Big Girl Panties

Ok, really, I have no right to complain about anything. So consider this post as me not complaining. I'm just stating that there are some things that are freaking me out in Kansas City House and I'm trying oh so hard to not freak out.
I guess there are lines that you draw regarding things you're afraid of and when you cross them, you have to be so much braver than you were before.
So I'm putting on my big girl panties. After this, really, there's not much left for me to be afraid of.  Maybe it will be limited to external situations like "gunshots" "Kidnapping" "auto accidents" and "something bad happening to Dan."

hahaha. Ironically, I'm thinking about the character Reek in Game of Thrones right now.

DONE!

Stuff is done on my to-do list. I can't believe I accomplished everything. V is for Victory.

The lagging things, of course, are the clothes re-organization, which I will just say isn't possible until I figure out what my weight should be after this trip and diet fluctuations.

And the filing cabinet downstairs isn't quite under my control yet. 2 houses, 2 sets of owners manuals, insurance shit and 3 bazillion different brokerage account statements will all take a bit of time. That's what winter is for, I think.

Wedding weekend. I can't wait to pack my suitcase for another round of travel. (ok, that's sarcasm, but I can't wait for the wedding.)

A long, long lesson

My auntie Rodna told me about her cousins and aunt several months ago. She said her aunt married a new man and instantly stopped talking to her children. They were very close before. Their own mohter would close the door in their faces if they came by the house. The aunt at one point told her children that she was not interested in having a relationship with them anymore. She didn't attend her grandson's graduation ceremony, and so it continued on. Eventually the aunt's new husband became very, very ill and moved back in with his children in a neighboring state. The children of the aunt had no idea that their mother was living in a state of disrepair through a Minneapolis winter until a neighbor called them. He'd scoured the white pages and declared "Do you know how your mother is living? She's all alone!" The children came over to investigate and found their mother with the onset of Alzheimer's. They took her in and gave her care and filed for a POA for the mother.  I hope it doesn't end like this for us....

My friend has had a rocky relationship with her dad, but only because he was going through frontal lobe dementia at the time. She had to be so mature, to know he wasn't himself and to stop seeking fatherly advice or any type of emotional support from him. Ahh, so brave. I can be that brave.




If the estrangement can't be resolved, it is possible to accept the situation and go on and enjoy life. In the early stages of being estranged, this idea doesn't feel like an acceptable option. However, after all losses, whatever the cause, life does go on and it makes sense to go on and get back to living life with enjoyment.

To-do list

Sometimes  you feel like you're waiting for your life to get started or for your life to resume. Or for your life to do something else.  Most of the time you have exact control over when you do these things and how, and you can just do them.

Sometimes you are in a foreign country and you have to wait a day or two.

I've been away from my friends in Manila for a couple of days and away from everyone in the US for about 5 weeks. Upon my return to Minnesota, I'm going to:

-Kick it into high gear at work with a list of things to get done and meetings with other people and spreadsheets and problems to solve. I'm excited.  Strangely, yes, I'm excited to go back to work. I will have to spend about an hour organizing my thoughts to see what I remember

-Go to Trivia and see all of our friends
-Pet my dog for a hundred hours and give him all the kisses in the world
-Complete the expense report for all cash transactions from work. Sadly,this is hard to do because there were so very many cash transactions since no place will take your debit card here until you spend over 500 pesos, and even then...good luck.
-Complete my expense report for the small incidentals in the hotel, however few they were

-Divide out all of my souvenirs to determine which person should receive which gift
-load all of my photos on to the shutterfly book that I will make for this trip
-cry a lot because I love the people I've met here and I don't know how I'll react to being at home.
-Dust my house because I'll bet that hasn't been done for awhile
-DRIVE SOMEWHERE.  Will I still know how?
-organize the entire bookshelf and filing cabinet system in the basement
-organize all of the clothes that I have and get rid of them
-See my family down in Iowa and go be a bridesmaid in a great wedding
-walk around Lake Calhoun
-Cheer on Dan for his big 13.1 half marathon
-look at refi options for my mom

Quick Quote from a movie

Seems fitting.  All of my Manila stuff is over on my other blog now. I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting  for Dan to come.
Today I counted the hours from 28. To 18. To 15. To 13. Now it's a little more than 7 hours, but the typhoon is just starting to hit. Delay uncertain.

So, on to my quote from the movie "scent of a woman."

"Where's your father?"
"uhh, he left."
"oh, I'm sorry."
"It's ok. We don't get along very well."
"Oh. Well, why not?"
"uhh, I guess because he's an asshole."
"haha. That's ok. Every family has one."