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May, 2013:

Five Nineteen

Another year …

I really didn’t think that something could stress me out more than a day of two extremely overtired whiny kids

But then came the ants

O M G ! ! ! ! ! !

I can’t stand them

A spider is one thing, a fly, even one of those silver fish bugs

Ok, I suppose a mouse would be worse

But ants are right up there with them

Primarily because there’s not just one of them but dozens

I probably killed 200 so far

And I’ve only been dealing with this for a week or so

I thought maybe it was some left out food but they just keep coming back

Tomorrow I’m calling a professional!

Tomorrow could also possibly be my last day with my client

I really don’t want it to be but I feel like that might happen

Even if it’s just sort of a time-out for me until they get their shit together

The subject line of an e-mail received earlier tonight “AdCenter What the #%&&”

Really none of this is directed at me, nor should it be

It’s just so not professional, non of what’s been going on is

His sales team SUCKS

And their failure is being taken out on the rest of us

Including this e-mail

I just have a feeling that things are going to blow up tomorrow

I’m already on the fence about leaving

However, I don’t have anything else set up yet so I’m going to have to figure that one out

————————————————————————

But back to the subject of this post …

Last year a single flower on our rain plant bloomed on this very day

This year two of them bloomed together on the 15th, so it was a little early

But then today, a neighbor I only met yesterday, brought this over to us today

Really pretty

Now I need to figure out where to put it

This past Friday & Saturday we had our first garage sale

The whole thing was mostly so I would get motivated to clean up our garage and some other things around the house

When the house finally sold in December I just packed the leftover stuff into the garage

The garage sale helped unload some of that

The garage sale also introduced us to a number of neighbors we’d yet to meet

Unfortunately those introductions inevitably brought up “the” topic …. ugh!

The usual questions and usual answers … maybe I need to be a little more creative in my response

Oh well …

We did dinner tonight with some family members at the restaurant Cari worked at

It was nice to see some of her old co-workers and they were excited to see the kids

Even after the huge meal a few of us went out for ice cream

Not sure how we ate all that but I couldn’t promise the kids ice cream and not deliver

The place we went to, the plush horse, is good, a lot of people like it, but I’ll take our neighborhood ice cream store over it, and the kids agree

A couple of the family members unfortunately brought their petty bickering into what should have just been a nice dinner

“Thanks” for doing that … please grow up!!!

…. just had to vent a bit …

But otherwise it was really nice

The weekend weather was really just amazing too, really amazing

It was supposed to rain but that didn’t happen at all

Today the kids were out in the sprinkler, running around with the neighborhood kids, it was awesome to see

I really do like this neighborhood

There are so many kids on just this one block

I had a few friends around me growing up but nothing like this

We have 6 houses on our street and then a few around the corner

All but one has kids

And there are dozens of kids on neighboring blocks

Back to the garage sale …

I had the kids set up a lemonade stand during the garage sale Sat

A perfect day for a lemonade stand

With all the people walking around, who could pass up a couple cute kids offering up something to drink

Of course there was one weirdo who said he’d only buy it if it was still cold and then asked them to fill it up some more because I guess it wasn’t enough for him

Oh, and then there were those couple of ladies who showed up at 8:45a Sat (we opened at 9a). The one lady said something about stains on a couple pieces of clothes.  I could tell they were chatting about me when they were leaving so I sarcastically told them to have a nice day.  They came back with some b.s. about how much stuff had stains and won’t sell.  I just told them to go back to their trailer park … bitches!

Anyways ….

So … another year

That really sucks

A lot of our friends sent me messages today

I tried to read them to Carolyn and couldn’t even get through most of them

They were a lot easier to read to myself than to read out loud to her

Here’s what they said …

Megan – “Thinking about you guys today and sending my love …. she is missed so much”

Allison – “Thinking of you guys today”

Jason & Kari – “Thinking about ya today” Roxie – “Lick lick”

Jen – “4 years later and I still always think about Cari. I hope you wrap yourself with warm memories of her. She always brings us the sunshine. This is SO her type of day”

Monica – “Thinking about you guys on this day. Instead of being sentimental lets remember when we had to buy you a new crockpot and how I can make a hot dog disappear”

Cornelia – “Just realized the date! I’m thinking of all ya!”

Michelle – “Just wanted to tell you thinking of you, the kids, the Stevens and of course Cari today. Hope you all spent this beautiful day together”

Brett – “Thinking about you and the kids brother. Love you guys”

Denise – “While we think of you often and know every day is just as hard as the next, just know we are thinking of you all a little bit more today. You’re strength over these years is nothing short of admirable. It’s another beautiful sunny day too. Hugs”

Amanda – “Thinking of you, the kiddos, family and most of all my friend Cari on another beautiful sunny May 19. Hopefully we are one year closer to thoughts of Cari bringing smiles to our faces first before tears.”

Matt K – “I’ve been thinking about you guys today. Planted some flowers today. The purple ones made me think of Cari”

Sara P – “Hugs to you”

So, another year

I can only imagine how much more amazing our life would be, enjoying each other and these two amazing little kids … TOGETHER

E gave me a huge hug for you tonight … like she does most every night 🙂

A couple realizations

Two weeks until my first ever garage sale

The kids don’t want me to get rid of anything but I think they’ll comprimise

The weather this weekend really was amazing, especially today

We spent the whole day outside

I planted a couple dozen bulbs and a few dozen flowers and patched up a bunch of bare spots in the grass

Finally I made my way to the garage

If we’re going to have this garage sale I figured I’d better start organizing at least a little

So while I’m moving stuff around the kids and one of their friends are in there as well

I wasn’t watching exactly what they were doing

The friend and E began to read something

Dear Matt & Cari, I love you guys … the friend asks if that’s her mom … they read it again

Dear Matt & Cari, I love you guys, always swallow

So I’m still not paying a whole lot of attention but I’m saying to myself, that’s weird

So they read it again

And I say, it doesn’t say that

They say, yes it does, … always swallow

So now they have my attention

It really does say that

I know there’s a lot of stuff in pictures that the kids should probably never see but I didn’t expect them to find this one.  That’s something from her bachelorette party maybe, our wedding shower???  I guess I’ve got to watch out for that stuff too

Hope their friend doesn’t repeat this to her parents … 😉

Sigh……..

E definitely gets emotional, especially when she’s tired

Today included

Long day outside, playing non-stop pretty much from 10a – 6p

She broke down as soon as her friend left and pretty much went on like that for a good 45 minutes

“I miss Momma”

In addition to that, every day we walk up or down the stairs she wants to kiss a picture of her

After I got her in and out of the bath (Note: She was not very cooperative) we had a bit of a talk

She’s in tears, “I miss Momma”

This isn’t anything new but today we talked more about the situation

She, of course, wants her to come back

I always tell her that can’t happen

So we talked about bringing someone else into the house

She immediately says no

But we’ve talked about this before and we talk of it not as someone to EVER replace Cari but someone who she can bond with, shop with, play with, be a girl with.  She accepts the idea

“But then you’ll have to get married again”

Oh Man!

I say maybe

We talk about it a little and she says, can I be the bridesmaid, I’ve already been the flower girl enough?

I said yes … we’ll have to address that one if and whenever that situation arises

She seemed content

Lately I’ve been more and more aware of her need to have someone else in our family.

So I guess this one is on me

I’m really picky

I probably could already be going down that road if I wanted to

I know what I want, haven’t found anything close, haven’t had a whole lot of opportunities to

Plus, I’m totally pessimistic about any dating site … I’m just not convinced they’ll work for me

So therein lies my dilemma …