Where did the summer go?

Well, since my last post I have been laid off, beaten, bruised, abused, appreciated, loved, to court, on vacation, and did I mention I was laid off?  

For the first time in my life I went to work only to be told that I needed to pack my things and turn in my keys.  I WAS given severance pay for 2 months but the kick to my ego was brutal.  Being laid off due to budget cuts is like saying, "You are the suckiest employee so we are kicking you out the door and keeping everyone else."  In reality, the entire office was closed but it makes me sound so much more pathetic when I describe it that way.  

los·er

ˈlo͞ozər/

noun

noun: loser; plural noun: losers

1. 1.

   a person or thing that loses or has lost something, esp. a game or contest.

   synonyms:

   defeated person, also-ran, runner-up More

   antonyms:

   winner

   • a person who accepts defeat with good or bad grace, as specified.

     "we won fair and square—they should concede that and be good losers"
   • a person or thing that is put at a disadvantage by a particular situation or course of action.

     "children are the losers when politicians keep fiddling around with education"
   • informal

     a person who fails frequently or is generally unsuccessful in life.

     "a ragtag community of rejects and losers"

     synonyms:

     failure, underachiever, ne'er-do-well, write-off

So, basically I was given the summer off with pay, much like when I was teaching, only my kids are at their dad's or at their mom's for the summer so that left more time for me to dwell on the fact that my munkies are not enjoying the hot summer days with me.  

I now hate summer.

It has been a really rough first year of marriage for us.  Maybe it's due to our baggage from our 1st marriages, maybe it's due to it being our first year of marriage, or it could be that we are trying to mold this marriage into our 1st marriages (now why in the hell would we want to do that?!).  For whatever reason, it has been rough.  I will admit that there are more sunny days than stormy (as I write this I am sure it will all go to the crapper for a couple of days).  

We did have a few good outings, went to the movies a lot, saw some dinosaurs, and took a little trip down to Texas.  

I got to see:

My Mama

My nephews

Michael drool

The kids chill on my Mama's bed like I have done all of my life

The kids turn into full fledged lake trash.

Father and daughter take time to take a picture.

(this is so very rare)

A dinosaur come to life and scare the bejeezus out of me

(Austin stood there completely not phased...)

and the littlest munky go to bed completely exhausted.

So though this year has been tough and life has thrown so much at us, I think that we have fared fairly well.  I am sure that some days it is really going to suck like a Hoover but we must remember that there is joy in the small things.

In the end I believe Journey had it right...