My 833rd Post...

and over 133 thousand page views.

Yet, this place no longer feels like home.

Most of my followers no longer exist.  Many of those that are still around have sold out to companies or succumb to product advertising. Some have passed away.  Others have privatized. I suppose I've been dragging this out.  I keep saying that I'll come back and then...

... nothing.

It's time to move.

Come by an visit once and a while, won't ya?

http://formerlysurvivingboys.blogspot.com/

Cough... Cough... Is This Thing On?

Wait...

Here it is...

Wayyy in the back... covered in a thick yellowish green layer of pollen, not unlike every other surface of this house.

It's been a while.

And yet, not much has changed.

Two weeks ago I sent my wedding ring out for some cleaning up.  It seems that grouting the tub surround and digging in the dirt for the last six years isn't great for fine jewelry. When I picked it up I had forgotten how beautiful it was. The brilliance of the white gold.  The clarity of the diamond solitaire.  The precision clean lines of the channel set diamonds in the band.

Beautiful.  Clean.  New.  Simple.

Such the opposite of my days lately.

I met Mum for breakfast as I do every Wednesday.  Then to the grocery store and the bank to take care of the husband's long neglected business. His avoidance of this simple last thing within our control pertaining to his mother's estate, lends itself to the magnitude of the bigger issues surrounding it, and it was just time to deal with it.  So I did.

Next up was getting swim trunks for Youngest who has long since outgrown his child size wardrobe, then on to order my maid of honor dress for my friend's wedding.  Still 12 months away, decisions have to be made, and I send off a barrage of texts to her regarding final hair appointments, rentals, cake details and the like. I am tired of the indecision and again just take it upon myself. After all, this is why she chose me to be in the wedding, because I just take the ball and run.  I pick up my rings, head to the cupcake place, purchasing a belated birthday treat to drop on the appropriate desk at work,  and then head home where I spend two more hours returning Scout emails and researching paperwork from 2014. Because when else would you ask a question regarding things from 2014 than in 2016?

By 2 PM I was waiting on Oldest to get his cavity filled at the dentist, returning phone calls, discussing new conditions with the surgeon and my upcoming surgery, while the receptionist rolls her eyes that I am just outside the building, and not in the waiting room.

I return home.  More emails.  The husband.  Youngest's eighth grade graduation celebration, because everything needs to be a big production now, beckons in a mere 60 minutes. And at this point I'm not sure if it's all the adulting I have done today, or that the summer's heat is finally here, but I have a pain on my backside that just won't quit.

Needless to say, an hour in a hot sweaty auditorium on plastic bleachers did not help the situation and my back side is now covered in welts. Regardless, I sat through all 211 names, clapping for each one. The PTA presidents had their moment, and thanked those members who would not be there next year. The two women they recognized deserved their names to be called without question.  But as I sat there I thought, I have sat through every meeting over the last 3 years.  For two of those years I was the ONLY parent that attended that wasn't on the board. I did every fundraiser, helped rewrite the bi-laws, was the swing vote for the incoming president, worked honors breakfasts, and helped plan field trips.  I missed many, MANY nights with my family feeling guilty if I didn't go. And while I didn't want flowers, a shout out would have been nice. And that's when it hit me...

... what the hell am I doing this for?

I forgot to eat.  I took care of everyone and everything today and forgot to eat anything past breakfast. I am forgetting to take care of me, and at that moment it had literally chapped my ass.

My life has become as stifling as the auditorium. It is tired. Worn.

So unlike my ring that I slipped on my finger six years ago. And I can't help but think, maybe it's time to send my life out for a cleaning. Maybe I am no longer Surviving Boys like I was seven years ago when this all started, maybe now I am just trying to survive myself.

And barely at that.

Maybe it's time to change that.

Maybe it's time to start everything over....

Truth Is...

....it's Tuesday again.  And I've been less than stellar at posting my antics here.

Let's see...

