Meant for me

Hey there, hope everyone had a great weekend. As mentioned last week, I knew this weekend would be hard and emotional and it was. I want to share something very special though that happened to me on Friday. I was working from home in my messy office and I was trying to clear some things that I knew had a place to go other than on top of the bed. My office bed is the Catch all for everything if I go shopping, thrifting, or crafting. It looked like a tornado hit my room during the holidays.
I had bought a leather bound journal a few months ago from either a thrift store or a garage sale. I don't remember where I got it. I do remember flipping through it to see if there were a lot of pages already used. I also clearly remember flipping through a few other times to just make sure I didn't miss anything and thinking to myself- this is brand new /never used.
So fast forward a few months, this journal has been laying on my bed under many layers of Christmas and Halloween stuff, etc.  On Friday afternoon, I picked up the journal and untied the leather piece and opened it from the beginning of the book. That's where I saw only one page written in it , from front to back and it was dated June 29, 2011.  I read the journal entry and began sobbing afterwards.
It appears to be written by a young boy who has also lost their father.
First of all, had I seen the entry first at garage sale or thrift store, I would have totally still bought it on the spot because it would have spoke to me!
I just really genuinely BELIEVE that it was meant for me to read at that random hour alone in my office while I was grieving the loss and anniversary of my Dad's death.  I didn't feel so alone . I know that so many have lost loved ones . My mind was blown to come across this during this time and it was so special.  I like to think that Dad had a hand in this and it was his way of reaching out to me...

I am better today. In fact, Saturday night after mass with stepmom, we went to have dinner at restaurant where I had not been back to since Dad passed. I had only been twice and each time was with his him so it was just hard to go into.  Now that I broke the ice, we can go again .  Thank you for the sweet comments and support. 

Sad sad January

So I have a confession, I kinda really hate January.  Its only been a few years since I've felt this way but I do.  Four years ago, on January 4 2015, I got the sad call you don't want to receive with news that my stepdad Don had passed away.  We had his funeral on January 10 in little town he grew up in West Texas.  Don was seriously the most amazing stepdad a girl could have asked for and it was a huge loss to me and even more so for my baby brother. They had the most incredible father/son relationship.
Then , a year later after losing Don, I lost my Dad.   Daddy went into the hospital on January 10 and was told he wouldn't be leaving the hospital.  He passed on the 12th.  I've not been the same since. I wont go into too much detail for one , I am at work and cant sob uncontrollably right now.  Basically, though I sunk into a deep depression and head in a hole for almost the whole year so that after counseling and climbing out of the hole, I had to face it again once the numbness wore off.   I've been able to get stronger little by little as time passes but on some days, its like a bandaid was ripped off and my skin came off with it.
I am on Facebook and one thing I love about Facebook is the memories and one thing I hate is the memories. They GUT me during this month. In fact, I wasn't even thinking when I accidentally remembered to look at the FB memories from today in past years. One was the day of funeral and the other was day I got news that Daddy wasn't going to make it.

I'm trying very hard to breathe and to realize that today is a different day and I need to break pattern of utter sadness . 

This Saturday is the 12th. My stepmom is avid Catholic and has a mass dedicated to Daddy on this day. I'll be joining her and we had discussed going to lunch or dinner to one of his fave places.  Last year, I worked from home and then went to bed as soon as I could log out. 

In a few weeks, Todd has a business conference in San Diego. I cant even join him for dinners because they're the kind of meetings where its a package deal with room , etc and meals are brought in per attendee. I used to live in San Diego when I was a kid and it's one of my happy places.  I am tagging along because I cant wait to buy a cheap beach towel, kick off my shoes and sit on Imperial Beach and journal , meditate and talk to Daddy all while waves come crashing down .  One of my friends was supposed to come down from LA to see me but she cant and Todd was worried about me being alone. He has no idea that that's what i'm counting on. I want to change my feeling about January. I want to have some peace in my heart. I cant think of a better way than to not be at work and to be in California to roam alone during the day with no agenda. 

Sorry for a depressing post but that's all I got today folks.  Have a great day and rest of your week. 

