Happy Mother's Day...

to me! (and you too!)

some cheese and crackers and my favorite wine~ Apothic Red.

If you like red wine, try it!

It is a blend and just so yummy!
I am totally let my 10 year old sit next to me and eat Oreo's for dinner. 

I have some Ben and Jerry's half baked froyo for later to

enjoy with my latest obsession~ Downton Abbey.

I made brunch for my mom and MIL this morning so

the afternoon and evening have been my time.

I like time better than most gifts though I would never

 turn my nose up at a little sparkle or something from Coach.

My husband tried to give me a 'present' this morning but

I told him there is no re-gifting on Mother's Day.

Enjoy!

P.S. I am so giving my two notice tomorrow! Yippppppeeeee! This is

almost turning into a 'Friend's Don't Let Friend's Blog Bluzzed' post.

Before it does, I am out of here.

...and my life passed before my eyes.

it was New Year's Day.  This cold feeling came over me, it was hard to breath...
it was a feeling I remembered but one that hadn't visited me since college exams.  It was anxiety and the hurt was on, but why?

It was time to take down the Christmas decorations.  We had such a great holiday season why was I feeling like I could jump out of my skin?  It all started when I was taking down the Christmas tree in my youngest room.  I realized that next year, when I take out these decorations, the magic will be diminished if not all but gone for my 9 year old who will be 10 in a few weeks. 

For the past 14 years, our house has always been full of the magic, joy, wonder and just plan fun of Christmas.  I felt it slipping away... Suddenly, and I shit you not, I went from a vision of next year's Christmas to my 9 year old being 30 years old... married to a woman who hates her mother in law(yikes! but sound familiar?) and not even coming home for Christmas.  My life...right before my eyes.

Not to fear.

I am a pull yourself up by the boot straps kind of chick and have done just that. 

I did have such big plans for holiday blogging but I was too busy enjoying the holidays to blog about them and given my recent panic attack I am very happy that I enjoyed every minute of them.

I went to NYC for a day with a girlfriend of mine.  No kids, no husbands.  It was such a fun day but, what a mass of humanity!  So crowded we couldn't even get on the side walks to see the windows.  We did have a great lunch at Pigalle.

Rachel Ray featured the restaurant on her $40 a Day show NYC for the holidays.  Since the city was so crowded, we sat and ate and drank and ate.  It was a great place to people watch and we just had so much fun.  We topped it off with a Bellini, the champagne cocktail Rachel featured on her show.  Yum!

Everything in NYC is bigger than life...

  Rockefeller Plaza was so crazy full of people,

we took some quick pictures and then got out of there.

We sought refuge from the crowds at St Patrick's Cathedral, just beautiful. 



 and a reminder of the season...just waiting for the SBJ to arrive.

Then spent the rest of the two weeks before Christmas praying to the SBJ that our house would not be cursed with the puke bug.  Thank you SBJ, we were spared the vile bug. 

When not praying I was baking, wrapping, cooking and just relishing the time of the year.

Christmas Eve arrived and the Pat's were on at 1pm so the festivities at my house started then. 

Ginger watched for our guests to arrive.

It is so much fun to watch the game.  Thankfully they won.  After the game it was time to switch gears and our Christmas Eve celebration began. 

Christmas Eve has always been a big deal for us. Sit down dinner on the fancier side.  

 Christmas Day is a little more casual, it is the Swedish in us I guess. 

No presents Christmas Eve, just good food, family and the pure beauty of it all.

After our guests left, except for one(yes my MIL spent the night)

we watched It's a Wonderful Life.

It is our little tradition, my husband and I. Then it was

off to bed...in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be here.

The stockings were hung...

The children were nestled...

and then it was morning...

we got our boys their own tv to play their video games on...

they were a little excited.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Best wishes from this very thankful chick!

The storm that just keeps on giving...

The snow began to fall Saturday...

Cut to today.  Trick or Treating cancelled until Friday.  Our town is old school, you trick or treat on Halloween, no changing the night.  Except this year.  Still half of our town is without power.  We have been blessed that we got our power back on Sunday... Yes just in time to watch the Steelers run circles around my boys.  What a train wreck... Speaking of train wrecks...

