What is Scarier than the Christmas Elf on the Shelf??

 

This Bag!

Thanksgiving has long since passed, and soon the fat man will force his way down a chimney near you and deliver shiny new fabulousness to all good boys and girls. At least that's the stuff we tell our kids.

Enter The Elf on the Shelf. Brilliant! According to Wikipedia the 'small pixie scout elf' is the tattle-tale that tells the big guy you've been naughty. I don't know. I've never actually read the story. I just know what Wikipedia says and what a bunch of my FB friends post about the sneaky little shit, and the countless pics that flood the internet.

I find this elf incredibly freakin creepy. I also thought he looked strangely familiar. 

Christmas decorating began over the weekend. I'm not sure why. I guess because #1 and #2 Son were here and they decided it was time to attempt to rid me of my general 'grinchiness'. I admit I have an exceptionally hard time getting into the spirit of things anymore. I really dislike all the rush, rush, rush, and the expectations, and the crowds, and the parking lots, and... well really I could provide you with a list a mile long. Of course, Christmas used to be my favorite holiday, not just because of the presents, but because of the family, and the traditions, the food, and well, the presents. Now, as an adult, frankly, the expectations are just off the freakin chain and the family is spread all over kingdom come, and well... you'd prolly take the 'sea-sick crocodile' over me. (hashtag Grinch right there...)

I digress. Back to the bit about decorating. The boxes of decorations made their way up from the hoarder-like basement, and we began decking the halls in earnest while everyone was up and awake and mostly not cranky. I attempted to take pics of the kids... didn't go so well... mostly pics of the backs of people's heads and extreme close-ups of Mini-Man because he was all... 'ohhhh camera!'

And then, there it was- This gnarly old grocery bag from a grocery store that doesn’t even exist within 200 miles of my house… hiding in the bottom of a box of decorations that had not been used in quite a while. I had forgotten. Forgotten about the dusty old elves that had belonged to my grandmother.  Two strings of lights (one of which was particularly creepy) and some random little fellows with shitty little grins and impish looking eyes. There they were in the bag. #1 and #2 Son declared that they were ‘totally creepy’. 

(The lights- still work- also scary)

I had never thought of them that way as a kid when they hung around Grandma’s cool old house with all of its nooks and crannies. But as I peered into the bag, I got the heeby-jeebies. These suckers were freakin creepy as hell. I took a few pics (mostly for you all), closed up the bag, and stuck it back in the box. I could still feel the way their eyes were looking at me- all like… we’re watching you…. we know what you’ve been doing. WTH?! When did they go from cute little elves to creepy little shits?

I imagine it had something to do with the internet…. And things like this…..

(My particular favorite being The Cock in a Box w/ JT)

And also… '101 Names for your Elf' and '101 Things to do with your elf' (feel free to google that cuz I'm too lazy to go looking for those links at the moment). Really? Back in the 70s my grandmother hung them on the railing of the stairs. I wish I had a pic to show you that. They were quite unassuming, almost cute. Now, not so much.

So while some of you may sit your elves on shelves or stuff him in a bag of Neslte's Chocolate Chips and name him Buddy, or Jimmy, or Timmy, or Hermie… Ours will be buried in the basement in a decrepit old grocery bag until next year… when they can scare the shit out of us again.

I would get rid of them… but I never get rid of anything… (Hoarder??- Bite your tongue!)  

Sweet Dream or a Beautiful Nightmare

I realize I titled this with a Beyonce song title. I am in no way affiliated with Beyonce... shocker... and I don't really even like her music. I mean... c'mon folks? Bootylicious? Girls rule the world? Everything you own in the box to the left? Who wrote this stuff? Whatever. I am straying from the subject at hand. I latched on to the song title because I have been pondering how to finish my auto-biopic (no, I'm not narcissistic, thanks for asking)... and it seemed to fit. If you don't stop by my blog often, or you want a little refresher, or you just love me, you may want to start here, and then proceed to here, and after that you could stop by here. Or you could just read the whole dang blog. Whatever floats your boat....

Can you see the light at the end of this tunnel yet?

My story is my own. It is unique in it's own way. It is no great movie script. It is not even truly extraordinary.  But things that happened in my life, the griefs, the triumphs, the great leaps of faith shaped me and made me. In the spirit of closure, catharsis and release I am going to finish my story here so I can move on and write about other things. Funnier things hopefully. Things that will keep you coming back to my blog... because I like having you here.

