Its been a while.

Well. As usual I come back again with very good intentions of blogging regularly. And then I never write again for months. Or years. Such is life.

Things have been busy and crazy and good and bad here. But mostly bad. My dad died February 22nd. It was sad and horrible and the worst experience of my life.

I have been in such a weird place ever since. I can only describe it as crazy. I have been happy and sad, angry and grateful, frustrated, and lazy. All I want to do is lie in bed all day and sleep. Which is usually how I feel regardless of emotional distress, but now knowing I actually have a right to feel that way makes it really hard for me to avoid letting myself do it!! I am so grateful for Juston and our boys keeping me distracted, busy, and happy. But then I'm also frustrated when I don't get the quiet, alone time I need to grieve because I am wearing my Mom and Wife hats all day. Then after everyone is asleep, I stay up way too late for the alone time (usually reading in the bath) and then wind up being way too tired in the morning. On repeat, every day. Almost everyone makes me mad, and I'm tired of saying "oh, I'm fine" when people ask how I am. And when I truly share how I feel with my closest friends, I feel this terrible bubble of something bad welling up inside me and I don't want to talk about it anymore in case that bad bubble comes out. In the rare moments I'm alone at home I have been distracting myself with either stupid things (namely, decorating or reading blogs) or napping, both of which keep me from thinking about the hole inside myself.

In my dream life I would take our trailer out to my favorite camping spot and stay for a week by myself in the woods, to really flip out the way I want to. No, in my dream life my dad would still be here.

Honestly, I don't want to let myself flip out. I feel like it will change me forever and I'm scared of it. Just simply typing this has made that bad bubble come up inside me and I don't like it.

So, moving on. Because that's what I do when things get yucky!

The boys are gigantic and crazy and wonderful. Xander is in third grade and Dax is in half-day Kindergarten. Time is flying by now that they both are in school. My life revolves around what time it is and when everyone is coming and going. I look back sometimes and read old entries on this blog and I just want to sob when I realize how quickly they are growing up. There is no way they were ever those little boys I wrote about and photographed! They are full-on kids now, with backpacks! School-bus-riders, with smelly feet and stinky pits! The only good thing about them growing up is they get more and more fun every single day. I cannot imagine what our life would be if it had turned out the way we 'planned' - double income, no kids, traveling, buying stupidly expensive handbags (me, not Juston, haha) ...... how frivolous it would have been. Well, the traveling would be nice .. but doing stuff with kids is so much more fulfilling.

Speaking of that, we leave for Cabo next week. In my strange state of grief, I am not as excited as I would normally be for a sunny vacation, but I know when we get there I will breath a gigantic sigh of relief and relax the way I need to. It will be so healing to get away from here and spend time with my three favorite guys; swimming, laughing, playing, eating, and having fun.

Its time for me to take a shower and head to school - Thursdays I help out in Xander's class. Hopefully I'll be back again before a year has gone by.