Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I can't believe it's been one year since you have been gone. One year ago today you took your last breath. After struggling to breathe for so long. There are so many images from the last couple weeks of your life that will forever be embedded in my brain. I spent the last several weeks that you were alive sleeping on the couch in your room. Those nights are precious memories to me that I will never forget. Time that I will always cherish that we spent together. We laughed, we cried, we bonded. I got the chance to say things to you that I had never said before. I am so glad that the end of your life was spent with me and my family in my home and not in some hospital, you know how much I hate hospitals.

My whole family misses you so much Mom. There is not a day that we don't all make some 'grandma' reference. It is like you are with us all the time. Sometimes I am convinced that you are. Even now, since we moved 3,000 miles away from home and all the sights and sounds are unfamiliar to us we still see, feel and hear you every day. The girls miss their grandma so much. Allison has taken so many of your things and put them in your room. She loves to have your stuff with her, it gives her comfort. Gianna wears your nightgown to bed and talks about you every day. She has also made friends with the 'grandma' that lives behind us, I know she likes to spend time with her because it reminds her of all the time she spent with you alone in your little house. She misses you so much.

The only people in the world that will ever understand what our relationship was like are the four people in my house. The times we had together as a family, as an extended family were/are so precious to me and I will cherish them always.

I don't think I ever said it to you mom, but you were a great mother. You and I had our differences but at the end of the day we always had each other. We went through so much together and lost so many we loved and through it all we were a strong mother/daughter team with a strong bond.

I love you mom and I sure hope that you, Dad and Mike are all together somewhere and enjoying being back together.  (I am almost sure you are and the three of you played a key role in getting my family to this new wonderful place we call home)

Love,
Nina

Couldn't ask for a better situation.

Tomorrow will be one week since we moved to South Carolina. It has been the best week I have had in at least 2, if not 3 years. I have not smiled this much in ages. This is it. This is where we were meant to be.





 When we moved to Virginia 6 months ago we thought we were doing the right thing, we thought it was the right move, we realized fairly early on that it wasn't, but we tried to make the best of it. Little did we know that things could be so much better for us. We struggled making friends and finding our "place" in Virginia. Here, we are already well on our way. We have met so many of our neighbors, I had coffee with my new friend (who also happens to be our awesome real estate agent), we went to dinner with three other couples/families last night... we didn't even do ONE of those things in 5 months in Warrenton.



The girls have started school. That was the only part that hasn't gone as well as we hoped. For Gianna, it wasn't bad but Allison had a little bit of a bumpy start but we are going to see what we can do to make that a better situation.

I have spent the better part of the last week unpacking and getting settled in this house that we are really liking ALOT. We never felt comfortable in the house in Virginia, again we just did we could to make it work. Here are stuff is fitting better and it just feels like home. I took a few pictures, nothing is 100% done but I was too excited so I went ahead and took pictures anyway. I want all of our friends and family in other places (mostly California) to see the place.
Before I post the pictures I have to say that we had no idea that we signed the lease on this house before we ever saw it, we had only seen the pictures that were online, which of course there are never that many. When we got here last Sunday night we were surprised to find so many rooms and closets upstairs. It's great! I didn't take a picture of the living room yet or the master bedroom.... they aren't as finished as I would like, although none of the rooms are!

Oh well here it goes, the 'virtual tour' of our new home...

 


kitchen looking toward the front of the house

 


 


Gianna's room (she just got all of Allison's old bedding and decor, she's thrilled!)

Allison's ridiculously large room... we will be adding wall art and knick knacks soon.





What will be my scrapbook room (very soon)







Office upstairs, it's a mess but you will notice that Chris does have his computer hooked up!

I have been trying to add more photos, but it isn't working so well... so I will leave it at that for now and will add more in my next post. The next time I post pictures I will be sure that things are a little tidier around here!

I really just want to say that change is indeed good. We needed this. Our lives in California were not good. We miss our family and friends so very much but this is going to be a much better place for us. Our time in Virginia was tough at best and I am pretty sure there were a few times where I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown but while we were there we did meet some really great teenagers that were so wonderful to my girl and some great 5th graders that made Gianna feel so welcome. For those things I will always be grateful. Chris and I also each had the opportunity to live closer to one of our best friends from high school. Each of our friends lived about an hour away from us but we still got to see them and got the chance to get to know their families better and spend some much needed time with old friends. Those are the things I will always be grateful for when I think back of our time in Virginia. I will also be thankful for how close it brought our little family. Moving that far and not knowing anyone definitely made for lots of 'family' nights for the Brittons and we are closer than ever.

For those of you who follow/read my other blog (Laughter at the end of the tunnel) I will be updating it soon with pictures of my new scrapbook room and I will share my plans of expanding my little etsy business to selling stuff here in South Carolina.

Thanks for reading!






This time we are really going country!

I don't have a lot of time to write a long post... mostly because I am tired and also because I have so many things going through my mind that I can't possibly get them all out.

Yesterday morning movers showed up at our house in Virginia. Four men got out of one truck and at 9 am they got to work on those boxes and that furniture as if it was nothing. They loaded and got out of there so fast I couldn't believe it. When we moved to VA from California it took 6 guys 11 hours to pack the same amount of stuff so we were expecting a similar experience... not so much. They were done by 3 pm. Leaving us with all the dust, trash and the extra 'where do I pack this?' stuff and an empty house. We finished cleaning the house and we stuffed and shoved all of that extra stuff into Chris's truck and my 4 Runner and we headed out.

I wanted to write this tonight before my memory of the whole experience isn't as clear as it is right now. The feeling of 'it's over' was overwhelming. Knowing that we were moving on and really moving further south, which was what we had hoped for in he first place, felt so awesome. We looked like what my mom liked to call the "Farkle Family". Two cars packed with so much random stuff it was hysterical. I had a shoe rack, clean laundry, dog pillows, about 7 pieces of luggage... the list goes on and on. Oh and a dog and a kid. Chris had Lucky and Gianna and I had Allison and Patches.

We had Kid Rock playing in the cd player in my car and Chris had Garth Brooks playing in his truck. Our caravan began.

We drove and we drove and we drove... from 5:30 to midnight. We didn't stop until we got to Mooresville NC. We found a pet friendly hotel and crashed. I have never been so happy to stay in a cheap hotel in my life. It was great. The beds were comfortable and for the first time in a long time I didn't even worry about hotel cooties or bed bugs. I didn't care. I was moving to South Carolina.

Today we spent the day with Chris's cousin and her family. We are only going to live 107 miles from them when we move. The 6 months we lived in Virginia we didn't have any family nearby. We are so excited to live close to them.

Tomorrow we will drive to our new home in Simpsonville. We haven't seen it yet. Only pictures on the real estate web sites. I have found a real estate agent sent down from the heavens above. She has been so helpful. She has gone above and beyond. We are meeting her tomorrow to get the keys and see the house. I am so excited. I can't stand it. The last two years have been a crazy, stressful time in our lives. It's over, I know it is. I have said it before, but I didn't feel it. This time I feel it. I know it's going to work this tme. I am ready to get my drawl on and become a bonafide southerner.

