Happy Friday!

I'm going to give this blog a try. It's definitely very public and I hate my life going public like that. People are really mean sometimes and especially so when it comes to online people. I need to figure out some settings to make it so that only my true and trusted can visit me here. There is really no reason for strangers to visit me here to judge and ridicule my life. I am not here for their entertainment purposes, I share my life in a blog so that I may revisit it later to see how I have grown, and to share with those who give a damn.

This week has been really crazy. I'm still standing but some days are easier than others. If this blog will let me post an older entry, I can publish what I wrote in my livejournal blog, which is just basically a recap of the last year. Then I was going to share this past week. It's not a big deal, my life isn't all that entertaining to others by any means, but this week impacted me greatly.

Well...publishing this and we'll go from there.

A year...

It's been over a year since I last blogged.  I don't really have an excuse or explanation as to why I stopped, except that my blog has become for my eyes only.  Blogs don't seem to be as common nowadays.  I used to have readers, but we've all made our way over to facebook and I don't feel like facebook is bloggy enough.  (LOL!  Bloggy!  What a fun word!)

I guess I can take some time to recap the year first.  Last I wrote was Chloe's birthday a year ago.  March 12, 2010.  The rest of the month I don't recall very much of at all, we celebrated Mom's birthday and Shirley's birthday by going out to Hideaway Lake and taking pictures of flowers.  I do remember it being rainy that day and on the drive home, we encountered three different accidents in a row that were just a mile or so from the other.  I think we saw a double rainbow right before that.  The whole thing scared me to death but we made it home safely. :) 

April we celebrated the twins 7th birthday, Trinity's first Easter, a skimpy bluebonnet season, and that's all I can really remember. 

May we celebrated our 13th anniversary by going to the Fort Worth Zoo, also the Barron family reunion.  We had a tornado scare and had to hunker down at the chiro office, back in the x-ray room.  I was terrified!

June - Jay graduated high school and I sat with Suzanne as we watched her baby boy graduate.  We both cried. :)  My sister and the family came down in June as well and spent a little over a week.  I wore myself out and drained my bank account and went into severe debt just driving to Cedar Hill and back every. single. day.  It was so worth it, I cherish every moment spent with all of them.  But it broke us financially and did me in in many ways.  I had a little melt down and decided we simply MUST move closer to Mom.  This driving back and forth 45 minutes to Mom's and back every single day was just entirely too much for me.  I want to live closer to Mom!  I was serious at the time, too.  I don't ever want to leave my other family here in Palmer, the Brazier's and the Morris's, but living so far from Mom starts to really take its toll on me and my spirit.  Of course that was just a dream, as most things are in my life.  It's been pushed back since we'd never ever be able to sell this house, I'm sure.  God seems to have other plans and He seems to want us to stay here forever.

July we bought Mom's jeep!  Then we went to visit my Sissie in IL again and had the BEST time EVER!  I got another tattoo of a sun and a moon like I'd always wanted, we got to laugh and just enjoy time with her, got to see the kids, the time just went by way too fast.  More cherished memories were made, bonds strengthened.  We stopped by Memphis on the way home and spent the night, went to Beale St.  It was a fun time. 

August - it was hot.  That's about all I can recall from August.  Sissie's birthday that I didn't get to celebrate with her. :(

September - it was hot.  And we celebrated the dogs 9th birthday. 9/11 came and this time I kind of paid more attention to the shows.  I have spent the last 9+ years trying to ignore how I felt that day and not dwell on it, but I feel like enough time has passed that I can revisit the day without depression, and honor the memory of those lost.  We went and stood on the bridge this time around and waved flags with our neighbors.  :)

October - The State Fair, Halloween and also my 20th High School Reunion.  That was actually kind of fun!  I enjoyed reuniting with a lot of people even if we'd already reunited on FB, but seeing them in person was a blessing.  I still felt like that quiet outcast that nobody would talk to, but was pleasantly surprised by how many classmates DID come up and talk to me! :)  I did go up and talk to some ladies that I remembered very well, but they looked at me like "who the hell are you?"  See? Still making a huge fool of myself even all these years later.  That's how I roll.  I honestly wasn't all that memorable in high school, always the misfit.  Not smart enough to be with the smart kids, not cool enough to be with the cool kids, not well-dressed enough to fit in with those who had cool clothes, not popular enough for the popular kids, not talented enough to be with the talented kids (band, drama, honors).  I was just there, just me, and pretty darn invisible. So it's a blessing to be in touch with classmates today who seem to remember me, despite the invisibility.
Of course it was disappointing to have a classmate "unfriend" me on FB not long after.  Was it something I said?  I may never know.  I thought we had a lot in common! 

Jim and I also caught colds that month that we think came from the State Fair.  Mine turned into a sinus infection but I beat it naturally and after three weeks total, I finally got well.  Jim ended up spiking a fever and had to go to the ER with 103.7 fever!  They never could figure out what was wrong, they diagnosed him with "Viral Syndrome" and sent him home with hydrocodone and a bill for $200.  I just think Jim didn't take the time to rest and heal when he was sick, so his body made him rest and heal.  Jim also needed a crown that cost us $1000, so that put us back even further.  I lost 7lbs due to the stress of all of this.

November - One of my favorite months.  We celebrated Trinity Faith's first birthday party!  I so enjoyed the first year of her life and watching her grow, her little personality developing, she is such a joy and just when I think I can't love her any more than I already do, I go and love her more and more with each passing day. :)  We also got to be with Mom on Thanksgiving, had a great day with family.

