Halling Go To Alaska

Let me ask you a question.  Let's say that you are home making dinner and watching TV and waiting for company to arrive for dinner.  Your phone...which is *usually* attached to you...which most people know...is in the other room.  But you're cooking dinner and anticipating the company that will soon arrive and you miss a phone call or a text saying that someone completely different than your company is planning on stopping by...and then they just show up.  On your doorstep.  Or they *say* they tried to call you but your phone shows no record of a missed call.  Does it matter who that somebody is?  Would it bother you if it was your parents or other family?  Possibly.  If your parents/family are annoying and intrusive.  Would it bother you if it was your best friend from out of town?  Possibly.  If your best friend knew your expected company and they didn't get along.  Would it bother you if it was a local friend?  Pos...

We are in the thick of figuring out this "new normal".  The new normal that I keep telling my girls that we will adapt to.  It's hard but only because it's new.  Once it becomes normal, it won't seem so awkward anymore.  I'm lucky in the fact that at this point I still get to spend my days with Sweet Pea.  We are finishing our her kindergarten year in the home-based charter school that the older girls spent years with.  Right now, she's snuggled on the couch watching cartoons before we get started on her school work.  It's mellow and nice.  And two days a week on his weeks with the girls, I help out by picking the older two up after school until 6 when he gets off work.  Both of those days there are activities to take them to, but I get to see them. Soon we will be in a new house.  T and I decided, after much teeth gnashing, that we can't afford this house.  This house we bought almost five years ago.  This house that gives me ...

Nope, this isn't the Thursday Three from The Sisterhood.  This is that old adage of "things come in threes". I want to preface this by saying this last month? Has had a lot of stress.  It started with my 14-year-old niece's cancer diagnosis.  And the next day finding out that my cousin's dad had been found dead in his home.  T was out of town for work and I remember begging him to drive the 5 hours home safely because holy shit what was next?  Just as my heart was beginning to accept the realities of my families' lives, my mom called last night on her way to our house sobbing on the phone.  She just found out that her younger sister had died.  My cousin had been calling her yesterday and not getting a response, so she drove over to check on my aunt.  Her apartment was locked and there was no answer.  When she got someone to open the door, she was laying in bed...not asleep.  I can't fathom what a horrible thing it is to unexpectedly find...

At RCIA this week we had a discussion about what we liked and didn't like about our retreat last weekend.  I think mentioned the retreat in passing, on twitter at least.  I love trying to understand people.  I always have.  There was a point in my early college days that I thought I wanted to major in sociology or psychology because I love (like big-puffy-heart love) pondering the whys of someone.  I have practiced on myself endlessly.  So retreats to me are awesome on so many levels.  You get to learn about people's stories and I get to tell some of mine.  These stories that make up our lives are what make us who we are.  Little know fact.  T and I broke up 8 months after we first dated.  I went away to college and the long distance relationship at just barely 18 was too much for me.  I admit that I allowed a friendship with someone else take T's place.  I broke T's heart.  I am not proud of myself.  I was ...