Snapshot

GBE2: WEEK #66 (8-19-12 to 8-25-12): Snapshot

With this topic, I'm going to take advantage of the word "snapshot", and post some pictures!

1). Me!  I don't always take a good picture in my living room, the place this picture was taken.  The light is horrible!

2).  Lexi, also known as Mini Me, Bubba, Trixie McBimbo Jr. and McBimbo in training.  She has these gorgeous huge blue eyes with these unbelievably long black eyelashes.  Her eyes are so beautiful it's just sick!  She's starting kindergarden September 6th.  Big girl!

3. My parents, on their wedding day.  (August 30 1969).  I take after my mother mostly as far as looks go, but I have my dad's eyes and my Aunt Donna's nose.  My mom was pretty cute at 22, which is about the age she was in this photo.  I actually had my hair dyed the same strawberry blonde color for a while when I was 17.  I had looked through our family pics one day when I was that age, saw my mom and what like "Holy crap!  We could be sisters!"

3).  My sister Kelly and my nephew Nicky:

Kelly is my second mother and Nicky is the piece of my brother in law Steve that he left behind.  Steve died right before Christmas and Nicky's one year birthday a few years ago.  It was quite a shock to all who knew him and we all miss him every day.  Especially around the holidays.

4). Joanna

 Joanna (left) Me (right)

I wrote a blog about her here

5). Brent and Trish, the best married couple ever.  They are both silly and don't need brain altering chemicals in order to have fun.  It's important to have friends like that in your life, in my opinion.

6) Eric Brooks (www.ericbrooks.com) My best male cyber friend.  He spoils Mini Me and I and makes me laugh even when I really really don't want to.

7). Clayton Littlewood.  One of my favorite authors.  Incredibly talented.  http://www.claytonlittlewood.com/  We just started exchanging Christmas cards and I think I will get myself some stationary and have us be penpals! 

I believe that's all for now.  Hope you enjoyed it!  For those who are stopping by from GBE2, please leave a link to your blog in the comments!

Someone in your family that means so much to you.

Day 30: Someone in your family that means so much to you.

I am lucky enough to have a family and relatives who love me tremendously and would do anything for me, and vice versa.   I come from an Irish/Polish family on my father's side, and I am German and Canadian.  Both sides are very close, but my father's side is much more vocal about it.  I love my stereotypical Irish Catholic family, but I love my WASP-y Grandmother and Aunts at the same time.  Well, all accept one.  One of my Aunts I have practically shunned from my life because of something really horrible that she did to her daughter (my cousin, obviously).  I won't go into detail because I decided long ago to post as little of my family drama as possible to protect a those involved.

Even so, I would be dead if it weren't for my family.

So try to fuck with them.

I dare you.

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What is your biggest dream in life?

Day 28: What is your biggest dream in life (what one great thing do you want to accomplish)?


I have lost count on how many times I have told this story:

I have wanted my own bar & grill for the past seven years.  My dad makes some seriously good ribs and since I have a little experience working at a bar and grill it makes me want to open one that much more.  My father is also retiring at the beginning of next year and he's a workaholic so he'll need something to keep him occupied.  There is an entrepreneur course at my community college and I think if I take that along with saving up money for the next five years or so I could open one up.

It doesn't have to be a bar, even.  The way things look I might have to have it just be a place to get some good BBQ.  There is a place like that right near my house, a seafood place, that was voted one of the best places to get seafood in NJ Monthly Magazine.  I would be perfectly happy having a small place of my own grilling up BBQ for ten years or so.  My dad likes the idea so I think it would be a good thing to have a family run place for a while.  Then when I feel the time is right I'll sell it.

One of the things that makes me happy is cooking, and if I could do that in my own place for a few years, then I would be perfectly content.

Related articles

• Exercise #43: Coloring Dreams
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30 Days of Truth Day 14

Day 14: Someone who has made your life worth living.