I have written and rewritten and deleted and rewritten this post a hundred times- at least. I am finding it difficult to write anything else with this post hanging around in it's draft state. I have been over thinking this. I decided I had to take all the gory details of having an affair, going to marriage counseling, going to a shrink, separation, medication, moving back in with my parents, watching friends take sides, losing friendships, and losing my kids and all the things that came with divorce... and whittle it all down to what I really wanted to say. I had intended to write a story with lots of fancy verbiage and pretty $10 words. Now, however, it has mostly come down to a list of truths...

-I had an affair. It was morally wrong, and completely inexcusable, and I don't regret it. I'm not really sorry about the pain it caused my x. I'm just not. I am sorry that my older two sons get bounced between houses like ping pong balls. I am also sorry that I wasn't strong enough to fight for custody of them. I was scared of my x and believed his threats and manipulations. I gave up too soon and gave in for the sake of staying out of the court and dragging them through a relentless custody battle. It would have been nasty. That was a guarantee. He promised to rake me over the coals and I just wasn't strong enough to fight back. This is why... 10 years later... my older boys claim their father's house as primary residence. It hurt so much to give up. It hurt to admit that I was wrong. It hurt to essentially walk away. But I didn't really. I have been here whenever they need me. I have done my best to show them that they are loved and I have come to the conclusion that my boys are fairly happy well adjusted adolescents and I'm glad they didn't have to go through a nasty custody battle. I refused to allow them to be used as pawns or weapons, as was their father's intention in the beginning. They know they are loved by both of their parents. The petty fighting mostly ended a while ago. Now it's primarily a matter of what is best for the boys, and that is as it should be- don't you think??

-I would advise anyone and everyone to have some sort of bank account in your own name. Don't ever depend on another person completely for your financial security. Once my affair was discovered I was cut off. He closed accounts and cut up credit cards in front of me. It was scary, and humbling. And even though I'm a SAHM now, I have money tucked away in my own account. Sgt. Dad knows. It's no secret to him, and he's totally cool about it. Never ever be in that place.

-Blood is thicker than water. My family, my parents were there for me. They gave me shelter and supported me while I scrambled to find a job. I stayed with them for about a year and they never made me feel bad for it. As functionally dysfunctional as my family is, they were there for me when the shit hit the fan. I remember when the x would come pick the boys up from my parents' house... my dad would lock himself in the bathroom so he wouldn't be tempted to thrash the x. Love my 'John Wayne' dad.

-Water is thinner than blood. Disturbingly so. I might as well have worn a scarlet letter and been stoned by my so-called friends. Next to losing my boys, this was one of the hardest pills to swallow. These 'friends' made it obvious that they also felt betrayed by our actions. We were ostracized. People that I trusted were hateful and did hateful things. I was told I was no longer to be a part of a 'friend's' wedding because my actions had affected 'the group'. I was weighed, I was measured, I was judged, and I was found to be... well... Hester Prynne. Evil. Immoral. The phone stopped ringing, and after a while, I was okay with it. Your real friends? Your true friends? Those are the folks that stand next to you no matter what storm you're traveling through. No matter what transgressions you've made. They are there. I know who those people are now, and they are few, and I can not tell you how much I value them and love them. Subsequently, my trust... it's not easily earned. I just don't put myself out there anymore. It's not worth the pain.

-The man that I had this affair with? He's not perfect. But Sgt. Dad is my husband, and has been for the last 8 years. Our marriage is not perfect. We've made mistakes and had our fights... but I wouldn't trade him for all the world. I adore him still. I imagine I will adore him always. All through my separation and divorce and the loss of the folks we thought were our friends, we told each other... it's you and me babe... and here we are... it's still him and me... and our tiny brood.

Sure, I fight depression. I suffer from some seriously debilitating social anxiety. I have quite a bit of baggage that I haul around. I make mountains out of mole-holes. I second guess most of my decisions.   There's a whole corner of my brain dedicated to guilt. Another corner dedicated to anxiety over... well... you name it. But I love, and I am loved. I made a choice 9 years ago, and I firmly believe it was the best thing I have ever done in my life.

And that my loves.... is that. And now you know. Now I can move on to other things....

