Hell Yeah Skies, What I Know For Sure & #iPPP

Yesterday morning I had sort of a Double Rainbow moment on my front porch.  You remember that viral YouTube video from years ago where the guy is majorly freaking out and repeating "what does it mean!!!!!???????" over and over.   And then cries. (Click here if you need to see it again.)  Because it's too much.  Because he stepped outside and nature, God, the world just blew him the hell away with beauty and awesomeness.

"Moooooom!!!!!," Lucy screamed from the living room.  

"I told you I don't know where your homework is," I replied from the kitchen.  

"No, you have to come here.  You HAVE to see this," she yelled.  "It's purple!"

I most definitely thought I would find that one of Wade's punches had landed just right and given JT a nice purple-y black eye.  
But to my surprise, the boys weren't wrestling (hello miracle) and Lucy was staring out the window.  She was staring at one of the most amazing sunrises I've ever seen. Ever.

I mean what? No filter, no editing...this is the sunrise.
Hell Yeah!

The sky was purple and pink and bright and hopeful.  The sky was all hell yeah and amazing.  I found myself asking "What does it mean?????"  

I took Lucy on the front porch and we took pictures.  

"My God, isn't it beautiful?" I asked.  

"It is!," she agreed.

"I mean it takes your breath away doesn't it?" I continued.  "It's awesome."

"Yeah, I'm cold can I go inside?," she said obviously getting creeped out by my enthusiasm.

I squeezed her hand tightly not wanting to let go of the moment. She pulled away.  This scene would make for a very touching symbolic story of me holding on and her moving forward, but this is not that story.  Nope.  This is the story about my hell yeah sky taking me away for a minute.  Reminding me that there is more to life than lost homework, busy schedules, failed attempts at organization, kids not listening, never-ending laundry, bill after bill after bill, worries about stupid kids being not so nice to one of your kids, driveways that need to be shoveled, emails that need to be sent, dogs that need to be trained...

Speaking of the dog, she must of wanted a little piece of my hell yeah sky.  She wanted to know there's more than her crate, the backyard, people telling her no all the damn time, because she chose that moment to bolt.  She busted through the storm door and ran down the street like she belonged to no one.  And I in my robe and pink slippers with sheep on them (yeah I didn't buy those slippers, but someone gave them to me and I love them) chased after her. Jumping over ice patches and through snow drifts, I ran.  I tried to reason with the dog. Lucy was screaming from the porch.  Wade was crying and wondering why I was running away.  JT was in the shower.

A man stopped his car, put down his window and said, "Do you know there is a dog roaming the street up there?"

Duh.  What did he think I was doing out there at sunrise in my robe and pink slippers with sheep on them running down the street?  "Yes, it's my dog, thank you," I said smiling and then went back to running after her.

She and I eventually made it back to the house.  Both of us winded.  

It wasn't a perfect moment.  It wasn't filled with parenting how-to's.  Nope.  It's just a reminder that if you step out of your trailer, your house, your office, whatever and nature/God/the world blows you away with beauty and awesomeness, soak it up.

Yesterday, I didn't howl at the moon, I didn't cry about a double rainbow, but I sure did hell yeah the sky, I know that for sure.

Here's what else I know for sure (this week), things that made me say hell yeah:

• Winter in Michigan can be so fun.  We are totally digging ice skating.  

• Going to movies alone is awesome.  I went to a movie all by myself for the first time in my almost 40 years of life.  And I looooooved it.  I saw August: Osage County. Which was basically Meryl Streep playing my mother.  I loved the movie.  I laughed and cried and processed.  I will tell you that the movie really is so much of my life it's crazy.  It is a very, very accurate portrayal of a drug addicted mean, crazy southern woman and how her adult children handle her and life.  

• I have mother issues.  I mean because duh, because of my previous "what I know for sure" entry above.  But guess who else does? Eminem.  I've always related to his mother issues and I am a fan of his.  But his newest song brought me to tears the first time I heard it.  Anyone that has had to forgive, let go and love someone troubled from a distance will get this song.  Seriously moving.

• My kids are true believers.  Every damn time they play the Claw!!!!! (said in the Toy Story alien voice) game, they believe they will win something. Every time.  And they never do.  That is some kind of faith.

