Dreaming about Blogging?

I woke up this morning and was remembering the dream I had during the night. The images so vivid it was like it really happened. I was rich and famous and living the life of a rock star. I was flying, no, I was JETTING, to and fro on someones private jet. Can I remember why I was so rich and famous and living the life of a rock star? No. That detail escapes me. And can I remember what exactly I was doing that was so fabulous in this dream? NO. No idea.

The whole point of this dream, and for me writing about it this morning, was at the end of the dream, my last thought was how I was going to BLOG all about my adventures that I had that summer. (Did I mention it was a whole summer of fun that I dreamt about?) I was actually dreaming about blogging! I've dreamt about the pain in my life. I've dreamt about my family. I've dreamt about work too many times to count. I've dreamt about FOOD (don't get me started on those dreams! Food is a very important part of my life unfortunately and those dreams I can remember in fine detail lol). I've dreamt about my cat and my dog. I've dreamt about my brother who was killed a few years back. I've dreamt about the cops who took his life that night. I've dreamt about the pain my mother endured after that night and still to this day. I've dreamt about laundry and house cleaning and mopping floors. But dreaming about blogging? Do any of you dream about blogging? Guess my dreams have finally caught up to this century huh?

In my dream I was so excited that so many fun and amazing things had happened that summer, and that I would have things to blog about for weeks! So what exactly was the point of that dream? I'm guessing with all the things going on in my life right now, with my MIL being so sick and on her last leg, and everything that is going along with that, that maybe my mind is wishing and hoping that I had fun things to blog about instead of the sad stories I've been telling lately. I see all these other blogs being humorous and funny and telling great stories that make me laugh and I think about all the sadness in my life and how my blog just isn't comparing to them.

So, I've made a decision!

I will continue to blog but try to keep it more upbeat! I will still have to talk about my MIL so I will always remember these last days with her and what we're going through, but I will NOT let it be the focus of everything. I don't want to lose the 6 of you who actually read my blog lol. (Yes, there are now 6 of you! You guys rock!) OK, I get a lot of traffic to my site that indicates there's more then 6 of you but whatever, it still feels like I'm talking to a small crowd!

So there's my decision for the moment! I'l try to keep the 6 of you entertained so you'll come back for more. Or at least until something better comes along right? lol
I'll blog more later. Have tons of house cleaning and laundry to catch up on!

Thanksgiving is racing towards me...

I have always loved Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday of the year. It's all about family and food and friends and memories. Being thankful for everything that we have while spending time with the ones I love. I see so many movies and shows and hear about people who dread going home for the holidays. Not me. I adore my family, flaws and all. Yes, for the past 10 years or so, either one or both of my brothers (when both were alive) were usually in jail and missed the holidays. And yes, there's always some sort of drama about who is coming and who is not, and who showed up 2 hours late. But to me the day is full of hope and dreams and everything that matters the most, my family.

We have a huge family. Our family reunions are humongous and take 2 years to plan in advance. And no, we're not polygamists. There are hundreds of us but we're spread out all over the country so holidays are usually small gatherings for us. Here in Utah is my mother and all of us kids and our kids. Then my Aunt and her husband live here and so do 4 of their kids and all of their children. My mom and my aunt and her husband are all Jehovahs Witnesses so they don't celebrate holidays so it's up to the rest of us "kids" to pull the holidays together. My aunts kids usually do their own thing and I head up the holidays for my family. A couple of times we've tried to mash the 2 together but we've been doing it separately for so long that it normally ends up that way. For my little family I'm the chef, the baker, the planner for everything for the holidays. So pretty much everything that needs to be done on Thanksgiving is done by me.

Since me and hubby have been together, the day is usually spent shuffling back and forth between my house, my sisters house, and hubby's families house. Before me and hubby got into a house, I'd usually have to wake up really early and we'd load my entire kitchen into hubby's truck and drive it all over to my sisters house since we didn't have room at our apartment to have everyone over to our house. While my sister is am amazing person, very giving, very sweet, funny, loving and all of that, she does not enjoy cooking. Or baking. Or anything domestic like that. It's not that she CAN'T cook or bake. She just WON'T. And since she's not domestic at all, her kitchen ware is pretty sparse. She has plates, cups, bowls and silverware but not much else. To cook at her house means trying to be MacGyver and using a pen and a shoelace jimmied together to roll out a pie crust. Kind of like camping but with running water. And less wild animals, unless you count the kids! She does make a mean breakfast though! lol

So we'd get to my sisters house, start the turkey and spend a few hours there while I got the dinner ready to a point where I could leave it in my sisters hands for awhile. (Meaning, all she needs to do while I'm gone is remember to baste the turkey for me!) We'd then head over to my inlaws to have dinner at their house and spend a few hours with them. Then it was back to my sisters house to finish up dinner and get it all to the table and have dinner with my family. Yes, it's a really full day for all of us and me and hubby are so stuffed that we're waddling home at the end of it. But it's worth it! Now that me and hubs are in a house, there won't be so much packing to do and I'll be able to start dinner in my own oven and use my own stuff to prepare the feast. And since we live across the street from my in-laws, running over there for a few hours will be very simple since I can run home and baste the turkey myself if I need to.

