It's 1:oo in the morning. In June. What's on my mind? Christmas cards.
I was thinking about if it is still proper to sign my son's name to birthday and Christmas cards. He graduated from college, lives in another state, and is financially independent. I can't even claim him on income taxes, so can I, or should I, sign his name on cards?
By not signing his name, will people wonder,"What happened to DJ? " or will they realize it was time to let him sign his own cards. Will they think he's rude when he doesn't sign a card, because he likely won't send one? Such a dilemma.
Which turns to the next 1:00 in the morning worry. The Christmas card photo. We just returned from a family vacation. It was the first time all four of my kids were together in a year. I must have had them pose two dozen different times for a potential Christmas card photo. They were good sports. At least until I tried to get a photo of the six of us. The kids would not cooperate! It would go like this; someone would take a photo because I asked them to, I'd look at the photo,I would hate how I looked, ask them to try another. Not a big deal. I don't know why the kids fought it so much. We only "tried again" twice, or six times,(ok, once it was ten times) each 'session' I had us all pose, over the four days. So, I may or may not have a nice, all of us together, Christmas card photo.
Here's something else my 1:00 in the morning thoughts have alerted me to...that family vacation? Yeah, that was my entire family. All 13 of us. Parents, brothers, sisters in law, a niece, plus my group. Did I worry about the 13 of us? No. Not until 1:00 in the morning, 10 days later. It wasn't until now, that I stopped to think that it's been, hmmm, I don't even know, maybe four years since the 13 of us have been all together? Wow. That's awful. And that brings me to this 1:00 in the morning thought...when did I get so "it's all about me?"
This is kind of an ugly truth about me, I think I have always been like that. Not in a "the world revolves around me" way, or a "what's in it for me" way, but just thinking about me, worrying about me. Not to the exclusion of others, but certainly, not putting others first. Not even being aware of others and their daily stuff. Being a parent, I do put my kids and their needs before mine, (Unless I'm on a plane, then my oxygen mask goes on before theirs.) but, it's about me more in the way that I always try to relate other people's stories to me. I thought this showed that I was interested, and could understand what they were saying. Mainly it's just annoying, and I try to make a conscience effort to not do that as much anymore. Mostly, my tongue bleeds a lot.
So, now I'm feeling bad that I didn't make a bigger deal about all 13 of us being together, that I was simply focused on the six of us getting a Christmas card photo taken. I don't even know if I sign my son's name to a Christmas card that I'm not even going to send out for six months. And now it's quarter after one, I'm all alone , and I need, I need to stop quoting song lyrics and go to sleep. The alarm is set to go off in four and a half hours.
P.S. Can you do a "P.S." in a blog?
I really like to write. I have found that I do better with writing when the inspiration hits me though, not writing notes and going back to it. (I have piles of craft projects that "I'll get back to")but, at 1:00 in the morning, turning on the computer seemed too hard. Queue my new 'smart phone'! Yes, I finally made the leap to a fancy smart phone and it has this wonderful "memo" function and I could type this whole thing into it at 1:00 in the morning with little effort! (Even better, it looks like I may be able to SPEAK into it and it will type! But at 1:00 in the morning that may have creeped out my family.)
Anyway, last night I went to bed at 10:30, and woke up to horrendous noises that turned out to be snoring. (It's OK, he thinks the problem was he was sleeping on two pillows, so tonight he is going to try one pillow under his head and one over his face. It's fine.)Then I remembered my dream. It involved my grandparents cleaning out their garage and giving me a trailer hitch. My grandparents passed away in 1986 and 1991. (For the record, Dream Dictionary could not find anything about "deceased grandparents" or "trailer hitch".) And this is a perfect example of it all being about me...I can remember the dates because I had just moved with my parents across country when my Grandma passed away in 1986, and my Grandpa passed away months before my son was born. My other Grandpa died December 7th, the year September 11th happened. Do I know that year? No, I do not. Horrible. It is embarrassing. I think I am a caring, kind person, but this trait must get repaired. In the meantime, I need to figure out if DJ's name goes on the Christmas card, and maybe get back to some of those craft projects...right after I take a nap!