My MIL arrived today for an indefinite period of time.  She lives in western MA which was hit very hard in the storm.  No phone or power up there for who knows how long.  It has been quite the roller coaster of a ride since last week. She has had a very difficult time believing she was scammed and still I think wants to believe that her ship has come in.  She has been entering all kinds of 'sweepstakes'.  Spending over $100 a month on these bogus sweepstakes that you send in $5 here or $9.99 there.  They are the kind of 'contests' that take your information and bundle it with others and sell it to scammers.  She also 'invested' in this green company for a gas additive.  She was supposed to be getting $1000 a month after her initial $4800 investment...guess what? That one didn't pay off either and all it has left her with is a maxed out credit card.  We are doing a subtle intervention while she is here to get her out of this cloud she has been living in that she is going to win a million dollars from all these scams and schemes.  It is a sad situation for her, but she is a competent adult.  She is not and elderly person with dementia.  She has made her choices and now has to live with them.  For someone who will use a tea bag twice to save money, I just don't understand how she has literally thrown money away at these scams. Enough about that.

This is what I woke up to Sunday.  I didn't get out early enough to get those beautiful snow covered tree pictures.  The snow began to melt so quickly that my 9am the snow had melted off the trees. It took a little longer to melt off of my mums.

Looking at the top of this photo, it looks like a beautiful fall day with the leaves turning. Look at the bottom and it is any given January day in New England.

This is my favorite tree in my yard.  It is a maple and always has the most beautiful color this time of year.  It was short changed this year and most of the leaves were lost in the storm.

Trees and snow are great, but what I love most of all is the sight of a kid in a snow suit going out to enjoy great adventures in the snow.  It really brings me back.  I have great memories of many snow filled days followed by hot chocolate with tons of fluff plopped on it.

I barely have the words... the latest in the MIL saga

I am beside myself. You know those people that you try to help but regardless, they are, for lack of a better way of putting it, dumb as a box of rocks? Yes I am talking about my mother in law and before you think I am the worst daughter in law in the world, take a listen.

We got a call from my somewhat frantic sister in law she needed to speak with us... "Mom was ok physically, almost broke but"...was the garbled message we got. My husband called his sister. Well evidently my mother in law won a million dollars...wait for it...wait for it... Yes she won the million dollars that would be all hers after she finished wiring 10 payments of $2500.00 dollars to the mystery people who are out of the country!!!!! Well, after wiring a total of $25,000! Yes, $25,000 effing dollars out of the country she became a little concerned when her million dollar effing check didn't show the eff up today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't even wrap my head around this. But...remember babes in blogland...my MIL knows everything and this incident is no different, only now she is left with $6000 in her bank account, $800 a month income and $1200 bare minimum monthly expenses. The good times just keep rolling with her. It is a good thing she knows everything so she can figure her way out of this one.

I hate to say it, but I told you so...

Busy, busy, busy weekend thankfully.
It is the busiest weekend to hit my little town.  Every year, the first Saturday in October our Main Street is closed and we have an Oktoberfest.  There is live music, all kinds of food and vendors(no booze which confuses some as it is called Oktoberfest) It rained a little but as always it was tons of fun.  I made pink cotton candy all day long to benefit our cub scout pack.  We took in $1700.  Not bad for an off and on rainy day.  On a nice day there are as many as 8,000 people who attend.  Again for our little town, that is pretty big.

So any way here is the run of the weekend with my mother in law.
Friday night I went to the theater to see Young Frankenstein.  It was the first show of my 5 show subscription that I have with two of my friends.  I was thinking "what luck" that I would be out Friday night when MIL was here.  My husband sent me a txt message while I was on my GNO. He said, "Mom locked her keys in the car." I responded "tehehehe" he didn't get it (btw it probably took my husband 1 hour to txt me those 7 words.  He isn't so much in the know about tehehehehe and the sort) I know I shouldn't have tehehehe'ed that but I was a bit nerved up for her arrival and weekend stay.

So come to find out that she locked her keys in her car in the town that my husband happens to work as a police officer in.  Does she call her son so he can have a cruiser go help her out??? No, she calls AAA and sits and waits for 2 hours. He told her to cancel AAA and he would have someone from the station go help her, but no she was going to wait for AAA.  You can lead a horse to water...

