Friday Random

-My father in law would love nothing more than to introduce Sammy to the crazy world of ATVs. I am so firmly opposed. Given the rash of ATV accidents / deaths in my state over the past month, I'm feeling very justified!

-My allergies are going crazy this spring. I'm thinking over the counter may not cut it for much longer.

-I'm going with WHAT the freaking what? Oh my gosh. Seriously. Special place in hell, people.

-One of these seasons I'd REALLY love for one of the final AI contestants to stop dead during the always horrid unicorns dancing coronation song and start laughing. Bonus points if they look at the songwriter and say "Really? Really?". I'd love it. I wonder how soon after their win they make a paper chain to count down the days until they can safely stop perfoming it.

-We put in a small herb and lettuce garden in our back flower bed. Sharon is taking all the bushes that were in them when we moved in and the goal is to have them all filled with edible things. That will most likely come to complete fruition next year, but this one patch is a good start. If anything grows, anyway...

-Happy t.v. news: Chuck renewed. Castle renewed. SYTYCD back in the fall (not to mention the awesome premiere yesterday!). What a great week!

-Speaking of SYTYCD. How awesome is this?


-I'm LOVING this painted piano. I really want one to do myself. Until I remember I'm not crafty. Nor do I play...

-Ring of the week:
-I really wish they had had this one when I bought mine in brass...

-Song of the week:

(lies, from Once) - Again, I just love Glen. And I've been gravitating to this song all week.

Everybody's Gonna Love Today...

My search of new music went on serious hiatus while I was pregnant and for, oh, two years after. I think it was to be expected, but still sad. Lately I've been back in to it. I've been organizing my music and trying to update my playlist a little. I've found a lot of not great stuff, but also some other stuff that I'm starting to like. So You Think You Can Dance is always a good place to find new to me music, so in honor of it's premiere tomorrow, here's ten random new to me but not necessarily new snippits o' music.

1. The best discovery of the last couple of years for me is Glen Hansard. I had heard of The Frames, had friends recommend them, but I was in such a musical void that it took me awhile to come around. Now? LOVE Glen. Love, love, love. And Fake is on my ipod nearly every other song and I'm constantly wondering why the entire world doesn't just LOVE them.


2. All American Rejects. I really tried to hate them - they were always in the background or on VH1 and I thought they were ridiculous. And then this song happened and I'm suddenly a fan. Who knew?

The All-American Rejects - New Music - More Music Videos

3. I don't know what it is about this song, but I love it. I am not a big fan of female singers, but this song crawled in and took up residence.


4. While I haven't ventured far from the one song of Maria's above, here's one female I'm digging. I'm so loving A Fine Frenzy.


5. My brother in law makes sure to pass on anything he thinks I would like lest my tastes grow trendy! I'm pretty sure The French Kicks was part of one of his campaigns to keep me cool.


6. Passion Pit. I've been looking around Amazon's digital deals they have and I found this album for a couple of bucks. I was interested enough to download and now I'm totally digging it.


7. Another recent find via iTunes free song of the week, I think. So unlike what I normally like, but I can't stop listening to it.


8. Bell X1. I'm not sure I'm loving them for sure, but I'm at least loving the first pass and will give it some time.


9. Amazon find. Really liking it. It's mellow. I'm old. That's a good combo, right? Kidding...


10. Speaking of new to me...have you seen this? I'm really unsure how I feel about it.

April / May Book

I started reading P.S. I Love You in April. And then life happened and I put it down and I didn't finish in April. Then I looked at the calendar and realized May was slipping away from me and I picked it back up.

I LOVED the movie. It spoke to me in such a profound way. However, the book did not. Which, actually, is pretty unusual for me. I'm one of those "the book is always better" people. Actually, I think I enjoyed the book as long as I didn't try to correlate them together. If I could separate them into very different compartments, I'm ok with it.

The book was long. Super long. And very, very detailed. The book went into her complex relationship with her family, something I don't remember seeing any of in the movie. The ending is completely changed (of course) and about the only thing I felt stayed true to both was the relationship between Gerry and Holly. Everything else was twisted and changed book to movie.

The book, set entirely in Ireland, is a look into a woman's life the year after her husband dies. The love story is less a focus in the book and it's much more about Holly and how she copes and navigates where I felt the movie was very centrally focused on the love affair between Holly and Gerry. However, it was nice to see some aspects stay the same (most of the list).

I liked Ahern's writing enough that I picked up a second book by her. I'm interested to read something by her that I don't already have in my mind's eye. All in all, though, P.S. was a good read. I just wish I had read it pre-movie.

Faith and Healing

Growing up (and even now) I was always a peace maker. I hate when people fight and argue or are upset. I truly want to make everyone happy and fix things. Coupled with my need to have everyone like me, I think I always worked hard at forgiving people the little things. And, later, as the bigger things came. We were talking about forgiveness yesterday and my mind's been ablaze ever since.

