Christmas Odds

Totally new attitude about the holidays this year.  We plan on putting up ONE tree, not three, and we've already blocked off the "no-no" room so JakiePoo won't tear everything apart in there.  Jacob is now nine months old, and took three steps alone today.  He's a big boy, and adorable as hell.  BUT he loves to tear things apart, put everything in his mouth and is a terror crawler.  He'll be walking anytime soon, and I've noticed that HE notices everything now.  He squeals when something scary comes on the TV screen, sits for wayyyyy too long when Elmo sings, and hyper crawls to whomever opens the back door.  He's with Katie at their first Gymboree class.  I can't wait to hear how he does. He loves other kids. 
  Anyway, Christmas is almost here, and I've gotten nothing done.  I'm trying not to panic.  I still love the holidays.  Seeing them through Jake's eyes is the best.  Wonder how he'll like Santa?????

The Uglies

Everybody has them.  The truths that we eat over, drink to avoid, smoke to annihilate, drug into submission.  They are our deepest, darkest, most primitive thoughts and feelings.  The ones that, if set free, will get us a pass to the outer most reaches of relationship hell. 
  And yet...and yet, if we dare, if we seek and find a squad of humans who love us so unconditionally, so fully, we may then challenge ourselves to uncover the key to the locked box that cowers in the corner of our consciousness.  The box that holds the uglies.
  In finding that squad, in releasing the uglies, I have been blessed with a new sense of freedom.  Not the kind of freedom that comes from unloading my crap.  The true freedom that accompanies allowing another trusted human into my stripped, raw, real, unmasked world.  The peace that comes with understanding from that trusted individual, and the ultimate change in DNA that allows me to do the same for someone else, is a true miracle.
  To my Reggie, Katie, Jen and Mike, thank you for not firing me.  Thanks for being a part of my God squad.  I humbly thank you for being an example of true, real love, and I hope you have experienced the same from me.

28 Years Ago...

Twenty-eight years ago today, Reg and I helped our best friends Tony and Carol move into their new apartment in the pouring rain. I made yet another desperate call to the CHP hotline to make sure they would let us through the snow and rain slicked roads of Cajon Pass toward our destination-Las Vegas. We arrived, tire chains intact, one bumper a little damaged, and in a hurry to get to the court house. We filled out the requisite paperwork, decided not to drive to a cheesy Chapel, and were married right there in the Judge's chambers at 1:59 a.m. February 3, 1979. Did you know that the court house is closed from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.? At least it was back then. We then went out for shrimp cocktails, drinks (I had turned 21 five days before), had our picture taken and stayed up the latest I had ever stayed up. I still have the framed pic on the coffee table in the living room. Sigh... I am so blessed to still be madly in love with my husband. Tony and Carol celebrated 29 years of marriage on January 7. Reg and I met as Best Man and Maid of Honor in their wedding. How cool is that! Even though they live in Arizona, they remain our steadfast friends and supporters, and we are theirs. Over the last year or so, I have helplessly watched three friends lose their spouses to death. I expected to lose parents, but not peers. Another dear friend almost lost his life a year ago, and was miraculously spared. It makes me stop and be present in and grateful for today, not look into the possible future to relax and enjoy my hubby and my family. May God bless you all...