Ahhh, Spring!

We're back to 40 degree weather today, but the last few days have been gorgeous, with temps in the 60s and 70s, so I know we're getting close to spring! As I was walking across the parking lot to my car yesterday, I saw my absolute favorite sign:

This yellow flowering bush is called a forsythia. Now, I realize this particular one isn't gorgeous-- it is chopped back and looking a little puny, but still - I was so happy when saw it and thought, "Spring is almost here!". As I drove home after that, I looked at the trees along the roads and they're all starting to bloom. I love spring. Some people love daffodils because they are one of the first things to pop out of the ground when the weather warms up, but I have always loved the forsythia bush. I have a great picture of Jace when he was about 20 months old, sitting out on a blanket on Easter afternoon, playing with the plastic eggs in front of the forsythia bush in our yard. (I would post it on here, but it is "pre-digital" and I only have it in hard copy in his album... darn!)

Now that I have a clean slate of a backyard (with a 20 foot by 30 foot deck, hot tub and for all the entertaining I could ever hope to do!) I think I will plant a couple of forsythia bushes. My dad is coming to visit for a couple of days at the end of March, and that will be a great project for us to tackle together.

Our baby event went very well last weekend; it was a long day but things went very smoothly. Later that evening a friend came into town, and we met some of my work friends and spouses for drinks on Saturday night. I enjoyed being off work Sunday and Monday, alhtough catching up from a day off has made the rest of my week busy. THIS weekend is our Junior League 5K to raise money for our crisis nursery. Jace and I are going to walk the 5K on Saturday, or at least the 1 mile fun run. And we'll be bringing Zoe-Wilson with us - Rocky would be too scared with all the crowds, I'm afraid!

I've got cookies in the oven for Jace (uh, and me!) right now, so I'll close and get them out and pour a couple glasses of milk... yum!

How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed

About a month ago, when I was smack dab in the middle of having to tell people about our divorce, I picked up a new fiction paperback at Target, called How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed, the debut novel of Theo Pauline Nestor. It was a great book -- primarily because so much of it resonated with me in my first- and now my second- divorce, but also because as I read it I realized that my situation really could be SO much worse.

I had to laugh when I read a couple of pages, where the main character is lamenting about having to tell everyone in her life about her divorce. I have feel like that over the past couple of months, and I'm sure I will for some time. I see people I haven't seen in awhile and cringe, even consider avoiding saying hello to them, knowing they will probably ask how me and my husband are and then I'll have to tell them. So when I read the below excerpt from her book, I loved it and just had to share:


"...Eventually I will have to tell everyone who hasn't heard through the grapevine. Some people will get the whole story and some people will just get a terse "We've separated" without explanation. The trick is deciding who gets what... But then I'm filled with dread as I realize there are still legions of people who deserve and need to hear the whole story. Still ahead of me are dozens of oh-my-Gods and oh-I'm-so-sorrys and you-must-be-kiddings. I can hear the sympathetic and understandable questions coming at me one after another, and I can feel my tongue, thick and unfamiliar, forming all these tedious words one more time.


I consider a form letter that begins, "Dear Good Friend Who Deserves the Whole Story, I'm sorry this is coming to you as a form letter. I'm sorry about a lot. I'm just sorry."

Or maybe I could build a website, www.whatthe#&?!happened.com, complete with a FAQ page:

• Q. What about the children?
• A. They live with me but they will stay with him every Friday and every first, third, and fifth Thursday night as well as the first Saturday of every month. Yes, it is hard to remember which week it is. Yes, at least once a day the children mention the movie The Parent Trap, in which a pair of ingenious, separated-at-birth-but-reunited-by-fate twins scheme until their divorced parents finally and joyously reconcile. Which brings us to the next inevitable question...

• Q. Will reconciliation be possible?
• A. No. If you read The Whole Story (use password to access the secure site) you will shake your head and say, "No, you cannot get back together." If you do not have access to The Whole Story, you--- like the Transportation Coordinator at my daughter's school ----may feel compelled to advise me to go back and try to work it out and say in a scornful voice what a shame it is when families break up.
  
  
• Q. Are you okay?
• A. No, I'm not. Thanks for asking.

• Q. Is there anything we can do to help?
• A. Yes, click on the "Send Money" link below. Most major credit cards accepted."
  

