Sometimes life gives you lemons, and you need vodka to spike the lemonade

Sunday we leave for Vegas...I think??? This is our annual family vacation to Sin City, which we do with my best friend and her family. But now I don't know, my friend's mom is still in ICU on a ventilator. One positive thing...her white cell count is high, so she is fighting. GO KATI GO! My husband and I don't know if we are supposed to go on our trip or stay home? My friend will not be able to make this decision until close to the time we leave, and even then, I don't know?

This vacation has been on my friend's radar for so long, keeping her going, getting her through all of her daily stress, she needs this, hell we all need this! My kids and her kids want to play in sin city together. I also know that my friend needs me, and if she stays here with her mom, its because she is worried that she may not see her mom again, which means there is a good chance I wil be flying to Vegas, only to turn around and come home for my friend. This SUCKS! We need some intervention here, I have never been a religious person, but right now I don't know what else could help. Her mom is too young to leave us, and she is such an important person in their lives. She takes care of her grandkids while her daughter is at work. The grandkids will be devastated. Her husband will be lost and alone. They had trips planned too, Vegas this week, and Cancun the following. Can I say it again? THIS SUCKS!

Anyone out there who is reading this...what would you do? Go on the trip or reschedule? And if you are reading this, please send good vibes to Kati, she needs them, we all do.

Always hope

My best friend's mom is in the hospital, and my friend seems to have lost all hope. It's just so sad, and I am not very good at this. I tend to think everything will be ok, that is just me, and how I manage. My friend on the other hand, who is struggling with her mom's mortality, is feeling very doomed, and I don't know how to help her.

Her mom, who is 70, has pneumonia. Her right lung is apparently filled with fluid, and her diaphragm was being taxed, so the Dr's thought it was best to put her on a ventilator. I think the sight of that has flipped my friend out, and her poor mother is strapped to a bed with the contraption, and she is being fed through a tube.

I want to make everything better, I don't want my friend and her family to suffer. Her mom is a tough woman, one of the toughest, she has to fight this, and not give up. My friend needs keep the hope so that her mom can feel it.

Being human is so unfair...knowing about our own mortality, and that of those we love is so brutal.

For my friend, who I love dearly, I will keep the hope for your mom, it is the only thing I can do for her right now, and she has all of my wishes and prayers. And if you need to cry, I am here for that too. I love you Brig, you and your mom are in my heart and soul.

Hallmark again!!!

So its Father's Day this weekend...one of those Hallmark holidays that guilt you into buying a present for someone who really doesn't want anything! My husband, whom I love dearly, and is an amazing father to our kids, hates all of these holidays, (as do I). Both our dads are out of state, my dad lives in Tesuque, NM and my father-in-law is in California. (my inlaws do the bicoastal thing). So, maybe we will get to have a nice relaxing Sunday at home with the kids...HA ;-) I bet the kids will get up and make us breakfast (usually a bowl of cereal) and serve it to us in bed, way before either one of us is able to sit up in bed, let alone actuallt EAT something...but that is the joy of parenting, and something we will treasure, even as we force ourselves to eat the soggy cereal, and drink the warm tap water they will no doubt deliver with the cereal. Hey, not bad for a 6 1/2 yr old and a 3 yr old! When do kids start sleeping past 7am??

Shhh, don't tell him, but hubby is getting Mr. Show's 3rd and 4th seasons, I guess I'll give him the 3rd, and the kids can give him the 4th!

And what else for the weekend... We will be visiting relatives in NJ on Saturday, but first, before we make that godawful drive from Long Island to the dreaded Belt Parkway, we have to stop at an AWNING store! let me back up...last year, after living in our little ranch house for 7 years, we decided it was time to either move or add on, so we went for the addition. We added a second floor, and pushed out the back of the house a tad. In doing this, we destroyed our ugly cememt patio and screened in back porch. So, this year, the patio was the project. So, a few weeks ago, we had a deck built, a very very nice deck, that I am in love with, provided it is either before 8am, or after 6pm. My house, unfortunately, faces East, which means we have sun...all day long, and no real relief unless its predawn, or dusk. So, now that we spent all this money on our beautiful deck...we melt like Frosty the Snowman after 5 minutes! Which means, its time for us to drag the kids to the Retractable Awning place, to see if this is the answer, and if it is the solution my husband swears it is, how much more $$ will be laying out? I am rooting for 2 very large hanging umbreallas instead, so cross your fingers that the awning idea fails.

