Honestly?

No--I am not a Lesbian, although there is nothing wrong with that.  I had a couple of Lesbian friends.

Yes--for all concerned, I have tried a vibrator.  I just thought it was laughable--sorry.  It wasn't that sex was intolerable to me.  It wasn't painful or awful.  It was--okay.  It is that just in my MIND, it was all about control and me not wanting to let go, perhaps?  How can you let yourself go when you don't quite trust men?  When you know that you know that you KNOW, eventually they will leave, hurt or betray you in some way.  And I was right about that, from my father on--in every single case.  My father started the betrayal by not loving me, but not letting me know I was special to him.  That knowledge was hard to bear.  If "they" could have that kind of power over me--if I had "given all of myself" to them?  The betrayal would be so much harder to bear.  In MY mind.

With my Freddie--I was the real me.  I didn't have to be Miss Chef in the kitchen and Miss Whore in the bedroom.  I didn't have to be---anything.  He just thought I was the most wonderful, caring, loving, loyal women he had ever met--and I was.
====================





I think one reason I stay to myself and don't join any "groups", is because I am afraid I will mess up again!!  Perhaps that is why I still wear my engagement diamond Fred gave me?  It sits right there on the ring finger of my left hand.

Honestly?  Not to sound boastful, but I still look pretty good and younger than my years.  I still see men look at me and have recently been flirted with by a man in his early 60's.

That scares the living heck out of me!!!  I try to remain unobtrusive, which is kind of difficult when I am near six feet tall and all legs.  Men seem to fantasize about long legs wrapped around them.  Not kidding.  Just ask them.

I haven't been to church in over a year because, one of the ushers, always seemed to push the other ones out of the way, and they'd kind of nudge each other, as he took my arm to seat me in the sanctuary.
"You always sit in the same pew.  I got it memorized now so I know right where to take you."
"Yes.  I am a creature of habit, I guess."
"I never see your husband come with you.  Are you married?"
"No.  Widowed."
"Ooohh."

Creeps me out!!!

Honestly?  I know myself.  If some good looking, tall man, with lovely gray hair came along and showed any interest, there I'd be.  Getting all stupid again.  Painting his living room.  Buying him new drapes for his windows.  New bedding and pillows for his bedroom.  I've done it before, too many times--I'd do it again.

 ....and if this one came back and was serious?

His smile is a bit crooked and adorable.  He has the most wonderful giggle.  And--he has season tickets to all the MSU football games.

He will come back, for a lunch date or a chat, he usually shows up every couple of years, but he will never be serious.  He likes to check and see if I've changed my mind about having sex with him.

If he even remotely acted like he was serious, I still wouldn't trust him.  Because I've known him for 60 years--my teenage Summer Romance.
<maybe someday he'll tell me he is totally impotent and can't have sex.  THEN I'd marry him,  LOL>
====================
Honestly?  I do not trust myself!  Better to just stay here with my cats and my crafts and have a conversation with John and Maizey once in awhile.
================
Honestly?  The troubles with Jennifer and me are probably 60% my fault!  Yes, she is very sensitive and can be overly dramatic.  I have said things, that to me were kidding, but she took the wrong way.

Yes.  I wrote about her and her husband in my previous blog and (a cousin) told her and Jen was very offended.  I guess I shouldn't have a blog because I let it "all hang out".

Yes.  The step-mother drove a huge wedge between us 20 years ago, but we had seemed to get past all that.  It was Jen's idea for me to move down here.  We got along so well for 10 years.  I guess I'm the one who blew it.

Yes.  At times I get bent out of shape and rant to my girls and sister.  Jen takes it personally.  The rest of them know, I am going through a phase and it will all be over the next day.

Yes.  No matter how hard I try to--give it all to God, I overheard that Jen will be back in the area this weekend.  The kids are getting together at Karen's.  I will not be invited--and that hurts!  I am just going to pretend I knowing nothing about their plans.
===============
Honestly?  I can be passive-aggressive.  I have posted things on Face Book, knowing full well that my neighbor's would see it and perhaps take the "hint" and finally "see the light"?

I used to post political links.  Those offended a few friends.  I didn't care.  If they posted a political link for their side, I came back with one of my own to prove to them how "stupid" their thinking was.

A friend might post a "status" and instead of just reading it and moving on, I had some great need to give them MY advice in their comment section.