I will take pictures tomorrow and post them soon.

whirlwind.

I said not too long ago that I didn't plan on blogging here until I had something exciting to write about.

I do!

We are moving.... (I know we just moved 3,000 miles from CA to VA and it sounds crazy but I will explain)

We moved here with every hope and expectation for it to work. We knew that we had to make it work. We did everything we could to make it work.... but sometimes that just isn't enough. I am not going into details... it isn't my place, and after writing this blog for a year I have learned that it isn't always my story to tell and sometimes ALL the details don't need to be shared. All I can say is I am happy, relieved and completely certain that THIS move that we are about to make is a much, much better plan and definitely what we need to be doing.

We found out for sure the move was going to happen on Thursday so we decided on Friday we would take a road trip to South Carolina so that we could see this new area we were going to call home and get an idea of what kind of neighborhood we wanted to be in and check out the area in general. It was a long trip so we made a stop in Mooresville NC to visit Chris's family. He has two Uncles, a cousin (and her big family of 5 kids, herself and her husband) that live there. I have been married for 17 years and I had never met his two cousins in person. It was great. It was all we could have ever hoped for. The kids all hit it off. We were so happy to see them all together finally after all these years. They have all been on facebook together and they have had some communication but this was the first face to face meeting. Boy do my kids love family. They are always so happy to meet any new relatives and when those relatives are close to their age... well then even better!

We stayed the night in NC on Friday night in a hotel... with the dogs. Shut the front door what is this world coming to when the Britton family starts traveling like Paris Hilton. It was all good and with enough doggie xanax they were just wonderful.

Saturday morning we woke up and drove to Greenville, South Carolina. It is only a 2 hour drive from Mooresville NC, which is just a hop skip and jump and it made us all so happy because that means that we can spend holidays and weekends once in a while with Chris's family! I swear my girls were so happy about this part of it that it will make the entire move worth it!

When we pulled into South Carolina our expectations were high, it was almost like we sighed a collective sigh once we crossed over the state line. We loved everything we saw. It felt so different than Virginia and even so different from California. I think it felt exactly like what we were hoping this would feel like when we pulled into Warrenton and it just never has.

After spending the day driving around Greenville, meeting some really nice people, checking out houses and schools we knew for sure that we loved it. So we decided to drive back to Mooresville so that we would be there in the morning to get ready for Easter with the family!

It was a great day. We had so much fun. The dogs even really enjoyed it! The kids had an Easter egg hunt with their cousins, they tossed around a football and spent the day getting to know each other.

Today was also my birthday. A day I always look forward to and always make way too big of a deal out of and then am disappointed when it doesn't turn out great. Their was none of that today. It was a day filled with family, love, hope and excitement.

I look forward to once again sharing my journey. I just know that this time I won't have to hope, pray, and wish at 11:11. This is GOING to be the right move for the Britton family. We are going to make friends, love our jobs and have a great new life!

Missing my mom.

The plan was that I was going to start this new blog and it was going to be happy and we weren't going to talk about death and we weren't going to talk about financial meltdowns... that plan is good, but it's just not realistic all the time. Death is part of life, it's a huge part of my life unfortunately and a very obvious reality. This blog is for those of us who know that as much as I like to have fun, cook, and make things my reality is still here. Every single day (more than ever lately) I wake up and think 'holy crap why is my whole family gone?'. I didn't know it was going to be like this. My dad and my brother have been gone for years. More than enough time for me to come to terms with it and to get used to living without them. Losing my mom has brought it all back. I know right now it's harder because I am so far from "home" so far from where they all were the last time I saw them, the last time we were all together. It's also harder right now because Gianna has been missing her grandma so much.She has come to me almost every day and said something or asked me something about her grandma. I am very lucky that my girls were so close to my mom. So glad that she lived with us for 5 years so she was such an important part of our family. They will both have such great memories of her because of it.
My birthday is in a few weeks and last year on my birthday is when my mom got sick. I wrote about it here. That weekend was the beginning of the end. The end of everything we knew as normal. I spent the next 5 weeks taking care of my mom and healing our relationship too. My mom and I always struggled with our relationship. Now looking back I regret not trying harder. I talked to her best friend the other night and she told me that I have nothing to regret, she tells me that my mom always talked about how good I was to her and how much she loved me. She did, she really did. When I walked into her casita and she saw me she lit up. She was so happy to see me. Nobody will ever love me like that, Nobody will ever light up like that again. My kids and Chris love me but as us mothers know there truly is nothing like the love we have for our children. I was all my mom had. She had buried 3 children and given another one up. I was it. Sometimes the pressure of that was too much for me. Knowing that she depended on me so much for everything was difficult. Trying to raise my children, take care of the house, work full time and be a good wife was more than I could handle. Being there for my mom sometimes took it over the top. I hated the pressure. I resented it. I didn't understand (still don't) why I was the one that was left. How come they all died and I didn't? I will never know. I should be grateful, I know but sometimes it's hard to be grateful without feeling a little guilt too.
It's been almost a year since we lost her and in that year my entire life was turned upside down, It has been the absolute hardest time of my life. The enormity of it all sometimes gets to be too much. Sometimes I want to crawl in a hole and shut everyone out... sometimes I do. The rest of the time I spend with my girls and my husband. I try to enjoy every minute I have with them. Try to make sure that my kids know how much I love them so that when the day comes that I am not here they can look back and know that nobody loves them like their mom.

come on over to my new place...

I have started writing a new blog... I still will update this one occasionally (but only when I have something really exciting to talk about) but the new blog is for sharing recipes, ideas, and if I am being honest to generate some interest in my new etsy store! Hope to see you over there soon.. and while your there, why not become a follower?
Thanks!
Nina

Thank you.

I have done some major self reflection lately. Mostly because I spend 90 % of my time alone so it gives me a lot of time to reflect. When I started this blog I had no idea that I had another brother, I didn't know that within months of starting the blog my mom would die or that in the following months we would lose everything we owned. I have written about all of it. I have shared and aired most of our dirty laundry on here. We have made a very stressful cross country move and I brought anyone reading my blog right along with us. Now I am done. I have come to a decision that I need to start keeping some of the private stuff private and maybe better things will happen for us if I keep my big mouth shut and just let it happen and stop writing/worrying/talking about it.
So many people have been so supportive and have said so many incredible things to me after reading my story, and for that I am forever grateful. Thank you for reading/following/commenting.
I hope that next time I am blogging it will be because we have had some wonderful, major life change and things have completely turned around for us. Until then these lips are sealed.
Thanks again.
xoxo
Nina

Not much going on...

So I felt like I should write a post but I don't really have a whole lot to say! Umm.. Oh, I know! I only have one more class until I am done and am able to test to get my real estate license. That is kind of exciting. Kind of nerve wracking at the same time. The whole test thing totally freaks me out but I am trying to get through it.