By the time I got home Friday night everyone is in bed.  By the way did I tell you my MIL sleeps until 9:00 in the morning? Whatever BUT if you are going to park someone in, you might want to leave your keys out.  Yup, she parked me in and I had to wake her up at 7am so I could get to Oktoberfest to help set up. Good times....

I needed to take a mid morning break from making cotton candy so my man and I left Oktoberfest to go and pick her up and bring her to the festivities.  When we got to our house she said she was wondering when we were going to be back for her(I had to bite my tongue since if we came back any earlier she could have still been in bed.  She said she thought she knew what school the festival was at and she was going to take a ride there(mind you she can't find her way out of a paper bag on a good day).  We again explained that Oktoberfest was on Main St, not at a school.  OK... so we are driving and there is a big sing that says, "Main St. Closed take alternate route".  "Hmmm" she says "Why is Main Street closed?" It just keeps getting better...

Sunday was my day.  I had a stack of Barnes and Noble gift cards burning a hole in my pocket.  I was going to my mother ship and I was not bringing my MIL.  My man and boys were going to get corn stalks to decorate outside and she was going with them.  When I got home, my 14 year old was playing Scrabble with my MIL.  My 14 year old is a good kid. He engages her in conversation and could be doing 50 million other things but, played Scrabble with her.  This is how it all went down...

I said, "Did you tell Nana about your trip to Block Island?"
He says, "Nana I went to Block Island last weekend."
Nana says nothing... now as illustrated above, she doesn't always get it so,
I said,"I don't think Nana heard you, speak up and speak clear."
He says again,"Nana I went to Block Island last weekend."
Nana says, "Oh I heard him but I was ignoring him just like he does to me. See you need to give him a taste of his own medicine." She says this like a total crotchety old bag and looking for some type of indication that I agree with her.  I turned away.  It was so mean what she did with such blatant nastiness. If I said one word, I would say a million and I wouldn't have been able to stop.

Now, my boy, yes the one who is 'freakin' 14' has his issues, as do all 14 year old boys.  I could make a list, a really long list but one thing I can say is that he doesn't ignore his Nana or others for that matter.  He is really social and even at 14 loves to chat so, ignoring people just isn't his style.

Now she is a guest in our home.  She has stayed with us for at least 18 weekends in the past year. She stayed with us last Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years and after all of that, the biotch comes to my home and acts like that to her 14 year old grandson who really could have been doing a bunch of other things rather than sitting to play the game that his Nana loves to play.



I might sound harsh, but this has been an ongoing thing with her.  Sometimes I can take it and sometimes I can't. She pushed it a little too far this weekend for me.  This is our home and it is, with all it's warts, a happy one.  I really cherish my time and my weekends with my family and I am not going to let someone come here, stay with us and sprinkle their negative nastiness all over it.

(ahhh, I feel so much better getting that off my chest)

It's that time again...

It is amazing how things can be going along swimmingly and then someone puts a hole in you inner tube.

She isn't even here yet, after a well needed reprieve of a few months, but the MIL is due to arrive tomorrow for the weekend.

I felt I needed to lay some forgotten ground rules with my man to which he responded...ummm...not great and not super receptive. Here are my rules...I am shouting it out to the universe in hopes that the planets will align and it will all be good(and so my mother in law won't make me crazy.) 

Now before I get into my list I have a big shout out to the only person who reads my blog and knows me in the real world.  She has taken a hop across the pond to become a mother in law this very weekend.  I know that she will be a fabulous MIL and I sending my best wishes to her and the happy couple.  I am sure her fascinator will be fascinating!  Can't wait to hear all about it!

so now to follow is my guidelines to a successful weekend visit from the mother in law:

1. She does not discipline my children when I am there to do it.

2. She doesn't touch my laundry since we have just gotten all of our socks and jeans straightened out since the last time she was here and put cloths away in the wrong dressers.

3. Oh yeah, she STAYS OUT of any dressers.  (I have a 14 year old boy, she doesn't need to be going in his dresser! Privacy please!)

4. She doesn't open her big mouth to interject when I am conversing with my husband.  If I ask my husband a question she butts right in and makes up excuses or explanations for him...gee I don't know how we have made it these 18 years without her butting before now?

