Just Realized that Mother's Day is Coming Panic-Free

This is the second Mothers day without having to worry about evil JB. I can go visit my Mom in peace and not worry how badly evil JB is draining from my sweet hubbie.

The ahhh about it is that it's taking me longer and longer to realize that I was not worrying. The worrying part is so far in the background. I was looking at the MIL's board and saw people panicing about Mother's Day, how their MIL's were making demands of their DIL's. And I remembered, Oh, yes, I used to panic about Mother's day. It wasn't even thinking until now how nice it was not to panic, that the panic has moved that far off my radar.

I see that I posted on Mothers day last year. I'll be going back to read what I said last year.

Double ahhh!

First Mood From Hubbie

I was worried about all of the first this and first that's after JB died. He was really pretty even in his moods over the year, even Christmas and the various anniversaries of deaths and birthdays.

OK, so right after Easter, he's in a really crabby mood. When Hubbie went to visit Evil JB and her Evil hubbie EJ, he always came home in a rotten mood, kind of a mean mood. I called it the "in-law hangover."

Sunday and Monday he was in that particular mood. I remember being at work thinking how I used to always be able to blame it on his Mother when he was in that mood, but now I couldn't. Later in the day, I remembered that it was right after a holiday. Not only that, but my Dad had been in town Friday night. I decided that perhaps because of the holiday, he had his parents on his mind and got into that mood he gets into with me after he'd had involvement with them.

I posted about this on the message board and got some interesting feedback:
From one:
"Men like your husband don't truly have mothers, instead they have a self surviving burden in the place of a mother."

And another response which really sums it up in a way that I never considered:
"Not only is he NOT coping with the emotional mess of a lifetime of dysfunction, but he's also lost his 'hero' badge. Every holiday of his life, from the sound of it, was spent 'rescuing' people, and now he doesn't even have the good feelings from bailing someone out on the holiday."

One Year

As today comes to a close, it's been uneventful. One year ago today, the witch bit the dust. Now that the first year is over, it seems time to get on with life. Not to worry about the first this or the first that any more.

Peace to all of us.

Drats

But, I guess it will be OK.

Next Monday is the 1 year anniversary of evil JB's death. When I got the call that she had died, I was sitting in line to get stuck to give blood after registering.

I was going to celebrate by doing something positive, giving blood that day. And then I was going to have champagne later that night.

But, I am sick. Possibly pneumonia. I am on antibiotics. That means that I cannot give blood on Monday and given some of the drugs I am taking, I should stay away from the alcohol as well.

Well, good intentions......

The Calm After the (snow)storm

I blogged yesterday about how it was nice that hubbie was not calling evil JB every couple hours to see how she is making out in the winter storm.

This is the first snow storm since she died.

Something else that I noticed today.

It used to be that as soon as it started snowing, hubbie was trying to shovel out. I thought it some kind of cabin fever. Digging out was never any big deal to me. I am perfectly satisfied to stay put until the roads are safe.

This time, it was almost 36 hours in before he did anything until almost 48 hours into the event. And he just did a little knocking snow around. He was not trying to dig out of the neighborhood.

Makes me think.... In the past was he trying to make sure he could get out to get to his Mama in the past?

Whatever it is, hubbie is definitely more relaxed now than he has been in any past snow storm.

Winter Weather Event is Peaceful

Today is another ahhhhhhhhhh day. We have a snowstorm here. Not horrible, but the roads are impassible. We have the things we need to get by for a couple days, even if the power goes by.

Where evil JB lived, on the other hand, they are having an ice storm and power outages. If it had been a year ago, hubbie would be on the phone with her, making sure she had what she needed, and making sure her power was on.

If her power was to have gone off, he would have likely been trying to figure out how to get our generator to her house. THat is, our generator that he has said is too big to take back up the hill that it had to go down to put in our basement. And getting it up that hill that happens to be ice covered, to get it to his truck. Then to drive to her house on roads that only a few are on and the governor has told us to keep off of, to get it to her.

He used to talk about wanting a second generator to back up the one we have. I know that he was really wanting a second, smaller generator that he could "loan" to his parents when they "needed" it and would have been left there and either ruined or sold (or both). I objected to him buying the second one and he never did. No event ever came up that caused him to want to bring them one during that time he was thinking about it.

Now that the evil ones, JB and EJ are gone, I no longer have to worry about him going to them when the weather is bad, risking his life to get there. Also leaving me here to fend for myself, but unlike JB, I can fend for myself.

So instead of a tense day of him checking on his Mom every hour and her whining about how much worse of she is than she really is, we are having a relaxing, almost boring day, snuggled in our house, looking out the window and wondering when we will get out of here again.

Ahhhhhhhhhh................

Another Anniversary

OK, so a week ago was the anniversary of the death of Kay Yow. I attended her public memorial service at NCSU and there was not a dry eye in the place. I only met her a couple times, but I really was upset when she died. I remember when she died, thinking how unfair it was. How unfair it was that a great lady like Coach Yow was gone. How unfair it was that my friend who had died a month before had gone. And MIL, who was a complete waste of space lived on. I cried intently at both of these funerals. So did everyone else around. Not a dry eye at either service. Little did I know that in a few short weeks, evil JB would also be gone. More on what that was like when the anniversary gets here.