What's New?

I know it's Monday and you're all just dying for me to do another Reasons To Love Monday post but I'm just not loving Monday enough for that today. I hope you'll excuse me just this once. I have really struggled this weekend with not feeling well... not sleeping well, the kind of headache that just won't go away, no appetite for anything specific but starving... then nothing sits well on my stomach. It's just a bad case of blahs and when I'm feeling blah I have to do something different to snap myself out of the rut. So instead of loving Monday we're going to talk about what's new in my life.
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1. I'm living upstairs now and not in the Whine Cellar. It's complicated. There's always been a water issue down there, a battle that my mom and I fought together for years. And Austin. Austin too. I'd yell up the stairs that there was water again and she'd come down and tell me not to move the furniture by myself and then she would move it by herself (or with Austin). She'd get the carpet cleaner and suck up the water. She'd run the dehumidifier and be constantly up and down the stairs bringing dry towels and carrying up the wet towels. She'd empty that heavy dehumidifier over and over again and fuss at me if I did any of it myself. We've done several things to try to stop the leak but we're on the side of a hill and it just... keeps happening. It happened again in February and I realized I just couldn't fight that fight without my mom. So I moved up to the guest room and Austin's been fighting the water in the basement all by himself since then. I feel guilty leaving that to him but he's stronger. Every water leak would guarantee me a week or two of back pain and who knows what it's done to my already screwed up auto-immune system. So I gradually created a new nest in the guest room and realized it was a good change for me. It's quieter. I have my own bathroom. Sharing space with my grown son was frustrating a lot of the time for me. I woke up a lot when he would go in and out to smoke at night. The New Nest is better for me for a lot of reasons. But now we don't have a guest room. Well... we have a bed in the office but, you know. Not a dedicated guest room.

2. The Guest Room/New Nest Room is lovely for a lot of reasons but it's the top floor of the house and it gets warm up here. The a/c unit is on the bottom floor and it just isn't strong enough to keep the top floor cool enough, especially for someone who is temperature sensitive like myself. Being warm doesn't just equal uncomfortable for me... it means migraines and... yeah. So Pop bought me a really cool (see what I did there?) new window unit... that's not really a window unit - it's one of those stand up kinds that just has a vent to the outside - and it was delivered on Thursday. Austin carried that heavy thing up the stairs and my sweet fella installed it for me (even though it was hotter than the face of the sun up there while he was trying to do it and I felt so bad for making him work so hard on his day off). And now the Guest Room is really cool. Cool enough that even with the a/c unit set on 74 degrees, I have to stay covered with a blanket but honestly, that's what I really want out of life... to be in a space cool enough to need a blankie. Last week I talked about there being three men in my life who look out for me: my dad, my son and my sweetie. This was a perfect example of how they all sort of play a part in keeping me comfortable and although it's kind of funny that it takes three guys to do the job that my mom used to do, I'm so grateful for all three of them and I don't tell them that nearly enough.

3. Cosy has become such a little couch potato/screen addict. I noticed it first last week when Marvin and I took her out for lunch. She got a hold of my phone and started watching videos on YouTube and I could NOT get my phone back from her. Three years old, wandering through a restaurant bumping into people and almost walking out with the wrong family because she was staring at her (my) phone! So yesterday I had Austin pick her up after he got off of work and I just let her sit in my lap for the longest time watching videos on my phone. I know it's probably an unhealthy habit but she sat perfectly still and quiet which was what I needed because I felt crappy... and she was so into what she was doing that she didn't even notice I was braiding her hair. I love braiding her hair and she will never sit still long enough and if I do manage to get braids in her hair she immediately rips them out so this was a real treat for me.

4. Cosy also got a kitten this week - which she has been wanting for over a year now. And she has loved that poor little thing... I was going to say she has loved it to death but that would be an exaggeration. She has loved it so much that it has scratched her to bits. While she was cuddled in my lap yesterday I grabbed the neosporin on my nightstand and put it on her little scratches. My mom once had cat scratch fever so you can never be too careful. The cat's name is Whiskers and Cosy loves her so much that she couldn't wait to get back home to play with her yesterday. Bless her. Bless them. Both. Hopefully they'll grow to be the best of friends and not be each other's demise.

5. This part is not new but it's what's happening now so I guess that's new. It's the time of year when my mom got sick last year and never got better. I've been dreading reliving it all... getting on the Memory-Go-Round as I like to call it. Last year we were too busy living it to really absorb all the feelings at the time and now that I have an abundance of time I feel it all like it's happening all over again. Except she's not here. Right after Memorial Day I got a stomach bug and when I started getting better my mom started getting sick. She thought she had the stomach bug but it turned out to be kidney stones so she had a stent put in. And then she turned really yellow. And then we found out her liver was sick. And then she stopped knowing who she was or where she was or what was happening and we tried so many different things and kept taking her back to the hospital and finally they said they couldn't fix it and so we went home on palliative care and that was that. Only that process took a little over two months and it was the most horrible, living nightmare I've ever experienced. This time two years ago was when Austin and Tasha broke up and Cosy went away and we had to fight like hell for two months to get to see her again. Summers have really sucked for the past two years and I'm really hoping this one is not like that. I can't imagine anything worse than losing my granddaughter (for awhile) and losing my mom forever but I hate to tempt fate by saying I can't imagine. Now I'm all tearful and snotty and my fella is going to call on the way to work and wonder what the heck is wrong with me. He has his own stuff to remember from last year since his little boy died two days before my mom and I try to remember that he is also going through. He's a heck of a lot stronger than me but you know, Father's Day is coming up and I just want to make it good for him. I wish I had the money to whisk him away somewhere fabulous and make it a great day and not a painful one. But he will go to work that day because that's what he does and he will walk through it all bravely and maybe get a little quiet and a little emotional and grieve privately, because that's what works for him. And I will feel totally inept but I will just keep talking to him because that's what works for us and that's why we are together now because I just kept answering the phone when he called back in those really sad days. Together the sad days weren't so sad.

6. Yesterday I thought it would be good for me to get out of the house for a little while so I suggested that we take Cosy to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. Austin and his girlfriend Jessie (something else that's new!) came with. I tried to let Cosy sample flavors to see what she wanted but she decided she just wanted a cup of ice... so that's what I got her. Then I wanted to run to Walmart to pick up something to eat because I have literally been living on yogurt, adult lunchables, fruit smoothies and powerade for the past ... month?... and I got there and nothing appealed to me so I bought yogurt, adult lunchables, fruit smoothies and powerade. And I bought Cosy a cupcake. Then Cosy saw her mom and freaked the f*** out because she wanted to stay with her mommy so I had to drag her away... that's always fun... but then Cosy remembered she wanted to go home and play with Whiskers so that's what we did. And then I went home and didn't feel the slightest bit better for having left the house. But I did FaceTime with Oliver and he made me laugh because he is such a funny kid!

7. Today I'm not leaving the house unless it burns down around me. I'm still really exhausted and behind on sleep. Marvin works a long day on Monday so I will probably nap. Maybe, if I can get to sleep. I should also do laundry. I should also work on the embroidery piece I started working on for him before Christmas but I think I'm too sleepy to do it properly at the moment.

8. Tomorrow I'm getting Cosy in the morning.  I'll get a shower and fix my hair and makeup and take her home and then go have date night and the change of scenery will do me a lot of good. And I'll probably eat something besides yogurt and lunchables. Marvin and I had a lot of fun adventures last week while we were together so I think maybe this week we will be very chill and do a lot of resting together which I also enjoy.

I guess that's about all the new things I can think of at the moment. What's new in your life? Please leave me lots of comments so I can enjoy them! Love and hugs!