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Cleaning Out The Closet But Keeping The Ugly Skirt

Today, my mother has been gone for one month. It doesn’t really feel like she is gone. When I say gone, I mean to say that she died. She did not go away on vacation to some far-flung land to bask in the sun and drink gin and tonics all day. Although in my mind I hope that she is doing just that. In her version of heaven there is no snow and the world is all beach. Warm, sunny beach. Where you only get tan and never get burned and you never have to eat soup. Only crab cakes. I digress. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we are cleaning up both figuratively and physically. Life goes on for those of us left here without her. We still have to work and cook and clean and all the things that we do. We must tidy up and put away the things that were hers. But how do you clean up a life when it ends? These are the things adulthood is made of. The things that nobody talks about. The things that you, yourself, do not even realize until you are, in the midst of doing them.
Recent posts

Our Visit to Christmas Town, A Busch Gardens Celebration

On Friday, November 26 th , 2010 , Christmas Town , a Busch Gardens Celebration opened.   This was their second year putting on such a celebration.   I had been anticipating attending for the last three months and the day finally came.   I loaded up my family and my parents along with one of my daughter’s friends, the day after Thanksgiving for the 4 hour drive to Williamsburg, VA .   We opted out of the “Black Friday” madness going on in retail stores everywhere to trek northward from our North Carolina hometown of New Bern , to join the festivities. Now, I must say my mother and I share a birthday on November 26 th and my oldest daughter has her birthday on November 28 th so this weekend was the perfect opportunity to escape and celebrate in a different way than ever before.   Everyone was excited.   My mother especially was talking about the trip for weeks prior to our leaving and I had never really seen her that way before.   Having been to the park 3 times in as many mont

Little Things; A Lottery of Emotion, Passion, Patriotism, Love and Friendship

You know how, when you are younger the grown ups talk about how when you get older you will appreciate things more? Well now that I am the grown up(oh shit) I realize they were right. DAMMIT! Just one more thing for my mother to say "I told you so" to. But really, I sit here is a rather introspective mood in a retrospective place and think about how the little things are so very important. For anyone that knows me, I am a highly emotional person. I cry at the drop of a hat. I am moved to tears by a great piece of music, or lyrics. I cry at points in action movies that remind me of little things in my own life. Silly I know. I have a no animal movie rule in my house. If my kids want to watch an animal movie, they have to do it without me and forget Animal Planet. Old Yeller is strictly forbidden in my home and I feel like making your child watch it is tantamount to child abuse. Animals give unconditional love. They are innocent creatures who do not hate, they do n

First Year = Paper, Really, Paper?

On February 7, my husband Rick and I will celebrate our first wedding anniversary. It seems somewhat surreal; honestly, getting married was just kind of a formality. But I suppose you deserve some background before we go any further, so here goes. The powers that be, the universal forces, God, if you will, drew us together. If it had not been for a friend of mine who decided it was time for me to meet new and interesting people post divorce, Rick and I would never have met. Yes, we met (cue menacing music) on the internet! That was in 2003 and I can’t imagine my life without him. There are days I may like to, but we’ll save that for another day. So, as luck may have it, I get this e-mail one September evening from some guy who has the screen name “VegasRicky”. Who in the hell has a screen name like that. At first glance it sounds like a character out of a bad gangster movie, you know the type, in the end he just ends up being fish food. The email said that I had an icebreaker

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This will be my first EVER Blog entry. I have given some consideration to blogging in the past, but I have not ventured into this cozy little venue, until now. I have so much running through my mind at any given time that it is almost impossible for me to choose something to yarn over. My life is often a mess, in one way or another, a confused, yet comfortable place where my family and I butt heads and yell, and yell loudly, but in the end, we always tuck each other in with loving hugs and kisses. So, the name I have chosen, Eclectic Wreckage, is kind of appropriate. So, on with the first entry: A friend of mine, who has his own blog, wrote, in his latest entry, about a lovely, grown up evening out at a lounge, where he and his friend engaged in adult conversation and some enticing, as he called it, “fried bar food”. He also went on to say how, for the first time in his life, he really felt like a grown up. Now, after reading his blog I immediately commented on it, on Facebook, the new