Tomorrow Zach starts Rituxn therapy for his lupus, very scary stuff but hopefully will put him into a lengthy remission. Tomorrow I'm calling the bank to raid my cd for money to get his car fixed. One more thing he doesn't need to worry about and hopefully we'll soon have the phone issue taken care of soon too. Sure would be nice if his dad would show some concern and help out but getting him involved is too much work for little to no return. 

Next weekend I go to my first Cricut storm up in Pine City. I'm sure it'll be lots of fun but I'm already feeling a bit ambivalent. It's scary for me to put myself into a situation where I don't know anyone much less an overnighter. I've been reading the posts on the blog and am convinced it'll be great but, I don't think I'll ever escape the feeling of being "different" from them. I think I'll do what Cori does when asked how many kids she has. She says "I had two children" vs "I have two children" and see if anyone catches on.

hope you all had a good weekend? Here's to this work week going by fast! Peace! 

Yesterday we received a wedding invitation for the same weekend my mom is coming up. Luckily she stays with my older sister. I felt bad because we really should go to the wedding but I didn't want miss her visit. This morning I sent her an email explaining the wedding invite (doesn't anyone send out those "save this date" notes anymore?), and is she planning on coming up again this year? I asked if she'd come up the second sunday in December when my Compassionate Friends group participates in the World Wide Candle Lighting, it's a very special thing for me to honor Hannah's memory at Christmas time. Her answer is "I'll try, depends on my work schedule". It's freakin April! Isn't that enough notice to request that weekend to be your weekend off? Thanks mom, I love you too...

mortgage update: We backed out and decided to work on our credit for another year. Fine by me, the whole thing immediately stressed me out. I don't like feeling that overwhelmed.

I also decided that I need to make Zach's car payments since the loan shows to be in my name even though I only co-signed. With him being so ill with lupus I'll just take care of it and he won't need to worry about it., be a lot less stressful for me too. I really hate calling him about it anyway so....

well, best get back to reality and continue on with the dreaded housework. Talk to you all later!

 

playing around

there is so much to learn about this blogging stuff!! Tonight I added a graphic to the header and a few other goodies to the sidebar. I wonder, is designing a blog ever finished? Hmmm...doubtful.

I won' be posting tomorrow because I have a Compassionae Friends meeting. This will be interesting as neither of our facilitators will be there and, unless someone else steps in, I'm going to attempt to run the meeting.

Oh, and before I forget...Thank you Mr Obama for lifting the ban on stem cell research. I have a 23 y/o son that was diagnosed with SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythmatosus) 2 years ago and is hopefully at the end of his chemo treatments. There's not a lot known about lupus in men as it's more common in women. Hopefully a cure will be found soon.

Goodnight dear friends, be gentle to yourselves

Work was very slow today leaving too much time for my mind to wander. The weather is cold and gray with the off chance of a freezing snowstorm. Sounds lovely eh? I don't like days like this because they usually make me feel a bit more depressed than normal. As usual my thoughts turn to Hannah, how much I miss her, and how much life has changed since she died. Unless you have suffered the loss of a child, one can only imagine ( if their imagination will let them), the horror of it all. When people say to me "I can't imagine how horrible it is", I say, "you're right,  you can't and you don't want to know".

The other day I was talking to my friend E. Her son died in a motorcycle accident nine months after I lost my Hannah. Without going into too much detail she is going through a very painful tumultuous time with one of her daughters. I on the other hand, had also hit a rough patch after my son landed in the hospital again due to a really nasty flare-up due to his Lupus.  We commiserated on the phone about how difficult it is to find any inner peace or any form of normalcy since our children died and I posed the question "What if this is as good as it gets?"  At my support group, The Compassionate Friends (http://www.compassionatefriends.org/), we talk about shadow grief and how it will always be with us no matter how much joy and happiness are are able to find on our grief journey. I have, in rare moments, felt great joy since Hannah's death but I always think to myself, it would've been so much better if Hannah were here. Ah I miss that girl...

I just looked outside, the snow is starting to come down really hard with the wind blowing wildly. Maybe we will get the blizzard that was predicted, I don't have much faith in weather forecasters, it's all a crapshoot in my humble opinion!