It's been the same way with Pearl and Dar.  I see them as having no common sense and while chatting, I give my unsolicited advice.

Honestly?  Who died and made me teacher of the world?

No one!

I won't be doing any of that anymore.
===============
Honestly?  I have waaaaay too much pride.  I don't want people to help me!  I WANT to be the helper.  It makes ME feel better if I am the solver of problems for someone else.  I feel weak, if people help me.

Yeah--I've heard it all.  How I should take help because then I will make THEM feel better.  Yeah. Yeah.
=============
Honestly?  Since my Daddy died, I AM the oldest member of the family--the blood line.  The Matriarch, so to speak.  It seems NO ONE in my family views me that way and honestly?  It does tick me off!

I remember how everyone in my family feigned all over my father.  They went to HIM to visit.  When they entered his house, he sat in his chair and they went to HIM.  They don't treat me like that.

I feel like if I don't get up and "move around", they would completely forget I am even in the same house.

Honestly?  Why did my sister, and my kids inherit money and land from my father when I am the oldest blood kin?  He believed in "blood" over everything.  Why did I get by-passed?

Was/am I viewed as the black sheep of the family?  I HAD to get married.  A great disappointment to him--he was mortified that it ruined our family reputation in the community.  Then, I went and got divorced.  GASP!

He wasn't too pleased with the way my two older kids lived and yet--they got two of his farms, the rest of the grand kids got $10K each.

My little sister wanted to "move back home", but she meant, back to Michigan, she didn't mean on the family farm--way out in the boonies.  She had envisioned a nice home near East Lansing.  She really didn't want to inherit the family's original farm.  
Honestly?  Not a single one of them living on those farms, love that land as much as I always did and always will.  It makes no never mind to me that I couldn't afford to live there.  It's the principle of the whole thing!
================
Honestly?  My "adopted" daughter, Chris, who lives way out in Texas, treats me better than my own kids. She really cares what happens to me.  She really loves me.  I can call her and talk and tell her things I never would tell my kids and she can tell me things she never would have told her own mother.  It is a Win-Win!
===============
Honestly?  Deep down, I am not a very nice person.  I am selfish.  I am cranky.  I am needy.  I think that most people I now know are quite lame in their thinking.  When, quite honestly, they have it more together than I ever have.  

I am really no longer the center of anyones world--except my cats.  There is that.  However, someone else would take good care of them if I couldn't.

Honestly?  I feel it would be better all around if I were not here.  The kids would have one less thing on their list to think about--even as little as they think about me now.  I am not vital.  Don't appear to be useful, or needed.  

Honestly?  Why am I here?

I have thought of suicide, more in 2015 than ever before.  Boy--I'll show all of them!  See how selfish that is?  Don't worry.  I wouldn't do it.  I desire to go to Heaven when I die and I still believe, no matter how un-P.C. it is, that God still believes, "Thou shalt not kill", even yourself.
==============
Honestly?  I don't spend days thinking about these things I have posted in the last three days.  I'm really quite over the anger/bitterness/angst of my previous years.  I think it was the new year that prompted a day of sitting and pondering.

Honestly?  I'm just kind of sad/depressed/tired/worn out most days.   No real ambition or want to do anything.   

So--because it is a new year and most people think on how they can change to make their life better, I too am thinking on that.

I know I need more human contact.  I will work on that.  Just don't expect me to be joining social groups--that is not or ever has been my thing.

I will try and call my girls every other week.  Not something I have ever done, but I will try and remember.  I am not or ever have been much of a phone person, but I will try.

I really believe that God is in control of my life.  It's easier to believe that then in thinking I can control any aspect of it.  I have believed that for a number of years, but sometimes I don't sound like it.

No one can really hurt me.  It is how I react that makes it hurtful.  Yeah--right.  No one should go around intentionally saying whatever hurtful things they want to say.  It CAN hurt and it can hurt for years and years.  What did old Eleanor say?  "No one can make you feel inferior, without your consent." Well, that's a bunch of B.S.!  Especially if you are the kind of person that has little self-esteem to begin with.  Words like that just reinforce the bad feeling you have about yourself.
===============

BUT--this is MY quote: "I choose to get happy and stay happy, no matter what!"  Perhaps that smacks of denial?  Oh well.

I do know what to do to have a pretty good rest of my life.