You may not find it near as funny as I did, unless you have been through a similar experience. It just hit me the right way, how it would be SO nice to deal with some of the conversations, questions and bullshit just like this! Don't get me wrong -- I have had amazing support, from wonderful friends and from my family. It is all the acquaintances that I have had to talk about it with; those conversations are the ones I hate. I know they mean well but it is still sometimes unpleasant.

Oh, and going back to my former name - now that has been an experience. I'm not there yet, still using my current last name until the divorce is final. But I've decided to go back to my first married name, because that is my son's last name, and because most of the community knew me by that name for the last 12 years of my career. But the first husband and his wife were NOT happy. Although that's a story for another time.

Busy week at work, getting ready for our baby event on Saturday. Theresa, my college roommate, is in town for a job, and she, Jace and I are heading to dinner tonight. I'm ready for Saturday, our event and then for Sunday and Monday when I'm off work and can relax!

Bittersweet

Today we filed for divorce. It is a bittersweet thing; I am obviously very sad about it, when I look back at all the good times and the memories. And there were a lot of good times, over the three years we were together. But the past two months have given me some distance and ability to look at the relationship, and I think this is the right thing for both of us.

I am the kind of person who will take things for a very long time... that's what I did in my first marriage, for the last three years of it. That's what I did in a job that was very stressful and difficult for the entire five years I worked there. And that's what I did with D - so much of my time over the last six months was spent worrying about every little thing that might upset him. And many of them were really little things, in the scheme of it all. And even though I tried to really work on those things that upset him, it was never enough. He actually would tell me that I wasn't trying at all. Talk about a demotivator. But I continued to try, even with things as difficult as they could be at times. That's just me. The situation can be bad and I just continue to persevere, until I reach a point that I am done. And at that point, I am DONE-- there is no changing my mind. D's decision helped to make up my mind, and I am not willing to go back. I realize that is a fault on my part, that I can make that decision and not look back, but it is just how I deal with things. It takes me a long time to get to that point, but once I'm there, I'm there.

I know he has been very emotional the last couple of weeks, about me "moving on" as he is calling it. (Hello, you tell me on Christmas Day that you want a divorce?? What the hell do you WANT me to do!? -- Ok, little venting there.) He has been regretting that decision, and has made overtures about reconciliation. However, I am unwilling to do that. The trust is no longer there, even though I have loved him and didn't want us to split up. He is a good person, but I know that the same issues that caused him to be so unhappy in our marriage would be back again in six months.

So, we met today to sign papers, to start the process. In 30 days he will recieve the papers back from the judge, and it will be final. He came by this afternoon while I was at work to move the remaining things out of my house, and we talked on the phone briefly. He said to tell Jace goodbye, and that he gave the doggies a hug. I told him earlier today that he didn't need to move things out immediately, but he feels it is better this way. And I'm sure he is right. We will both move on with our lives and we will hopefully in time be in contact again, and be friends. And hopefully we will both have learned some things about ourselves from all of this.

I've Fallen off the Wagon

... the blogging wagon, that is. Lately, blogging has been the equivalent of scrapbooking for me, and that isn't a good thing. My poor son-- his scrapbook has every single freakin' thing the boy did from birth to age two, and then... NOTHING. I like to and want to scrapbook, and I have the best of intentions on doing it. I have even went through and developed tons of pictures from the last several years. But then that's as far as I've gotten!

And that's how my blog has been for the last 13 days... but who's counting (oh, wait, my b-i-law is counting, aren't you, Luke?!?) I have been crazy busy at work, and with some volunteer stuff, and Jace has had several tests each week. Between everything, blogging has definitely fallen off the radar. I've had a post in mind, about a couple of books I've been reading, but I knew it would take quite a bit of work to write about it, so I have been procrastinating on that.

Then I was gone to KC last weekend, had our women/heart disease event at work this week, and now heading to St. Clair this weekend. I took some vacation time at work this morning just so I could finish up some stuff around the house before we left town again!

Last weekend I headed to KC to see my brother and friends Garry and Heather while Jace was with his dad. Thom and I ate at Kona Grill, then I met a high school friend, Duane, for drinks at Kona. It was great to catch up with Duane, I hadn't seen him in 7 or 8 years at least. After saying goodbye to Duane, Thom and I headed up to North KC to hang with Garry and Heather for the evening. Friends Brent and Laura came over as well, since they had a babysitter for their son Carter for a couple of hours.

