Family & Blogging

So yesterday I casually mentioned to my mother that I started a blog. She said I should email it to all of my family and friends so they can keep up with what is going on in my life. I could link photos and talk about everyday happenings. I am thinking, isn't one of the main reasons to have a blog to bitch about those you love most to people you don't know? I mean seriously, what is the point of blogging if you can't talk about your husband being lazy, your son doing something crazy, your mother annoying you, the dogs eating the hose and so many other wonderful family issues? Not to mention if I do compain about my mother being annoying then she will comment back and being the oh so compelling letter writer I will be totally screwed on my own blog. How is that for a reason NOT to have a blog. Or I suppose one of the reason I shouldn't have told her I have a blog. Course I can't really keep any secrets of my own. Everytime someone askes me to keep a secret, I follow it up with - "If I have to keep it from my mother and/or my husband then don't tell me." She also took about 2 minutes to edit and critique my blog. Oh yes, I had a few misspellings on both of my first two posts. Thanks mom! I have tried since I was little to get a letter or paper past my mother without her grabbing the red pen. I would say, "hey can you sign this for me?" Sure honey, then not two seconds later she is telling me about some weird sentence or wrong capitalization or something. You would have thought she was a school teacher, but no. Everytime some horrible injustice happened to us at school my mother would say she was going to write a letter. We would beg her not to because her letters tended to scare people into doing things. Kidding aside, she really is a great letter writer! Not someone you want to get on her bad side. Heaven forbid she write you a letter.

I love my mother. I think I like having my parents in my life more than most people because whenever family is mentioned I hear about their horrible upbringing. I am thinking, wow mine wasn't half bad. We took sandwiches to the park, played board games, bbq'd, had really sweet Yorkshire Terrier dogs, always lived in the best neighborhood whether they had the money or not- maybe lived in the shit house on the block, but who complains about being the annoying neighbor? I remember my parents telling me they went to a football game party at a friends house. We were out of groceries and money, but they put down for the football pool. They won $75 that night and drove straight to the grocery store with their winnings. Things were not easy when I was little, but I never knew. And unlike Big Brother, I love PBJ sandwiches. We obviously didn't eat them that much. Mother tells me she swore when my sperm donor left that we would have home cooked hot meals. So she made pot roast and other Martha Stewart type meals. An hour after cooking dinner, we would walk in and take one look at the table and ask for PBJ. I bet she wanted to kill us. She would even put sandwiches in the hot grille, a kind of sandwich melt, in order to have a hot meal.

My father is a great guy. And I mean my real father. The one who married my mother when I was about five years old. The one who stayed and worked his ass off for us. The one who taught me to fight for what you want, to work smarter not harder, to think positive and be tolerant of others. The one who would come to my swim meets after a long work day and sit in the 120 degree sun in a suit and tie to cheer me on. The one who took us in and never looked back. The one man I could always count on. A man of his word. Someone to this day that I look up to. You don't find many people with the qualities he has. I heard a story once about my dad's cousin taking a school field trip through the projects and they drove right past my grandparent's house. My grandparents on my dad's side worked in factories. My grandfather sewed mattresses together and my grandmother did sewing as well. I would go with my grandfather to pick up my grandmother at the bus stop. My grandpa would give you the last bite of a candy bar and the last quarter in this pocket. My grandmother and I would watch her Novelas every afternoon and read the newspaper togther. Amazing people.

I got my love of religion from my dad's brother. As a child he would take my sister and I to all these different churches. I remember going to one where we danced, played the tamborines and flew stremers. I loved going to church with my uncle. He made it fun. It was a special time with him. He was the only one for me when I needed a sponsor for baptism. I remember meeting up with him when he was going to seminary school. I would have lunch with him and his roommates.
I have great memories of when I was growing up.