Things have been much better for me in Virginia lately. I am appreciating our little town much more. Enjoying the quaint, hill-y roads, the beautiful scenery as the weather has been nicer. It is not nearly as bad as I thought it was when we first got here. I still have yet to make any friends. I swear, I am not kidding not one neighbor has introduced themselves STILL and it has been over 4 months. Whatever. They are dumb. I really do wish I could make friends with some stay at home mom that I could meet at Starbucks and sit and talk to. Oh what I would give to say "hey, what are you guys doing tonight, do you want to come over and have dinner?" I love to entertain and I have been trying so many great new recipes since we have been here and I can't wait for the opportunity to have friends over to try them out. Although, I still hate this house. This house is dumb like the neighbors. That's OK though, it's short term and the term is getting shorter every day! Only 14 months left!

The kids are both doing well in school. I went to Gianna's parent/teacher conference the other day and all of her teachers (except social studies) say she is excelling and doing very well. She has made lots of friends and is really involved. Allison had an awesome report card and has been spending more and more time with friends. All of that makes me happy and so proud of how unbelievably well my girls have adjusted to this whole situation.

None of us feel like we will be here forever or even for too terribly long. Maybe that is what has made it so much more tolerable lately. Knowing that someday we will be somewhere else. I do miss my friends and family from home but we know that we will be visiting in the next month or so and that has helped make it easier too.
My girls and I are renting a booth at the Warrenton Spring Festival. It is a food/crafts/music festival here on our Main St. I am really looking forward to it. All 3 of us have been busy making things to sell. It should be fun. I will post pictures soon of some of the things we have made.
I am also considering posting a few step by step recipes of some of the new things I have been making. I love sharing recipes!

Warrenton Courthouse... where btw Clint Eastwood will be directing a movie this month, starring... Leonardo DiCaprio!

Oh my gosh, I went to court for the two speeding tickets that I got on the same day! Holy cow court here in Warrenton is quite an event. I swear I thought their were hidden cameras somewhere. The people were killing me, the police officers with their super strong southern accent were killing me and the way that they handled things was absolutely hysterical. I wanted to take pictures so bad but any kind of electronic device was strictly prohibited. The funniest part was when the court guy (swear, he didn't have a title... he wasn't a judge, he just kind of decided what you were going to be "charged" with) called a name of some guy that wasn't there and some girl who was waiting to see the "real" judge says out loud and I quote "Oh my gosh, is that Tyler?" to which the non judge guy says "Yep, Jessica, your brother had two tickets and didn't show up today" (mind you this is all going on in a court room filled with about 200 people) and she says "well what should I do?" and he says "well come on down and I will give you his paperwork, I will go ahead and lessen his charges." Hello Mayberry. How unofficial is that? Turns out that the non-judge dude was her daddy's best friend and he is real used to her and her brother coming in the courthouse with traffic issues. The non-judge guy ended up being named Wit. Seriously. Wit. the good news is that Wit was totally cool and knocked my ticket down from going 53 in a 35 to going 43 in a 35. That was nice. Southern charm.

So I think that's about it. Oh Allison is over at a friends house tonight. I think tomorrow they are going mud sledding and fishing. Shut up. For those of you who know Allison you know how funny that is. She is not a tomboy but she is super excited about the whole situation. I am super excited because she does her own laundry... bring on the mud!!

The Crew.

When I was a sophmore in high school I was lost. I was kind of a mess. I had struggled through my freshman year significantly and was trying my best to maintain a passing GPA in 10th grade. The summer before my sophmore year I started dating a boy that I had met in school in 9th grade. He had gone to a different middle school than me and had a whole different group of friends than I did. My friends that I had come to high school with from middle school were starting to veer off in different groups, some had dropped out, some were partying a lot and others had just made new friends. I needed a new group. Dating this boy was the best thing that could have happened to me because it introduced me to a whole new group of people. I don't remember how or when it happened but out of the new people that he introduced me to seven of us girls were drawn together. I think in the beginning it was just two or three of us and then as the school year went on it grew into the seven of us. These girls were my saving grace. They were exactly what I needed. They all knew each other from middle school. I was the only one that went to another middle school. I was kind of the out cast but they never made me feel that way. I connected with these girls immediately. All six of them in different ways.

Over the next 2 years of high school we became even closer. We got our drivers licenses, spent our weekends at the beach and drove inconspicuosly by boys homes. We were coming of age together. We went to our first concerts together, we had sleep over at each others houses and got to know each others families. Our junior year was so much fun and they made me want to be at school. Our senior year was everything high school should be. We went to Palm Springs together for spring break, we double/triple dated at dances, we celebrated holidays together and for graduation we went to Hawaii together. All seven of us in Hawaii. It was great.

When high school ended some of us went our seperate ways. Some of us have stayed in touch the entire time, never letting go of what we had 25 years ago. For whatever reason I am the only one that has stayed in touch with all of the rest of them. There have been hard feelings for various reason within the group over the years, I think that might be inevitable when you have seven girls all together. It makes me sad that some of the girls haven't spoken in so many years.

Yesterday I was chatting with one of them on facebook and she is in a similar situation to mine. She lives out of state, has lost most of her family since high school, married someone not connected in any way to our hometown. She and I have always been very close. I love her like nobody's business and would do anything for her. We were talking about how awesome what we had was. How when you move away and make new friends it is nice, but it's never the same. No matter how many friends I made in the desert, or how many friends I will eventually make here it will never be the same as the friends that knew you when you were young. I can talk about my parents, my brother, my family dynamics all day long but nobody will ever know but those girls that I grew up with. They were there. They loved my parents, they knew my brother and some of them had a crush on him, they were there for me when I broke my face on Mike's scooter. They remember what it was like to walk into my house and see my dad on the loveseat and my mom on the couch watching tv. They were there when Mike died. They saw the heartbreak on my parents faces. They knew how big of a loss it was. There is nothing like that.
Many of us went on to be bridesmaids in each others weddings. Our kids have met or if they haven't met they know about each other. They see pictures and hear the stories. Some of us are growing old together as old friends do.
I don't know how they all feel now, if they share my sentiments and if they realize how special what we had was but I know that even if I don't speak to each of them all the time each and every one of them has a special place in my heart. I will never forget my time with them. I will always be forever grateful for how they helped change my path.

overwhelmed.