P.S. I must add this song that I have been playing over and over and over some more while I wrote this... If John Mayer and Dave Matthews had had a baby it would have been Phillip Phillips.... <3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p">

As always.... Thanks for reading my blog <3 nbsp="nbsp">

Never trust a doctor in Flip-Flops....

The family that coughs together.... stays together.
Alternately....
the family that farts together.... stays together. Wisdom from my awesome German MIL right there.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Sgt. Dad is home once again. This is both wonderful and .... at times... a bit... well... annoying. I love this man with all my heart... but he can definitely throw a wrench into my little OCD world. For instance... why was the vacuum on the dining room table this morning when I got up? Why are there half a dozen empty coffee cups in various places around the house? Why are my colanders in the cabinet with the pots and pans? Things are not in their respective places in the fridge- the milk is on the condiment shelf, and the cheese is in the door and that just doesn't fly. There is ketchup smeared across the kitchen counter along with coffee rings and spilled sugar. And let's not talk about the toilet seat, or the apparent inability to flush the toilet. I digress. I love this man. He is home and he is safe and my OCD tendencies will adjust to compensate for his return in due time.

Along with his return came the dreaded.... 'E-boli-Avian-Swine-Mung-Flu'. Sounds menacing, right? It should. It has knocked all of us down beginning with #2 Son who missed a whole week of school due to the pink eye that came with it. He shared with all of us, minus the pink eye. Thankfully he kept that to himself. Halfway through last week, #1 and #2 Sons' dad decides they should see the doctor. I may have thought to take them myself had I not been laying in bed lamenting 'I'm dying' to whoever would listen. Regardless of my impending death, I got a phone call from their dad... basically... an appointment has been made.... can you take them? Well, sure! Let me just wrap a hundred coats around me and drag my diseased ass out of bed and hobble on down to the doctor's office. Which by the way... I have no clue where it is because they use his insurance and his doctor. When I asked their step-mom for directions... it went something like... 'you know that road over by that other road in front of the hospital... well you take that other other road....' Ummm... just give me the address, I'll find it.

Our doctor adventure consumed the better part of a day. Why??! Why is it that a doctor's office can appear seemingly empty, and yet you still wait for an hour in the waiting room and then another hour in the examination room? Piss off?! Add to that the mind-numbing amount of paperwork I had to fill out for #2 Son because he'd never been seen there before. Half of which I stared at dumbly because ... I'm not their dad and don't have all the insurance/ employer information. Did I mention, I was also dying? Then the wait in the exam room with both boys dying from the flu, from thirst, from hunger, from boredom, from each other. OMG *Spork*Eye*

Enter Doctor Flip-Flop. WTfreakingF?! It's 40 some degrees outside. The man has a PhD and he walks in wearing freaking flip flops! I'm sorry, did we pull you away from your golf game? I almost vomited right there... on his naked hairy feet. And then the FBI interrogation began. Now, perhaps under different circumstances I would have appreciated a doctor asking a million questions. This was not that time. I did not need to hear about his belief in faith, and his book recommendations, and his church recommendations, and I did not think I should have to explain visitation schedules and my personal religious beliefs. I remained pleasant throughout. I don't know how. I wanted to stomp on his foot. I wanted to sneeze in his face... and his face.... He had this .... 'thing' on his nose. Zit? Mole? Lump? Bump? Growth? I was having a hard time keeping my Austin Powers tendencies in check. I resisted the urge to poke it with a tongue depressor ya'll. It was hard.
It was so freakin hard maintaining a pleasant demeanor and attempting to be an adult. And then came the flu tests... you know the big ole cotton swab up the nose thing. #2 went first. #1 laughed at him when he almost cried. When it was #1's turn, he ended up with a bloody nose. And that, my friends, is called- karma. I did not feel bad. I stuffed tissue up the kid's nose and went on my way. Off to the pharmacy to sit and wait for an hour. Three prescriptions, much whining, and several hours later the ordeal was over.

What did I learn from all of this? I have no freaking clue. I'm not even sure there was a lesson to be learned actually. Mostly it was just a wasted day and the knowledge that I will never personally make a trip to that doctor for myself... ever. I am on the hunt for a new doctor since mine retired, but it won't be this guy. Nope nope. Never trust a doctor in flip-flops.... he'll attempt to convert you to his religious beliefs and hypnotize you with his mole.... Moley moley moley moley MOooooLE!!!!!