GOODBYE 2015, HELLO 2016

We are only a few short hours away from saying goodbye to 2015 and hello to 2016.  The best way to describe 2015 for me was the year of the “Good, Bad and the Ugly”. 

The Good – I’m so blessed with an amazing family.  My daughters, grandkids and husband are my world and I don’t know what I would do without them.  My youngest daughter taught me patience and how to go with the flow.  Her life seemed to some as being in total disarray, but she somehow kept her chin up, a smile on her face and stayed positive.  She managed to move, with her husband and dog, 600 miles away from where they live to a new location with just a few days’ notice.  She had to live with her in-laws, which for some would be difficult, and she figured out a way to make it work.  I’m so proud of the way she handled this difficult time. 

My oldest daughter has shown me how to be a good parent.  She is raising two of the most thoughtful, loving, caring individuals I have ever met.  I’m not sure where she learned her parenting skills from but I stand in awe of what an amazing job she is doing.  We were able to take a short trip with our two grandkids and our daughter; they were the best traveling companions ever.  We had such a good time.  We were having such a good time that the hotel manager called to tell us to quiet down; I guess we had a little too much fun. 

My husband this year has shown me that he is my true sole mate.  He is the one person in this world that knows my inner most thoughts, my fears, my hopes, my past, my present and my dreams for the future.  He is my rock, he is always there when I need a shoulder to cry on (even though I hate to show emotions), he makes me laugh when I really want to cry, he reminds me every day that I’m worth something and that he is proud of me.  I love this man!

The Bad – this year I have had to say goodbye, or more like hope to see you again, to some that I cared a great deal about.  It’s never easy.  Some of those individuals were people I worked with. Knowing that I’m not going to be able to swing by their desk or pick up the phone just to talk has been hard.  One of the individuals that were let go was someone who always had my back at the office, seeing his empty cube was not easy and has been an uphill battle for me.  His departure meant a lot of stuff was dumped onto my shoulders and an increased work load.  I’m learning to adjust to this and redefine my processes.

This was also the year that I discovered that no matter what I do or accomplish I’m never going to amount to much in my mom’s eyes, so why keep trying.  This was a sad discovery for me but one that I should have known was coming.  I love my mom and always will but I know that for whatever reason I’m a disappointment to her. 

The Ugly – this last year brought out the ugly in so many different ways, mostly through social media.  I have witness family members rip each other to pieces on social media over differences of opinions, why can’t we just agree to disagree? After all the bickering family members would wonder why they were unfriended, seriously? 

One of the ugliest moments was when a sibling decided it was a good idea to bring up past events from our childhood and then stated that it was their Facebook page and therefore could post whatever they wanted to.  I know for me it stirred up a lot of old memories that I thought I had buried or dealt with, I lost many hours of sleep over this. I have since decided to consider the source and know that this sibling is an extremely unhappy person and making others feel the same way somehow makes them feel better about their life.  I guess you can’t fix stupid.

With 2015 almost over and 2016 about to begin I plan on making some changes and have only "The Good" for 2016.  My goals for 2016 are to be a healthier, happier person.  I’m not going to let the bad and the ugly of the past define my future.  I hope that 2016 brings to you much happiness!

OMG, Food Poising!!!!!!

A while back my husband and I bought a bullet, thinking how much fun we would have making healthy shakes.  I went to the grocery store and bought a variety of fruits, vegetables and raw pumpkin seeds.  The first one that he made was hard to drink because of the bright green color and he had put spinach in it, which apparently raw spinach doesn’t agree with my tummy.  So I went a while without having another one until one dreaded Friday.

My husband decided one Friday to make us a fruit shake with a variety of frozen fruit and yogurt.  It tasted delicious and even told him how great it tasted.  We leave for the office and on the way there are started thinking that I didn’t feel very good but that I probably just needed something other than just a shake.  When I got to the office I decided to eat some pretzels that I had in my desk drawer, not a wise idea.  While eating the pretzels I break out in a sweat and feel the need to get sick, yuck not a work.

