Lots of things have been happening here lately and it’s a shame I haven’t been blogging them because now I have about a million years’ worth of things to talk about. I’ll have to gloss over a lot.

It’s spring which means two things to me:

1. The weather is awesome and we need to be outdoors all the time.
2. Summer is around the corner.

Summer being around the corner is a bit stressful for me because that is when I’m planning on moving back to the beach. This is a good thing but I have so many mixed feelings about it.

On one hand it feels like the right thing to do—the only thing to do. We have to get out of this town. It makes me sad because a lot of my family is in this town and I want to stay with them. I want to take them with me out of this town.

Every day Bug has anxiety about school and I hope that moving back to a neighborhood that we know and love will fix a lot of that. I went apartment-hunting a few weekends ago and fell in love with the new bright happy big apartment complexes that happen to be in the number-eight-in-the-country school districts. Some of the complexes have schools across the street that we could walk to and playgrounds and swimming pools and farmers markets and…it just goes on and on with wonderfulness.

Of course then there’s the fact that they are about five hundred to a thousand dollars out of my price range.

Work is picking up. My books are selling. Things are looking really positive but the risk is great. I don’t want to sign a lease and then have a slow month and not be able to make it. I know I can always move back to this town. My parents would let me move in with them. It’s just that I want to make it on my own so bad. I guess this is what everyone wants. And maybe I will make it. I’m spending $300 a month on gas just taking Bug back and forth to see her dad so there’s that. If we moved closer there would be savings and less wear and tear on my car and me. The weekends are hard, as you know.

I’m not sharing this to get advice. I think I’m adviced out. I run every scenario over in my head and all the many many many variables every night from 3am to 4am and sometimes more. There are so many wild cards. I could get a new job. I love what I’m doing and I’m doing well but maybe a steady paycheck could give me the security I need. I’ve been thinking about being an assistant to an event planner. That’s a dream that I’ve never really seen to its fruition. Does anybody know anybody in Orange County who needs a kick-ass assistant?

Since I’ve got moving on the brain I’ve started packing. It is a bit early to be boxing things up but I can’t sit around and not do something. It’s hard to feel settled in a place when you know you are going to be leaving it in a few months. Now I know what all you military families go through. I’m not planting tomatoes. I’m not watering my backyard grass. It just isn’t my home anymore. It makes me sad because I love this place but I don’t see a future here. I see the neighborhood getting and worse and worse. I see crime every day. Kids with ankle bracelets and I’m not talking about jewelry. It’s not getting better here. I can’t stay here and be part of it. If I don’t leave, someday I won’t be able to and Bug will be engaged to someone who just got out of prison.

I know. I’m being overly dramatic. But this is what single moms do. Because we have to.

I had a garage sale and got rid of a lot of stuff. You know, because less stuff means less stuff to pack and move and if I can’t move into one of those fancy nice bright white apartments then I’m probably going to be moving into a studio with a hot plate and no windows and a carpet that smells like cat pee. Less stuff is good. Plus, I made a couple hundred bucks getting rid of stuff I don’t need. That felt good too.

Bug and her neighborhood buddies sold lemonade and made about twenty bucks off being cute. It was fun.

A couple of other neighbors had a garage sale too. It was like a block party. We all talked and hung out. It was great. I’m going to miss them. I talk about being afraid in this neighborhood all the time and it’s funny because I’ve made friends with all my neighbors, even the bad guys. The best way to deal with the bad guys is to look them in the face and get to know them. They are good people who have just made bad choices or been caught up in bad circumstances. I love them. I wish I could move them all to the beach with me. I wish I were a zillionaire and I could give them all jobs. I wish I could rescue everyone.

It’s been a really interesting year. I know it happened for a reason. It’s been a mile marker. I will never forget this part of my journey.

And speaking of journeys…I’ve finally settled on a theme for my big 40th Birthday Bash:

I’m calling it a Mid-Life Crisis Retreat. Whaddayathink?

Naturally, I don’t like to talk about The Divorce much on this blog. It’s not that I don’t like to share. I do. I share too much. It’s just that my divorce is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you and I don’t know what is okay to talk about and what is not. Mostly, I just want to tread lightly so I don’t break anything else. Everything feels so fragile.

Over the last few months things had gotten out of balance between Toby and me. Nothing serious. We still both put Bug first and that’s the most important thing but I was feeling like the arrangements weren’t so very fair. I didn’t know how to tell him.

