What a week!

So as you can see by looking at my posts, I have been neglecting my duties.  I have not been on my blog this past week hardly at all.  I missed my favorite day, Tuesday, thus missing my Ten on Tuesday entry, and only did a quick entry to let you all know I was still alive with pictures of what I was looking at while participating in a new adventure, crabbing, on Wednesday evening.  So here is all that has been occurring   If you are new to my blog, let me tell you quickly that I live in a summer resort town.  Awesome huh, yeah, most of the time.  Thus begins why this week started as a horrible week, got better and now, well I am just totally wiped out.  Many of my friends from my hometown, about 3 hours away, come down to my area for summer vacation.  For me, this is great.  If they don't stay in my actual home town, they usually stay in an area either 12 miles north or 12 miles south of me.  This week for some reason everyone seemed to be flocking for vacation at one time.  I was so excited.  Well then my bubble burst.  No one was returning my calls, my text messages, my facebook posts, anything.  I thought, what the heck did I do?  If you would know me, you would understand, I am the person that always worries about everyone, that always put forth the extra effort, that worked the hardest to make things work.  Now, I felt like since I was not around my hometown, still working my old job, since I got "sick", since I was not going out of my way to give, I was not good enough.  So now, boy was I mad!!!!   I decided I would just take a ride down to the area where everyone was staying and hope I would run into them.  Of course I did not, so now I was sad too.  Upon getting home, things got worse.  My so called best friend forever, just posted on facebook, that he was at the house of a person who in the past has immensely hurt me, caused major financial stress to my family, added stress to me personally, which we all know as a fibro patient I did not need, then tried to lie to mutual friends and make my husband and I look bad.  Thank goodness, my friends know me and knew she was lying, but still.  So now, I have had enough.  I post, on my facebook page that I have had enough, I have had it with fake friends, trying to keep friendships with people that don't have the time for me, that I will no longer be putting myself out on a limb if you can not meet me half way.  At this point, I am giving you a chance to remove yourself from my friends list and my life with no hard feelings, before I do it myself.  Well, of course, my so called BFF felt guilty and called me right away wondering if I was talking about him.  He proceeded to try and explain himself and then when he could not, he tried to twist things around and cause problems, bring up past issues that he thought would make me upset.  Guess what, it did not work.  But, it was still stressful.  So now, one of the most trusted person in my life, showed his true colors.  Down another so called friend.  Now, off goes a whole mess of  "friends" who can not make the 2 minutes for me, and honestly, I am fine with it.  It is the end of the week, and those friends that came down at the beginning of the week for vacation, yup, you guessed it, I still did not meet up with them.  So guess what, apparently they are not friends either.  The one good thing, one of my true friends did come down mid week, to stay at my house.  Her and her family have been at my house and having the time of their lives.  We have spent time together, they have done family things, we have laughed, talked, hung out and just had fun.  Only problem I have, is I have pushed myself to far, trying to keep up.  So now, I am totally wiped out, I have extremely high pain levels and feel like crap, but all in all it is so  worth it.  I did have another friend down I got to meet up with for a few minutes, which also was cool.  Another friend, and her family, are down and  we planned on meeting up. A family emergency interrupted those plans and things did work out.  This is something that does happen.  I am praying for her nephew and asking all that read this, do the same.  He is only 6, almost drown at the age of 1, and has been in a wheelchair and had a tracheotomy since then, had a cardiac arrest while with them only 10 miles from my house on vacation and flown back to my hometown, to the children's hospital.  He is still on life support and we are waiting to see if there is any further brain damage.  See, so we are not the only ones suffering and some are much worse off.  Something I try and remember every day.  So, wow, what a week is an understatement!
The thing I have to say is this, friendship is a two way street.  If your friend does not make the same effort to keep the friendship alive, is it really a friendship?  Do not waste your energy on people like this, or stress yourself out.  You need people that love you, and support you, the same way you do to them.  With the illness that we have, most people don't believe us, treat us different, or simply walk away.  You need to cherish the ones that are there for you, understand (or try to), believe in you, and treat you like they always did.  If they don't, it is time for you to walk away.  It is not easy, abut is anything we do?  Do you need any more stress?  Do you need a friend that only takes and does not give?    I know my life has changed.  I am no longer the constant giver, the over achiever, the perfectionist.  Is this something that is easy for me, hell no!!  Do I still push my self, of course I do! and I do it way more than I should and probably will til the day I die.  I will always be the "mother".  That is the job I believe I was programmed to be when I was born.  But I will tell you, I now have chosen that I will do that only for those who care enough to care back, and even though it hurts sometimes, I know I am right to do it and all it all, it is better for me.  I will always help people any way I can, but I won't hurt me in the process.

