Taking Things For Granted

It has been a while since I have taken some time to write. I have been going to do it and then something comes up that needs my attention and I have not done it.

It has been a very active couple of months with lots of activities/events. Some of these activities/events have been tougher than others. I so miss not having her with me at these events.

Thinking about my life, I have come to realize that I have sadly taken so many things for granted and have not realized how blessed I have been. I need to strive to not do that in the future.

One of the many things I took for granted was the holiday shopping. Jennifer always took care of that for us. She mostly enjoyed shopping. I have talked about her personal shopping, looking back she was mostly a looker vs a buyer. She would buy, but she did more looking than buying. However, she did pretty much all of the shopping/buying for the holidays. I just took that for granted. Now that falls on my shoulders and I will be honest, I don’t care for it, but just like everything else, I just have to put on my big boy pants and soldier on.

Her not being her is still very surreal to me. I still have that feeling like when we were working and she was away on a work trip and that she would be coming back. It still breaks my heart every time that I realize that just is not going to happen and it really really sucks.

I had a “computer” type experience this week. Fortunately it was not as long or as dramatic as the computer incident. My Rotary club had a Christmas party this week and it was a masquerade themed party. I knew that we had some masquerade masks (these were from our nephew Jason’s wedding several years ago). However, I did not know where they were exactly. So once again I was having to hunt for them. Fortunately since we downsized, the number of likely places was limited and I did end up finding the masks, but I will be honest, I was already making Plan B, C, and D arrangements in my head. Thankfully I did not need to put any of the alternate Plans into place.

One of the other things that I always took for granted is that Jennifer pretty much took care of the decorating of the house for holidays. We were never big decorators because we usually went home for the big holidays. The last few years about the only thing we would do is put up a tree with lights. We rarely put any ornaments on (even though we had a bunch) because it just meant more work to put them on and take them down and no one would see them anyway because we were not home.

This year I did not break out anything. Just was not worth the effort (I fly to Butte on Tuesday).

So my house does not have any holiday feel to it, that is kind of sad, but to be honest it does not really bother me.

Today, I am going out to Beaver Dam, AZ to help host a holiday party for the elementary school kids there. Sadly the majority of the kids at the school are in families that are improvised so the only things most of these kids are getting for Christmas is what they will get from this party. Volunteering at these events again makes me realize how blessed I have been during my life. Both of our parents always made sure we had a very nice Christmas and we always got probably more than we deserved as far as gifts and we always had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. Sadly most of the kids we will see today don’t have that luxury.

I continue to be frustrated with how our World and especially our country seems to be going down the shitter. Every day it just seems to get worse and worse. You know it is bad when people like Marjorie Taylor Green become the voice of reason. She is a fricking nut job, but even she realizes that things are bad and getting worse.

More than ever I am praying for World peace and good will for all of us. However, unfortunately I feel these prayers are falling on deaf ears. Maybe God is like the rest of us and just plain worn out. As I have mentioned many times, I am glad Jennifer is not here to live through this crap. It would have really depressed her.

Well enough of my soap box for today, I need to not take anything for granted and just try to make the best of each day that I am blessed to have. So many don’t have the same opportunity to do so.