I had to talk to a lot of my friends, I had to write that Sister Forever Friend post and get a lot of kind comments and emails. I had to pray and get up the nerve. It took forever for me to get up the nerve. Finally I just called Toby up and told him what was bothering me.

And guess what? Toby completely agreed with me. He didn’t fight me at all. I was expecting World War Three and there was no fight. Not even one harsh word. I was so relieved.

So instead of our usual trek to the beach, Toby came out to visit us in the sticks. It was a huge lifesaver for me because I’ve had work coming out my ears, my car has been in the shop for some body work and I’ve just been tired. Too tired to clean the house. Too tired to get things done.

It was so nice to just stay home for the weekend for a change. I know this custody thing will always be hard. It’s the life a divorced person has to face but it was so wonderful to not have to give up Friday and Saturday for a change. Not that we’re changing our arrangement. I’ll probably go back to the usual trek. But Toby agreed that to make things fair he would come visit us once in a while instead. Bug still has ballet and gymnastics classes out in Orange County so we’ll probably just limp through the rest of this school year until we move back to the beach BUT it just felt so wonderful that he understood how hard it’s been on me. I guess I just needed that.

Toby made us a bird feeder while he was out here. We took a family trip to the hardware store and made a day of it. It was lovely.

Now I have this really lovely birdhouse feeder tray thing to look at. The birds love it. The cats love it.

Bug loves it.

Three more months of this and then things will get easier. Maybe. But everybody is right. It does get better.

*Thank you Bethany for coining that phrase. I think we are going to have a State of the Disunion meeting every six months now.

I had a crappy weekend this last weekend. I felt like I had no friends in the world which is the absolute stupidest thing ever because I have a lot of friends. I have all you guys. I have really good friends that I’ve spent years making. I have friends who will let me stay at their houses at the drop of a hat and have me over for coffee, who will take my kid for a sleepover without asking any questions. I have really really good friends who love me. So why was I feeling like a sad sack of pathetic?

You know how it is when you have drama in your life and you just feel like there’s nobody you can share it with because they’ve all heard it all already and they’re waiting for you to wake up and smell the coffee already? You don’t know who to turn to because it’s impossible to catch everyone up on the minute details that make you tick the way you tick and you’re just exhausted already trying to explain it? You know that feeling?

So I sat in my car for four hours not knowing where to go or who to call or what to do. I prayed to God to send me somebody to make the sadness go away but nobody came. That wasn’t what God wanted for me obviously. There I was waiting in my car for some miracle to happen, some magical mystical adventure to unfold and there was nothing. Just quiet and netflicks on my iphone which is actually pretty cool. But still I felt pathetic.

Somehow I got through it and the weekend went by. Weekends are always hard for me as you probably know due to my pending divorce and shared custody with someone who has always been a huge part of my life. Someone who is also a good friend which makes it even harder sometimes.

We came home and there was a package in my mailbox. A package with no return name, a familiar address in somewhat familiar handwriting.

Inside was a necklace from my brother. My brother. My brother doesn’t send me packages. It was really weird.

I don’t talk about my brother much outside of being annoyed at him from time to time when he comes to visit and messes up my house. And there’s the fact that he’s the father of my two nieces who I love to pieces and the husband of my dear sister-in-law. We have our moments but we kind of just take each other for granted. We don’t talk all that much. Not because we don’t love each other but because we don’t really have that much in common. He’s a mechanic. He listens to country music and likes to drive big red trucks. You know how it is. We just don’t really get each other.

Except that we do. We get each other on a deeper unspoken level. Not like twin-speak or anything but I just don’t really have to tell him much for him to understand what I’m going through. I don’t know if that’s why he bought me this necklace. I was all worried that he spent a fortune that he doesn’t have on it but he told me it only cost him fifteen bucks and he was just thinking of me.

So I’m wearing it every day.

It says “Sisters are forever friends” on it which kind of cracks me up because I don’t have a sister. I have a brother.

And he is my forever friend.

I have to admit this book tour has been kicking my butt. It doesn’t seem like I’m doing much. Just throwing up a graphic every weekday and then resting on my accolades but I don’t know…I’m not really doing so great at it. I got my schedule all mixed up. I missed emailing some key players, I’ve been getting people the secret sentences at the very last minute and sometimes even hours after that. I’ve been dropping the ball, regularly. Work, books, life…everywhere. I was even late to pick up Bug from kindergarten today and I had promised myself I would NEVER do that.

