, but hubby agreed that she's such a talker and it's her show all the time.  Does no one else see this?  I can't be the only one.  But maybe I'm the only one bothered by it.  When I first met her this summer, she wasn't like that.  She was pretty down to earth, someone I thought I could really get along with, but now I'm not so sure. 

My audition for Suzuki was accepted, so now I'll be taking a class to be certified to teach book 1.  I'm pretty excited.

Must leave a legacy.  What should I create that will hopefully last longer than me?

Another one bites the dust.

So now Amy Winehouse is dead. Before her, at age 27 according to CNN, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain all died at 27.

I was not a huge fan of her music, but then again I only really heard whatever was on the radio. I have to admit she had an interesting style, and I always dig the throaty-voiced women. Call it jealousy. It's the perfect voice for the 1-800-sex calls, isn't it?

But part of me is irked that she's gone. Lots of talent (hello, winner of 5 Grammys) wasted. Addiction is hard to handle, and I can appreciate that, but there's still a part of me that says, "Idiot". Life is already too short.

Idea: Ikea

Well, my hubby and I bought a house, and while we are not going hog-wild about furnishing it and instead are taking our time, we took a trip to IKEA, which is about 2.5 hours away, and we found a couch and chairs for what will be our sitting area. We were going to wait to get the items, but they are not in the catalog, and we were told that they may not be restocked. Possibly a marketing ploy, but we also went furniture shopping in the area and didn't find anything we liked nearly as much for the same price, so we decided to bite the bullet and buy the items.

Last week, we bought one Jappling sofa (sofa or couch? I don't know which I prefer), two chairs, and two ottomans. As I had the little man with me in the stroller, I was unable to navigate a cart, so we loaded everything on one cart. It was a feat, and people were impressed as we wheeled our way to the checkout line.

After half an hour in the checkout line, we finally wheeled our haul over to the furniture delivery area. Our little 4-door sedan is not going to hold anything except an ottoman or two. Now, to make sure that we were in the delivery area, we called customer service. Twice. So imagine our surprise when we filled out our information, the associate entered our information, and then informed us that we were out of their delivery area.

"We contacted your customer service department on two separate occasions to make sure we were in the delivery area," we said.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," our associate said. "They frequently give out the wrong information. We've had a lot of complaints about them."

......and? Because you have a crappy customer service department, we have to pay the price? Apparently so. We asked if they could hold it so we could get a truck, and they said no. So we had to return all our items. After 7 hours, we were home empty-handed.

Now, piss me off by doing something crappy like this, and I cut ties with you. No more of my business will you have. However, being in a marriage means that sometimes you are faced with someone articulate who makes compelling arguments: we tried to find something else, we didn't like what we saw, we didn't like the price of what we saw, and we really liked the stuff at IKEA.

Dammit.

While relaying this story to a coworker, John was offered said coworker's truck. We also used his truck to get our crib from Richmond. It's a 1993 Toyota Tacoma with 246,000 miles, and it's a stick-shift. John doesn't drive stick, but I do. So yesterday, at 8:20 am, we set off on our journey to reclaim our sitting room furniture.

With a baby in tow, everything is about an hour slower than it used to be because we have to fill up his tank first or else there's gonna be trouble. So around 10, we set off for IKEA, John and baby in one car, me in the truck.

We wasted no time at IKEA. We were there to get our items and get home. So that's what we did. When we got the items out to the truck, John realized just. how. big. the boxes were. The furniture itself is not that big, which is one reason why we liked it. But the packaging around them was enormous. Even a guy who had an Escalade wondered if the box would fit. John's original idea was to angle the couch on one side and the chairs on the other. However, the boxes were just too big for this. I started to sweat. We put the couch on the bottom, then the chairs on top. They cleared the top of the truck by about a foot. I said there was no way I'd be able to drive home with them like that. So he thought about putting the couch on the top because it was heavier and would anchor down the chairs. But that didn't change the problem of the height. Baby started to get tired of being in his carseat. I started to sweat more. Finally, John came up with a solution - take the furniture out of the boxes and place the chairs upside down on the couch, and strap everything down tight. So we took everything out and loaded it up, stopped at Wal Mart to get some duct tape to secure the cardboard we'd wedged between the straps and the furniture, fed the baby, and then headed out.

Our normal 2.5 hour trip took us over 3 hours to complete. We stopped twice to tear off paper that was shredding in the wind and to feed the boy. We rolled home around 6:30, and I again fed the boy while John unloaded and inspected the chairs for damage. All good. We unloaded the couch, gassed up the truck, and were on our way to drop it off. At 9:00 last night, we finally ate dinner.

We now have a new rule: if it don't fit in the car, we don't buy it from IKEA.

Wow, now it's March

October was the last time I posted here, huh? Time has flown, and I've been busy. I had a baby in December (you can go here to read about my journey of pregnancy) and have consistently missed sleep. So when I have the option, I sleep. But now I am awake, and I am ready to write a post. Stay tuned.