I don't know a lot about my grandparents on my mother's side, but I scrapbooked the first 4 years of my life recently and they were in every other picture. My grandmother is a master crafter. She has made dolls, done ceramics, knitted, crocheted, created cards on her computer and so many other things I can't remember. My grandfather was a newspaper editor and took wonderful pictures of everything. When my mother was growing up they would have a new word at dinner time; with the definition. My mother told me they would look forward to going out to eat once a week at the local burger place; five burgers for a dollar. I know my grandparents love me and I know I love them and for now, that is enough for me. It is hard because I wish we were closer. I wish I knew more about them. My mother says we spent a lot of time over at their house with my two aunts. My mother and her sisters are seperated by five years. The middle sister is the kindest, most gentle person in the world. She is the person you love with all your heart and soul. She would never do anything to hurt you and loves you like her own children. She home schooled her four children and if I could be half the mother she is, wow. We just got to really know her kids, our cousins just this year. It is great knowing I have family that I love and know I will get to grow up with. I can watch them get married and have kids and meet up for holidays. It feels like I have more sisters and brothers. I feel like a kid when I am around them. My mother's youngest sister is the fun one. I think I look like her, too. She writes horror novels, loves paranormal, visits cemeteries and was a vet technician. Both have reached a new stage in life; one will have an empty nest soon and the other recently got divorced. I know they will both find a life that is near and dear to their hearts.

That is what I am searching for right now. I am newly married to a man and his son, who lives with us full time. I love them terribly. We have had many a rough day and night. We are very different people. I had not realized how different we were until I moved in. I am very type A. I do things exactly the same way every time. I follow the rules. I make my own rules. I rarely digress from them. I like to write everything down. I love to read. I work outside the house. I have two cats that I cherish above all other things in life. I eat three square meals a day. My family grew up eating dinner together every night and I loved it and still do. When I go to dinner with my folks, Bill knows not to expect me home for 2 or even 3 hours. I have serious anxiety and worry about everything - the known and the unknown. When I am upset I yell, throw things and boy does it feel good to slam a door. My husband works at home on his own schedule which can go anywhere his cell phone and labtop go. He can't wait to get out of the house. I rarely see him pick up a book, let alone read a full one. He doesn't follow the rules and prides himself on doing exactly the opposite. He will not be defined or labeled. He loves the computer and keeps everything he knows in his head - he doesn't make lists. He rarely eats before 4pm and takes most of his desserts to bed. He knows nothing but relaxation. He doesn't stress over many things and few things bother him. Though when he is angry he is even quieter. A little like my father, when he is angry you can feel the electricity coming off him. A very good portrayal of the saying "the silence is deafening". He has grown up with pit bulls - huge dogs I refer to as our horses. I have started making lists of things we do agreee on because otherwise I would constantly wonder what the hell I was doing when I got married. Here is the list - blueberries, movies, root beer, pancakes, putting the syrup jar in the fridge, we love photographs, creamy peanut butter, cereal anytime, mexican food, one week vacation every year by ourselves. I am sure there is more. Wow lots of food on that list. People I talk to all the time say they are so happy. What? No. They must be lying. I remember after one of my mother's rantings, Bill turned to me and said quietly, boy I am so glad I am not married to your mother. What?!?!? I said, who do you think you married? I am my mother. At the time, we must have still been in our lovey dovey stage because he can't believe how much I am like my mother. What I am referring to is my mother's crazy moments. According to my mother, one moment lasted 10 years. Seriously, I love my mother and I know I am very much like her. We come from a long line of strong, independent women. We can be angry, sometimes vindictive and we speak our mind whether you want to hear it or not. I love and lothe that part of me. When Bill and I are arguing I lothe that part of me that just won't shut up. When I am being funny I love that part of me. The good comes from the bad. I am one of the few women my age who enjoys going to the movies by myself and having dinner on a Friday night at a really nice restaurant - by myself. When I am loud and in the moment, I call it being passionate (says the crazy woman). But honestly, my husband and I have our differences for a reason. When we are good, we are better than any other couple I have ever met. The bliss is so worth it. Now if we could just hone the good to be more than 50% of the time that would be a great start. I figure another couple of years of disagreeing and negotiating will turn a relatioinship into one that will last for ages. Hopefully we live through those couple of years. I purposely left my stepson out of this because he is just an innocent in all this. Yes he may be smarter than me most of the time, but still he doesn't know better - it is the environment he lives in. I am lucky that not only does my stepson like me, but he loves me too and vice versa. Because let me tell you I don't have to like him and he doesn't have to like me. I married my husband and he married me - our son is just on the sideline.

Wow I think I am going to end this post because at this point you have probably heard way more than you want to hear about me and my family. And if they are reading this - I meant all of this is a nice and loving manner. No really.

Hi mom!