You should see my desk right now. It’s a complete mess. Maybe I’ll take a picture tomorrow when it’s daylight because I probably won’t have it cleaned up by then. That’s the way the days have been going. But in a way, I’m thankful. I prayed for work and I got it. I’m not rolling in paychecks but I’m making ends meet and I’m busy. It’s a lot to be thankful for.

Winter has been hard on my sense of optimism as I’m sure it has on yours too. The days are so short! It feels like it’s eight when it’s FOUR! How are we ever supposed to get anything done? Well. At 3am of course. That’s why I drink coffee.

But coffee is killing me.

I tried to take some Christmas photos for a card that I was going to print up this week and mail out next but I couldn’t get a single shot of Bug and me where I didn’t look like a hot mess. Of course she is darling in every single shot but I look like I’m old and drunk with bloodshot eyes that even photoshop can’t fix. I know I could just put a photo of her on the card and call it a day but I vowed to embrace getting older. I don’t want to hide from my wrinkles and gray hairs. Women can be beautiful at any age, I’ve always thought.

I just didn’t know I would look so scary at 39!!

(I like this one the best.)

So I gave up after a while and vowed to drink a lot of water, drink less coffee and get more sleep. You can see how well that’s working for me. I’m typing this at 2:58 am.

Anyway! The book tour is chugging along. I am so grateful for all my friends and co-bloggers who are saying such nice things about my books. I really don’t deserve it or them. And before you correct me and say that all my hard work is paying off let me correct you and say that my work is nothing in comparison to how kind my friends (and family!) have been to me lately.

They’ve picked me up when I’ve been crying. They’ve given me attitude adjustments when I felt like a failure. They’ve pushed me when I just wanted to give up. They’ve watched Bug for me when I had deadlines. They’ve let me stay at their houses when I had nowhere to go…They’ve nodded when I didn’t have the words. They’ve fed me and Bug when we were hungry. They’ve told me that it’s been a hard year and it’s okay to feel like this. Sometimes I guess I need to hear that because I keep wondering why I’m not doing better than I am.

The autographing party went off smashingly! I didn’t actually autograph any books though. Funny how that happens. You set a date, you get everything ready and then you get in a room with your good friend, good food, a glass of wine and next thing you know you are spending the night talking instead of working.

This is Calee, my publisher, friend, book-maker extraordinaire.

She made soup. That’s kind of awesome, isn’t it? I thought I would order a pizza but she said she had some vegetables that had needed “souping”. How funny is she? Vegetables that needed souping. I wasn’t going to say no to that. If vegetables gotta be souped, they gotta be souped! She saved me $20 and got me to be healthy at the same time. It was quite tasty. I wish I had the urge to soup vegetables now and then. I might have to work on that.

Bug was a little disappointed at the soup instead of pizza (and potato soup at that, the crime of it!!) but it was nothing a few thousand olives couldn’t fix.

Besides all the soup-eating, olive-eating and merry-making, we did get a lot of things organized and the kids had a blast painting.

A little too close to the books for my liking but thankfully no books were marred! A few paypal invoices might have taken one for the team but what can I say? It kept the kids busy and happy and out of our hair!

Today I actually did autograph all the books and I sent them off as promised (yay!). Bug worked very hard at hers. I love that a few readers requested her signature.

She takes it very seriously, adding flowers and hearts and clouds. She is an eternal bright spot. Talk about God knowing what you need when you need it….

Did you know she makes me coffee? She might be a bit of an enabler but who could say no to that face and a cup of hot steaming coffee with just the right amount of cream and sugar? Not me!!

You should see her holding the cup with a towel so it doesn’t burn her and walking so slowly to my desk so that she doesn’t spill. My heart explodes every time.

I went on a field trip with Bug’s class today to the pumpkin patch. It was really fun outside of the five thousand times I stuck my foot in my mouth with the other parents. I don’t know what my problem was. Nothing too terribly serious but I did wish I would just not ever talk again.

Thankfully, Bug is still young enough not to be embarrassed by me. That time clock is ticking though.

She loved feeding the goats. They were so cute. Until a big one put his front legs up on Bug and knocked her over. That wasn’t so cute.

Baaaaaah nanny nanny.

They had some pretty great pumpkins. Of course we didn’t make it out of there without buying two. We are having a fall party this coming Monday after all. We have to decorate!

