If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.

These days I feel like everyone I know has lost their smile. Myself included. I know I struggle thru the winter, I always have..and this winter seems even more intense than others. New job, new struggles new crap - once you boil it all down. The difference this year is that Lance too seems to be in a 'funk'. Normally we are not both in a funk together, which is good because it makes it easier to get out of IF there is someone there to help. Lance and I have been struggling to reach a common ground for awhile now. We have never been really great communicators, so when that minimal communication breaks down everything else seems to get lost in translation. Which leads us to where we are today. Which frankly, I am not sure where that is; perhaps a hazy line between just going thru the motions and finding solutions. Several factors, I feel are contributing to our distance, and inability to communicate or communicate clearly. One - my sister has decided that she wants to be se

In my own mind my family is its own version of 'rockstarrs'. We are dysfunction, but not disconnected. We are fierce in loving each other and in protecting our own. And lets face it, we do have good genes - our gene pool leaves us with some charactistricts that we all wear with pride. You don't have to know us to know that we are related, just look at us......any number of us, and it is immediately clear. Its in the eyes. I am speaking of my mothers side of the family, the Guertin side. I, like my siblings and cousins have been giving alot of thought and energy in trying to figure out how to celebrate our grandfather Jack. Perhaps, I should back up. I have been lucky enough to know all of my grandparents, and even my great-grandparents. Secondly, I have been lucky enough that my mother/father made it priority for us as children to spend time with them. I was in my teens when my great-grandmother died, and in my late teens or early 20's when my great-grandfather

Well, things have been tough, tense and well just down right out of sorts. Not sure where to start and frankly have gotten to the point where I just don't care.....frankly I don't mind being in this state of mind, which prob says something all in its self. Anyhooo! Lance and I got in a HUGE fight over my son requesting an earring for his 9th birthday. I mean HUGE, to the point of hanging up on each other and being um, not so nice. He says, no and I say it is prob okay. Not only does he say no, he says I am an irresponsible parent for even thinking that it is okay at the age of 9. See me fly off the handle. Sure I am a lot of things and perhaps irresponsible a time or two, but over this issue - for real? Lets be frank folks, I have let my son wear a mo-hawk since he was 5, per his fathers encouragement and support. So the fact that I semi- support an earring does not seem off base to me. Mind you I did not encourage the latest request, but I don't see any huge harm in