Holidays... expect the unexpected

Well it's been awhile .... I was blogging semi-religiously for awhile and come to find out they weren't posting .. possibly a good thing.
The holidays have been seriously hard, people told me they would be but honestly I thought I could do it without crying daily ... yup I FAILED miserably. But that is ok. I will get through this on my own time and how I want too. One huge reason this has been so hard for me is on Christmas Eve, amidst our family get together, I got sick. Seriously sick. Ended up in the ER for most of the night and was miserable till the pain and nausea meds hit me. Yup, I'm the not-so-happy-about-it wonder of not one, or two but THREE kidney stones. One is small enough to pass but the other two are 2 & 3 centimeters big. Wayyy to big to big to pass. It was my first ER trip without Steven. :-( what made it worse was the nurse who triaged me asked if I was pregnant MULTIPLE times and I kept insisting there was absolutely no way I could be and of course she asked why not. Like that was her business why.. but I explained my husband passed away 6 months ago and this broad has the audacity to ask what happened ... I was livid. Not only was I sitting there in horrible pain but was trying to not puke all over her expensive tennis shoes and she's more curious as to how my husband died. I just don't get some people. So that was my holiday in a nut shell... fun right?
Well the presents and spending time with my family was really fun till I started feeling bad. So here's hoping everyone else had a Merry Christmas and will have a very Happy New Years!

Butterflies and Jimmy Buffet

You might ask what they both have in common and in a simple word.... Signs. Signs that Steven is looking over me signs of encouragement from him. Its taken me 5 months to fully realize that's what these where. About 1 month after the day of his passing I turned on the radio and one of Jimmy Buffets song's was on the radio and I forced myself to listen to it. I cannot STAND some of the man's songs and, of course, Steven was big into his music so it was the least I could do to listen to it. After that day on my really bad 'force myself out of bed get dressed and make myself go to work' days I would always see butterflies .. not one or two but many all at once. Today,sadly, was one of the above mentioned days.. and let me tell you it was a doozy!! I cried and cried all day at the smallest things and it was just not turning out how I wanted it too... so on my way to work the exact same Jimmy buffet song came on and suddenly I was at peace. I smiles and ,surprisingly, sang along to the horrid song. I'm still not a fan of Buffet but from now on I'll always think of my wonderful loving husband by listening to Jimmy Buffet & searching for butterflies ....

Emotions

Excuse my untogetherness ... it's been one of those hard weeks and I ramble a lot in this post

Emotions..... they play such a huge part in our day to day lives. Today was one of those dollar coaster emotional days for me.. I had a dream about Steven then when I woke up I was happy a little later furious and then just downright sad. The only reason I even cracked a smile today was because of some good work buddies cracking me up with their antics at work. I noticed that I keep my feelings mostly to myself.... when I'm around people I laugh and chat away but as soon as I know I'll be alone for awhile the sadness is back. Very very few times have I actually let the feelings come out in public. Not going to lie, if I did let my feelings out in front of people they'd think I was nuts. I have found that since Steve passed when I get agitated my tongue becomes quite loose and I let people know what I really think about them...and that's not always a good thing! So the past few days when I start feeling like I'm going to lose it, I walk into the kitchen, stand in front of the fridge and look at the picture my niece drew for me.  she always reminds me that no matter what there are people who still love and care about me and that I need to keep calm and (her words) that it's ok to cry sometimes.

Sometimes you just need a child's logic to get yourself back on track....

Picture from Grief the unspoken

I have sat here for the past 30-ish minutes trying desperately to figure out what exactly I wanted to talk about tonight when something my eldest niece said this weekend jumped out at me. We had been to take to fall pictures down by the lake and when we got home as we all climbed out of the car she said to her mom "I miss Uncle Steve". Let me tell you that just broke my heart right then and there. It wasn't the first time she has said that and it won't be the last time I am sure, but how do you respond to that? Thankfully my sister came right back with "we all do". It does not surprise me that she misses her uncle even if he wasn't in her life for that long and didn't really truly get to know her like I do, he still loved her and she sure loved him. I will never forget the day of our wedding... let me set the scene for you... 

From where this was taken everyone was there on the grass watching... About midway through my niece realized something.. this GUY she didn't know much about was taking her Aunt Ash away from her, so far that she couldn't visit me whenever she wanted too. I remember looking up to Steven crackin a huge grin and giggling as my dad was speaking and I raised an eyebrow thinking I had missed some little funny dad had said and didn't get a chance to ask until later that night what that grin was about. When I did ask him his reply was this "oh you didn't hear her... She realized I was the bad guy taking you away from her and she started crying saying that she wouldn't get to see her Aunt Ash anymore". Let me tell you folk's I have a huge soft heart for this girl... and I nearly lost it when he told me this because I had battled for month's on if we should move to West Virginia or stay in Arkansas. West Virginia won... of course. I have this thing for adventures you see.... 

Anyway we lived in WV for almost a year till we moved back here in June 2012 and so she really didn't get to know him well except for when we came down for Christmas. 

I realized he had finally won her over in Feb of this year when we took her out for her birthday. Since we had missed her last one being so far away we decided to take her out to Krispy Kreme and she wanted shrimp from Captain D's. So that's what she got. While we where out we took her to Hasting's to get a book but as it turned out.... she and steven bonded. Over, of all things, Comic books. The thing I knew nothing about and she knew nothing about, but once she found out they had TMNT comic's she was all over that stuff. I forget how long we stayed in that store but after that day every time she climbed into my car she would grab up one of the many many comic's in the backseat and read away. After that day they got along perfectly fine. 

That is one of the best memories I have of the two sillies together... Always with their heads in a comic book till we got to wherever we where going. So whenever she tells me she misses her uncle all I can do is grab her up in a huge hug and whisper how much I miss him too and remind her how he is watching over us.

I have battled long and hard on how I am to make my first ever blog post and I finally came up with something very simple. I am sharing the song Steven always sang to me Honeysuckle Rose. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do...

Every honey bee fills with jealousy
When they see you out with me
I don't blame them, goodness knows
My honeysuckle rose

Flowers droop and sigh when you're passing by
And I know the reason why
You're much sweeter, goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose

I dont buy sugar
You just have to touch my cup
You're my sugar
Its so sweet when you stir it up

On the avenue, people look at you
And I know just why they do
You're much sweeter, goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose

Every honey bee fills with jealousy
When they see you out with me
You're much sweeter, goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose

Oh, flowers droop and sigh when you're passing by
And I know the reason why
You're much sweeter, goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose

And I don't buy sugar
You just have to touch my cup
You're my sugar
Its so sweet when you stir it up

On the avenue, people look at you
And I know just why they do
You're much sweeter, goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose
You're much sweeter, goodness knows
My honeysuckle rose

http://youtu.be/mkSKzz0GyyM

A little about our history on this song.... 

Steven started to call me his Honeysuckle Rose a few months before we got married and being curious (who wouldn't be!?) I asked him why exactly he called me that. I, honestly, thought it was because I love the smell of Honeysuckle and Rose's are my favorite flower but no that wasn't it. He sent me the lyrics and a link to this song via text message. Honestly it took quite some time to actually like the song itself, the lyrics I like its just the way the song goes. I'm more of a Peppy, get up and belt it out or Classical music kind of girl so this song was WAY off my charts. Looking back to the days of getting to know this song I can finally say that I Love This Song.

XOXO to my Angel above