Learning is hard. Learning new things when you are my age and when you have a learning disability is so hard. I am trying so hard to do this but it is killing me. I won't give up. I promised myself I will see it through. In the past my m.o. was to always give up. In high school I would just leave. I literally would just leave class or school when I felt this way. I didn't understand back then why but I just couldn't be there. I now understand what my struggle is and I need to learn to just deal with it.
I wish I could find the words to explain what it's like inside my brain. As I sit in this classroom and the other students ask questions and engage in conversation with the teacher it is like words swirling around my head. I only hear bits and pieces. Not only are these words swirling around, but half of the time they are words that I do not even understand. They are a whole new vocabulary that is so new to me. I look around at the other people in the class and I think 'huh, I wonder why they get it, are they just super smart?'  That is about as close as I can come to describing what it's like. I know that I am not stupid. I know that if selling real estate was just about the practice of selling and making a deal happen I could rock it all night long. Unfortunately it's not.
I want this. I want this for so many reasons. I want to prove to myself and my family that I can do this, especially to Gianna because she has these same issues and I want her to know that we can do something if we really set our minds to it. I also want this because I really, truly want to find something that I love to do and can succeed doing.
Last week we had a quiz. I froze. I swear it was like I was reading things for the first time. Sometimes I am sure that what I am reading is Japanese. There is no way that these words are english because I am an excellent reader and for some reason these words in this text book are a whole new language to me. I missed 7 out of 25. This week we have our mid-term. It's a hundred questions. Shut up. A hundred questions. It makes me sick to my stomach. Not because the mid-term matters, it doesn't, this isn't a college course, I am not being graded. This is a class to teach me the content that will be on the exam that when/if I pass will give me my real estate license. So here's the thing, I just explained how badly the tests are freaking me out, this entire freaking license is dependent on how well I do on a test. That makes me want to throw up. I knew that when I took this whole thing on it was going to be hard. I had a feeling I might feel this way. I just didn't know it would be this bad. Oh and I forgot to mention that it probably would have been a much better idea for me to do this when I was living in California. My home state, the place where I was born and raised and knew like the back of my hand. Oh no, instead I waited until I moved all the way across the flippin country and then started a whole new career. Genius. Especially when this career is all about the area and your knowledge of it and of the kinds of properties that cover the area. It is a whole different ballgame here in Virginia. We are talking farms and historical properties. I know nothing about these things. Where I lived a historical property was a mid century modern built in the late 50's that all the gay guys in town loved to re-do. Here a historical property is a home that James Madison hung out in during the civil war. Totally different situation. Oh man. Totally different. Totally outside my realm of knowledge. I got nothing. I wasn't even sure who James Madison was until we went to his lifelong home a couple months ago. It's a big tourist attraction out here. Huh, where I am from driving by Frank Sinatra's house was a big tourist attraction. I am like an alien on this planet they call Virginia.

Pieces of them...

There we are. The four of us. Me, my mom, my dad and my brother Mike. I made this photo collage because lately when I look in the mirror I see all of them. At different times I see different things. For many, many years I have looked in the mirror and seen so many traces of Mike. Growing up I always thought we looked alike but after he died I saw it even more. When my dad died I started noticing how much my mouth looked like his and how I was getting dark circles and bags under my eyes like him. Now that my mom is gone I see her too. I have always been fascinated by genetics. Maybe it was because my dad was an identical twin and being raised by someone that had another person that looked and really sounded just like him was kind of weird. Cool but weird. Maybe it was because the Sabella family in general all kind of resemble each other a lot and I have kind of always thought that was cool too.

I didn't just want to write about family resemblances today. I also wanted to write about loss. I know that I have several readers who come here because they are comforted by the fact that I have been through what they are going through, they know that I understand where they are coming from. My brother has been gone for 21 years, my dad for 18 and my mom for just 8 months. I miss them all. Every single day. Some days hit me way harder than others and some days I just think of them and smile or I will be with my kids or Chris and tell them a funny story about them and we will laugh. Grieving is a long process. It is a difficult, painful process but we have to go through it. I know some people who never truly grieve. They simply get back to life as normal and keep functioning as if nothing even happened. They might seem like everything is OK, but their grief will manifest itself somewhere else, they might say they are upset about something else, but really it's their grief. It's the uncontrollable pain of losing someone you love so much. I have been there, I have done that. When Mike died and when my dad died I was an awful griever. I didn't know what to do, I was young and felt responsible to be strong for my parents. Losing my mom has been different. I have grieved hard. I have missed her and cried openly about it. I talk about it to my husband and my kids. I have written about it on here. I call her friends. I do what I need to do. I don't know that it has made me stronger, It's just the way I am doing it this time. I am older. I no longer have to be strong for my parents. I don't have to hide my sadness.

I am so lucky that I loved them. I am so fortunate that they loved me. I thank God all the time that I had the time with them that I did. I became an orphan at 41, some people are born that way. I had a great childhood. I had two parents that loved me and loved each other. I had a big brother that hung the moon. What more could a girl ask for?

For all of you that still have your parents, that still have your siblings, hug them today. Tell them you love them. If there is family rift, fix it. Do what you have to do. Life is so short. If there would have been tension/strife/bad feelings with any of my loved ones I don't know what I would have done. Never take for granted the people you love.

xoxo

For My Girls.

If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that the whole reason I started writing was for my girls, (and my niece and nephew). Quite some time ago it became apparent to me how our memories can play tricks on us. You can take two people from the same family, sit them down and ask them to relay a specific family memory to you and you will get two completely different stories. Two people that were at the same place at the same time and suddenly it's as though they weren't there together at all. It used to happen to me and my mom all the time. It still happens with me and my broher Danny from time to time. It's human nature. We all walk away from a situation having learned/felt/seen something different than the person right next to us.
The other thing our memories can do is be selective. Sometimes we remember a time in our lives where perhaps things were tough and even though during this time we might have experienced a lot of joy and laughter it's hard to remember those times when the sad/stressful times so easily overshadow those happy days.
While I can't change how my girls will remember specific incidences or situations I can help them remember the good times. It is my job to help them remember the good times.
As most of you know the last year or two has been pretty difficult for our family, as it has been for so many countless Americans living through this recession. Sometimes I worry that Allison and Gianna are going to look back on all of it and only remember the tears. Only remember the struggle. I hate that. So I am here today to write to them specifically and give them a place to come back to so that they know that underneath all of this we have had some really good times together. So here it goes, a letter to my sweet daughters.

Dear Allison and Gianna,
Here it is February 15th. Almost exactly 3 months since we made this huge move to the complete other side of the country. I know that it has been hard for both of you. I know that some days the pain of missing your "home" is unbearable. I see it in your faces. I hear it in your voices when you talk to your friends from home. I also know that sometimes I feel the same way. But in spite of all of that pain and sorrow we are getting through this together. Every day that we have spent in Virginia has brought us so much closer together as a family. It has brought the two of you so much closer as sisters. You hang out together more, you are getting along better. It makes me so happy to see it. A while back I wrote a blog post about how I wanted people to see the other side of this, that even though I mostly write about the difficult parts we have so much fun. We are one of the silliest, funniest families I know. We are constantly making up crazy dances for each other and using our country accents on each other.
I keep telling both of you that this time in our life is a great experience. It is difficult at times, their is no doubt about that but at the same time we are getting to experience what it is like to live on the other side of the country, what it's like to live where it snows, to get to know new people, and to live so close to Washington DC and to also be surrounded by so much American History. While these things might not seem like a big deal to you now someday you are going to look back on this and be so glad we did it. Whether we move back to California in a couple years or we move somewhere else, this will have been an experience that we had together. It has made us stronger as individuals and as a family too.
All I want is for you two to look back on this time in our lives not as a sad, or depressing time because you miss your "home" and your friends but as an opportunity. An opportunity to make a new "home" and new friends. Most importantly I want you to remember it as the time in our lives that we took a really bad situation and we made it better. Together as a family. I love you both so much and I am so lucky to have you as my daughters. Between losing grandma and not having made any friends here yet you two have been here to fill in those gaps for me and I will be forever grateful. I have the best two daughters in the world.
Love,
Mom

Not just accepting... embracing.

