PYHO -a blended families christmas dinner recipe - patience, love with a dash of chaos -

We have yet to decide what we're going to eat for dinner and it's yet to be decided whose going to be here for dinner on Christmas Day for that matter.

We actually don't have a traditional dinner that we eat every year and whose going to be here from year to year fluctuates. We usually just eat what ever we want when we want, things are pretty free and easy around here lately. As long as I can use my Christmas china I'm happy.

Sometimes the menu might be decided by how many people I'm cooking for. With a lot of people we might have turkey or ham, maybe even both. My grandchildren like that meal so if they're here and my daughter and son in law aren't working then that would usually be the menu. We've even had Italian one year, oh my goodness it was a feast! We stuffed our face with several different types of pasta, talk about carb heaven.

My daughter , her husband and my grandsons a Christmas past,
it was the Italian Christmas.

If my husband's ex comes to town and visits our daughter then that usually changes everything. Confusing right? She gave birth to her I raised her so we share that's why if you knew us you'd find us both calling her our daughter. Anyhoo... then we - Bill, Matthew, Mom and I might be munching on prime rib or lobster. Forget the pasta and pass me a bib and a shovel for this meal! My Mom loves lobster, so this is really a favorite meal for her. She won't even touch the beef, not a single bite.

Matthew (red)and his older brother Bill (grey) doing the Christmas dishes, oh yeah!

This year I don't think the ex is coming but I believe with their crazy schedules,(she works days ,he nights so  one parent's home with the kids) they've decided to stay home; maybe. This is one thing I've learned about blended families; everything is always fluid and emotions are usually pretty high around the holidays for the kids, even when they're adults. 

Things between the ex and us are fine and we're great friends. But the kids and her, well it's hard on all of them, her too, but circumstances were what they were. So that left many thing unsaid and undone. And as good a relationship as mine was with them growing up, its just not the same. Our other son Bill and our granddaughter is now living with his mother and trying to get his life in order. His adult life has been one poor choice after another. To be perfectly honest my relationship with him is rather strained because of it. Family relationships can be rather complicated; all our efforts long ago exhausted we'll have to see how things work out with this new situation.

But regardless of the ex and the kids and whose living where or working when we still have to decide what to eat. Seriously, despite all the Christmas bah humbug that seems to rear it's ugly head like, "you didn't raise me" every holiday and causes everyone to be freaks emotional, we really are an OK family who loves each other. 

In the mean time we're living on patience love with a dash of chaos! 

So what's cooking at your house, something yummy I trust? Do tell!

the sadness creeps in

I find that it starts like this......I'll think about them a little more, ache a little deeper, start feeling a bit blue, the tears will flow a bit easier than usual. And it's still a two weeks away. I never really know when it's going to happen. It might be the holiday's or their birthday's or the anniversary of the accident- their death. I made it through this July and the fifth year anniversary of the death of my daughter Gretchen and son Eric pretty well. My brother and sister in law were here with their kids, they are such life savers and have been more wonderful then I can possibly say.

But now Eric's birthday is coming up ( or what would have been his  27th birthday ) and I'm feeling the sadness creep into me.

My son Matthew was sharing some of his music with me for my I-pod the other day when he came home for a visit so he cleared off my little thumb drive. On that drive were all my journals that I wrote during my darkest days after their death and I'll take a peek at some of the things I wrote back then.

 Things like this excerpt from back in late 2008.......


The pictures… as I look at them as I reflect on my past, it dawns on me that the kids dying somehow transformed it, ruined it somehow, it feels painful to think about it now. The past as I knew it is gone, changed forever because the future i wanted hoped for died when the kids did. This accident robbed me of my daughter,and my baby son. This is something that is going to take some time to get used to, if I ever do. I didn't realize I would feel this way and as I look at these pictures. I always believed the past was written in stone once experienced, that my history was unchangeable. I feel foolish or naive, I’m just not sure which I am. What the pictures actually depict, what occurred  most of it good and pleasant memories, but the sadness, the regret even the guilt I feel are new additions to my present about how I feel about my past.  I long for what was and I want what I dreamed  for my family for myself for my children not what I ended up with. 

Gretchen age 7

I actually remember taking these pictures at my parents house at the beach. We had our whole lives in front of us on that day the promise of a bright future. Who knew then that Eric wouldn't see his 23rd birthday or Gretchen her her 31st. 

My husband and Eric age 6 months

It took me a few years after the kids died to be able to even look at pictures, boy was it painful. Every photo was a lost dream and evoked deep and intense grief. Now it's easier, but around the accident anniversary or a holiday or their birthdays it becomes harder because the emotion bubbles up. I try not to let it take hold of me; maybe that's the reason I decided to write this post- share this with ya'll just let it out.

hidden in this body

This is my first Pour Your Heart Out. I've been a fan for a while but never linked up. Many of the blogs that I follow are religious in their participation , so I figured I'd give it a try too!  You can too, just visit Shell at things i can't say and link up.

I need to shed some pounds, I've gotten heavy and out of shape.

I've packed on a lot of pounds the past five years since the kids died.

Mourning and grief can be such an isolating thing and I did isolate myself. 

Time stopped and there was little else but sit and think and sit and cry; and eat apparently! 

Now  I need to shed and I don't seem to have the motivation to do it.

I need to get my mojo back.

.

It's alluding me!

Where did my mojo go?

One thing I know I hate that I'll have to do this alone.

I'd love if my husband would do it with me but he's not into this kind of thing.

I think having someone to do it with- a buddy would be fun, even helpful, but my friends well.... they're all in pretty good shape.

Darn, I want my mojo back.

I wish I knew where my mojo went.

 I know!

It's hidden in this body I no longer like!