My first boyfriend, the not so nice one, was really not nice. Things happened in that relationship that I just do not speak of. It was one of the lowest points of my life with his controlling behavior and things that happened between us. He hurt me more than I had ever been hurt before and in ways that a lot of people don't forgive. But I did. I remember; but the hurt and betrayal that someone who swore he loved me caused, I just let go. I think I recognized that it was easier in my life to not hold on. I also think it gave me great experience to drawn on later in life.

I've mentioned before about the night my ex came home and told me he wanted a divorce. It was mid-April 1997. He got home around midnight after doing a play in a town just south of us. I had waited up for him and was on the couch watching tv. He came in, in the dark, and told me he wanted out. I was a lot of things then: hurt, betrayed, relieved, scared, worried, but I was never mad. During our separation and divorce, a lot of people around me wanted me to get mad and vindictive, but I couldn't. I still loved him, will always love him a little, and never once thought it was a mistake to marry him. I still don't; it wasn't. I was more worried about him than anything. I think that is what made forgiving him so easy. I wanted him to be ok, to be happy, that I served him which made my heart unable to hold onto any anger. We had such a good divorce - way beyond amicable - that we had friends who didn't believe us. We sat in our living room, dividing things up without any hate.

Around the time that Isaac and I got engaged, things changed. My ex said things that I hope he didn't mean; hurtful, untrue things. I slowly started finding out things he'd told mutual friends and acquaintances. I was crushed. Things had gone so well but then seemed to be quickly falling apart. I had no way to confront this other than living my life as well I could and try to forgive a second time. It took awhile. The divorce was easy to forgive, but the lies were difficult. I couldn't spend my life running after everyone he talked to, trying to clear things up and I needed to face what was said and resolve it for me; not anyone else. I could do that. Oddly, the one spot that was the hardest, and still is in a lot of ways, is what his new wife knows about me. I don't know her, wouldn't know her if I passed her on the street, but I still hope she didn't get the version that hurt me so badly. I hope she got the version of how there was no hate, only sadness. I hope she knows that I never wished him ill, that I always loved him and that him leaving me was one of the hardest things that ever happened. Even through the hurt and the resentment of what took place, I still want him to be happy and that made forgiving him the unkind things a little easier.

As yesterday's discussion continued, I thought of all of this and more. How my former best friend is probably the only person I still haven't forgiven. How the hurt he caused is miles above anything anyone has ever done to me. I don't think about it a lot because, to this day, it can still cause me more grief than I know what to do with. How seeing him as a "friend of a friend" on facebook recently cut me off at the knees. How can I forgive my first boyfriend all he did to me and my ex for LEAVING me and not my former best friend for...? What? For not loving me enough to stay? For abandoning me when I needed him? For simply not being in my life right now? For not knowing Isaac? For...?

And then I started thinking how multi-faceted forgiveness really is. This life isn't JUST about learning to forgive the injustices, however large, of our family and friends. It's not just about forgiving strangers theirs. Forgiving others is a huge part of it, but there's so much more. What about forgiving ourselves and God? I started realizing that, my former best friend aside, I do ok forgiving others. I'm not perfect or always speedy, but ok. It's forgiving myself that I struggle with.

It's been twelve years since that dark soul-crushing day in April 1997 when my husband left me and nearly as long since the last time I've seen my former friend. I still do wish the whole of 1997 and most of 1998 could be wiped from my life (well, except for most of the Isaac parts). But I contrast that period of my life to the one I've been in and am still in a little and I so clearly see the differences in forgiveness. I forgave my ex by serving him and making sure he was ok. But forgiving myself of things...it gets more and more difficult.

I know I blame myself for not being able to have another kid. Every time Sammy gets excited seeing a baby, I silently berate myself over and over again. If I had tried earlier, if I had been more willing to have kids, if I had not cursed my pregnancy every damn day, if I had been more open and willing and BETTER, it would have been ok. I would have had Sammy and I'd currently be carrying baby number two. But instead, I told everyone, loudly, how my pregnancy sucked. I fought the idea of motherhood for my entire adult life (and still fight it, admittedly). I got pregnant reluctantly and not at all joyously. This all equals how much I don't forgive myself for this. This all equals how much I'm still working though this thing that I thought I was ok with. I'm angry sometimes. I'm sullen, I pout. I cry - for myself, for our beautiful Eliza that I'll never have and for Sammy. I think it's unfair and kick and scream while still trying to search for whatever it is I'm supposed to be learning from this; from forgiving myself. I understand this is my weakness, that God isn't punishing me, that I knew it wouldn't be easy, but still. I don't forgive myself.

Through the years, I have learned to forgive. I've forgiven some extraordinary things and a lot of little things. I'm working on forgiving the harder stuff. Forgiving myself is tricky because I don't have this constant awareness of needing to forgive like I do when it's about someone else. It's not as simple, to me, to serve myself out of this. My blame and hurt just becomes a part of life and it takes something, like yesterday, for me to even acknowledge it's there. Layers of forgiveness. Tricky.