This has been a good week. It is getting easier to be here. I am starting to feel like we can make it work. The week started off a little rough on Monday, I was missing my mom something awful. Allison was missing her friends horribly. We both shed some tears and we got through it.
Chris and I went on a date one night in DC. It was only the second time since we moved here that I have been there, it's amazing. I think that was actually the night that it hit me. This is an opportunity. This is a chance for me, Chris and the kids to experience new things. For us to learn how to live outside of our comfort zone. While we were in the city we drove by the White House. I wasn't there on vacation, I wasn't on a field trip from California. I was out to dinner with my husband and we were cruising by the White House. That? is really cool. I love that we live in this little Mayberry-esque town and one short(ish) trip on the freeway and we are in the Nation's Capitol! I grew up very close to Los Angeles so the big city part is not a huge deal but the fact that this is where the President of the United States lives, no matter what your political feelings/beliefs are is pretty stinkin cool.
Friday during the day I met my friend Debi at a shopping mall and we spent the afternoon walking around talking and we went to lunch. It was great to see her. Debi is one of my best friends from high school. When we knew we were moving here it brought me great comfort knowing she wouldn't be too far away. She unfortunately lives about 45 minutes to an hour away, she works full time and she has three very busy boys so our time together isn't as often as I would like but it's great when we are able to spend some time together. We go back 25 years, there truly is nothing like history like that. The funny thing is as far as Debi lives from me it's still closer than I have lived to any of my high school friends in 19 years. Isn't that funny, I lived in California all that time and so did most of my friends but by living in the desert I was about 2 hours away from everyone. I never thought of it that way.
Friday night Gianna and I went to Family Bingo Night at her school. It was a fundraiser and it was awesome. I am so glad we went. We had a great time together and she kept saying how much fun it was when we left. I didn't make any friends or meet any new parents but we sat with her friend's parents that I already know and spent some time getting to know them better.
Saturday during the day we went to a wrestling tournament for Debi's son. I can honestly say that we truly enjoyed ourselves. I love getting to know Debi's kids after all these years so when we spend time together with our families it's always fun.
Saturday night we were invited to dinner at one of Chris's co-worker's homes. It was nice. The home was beautiful, the food was good and the company was really nice. It was nice to talk to his wife because she moved here from Florida a few years ago so she can relate to so much that I (we) are going through.
Today was Superbowl Sunday. I am not a huge football fan, but who doesn't like Superbowl Sunday? I cooked as if we were having a few people over and we pretended like it was a party. Chicken wings, sliders and a few different dips.... it was perfect.

With all of that being said I know that I am not completely "cured" of my homesickness. I know that there are going to be days when I so desperately want to go home, but for now I am ok. I still can't wait to get out of this house and I am counting down the days until our lease is up. I spend a little bit of time on the computer every day looking for a different house, but that's ok, it gives me something to do.
This whole experience is a life lesson. There is not one day that goes by that I am not 100% aware of that. I know that we are here for a reason and I know that we are growing and learning every day. No matter what happens I will always be grateful for our time in Virginia. It has brought us closer together as a family, it is bringing my girls closer together every day and it is making me appreciate my husband more and more every day. I am a happy girl.

Acceptance...

A week ago or so I came on here and wrote a post. I was angry. I was irritated. I was sad. I hated it here. I wanted to change it. I wanted to leave so badly. I wanted to go back to California right then. Here is the thing. I hated it in California. I was miserable there. I couldn't wait to get out, counted the days to our new life. I had high hopes and set my expectations way too high. Now I am here and I need to learn to accept it. It is something I have always struggled with. I used to drive my parents crazy. I couldn't ever be happy with what I was doing, the job I had, the boy I was dating... whatever it was I wanted to change it. It's how I roll. I don't know why it is so hard for me to accept things the way they are. It is something I am very aware of in my own personality and try sometimes to change it and at other times hold steadfast to my decisions to change things, justify them and do everything I can to make everyone around me understand why it needs to be changed. That is the other thing about me. I want validation in everything I do. I want everyone that I love and care about to climb on the Nina bandwagon. I love it when people agree with me. I get totally irritated when they don't. I know it's irrational. I know it sounds childish and ridiculous. I didn't say it's something I like about myself I just said it's something about me.

 Moving to Virginia was kind of an irrational leap of faith. It wasn't my decision alone, I swear I did not "talk" my family into this. I didn't have to. Our situation in California was getting ugly. The kids even knew something had to change. I just don't think that any of us realized how big of a change this would be until we got here. I think we were all so desperate for change and something better that we just jumped in with both feet and then we got here and were like "hmm, this is harder than we thought." I also think that in our minds Chris and I thought moving would make so many other things better. Financially I just thought we would be right on track. I didn't realize a cross country move was going to be so expensive that it would take us 3 or 4 months to even get on our feet.

After I wrote my last post I have done a lot of thinking. The first day I sat around and cried. ALOT. Cried for all the things I missed about home. Cried for my mom. Cried for my kids missing their friends. Cried for my husband and how stressed he is at his new job and all the pressure he feels to make this work.
The next few days after that I made mad plans to move back to California. I got on my own bandwagon and schemed a way for us to get back in 18 months. Seriously 18 months. Who does that? Who moves their whole lives across the country and then 2 months into says "we are going back." I do. Again, I know it's crazy but it is how I roll always. Then I thought some more and I realized I need to do things different this time. This time I need to accept my (our) decision to move here and I need to STOP trying to get my family on the Nina bandwagon and I need to make the best of this. We are here. It is our new home. Like it or not. I believe that everything happens for a reason and we are here for a reason. We just don't know what that is yet. It might take a year before we know what it is. It might be 20 years from now that we look back on this and say "thank God we moved to Virginia otherwise we would have never (fill in the blank). I am learning to be ok with that. I am learning to accept this decision. I am doing my best to embrace our new state and all that it has to offer. I can't wait to start working in real estate and learn more about that aspect of Virginia as well. There is so much to learn and see. I am not saying that we are never moving back to California or moving anywhere else for that matter I am just saying that for now this is where we are and we are here together and I am going to be the best wife and mom I can be while I am here and I will promise to teach my kids that we need to see all the good in what has happened to us and not focus on the negative.

Yesterday we had our first big snow since we have been here. It was awesome. It is beautiful and peaceful and fun. We took a ton of pictures and we shoveled and we played in it and we truly enjoyed the new experience of it. I am so glad that my kids are getting the chance to experience new things. I love that they can add this to their life list of things they have done. They are actually spending more time together and I love that too. My girls are 5 years apart so they have never really been "friends" just sisters. Gianna looks up to her big sister so much that sometimes it makes my heart ache to see it. I worry about how she loves her so much and wants to be her so much. I so want her to have her own identity and learn to love herself that much. It reminds me of how I was with my brother Mike and I just hope that Allison realizes someday how much everything she does and says effects Gianna. I think that moving here has helped their relationship so much and I am so grateful for that.