• My new obsession is Wifey.tv.  It's a web site with videos that I love.  Their tag line is "woman as subject, not object." YES!!!!!  One of the creators is Jill Soloway (author/screenwriter/awesome person).  I have loved Jill since I heard her speak at a NOW convention years ago.  She is amazing.  The videos are from all over the Internet and I watched for hours the other night and plan on watching for many more hours this weekend.  Check them out for real. They play amazing videos like the one below which I love and SO many more.

• I love watching my husband coach my kids.  This past weekend was the first time Tim coached a team that Lucy is on.  Because it's the first time she is on a team.  And it makes my heart feel all kinds of full and happy.

• Anne Lammott is brilliant.  Here's a quote of her's that I used in Sunday School last Sunday. It speaks to me.

• This iPad Air commercial makes me feel proud to be brand loyal to such a kick ass brand. Hell yeah. What's your verse?

• If you are in Detroit (or nearby) and you have a sweet mother story or a story about your mother issues, you should audition for Listen To Your Mother.  Click here for more details.

What do you know for sure (this week)?  C'mon, we're friends, share what you know. What had you saying "hell yeah" this week?

Leave a comment here or on my Facebook page or on Twitter.

Please come play with me on Instagram @jumpingwithmyfingerscrossed. 

I'm linking up today with my friends Greta from  Gfunkified.com and Robin from FarewellStranger.com for the #iPPP link up.  They host a link up where they encourage people to share "your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favorite photos of the week" from our phones. 

I Just Can't The Conclusion & Thoughts on Crazy

This week I wrote a few posts about things that I "just can't" (like animals, quinoa or kale chips) and it sort of turned into a series.  Here's the conclusion to my "just can't" series, a very special holiday episode of "I just can't."

This is my Thanksgiving jam this year.  Seriously, it's a good song with a good message to anyone who thinks they might be crazy.  That's why I love it.

I just can't...explain it.

We were supposed to go to Disney World.  We rented the condo, priced the tickets, saved, budgeted, told the kids.  A Thanksgiving in Disney World, the happiest place in the entire f-ing world.  It was going to be amazing.  No extended family, no big dinners, no emergency rooms, no protecting the kids from my crazy mother, no hours and hours of the Home Shopping Network, no awkward sadness, no regret or guilt.  Not this year.  

But then we ran into a few unexpected expenses over the summer and Disney was out of the picture.

"Sorry kids, we aren't going to Disney World this Thanksgiving," we told them a couple months ago.  "But we ARE going to Grammy's house for the day and that will be, um, fun," we added with strained smiles.

The kids handled it quite well, which makes me wonder if they ever really believed that we were actually going to Disney World in the first place.

They are good kids, sweet kids, compassionate kids.  I love these things about my kids.  These things are why I must think it's okay to take them to visit my mother.  They are compassionate about her quirkiness and her forgetfulness and her falling asleep at the dinner table-ness.  They are understanding in some weird no-judgement kid way when she seems totally disinterested in them one minute and then completely over the moon singing songs and trying to get them to dance with them the next.

They don't question it too much.  But I do.  I can't figure out why I keep going to my mother's for Thanksgiving.  For the past couple years, it's been the only time we see her.  
Because it's the right thing to do? Because she's alone? I just can't....explain it.

I just can't....stop being afraid.

The older I get the more compassion I have for my mother.  Even the mean-spirited, difficult, manipulative person she can be most of the time.  I think back to what the world was like 30 years ago when she was really starting down the path of mental instability.  No one said "bi polar."  There was no Britney, Lindsey or Charlie having public meltdowns on camera and on Twitter.  

I remember one day after school when I was a kid watching Donahue while I ate a bowl of cereal and Patty Duke was on talking about her mental illness.  I knew Patty Duke from old Nick-At-Nite reruns.  When I heard her talk about her manic highs and her depression I felt like someone was describing so much of my mother.  But then the show was over and that was that.

My mother never got the right help or understanding that she needed, or that might be available to her today.  While my heart aches for what could have been for her, for all of us, my fear is bigger.  I am afraid that maybe I am branded with the genetic marker for depression/anxiety/bi-polar/borderline personality/addiction.  I am afraid that it is inevitable.

I just can't....stop finding some of it funny. 
If you can't laugh, then you are dead.  I truly believe that.  I mean there's always something funny (eventually) about a situation.

This Thanksgiving my mother is only having my family and me for dinner.  I have siblings, they just won't be there.

