Tag: exes

Love, Text, and an iPhone

On By AngeliaIn In the lives of children, Into the Blender we go- Wee!19 Comments

We discovered on long car rides the best antidote for entertainment is not to install an expensive dual headrest TV/DVD players for the children, but to simply surrender hand-over our iPhones.

It works wonders to keep the peace. There is music, games, and a camera. A gazillion options of fun. There is no fighting in the back seat and the only worry is how many car chargers do we have if those suckers run out of juice.

On this particular road excursion, last November, the car ride home took four hours and could best be described as – most blissful car trip EVER!

iPhone!

Then something crazy cool happened…….

My oldest step-daughter (age six at the time) taught herself how to text. The little booger was reading at age four. Spelling at age three. It wasn’t too surprising that she easily figured out the icon, the key pad, and the art of texting. Mostly because of her older step-sister sitting next to her who can text a billion messages a minute and holster the phone in her back pocket without blinking an eye.

I must admit, when I first read the text, I was confused. Why would Jason text me while driving? More importantly, why would he text me while driving and while I was sitting next to him? The message was from Jason. Then, I remembered who had his phone. I took a peek at the backseat and heard a giggle. That’s when I figured it out and replied back.

Our conversation went like this.

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With each reply, the giggles increased, and dang if she wasn’t pretty fast at texting too.

I was completely enamored. They are the sweetest messages!

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As sweet as a bowl of chocolate Cheerios in a heart-shaped bowl. My little text buddy.

These precious little pearls of devotion are what will get me through those days (like Mondays) and step-daughter teen years. I latch onto these nuggets – knowing the future is shaky in blended families – and cherishing the good times. Someday – I might hear those knife-through-the-heart phrases; You’re not my mom! I don’t have to do what you say! I don’t love you!

I will read this.

I will remember.

I will save it forever.

A picture of love via iPhone.

She told me this Sunday (which I heard was un-officially Step-Mom’s Day?) that if it was or wasn’t….she would do anything for me. Really? Anything???? Anything.

I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Way too tempting! Foot massages, cleaning, and laundry. Oh the possibilities!

This girl has the purest of intentions when it comes to sharing her adorations. She is such a treasure.

The funniest (and scariest) thing about the text messages that night? Well, Jason and I got to wondering……..if she was smart enough to text me…….. Was she smart enough to text anyone else? And if she did? Who?

Yeah.

About that.

She DID text someone else.

Her Mom.

Jason’s ex-wife.

Thankfully, the message wasn’t near as descriptive as mine, because HONESTLY? What would she have possibly thought getting a text message from her now married ex-husband chock full of affection for her? I can only imagine. Ummm, yikes!

When we read the text Molly sent to her, it wasn’t near as bad as we thought. Instead of being downright awkward, it only bordered sheer creepiness.

The text read: Goodnight.

Love, text, and an iPhone.

Don’t you just love technology and super smart children?

Have you ever gotten (or sent) any embarrassing texts?

**this post courtesy of my iPhone photo gallery**

The Not So Nuclear Family’s Christmas Tradition

On By AngeliaIn FAMILY, Into the Blender we go- Wee!, Life is what you make it.19 Comments

A new family tradition was born this past weekend in a very simple situational formula. Because if you take a nuclear family, split the Adam (and Eve), blend, divide, and add a little sugar and sprinkles. You would have our “new” family tradition.

Baking cookies with the ex-wife, all the girls, cousins, and some of the in-laws (or ex-in-laws depending on who you are) including mom-in-law fresh out of the hospital.

It started with a suggestion by Jason’s ex-wife; aka, the girls mom, to begin (try) a new family tradition at Christmas. A baking tradition. I was open to it.

Why?

Well, the cookies of course the kids of course.

Actually, the cousins are very close and it would be nice to gather and bake (or man the oven if you don’t bake-just sayin’) while everyone has fun doing their thing (like the oven) (or taking pictures). Hey, I am not a baker. I am a burner. I am shocked I was in charge of the oven. More shocked that I could work the ovens. Ahem. Only one parchment paper got singed in the making of these cookies. Heh.

The cookies – all three? four? five? dozen(s) – turned out YUM-a-licious. Thanks to the baking and rolling and stirring skills of others. My reward for loaning my kitchen and hosting the Olympic cookie baking event. COOKIES. Yeah!!

