Why Give A Crap What I Say? It's JUST me.

Why should you give a crap about me? I have no idea... BUT....I want to thank you for joining me on my journey of a super shitty - averagely happy - drama filled - absolutely hilariously funny life.
I clearly feel the need to spill my guts about what is happening in my life to people I don't know. The funniest most off color TRUE stories you've ever heard - and when you least expect it, you'll cry like a baby.

The photo you are seeing is "my" yard in the summer. A home is not a place it is the inhabitants that make it a home.

With love, Alyce

May 27, 2012

Life continues to Bloom

Eric and I planted these 3 years ago

I know I'm supposed to write about how great things are and how life is so much better and there are ponies and unicorns living with us.   Oh, well....maybe tomorrow or later but not right now.


Not as I sit on our front porch just like we used to.  We'd have coffee together and talk politics, kids, work, (his not mine), anything really.  We'd talk for hours, as we'd wake up early to have time together to talk.  We'd talk about how nice the gardens are coming in this year.


Eric would have been so excited that the peony's we planted from nothing are now in full bloom.  It's the most incredible sight to see.  Almost like when you have a baby.  You plant a seed and not sure if it'll take and then, walah, there's a beautiful flower after all.   Our garden is so lush this year and Eric is not here to see it.  Oh sure, everyone says he does see it....but in my world...he's not sitting here and talking to me about how he can't believe how well everything is blooming.


He was so strong, and so healthy, and now he's just dead.  I can't believe he won't share in all that is coming up in our lives.  The kids finish school on Wednesday - we are going to Palm Beach Saturday - then NYC the following week - then overnight camp for them right after that.  He would help them pack for camp.  Loading them up with things I wouldn't have and still won't think of.  Survival stuff.  For me survival stuff is my iPhone.  "Hi, it's Alyce...I have a problem...can you come fix it?"  Eric would always say, yes, and come help me.


Now I have to pack their stuff.  What the hell am I going to miss?  "Cause I know it's gonna be something."


I sit outside alone and lament the past and worry about the future just as I tell people who write to me NOT TO DO THAT, I do it myself.  Two tattoo's later "Be Good To Yourself", and "Living In The Now".


My daughter just came out to sit with me...reminding me that I'm still alive and right now, right now, DOES NOT SUCK.  The flowers are blooming and I am grateful that Eric and I planted them.


Alyce

May 22, 2012

I don't even like music.






I honestly don't listen to much music, but in the last two blogs (this one included) I have used songs as the backdrop to what I'm thinking.


In 1999 shortly after Train left San Fansisco in a $1000 van and came to a Chicago Festival - I was there. I saw Train for FREE.  I then became a fan.  Going to all venues where Train was playing- meeting their parents and both their parents and I were in awe of their talent.


Train is coming to Chicago on August 11 and 12 this will be 13 years after I first saw them..  (My kids come back from camp August 10; perfect.)  "Wanna see train," I asked them.  "Yay!!!!"  Train tickets are now $250 per person on the cheap end shitty seats.  Ugh, I remember when I met your mothers I wanted to call and tell them.   Short story long, we decided NOT to go see them.


Crazy Train rant, anyway.......


....I am moving my family - myself and my three children.  Moving them to another place, another direction, another chapter in their lives.  Just me.  


I
I
I
I
I


What if  I make the wrong move
What if I take them on a the wrong path
What if I screw up this whole plan.


I'm so sick to death of IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.   I shouldn't have been forced to make these life decisions for all of us.  I was supposed to be 80% of the decision making - NOT 100%.  You know it's true.  Women in a relationship make the decisions almost all of the time.  Well now I get the privilege of owning the other 20%.  All mine.  Like my two year old says, "Mine, mine, mine, mine."  This phrase can drive anyone insane.  I'm almost there, insane I mean.


After a few far away trips alone I found our new home.  Yes, I did it!  I found are new  home was.   Everyone fit in this home so perfectly.   Not everyone was there as they were supposed to be, but everyone who is here, had their place.


My husband has been dead for 4 months and 1 day.  January 21st 2012 is when he was killed by cancer and today is May 22nd.


Yesterday, I was told the "perfect" home was no longer available to us.  More than a few times I asked, "Is this a done deal?", to be told yes don't worry.  Nobody's fault really.  Another family, the family who own this home decided as I had that this is the home for them.  I get it.