I think my favorite part was the corn maze. After waffling quite a bit, Bug decided to stay with me instead of riding the bus back to school so we got to stay and do a few more things that her class didn’t. Like the corn maze. I have to admit I’ve been in a bit of a funk (book tour jitters? gloomy weather? pms? probably all of the above) and it was nice to just spend time with my girl.

I don’t think any other kid is as patient as she is. So many times I get frustrated with her because she won’t keep up with me but the flip-side of that slowness is that she is perfectly content to walk a corn maze with me for 45 minutes. Any other kid would be whining and complaining of boredom. Not Bug. We walked and walked and walked. We did the whole thing twice and then left, perfectly content that we had seen everything there was to see.

I never told you guys about how I joined a gym. I was going to but then my Grandpa died and the nieces came to visit and it got shelved. It’s probably a good thing I waited though because my opinion of the whole place has changed. On a daily basis. You could say I have a love/hate relationship with the gym.

When I first joined they set me up with a free complimentary session with a personal trainer. I said, Bring it on! I love personal trainers! I used to have one back in the day when I worked at the junk mail factory (an awesome company perk) and I loved it. Working out always goes better when you have someone else nagging you to do lunges correctly.

It turns out the free complimentary session at the new gym was more of a hard sell in disguise for their bazungo crazy expensive personal trainer program. What a crock. First the guy broke me down and pretty much made me eat dirt and admit that I was in much worse shape than I realized. He had me lifting all kinds of crazy weight in super slow sets that had my knees shivering like a little girl.

I know this method of working out is usually effective so of course I let him abuse me. I embraced the pain. But then the machines were so complicated. I was doing leg lifts backwards on something you usually use for your abs and something swung around and smashed my index finger in a way it should not have. It hurt. Bad. I still have a blue nail to prove it.

Blargin’ Trainer Guy. I hate him.

After about forty-five minutes of brutal humbling, we headed over to his desk to “talk about my options.” I admit it. I was sold. Not because I loved the work-out but he pretty much had me convinced that there was no other way to get in shape other than to hire him to whip me. My future looked pretty bleak. Even with his program it would probably take me six months to a year to lose the twenty pounds I need to lose. And let me tell you, those pounds were the ugliest pounds I’ve ever looked at. I’m sure he had me working out in front of a mirror for that exact desired effect.

We talked and talked. He complimented me on my knowledge. I learned about his struggle with MS and how he holds some kind of trophy belt for being the best trainer in all of California. It was a happy little talk and then right as the short hand reached the hour mark, he slid his laminated rates page across the desk.

Sixty dollars a session.

SIXTY DOLLARS A SESSION!!!! Plus a hundred-and-something-or-other for initiation.

Say what?!!

I’m not made of money. I can’t afford sixty dollars a week. Is this guy crazy? I live in a depressed town where everyone is on welfare. How do people afford this?!! Do their insurance companies cover it? Does the government offer programs for this? I saw plenty of people working out with trainers. They must be coming up with the money somehow. How do they do it? I pretty much emptied my checking account to join the gym in the first place.

Then the worst thing happened. The ugly cry came over my face. I didn’t mean it to. I never cry in public, well hardly ever. I hid under my bangs but once it started I couldn’t stop it. I guess I was a little more stressed out than I realized. Work had been tricky, money has been tight, my house seemed like it would never stay clean (thanks to my brother who was making it his personal mission to mess it up), everybody thinks I’m uptight because I’m a control freak about my house, Bug didn’t like their dumb kid’s club daycare and well, the whole navigating a dissolving marriage thing…you know, maybe it was just too much.

I put my hands over my eyes, got up from his desk and walked backwards. I hid behind a column that was near his desk and then just split. I didn’t even try to explain myself. What could I say? This guy doesn’t know half of what is going on in my life. Who knows, maybe he makes people cry on a regular basis. I’m sure his services are well worth $60 an hour. I charge more than that for what I do. But you just can’t spend money you don’t have.

So that was that. I haven’t talked to him since. I see him from time to time and I’ve been meaning to stop and apologize but I just haven’t gotten the guts up. He has my phone number, he could have called me but I think he’d rather wash his hands of a weepy over-weight middle-aged frump monster. I don’t know. I’m moving on.

I went home and thought a lot about the whole experience. In the end I decided that this guy doesn’t know me. He has no idea how I work out and how much willpower I have. I can get in shape without him. It might take me longer but I’m not a failure before I even start.

