Memorial Day Weekend

We had a long holiday weekend and it was great.  On Saturday morning we got up early to do our annual neighborhood yard sale.  I just put out mostly kids clothes, but I think I still made close to $100.  Not bad for a morning's work.  The kids probably made out even better than I did!  It was a really hot day, so they decided to sell snow cones for $1 a piece.  They made a mint!  In the afternoon, we just played in the sprinkler to cool off.  Later, we set up the tent in the back yard so we could sleep in it that night.  The kids were really excited since they had never slept in a tent before!  Well, I must admit, I was not overly upset when I saw lightning around 2:30 am and had to bring the kids inside.  It's not so easy to sleep on the ground anymore!  Sunday night was stormy, too, so no tent.  We tried again on Monday night, but the tent had gotten so wet that we couldn't stay in it.  I took it down Tuesday and will look for another one that is smaller and stays dry!  The kids still had a lot of fun in it.

Monday we went to one of the local community pools.  It was another scorcher, so we were happy to be in a place where we could stay wet.  It's just too bad we didn't see any of the kids' friends there.  They got bored pretty fast.

The kids finish school next week and are very excited about moving on to the next grades!  I can't believe they will be in 3rd and 1st grade already.  Yikes.

Back to the man situation...this guy is driving me crazy.  I have made it pretty clear to him that I just want to be friends now.  He called me last week saying how much he misses me and everything.  I told him that I am going to date other men and that I just wanted to be friends.  I don't think he gets it.  He asked me how the online dating thing is going and I told him that I've been corresponding with a guy and we are just trying to coordinate a date.  He seemed in disbelief so I said that it was a good thing the guy was Jewish - that's a step in the right direction.  He laughed and said "that's not going to work for you!"  I got disgusted and just said that it would be nice to be with someone who is the same religion.  It makes things easier (btw, date with the Jewish guy is tonight!).  Then he goes on to say that I should feel free to talk to him about my dates.  We hung up and he calls back a few minutes later saying that he wants to buy one of the coffee shops in my area and move here (he is in the coffee shop business)...he wants to move....I could tell by his voice that he was crying on the other end.  When will this guy stop crying!?  That is such a turn off.  He said that he has lots of "powerful" things going on at his end and that he needs me right now.  WTF.

I was surprised that I didn't hear from him all weekend (he usually calls me and texts me several times a day), but thought maybe he's finally getting the message.  He called this morning and the first thing he does is go on and on about how much he misses me.  I didn't reciprocate.  I'm really glad he lives 4 1/2 hours away.  He's going to be a couple hours away tomorrow and the next day for a business meeting so I agreed to have lunch with him tomorrow somewhere half way.  He asked if I could spend the day with him, but I told him that I have meetings.  I really don't want to spend any time with him, but I guess I could spare time for lunch...even though I'll have to drive an hour to do so.  Ugh.  After telling me several times how much he misses me (and me saying that I just want to be friends), he says that his feelings for our relationship are not the same either - meaning he is not feeling so much in love with me anymore.  This guy is really F'ed up.  I'm not sure friends is even the direction I want to go anymore given how screwed up he is.

Mother's Day

This was the fourth year we spent camping over Mother's Day weekend.  We go to a family camp about four hours from our house and it is great!  We stay in a cabin and everything is planned for us and all meals are prepared for us.  All I have to do is choose an activity and relax.  We spent a lot of time just hiking around the grounds, doing a little canoeing and boating, and looking for gnomes.  The people at the family camp hid 5 gnomes and bunny foo-foo for the kids to find.  If you find one, you get a little prize.  Well, it took us four years, but we finally found one!  The kids were bound and determined this year and lo and behold, bunny foo-foo made it into our hands.  The kids were SO excited!  That didn't stop them from trying to find another one, though...however, we were only successful with the one find.

Four of the five gnomes and bunny foo-foo!

One of the other things I love about this place is the Sunday morning Mother's Day ritual.  They call all the little kids into the kitchen and give each one of them a flowering plant to give to their mother.  It makes me cry every time!  So sweet to see them all pouring out of the kitchen with their flowers, so excited to give them to their mothers.  While it's a long drive to the campground, it's always well worth it.  

On the man note....there is seriously something wrong with me.  This man is head over heels in love with me and just wants to do anything he can to make me happy and I'm just not feeling the same for him.  On Saturday before Mother's Day, he drove four hours to get to the campground so he could give me my Mother's Day present (okay, it's less than an hour and a half from where he lives, but he got lost).  He gave me a beautiful Pandora bracelet with the kids' birthstones on it...so, it's pretty much a Mother's bracelet.  A few weeks ago, he drove out to visit me for the weekend and spent all day Saturday painting an apartment I'm trying to renovate, then all day Sunday and Monday working on the landscaping for that apartment and then my own landscaping.  All while I did stuff with the kids and worked.  He even took the kids and me out for a very nice dinner on Saturday night (the kids were really excited to get dressed up).  I'm telling you, all he wants to do is make me happy!  So, what the hell is wrong with me?  He's the perfect package...successful, sexy, smart and wants to treat me like a queen.

Okay, now for the things that are making me a little crazy about him (not in a good way).  He cries a lot.  What's up with that?  That is not normal.  He tells me all the time that he's crying because he misses me.  Okay, kind of endearing....ONCE IN AWHILE....I was in his town a month ago for a board meeting and we met for coffee before I hit the road to come home.  He started crying because he said he wanted to take a break in our relationship for awhile but didn't want to lose me as a friend.  Then he called me three times on my drive home.  That's not a break!  Is anyone else beginning to sense a little bit of a personality disorder?  One thing I don't need is a  man who needs to be medicated.  There are other things about his personality that are grating on me...not sure how to explain them, but I can feel my blood pressure start to rise whenever he calls.  I really like being treating like a queen, but not sure how much longer I can deal with the personality stuff.  We'll see.

On another note, some of you may remember me telling you about a good friend of mine who was murdered while traveling in Ind!a with her son a couple years ago...the even more shocking part about it was that it was her son who murdered her.  I knew this kid and had traveled extensively with him.  Who knew he had the ability to kill his own mother harbored inside him.  Well, to make a long story short...he was convicted over there and sentenced to three years detention...the max for minors according to their law.  Friday, the news reported that he was acquitted and is on his way home.  Unbelievable.  I'm sure his father paid a lot of money to make that happen, and, of course, as a mother, I would do the same for my child -- whatever it took to bring him home.  He's now almost 18 and, in time, no one will ever know what he did.  I'm very sad that he is not paying for his crime AND that he's learning at a young age that money can buy your innocence in a court of law.  But at the same time, I feel really sorry for him.  He's going to have to live for the rest of his life with the images of her last moments haunting him.  I'm sure he's set himself up for a very difficult and screwed up future.  I hope he's able to get some help and finally realize the depth of the horrible crime he committed.