It was the first time I've seen any of them since D and I split, so Brent and Laura brought a bottle of Hot Damn for us to share a few shots and toast to new beginnings. Laura was the only one who was exempt from the shots, since she's expecting baby #2 in September! Here are a few pics from the evening:

Me & Thom

Brent & Heather!

I think this is mine and Garry's second shot....woo hoo!

CHEERS!! (minus Miss Heather, behind the camera!)

It was a great evening, and so nice to catch up with all of them again. Garry had awesome tunes playing all evening, which of course was one of my (and his) favorite things! Thomas left us about 8:30 that night to go hang with the cool kids back down by his place, and leave all of us old folks to our own revelry! Brent and Laura headed home fairly early, and the remaining three of us capped of the evening with a trip to Ruby Tuesdays about 5 minutes away. I don't really know why, since we had plenty of wine at their house, but we each ordered a glass of wine AND shared two decadent desserts (a fudge cake with ice cream and a piece of strawberry shortcake! Yum!!!)

Fabulous weekend with my brother Thom, and with my four friends. I'm so glad to be "keeping them" in the divorce! Of course they will still be D's friends too, as they were his for 5+ years before I ever met them. But nice that we can both maintain the friendships, because they're some of my very favorite people and I would miss them greatly!

This weekend I'm heading to St. Clair with Jace; he and I are going to a surprise party for a friend on Saturday, and then I'm catching up with some high school friends Saturday night while he spends some time with Mimi (grandma). More pictures soon, and I promise it won't be 13 days before I post again.

My Funny Valentine

I'm having a great Valentines Day this year; Jace and I slept in late this morning, then I went to the store and bought him Krispy Kreme creme-filled chocolate frosted doughnuts (none for ME, I'm having oatmeal, toast and coffee!). Now we're snuggled up on the sofa for a little while; he is enjoying cartoons and I'm playing around on the laptop. What a great Saturday morning!

Jace's class wrote Valentines letters at school this week. He was proud of his, especially about the funny comment at the end:

It says: "Dear Mom, Thank you for helping me on my homework. you also do my laundry. But that's not why I love you. I love you because your my mom. You also give me an allowance. I'll see you later. PS: can I have a raise in my allowance? Sincerely, Jace

Nice try, son! He is a great kid, with a big heart and a funny sense of humor. I find myself being grateful for his openness and loving personality, because I know he may become more reserved as he gets older. After all, it isn't cool to be as close to your parents when you're a teenager. So I try to make time each day to snuggle and talk, and just enjoy my time with him.

Happy Valentines Day to everyone, hope you all are with someone you love.

Jewelry Update!

Just wanted to share my happiness, in that I have FOUND one of my fave pieces of jewelry that has been missing for a couple of months. If you remember my post from a couple of weeks ago, I have been missing a one-of-a-kind pendant made by local artist and friend, Tammy.

I've been painting my bedroom for the past several days, and hoisting furniture around with the help of best pal, Gail (thanks, Gail-- I owe you!). Tonight I moved my bookshelf out to paint behind it, and there was the pendant - yay!

So, I've found the jewelry, but still lost the husband, as I lamented about in the previous post. But you know, I am feeling a little more okay about that as each day passes. Looking forward to a fun weekend, with great friends and great plans. Now, back to painting!

Winter Fun!

I'm a little slow in getting these posted, the snow was actually LAST week. Jace was ecstatic that he was off school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; me, I was happy to have a little time off with him and worked half-days while he was off. The photos below were from Wednesday. He was out in the cold for two hours with all the other kids at the nearby school, it is a great hill!

Of course before we headed over to the school he had to try out another GREAT hill, our driveway. The thing is so steep, I am glad it is good for SOMETHING!

He had a blast sledding with friends at the school; last year I actually got out there and went with him, but this year I was content to sit in the car and read while he went with friends.



Now this week the snow is melting- well, it was yesterday, but today we are back to 28 degrees.... Brrrr!! I'm hoping the weekend brings warmer temperatures. I'm ready for spring, although I know we still have a couple more months of potential winter weather.