When you have a significant age difference between your sibling and yourself, the older sibling usually becomes a second parent. My sister is eight years older than I am, and I when I was born I instantly became her "baby".I am a spoiled brat compared to my sister.  I am the baby of the family: we're all spoiled brats.  My sister also spoiled me as though I was her daughter as well.  I am very protective of my family, but especially my sister when I was growing up.  There are times I wish I was two years younger rather than eight, so then I could beat up all the people who ever hurt her or made fun of her.  I would have had no problem going to detention or getting suspended for opening a can of whoop-ass on anyone who dared make her cry I suppose it's my Irish temper that makes me this way.

Summer Break Part One

Lexi's last day of school was today.  She came home with all this stuff for playing in the backyard or at a beach: shovel, bukkit, bubbles and a bubble wand.  All of her arts and crafts are with us now as well, along with her father's day gift, which they made for my Grandfather.  I'm not going to be dealing with drama from Lexi's dad so I'm just going to pretend she didn't make that, even though my dad deserves a Father's Day Present more than he does.  He has another kid to get Father's Day presents from anyway.

I hold my tongue a lot about Lexi's dad when I talk about him publicly, but it is what it is regardless of whether or not his feelings get hurt.  He wants all the fun of having a kid without any of the responsibilities.  That kind of mindset is going to bite you in the ass if you hate responsibility as much as he does.  My family and I did everything we could to get Lexi's dad on the up and up, and we're all done helping him.  You can't change people, and I am not going to go out of my way to glorify her father or his side of the family so that I don't hurt their feelings.  They make no attempt to contact me so why should it hurt when I point out the obvious?  I'm only telling the truth.

Despite the family drama I have to deal with sometimes, Mini Me is doing the best she can regarding school. She's showing progress with her speech and hopefully in the next couple of years she will able to say "potty" or "hungry" or "thirsty".  I'm going to be doing the activities her teacher left for us to do so she doesn't forget what she has learned.

Being a single mom, even with help, is hard.

Counting Down to April Fool's Day

Before I know it, Lexi will be five.  I can't believe that she's in school and she's going to be five!

(Lexi at her 1st birthday party)

Lexi at the park with my BFF Jo

At Aunt Kelly's house (my sis Kel's cat hiding)

Lexi at Six Flags:

I've been acting like a typical mom and looking misty-eyed at all her baby pictures.  She was never petite even as a newborn.  She sprouted and continues to sprout fast.

We're having a very small party at McDonald's this year, and I've managed to get a game for us to play along with the Play Place.  It's a Spongebob theme.  I ordered all the decorations and party favors online and I'll pick up Mylar balloons and maybe a "birthday girl" T shirt for Mini Me if they have them at Party City.

I'll have lots of pictures and videos to post and share.

The First Christmas

This Christmas was the first Christmas without my brother in law.  I still miss him terribly, especially during my nephew's 2nd birthday party.  He was my sister's best friend and the best brother a gal could ask for. He was kind, patient, funny, and selfless.  I still remember the day my sister, Lexi, my brother-in-law and I went to the mall on my birthday so that Lexi could get her pic taken with Santa for the first time.  All I have of him are birthday/Christmas presents, and my memories of him, and I am thankful that I have so many.  I am thankful he lived long enough to see his son be born.  I wish he could have held out to see him on his 1st birthday.   I wish I had had the courage to step up and say something during his funeral, but the minute I saw him in the casket I was paralyzed.  All I could think was "Do not break down, my sister needs me to be strong.  It's my turn to take care of her".  My sis is 8 years older than me and has always been my second Mom.  I couldn't believe how composed she has sitting right in front of the love of her life.


 It feels as though a shadow had fallen over my family after he was gone.  This shadow will take time to disperse.  The only thing I can do is be there for her and my nephew and make sure our family celebrates the existence of this piece of immortality that is his son.


Steve and Nicky:

http://youtu.be/Px4eCpFPDds

The 2011 Holidays *UPDATED*

I am in the middle of moving all of the stuff I wrote on hubpages.com over to my blog and then deleting my account.  I don't really like it there much.  I'm sticking to Helium.com.

