House in chaos, Mother's Day, and more in Vacations 2015

The house is really in chaos because of the kitchen reno. My microwave is in my bedroom, along with a lot of other stuff from the kitchen, including the chairs that go with the dining room table. The table, meanwhile, is in the living room, stacked with cabinet drawers and other kitchen items. The dishwasher and garbage disposal are in the living room where they’ve been for 2 months. Right now, the kitchen looks like this:

The floor is a mess. Doug warned me about that and told me to be careful. It’s full of pits and holes. I have to wear shoes all the time. I’m so grateful nobody is living below me right now.

You know how when you go on vacation, or you move into a new house, and you can’t find anything? That’s how it is for me right now. No matter what I need, whether it’s scissors or soap or my iPhone charger or my camera, I have to look around the house for it. That gets old so fast. I made some dinner last night and stacked the dishes in a bag to take over to Michael’s later this morning to stick in his dishwasher.

I’m not really complaining, I’m glad to have the work finally started. I just feel a little overwhelmed because it seems like too many things are happening at once. I just got back from vacation and had to unpack, do laundry, etc. I have to get myself organized to go back to work this week, where I’m likely facing more chaos waiting for me. I’ve got the kitchen stuff going on. I have to get ready to leave for Iceland next week. I have to have everything ready for Josie before I leave for Iceland. I need to watch the training DVD again, and listen to the Martha tapes again (when I met with the trainer, she recorded our session and I need to refresh my memory on everything). Next weekend is the only weekend I will be at home all during May, and the kitchen counters are scheduled to be installed on Saturday. Again, I’m glad the work is getting done and I’m kinda glad I’ll be here while the counters are being installed but still, it is going to cramp my style on one of the only two free days I have in the middle of all the activity in my life.

Today is Mother’s Day. I read here on PB and also on FB, all the tributes that people write to their moms, especially if their mom has passed away. It always makes me feel – I don’t know. Sad? Remote? Numb? I don’t think about my mom with sadness today. I hardly think about her at all. She died in 1987 and I grieved tremendously for the first year. I would wake up in the middle of the night, shouting, “Mom! Mom!”. I couldn’t grasp how I was supposed to live in a world without my mom. But as time has passed, I got over that. My mom was, in many ways, a very good mom who loved my sisters and me very much. And she loved Sarah to the point of obsession. When I think about it, I do have some very good memories. But I have to think about it. And I don’t have to think at all to remember all the bad things, the drunken times, the alcoholism, the fights, the humiliating scenes. My mom had a lot of baggage from her childhood and she could never overcome it. I hope she is resting in peace. In all honesty, our lives have been much more peaceful since she passed. I feel terrible for writing that. Just typing those words makes me think of the happy times that we spent together, the Mother’s Days and the times she enticed me to come visit by promising to make a prime rib roast – one of my big weaknesses, and she was an excellent cook who knew how to prepare a restaurant quality prime rib.

On the other hand.... on a happier note – I am thrilled to be going to see my daughter today, where we will share Mother’s Day honors for the second year! We are going out for crawfish and I’m looking forward to a good day.

Yesterday morning before we left the beach house, I took a video of the beach for my own reminiscing. It’s a little long but I’ll share it here anyway. It was very early morning, and low tide.

Here’s a few other random pictures from the week too, just to close out my entries about it.

A masthead hanging on the wall in the beach house:

Michael getting a fire going for us in the wood stove:

A stuffed tiger that resides in the living room (not a real tiger, though its eyes were so piercing that I sometimes wondered):

Michael hosing off the windows that got salt water on them every day:

Someone was flying a kite on the beach:

TWICE during the week, I got the keyboard of my laptop wet – once when I knocked over a glass of wine and once when I got too enthusiastic about cleaning off my keyboard. I had to stack the laptop upside down for awhile to let it dry out. I’m fortunate that it DID dry out with no harm done.

I guess that’s it for that vacation. Stay tuned for Iceland!

I’ve made these vacation entries public because there didn’t seem any reason to keep them private for “friends”. However, in general, my entries are usually “friends only”. If you’ve been reading along here and would like to be able to read my “friends only” entries please let me know.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms. Ciao!