….would be so much fun! I went once when I was in the seventh grade and it was totally awesome! I would love to be able to take my kids. I’ve been looking at this site, DWTickets.com, that sells Cheap Disney Tickets and they are so helpful! Just even thinking about going there has become overwhelming to me because it all seems so confusing! There is so much to do and see out there that I honestly just don’t even know where to start! DWTickets.com has a Consumers Guide, though, that answers a lot of my questions and really helps people to figure things out like how many days they will be staying and which things they want to see and do in the amount of time they will be there. There is a whole catalog of tickets to the different attractions in their sidebar. And they also have a newsletter, called DW Savers, in which you can get coupon codes for discount Disney tickets! And you only get the special codes in the newsletters! They call it the DW Savers Club. I really like this site, because I just get so overwhelmed when considering a trip to Disney. I even ordered a DVD straight from Disney once, thinking it would help me get it organized in my brain better. This website, however, does a much better job of that!
The strangest thing…
…is happening to me since I’ve been back. I am not only going through the ‘getting use to being house’, and trying to readjust to the after-vacation-ness of it all. I am also feeling this all over again: What? I live in Alabama? How totally peculiar and also, rather annoying, that I should have to go through all of those feelings again! Gah!
I knew leaving my family would be hard, in fact, I almost didn’t want to go to Dallas just for that reason! How silly is that?
But who on earth knew that I would have to go through all of the shock of having really, truly moved away from home again?
It probably has a lot to do with the fact that we stayed out there so long – almost a whole month – and also with the fact that I think I still haven’t accepted the fact that we have actually moved out here. Yes, folks, after one year – I am still in denial!
Sunny Williams and I are home safely
I found this video on my friend, Deb’s, Surviving NJ blog. It was really cool to see the Atlantis landing and hear the lady speaking so calmly and officially, you know? But you know what really struck me about it? I’ve spent the last few days being discombobulated and thinking that it is so hard to adjust to being back to our ‘house’ (see: ‘Alabama is house’ post). But that astronaut they brought home, Sunny Williams, stayed gone waaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than I did (195 days!) and was IN SPACE!!!!!
How hard would that be to re-adjust yourself to not just life at home, but heck! Life on EARTH!
Weird…
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Egads, the pain is creeping in!
It’s finally true! After all of this time, I am really leaving – leaving my home, leaving my family – again! Ugh! I have been really busy today packing and cleaning and getting everything ready. And apparently, that has been good, because, when I took the dog outside and decided to relax in the lawn chair for just a minute, I immediately started bawling. Ugh. So I popped back up and got back to busy as quickly as I possibly could. And there is plenty to do. Even if I get myself and the kids and the dog all completely ready, there is plenty of housecleaning that I could be doing – between all the kids and the 100lb. dog, we’ve really trashed this place! I even have the coffee ready for in the morning, and I had that ready by noon! It felt strange to be setting up tomorrow’s coffee so early, but, I want to try to make tomorrow morning as smooth as possible.
I want to get as much ready as I possibly can, because we have a really sad vehicle situation and it is going to be stressful. We didn’t have the money to buy the trailer hitch because the damn thing cost $300!! Can you believe that?! So that means that all of Mark’s tools are actually in the vehicle with us! You don’t realize when you have a truck toolbox, just how dependent you really are on it! So we’ve got all of Mark’s tools (two of which are big thingy’s), five people, one 100lb. dog, all of the people’s stuff, all of the dog’s stuff, and Mark’s tools – in ONE MINIVAN!!! Dear God!! I do hope some of you will pray for us!
I just keep reminding myself of the time my mother, father, brothers and I took a trip from Richardson, TX to Colorado – in a Pinto!!! The middle ‘seat’ in the back wasn’t even a seat! It was a hump! And my brothers and I had to take turns sitting on the hump! And you know what? We survived – and lived to tell the tale! So I keep thinking of that and reminding myself that it is just twelve hours that we have to live through.
And anyway, I guess all of the chaos and frustration of it will keep my mind off the sadness…
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Cool people along the journey
There are people in our lives along the journey that have a very strong impact on our lives. One of those people in my life was my Uncle Pat. He was just the coolest! He was the happy-go-lucky, let’s have fun guy in our family. He took us on a Florida vacation one year that was a total blast! It was the first year that Epcot opened up. Along with loving him for his “fun-ness”, I was also able later in life to connect with him through Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a recovering alcoholic, and when I was sixteen, he would go to an AA meeting, his daughter would go to Alatot, and I would go to Alateen. And then a few years later, I was going to AA meetings, too! I was working for him when I first tried to get sober, and I remember him taking me out to lunch and our having long talks together. He was very influential in my life and I cherish every memory I have of him. He went to Heaven in July 1990 and I miss him so much, but, I’m so glad that we had the special times we had together!