Honestly?  It's time to stop talking about it.  Time for action.  

I am going to Walk the MY Talk!!!!

Honesty, Part Deux

You may want to by-pass this post.  It is shameful and graphic.

But, it's honest.

===========================

Sex?

Honestly, I never cared for it.  

If I told any of my girlfriends that now, they'd all laugh.  They thought that I was the sexy one in the group.  Not so!  It was a means to an end.

My husband and I dated all through high school,  We didn't engage in sex until two months before I graduated.  The ever spoken "prove you love me" statement from him was finally going to be quelled. Thank goodness, we waited until then, because I got pregnant the first time.  We didn't have sex again until we were married two months later.

Neither one of us knew what we were supposed to do.  I had to ask my best friend what I was supposed to do with my legs.  I had no brothers.  I had never seen a naked male  Fumbling along we went and figured it out. I think.  How would I know?

"Nice" women weren't expected to get too involved.  As my best friend told me, "You just let him do whatever he wants.  It won't take long." The "Missionary Position" was all there was, or so we thought.

Don't get me wrong.  I loved the kissing and petting and all the fore play, but the actual sexual intercourse?  

Honestly?  

Messy, clumsy, having to lay in the cold, wet spot afterward, while he moved over to his side and went quickly to sleep.  Whenever he wanted it.  It didn't matter if I was nine months pregnant, or just home from the hospital with 40 stitches outside and inside from where the 4 days old  NINE POUND BABY had recently exited.  I couldn't say "no", because we all knew that if a man waited too long, all that sperm can build up and back up and cause him terrible problems.  His testicles might go blue  and drop off or something equally terrible.  We wives had to prevent that!!

Later--if I wanted to see my grocery allowance on the dresser on Saturday morning, I'd better be "nice" on Friday night.  If we were camping and the three kids were only a mere five feet away and hopefully sleeping, there was always a "Mom, what is that?"  "Go back to sleep Honey.  It's just the wind blowing and making the trailer rock."

When I got divorced, I was still pretty naive about the physical part of a relationship.  If the guy I was dating wanted to have sex, and of course they all did, I thought that meant he had fallen in love with me.  Good Grief!  There I was in the mid-80's, still with 1950ish standards in my head.

What I found out fairly quickly was--sex is quite the same no matter what man I was with.  (Now you one-man women know--you won't have to wonder.)

Oh sure, different styles, positions, shapes and sizes, but the end result is a man going quite out of his mind, pumping and making noises like he is having a heart attack, then a heavy, dead sort of weight, then a parting and a loud snore.  If I was lucky, a sweet kiss before the parting and snoring part.

They think they are the best lovers.  The biggest studs on this earth.  HAH!  One man told me, "I have never left a woman unsatisfied!"  When we broke up, 5 months later, I so wanted to tell him he was wrong.  Of course, it would have been my fault because--he was so supreme in his thinking.

I don't think I have ever had a climax.  At least not like they are described in medical books.  BUT--instead of medical books, my book shelves should be lined with golden awards and trophies for Best Actress of the Year.  

I suppose I used them as much as they used me?  I used to keep a little "black book" with names, birthdays, phone numbers and statistics written down.  A little red check mark was written in if the man told me I was the best sexual partner he had ever had.  I think at one time or another, they all said, "I can tell if a woman is faking it."  Yeah--sure you can.  Men are soooooooooooo dense.

One interesting request did not come from a man--well not directly that is.  When I was divorced, a friend asked me if I would please have an affair with her husband.  In his late forties, he was experiencing a bit of sexual dysfunction and was "constantly after me!"  She stated flat out that she thought I could "help him" and keep him away from her for awhile.  Who better to ask than your friend?  Right?  She knew her husband and I would not take it seriously and it would be a big relief to her.

She had no way of knowing that over the years, he had suggested the very same thing, more times than I wanted to remember.  Usually when he was drunk, but a couple of times, he was very serious.  

I declined her offer!!!

I was this really confused woman, looking for love in all the wrong places!!!  IF I could just find a man that loved me, it would prove my father's hurtful words wrong.  I was worth-while.  

IF I could just find a man to love me, it would prove my ex-husband wrong.  A man that loved me would want to be with ME, not out every night, playing golf, betting on the ponies, getting drunk.

