Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a great Easter, however you celebrate it!

We’re not religious, so we don’t really necessarily celebrate Easter. We used to do the whole “Bunny” part of Easter, we hid eggs around the house and always had a bunch of stuff on the table that the Easter Bunny left. Our boys are much too old for that now, we did buy them a Sugar Free chocolate bunny but they’ve such little youknowwhats lately that I haven’t given it to them yet LOL.

For us Easter is just another excuse to have a nice big family dinner together. I spent all day cooking and made my first low carb turkey dinner. It was fantastic and we didn’t miss a thing from our usual turkey dinner that I used to make. I came up with a low carb substitution for almost everything I usually include in our big dinners. Hubby even thoroughly enjoyed the faux “mashed potatoes” that I made with cauliflower….and he HATES cauliflower! My youngest pigged out on the “fauxtatoes” he loved them so much. So while I was incredibly exhausted, it was so worth it because we had a great healthy dinner and there were leftovers so I didn’t have to cook today.

I spend all my time with my husband and boys, but any sort of holiday still makes me want to be even closer with them and has me reflecting on the 3 people in my life that mean and are the world to me. My family for the most part chooses not to want to be much of a part of our lives, and there are some things that make that ok with me at this point(I guess you can say I’ve given up and don’t care anymore since it seems they stopped caring about us and our boys long ago). But it makes me think more about my own little family even more.

My boys piss me off a LOT, I feel sometimes like I’m the only one with boys who can be like they can, but whenever hubby talks at work about the latest thing our boys have done he is told by all who have boys that it’s completely normal and their boys did all this crap too(in most cases worse) and eventually they will start to mature and act their age and grow out of it. I’m soooo looking forward to that day and I guess I feel it more than some parents because I am literally with my boys 24/7. I don’t get a break while I’m at work, because my work is my boys. I don’t get a break while they’re at school, because their school is right here at home. But regardless of them being typical brat boys I love my boys more than anything. I feel so totally and completely unappreciated by my own family and I want to make sure that even though I’m a pretty strict parent that I raise my boys to have a different relationship with us and with each other than what I have with my family. It’s not that my family fights or anything like that, it’s just that there seems to be absolutely no respect and a lot of selfishness I guess is how I look at it, and everyone seems so fake(talk one way but act the complete opposite). I don’t even feel like my family is family, they feel more like casual acquaintances than family. I don’t want my boys relationship with each other or their relationship with us to be like that, we are close now and I want it to stay that way, that is probably one of the most important things to me in raising my kids.

Even after so many years together with my husband I feel like we have a closer relationship with each other than a lot of couples, of course we started dating when I was 16 and he 17 so grew into adulthood together, that I’m sure helped. And while like any marriage we have had some difficult times too(hard times as often and as deep as we have had will cause strain on any relationship, no matter how perfect) and some big obstacles to overcome, we are strong as ever in our relationship and respectful to each other even after all these years.

On Friday while we were out grocery shopping I ended up struggling to hold back tears while we were checking out. One short conversation with a cashier was an amazing reminder to hold those you love tight and be grateful for those closest to you.

Here is how our conversation went:

Cashier(to me): “ Well don’t you look nice, are you guys off to dinner?”

Me: “Thank you, no, just how I like to dress.”

Hubby(not quite letting me get out my comment ): “ No, she always looks this good.”

Cashier: “Aww, now that’s sweet for him to say that, he deserves some brownie points for that.”

Hubby inserts some comment about us being together 20 years and something about me always looking good even after all these years(can’t remember exactly what it was).

Cashier: “Oh that’s so nice, it was 32 years for me…..it would have been 35 now”

…..her husband passed away after 32 years together. The rest of the conversation was mostly a blur, all I could do was struggle to hold back the tears because my heart was breaking for her and for anyone who has to go through such a loss of a loved one. I remember she did say that at least he got to meet his grandchildren first and he was no longer in pain. This woman did not look that old so likely got married and had kids young like we did….meaning her husband was FAR too young to be taken away.

I won’t spend my life wishing what could be with those who choose not to have a close relationship with me, I can’t change those things for the most part, usually a relationship is like that for a reason. But I will damn well make sure that with those I already do have a close relationship with I make sure they know how much I love them and I will do everything in my power to make sure our relationship stays that way. It’s so hard with kids though because you still have to be the parent while at the same time wishing you really could just give them anything they want or do anything for them so they don’t have to just because you love them so much. But you also know that you can’t do that, because you love them so much.

Don’t waste time stressing over those who don’t deserve it, put all your energy into loving those who do so if they are ever taken away from you too soon you have no regrets.

There’s my deep thoughts for the day LOL.

Jolene