So far I’ve gone to the gym at least two times every week for about a month, often more. It’s too early to be patting myself on the back but I feel pretty good about it. I might not ever lose those twenty pounds. I’m okay with that. I just want to be healthy and not hate myself when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Figuring out a good routine has been a little more challenging. I hate to go to the gym in the morning because that’s my peak creative time and I really like to devote my overly-caffeinated brain cells to my work BUT it seems like if I don’t go work out in the morning it doesn’t happen at all. I’ve tested this over and over for years. So I work out in the morning and it evens out because on those days I seem to have more overall energy anyway and I can work longer at night.

Finding a class that works for me in the morning is a whole other issue. I tried their yoga class but Barbie the Yoga Instructor drove me nuts. She was bendy alright but when she started swinging herself by her wrists and flirting with the very interested jock in the front row I got tired of it real quick. Which is too bad too because I love yoga.

I tried water-aerobics and loved it. It’s fun splashing around in a salt water pool with a bunch of grandmas. I felt like a super star when I could run under water and kick all their butts. Not that I was showing off or anything but sometimes it’s nice to not be the slow poke in the back of the class for a change. I even took my dad to a class. He loved it too. But the time slot was a bit late in the day so I’ve not really been going regularly.

Then I tried step aerobics. It’s perfect for me. It’s just complicated enough that I’m constantly confused and stepping backwards when I should be stepping frontwards. One day I forgot to drink my coffee before class and that day did not go well at all. I couldn’t get the hang of anything. It’s funny because while I have pretty good rhythm and love to dance, I’m terrible at taking instruction.

When the teachers says exit left, I exit right. Crossovers and step-behind grapevine-thingys have me tripping over my own feet. I’m a clutz like no other. But at the end of the work-out, I am exhausted and I haven’t thought one thought about how uncomfortable I’ve been. My brain is so tired from trying to keep up with the complicated routine that it has no idea that my body is sweating bullets. I love it. The teacher is excellent too. We stretch and use weights and everyday I am sore in the good way.

So I guess I could say I love the gym now. We’ll see how it goes.

They say my grandpa could linger on like this for a week or so. He’s not eating, he’s not drinking. BUT! He’s not in pain. He just sleeps. He wakes up just enough to tell us that he’s not in any pain. He’s very clear with a grunt and a shake of his head. He just wants to go back to sleep. It’s very confusing to those of us left alive, peeking at him from the fringes of his underwater dreams.

At least that is what I imagine it is like for him. It must be like when I am in the middle of my deepest sleep and somebody tries to shake me awake. I just want to be left alone. Does he just want to be left alone? He lets me hold his hand. I imagine that he is holding mine back but I can’t tell for sure. I don’t know if he knows whether I’m there or not.

He wakes up for the nurses, barely opening his eyes to acknowledge them so they’ll give him his medicine and go away, perhaps. Three seconds with us and then he’s gone again. My dad tries to shake his shoulders the way the nurses do but he doesn’t respond to my dad. We stand around not knowing what to do. Does he want us here with him? Should we stay? Should we go? How long should we stay? Do we put our lives on hold because we’ll never have this time with him again?

I deeply regret that I wasn’t there for my grandma when she died. I said goodbye to her on the phone but that was it and so many times I wish I could do everything over. I should have left work. What does a paycheck matter when you are losing a loved one that you’ll never see again and you miss so much?

Would it have made a difference if I was there? Is it better that I didn’t see her when she was in the worst of it? I don’t have any images stuck in my brain of her rattling with death like my grandpa is now. Does my grandpa want to be remembered this way?

I’m sorry to bring everybody down with me. I’m actually not down. We’re just plugging away with life like we do every day. Work, school, play, cook, clean, worry, repeat. I think I have a realistic grip on my emotions but then sometimes you think you are fine and then you are suddenly not. Kind of like clouds passing.

I’m mostly sad for my dad. I’m angry at his dispatcher who had no compassion and bawled him out for not being at work even though he was at work and sat around for hours waiting for his truck to be fixed when he could have been sitting with my grandpa instead. How can people be so unfeeling?

Of course my dad holds a brave face. He always does. I’ve never seen him cry. It’s not like any of this is a surprise either but it’s still hard to process. I know it’s hard on him. My dad holds the entire family together by working so hard. We all depend on him—even me with my streak of independence and my flailing freelance business.