No matter how old we get or how normal we appear to the outside, the hurt little child we once were, remains in our heart, souls and minds for a very long time.  It flows into each aspect of our life.  Doesn't it?  It can come from a critical father, or a judgmental, cold mother, but it is there.

Now, these weren't one-night stands.  Each relationship lasted 3 to 9 months.  All the men were good men, none of them drank, none of them abused me, at least not physically.  Some of them were executives, some of them were regular working men with not a lot of money.  Some of them extremely intelligent, some dumb as a box of rocks.  I had a great need to help them in whatever way I could.  I had to be the most wonderful, non-critical, reasonable, most undemanding woman they had ever met.  Sex was a means to an end.  It made them feel good.
==========
Never in my own home, however.  I didn't want my teenage daughter becoming confused with all the "uncles" coming to spend the night.

One day, after a particularly hurtful end to a 9 month relationship, I looked in my bathroom mirror that next morning and said, "You are nothing but a whore!"  and stopped dating all together--at least for a year.  I liked my life.  I felt clean and pure and almost--virginal once again.

I asked God to forgive me of being so sinful.  I was like the prostitute that Jesus forgave and said, "Go and sin no more."  I would sin no more.
===================

About a year later, I had been divorced for 8 years by this time. I met a really wonderful man.  A few years older than me, very intelligent, not much money.  

He was so nice when we were dating.  He would do anything for me and did.  He didn't seem to want a sexual relationship, "until we get to know each other better."

We had a snow storm one day while I was at work and he drove 25 miles, into the parking lot, cleaned all the snow off my car just minutes before I walked out of work.  We had a picnic-date in a park and up drove a Florist delivery van and the delivery guy came walking over to where we were and gave me a dozen red roses.  "This are from him" and the guy pointed to my date.

Swept off my feet!  He wanted us to live together--no, not live together, but be married.  We had to be married to prove to the world that we were serious and in love.  My youngest child was leaving for college in a few months.  I would be all alone, in that big farm house, way out in the boon-docks.  Why not?

Sure.  Indeed.  Why not ruin your life with a decision made out of fear?

The wedding was lovely.  The open house for us was lovely.  We drove away in MY car which my kids had decorated.  Hours later, when we got to the lovely hotel, overlooking the lovely Mackinaw Bridge and the lovely Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, he beat the crap outta me.   Three days later, even farther from home, he took MY car and left me alone in a motel room for 18 hours.

He demanded sex every single day.  It didn't matter if he had beaten me during that day, I was to put all that aside and ante up.  Usually I just laid there and thought of something else, which he didn't mind at all.  In fact, that really turned him on.  He liked it that way.  He felt so in control.  There is no such thing as rape in a marriage.

Honestly?  He told me he'd kill me if I ever left and the night I left, he running down the driveway, along side the car, begging me to come back.  Honestly?  When I turned onto the road, if he had stepped in front of my car, I would have gladly run over him and kept on going.  I have never before or since in my life, felt such hatred for another human being.  I check the newspaper obits in the county he lives in, each and every day.  Honestly?  Hoping to see his name.  He is now 85 and still going strong.
==============

Can you see how wonderful I felt when I met Fred and on our third date, he had a serious talk with me and told me he was incapable of having sex.  His Diabetes had rendered him completely and totally impotent.  I remember telling him that I hadn't had any sex drive in years and years and none of that mattered to me.

The best and most romantic relationship I ever had in my entire life.  We kissed a lot, and touched and slept spooned together every night and were intimate in more ways than I ever thought---without sex of any kind.  Emotionally intimate.  I was closer to him than any other male I have EVER known.

I didn't have to "put out" to get love.  I didn't have to be "nice" to get grocery money.

If this man couldn't have sex and he still loved me and wanted to be with me forever--than he must REALLY love me, in the truest sense of the word.
===============

Honestly?  Maybe I am a Lesbian?

Honest and Unvarnished

As I have become this advanced age--I find my mind mulling over what I HONESTLY think about my past life.  HONESTLY is the operative word here.

My honesty, not yours, not anyone else's, but mine.  Most of you have probably never had these thoughts.

In spite of the emotional and physical abuse from my father, I honestly look back on a happy childhood.  I can only thank God for my grandmother, mother and an aunt who thought I was a pretty neat kid.  