My MIL is one of those women who does everything from start to finish. Don't ask to bring anything because she will only tell you no, that it's all covered. Yes, I still ask every year and every year she tells me she has it all covered. Not once in the 7 years hubby and I have been together has she let me bring anything. If I had tried to anyways, like I did the first year, it would be met with a frown and disdain so there was no point. Not doing as she wanted actually put a cramp on the dinner together so I've learned to just do as she asks. (And yes, to answer what you're probably wondering right now, I also do everything from start to finish too so it sounds like my MIL and I are a lot alike in that aspect, but I do all of it out of *necessity* and not beause I *want* to do it all. For me, there's no other help really. And yes, my MIL and I are a lot alike in a lot of aspects which I think is why we butted heads so often and why our relationship was usually very strained. But that's a whole other post for a whole other day.

Thanksgiving this year is going to be really hard. My mother in-law is officially dying. It's now in black and white on her medical records. She's dying. The first oncologist she saw last week told her he could recommend chemo but she has less then a 25% chance of getting any better, even with treatment. The surgeon she saw Friday told her there was no point in chemo AT ALL and that she would be lucky to live another 2 months.

When she was in the hospital and we found out it was cancer and that it was every where, my new sister in law, my MIL's friend who's like a daughter to her, and myself all decided we would be handling everything at Thanksgiving. So I need to figure out a way to do my family's dinner as well as a huge part of my inlaws. I'm excited for it though. She's never much eaten my cooking and she's just recently realized that I am a great cook so this will be good. And since the dinner will still be at my inlaws, just with us cooking it, and we live across the street from my inlaws house, I'm sure I'll need to be doing the things that may not travel well like the turkey.

Anyone have any suggestions for me? This will be interesting and I need to start planning for it now! lol Last year I did a bunch of stuff ahead of the big day and froze it, like the mashed potatoes and pie crusts. I think I even made up the apple pie filling in advance, mixing the apples, cinnamon, sugar, butter, flour and all of that and froze it ahead of time so I could just pull it out and put it together and bake it. I didn't want it to be all reheated like it was leftovers so I put things together to ease some of the prep work but it was still freshly baked. Well, other then the mashed potatoes which I did just reheat. Anyone have any other suggestions though?

Well I better sign off. It's almost midnight and I have to be up for work tomorrow bright and early. Thanks for reading!

Is it Too Early For Eggnog and Carolling?

I've always loved Christmas. I adore the Christmas lights, the snow, the coziness of our houses all buttoned up tight, the scent of Christmas trees, the scent of wood burning into the neighbors fireplaces drifting through the air. The way that we are usually wrapping my sisters gifts until the wee hours of Christmas morning because she's a worse procrastinator then even I am. How her, DH and I are up most of the night laughing and drinking coffee to stay awake to finish the wrapping. How we're all so slap happy that none of us are making any sense at all. How we barely crawl into bed and shut our eyes when the kids are up wanting to open gifts. The way my sister and her kids spend the night at our house so all of us can wake up together. The way that my sister buys the kids matching pajamas so that every morning the kids all match. How we spend a very lazy day enjoying our new gifts, the kids playing with their new toys, and the adults going back down for a nap. I even love the shopping part, trying to find the right gift for someone I love. It all seems to fly by so quickly and I'm always trying to find a way to slow it down, make it last, stretch it out as far as I can before it's gone and the New Year starts. My only irritation with it is when stores start putting out decorations October 1st. It's like we can't even enjoy Halloween or Thanksgiving before Christmas is right there in front of us.

Our little family ritual is to put up our Christmas tree and house decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving every year. For some reason this year is different. I've been dying to put it all up NOW. In fact I begged DH to pull it all out 2 weeks ago and he thought I was crazy. Well first, he REFUSED, then said I was freakin nuts!

I'm not sure why I've been wanting to start the Christmas season yet. Is it because my MIL is so ill that maybe this will be her last Christmas with us? Maybe I'm wanting the familiar, the rituals, something that makes sense in our lives again. Christmas happens every year without fail. You can count on it. Life has been so crazy around here and so unpredictable. We don't know how long MIL has left with us. We don't know when she'll be gone. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. What I do know is that we need to make Thanksgiving and Christmas the best ones yet. So that all of us can remember these times when we're having to celebrate without her with us. I can't imagine a time when she won't be here. My brain can't wrap itself around that thought.

So for now, I want to make this the best holiday season we've ever had!