So when the dispatcher calls and I see my dad trying to defend himself for something he didn’t do in a time when he’s allowed to drop a few balls, I get so angry. How can anyone bawl out my Dad who does so much for everyone? He’s always kind to his dispatchers. I wanted to crawl through the phone and strangle that guy. But then again my dad needs that job. We all do. Strangling him wouldn’t help anybody. So many people are unemployed, we have to hold onto what we have because we could so easily have nothing.

I feel guilty for having my camera with me at my grandpa’s in this dark time. I want to capture his last moments and hold onto them forever but it feels like I’m documenting death and it’s such a private thing. I don’t know if he would want you to see him this way. He’s never minded being on this blog before but I just don’t know and I can’t ask him. So I take some pictures of his brightly lit cheerful room and put my camera away. The rest I’ll remember with my mind’s eye.

I wish he would wake up and say goodbye to us and then drift off into sleep forever. Why is he hanging on in this strange state? He probably can’t help it. Is he holding on to this earth for something or is it just his body on autopilot waiting to run out of gas? I’ve tried to figure it all out in my mind a thousand times. Everyone goes differently. I look at the hovering nurses wishing they had answers but if they did they don’t share them with me.

At one point the nurses wake my grandpa to give him more morphine and my dad takes advantage of the moment of lucidity and says, “Brendy and Bug are here with me.” Grandpa opens his eyes and looks down at Bug. He gives her a big smile. The biggest smile I’ve seen on anyone in days. Of course my camera wasn’t ready for that moment, it was packed away in my bag. But I’ll remember that smile forever. He knew us. He smiled at Bug.

Bug never knew my grandpa like I did. She didn’t know the man who tucked us in so carefully with sheets and blankets and chairs put up against the side of the bed so we wouldn’t roll out in the night. She didn’t know about the cool scooters he bought for my brother and I at a garage sale and how he fixed them up so they rode so smoothly, better than any scooter they make today. She didn’t know what it was like to visit him in his workshop and smell the oil and sawdust of his tinkering. She did love him though. He’d make funny sounds with his mouth for her and sit her on his lap, just like he did with me. So many memories… I could write pages and pages.

I know she’ll remember that smile and it’s probably what we’ll talk about when we talk about my grandpa from now on.

I did go back again. But there was no change.

It all just makes me think of that one phrase my grandpa used to always say. If you asked him how he was doing he’d smile and say, “I’m pretty good for the shape I’m in.”

I guess he still is.

I’m one of those commuters now. I took this shot on our way to Toby’s on Christmas Eve. Holiday traffic is the pits. Good thing when you’re driving west, there’s usually a sunset to watch while you sit.

Bug spent Christmas Eve with Toby having spaghetti dinner. I spent Christmas Eve with my friend Deb down the street. She and her husband Eric always take care of me. They didn’t even mind me crashing their intimate evening. I love them.

While Deb cooked up something gluten free (and no she didn’t mind that I chopped off her head when I took this photo), her husband Erik played guitar and I tried to sing a few Mazzy Star songs. Tried being the key word. I love to sing but sometimes the melodies elude me.

Nothing like Mazzy to kick the holiday blues!

The next morning I was up bright and early and shivering on my old porch waiting to be let in. I somehow lost my key during the move and don’t feel it’s proper to ask for another one. I didn’t want to miss the early morning present opening so shiver away I did! Who knew they’d sleep in until NINE! My kid never sleeps past six when she’s with me. It must be all that late night Harry Potter watching.

Yes, Toby lets her watch Harry Potter much to my chagrin. I was so steamed about it when it first happened but apparently she loves it. They both do. I don’t even know which movie it is, it’s not the first one. I bought it on sale years ago and then left it behind when I moved out. Now it’s the only “kid” movie Toby owns and they watch it religiously every time Bug spends the night. I’ve since made a point to leave behind a few other movies but I guess it’s their thing they like to do together now so I’m not going to mess with that.

Anyway when they finally rolled out of bed, they let me in and the present opening commenced!

Woo hoo! Pink stuff for the pink obsessed kid! Thank you, Grandma—who doesn’t even celebrate Christmas but somehow populated half of our tree with festively wrapped presents. Gotta love my mom!

And lots of other fun stuff. This kid is not deprived.

Some Nutcracker viewing…I can’t wait until Bug gets to see this in real life. Toby says he’s going to take her next year. I really hope he keeps his word on that.

And of course lots of hugs.