 I am closing with pictures from the last two days. Get a blanket out before you look at them, they might make you want to snuggle up!

that is me getting to know the snow shovel.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but...

I feel as though I haven't been honest on here lately. I feel as though I have been candy coating some things. I do it partly for myself and partly for my kids and my husband. This is hard. Moving this far and doing it with two kids and uprooting them is super hard. We are working on it and I am honest about that. But here is the real deal. I have been here since October 16th. I have not made one friend. I need you to understand something if you don't know me. I can make a friend on a deserted island. It's who I am, I am approachable, I make conversations with strangers everywhere I go. Not one person has made me feel comfortable enough to open up to. It's so not what I expected. I really, truly thought the people would be much friendlier. They aren't. Today I took Allison and her friend to Subway for lunch and I was ordering the veggies for my sandwich, I was listing them all, "lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, pepperoncinis..." she looked at me like I was from another planet and said in a snotty, irritated manner "uh, you mean banana peppers" I am not kidding you she was irritated. Who the hell cares what I call them? I am from California, I am Italian and where I come from they are frickin pepperoncinis. That is pretty much how everybody has treated me. Bothered. Irritated. What happened to southern hospitality? Don't these people know how bad I needed this? How much I wanted this move? How I couldn't wait to get here and start our new life. Oh and have I mentioned that not ONE woman/mother in the neighborhood has introduced themselves. NOT ONE.
The friend issue is not my only issue. The other problem I am having is that I hate this house. I HATE this house, it's small. It feels dirty no matter what I do. It is not what I expected either. I will never rent a home online sight unseen again. Pictures aren't always true. Real estate agents aren't always forthcoming. It is not what I would have picked by a long shot. I know in the pictures it looks fine, but that is because that is what I wanted to show. I didn't take pictures of the yucky parts, I only took pictures of the things I like. We have to live here for another 16 months. I am sure it will fly by but I can tell you right now that the countdown has begun and even on my blackberry calendar I get a countdown update at the first of every month.

I am not writing this because I want sympathy, please, please do not comment on here or on facebook and tell me how great it is going to be "someday".I so appreciate all the support but again I am in one of those places mentally/emotionally where the last thing I want is a pep talk.  I wrote this tonight because if someone read my blog and thought that this was easy I wanted to be clear. There is nothing easy about this. Moving across country, while still struggling financially, with two kids, without a job, not owning your own home... it's not easy. Does that mean I hate it? No, absolutely not. It is a life experience and someday I will appreciate it and what it has taught me, Chris and the kids. I am proud of us for doing it. I often wake up and think 'holy cow I live in Virginia, how did this happen?' I look forward to the day when it's not hard. I am excited for the time when I can host some kind of gathering at my house with new friends. This Tuesday I start a real estate course to get my license. I would have never done that in California. I think it is going to open lots of doors for me and start a wonderful new chapter in my life.
Thanks for letting me vent. I really do love all the support you all offer me. This blog has saved my life in some ways. My inner circle has dwindled and having here to come to and be able to have strangers, or people I haven't spoken to in years support me it's been wonderful.

Snow days, sick days and weekends too.

Today I am home with a sick little girl. Gianna has asthma and if there is something going around she gets it. Not only does she get it but she usually gets it 5 times worse than everybody else. Poor baby. As I sit here and type her nebulizer is humming in the background. Second treatment today and lots of medicine and she still feels and looks so sick. I hate it. When I was a little girl and I was sick my dad used to say "poor baby, I wish it was me" I never understood it, I thought he was crazy, why would anyone want to be sick? But now I know, as a parent watching your kid be sick, struggle to breathe, be lethargic when they are usually so full of energy is heartbreaking and if you could be sick for them you would in a heartbeat.

Yesterday was a snow day. I am slowly beginning to learn that "snow days" here don't necessarily mean that it is snowing out, it just merely means there is a chance of snow or maybe it snowed the night before. It is so funny, we only got about an inch and the kids stayed home from school. It was practically all melted before school would have even been out. It's okay though, at this point my days are long and lonely when the kids are at school so any chance of having them home with me is good for me.

I have been working on some Valentine's Day projects lately with the intent to list them on etsy but never seem to get around to the listing part. Then something comes up and I end up giving the things that I make away as gifts to teachers or someone else. Oh well as long as they go to a good cause. Here are a few things I have made so far.

I think part of the reason that I never list anything is because I can never take great pictures of them like so many of the sellers on etsy do. I have photo intimidation! Oh well they have given me something to do, I love making things and it keeps me busy.

I can't believe it's already Thursday and I never blogged about my weekend. Sundays for us have been spent exploring our new home state. We literally have been getting in the car and just driving. We usually have an idea of where we want to end up but at the same time leave the house knowing that we will probably end up other places too. It's all new to us so we are happy to find new places. This time we set out to Charlottesville. My brother Randy had suggested it and said he and his family loved it so we figured we would check it out. There seemed to be a lot to do/see. Monticello, the home of  Thomas Jefferson is there and also the University of Virginia. It took us about an hour and half to get there but the drive there was traffic free, scenic and fun. The town itself is really cool, typical college town but yet this town has so much history too so it made it really special. The only problem with this town? It just about shuts down on Sunday. Not one restaurant was open, it was so unbelievably cold outside that walking around was ridiculous. So we quickly piled back in the car and headed to... Ikea. Yes, from historical town to a mega European furniture store. On the way to Ikea we did make a side stop at Montpelier. It is the home of James Madison, 4th president of the United States and the father of the Declaration of Independence. It was stunning. It was so cool. Gianna especially loved it. She kept thanking us for bringing her there and saying how glad she was that we stopped. We learned some interesting things just by driving around the grounds and by visiting the gift shop. Did you know that James Madison wrote George Washington's inaugural speech? Isn't that crazy?

We had a great day. I think Chris told me 3 different times over the next couple of days how much fun he had on Sunday. Things have been stressful around here for so long that we truly have learned to cherish the good times. With everything that we have been through in the last two years or so the good times are so appreciated.

Well my sick little girl needs me now so I am going to call it a post. In just a few days I start my real estate course to get my license. I am super excited and can't wait. I look forward to sharing my experience on here. 