I run to the restroom, luckily it was a false alarm or so I thought.  I go back to my desk and start working, all of a sudden I feel like I need to get sick.  I run to the restroom, no false alarm this time.  I rinse out my mouth and think “ok now maybe I will start to feel better”.  I get back to my desk and once again I need to run to the restroom.  After about the third time I call my husband and said I’m going home.  Thank God I keep towels in the car because as he was driving me home I was getting sick every 3 – 5 minutes.

We arrive home and I run into the house to continue what I had started at the office.  This is when my husband decided to do some research on what was going on with me.  I have my head in a bucket; I’m trying to sip water and praying that it stays down.  He comes into the room with me and says “I googled your symptoms and I’ve narrowed it down to three probably causes”.  I’m thinking “what the . . . “.  He says “it could be a concussion”, I replied that I didn’t hit my head, “ok so then we can rule that out, so then it could be food poising or a mental health issue”, I’m looking at him and still thinking “what the . . . “, I then blurt out that it must be mental health because I’m sitting here and listening to this.  We then determined that it must be food poising, which is what I figured all along.

Once we determined that it was food poising he then decided to read to me the ingredients from my morning shake.  I still have my head in a bucket, taking sips of water and praying that it stays down when he begins to read the ingredients.  If you have ever had food poising going over what you ate is not a smart idea.  He keeps reading as I’m getting sicker by the minute and finally I couldn’t take it any more so I scream out, “I have mental health issues so just stop talking”.  He quietly walks into the other room and thank God I fell asleep. 

It has now been a couple of weeks, I still can’t eat fruit or yogurt and my husband has come to the conclusion that it was food poising after all.

OMG, Getting Older Sucks!!!!!

Every time I see an ad that says 30 is like the new 20, 40 is like the new 30 and 50 is like the new 40 I want to slap the person who came up with it.  I’m sure it is someone who is in their 20’s and has no clue what it’s like to get older or it’s someone who is older and is just trying to make themselves feel good about their age.  Either way they still deserve to be slapped because I’m pretty sure when I was twenty it didn’t feel the same as when I was 30, and when I was 40 it didn’t feel the same as when I was 30. 

I’ve also heard that wisdom comes with age.  This is true but most of the time you can’t remember anything any way so where the heck did all this wisdom end up.  I once had a friend who was watching me struggle to remember something say to me “our mind is like a great big filing cabinet and as we get older we just have more files to go through to find the one file that we are looking for”.  I’m not sure if she was trying to make me feel better about not remembering or if she was trying to point out in a nice way that I was old, either way it did make me feel better so that is what I’m going with.

As we get older the things that we used to do with no problem seems to become more and more difficult.  Now when I do things I think “what the heck is that noise” and then I realize it’s my body going snap, crackle and pop.  I also find myself moving slower than what I used to move or being more cautious when doing things.  Man getting older sucks!!!!

As we get older we start growing skin tags all over our bodies.  Skin tags seem to grow over night.  One day you have none and then the next day you’re like “where did that come from”.  They are never cute enough to be called a beauty mole, no they look like those eye things that grow out of potatoes when you have had them for too long. Getting older sucks!!!

I now catch myself asking “when did the (pick any place) start hiring children?” and then I realize that they are actually adults.  When did everyone start looking so young to me?  Man it sucks getting older!!!!!

The other day I caught myself taking my glasses off so that I could read the small print on something and I found myself thinking “when did they make the print so small?”.  I was so frustrated until I went to work and saw a co-worker do the same thing which made me so happy until I realized that she is older than me.  I said something to my eye doctor about having to do this and he said “well it’s all part of getting older and that his dad was going through the same thing”, what the heck I’m now as old as my doctors parents, when did this happen?

So while I’m trying to embrace getting older I still want to go on record as saying “GETTING OLDER SUCKS!!!!”