I missed a lot of stuff growing up when my mom and dad divorced; like baking cookies with cousins on my dad’s side. I, also, gained a lot by celebrating holidays with my sister and brother’s grandma and dad, who were not blood related to me, but accepted the new extended family (me and my brother from my mom’s second marriage) with open arms.

Maybe, I have taken the best and worst of divorce from my life as a child to help formulate this new branch of togetherness. I like “new” traditions. I like being open to change. To advance and grow as families just as the world changes, advances, and grows.

Blended. Mixed. Extended. Kindred. We are all in this together…..for life! I don’t think it ends at eighteen. These children graduate from college, marry, and have children of their own. It goes on and on. Might as well make the best of it. We can make the best of it.

Salem, Brownie, and Anna dressed and ready to par-tay.

Once every guest was greeted with raised paws and a nose in the proper place. The furry welcoming committee was sent out of the kitchen. Well, except for one fur friend who found a pretty sweet spot in Grandma’s wheelchair and did not MOVE for hours.

Meet Brownie, the cuddle buddy, renamed BrownieSue.

Syd and Aunt Tricia making magic happen.
The makings of a great tradition
A little black & white editing fun.
Yum!
The New Nuclear Family of Today.
I never said NORMAL. Look closely there are issues. HA.

After the chaos of atom bomb sprinkle explosions and gel icing shots. The hazemat team cleared the kitchen. The dogs undressed (some of them). All was quiet. We had the remains of DOZENS of cookies, a grandma and her grand dog still on her lap. A four-year old with her extended/blended/kindred family pet.

Sue and BrownieSue

Cookie bake until you drop, then crawl.

All parties have deemed this day tradition worthy and we can’t wait for next year.

Well…maybe Salem can wait. She looks pretty patient.

What you do think? Should we redefine family relationships? Or let it alone?

Some days

On By AngeliaIn The good the bad and the beautiful61 Comments

Some days,
I’m holding on.

Some days,
I’m letting go.

Some days,
I really wanted those dreams.

Some days,
I dream a new dream.

Some days,
life is not only unfair, but tragic.

Some days,
I feel selfish for thinking that.

Some days,
I don’t want to wake up.

Some days,
I don’t want to sleep.

Some days,
I wonder what else.

Some days,
I wonder what more.

Some days,
All I give away leaves me empty.

Some days,
All I hold dear fills me up.

Some days,
laughter is hiding.

Some days,
I am hiding.

Some days will pass…..

I had some bad news yesterday. In regards to an ongoing saga that is the leftover from ex-husband #2. Seems even now, three years later, he is still finding ways to haunt me. Many scenarios whirled through my head, but one scenario – the possibility of NOT marrying Jason this October. I can’t bring any disaster into his life, including – especially – old financial problems that might be ongoing for another six months. It’s only five months to the wedding day. Even I can do the math.

They are not being resolved the way I like, due to my father’s passing in December which is even MORE heartbreaking. Believe me, I wish he were here, but he is not. The poorest man I ever knew, who lived in the tiniest house I ever saw, simply with no want for luxury in his life, and no complaining either. He left me an insurance policy that had a small amount of money, not a lot, but enough for a nicer wedding, some upgrades to Jason’s house, and maybe help with a few other things. Enough to where, for once in my life, I could breath a little easier and not stress over finances.

But now, the bank wants it for debts from ex #2, the one who lived in a house – FREE – until it foreclosed, despite the fact it would have sold and made a small profit. The one who drove a car, a year and half, while avoiding the repo man and not paying a dime. Of course all these things and more had my name on it, because he had no credit. Now I have no credit either.

According to the lawyers, it doesn’t matter where or how the money materialized. If it was a gift or not. It doesn’t matter how I was broke for years, and years, struggling just to get make ends meet. It doesn’t matter that my dad – laid off from work with a disability – yet still, found a way to pay on that policy every year, despite his dire circumstances. That he saw a way to benefit his children in the only means he could manage, not by life, but in death. All that matters to them is that I have possession of this money and the creditors are due. Fair or not.

And what he left wasn’t about money at all, it was about the sacrifice he made. For someone to take that because of the utter selfishness and discard of another is just not right. To say I am upset is an understatement.