A lot of women I know, look back on their school years, especially high school, and didn't much like it.  I LOVED my school years, ESPECIALLY high school.  I wasn't much of a student, my teacher's weren't overly impressed with me--I graduated school in the midst of a class of 30 kids.  But the other kids, my peers, the ones who really mattered, thought I was a neat person.  If I could have, I would have stayed in high school for a lot more years than the allotted four.

It wasn't until 6 years later, when I went to college that I realized I had a brain and was smarter I.Q. wish than I ever thought I was.  

As for marriage?  It was what was expected in the late '50's.  It was security for women.  We didn't work outside the home.  We got married, had children, kept the house clean and supper on the table when our husband, the provider and boss of our life, walked in the door from a hard day at work.

I wasn't a very good mother, not as good as my friends, by the looks of it.  I was an only child for a long time.  I didn't have the opportunity to watch how my mother would handle a house full of kids.

I had no idea what a mother was supposed to do, other than the example I had from the older women in my life.  I did what they had done.  I was faced with more difficult problems than they were however.  I had teenagers in the 70's.  Long haired kids that wanted to be rebels, smoke pot and drink.  Skip school,  run away from home or call, "come get me", from the county Sheriff's office.  I had no idea how to handle those situations in the best way.  Their father was the working man of the family, I was the mother and it was me who was supposed to discipline and not bother him with such matters.  He wanted to take their clothes and put them out on the lawn and not allow them back in the house.  I was the one who had to reason and tell him he was responsible for them until they were eighteen.  He told me to "handle it" and "I don't want to hear about all this after I've worked all day."

Honestly?  I liked my kids a lot more when they were newborns and up until about 6 years old.  I thought it would be a good idea to put them in a cage somewhere, until they reached age 20, and then take them back out to join the family.  Military school for the son, and some sort of parochial boarding school for the oldest daughter.  It sounded good to me, but there were none in our State.

Then, somewhere along about the time I hit 40, I became very disenchanted with life.  I can thank Gloria Steinem for all that.  She kept telling me that I was unfulfilled as a woman because I stayed home and was a "housewife"--that ugly word.  I needed to "get out in the world", get a job, find my true self.

There I was.  3 out of 4 children grown and away from home.  Living with a husband that was rarely home, who informed me that he still gave me my weekly grocery money allowance, I had a roof over my head, so I should be grateful(?).  When he was home, he rarely spoke to me, fell asleep in his chair every evening around 9:00 and slept there most of the night and hadn't said, "I love you" since our wedding night.  One time, when I asked him, he said, "I told you once.  If I change my mind, I'll let you know."

The day of our 25th anniversary, when I asked him if he would change his life in anyway, he replied, "Well I can tell you...I'd never get married and have four damn kids!"

The next day, I told him we should get divorced.  Oh sure--then he wanted to "work it out".  We tried, but he just couldn't.  He was too ingrained in how he had lived his life for twenty-five years that he was incapable of changing it and still being happy.  In fact, if he couldn't be at the golf course, every summer night after work, or at the race track three nights a week in the winter, he was really quite miserable.

18 months later, we sat in the hallway of the County Courthouse, holding on tight to each other's hands and crying.  I felt closer to him on that day than I had in the 31 years I had known him.

Honestly?  I regret that day.  I wish I had just stayed.  I see my friends that had not so great marriages, still together and have become "friends" with each other or at least can tolerate each other a lot better than they did in the early years.  

Honestly?  If his wife died, I'd probably do everything in my power to get back together with him.  He's quite different now.  I doubt he'd quiz me on how much I spent at the Wal-Mart.  

We'd be a family again.  The kids would come visit us.  We'd do family get-together's.  Or at least, that's the picture that my old, addled mind conjures up.

Out into the work world I went.  Was I fulfilled?  The first job, maybe.  It was exciting.  I got awards and rewards for my ingenuity and..........there were men!  Men, all over the place.  Who wanted to date me because I had such a brilliant mind?  Such an entertaining way of talking?  Tall and slender and blond--I looked good on their arm?

No.  I had long legs and big boobs

but--that honesty will have to wait until tomorrow.  This honesty thing wears out my mind!
  

It Is The Best of Days--It is the Worse of Days

My 4^th Sadiversary, since Fred passed.  He was such a good man.  I have known other, what I thought were good men, but in all those relationships, there was always emotional or physical hurt and betrayal. 