Then we were off to the bible conference I attend with my family every year. Which is really just a great excuse to stay in a really nice hotel! Just kidding. It’s more than the hotel of course. But the hotel part is really fun.

Especially the pillow fighting and bed jumping part!

I left Texas with tears in my eyes. I still tear up just thinking about it. Texas was just what I needed when I was going through a terrible time. I feel like I’ve left a part of my heart behind but I’m stronger now than I was when I went so I think Texas did what it was supposed to do for me. Thank you Texas. I’ll always be thinking of you.

I don’t want to share too much here on this blog but I went to Texas because I needed some time to figure out what was going on with my life. Toby and I have been going through some rough times (years, really) and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that Bug and I need to move out for a bit. It was not an easy decision to come to. I feel like I’m ripping up my family and that rips up my heart. I love Toby dearly and I loved our little life by the beach but until we work out some big issues, I need space. I’m taking Bug to the beach weekly to spend time with her dad but mostly we’ll be away.

I’m temporarily moving out to the sticks next door to my mom, into my grandpa’s old place. Rent is cheap and family is nearby so it seems like the right thing to do. Sometimes I wonder though. My grandpa’s place needs a lot of work and I’m buried up to my eyeballs trying to make it a home. You all know my struggles I’ve had with my family and the sticks so I’m sure you can imagine what I’m going through. There is so much I love out here and there is so much that I hate. It’s bittersweet.

Sometimes I just want to give up and cry but then the sun rises, lighting up the bright desert sky with streaks of white and gold over the big mountains and I have hope. I meant to take a picture this morning but by the time I had grabbed my camera (I got distracted as usual), the beauty had faded. I’ll be out here for a while though so maybe one of these mornings I’ll catch it. The desert is a beautiful place. It can be desolate but it’s also beautiful. I just hope I can scratch out a living here. If you’re the praying kind maybe you could pray for us.

Next week Bug and I will be flying out to Washington DC for a month to help Bethany in case she has her baby early. I’m in charge of setting up the baby’s room and possibly painting a room or two—which will be great for keeping my spirits up. And of course Bug will be playing with her best friend Annalie so I think that will be good for her too. It will be like we’re putting our stressful life on pause for a month, which is nice but of course life will still be here waiting for us when we get back. So pray for us. Toby too.

I’m reluctantly closing the comments on this post because I don’t want to open up a public forum for people to pick apart my marriage and all the mistakes Toby and I have made but if you want to email me that is fine. I hope you understand.

I woke up this morning crying. I had a dream about my grandma (who passed away ten years ago)… wait, don’t stop reading! This is not a blog about my dream!

Why is it that blogging about dreams is so boring? I don’t know why this is true but even when the best bloggers blog their dreams I find myself clicking away. It’s just the way it is, I guess. Either way, this post is not about my dream. Besides, it’s just a 15-minute post anyway so you won’t miss much if you click away.

So anyway! I dreamt that my grandma came to visit me as a ghost. She was so small and collapsed into herself in her ruffled lacy pink dress… just how I remember her. She wanted to hug me because I was sad over something or other but when I went to hug her back, she told me not to because all the other people in the room would see me hugging someone invisible and think it strange.

That is so like my grandma to be worried about that and so much like me. Anyway, I woke up and I never did hug her. But it wasn’t terribly sad other than the fact that I miss her and I really wish she was still alive. I woke up crying just the same. It’s kind of weird to wake up with real tears in your eyes. I didn’t know I could cry in my sleep.

No matter how hard I tried to shake those tears, I couldn’t. They just kept coming. Everyone else in the house was still asleep so I sat in bed and thought and thought about my grandma and how the last time I had a dream about her it was the day that my sister-in-law CC miscarried her baby Ashley. Was Grandma trying to tell me that someone was going to die again? I really doubt that but I just felt heavy-hearted about it anyway.

I walked out into the cold living room and called my grandpa. Big mistake. It was 6:30 in the morning and I woke him up. I’m amazed that he even picked up the phone. He’s been in the hospital lately and not well at all. He didn’t seem too upset at me for waking him up but he could barely hear me anyway. He has terrible hearing and I have a soft voice. Together those two things make it impossible for us to communicate. It didn’t help that I was fighting back tears and making horrible gasping sounds in between my over-enunciated sentences. I don’t think he understood a word I said. I hung up feeling frustrated.

What a weird way to start my day. Go hug your grandma. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry!

Note: the little girl on my Grandma’s lap is not Bug. It’s my niece Rapunzel.