A quick hello!

Hi Everyone, I truly hope you are feeling well enough to spend some time celebrating July 4th weekend with friends and family.  I am doing just that.  Wearing my self out in the process and reaching pain levels I did not know where possible, but hey, it is a holiday and we have friends down I don't get to see often. Plus my oldest son is here and except for a slight melt down tonight, everyone is getting along and having a great time.   You do have to expect some minor altercations when you bring family together. If you have a family that can stay under the same roof, that normally does not, add in a few more extra people and do not have any issues, I desperately would love your secret!!!!  We had an awesome picnic tonight, grilled some hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken breasts.  Then had home made Amish Macaroni salad, homemade cucumber and onion salad, cole slaw, fresh from the farm tomatoes and corn on the cob.  Lots of conversation and laughter.  How can you beat it.  Well let me tell you how, you celebrate a birthday!!  Last year we were on vacation at this time, in Ocean City, Maryland.  Well it just so happens as of August last year I relocated to Selbyville, Delaware just about 20 minutes away from Ocean City.  Then in February was relocated again to Bethany Beach, De.  I am now living exactly 10 miles from the Apartment building where we stayed on vacation last year.  So this year, most of the people that came on vacation with us, came to stay at my house instead of somewhere else this week.  Even though we won't be here for the exact birth date, we started a tradition and wanted to continue it this year.  So we decided celebrating the birthday was going to be part of our weekend.  Last year, we snuck and my husband and I decorated a cake for a girl who we now count as our daughter.  She is actually the fiance' of a friend of ours son.  He too is thought by us to be our son, so of course we love his fiance just as much as we love him.  So this year we decorated her birthday cake again.  I love to decorate cakes.  It truly is a passion of mine.  One that I can do fairly limitedly now do to pain and lessening strength in my hands, so when I get a chance to do one, and my husband is around to help, we jump at it.  Of course like last year, it had to be a beach themed cake.  For heaven's sake we are "vacationing" at the beach.  Last year we did not have it quite so easy, since we had to bake the cake and transport it from Pennsylvania to the vacation destination, keep it a secret, and then decorate it in a unfamiliar kitchen with none of our regular tools, since of course, half way here I realized I had forgotten all my decorating necessities on the table in my kitchen at home.  This year we had a better time, in our own home with the right stuff, making the cake.  We made rice krispie treats in the shape of a sand castle, using sand toys, and graham cracker crumbs for sand.  We had goldfish graham crackers for our fish in the ocean and used taffy to make a beach ball and beach towels.  We had a ball making it, and just as much fun eating it.  The best part, Mandy loved it.  So here is a picture of the cake, my hands and arms hurt like crazy, I am incredibly wiped out, but for the smiles and fun we had, it is all worth it.

Sometimes it is just all worth it in the end when you get a smile.  Now, we have to start thinking about how we are going to top it next year.  Please take time to enjoy your holiday.  Remember those fighting for our freedom.  Be thankful for the flag and what it stands for.  Be kind to yourself, rest, do not push to much, and just let it happen.  Gentle Hugs and Happy 4th of July!