Fred was the first man who truly loved me with no conditions expected.  He was honest, loyal, kind and caring to me.  We were so alike in everything, even our pasts were alike.  We were an extension of each other. The same mind, thought and heart in two separate bodies.  He often said, we were like twins. His total acceptance of who I was, gave me self-confidence and self-esteem I had rarely felt in my entire life. 

Fred and I had talked of it often.  I was 65, he 61, when we met.  We both had given up ever finding love again.  We both felt that even if we only had five years together,  we would be grateful. 

Seven years and not one single disagreement.  We had learned, “not to sweat the small stuff”.  Whatever he wanted to do was fine with me.  Whatever I wanted to do, was fine with him.  We were just content to be with each other, day by day.

With a hug and a kiss, his last words to me were, “I love you, Honey.  See ya in a little while.”  I stepped out of his hospital room, so "they" could do their "test" on him.  15 minutes later, he was gone.

10:51 am  1/1/2012

Friends thought I was in complete shock and denial because I didn’t “grieve” like I was supposed to.  It was because all I could think of was how grateful I was for the years we had together.  

As I drove home from the hospital, every time I thought of him, on that day, and every time since, for the last four years, I just smile.  

Sure, I miss him, I am incredibly lonely, but God brought us together in February 2003, and both of us knew that.  

There is no earthly way we should have ever met.  He was the very best man I have ever known.

I am so very thankful.

Yes--I Like College Football

What a Dream Week for Moi!!!  

Look at Thursday.  One right after the other on the same channel.  11 hours of Bowl Games.  

Friday looks like I might have to use the "clicker" to keep track, but it's all good.  

Can you imagine the amount of crochet I will get done?

and just in case you forgot:

For those of you that don't know what this means:  We play Alabama--they are called the Crimson TIDE.  So------Tides come and go---Spartans are forever!!!  They are favored by 10 points, so we gotta play tough and beat them.  

Another reason we hate them?  Their Coach was once our Coach and he left in mid-season to go to Louisiana for bigger money.  ASSHAT!!!

Is Counseling Free On Sundays?

I watched my Sunday morning programs--2--Dr. David Jeremiah and Bobby Schuller, then started to clean up this house.  

I started in the bedroom, as I always do and worked my way toward the front--dusting, vacuuming, mopping the kitchen floor, onto the living room and last of all--this messy room.

I was doing fine in the bedroom and bathroom, vacuuming the kitchen floor to get ready for the mop and there was a knock at my door.  It was Maisey and the guy who walks her--John.

"Did you have a nice Christmas?" I asked.

"No!  My youngest son was there...he lives nearby, but I never see him.  He and his mother got into it and then he got mad at me and so...I left!"

"You were at your ex-wife's for Christmas?"

"Yes--we and the kids always celebrate together."

"But--you are divorced and you said she hates you and you don't much like her.  Why would you go over there?  Especially on Christmas Day?

"Always have.  Even when I was married to Wife Two--we went and she was married to Husband Two.  There's usually a fight about something.  This year, my son had a few beers and got mouthy."

"Hm-mm."

John left after an hour.

I got the kitchen floor mopped and was dusting and vacuuming the living room and in walked Dar.

"Did you have a nice Christmas?" I asked.

"It was awful!  My brother's Mike and Terry were drinking and they got into it and then my sister-in-law Mary said something really snide, so I left and came home."

"Did you say anything before you left, or did you just sneak out?"

"Oh no.  I told them all what I think of them and then I left." 

Then she lapsed into an account of the "really expensive gifts my Daddy got me", and the "very costly oil painting my favorite sister-in-law Pat got me", and...............................

She was here ninety minutes.  Did she ever asked how my Christmas was?  Of course not!

Back to vacuuming and another opening of my door.  It was Merle.  He had been out walking.

"Just stopped in to tell you Happy New Year and get a hug."  
<arggh>

A brief--very brief sideways hug--"Did you hear?  I have Parkinson's.  I got the diagnosis last week."

"Yes, I heard that.  Well, at least you now know and can take pills to manage it."

"Yep."

"How do you feel?"

"Pretty good, but....those pills are ruining my sex life."  and out the door he went.
<arggh>

After that encounter, I felt like taking a shower, but it was four o'clock by then and we have a snow/ice storm coming in tomorrow and I had half a bottle of Diet Pepsi left and one cup milk, so I jumped in the car and ran up to the little store and paid twice as much as I would have at Wal-Mart to get my much needed supplies.  :-)

On the way home, I stopped in at Merle and Pearl's.  He was in the bedroom watching the football game, and didn't come out (thank goodness).