5. She doesn't make back handed and/or passive aggressive comments.  (I will have a list for you all on Monday cause she really can't help herself)

6. She doesn't wear her ridiculous wooden clunky shoes and clunk and shuffle around on all of my hard wood floors.

7. She doesn't cram my splenda container full of her rat poison cancer causing sweet n' low that she bring from her house.

8. She doesn't come into MY bedroom when I am sleeping because she thinks it is time to get up.

9. Now even though she knows everything about everything, just for me she won't let on that she knows everything about everything.

10. AND she makes sure there is at least a cup of coffee left for me in the morning.

Now is this too much to ask?

Please understand that these rules were developed in response to the crazy shit my MIL has done, I didn't just make this up to be a pain in the ass.

ahhhhh, I feel so much better.  Bring it on and heaven help us.

Just Say No...and see what happens.

Small miracles happen... like this hydrangea...it was buried under 6' of snow after our New England winter snowfall, then getting all the snow from the snow blower.  I didn't think I would see one bloom...it had other plans(thankfully)

Anywho...back to the blog...

The slogan as I remember it was "Just say no." Well I did.

I said "no" to my mother in law.

To clarify I said "no"to my husband about my MIL coming for the weekend.

I just couldn't do it again...she would be here from Friday afternoon through Tuesday.

Keeping in mind that from Sunday to Monday we have no children at home.

My husband is the baby of 6. When he was 8 his mom "checked out" for a while. He doesn't talk about it, I hear bits and pieces about it from his family, including his mother.  Being the youngest I think made it really difficult.  He missed out on the things that made his family the family they were(for better or worse).  I think that early experience had a big effect on him, how could it not.  

His mother was remarried and her husband became very sick.  She cared for him for 10 years until he passed this last November.  After that time, we didn't want her to be alone and wanted to help her through the holidays.  She stayed with us every weekend from before Thanksgiving through New Years.  I didn't mind at all.  It was wonderful to have her and share the season with her as she found her way in a new life alone. 

The visits slowed, but didn't stop and then picked up speed again. I do love my MIL, but she can be tough.  There is always a comment for something and she does know everything.  Just an example...I struggle with my weight and so do members of my family.  When my son was a baby and I was breastfeeding, he was a plump little one.  She said to me,"I breastfeed some of my babies but they never were like that, but they didn't have the fat gene." I swear I didn't even know what to say at the time.  It wasn't the first time and not the last of her comments.  She is also one that seems uncomfortable with silence and will fill quiet with her constant chatter.

So as I blogged earlier, work is not good and it isn't getting better.  I really needed this 3 day weekend to recover.  My man for the first time in a long time was not only on a different page, but a different chapter.  I asked him that his mother not come.  He had been upset about it since.  He isn't a mamma's boy, he is the fixer.  In my opinion(in a non-trained layman's analysis) he has been trying to fix things since they fell apart when he was 8. I think he wants to show what a family should be.

I worry when we have fundamental differences like this.  It shakes me to the core.  We have always been such a strong team, together 20 years.  We had a conversation, it wasn't pretty.  I held my ground, I had to. After about an hour of weeding the garden he came back in and apologized, thankfully.

It wasn't so much the apology I needed...I needed to know that we are back one the page, that we are good...and we are.

It is days like this that I am very happy to have an anonymous blog...

This chick has been scarred...

They say when it rains, it pours and bad things happen in threes, well..

I got no pictures, no video today, just a story(a true one at that) of how I have been scarred with WAY too much information. 

Cut to this past weekend,
I thought no one was home.  We often keep our downstairs bathroom door closed because Ginger tries to steal the TP and hand towels.  Well I walked into the bathroom, I was not home alone...(and ok, so one picture)

that is all I'm going to say about the first of the trifecta of scarring moments I have endured in the past 72 hours.

Cut to yesterday,
I know yesterday I blogged about my MIL and how she was complaining that her bra doesn't hold her girls in when she is bending over gardening....Ewweee and scarring moment number 2.

Cut to only a few hours after that little conversation with the MIL,
I am walking down the hall, with my husband and there is my MIL in her skivvy's getting changed with the door of the guest room open!

I am recovering, it has been a rough few days.