"I just can't handle too many people," she informed me over the phone in her slurry, slightly agitated, southern drawl.  "I'm just trying to not end up with hallucinations this year.  Every other year after all of your loud kids leave I end up hallucinating."

Yeah, you thought you had something to worry about like overeating or someone bringing up Obamacare at the dinner table.  Whatever.  We are trying not to hallucinate here.

I know.  Maybe you aren't laughing.  You're thinking this is the most f#*@ing depressing Thanksgiving post ever.  Welcome to my world.  No, I'm kidding.  It's not all dark and twisty.  

There will be moments that don't make sense, there will be moments that scare me, but there will also be moments that bring out the best in my children.  There will be moments where my husband supports me (and my fears and worries) with every ounce of his being and I will fall in love with him again in those moments.  We will drive home and I will probably cry with relief and/or rage, but then I will laugh.  Because there is always something funny and for that I am grateful.

And next Thanksgiving, I might say I just can't....go.

Here's my holiday jam.

No Nonsense

I have never been called sweet.  Sure I've gotten kind a few times.  People have called me interesting and different several times.  I have heard crazy and strange too.  And of course I have been called emotional and sensitive.  But whatever.  I'm not really upset about not being sweet.


Last month, as I was putting my clothes back on after a minor medical procedure a nurse said, "So you're no nonsense."   I looked at her through my post-anesethia haze and thought, this chick really gets me.  "I buy their stuff all the time, I am a no nonsense gal myself," she added sounding very chipper (again not something I have been called).  That's when I realized she wasn't talking about me at all.  She was talking about my socks.  And they weren't even very original socks either.

My mother's nickname for me was/is "Angry Angie."  I think I have mentioned in here before that a therapist along the way somewhere told me that my anger really saved me.  It got me through stuff without becoming a victim.  It has been my challenge over the last 10-15 years to lose the anger without becoming a martyr.  Ugh.


Speaking of my mommy dearest, I spoke with her last night.  It was a great conversation. She called to tell me how her therapy and home health care is going.  She told me how she figured out her meds and cut back on her painkillers.  She asked about the kids.  She thanked me for helping her through a really rough time when she fell and broke her neck. 


Yeah right.  This did not happen.  She called alright.  She called to tell me how "crazy" her dogsitter is.  Um, hello pot (you know calling the kettle and all).  Then she went on to accuse me of taking items from her home.


After agonizing over her injury, her life, her mistakes, her addiction; after mourning the mother I knew years ago; after letting myself love her just a little bit again; after letting go of my ongoing anger for her and the years of hell she has put us all through:  


She accuses me of stealing.  And I wouldn't put it past her to press crazy lady charges.


It is all over a pair of black boots.  Boots she claims I took.  Black f-ing boots.  


On the phone I could feel it coming.  My heart started racing, my blood was boiling.  "I don't have your boots mother," I started off calmly.  "You can buy different boots, hell I will buy you new boots," I said a little louder. She wouldn't let it go.  She kept pushing and pushing.  "Mother I DO NOT HAVE YOUR STUPID BOOTS," I yelled into the phone.  


"Remember it's your mother and she has a broken neck," someone said in a quiet, wee little voice in the background.  I turned around and saw my 10-year-old wise beyond his years son Peyton.  Ugh again.


Whatever.


The anger is back.  And it feels good.  It feels right.


They may just be a pair of socks to a sweet, chipper nurse, but to me I am no nonsense. And I'm not gonna take it anymore. (at least for a while anyway)


And here are a few things I know for sure:


One of my favorite Christmas presents was to my kids from their fabulous uncle Jeff.  The first season of The Muppet Show.  First of all, I am obsessed with the Muppets. And now after enjoying the latest movie, my kids are having a blast with the dvd's of the first season.

How cool is it that my kids are enjoying not only the Muppets, but all the great stars from the 70s!  Like Mrs. Brady. 

Look how Carrie Bradshaw Flo Henderson was with the LOVE necklace.

I still love Tina Fey/Liz Lemon and am so looking forward to new 30 Rock shows.  I know for sure that if you don't laugh watching this clip, there is something wrong with you.

Twitter is my new best friend.  Feel sorry for me?  Don't, it rocks.  Try it.  Then follow me.
@AngelaYblood


My favorite angry at my mom song.  Me and Eminem---two of a kind.  I feel you Em.