Halloween Weekend and other ramblings

Having Halloween fall near a weekend rocks! You get to eat candy the whole weekend, fall into a sugar coma and not have to go to work the next day.  It's been great...also because on a weekend like this I hate to get out of my jammies.  So eating candy in my pj pants is the ultimate :)

Our tradition the last few years has been to go to a local Trunk or Treat at a church and this year again...they did not disappoint!

(please note Cpt Hook was "mean" for the end of the night pics. ...he says " like Hook" I say ..

.like tired and cranky)

What is most disappointing...is that my dear friend Jennifer lost her courageous battle with Melanoma on Friday and I just can't shake my heavy grief even now Sunday night.  One thing about  grief that I hate...is that it never leaves you.  EVER. (bold, underlined and caps people....EVER!) Once you have gone to that place of true loss, once those you love are gone from you forever, I know they say time heals all wounds... but they haven't for me yet.  My wounds get scabbed over but keep getting ripped off and feel fresh again.  I grieve all over again for all those that have gone before Jen who I miss.  Who she is with now and I am not.  Words don't comfort me..."praying you for" is nice but I am numb to other's compassion. My newest hate (NOW all 3-4 of you reading are sure to stop reading!) is October being "pink". I don't want a Mother "F"ing (yes I get that mad!) pink bagel at Panera!  I don't want to walk in a pink boa or tu tu for "survivors".  I don't know any. My friends and family are dead.  My friends remind me detection is key in breast cancer and we need to educate.  FINE but I don't want my cereal box with a pink ribbon!!  It REMINDS me they are gone.  All of those I lost to cancer...my dad has nothing to do with breast cancer but it still is cancer and it really stings.  It rips open my wound and I am left crying in the cereal isle for Hope as I picture her in her "Making Strides" pink boa the year she "beat it." Before she got tongue cancer that the "practicing doctors" claimed was unrelated and died.  That pink ribbon really just pisses me off.  

So....I tell people "I am not in a good space".  That's all I can say really.  Again...my blog my ramblings...terrible I know but I have made it the whole month with the pink EVERYTHING BLASTED THING and Jen's loss (FYI the melanoma ribbon is black) has like I usually say "taken me from teetering on the edge of a breakdown, right into one"

Sangria is now a staple at night.  The Halloween candy combination with the sangria in my NON RIBBON-ED pirate skull pjs with the draw string makes me happy.  That's all I have...so hate me.  It's ok...I'd hate me too if I didn't know any better.

I know this place I am in I will move from.  I know I will change my mind, my feelings and my opinion a thousand more times in my lifetime. Each experience shapes me and I hope I continue to grow as I move through the grief stages (clearly I am in anger! ha) 

Tomorrow I may smile at the lady offering me to "donate a dollar and get a pink ribbon posted on the cash register for breast cancer" and nicely say  " no thanks" instead of what usually runs through my head before I grunt "no"....oh wait...November's right around the corner and tomorrow is Halloween...Ahhhhh...I get to forgive "pink" October month until next year.  Thank GOD! Because the pink dye in the bagel is probably giving everyone cancer anyway! :)

Have a "Magical" Halloween

Pumpkin Patch 2011

Tonight we had a ball at the Pumpkin Patch. I was trying to narrow down the pics but...it's my blog...I am posting them all!

And here's what I LOVE about blogging...here's all the Pumpkin Patch pics the past 4 years!

2010, 2009, 2008, 2007

http://cooperharland.blogspot.com/2008/10/halloween-fun.html

Changes

The winds of change are starting to blow in my life.  I have been trying....really hard..... to hear the whispers in my life.  To be still, to get back that "knowing peace" I used to feel so easily deep down in my core that seems to have been blocked off or numbed somehow these past few years.  It used to guide me, move me, but I can't hear it any more very well and when I do I have no idea what it is saying.