Dumplin and Dolly

Yall, have you seen Dumplin on Netflix?  It was recommended to me by a facebook group i'm a member of and i'm so glad they did.
Its set in Texas and Jennifer Aniston plays the mom of a young girl who's nickname is Dumplin ( which she hates).  Dumplin is HUGE fan of Dolly Parton which is so awesome because I also happen to be a huge fan!!
The movie is based off a book written by Julie Murphy in 2015.  It's a young adult book but I may look into because I like to see how different books and movies are of the same name.
I don't want to give too much away but the movie is so entertaining and it includes some Drag Queens which honestly how can you go wrong with that!!!
Many songs were written for the movie so they're original and of course it includes many of her classic hits.  I just really enjoyed the movie and wanted to see if any of yall liked it as much as I did?

There are some great collaborations like with Elle King, Miranda Lambert, Mavis Staples, even some cameos from Jennifer Aniston.

This is not a paid endorsement whatsoever- just a Texas girls opinion who loves Dolly!
I'm starting to feel better so thank you for the well wishes. Still congested a little and a lingering cough but manageable.  Have a great week yall!!

Happy New Year's!! 2019

Unfortunately a tradition I would very much like to break is getting sick over the holidays. I have an upper respiratory infection and on antibiotics for the next 7 days. I am at work but feel like Poo. 

So I am excited to get this year started in a week or so when I feel better. HAHA!

Hope everyone had a wonderful and special holiday season.  I have a few remnants of Christmas lingering but i'll have it all put up by end of week.  Got the tree down so that's a plus. 

Talk to ya soon.... off to take some cough medicine....

Tis the Season

Hey all, I got busy last week and didn't have/make time to blog .  I didn't want to NOT have one last post for the year and wish all of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS.
Last Sunday, Todd and I went on our annual DFW Texas Toy Run  and it was a great time as always. It was a long day for us because our friends we ride with live in Ft Worth so we get a 45 minute ride in before it even starts. So how the ride works, we have a meeting place in Dallas and a meeting place in Ft Worth. At same time, we start our ride and meet at the same time in a middle city Arlington where our Cowboys and Rangers stadiums are.  It was estimated around 4000 bikes in attendance.
People pull over on side of highway to watch every year and we throw out candy to the kids. Todd wore a hoodie which was perfect holder for my bag of candy. LOL.  The weather was perfect and I was so happy it wasn't as cold as previous years.

helmet hair

THIS my friends is 2 bicycles strapped to a motorcycle with helmets

I have met Santa a few times recently.  I went to see a friend a few days ago who was selling her jewelry at a outdoor market . There was a Santa there for Santa Paws and you can take your dogs for a picture with Santa. I didn't know beforehand or I would have taken my babies for their pic.
I was able to grab a photo with Santa and my friend Shari.

Todd and I went to one of our metroplex Harley shops and guess who was there? Yep, Santa!! So what else is a girl to do but get picture with him again.  

And to top off some Christmas spirit, have you seen a truck painted with chalkboard paint and an inflatable snowman in the back in your town? 

I have really enjoyed the last few days being at home with Todd and the dogs and not getting up at 5:15 am.  Really really enjoying it!!  I hope that all of you are taking some time for you to soak up time with your loved ones. 

This is my last post for the year and I am so happy that I picked up blogging again in July after taking a few months off. I've loved catching up with my old friends and have made some wonderful new friends on blogs this year. Merry Christmas and  Happy New Year and i'll be posting soon. 

Christmas This & That

Well, are you all ready for Christmas?  I truthfully haven’t even started. Mostly because the main people I’m buying for are my nieces and I’m getting them gift cards.  I have a few people I have to get real presents for and I’ll do that this weekend I’m hoping.  I did get a few more decorations in place around the house so that’s good.

I still need to clear off my kitchen table and get the tubs out of kitchen and back into the attic. 

Here are some pics of my fireplace and mantle. It’s a mishmash of my Grinch collection and vintage Christmas.  A Grinchmas!!

Last Friday, my plans to go to downtown Mckinney got cancelled because my friend had a funeral she had to attend to. So we’re rescheduling for another time. I called up another friend and we went thrifting for a few hours and had a great time despite it raining all single day.