Truth is... Youngest and I finally got around to cleaning his fish tank and putting in all the new roman column decorations he got for Christmas. We did an 80% water change since the water quality was horrendous, but so as to not shock the fish any further, we used warm water to replace the old.  Except Youngest took that to mean water piped straight from the depths of hell, skyrocketing the temp in the tank to nearly 100 degrees.  So we did the only logical thing... we gathered snow from outside and dumped it in by the bucketful.

Yes my friends, we made indoor icebergs.  It was awesome.  Even more awesome... the fish seem to be doing fine and loving their new decor.  Youngest opted to use some stacked stone from the yard and made multiple level tunnels and caves.  As his red tipped shark swam through the stone caverns, he looked at me and said "It's like the tunnels of the Mexican drug cartels.".

*sigh*

Truth is... yes, you are not mistaken, I said SNOW outside.  We had the pleasure of dragging out the snow blower yesterday and digging through the garage for the long put away shovel for an unexpected 8 inches of snow.  Delivering mail in it?  Awesome.  Sticking my fingers in the vent of the car to regain feeling because I have no idea where my good gloves are?  Even more awesome.  I still have no idea where the ice scraper went. But on the plus side, we did not lose power and we'll be seeing the grass in about a week.

Truth is...  we went through a count at work.  A count is when the Post Office literally counts every piece of mail, scan code, parcel, and every step we take during the day to determine how much to pay us.  It's tedious, antiquated, and a giant pain in the a$$.  Which is why it's only done office wide every 4 years or so.  I was opted into this count since my route is heavily over burdened.  And, as expected, my route came back about 5 hours over what they can pay me. Which means that while I will subject to another pay cut, my workload will also be lessened... just in time for summertime sunshine.

Awesome right?  Except on the day everything was finalized, Boston decided to automate all of our catalogs.  Which means another count in 5 weeks.  And a GIANT pay cut. One that there is no way I can prepare for.  And while we are all keeping our fingers crossed that it turns out for the best, I must admit I am not really looking forward to having over a thousand customers.

Truth is... my vacation can not come soon enough.  It's days away my friends. Yes, it's badly timed and involves thousands of dollars being spent on a location I'd rather not go.  But man oh man, I can not wait to walk away from work for ten days regardless of the reason.

Truth is... Youngest and I are headed to the island shortly for a 50 mile bike ride with the Scouts.  I will not be camping unless you count staying in a Spa on the other end of the island. I want to ride the entire 50 miles, really I do.  But there comes a time in every mom's life when she must say to herself, "What the hell am I doing?  I'm not earning a badge.... I should stay in and eat a nice breakfast and just meet them half way. It's my vacation too."  And that's just what I intend to do. :)

Truth is... I am at the point where I just don't even care what happens at work while I am gone. I'm considering it practice for when I go out for my carpal tunnel surgery and then later for my abdominal surgery.  Three weeks for one, and 6 to 8 for the other.  It has occurred to me that while I've been trying to make things easier for my sub that he's never actually doing anything for himself, and therefore leaving a giant ass mess for me to clean up the next day.  So it's time for a bit of tough love.

Truth is... we lost two of my favorite people this past weekend.  One to adult CF, the other to ALS.  Funny thing about obituaries, there's so much more to a person than what you think you know.  I met them both in the last 13 years of their lives, completely forgetting that they had an entire life before that, when they were young and full of opportunities.

Truth is... that abut sums it up here.

.....What's going on for your Tuesday?

Distracting Myself (and You) With Photos...

At 4 pm this afternoon I found myself walking through the grocery aisles of Walmart singing out loud.  Truth is, I wanted to be left alone and typically people tend to avoid strangers who talk to themselves or sing loudly in public. Apparently this would have worked better had I been singing something random and not along to the music, because my bee-bopping along made me a magnet for small children wanting to be entertained.

Anyhoo... music... loud and badly.... it's what I do when I'm working through... stuff.

I finally broke down two weeks ago and saw a specialist for my hands who told me the news that I've known was coming for ten years... surgery... on both.  He gave me a cortisone shot in one wrist which was A-MAZE-ING, but is only a temporary fix.  I will say that I had no idea how much rotation I had been missing over the years and how nice it is to not wake several times through the night from the pain.  The tingles still happen and the aching is slowly coming back, so I will be headed into Boston for nerve testing in the next two weeks to see if they can pin point the source of the nerve damage.  Odds are it's in my neck or shoulders, with higher odds being my shoulders, which will also warrant surgery. But that's a story for another day...

