her blog

yesterday when i went to visit my gram we were having a good ole time talking and laughing. she told me that she wished we knew one another when she was young because we would have have so much fun and would have been best friends. so sweet, right?

when i was leaving i called my mom to let her know how gram was doing. i relayed that conversation to my mom, who i knew would just love it. and my mom told me that yesterday morning she and gram were talking about my cousin's new baby. my mom told my gram that she was going to see the baby & jake that night and that i'd be stopping by to give her her evening pill. gram said, "oh that's nice. you know, i don't think babies are shana's bag."

i love her.

dear teena,

we haven't been as close as we are now for very long. but it feels like forever. because we get one another's weird idiosyncracies - especially those stemming from only child-dom. and we often have the very same same thoughts at the very same moment.   you also understand the difficulties that come along with having a terribly charming husband.

you have taught me so much - sewing being the least of it really. and you've been an incredible friend - listening to me freak out about gram, complain about work and shawn, seeing terrible movies with me,  introducing me the cheesy potato cakes, going to countless mardi gras parades even though you were sick and tired of it all...

so, on this, your non-birthday birthday, i say happy birthday. may this birthday be the start of your best year yet...

xo,
shana

we had my parents, steve, carm & al over for dinner tonight. shawn made ravioli. i made dessert. peanut butter explosion. it was good, although i've done better. but it did look pretty.

all in all, it was a nice night. shawn even broke out the accordian.

i am overwhelmed and have been for the last few days. i haven't wanted to talk about this but now i need to. shannon and shawn's cousin mike passed away. today was his funeral. he was 40 years old.

shawn got the call on thursday night. i could hear him on the phone and i knew something was wrong. he came into the living room and said, "i have the worst news..."

i wasn't able to process it all.  even seeing this didn't make it real enough. it seemed like some horrible joke.

when i was in my early twenties and drove an incredibly crappy escort, mike came to my rescue on many an occasion. he had just taken over the shop from pat and i don't think i appreciated him nearly as much as i should've. i realize now that i was unfairly comparing him to pat. an unfair comparison for anyone because no one would have been as good as my father-in-law. but mike was good. and patient. there was always something wrong with the car and i was always broke. and he always just took care of it.

fast foward to the summer of '05. mike's wedding. he and beth may have been one of the happiest couples i'd ever seen. and their separate families were becoming one with seemingly little effort. everyone seemed happy. a year and a half seems hardly enough time. that's barely a heartbeat. i've know shawn 18 years and that seems like barely enough time. thinking about losing him takes my breathe away. i can't even imagine what beth and the girls are going through.

life seems really unfair right now. i can't make sense of this. at all. i know that i want to cling to those i love and make sure they know how much i love and appreciate them.  because you just never know, do you?

dear shannon,

you were in elementary school and very into my little pony and nkotb when we first met. and although you still have a love for donnie wahlberg which i don't understand, you've come a long way baby.

we've been through a lot. good, bad, sad and very occasionally ugly. and you still remain one of my favorite people on the planet.

you are sweet, funny, smart, patient, talented, beautiful, kind... and although that combination usually instills hatred in the hearts of those of us who are lucky to have only ONE, maybe two of those qualities, everyone loves you. what's not to love?

shawn is lucky to have you as his sister. and i'm lucky to have walked into your bedroom 18 years ago and said hello.

happy birthday chica! you're the best.

love,
shana

see my friends more. keep in touch with my friends better. in general, be a better friend. i think i haven't seen lynn since before my show in august and it had been MONTHS before that. since i last saw her she's PREGNANT. i think i've seen cheryl
but a handful of times over the past few months and she moved really close to me.
i just saw carm and al for the first time since shannon's wedding -
LAST YEAR. there are others that i've not seen in so long i've
practically forgotten what they look like. so, i will continue to
travel to nola to see teena and phil 3. i will write letters to caroline and other faraway friends. and my friends here - i will call, i will invite them over for dinner, i will see them more or they
will all disappear. and well, one is the loneliest number.

i am one of the luckiest girls in the world. i often forget that. i have so much to be thankful for and yet i often find myself wanting. i am great with the thank yous for a reason - gifts, dinners, etc. i often follow the seven day rule. but giving thanks in the broader sense, not so much. so, today i give thanks. for my husband. and my gram.

and my parents and friends. for all of their support and love. and the life that we have all made together. oh, and i'm thankful for the embarassment of stuffing my mother prepared.

oh, and did i mention that i'm going to see teena & phil tomorrow?

work got a little out of control this week, and forced my life into the rabbit hole with it. i'm lucky though. friday night i hung out with shannon, phil and shawn. we listened to rebirth (instead of actually venturing out to see them since we heard it was about to be SOLD OUT.) we played video games. i drank a margarita. saturday during the day i helped mom. she was in an incredibly good mood and it actually kind of fun. and last night we ordered pizza with syndy and colleen, who are back. all the good mojo seemed to melt a little bit of the bad week away. oh yeah, and there's the happy fact that teena will be here in just a few days.

• wake up after having gained an hour of sleep.
• wake up to a crisp, cool fall day with a big, bright blue sky

• make heart shaped pancakes for your husband.*
• spend some time with your wacky grandma who is entirely to easily amused by sparkly nailpolish.
• go to the craft store, buy everything that was on your list despite the fact that you left said list at home.
• actually accomplish something on your to do list.
• watch good tv.
• have a cookie.

*shawn crawled back into bed after breakfast explaining that i had "dianed" him. (diane is my mom. she has a reputation for spooning food onto your plate when your not looking and if logistically this isn't possible she wil intimidate you into eating more. a meal with my mother is only complete with a food coma.) and then he said that he couldn't not eat the 4th heart shaped pancake i had put on his plate. that would've been wrong and he would have been in violation of rule #326. (rule# 326 being that refusal to eat something heartshaped is grounds for divorce.) he's so cute. except for when his kiss makeup is MELTING off his face.