Big Dreamer

I am a dreamer. I am forever coming up with ideas of things that I want to do for a living, businesses I want to open, jobs I want to look for... but to no avail. I never follow through. I have pretty severe ADD. When I say pretty severe, I kind of test off the charts. I was first diagnosed when I was 23. I didn't do anything about it for many, many years. I didn't believe in medicine. I didn't think I needed it. I felt that I had gone so long living this way that I could keep doing it. The biggest misconception of people with attention deficit disorder (not quite the same as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is that we are lazy. That we lack motivation. It's so the opposite. Our minds never stop working. Years ago there was a commercial for an ADD medication and the commentator comes on and says "do you feel like there is a remote control in your mind and it never stops changing channels." That is how we live. Non stop thinking, non stop planning. But because we never stop in our minds it's almost impossible to follow through with something, because our minds have already moved on to the next thing. Two years ago I finally chose to medicate. I decided to try adderall. It changed my life. I was a different person. I was making lists. I was checking things off of those lists. I had never, ever been so organized. At the same time my daughter Gianna was diagnosed and we also put her on the medication. I have two daughters. One who has ADD and one who is so far from having it that it's not even funny. Allison is organized, she plans, she prepares she is always ready for what is next. She doesn't like to not know what is going to happen tomorrow. Gianna is so much like me. She hates to plan for anything. She wants to always fly by the seat of her pants. She gets emotional and stressed out at the thought of doing homework, yet she is a super smart kid. I see her struggle, I know how hard this is to live with. It is like you are forever self sabotaging. Gianna and I started taking the medication at the same time. It changed her also. It helped so much, but it was also a little difficult for her to take. The amphetamine in the medication can make you have some severe mood swings and if you are not able to handle/control them it can be difficult. Her grades were up, her focus was unbelievable but she was an emotional wreck. Our two prescriptions together were costing a fortune, we could no longer afford them and we decided to let it go. Gianna was kind of relieved but almost immediately began struggling in school.
The reason I am telling this part of my story is because I am at a point in my life where I really need to figure things out. I am almost 42 years old and I feel as though I still am trying to find myself. Find my niche. There are some things that I love to do. Some things that I am really pretty good at. But unfortunately with ADD it is so hard to stay focused on any one thing long enough to really succeed.
For the better part of my life I have worked with children. It comes natural to me. The environment is a little different every day. I don't have to sit a desk and look at a computer all day. I love the interaction with the kids and the parents. The only problem is my patience isn't what it once was. My drive isn't what it once was, I have experienced major burn out in the field in the last year. I am ready for something new.
Over the years I have taken random breaks from teaching to work in other fields. Mostly sales. I am a people person, I am so much like my dad that way. I am absolutely in my happy place talking to people, hearing their story, trying to get to know them, to find a common denominator between them and myself. I love showing them, or selling them something that they will love. For a short time I worked at a tile/stone showroom. I loved that job so much. I could tap into my creative side, I love design, I love homes. It was a perfect fit. It was a high pressure, commission driven job but I loved it. Unfortunately the owners of the company didn't like that I spoke my mind when I saw something wasn't right. They loved that my sales were high, they hated my big mouth. It was the first job I had ever been fired from. I was devastated. It was humbling, and it shook me to my core. It was an eye opening experience and I learned a lot from it.
Having said all that I think that I am ready to go back into the sales world. This time I want to sell homes. I am going to get my real estate license. It's a short course, I really feel like I could follow through with this. I feel like I have to follow through with it. It would be a great way for me to meet people here in our new town, it would be a great way to learn more about the area and most of all it will be a great way to make money and still be with my kids when they need me.
Tomorrow morning I have a meeting at a real estate office to talk about a job at their office and to see about taking the course. I am excited. I am nervous. I am ready.
I want to do this for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is to show my kids that even though I have this issue I can see something through. I want Gianna to see that I worked hard and reached a goal. I want to be able to inspire her. I do not want her to be a 40 something year old woman still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up.
I look forward to tomorrow and all the promise that this next step in my life will bring.

2010 - A Year In Review...

January - My search for my new brother began. I spent my evenings glued to my computer and people finding websites trying to find out pieces of information that would lead me to him. It wasn't too long before one thing lead me to another and next thing I knew I had his address and was writing him a letter.

February - I heard back from my brother! What an amazing night that was. I will never forget calling my mom and saying "mom, I got an email from Randy" That conversation changed everything. It changed our relationship. It brought us so much closer.

March - I started this blog. I can't even remember what made me do it other than telling my story for my kids. Here I am all these months later and I have to be honest, it's for my kids... but for me too. It has brought me so much joy and peace.

April - I met my brother. My family and his family all had lunch together. It was the most surreal experience I had ever had. I sat across the table from him searching his face for similarities, trying to look for traces of me, my mom and Mike. We had a great time. It ended up being a four hour lunch! The kids had so much fun meeting their new cousins.
This was also the month that my mom's health took a horrible turn. She spent some time in the hospital and then came home a different woman. No longer able to care for herself or do the basic tasks I became her full time care giver, I was still working full time but it was the only choice I had so I did it, I am so glad I did. The next 6 weeks of my life were the most difficult I have ever had but I wouldn't change it for the world.

May - We lost my mom. Watching my mom die was so hard. Taking care of her was easy compared to seeing this woman so strong, so determined to take such a turn. My mom's health had not been good for many, many years that is why she lived with us. In my heart I feel that part of the reason she held on for so long is because she couldn't stand the fact that she had this secret she had kept from me and she was trying to figure out how to tell me. When she saw pictures of Randy, when she knew that all was ok, and that he didn't hate her and that he and I had a good relationship that is when she started to let go. She was a strong, brave woman who had been through so much and I am so grateful for the time that I had with her in my home, it was difficult at times but also brought us so much closer together.

June - No sooner had I gone back to work and it was time to say goodbye to the most perfect Kindergarten class in the world. There were only 7 of them but they were amazing. We had the best year. I used to say it was like a love fest in there every day! I hated to see those kids go, I hated to see those parents go! But they were getting bigger and in spite of my protests they had to move on to first grade. Man do I miss them.

July - This was the beginning of the end. Fourth of July weekend was our last weekend in Orange County. It was our last time at a hotel. It was when we found out about Chris's pay cut and when we realized that with that pay cut we would no longer be able to afford to live in our home. It was a horrible, stressful, sad month. I started to pull back completely from so many friends and family. Tired of telling our story, tired of always sounding like a downer, I just wanted to be at home with my family.

August - Chris's job search began. We really thought we would stay in California. Really started focusing on the Orange County area or Murietta/Temecula. We started to spend our evenings on the computer looking for jobs and homes.

September - Back to school. Gianna started 5th grade and Allison started 10th. It seems like this all just happened yesterday. They were both so happy to be going back to school. Summers in the desert can be brutal and boring, when your family is broke and trying to keep everything together it can be depressing too. My kids needed to get back to school just to get out of the house. We all started the new school year knowing that there was a big possibility that we weren't going to be in the desert for much longer. It made this time very bittersweet for my kids. By the end of the month Chris was already in Virginia interviewing for the job.

October- What a big month for the Britton family. Three birthdays and one daddy moving cross country. Allison turned 15 on October 3rd and the next day her dad left to move to Virginia. By leaving when he did Chris spent his own 40th birthday 3,000 miles away from his friends and family. He missed his youngest daughter's birthday and his oldest daughter being crowned homecoming princess. Sacrifices were big, tears were being shed every day but it was something we knew we had to do.