I'll let you know how the awning pans out!

And I work why?????

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

When am I going to learn...escalating to management is USELESS! Every single time I do it, I regret it. She always has to go throuugh 30 minutes of background, ask annoying rhetorical questions, and make me feel as if I've done something wrong, when I know damn well that I haven't, and if she had been paying attention to the stuff I have been telling her she'd have a GD clue!

Next time I have to remind myself, just tackle the issue on my own....and if I fail, then I guess I will have to escalate, and repeat the steps above, and then hit myself on the head, and just say "who gives a F?"

Is it just me?

Monday already, huh? Damn, where did the weekend go? Remember the days when after a long week of work, you finally made it to Friday, and you were sitting at work, all anxious to get the hell out of there, and go out, maybe for a drink? or a movie? or something...well, that pretty much ended when I had kids. Its such a weird phenomenon...I find myself in a love/hate relationship with Fridays. I love that it is Friday, and at the end of the day, I get to go home and be with the kids ...but I hate that it is Friday because at the end of the day, I get to go home and be with the kids.

Am I evil? I know there must be other moms out there, especially working moms, who have this split personality thing....while I am at work, I am just "Jamie", when I am home, I am Mom, and Jamie only gets to come out after the kids are in bed. Jamie wants to come out and play, but Mom has taken over!

And now its Monday, and guess what? I miss my kids!

Decision, decisions...

Why is it sooo hard to figure out what to have for lunch? Every day, after I go to the gym, its only a matter of minutes before I start getting what I call "the shakes", meaning, I am literally shaking, and if I don't get food within the next 5 minutes, LOOK OUT, because ANYONE WHO GETS IN MY WAY WILL BE MOWED DOWN! So, tell me, for a person who is that hungry, how is it that I go to the cafeteria, check out every single thing they have, stare at it, debate, stare at it some more, then end up going to the deli counter and ordering my usual turkey on whole wheat?

Could it be that I have so much food-related guilt, that while I stare longingly at the pasta dishes, or the fried special, or what about those freshly baked cookies, that I am unable to even make a decision, so I just go with what I know, and food has just become a mere staple, not something to savor and enjoy?

It is amazing that we walk around all day counting carbs, fat grams, calories, net carbs, serving size...its a wonder we all don't walk around with slide rules and calculators!

My first post!

I did it, I finally am ready to blog all the crap that goes on in my crazy hectic life. After months of reading other people's blogs, and nodding my head, laughing or crying at posts that mirrored my own thought so closely, I am taking the plunge into this cyber journal world. I admit it, its scary to share with the rest of the world, who knows if you will all think I am a freak, or even worse, just too boring! But here we go...

OK, so why "moshpit"? No, I am not some hard core punk rocker... Mosh is a nickname, one my sister and I made up when we were kids. Hers is Mush, and our cat, Licorice, was MishMosh. "Moosh" was a word we used to use instead of cursing around our parents. And because "moosh" was such a DIRTY (!) word, we had to say "mish" immediately after, to erase the effects of saying "moosh"! Funny, people in the rest of this country think that growing up in NYC (Brooklyn to be exact) can make one tough and insensitive. Meanwhile, these 2 Brooklyn girls were afraid to curse, and god forbid one of us said MOOSH, the other was there saying "MISH" to make sure all was right with the world. Guess our parents raised us right!

So, now you know I am from Brooklyn. Something that definitely has defined who I am, and how I perceive life in general. I spent 18 years there, before I went away to college in upstate NY. WOW! Was that a shocker for this "tough" city girl. The first night in my dorm, I couldn't sleep...where was the noise? No trains, no sirens, no screaming...just quiet, and some crickets, whose melodic chirping KEPT ME UP AT NIGHT!

I no longer live in Brooklyn. I met my husband in that upstate college, and he was from, what we in "the city" called the 'burbs....Long Island. So, eventually he took the girl out of Brooklyn [but much to his dismay, has never taken the "Brooklyn" out of the girl ;-) ]. Now I live on Long Island, in our suburban house, with our suburban ways, and our 2 children, and life is just perfect! Ok, not perfect, but I am happy to be in the 'burbs and seeing my girls have things I never had.

As I start this venture into blogging, I don't have any concrete thoughts as to what this will all be, I only know that I am ready to share, and not that my life is all that exciting and different, but I know there are plenty of you out there that will relate, and this will be for us!

Til my next post,
Mosh