Yet another delay
This is just getting crazy! Ok, now we are not leaving until Thursday!
Mark’s jobs that he is doing here are taking longer than expected, so we have to stay another day. He informed us of this when he got home from work last night. I will seriously laugh so hard if he comes home tonight and tells us there is yet another delay! Too funny!
It actually worked out nicely, though, because my brother had to go to Austin for work and might now be home until late tonight. And he went there early yesterday. So if we were leaving early tomorrow, he wouldn’t get those last days with us. Yes, we’ve been together for weeks and I’m sure he will be so glad to get his house back, but, the last day or two are kind of special and important and sad and ooey and gooey. And even though they are kind of the ‘hurting days’ – nobody really want to miss them, you know?
Starting to get sad…
Well, the time has finally come for us to think about going home. We have to say goodbye to my mom and my dad, my brother and his wife (who also just so happens to be my best friend!) and my sweet little Scooter Pie – my four year old nephew.
We are leaving on Wednesday and right now I am just thinking in a gettin-down-to-business way, like gathering up all our belongings and winding down our visit. But I know that soon – it will set in. The fact that I am leaving my ‘home’ and going very, very far away. Ugh.
It hasn’t hit me yet, though, so I’m just enjoying the pain-free business….
“We need to get all our stuff at Grandma’s house and bring it over to Mic’s.”
“We need to get Shawn’s new bathing suit that he left at his friend, Ryan’s house.”
“Do Sammie and Patrick need to see Christina and Nick one more time?”
“We still need to see Scott and Louise.”
“Grandma and Grandpa will have to come over to say goodbye.”
“Do you think I have time to see my old friends, Mike and Michelle, before we go?”
etc, etc…
Ya’ll just pray for me that when the pain hits – it doesn’t knock me out – okay? Thanks!
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Eternal Vacation
Do you ever feel like you need a vacation from your vacation? While I dearly love all my family in Dallas, I am feeling like by the time I get home from Alabama I will need a vacation. I’m thinking of a Florida rental vacation. White sand beaches sound nice. Or how about Disney World? Swimming with dolphins anyone? Of course Tracy could not participate in that one! I’d love to go to Miami and get a tattoo from one of those guys on tv! Heck, sitting on a private deck at a condo and watching the waves crash on the beach even sounds nice! And Florida isn’t that far from Alabama. So I can go home, do all the laundry, unpack, re-pack, pay bills, check the mail, have 2 fishy funerals, load up the car again and drive with 3 hellions to Florida. Or maybe just go home and collapse.
Blogging in Texas
Or maybe I should more accurately say, ‘not blogging in Texas’. Well, anyway, here I am in my hometown, Dallas – with my family, and it has been a hectic visit, although a really good one. And none of us want to leave, and my family doesn’t want us to leave, and the kids’ friends don’t want them to leave – but, Mark is thinking we should leave Saturday! NOOOOO!
But it definitely has been a little chaotic! The kids and I have been be-bopping around from my mom’s house, to my dad’s house, to my brother’s house, the kids have even stayed at their friend’s houses – and for an entire week, Mark wasn’t even here with us! He went down near Houston for some work. And also, for the same week that Mark was gone, my other brother and his clan came to Dallas to see us from Pueblo. How unbelievably unfortunate that was, that the schedules flubbed up like that. We rarely get to see my other brother, and he has two precious little baby girls. They are 3 and 4, and the last time we saw them was for Christmas 2004. Munchkins change so very much at those young ages, so it was an absolute treat to get to see them, and so very sad that Mark missed it. Especially now that we actually live 24 hours from them (by car)!!!
And I just haven’t been able to get online as much as I thought I would’ve. I did have an internet connection at my mom’s house for a couple of days, but then her connection went wacky on me, and now she has no connection at all! She is switching services completely, because she has had so much bad luck with that other one. We were laughing about how even though we had three telephone lines (both of our cells and her landline) TV, newspaper, radio – we felt completely disconnected from the world without internet!
Party in Orlando
I was just reading on another blog about a party some people that I know are having tomorrow. Only problem is, the party is in Orlando. Man! I would really love to go to that! It seems that there is always something happening in Orlando that I want to go to – one thing after another! If I had an Orlando rental home, this would never be a problem, now would it? Well, except for maybe gas money to get down there – it’s only eight hours away, though. That’s not really that far. I wonder what their 12 step meetings are like out there. It might be fun to hit a meeting or two, meet some cool people, and head to Disney! Sounds like a blast, actually!