Jason in his wisdom and grounded thought, calmed me down, and I am so grateful for that. Life isn’t fair, but it will work out the way it’s supposed to. It already has. I am no longer psychological abused. I will never be put in that kind of financial situation again. I am gifted the love of a man pure of heart, with kindest of intentions, who wants only the best for me and Sydney with all his heart.

What more could I ask for? No monetary value can be put on that. No bank can take that away.

All I know is….today….. is just one of those days and I will get through it.

Wild Party, Wild Story

On By AngeliaIn Random, Wee Wee Wee all the way home!28 Comments


Back in the early days of living with Sydney’s Dad……this is how we spent our weekends. Our friends would come over we would play drinking fun games. This pic was pre-Syd, pre-marriage taken most likely summer of 1992.

The one in the white shirt with jean shorts waving – that’s Sydney’s Dad Sonny – hi Sonny! Love the 90’s fro.

Most of the people at the table are from Sonny’s work. He worked at Oshman’s in the Six Flags mall. It’s a sporting goods store mainly known as Sports Authority now. A few friends are from my work, a travel agency in Irving. And some are childhood friends (sorry Kristi).

But seriously, are we having a blast or what? Did you find me? I’m the blonde curly smiley person in the back. Yeah, spiral perm maybe?

I am around 21yrs old (maybe younger, shhh). This was our apartment in North Arlington near where Jason lives now. At the time, the Fort Worth Fire hockey team lived there as well. Since minor league hockey was brand new (I think) that was big stuff back then and most likely why we lived there because we were cool like that. (right Sonny?)

This could even be my 21st birthday bash. Who knows? I’m glad to find these pictures because I don’t remember much. 🙂

I’ve lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex for twenty years. I moved around A LOT. But MOST of the twenty was in the Arlington area, where I live now. Arlington back in that day was a town of about half a million and now it’s at least three quarters of a million or quite possibly a million peeps strong.

That’s a lot of peeps. It’s a big place. Getting to point in 3-2-1..Jason lived not far from the party pad. His mom’s house is two streets over where he grew up and would have been living at that time.

I would randomly say as we drove by -there is where I used to live. He surprised me one day by saying, “Me too”. We tried to figure out if we lived there at the same time, if we crossed paths but we didn’t. It was many years later when he lived there.

We did remember the now old movie theater was the exciting new one in our day. It was a big deal when it was built because it was the first all stadium seating. The Target shopping plaza wasn’t half closed but just opened. Time is not kind to these buildings. That area did not thrive.

One day I mentioned Sonny worked at Oshmans. He said, “So did my Mom.” THOSE dates matched. But even more than that, HE worked for Oshmans too, as a teenager. By checking the year and the store, we discovered, not only did Sonny work with his mom, HE worked with Sonny too. Woah!

I am not kidding. Jason and I are three and half years apart. When I was 20 he was a clerk at Oshmans around 16 1/2 years old. This conversation is taking place a few months after we started dating and it’s blowing my mind.

His brother worked at the same store. I thought his brother sounded more familiar than he did, it seemed likely we had met back in the day. We had lunched with him a few weeks back but I couldn’t say for sure that I knew him.

Jason worked in the shoe department. I tried to remember seeing him, picturing him at someone’s knees with a pair of Nikes. Here is a picture of Jason around the age of working at Oshmans with my ex-husband.

I have a snapshot memory of him being behind the gun counter. I don’t know if it’s real or imagined. Still…I really met Jason long, long ago? Really? Well, apparently, and his brother too. After they went off to be in the Marines. Sonny continued working with Jason’s mom for many, many years.

What makes this story wilder than the party? Well as we are having this conversation, I pull out some old photos. We discover the three above. I say, “See, it’s the apartments by your house where we had the parties during your Oshman days. Do you recognize anyone? Most are from the Six Flags mall store.”

You could say that he did. The guy in the PINK shirt in all three pictures, brownish hair in a mullet cut (popular in the 90’s, don’t judge). Jason’s brother Todd in all his party day glory (love ya brother-these pics are priceless).

Can we all hold hands and sing?

It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small, small world.

My future family and I crossed paths eons ago. How WILD is that?