Today's need for isolation was brought on by a different news of surgery, another that I have put off for many years, that needs to be done.  The plan is to do them together, as the hands are covered under workman's comp and I can limit the amount of additional time I will need to use from the second surgery, which of course freaks my husband out, but like I reminded him, unless he somehow grows the parts, or is a fat old white republican member of Congress, he doesn't get to decide what I do with my body.

So yeah... there's that going on... with about a bazillion other things.  None of them bad, per say, just complicated.  Rather than talk about that, what do you say we tell you about what we did last Wednesday?

The day was gorgeous here... 69 degrees, sunny... a rarity even with the mild winter we've had.  And being a half day at school, Youngest and I ditched out, grabbed the bikes and headed south...

 And hopped the ferry to the Island...

 Very quintessential New England, no?  I love the Vineyard, but sadly my dreams of living the island life were long ago extinguished due to my lack of winning the lottery and my husband's deep hatred of all things awesome.

Our bike ride started down the coastal ways between Vineyard Haven and Oaks Bluff....

 About three miles down, over the only functioning drawbridge on the island, the bike paths finally open up...

 Eight feet of wide open paved "road" just for bikers and the occasional pedestrian.  Being off season we saw only a handful the entire time.  We were headed towards Edgartown, tracing the bike route we would be doing with the Scouts later this year.  Aside from the occasional stopping, we made the first 11 miles to the Edgartown harbor, home to the Harbormaster and Chappy Island ferry, fairly quickly.  The neighborhood was quiet, waiting for it's summer residents to arrive.  The smaller of the homes along this stretch rent for $25K a week in season.  This is their most popular hotel....

The Children's Memorial Lighthouse has a cobble stone  with children's names engraved.  I'm not sure of the story behind it, although I did find out it's only open to the public twice a year.

  Youngest claimed his place on the base of the lighthouse, and snacked on some Fritos while I scouted for bathrooms and signs of life. Not finding much, we meandered through the neighborhood back towards our main route. We stopped and had lunch at some little hole in the wall, and while it lacked in decor, it made up in in the yummiest of food.

We headed inland, towards West Tisbury, where you find a bit of a different kind of New England...

 Farms.... lots of them.  Lots of open space, wind power, homemade goods, Alpacas... coolness.

 There is also a State Forest on the island, and while it is very secluded, the paths are very well traveled, even by fowl-kind, apparently...

And this, my friends, is where our fun half day trip takes a turn for the not so fun.  We took a left... and got very lost. And in trying to get un-lost, we got more lost.  So lost even Suri had no idea where we were.  So we retraced, got to the main road, and discovered our mistakes.  But now, instead of being 19 miles into our trip we were 25 miles in, and Youngest's awesome "king of the world" feeling he had at the light house had faded into a full on, throw the bike on the ground, "this sucks" kind of feeling. Not gonna  lie, I too was looking for a bus stop and wondering if I called the non emergency police number if they could come get us.

But we carried on... another 4 miles to Oaks Bluff... where I saw the ferry.  Barely able to contain my excitement, calculating that we could catch the ferry here and pay the difference, we cruised on in and realized... it's closed.  Like under construction kind of closed. Setting sights on Vineyard Haven, we begrudgingly started our last 3 miles, up island.

*sigh*

So yeah... there are no pictures for this, since we were now nearing 5 pm and we had no plan for night riding.  We sailed into Vineyard Haven just in time to watch the sun go down and darkness take over.

Thirty two miles.

I slept great for the next two days, and remarkably was only sore where my legs had rubbed the seat for 8 hours.  There is something about high mileage cycling that I really love, so much so that I'm thinking of getting a hybrid for both Youngest and myself.

Because as fun as it was, I think it would have been easier had we not been on 26" mountain bikes with mostly flat tires.

So... that sums up the most interesting of what we've been doing... how about you?