November - The frantic rush to get the house packed up and get me and the girls to Virginia began. I was working full time, getting the kids everywhere they needed to go and coordinating a cross country move by myself. I had never, ever been so stressed in my life. It is a time I would never want to go back to and an experience I wouldn't wish on anybody. Saying goodbye to all my friends and family in California was so difficult. Missing my husband was so difficult. Watching my girls have to say goodbye to everyone and everything they had ever known, excruciating.
On November 16th we arrived in Virginia and slowly but surely things started to get better. It was not as easy as I thought it would be, but we were doing it and we were doing it together.

December - Oh December. What a month this has been. The first Christmas without my mom. The first Christmas in Virginia, without all of our friends and family. No big Christmas Eve party as was tradition in our family forever. No money for Christmas gifts. Two kids who were missing their friends and family so much that it hurt their mommy to see it on their faces.
All I know is thank God for old friends. One of my best friends from high school lives about an hour away from us and she and her family came over for Christmas eve. I don't know what we would have done without them.

This year will go down as the hardest year in my life. I will never forget it. I have grown so much as a person. Changed so much as a mother and a wife. My family has become so much more important to me than ever before. They were always important, but when you go through the experiences we have it brings you closer, or it can tear you apart. I am so grateful that for us it was the former.
I miss my mom every single day. I miss my friends and family every single day. But I also wake up every day knowing that this is where we are supposed to be. Big things are going to happen for us here. We have so many angels watching over us and so many people here on earth rooting for us, the support has been amazing. I end this year a grateful woman. Grateful for my friends, my family and my life.

Happy New Year!

What I wish you could see...

I love writing. I love telling my story. It has been so therapeutic for me during these trying times. The support that so many of you have given me has been wonderful. But sometimes I worry, sometimes I think I am too honest, I tell too much. I look back at some of my blog posts and I think 'hmm, I really sound so whiny, or I sound like I am a really unhappy, stressed person. I know that my honesty has helped some people, I have received numerous inbox messages and comments that have said as much, I have even been approached in person and told how much me telling my story has helped someone feel comfortable with their own story. That means the world to me. At the same time I have upset family members by telling too much, I have offended people with my words when I have simply tried to stick up for myself or explain myself. I hate that part of it. I don't like controversy, I am not comfortable with conflict.
 My favorite blogger in the world, the woman who inspired me is Kelle Hampton and what I have loved about her is her great attitude. She has the ability to look adversity in the face and turn it on its ass. I love that. I want to be that.
What I want people to know is that while my story is real, and the consequences of losing loved ones and of losing everything we worked so hard for is not always an easy story to tell nor has it been easy to go through, our lives are good. We are a happy family who laughs together every single day. Not a day goes by that one of us does not make the others laugh so hard that our stomachs hurt. We are a family who values communication and does their very best to always be honest and tell each other how we are feeling. We love each other so much and tell each other every single day that we do. When I sit down to write I lose myself in the rest of it. I probably don't convey well enough how good my life is. I am so lucky to have these two amazing daughters who are so acutely aware of everything we have been through, who are so understanding when every day the words "we can't afford it" come out of our mouths for one reason or another. They have such faith in their father and myself that these things are going to get better. Not one time since we told them that we were moving 3,000 miles away from their friends have they complained about it. They have had moments when they have been sad about it, no doubt but they haven't complained, they haven't made us feel bad. That to me is huge, it shows me that they have full confidence in their parents and that they know that a brighter, better future is in the works for us. I love that. I couldn't ask for more.
I am also so fortunate to have the marriage that I have. It's not perfect, it has it's ups and downs but for the most part my husband and I are always so in sync with each other. In almost 17 years of marriage we have been through so much and we stand by each other through all of it. Chris has been so supportive of me in spite of my inability to figure out what I want to be when I grow up... at 41 years old. He is also so supportive of this blog. I know I have said way more on here than he is comfortable with, I have literally let all my readers in on all of our most private issues. Sometimes I picture him reading what I have written and I cringe at the thought, hoping that he won't be upset. He never is, or if he is he doesn't say anything.
I just wanted to make sure that anyone who stumbles across my blog or has been following me since the beginning knows that here in the Britton home we are all good. We are looking adversity in the face and turning it on its ass.
The new year is almost here and I am more than positive that with it will come so many good things. I know that together this family is going to do great things, and while we are doing them we will laugh and do really stupid dances together. That is the what I want you to see on this blog in 2011. (well not the stupid dances thing, cause I have to tell you they are super embarrassing) but I want you to see that we are happy and strong. We love each other so much and we will stand together no matter what.

We did it.

It's December 26th. Christmas has come and gone and we did it. We made it through our first Christmas without our traditions, without our family and in our new home. We did it without too much drama, without too many tears being shed. It wasn't that bad. It honestly felt so different that it kind of didn't even feel like Christmas and that is a good thing.

Christmas eve we had my girlfriend Debi (from high school, who lives an hour away) and her family over. It was so much fun. We spent Thanksgiving with them too and we are so grateful to have them here. She has three sons and they get along well with our girls. The five kids even walked down to Main St. (even though it was freezing out!) together. There was lots of food, lots of laughs and so much fun.

Trying to get this family of 5 to all be serious and smile at the same time is impossible! That is why we love them!

Having Debi and her family here has offered me so much comfort. In high school we were very best friends, spent so much time together. Went to all of our dances together, and did a little bit of "traveling together" nothing too far, just enough to really have a great bond. Debi moved out here to Virginia 16 years ago and kind of lost touch with all of us Californians. As soon as we saw each other it was as though no time has past at all. Her kids love that we have a history, they loved looking through my photo albums at all the pictures I had of her, it was fun.

Christmas day is always a mellow day for us, even when we were in California. We usually just have my in laws over for lunch, we make sandwiches and we open presents and then for dinner we would go to a Japanese restaurant. This year we were able to sleep in. (see there is an advantage to Santa Claus not coming!) We woke up and it was snowing, it was perfect. We watched Elf, and then took naps! It was a nice, cozy, lazy morning. When we woke up the snow had stopped and had actually melted. We had leftovers for lunch and then about 4:00 decided to go take a drive. We drove around and looked at neighborhoods that we might want to buy a home in some day. I was so happy to find areas that really felt like "us". Okay truth be told they felt like "California". It is a huge master planned community that was built by my favorite builder in California. It's a beautiful area and the homes were fabulous. It is good to have a goal and it is good to have something to work towards. In keeping with the them of "working" towards something I have decided that I have my bearings enough now to really start actively searching for a job. We need to get out of this hole and with me working too it will surely go faster. I look forward to finding something to being outside of the house and to meeting people. It's time.

As I sit here and type I keep looking outside to see if it's snowing yet, they have been calling for snow since yesterday at this time and still nothing. I see small flurries floating around but I am ready for a full on snow! We want to build a snowman.

I leave you with a couple more pictures of Christmas Eve. Next time you hear from me it will be all about the new year!! I can't wait. I am so ready for 2011. It is our time. It is time for all of us who were hit so hard by this recession, who have lost loved ones and have made major changes in their lives to have a great year. We are ready and waiting, bring it on!