Random and Odd

Thank you for giving. I’ll take real good care of it.



Maui 2011, originally uploaded by Random and Odd.

Everyone is doing the “I’m Thankful for…” the whole month of November until Thanksgiving on Facebook again this year. I have done a few, but they were always the funny things that get overlooked, like Qtips.

Last year on my blog I pointed out the small things I am grateful for. Looking over it, I am still grateful for those things, but this time I want to be thankful for this year as a whole.

I have been reading about my friends and what they have had to go through this year and my first thing I am grateful for is my health and the health of my children. SO many of my friends spend hours on the road driving their very young children to get Chemotherapy sessions far away from home. When some parents are stressing about their kids unmade beds, I have another parent who is stressing on her son’s blood cell count. I’m hoping Alyx gets a good hair cut for her school pictures and one of my friends is hoping her kid doesn’t get teased because her daughter has no hair yet because the chemo made it fall out.
Are you kids not getting good grades in school? I have a friend whos kid is homeschooled because he is in the hospital so much because of brittle bones. Facebook has shown me that as a parent, I am so lucky that my kids are where they are. If not happy…at least HEALTHY.

Speaking of happy. This time last year I was in a weird place with Lester. We were broke up/still seeing each other and I was right on the brink of getting ready to get over him and move on. I told him once, the best thing you ever did was leave me because you showed me that I can get over you too. I’ve said it before, but losing what we had last year was harder than the loss of my marriage. The marriage loss hurt was for the girls and all that they would lose. When Lester and I broke up, it was all my loss.
This year we are on a whole different train. I’m not sure when It got easier, but it has. Does he still drive me crazy? Yes. He does. Does he want to strangle me at every turn? Yup. Right now, the happy outweighs everything else. There are times when we are together and I look over at him and he smiles and it’s the most real smile I have ever seen. For those of you that don’t know Lester, he’s not big on smiling or showing that he’s happy. In the 2 years we have been together he’s gotten so much better at just letting go and being dorky with me. This will come as a shock to some of you, but I’m not a super serious person. When it’s OUR time, be it just the two of us or when his son is there, or my kids…we can just laugh and make jokes. I am grateful for the love we have for each other. I am grateful that we can have two different lives in two different towns and 99% of the time we are flawless when it comes to dividing time and how we are when we aren’t together. I am grateful for our Sundays. I leave early in the morning and I trail run all day and then at the end of the day I watch him play hockey. It might have not been enough for someone else, but it’s perfect for me. I am grateful.

Oh the gratefulness just keeps coming. I miss Kara so much, but I am so happy that we have a place that we talk and she can spill her heart out. Her writing has gotten so good, it’s like a novel I don’t want to put down. Every day I want her to come home because the missing of her is out of control, but I know she’s still testing out those wings and soon she will fly. It probably won’t be home that she lands, but she better always circle back because she is my other half in this life. She is the other half of her sisters and she better come back and spend more time with her baby sister because she needs her.
She sent me a text as I was sitting in the chair to get the tattoo. “Just Breath” she says to me. Her and I had been going back and forth about the tattoo design. I had told her not to get a tattoo that she will regret or one that links her to someone. “After ALL that you told me, you are getting Lester’s tattoo? ARE YOU CRAZY!? What if he does something horrible to you and you have to look at that every day and think of it?”
She has a point, but I also had mine. I’m not a tattoo person, AT ALL. I made a deal with Lester and even though I thought he would never really do it, he did it. My part of the deal was I get a tattoo. I told Kara that no matter if I got the tattoo 15 years after Lester and I broke up, that first tattoo would ALWAYS be the ‘bet’ tattoo and as soon as I got it, no matter who I was with or the meaning of the tattoo, it would be, “yeah, this is the one I should have gotten when I was with Lester.”
People have done some shitty things and I don’t need a tattoo to remember it. I have a good memory.
This tattoo is our tattoo now. He was gracious enough to share it with me and I cherish it. This will always remind me of the most amazing year I have ever had. It symbolizes the changes in my life and the commitment I have made to change and grow. This tattoo is the year I took on mountains and I won. This was the year I Let Go.
“If it gets too bad mom, just hold your breath when it hurts and breath when it doesn’t.”
I found that I can hold my breath for ten straight minutes. ;)
I’m grateful that my daughter always knows when it’s a bad day it’s a root beer day. I am grateful that she knows the exact moment to call when the needle went in and when to shut up about it.

The big things year I am grateful for. My car, by the grace of GOD is still on the road, getting me to point B. I am healthy. I can recognize a good day and know a bad day might be right around the corner, but being grateful for THAT day and live in the day, not the week or year. To recognize the strength I have and build from there. The love I am lucky to have from an amazing man. My family…my sister because that woman…she puts up with sooooooooooooooooo much.

I am grateful for what I do have and not jealous for what I don’t have. I’ve thrown away a lot in my life and I’ve learned from it. Being able to see the goodness of this life and what is left of it is what I have learned this year. NEVER take for granted the calmness in your life, because once you start getting petty and snide…shit will get real and it could get VERY UGLY.

Just sayin’.