 Calling All Angels - Please let me know what to do


I need a sign to let me know you're here
All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere
I need to know that things are gonna look up
'Cause I feel us drowning in a sea spilled from a cup

When there is no place safe and no safe place to put my head
When you feel the world shake from the words that are said

And I'm calling all angels
I'm calling all you angels

I won't give up if you don't give up [Repeat x4]

I need a sign to let me know you're here
'Cause my TV set just keeps it all from being clear
I want a reason for the way things have to be
I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me

When children have to play inside so they don't disappear
While private eyes solve marriage lies cause we don't talk for years
And football teams are kissing Queens
and losing sight of having dreams
In a world that what we want is only what we want until it's ours

Calling all you angels 

Love you,

Alyce

May 11, 2012

The Path of Least Resistance

Nothing I loathe more than country music.

Eric only LOVED  country music.


K.I.S.S.


It seemed like every single song dealt with guns, somebody fucking <I think usually not really willing to> drinkin' beer outta a can....you get it.

Our wedding song was Breathe by Faith Hill.  He chose that song, and I let him.  We saw Shania Twain in concert,  I bought the tickets for my husband, not for me.   This same man believed that Shania waved to him and there was a connection. 

Then there was a song; a song that really touched me inside.  (Eric introduced this song to me.)  It touched me not on the top of  my skin but much more deeply.  It was inside my heart.  I first heard it before Eric's death, but now when I listen and I wonder, why didn't he really listen to the words and take the road less travelled?

Take 3 minutes to read the Lyrics of this country song.  If you can, read it 
twice in 3 minutes then go on to read what I've written below.

I turned on the evening news
Saw a old man being interviewed
Turning a hundred and two today
Asked him what's the secret to life
He looked up from his old pipe
Laughed and said "All I can say is."

Don't blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your "better half"
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't blink

I was glued to my tv when it looked like he looked at me and said
"Best start putting first things first."
Cause when your hourglass runs out of sand
You can't flip it over and start again
Take every breathe God gives you for what it's worth

Don't Blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your "better half"
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't blink

So I've been tryin' ta slow it down
I've been tryin' ta take it in
In this here today, gone tomorrow world we're livin' in

Don't blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your "better half"
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster then you think
So Don't blink

Naw, don't blink
Life Goes Faster Than You Think


We have an air filtration system in our home.  It prevents colds and things.  Never thought we'd need some kind of system that prevents cancer, instead of dumb allergies or colds, in your home.   That was kind of a dumb purchase.  Every decision we made as a couple we talked about ad nauseum.  Too slow for me and way too quickly for him.  A decision would be agreed upon and unfortunately for me, once I said, "I have the right to change my mind."  In other words no deal is completely iron clad. Then was there ever really a deal anyway?

Eric is dead, this I am aware of.  I am making decisions for my family without deep, introspective thinking.  I am now the "Captain" of this ship and it is up to me which of course I take seriously.

Do I take the path of most?  This is the most comforting path there is.  It's not different, not exciting, but it is familiar.  I am comfortable here, and don't feel the need to go down a path that I don't even have a map of.

OR  

Do I take the "road less travelled"?  This is another phrase I loathe, in addition to "teachable moment."   Do you dare to change the path you are on and have been on for your lifetime.  Understand, that if this life is happy and comfortable, I applaud that.  I discovered that my life isn't happy.  This place that we live, was once a home.  Now it is brick and mortar.  

Our eleven year anniversary would have been March 2012, I blinked and my children are 10, 10, and 2.  I blinked again my husband is dead, and my children are still 10, 10, and 2 with no parent but me.   I am the lone Captain.

I've decided to take my family on a different path.  Guided is how I feel.  I am making life happen for me,  for us,  as opposed to letting life happen to me, to us.  What if I wait for life to happen and it just doesn't?  Life just decided to go by in a few blinks, and then (if you're very lucky, you can look back and smile - otherwise you lament all that you missed).

Would most people pick up and move their family out of state and expose them to a life that they've never known.  I want my children to say, I did better than my parents.  I want better for my children.  I am the Captain and I am steering them in a different and hopefully better direction.

Things are moving, life is progressing, I'm not going to waste it.  I'm going where I need to be, where I believe we should be.  I am going eyes wide open.

We love and miss you,


Alyce