December - my BIRTHDAY!  I turned 39 and we did the same thing we usually do.  Picture with my tree, go to the Galleria, lunch over the ice skating rink, shop, then shop grapevine mills, we saw Harry Potter and we were the ONLY ONES in there! :)  Mom had given me money to shop and I did hit the sales the day after Thanksgiving, but shopped a little on my birthday as well. 
The holidays were nice, I had one of my best Christmases ever because it was low stress, everyone got along, Jim and I gave eachother great presents, we had a REAL tree again, life was good.  We finally sold the oldsmobile to my cousin for Allison, we sold it for much less than I wanted to but it felt like the right thing to do.  Even if we are buried in debt.  I always try to do the right thing by God and what my heart tells me to do, but the right thing always leaves us screwed financially.  Somehow that just doesn't seem fair.
New years was spent at home and on FB.  Me and my farm, that was kind of the theme of my whole year - farmville.  ;)  By this time I not only had one farm, but three.  One for Cheshire and one for Sierra.  The year of 2010 closed and I was smiling about it.  It was a non-eventful year in the way that we all mostly stayed healthy, no surgeries, no cancers, no tragedies, just healthy happy people.  Everyone else I know had the worst year ever but for me that was 2008 and 2009.  2010 was a good year. :) 

January 2011 - Nice weather for us it seems, we celebrated our 15th "together" anniversary since we've been together since January 21, 1996. :)  Still madly in love and so very happy together.  It snowed on Brandi's birthday, I'll never forget that!  What a great gift for her! 

February had nice weather, too, until the superbowl week.  Two Friday's before Jim and I took a lunch together and went to the Dallas Cowboys Stadium to see it all decked out for superbowl and we took pictures.  It was gorgeous and seventies that day, hard to believe.  Not long after we got hit with a hard winter blast that had us below freezing for three days in a row I think, down into the single digits.  We had sleet and snow, frozen pipes and Jim had to miss a few days of work.  When that started to clear up we had a bit more sleet and snow.  It seems like for two weeks it was bitterly cold and unlike TX at all, but then it just went away and didn't come back.  Seems to have been pleasant since then.  Spring arrived early with blossoms on our pretty tree, sickly wilty looking daffodils and hyacinths due to the freeze, and bees buzzing early.  Jim had his birthday and we enjoyed some QT together, went to see I Am Number Four, ate appetizers at Chili's and just enjoyed his birth-time.  I dealt with some true colors from some people I thought were my friends and now they are no longer in my life.  My real friends pointed out that they were never my friends to begin with and they are right.  I just wish I'd stop having faith in people when I know deep in my heart that they don't care.  I still always give them the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes I think "why bother?"  God has blessed me with some amazing REAL friends who have stood by me through thick and thin, who love me despite my flaws, who honor my talents and strong points, who raise me up when I'm down.  And who don't bail on me if I have a different opinion.  They don't come to my FB page and attack me and my family, they instead respect me and my family.  See?  Real friends.  But I still always feel heartbroken when I lose someone, even if they didn't care about me.  I cared about them.  It's who I am.  It's who God made me to be.  I cannot change that and it's a quality I'll always be proud of.

March arrived with nice weather, almost too warm, we had to run the air conditioner even in late February and a few times in March.  Money issues continued to pile up and we stressed over how to make ends meet.  Gas prices continue to rise even now and we spend a lot of time stuck at home, with the jeep sitting in the driveway so we can save gas.  We skip a lot of events because we cannot afford to drive anywhere anymore.  We did go to the Irish Festival like always, Tracey went with us and we had a great time! :)  I drank some wine and laughed at many things, just had a fun time.
About mid March, the civic broke down.  It needed to have the transmission rebuilt and that cost us $2000.  Jim had to drive the jeep to work for about a week, spending gas we couldn't afford but what can you do.  I trust God has a plan so it is what it is, as the saying goes.  Not happy about it.  I definitely shed a lot of tears over everything but it's not like that changes anything.  Then Jim got bronchitis and we had to get him to the doc for medicine.  I caught the same cold that started his, but it wasn't too bad.  Just had me feeling bla for a week.  Most of March had us just not feeling well.  I started my spring flare right around the time that Dr. Linda Cosgrove (my chiro) showed me her business next door, called Get Moving.  They are toning tables and you lie on a table and it works a part of your body.  Ten minutes later you go to the next table and it works a different part of your body.  You do this over five tables, then the vibrating table.  The next visit you do the OTHER side of the room and use those different tables, working other parts of your body.  It's aimed for older people and/or those with arthritis who may have mobility issues.  But it seems to work wonders for fibromyalgia pain.  It put circulation into my body and brought me tremendous relief.  That weekend flare subsided after a few days and I have managed to keep any flares to a minimum instead of spending a whole month confined to my couch.  Yay!

April arrived and we finally got some much needed rain, as we are now in a drought.  That brings us to now, which is a whole other blog entry.  I will continue onto the next one in a few.  I know I left tons out but I have been slacking.  My blog has been my Sissie in the novels I have been sending to her.  I may paste those into my blog for my own eyes so I can remember the events of the year.  Here recently I was reading through old blogs and I used to share EVERY little thing!  Every day and every emotion, personalities of my animals, things I saw in the skies, dreams I had, and I just kind of stopped.  I don't think I've honestly been the same since that horrible summer and the fall when Ginny died.  But as time goes on I am healing and trying to be a better version of myself.  I did back track a bit spiritually but I am ready to dust myself off and move forward.  I am going to come back to my blog to share my feelings once again.  Oh, Blog!  I have missed you so!