I sat down in the living room with her.

"Did you have a nice Christmas?" I asked.

"It was okay.  I took a pie and only one piece was eaten.  No one sat down and talked with me.  I just sat there and listened and had no conversation.  My son had a few too many beers and he and Merle got into an argument, so we came home early."

"Oh!  I'm sorry"

"How was your Christmas?  You went to Pam's, right?"

"Yes.  It was............ah.........nice."

"No arguments?"

"Nope."

Now--when I got home and as I was thinking while I finished up vacuuming the living room,  what is the common denominator in all three of these people's unpleasant Christmas family get-togethers?

Alcohol!

Of course, there were built-in tensions before any of them got together, but the added alcohol just made people get all mouthy and caused hard(er) feelings. 

So glad my family just drinks coffee, juice or soda.  :-)

Consequently with all my interruptions, I have yet to get this messy den/computer/whatever room dusted and vacuumed and stuff put away.

Oh well--there's always Monday.  :-).
=================
Susan and I on a very warm Christmas Day.  Screen door is open.

No Expectations

The trick is...go in not expecting anything.  Just go with the flow.  Have no anticipation, other than that YOU are going to enjoy the day, no matter what.

Riding out to Pam's with Karen and part of her family, I mainly kept quiet, listened to the conversation going on around me and answered when a question was directed to me.  I did break into "Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house", about half a mile from Pam's, because to Karen and me, it WAS grandmother's house and when she was little and all of us in the car, we'd sing that on the way to this very same house.

Then the kids starting singing it with, "to Aunt Pammie's house we go.", which was perfect.

As I walked into the living room, my son immediately got out of his chair and came to give me a hug.  That was not expected.  He usually sits and waits for me to go to him.  I think perhaps, when you come to the full realization of your own mortality, it changes you.  He seemed to be much more invested in the family festivities, than he has other years past.

On occasions like this, our family doesn't talk of unpleasant things.  There is no gossip.  There are no snide remarks.  If you sit very quietly and listen--there is a constant undertone of giggles coming from all over the house.  Someone is always laughing--always.

I heard my sister and Karen giggling out in the kitchen.  I heard my grand daughter Helene giggling with her sister over on the other side of the living room.  Pam and Cindy were giggling out in the dining room.  My SonIL and his two boys, giggling, while they were laying under the table, trying to get the puppy to sleep and I even heard my son (who never giggles) talking with his young niece Maddie and laughing.

I just sat and listened and smiled and tried not to let the moisture in my eyes, creep down my face.

It was all so perfect and wonderful.  Even though Jennifer's family was missing, as my sister said yesterday, "There wasn't enough room for seven more young kids running around anyway." (Her son's family also not present).   Not the way I would have looked at it because there is always room for that, in my opinion, but.................  
==========================
Susan and Chuck came down Christmas Day and we had a good time.  We played three games of "Skip Bo"--a card game and one I had never played, thus I won all three games.

With just the three of us, we COULD talk of matters--Jennifer's moving, Susan's daughter-in-law INSISTING they go on a cruise (the 3rd this year) at Christmas time because, she loves cruises because she sits by the pool all the time and makes lets her husband take care of the kids.  They are not allowed to bother her during the day.  They do have supper together.

So yes--Susan and Chuck and I had our gossip then, while playing cards, but, it too was a wonderful time.  I have noticed that as my sister ages, her always happy attitude is waning.  She does have her cranky moments--quite often.  She has become critical of others.  I think perhaps, her moving to The Farm has been a disappointment.  It HAD to be.  She had planned this move for 20 years.  I doubt it has lived up to her anticipation and expectations.

I had the front screen door open most of Christmas Day.  It was 53, sunny and quite warm inside.  Chuck took a picture of Susan and me, on my porch, in back of the Christmas wreath, clad in our light weight tops with sleeves pushed up.

Today--it is cold and bleak.  I have no expectations.  Day by Day--whatever comes.  

It is "boxing" day.  To me that means, Christmas decorations are boxed up and put away.  Only the last decade have I done this, but.....I like a nice, clean, neat house to usher in a clean, neat New Year.