What a difference a day makes!

My life has not always been easy. Who's has, right? But I am blessed to have good friends all along the way. You would think that would be hard for a girl who moved every year, sometimes more than once a year. But I have good friends and one of them is Kim. She just "gets it"--the whole ugly past 4 years that have been crap.
She is my BFF, my fellow Ya Ya, and she was here from Arizona this last week. She used to live here and when we first met I was astonished at how much we had in common. Including, at the time, three daughters!! Now she has a 4th daughter and I have Kian.
Anyway, Kim was here and I cleared EVERYTHING off my calendar for TWO days. I told my kids to pretend I was away on vacation!
You've got to love a friend who takes me to lunch here--

Then says "Let's get pedicures!"
Um, well, I...
"Come on we're going, don't worry about it."
Don't worry about it?! That is music to my ears, All I've done since 2005 is worry about it!!

Then we meet up with the other Ya Yas that are still in Indiana here for dinner. She suggested the Blue Cheese Crumble salad and it was delicious! So thank you again.


It felt so normal to be doing normal things like going out with friends. For two days I was the girl who could go and have fun and not think about all the crap that is my life right now.
On Thursday night LATE we even piled into her car with Calah and Savanna and Kenzie and we drove to the drive-through at Steak and Shake. We sang and laughed at the top of our lungs and we flirted with the "awkward" teenager at the window. It was awesome!!

Thank you my friend for bringing some sunshine into my life and letting me to enjoy some normal days without making me feel like a complete loser. Thank you for being who you are and always feeling comfortable with me and allowing me to do the same.
It made all the difference to me!!

Powerball Anyone?

OK so I'm pretty sure it's not OK to pray for a Powerball win, but at this point it is seriously the ONLY way I see to resolve our situation. I am not exaggerating or over-stating.
These are the facts:
Moving van and driving 1351 miles? $1768
Fuel, food and sleeping? $875 (we need new tires)
Moving into Gramma's basement? one dog, two cats (not to mention sanity...everyone's!)
Winning the Powerball and doing it our way? Priceless!!

Isn't it time for things to turn around?
Isn't it time for tears of joy rather than tears of desperation?
Yeah, I thought so...

Goldie's Family Birthday

Today was Goldie's First Birthday and the Norton's threw her a party along with her siblings. Doug asked if Traci was nuts!



The kids got donuts complete with the birthday candles and the kitties had tuna.

Here are the kids looking for Goldie who "high-tailed" it under the couch!




Here is Phelps and Goldie getting reacquainted. Goldie is mad because Phelps never calls!
The family is together once again, sadly without their other brother Tigger. We don't know where Tigger lives, but we're sure he's happy!
That's Coley with Goldie, Hannah with Boo, Sara with Phelps and Traci with their Mommy Elphie.

Insomnia...a cruel trick

I used to be a good sleeper. I mean once I had kids I was a light sleeper and if something woke me up in the middle of the night I would not be able to go back to sleep. But I remember once Doug saying that he wished he could fall asleep as easily as I did.
Now I may go several days with only 4-6 hours of sleep.
And I know exactly when that happened: September 11, 2001
We had just moved into our house on Sunblest Blvd a few months before. Mackenzie was not feeling well that Tuesday and she had stayed home from school. So I slept in a little that morning. When I woke up, the world had changed.

Someone said "Haven't you heard?" and I turned on the TV to see this. And this was played over and over and over again ALL day long and when I went to bed that night this is what I saw over and over and over again. All I could think about were the thousands of people and what had happened to them. I was horrified and I couldn't sleep.
From that moment on when I can't sleep it's because some picture or sentence or song lyric or part of a random conversation is playing over and over and over again in my mind. Things just keep repeating. It's as if that night, September 11, a part of my brain was unlocked and it has never been shut again. The repeating part of the brain.

Of course the last almost 5 years have given me plenty of images and thoughts that can be repeated. Add to that my fibromyalgia in which pain is likely to keep me awake some nights, pre-menopause in which hot flashes may keep me distracted, or me trying desperately to feed my shopping addiction by browsing eBay and saving things on my list because I can't buy anything and you've got the Perfect Storm for insomnia.

I don't mind the quiet and being able to watch whatever I want on TV and I admit that once I start to hear birds singing I start to get sleepy, but I would love one week of pure uninterrupted, non-drug induced, worry free sleep-until-I-wake-up sleep. I can't remember what that was like, can you?

But I'm pretty sure it's fabulous!!!

I hear the birds singing so it must be time to go try again...G'nite.