I bought a few cute shirts and some bags of ornaments and Christmas cards.  In my ornament bag, I was only interested in the small vintage santa and Mrs Claus that have been bejeweled. Someone wrote on bottom of one 1976. The bag cost 3.99$ and I was so excited!

A few nights ago, a few coworkers and I drove to downtown Dallas to have dinner and go to the Deep Ellum Art bar to show some support for our coworker Ray. It was open mic night and we wanted to see him perform and play his guitar. We had so much fun!!  Basically on open mic night, anything goes- rap, ballads, country, you name it!  Some good , some not so good but God love them it took guts to get up there !!  I realized after getting home a little before 11 pm and not in bed until later , I am old and staying out late on a “school night” is hard. HAHA! I was dragging all day yesterday and I couldn’t wait to get home and sit on couch.

We had our department Christmas party today at work and we did the white elephant game.  That was so funny because people bring some of the strangest gifts. One person ended up with a small package of double A batteries , another person ended up with a case of Bush bean cans , and there was a set of desk top trash cans for pens.  There were decent gifts too such as what I got and that was Starbucks gift card.  One gift was so creative- it was a box of 12 different soap bottles with a typed up note that was for Clark Griswold and his soap of the month subscription.  So cute!  We had lunch catered with turkey and dressing and twice baked potatoes and green beans with peach cobbler. So yummy!!!

I am working a half day tomorrow and then i'm on off until Monday. Yay for long weekends! 

How's everyone doing? The holidays can be hard for so many. I am on verge of tears quite honestly because i'm missing Dad. Tradition is tradition and I've spent every Christmas day with my Dad since I was a kid. This will be my 2nd Christmas without him and almost 3 years he'll be gone ( January). 

Just know that i'm thinking of you and you're not alone.  xoxo

Busy times...

Tis the season to have sooo many things going on.  So my junk show last weekend ended up being much better than I anticipated and I am very happy about it. I just didn’t have time to prepare like I normally do and be completely ready. I had a huge project that I thought would be my “money maker” for the show and I didn’t even get to touch it. Now I have to wait until next year to do because I already bought the supplies and its Christmas related.  Oh well!! Maybe I’ll do them next month and have them done so not to worry about it later.  Todd always helps me take down and load up my trailer after the show.  He even commented on fast and easy it was to tear down and lot less to load so he was happy with my show as well.  My in-laws drove out to see me at the show which always warms my heart because it’s almost an hour aaway from them and they got lost this time due to some detours.  My friend Wendy also came who has never missed one of my shows.  I love my support system!!

This was one side of my booth

After the show, we had to rush to go to our friends Christmas pajama party.  I, of course, found some Grinch pajamas for Todd and I because that’s one of my fave themes. For anyone new to my blog, I have a whole collection of Grinch stuff for a Grinch display every year in my home for Christmas.  I really love The Grinch and have since I was a kid.

The party was a great time AND I won a gift card for best Pj’s costume.  Truth is , there was a tie between me and one of the neighbors dressed as a deer and we had to play rock, paper, scissors ( we cheated and kept doing the same thing) and then had to guess a number between one and twenty and I won.  LOL

Now that the show is over ,I can focus on decorating my house but to be honest, I am throwing in the towel. We have our tree up and decorated and its beautiful. I usually deck the halls, the mantle, the front room, and anywhere else and I have so many fun awesome Christmas decorations but I’m losing my steam.  I think just being so behind this year I’m starting to get anxiety and I just cant do it. I don’t have it in me. I just mentioned this today to Todd, I think I want to put all the tubs back in the attic and just stick with whats already out.  It will still look a little festive and that just needs to be enough. I did manage to replace my doll heads with ornaments and small bottle brush trees in my gumball machine though. I am glad I was able to get that done before I lost my steam.  I have 2 inflatables I need to get up in my yard and put some lights around our front door this week and that’s it.  How about you? Have you ever just called it quits because something was looming over you and the fun went out the window?

I’m taking this Friday off to go hang out with a friend at McKinney square which will help get me back in the spirit again. I try to go every year and see all the fun decorations and stuff. I’m looking forward to that and then just relaxing this weekend.  We shall see ….  We don’t sit still well. haha