Good Bye Bitch!

No, I am not mad at anybody.  The bitch I am referring to is 2012.  I along with the rest of my family are glad to see this year gone.  For the first time in a number of years I am going to stay up to see the new year in.  This year it is not so much about seeing the new one in as seeing the old one out, gone, finished, do not want a do over! 

Dumbass and I had a conversation last week about psychics and how some people believe in them.  If you do that is your right and I don't judge you for your belief.  I personally do not.  I think that is an avenue that some people have found to make a good living.  Many psychics depend on repeat business so if you are able to see the future do you want to deliver news to someone that the whole damn year is gonna suck.  How would that work for having them to come back for more.  Had someone told me a year ago that during the next year that both of my brothers would be diagnosed with cancer and that both would die before the year is out I think I would have just gone ahead and run away, far, far away.  If you had told me that our mother who I have told you has very advanced Alzheimer's would in just a matter of days would go from someone still walking around and feeding themselves to being bed ridden and being fed a pureed diet I would have been skeptical about that also.  And if I had sat down with you and you had told me all that, I promise you that I would not have given you any more of my hard earned money!  But yet that is what the year has been like.  I much think I prefer not knowing and being able to depend on God's grace to get me through these things at the time they are happening.  No, I just lied, I don't think I would prefer it I know that is what I prefer.  There have been other things throughout the year that pretty much sucked (and I am sorry there is just not a better description) but these are the big things. 

But on a positive note through all this crap I have seen one of my grandsons become a Christian this year.  I have had friendships become stronger this year.  I have learned more about my own strength than what I wanted to know.  The year has not been all bad but I still am ready to see 2013 get here.  I can only hope it is a better year than the past one has been.  I am still saying there is a better day coming.  And yes I will still continue to say there is joy in the journey even though the journey through 2012 seems to have been paved with tears.  Here is hoping that the journey of 2013 is paved with laughter and tears of joy.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Once Again

Once again my heart is breaking.  Although I don't know that is accurate because it is hard for something to break that has never mended to begin with.  Last Wed. at about 9:30 I get a phone call from my brother in Oklahoma's girlfriend.  This is the brother that was diagnosed in May with multiple myeloma.  The phone call was to inform me that my brother had died.  We don't know what happened only that it was very quick as in talking and just a few minutes later was gone.  This was completely unexpected.  I am not sure if it was the suddenness of it or an accumulation of the last few months or a combination of both but I am having a harder time dealing with this one.  Both sisters said they felt the same way.  My most prevailing thought on Wed. and often since is that last year at Christmas there were 5 of us and this year there are only 3.  On Sat. we will gather to remember Edward and then privately bury his ashes with his two children.  Then we will gather as a family at my house and eat and just be.  As painful as this is I still give thanks that he didn't suffer and that he never had to sit with his Dr and hear them tell him there was nothing else they could do.  As my daughter says we are a family of 'bright siders'.  I am just getting a little tired of having to keep looking for it.  We will do what we do and that is carry on, in little baby steps that will increase in stride before we know it.  Good night all of ya'll

BAH HUMBUG!!!!!

I know I have been gone for a while and I will make no excuses.  You know that an excuse is just the skin off of a lie.  I could say I have been busy and I have been but as I have been heard to say, "we make time for those things that are important to us."  Plus the fact that I just can't seem to get it together to figure out what I want to write about.  Not that there is nothing but that there is too much!  As you should be used to by now, I digress.  I feel like I owe people around me an apology but I just do not have any Christmas spirit!!!!  I want the whole holiday season GONE!  I even told the preacher and his wife last Sunday if we don't quit singing 'Beautiful Star of Bethlehem' every Sunday in Dec. that next year I was not coming to church at all in the month of Dec.  They thought I was joking.  You see, that was Bobby's favorite Christmas song.  He looked forward to singing that song every year and wanted it sung the first and last Sunday in Dec.  This past Sun. would have been our 23rd wedding anniversary and guess what song the trio that sang one of the specials sang.  Yep, you got it.  I know my feelings are maybe a little more tender this year as we are going to have our 1st Christmas gathering without my brother but I just can not help it.  I told all of ya'll last year that if I was by myself this year at Christmas I was not dragging that tree out.  Well guess what and guess what?  I made one small concession.  My 9 year old niece (yes, my brother's daughter) seemed to be a little bothered that I didn't have any decorations up so I let her put the small tree that I put on the dining room table up.  I am sorry but I just do not have the heart for this.  I really am not a negative person but this is the time of year that it just seems to be so in your face that couples are doing things together and planning what to get each other for Christmas that it is an even stronger reminder for those of us who are alone.  I think I am doing the 'alone' thing pretty well most of the time but there are those moments when it does get to be overwhelming.  Well, ya'll have listened to me whine long enough.  I am ok but still even after all this time have those moments.  Remembering a couple of Indian proverbs:  "Live to fight another day." and "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."  The picture I am including is Christmas of 2010 when all 5 siblings were together at the holidays.  And yeah, you might be a redneck if you have your Christmas picture made at the Waffle House.  Thanks for listening.  I will try to be back sooner.  I am looking for a New Year's Eve party not so much to see the new year in but to see 2012 gone.  The year has pretty much sucked!  And my nieces and nephew would be disappointed because I always scolded them for using that term.  Oh well, see ya'll later.