Best friends are found in the worst times

I have always known that my family has unconditional love for me and that I would not have survived without it. I have serious issues that make it difficult to be around me in my alternating episodes of angry outbursts and lack of interest. I am grateful for the love and support my friends and family have given me. Our family has experienced true tragedy and grown closer. We also face "normal" challenges in life, like everyone else, most of which might be due to our own making. At times our decision making process is questionable at best. Somehow, something usually comes along to make it okay, or seem predetermined. But, if your fate is really out of your hands, why am I up at midnight blogging my sorrows? Shouldn't I just be sleeping with the comfort or utter acceptance that it is what it is and there is nothing I can do to change it? A huge part of me believes that things happen for a reason and all works out in the end. But, I continue to over analyze and make plans I don't implement. And, here I sit.

All that rhetoric leads me back to my gratitude for true friends and good people. Over the past year, I have had the good fortune to discover some true friends through times of bad fortune. Enter the local character who doesn't seem to realize that her actions and words adversely affect the well being of others. I just erased a full (long and boring I'm sure) paragraph explaining how hurt I was yesterday by this person I thought cared about my well being. The point I really want to make is how I found who I can count on and who should cause me pause. I have no filter and provide way too much information to people. Some they eat up like good gossip, if there is such a thing. Some they are appalled by and sometimes I can be down right shocking and offensive myself. But, I still find people who are willing to help me and be there for me. I used to be so cynical as to think I could count on no one, not even me, but I have learned better.

My aforementioned issues trigger anxiety that reduces my mental acuity. To those that care about me, I have shared a couple of startling examples. This week I forgot my own daughter's birthday! Who does that? The next day, I asked my other daughter if her cousin was having a girl or a boy. This cousin, my sister's daughter, is often referred to in the family as my third daughter. The crazy indicator is that she had the baby in December. I have held her in my arms and rocked her to sleep. It is times like this that my very good friend, who sacrifices time away from her family to help me, makes me realize how lucky I am. She empathizes and accepts me, problems and all. She expects nothing from me when she gives of herself and rearranges her life to be part of mine. I would like her to know how much I appreciate her love and friendship.

That is a familiar story when I go over it in my head. I have another friend who, during times of great strife and confusion in her own life, is there for me in actions and words. She never complains when I blow off steam or lose my focus, which by the way is much more often than most people would accept. Most people would have given up on me long ago. My friend uses her precious energy and expansive talents to help me personally and professionally. I love to see her in design mode. She makes me smile. She too has empathy for my emotional challenges and loves me in spite of myself. She and the group of her close friends, who I call the 3(+1) Musketeers, have been a support system for me all their own over the past year. There are many times when I wonder how I would have managed without them.

I have another friend who I can say anything to without her judging me. She is very classy and very unlike me in that and many other ways. Yet, I am lucky enough to call her my friend, we even jest about her being my BFF. The story has very funny roots involving another character I met though TPH. One of the 3 Musketeers was crafting with this very interesting character at my store and was adopted as her new BFF. We kid the other 2 in the close knit group mercilessly about it. The 3 very diverse personalities meld into a single unit when they are together. Their friendship is a bond held together with a common sense of humor and unconditional love. They make each other laugh and feel pain and experience joy together. It is an enviable relationship, perhaps evidenced by my use of the word 'together' in each of the preceding sentences.

I am very aware that all my friends with one exception I met at the store. It is my life, as my work has always been. I allow it to consume me sometimes, like now for instance. But, there are other times when my lover and reason to look toward the future and smile, brings me back to what really matters -- my home life and family. I have already lost everything monetary or material trying to make the store a success, so there really should be nothing to worry about except losing the store completely. I see the opposite happening, with the help and support of my friends and have faith that I will solve my main obstacle to success soon. One thing I can do is to stop what I am doing and send out an email to promote business, then get as much sleep as I can. Memo and I are headed to Savannah at dark thirty tomorrow (in a few hours) to attend her cousin's wedding. Blog at 'ya soon!

Are you kidding me? We are watching the Pussy Cat Dolls on stage in Manchester. What a hoot! Guess we're just tired of Law & Order, NCSI, Bones, and well you get it. Oh, good, that's better. Ramon turned on a show about ants. Gross! If you get bored one day, check out the starling invasion of Rome. Yep. Bird poop everywhere! OK so Sunday night TV is definitely a bad idea. Now you know why I have time to blog.

There is a good reason I dropped the blogging after only a few days. I was busy, no really. Realizing that life gets in the way, here I go...Ramon has once again demonstrated he is worthy of the best man on the planet crown. He took me to work last Sunday because he wanted to be with me. Don't you just love him? I know I do! We brought the truck because I wanted to put slot wall up at the store. If you have ever been subjected to my involvement in a project, you'll just be shaking your head during the rest of the story. If not, you'll swear I made it up.

We stop by Lowes, grab the wood, and head to the store to open at 1:00. Several times he said, are you sure you don't need it cut. Oh no, I say. I measured it. Don't get ahead of me, now. The first part of the slap stick comedy started with us moving the bench out front out of the way so we could lean the wood against the brick until we could put it up. Neither of us can see what the other is going to do next. Move left, right, angle, what??? Once that was done, we just left the wood there until we closed the store at 6:00. Then, the comedy continued as we worked together to get the heavy slats to the back of the store. Oh, did I leave out the part of moving all the stuff out of the way of the back wall? We kept moving against what the other had in mind.

Back to the slot wall. Michelle keeps a flat dolly in the office. I grab that and "help" Ramon roll the wood into the store. Poor guy kept trying to tell me what to do, which of course I can't get and generally end up doing just the opposite of what he needs. We somehow manage to get the heavy ass board in the general direction of the target wall. We held the wood up to the wall that I had so diligently measured and it was almost 2 feet too long! I said I had diligently measured the wall and so I had. I knew it to be just under 7 feet. Problem is, I thought the sheets were 4x6, not 4x8.

For the record, Ramon was a trouper throughout the whole episode. I called Lowes to find out what time they closed on Sunday and if they would cut the pieces down for us. We had 15 minutes to get there, so we locked the door and jumped in the truck. I dropped him off with the wood in a hand cart and parked the truck. The trimming of the wood was done lickity split, loaded back into the truck and back at the store. From there it went fairly smoothly. We figured out the thingies that hold the screw into the drywall and Ramon had the forethought to bring his drill. We bought the screws and their thingies at Lowes on our first trip. The wall was up in less than an hour, including the run back to Lowes for the wood cutting ceremony. And all ends well.

It is amazing what you can learn about someone by combining efforts toward a common goal. I learned that I cannot read minds and that I make judgements that usually 180 what everyone thinks should happen. Trust me, I know it's me, because it has been that way since I can remember. If you ever find yourself in the unpleasant position of having to work with me on a project, just know that you must speak quickly and clearly in describing exactly what you want. The catch is, I am stubborn and think I know a better way. Good luck, Mr. Phelps. May the Force be with you. Inside joke that one, because I am the most illogical person you shall ever know and am far from prospering.

So, hey, what do you think of the results of Ramon's labor?...