This post is no announcement, I have no news, I have no answers.  I just feel the wind, blowing cool and softly, stirring up some thoughts and plans of change.  I have a sign in my house...I have had it for years that says "Create the world you imagine" and it's my new mantra.  I have this one life...what am I going to do with it?  Well my friends...all 3 of you still reading this blog...I don't know but I know it's not this. I know it's WAY MORE than what I am settling for and have settled for.  

Meredith knows for years that I am "fake".  It's our joke.  Winning friendliest in high school was when it started and I told her, I just act fake, I am really not friendly (truth be told as a true friend she may have called ME out on it!).  If you know ME, the real ME, you love and get me.  But as I have been taking Oprah's Lifeclasses on line one thing REALLY hit me hard was "When you don't show up as who you are, people fall in love with who you are not".  Ponder that one for a while!  I did and you know what...I GET THAT!  I am who everyone else needs me to be when that situation suites me and more than often...them.  I do it all the time, mostly at work and in my professional life but that is a pattern for me I think.  Whoever others need me to be....even if I hate it, don't like it or completely disagree, I do it so it's easier on the other person.  Not because I am a doormat but because I don't get hurt if I am not my true self. I am "untouchable" there...in the fakeness. Because it's not really me, or what I really am feeling. So I can stay detached in some way. But in that process, I never exercise or entertain my true passions, my true self is hidden away tucked away not being genuine.


So how's this for a deep post after light nothing posts for months??! HA  


So...all this rambling to say...I am not being fake unless I HAVE to (work is NOT a place to test this out yet). So if you ask me how I am..I will tell you not good if I am not.  If you need me to be ok so you are ok....sorry Charlies, I am not ok either. Go feel better from someone else. It's not mean, it's not rude...it's really ME. I am sharing this because I think of my true friends (yes the 3 or 4 of you still reading this) and you get this too.   You Laurie NEVER have a problem with this so you are excluded!  But we are unknowingly putting our own needs aside too many times in the day because we think it's easier, we'll do our thing later.  But I am just starting to get that, that later day never comes.  We are so busy "doing the right thing" we aren't doing what we really want.  And maybe because our whispers scare us a little bit and it's hard to be who we really are.

So yes I am still rambling and again when I do this I never know if it makes sense but it does to me and this blog chronicles my life and Cooper's so...there it is.  In black and white on line.  I am struggling.  Not in a bad way at all. In the best way of all!  In a way where I have a ton of ideas, all exciting and new in my mind that I usually push off as not practical and ignore. But I guess I just now see a small light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like it's time to go knock people over and disregard anyone else's opinion and starting running like hell toward it...with Cooper jogging beside me, basking in the glory of the new unknown light!

Wish me luck and after writing this I feel like maybe grab a jacket...the winds of change may whip ya around!

Welcome rain....nice to see you

We may have a flooded porch and we may be trapped indoors...

but it's nice for a change of pace. 

Catch up....Happy October 2011

 Wow! Happy October!  The month of September really went right by me.  I literally did everything I could just to get through some days, as it's been that time of year again when the grey cloud feels like it's covering my head....lots of old memories and new stresses added in that keep me up at night. That's actually a lie..keep me up at night is more of a metaphor...I have been asleep every night with Cooper, passed out cold until morning.  I can't seem to get enough sleep these days...obviously I need it.  

Cooper has been busy playing soccer.  Today was the first day he let me sit in my chair and watch.  Usually I am out on the field or on the sidelines with him. Soccer for 4 year olds is a lot of kids crying, picking up grass, chasing butterflies and kicking it in the closest goal they see if the goal at all.  

 I love his face on this picture above...so proud and happy. Below he is "blocking" ....so darn cute!

 Todd and Rochelle had their baby!  It was so neat to have something exciting snuck into normal days.  I snapped some pics you can see HERE of her for my photography blog.

 I may be retreating and re-grouping but Cooper is growing and learning leaps and bounds!  Tonight we worked on his name again and he is really getting it!  So fun to watch him learn to spell his name C- O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-P-E-R he'll say but he knows to write two Os.

And I will leave you with two videos...one of Cooper reciting the days of the week, the other the months of the year!  His Pledge of Allegiance is pretty cute too I'll have to catch that soon!