My mom

I'm pretty sure I developed my raunchy sense of humor and sarcasm from my mother. She's been my cinema pal since I was old enough to sit in a movie theater. When I was younger it was all about the Disney movies. I feel really lucky to have come of age during what was, let's face it, the best years of Disney possibly of all time. I mean, "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", "The Lion King": I saw all of them in the theaters with my mom.

You would never guess that my mom, now in her 60's, would be the type of woman to go see "Me, Myself, and Irene", "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" or "Clerks 2" with her daughter, but it is perfectly natural for us. We're like a modern day "matinee ladies".

I have to admit: it's really funny to watch her reactions during the more naughty parts of whatever movie we're watching.

I believe the next movie we'll see will be "The Hangover 2". Yea, I'm going to watch "The Hangover 2" with Mini Me's grandma, and I am proud.

Mini Me's Bday

Mini Me turned 4 on April Fool's Day.

The first Christmas

This year will be the first Christmas and the first holiday without my brother in law, already. My parents, my daughter and I will be at my sister's house for Christmas Eve. Her husband put up her tree and there were presents sitting under it last time I was at her house. "Her" house. Yet another thing I have to get used to. My sister is a single mother. I say that in my head over and over and it still stuns me. It hasn't hit me fully that he's gone. When I"m at my sister's house I sit there and catch myself waiting for him to come out of their bedroom or coming in from just having stopped at a convenience store.

All I can do right now at this minute is pray. That's all I have been doing since Steve died. Pray,pray, pray.

To my late brother-in-law:

These are all the thoughts I cannot talk about. This was a really cathartic piece for me:

Abnormal Pleasures

I have tasted abnormal pleasures, they can dull the taste for normal ones. However, I believe that unless one has an extremely addictive personality, one can keep themselves from allowing the thrill of rudimentary pleasures to fade.

There have been times in my life before I had my daughter that I assumed I was just another extremely jaded member of my generation, fed on lies but getting too old to care about them anymore.

Having my daughter in a sense gives me the chance to relive my own childhood. There is so much I had missed out on because I did not have much choice but to grow up too fast.

As for abnormal carnal pleasures; I have no regrets about when I was first introduced. I was a bit younger than the average of my demographic, but I grew to realize that sex and everything that encompassed it was something I was always going to be more daring than I could have ever imagined I would be when I had just discovered just how much I like boys.

Now that I am nearing 30, I know once and for all that I am straight, and I love the male physique. I love everything about it, and I do not mean just the men who's bodies are or are near perfection. Men don't have to have a perfect body for me to want them like crazy.

Widow

I still can't believe it. My sister is a widow now. My brother in law passed away last night: died in his sleep due to a heart attack. I just saw him on Thanksgiving, and to be honest, he looked a little under the weather.

I'm so heartbroken and I don't know what to do. My sister is one of my best friends, and hell, the wedding was only about four years ago. I can still remember all of it. It was the most fun I have ever had at a wedding. I remember the big trip to Seattle and Vancouver that the three of us went on: it was SO much fun.

I feel angry more than anything. How could this happen-especially right before Christmas? It isn't fair. That's all I can think-it isn't fucking fair. My nephew turns one this month. He will never know his father. Another thing I am angry about.

His dad had died the year before right around this time about a year ago, and now this.

My heart hurts.

Little Boxes, on the Hillside

"You know those photos you always see of smiling families on a mantelpiece? I can't even look at them, cuz you never know what they're hiding". -Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick (Factory Girl)



Scratch the surface, most are satisfied by what they find.




Having grown up in a suburb, I contemplate the excerpt of "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch every once in a while, the portion where she laments about how every identical home is a microcosm, an individual world with its own religion and politics, its own law and order. I think about that sometimes while I walk the streets of my own town. I see the families, the children, the parties. I hear the laughter, the arguments, the vernacular, the culture.



I secretly have a wanderlust that can get very deep sometimes, very palpable. It must be the reason I watch so many movies and read so many books. I need the escape from somewhere. Sometimes that escape comes in the form of standing around, singing songs that challenge my range or songs I have not memorized. Singing helps transport me while keeping me centered, all at the same time. It connects me to the earth, to my spirit. The energy I receive from singing is something I cannot find anywhere else.


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