Better be on your toes, you have two to watch over now....

I love snow. But towards the end of February, the love affair is over, and I start longing for warm days. Today, I look out the window and all I see is snow. It's an all-out blizzard right now. Seriously? Can we be done with this already?

However, 5 years ago today was a completely different story. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, there were beautiful daffodil blooms on my windowsill (courtesy of my CIPA friends, celebrating Gavin's birth just 16 days before). It was so nice, that Brady and my Father-in-Law decided to go golfing for the first round of the season.

I, still basking in the glow of new motherhood, was sitting at the coffee table, working on Gavin's baby book. He was sleeping beside me. Looking back, it was all so Norman Rockwell it makes my heart hurt to this day.

About noon, the phone rang. The call changed my family forever. My brother had been in a motorcycle accident, and although he couldn't give me any details at the time, the officer said it was imperative that I come out to Yale and meet him at my Dad's house. Of course, this started the scramble. OH MY GOD, I have to call Brady. Brady, you have to come get me, we need to get to Yale. This has to be wrong, everything is OK, I just need to get there and everything will be fine. You'll see, Nicole, you are just overracting - your mind is playing tricks on you. Dress the baby, make a couple bottles, pack the diaper bag, and we will get this all sorted out when we get there.

And then the phone rang again. This time it was not the police, but Grant, a close friend of my brother. The minute I answered the phone to his sobbing, I knew. Over the phone, Grant told me the extent of the accident, and that Justin didn't make it.

By this point, Brady had returned from golf to pick me up, and we made the mad dash out to Yale. All I could think about was getting out there to fix this. It was all a mistake, once I got there, I would explain everything, and we would laugh about how crazy neurotic Nicole got herself in a tizzy over nothing. And then we arrived in Yale.

The officer met me at my Dad's house. Since my Dad was no where to be found (he didn't have a cell phone at the time) and my other brother was living in Florida, I was next of kin. He took me aside, explained the details, and confirmed that my little brother was in fact deceased.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, because all of his things were still inside) the house was locked, and my garage code was not working. I walked around to the back door, attempted to open it, and collapsed. How could this be happening? Less than 48 hours ago he was at my house and I was telling him what an idiot he was for buying some stupid earrings. And what about Gavin? He was only 16 days old, and surely couldn't know the extent of my grief, and would never know the uncle that cherished him by rubbing my belly, holding him, and just marveling at the first little baby he had ever held.

I hurt so bad, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. It still hurts, just not as deep and raw and sorrowful as at first. I wonder. If he were still here, would him and Gavin be the best of buddies? Would he have been as excited about Grayson's birth as he was with Gavin? Would he be married, with kids of his own?

So many questions, no answers whatsoever. But today, I look out at the snow and wish that it was snowing on March 26, 2006 - because he wouldn't have gone for a motorcycle ride in the snow. He would have taken his beater car, and would likely still be here - horrible table manners, loud obnoxious personality and all.

I know he's up there, because he's been watching over Gavin for 5 years now. I just hope he's up for the challenge, because now he's got two to look out for.

Rest in peace Justin, I still miss you so much.

Scary times, new beginnings...

I admit it, I am a ‘bad’ blogger. I can go weeks and even months between posts. It’s not that I don’t have lots of comical/interesting things to post about, it’s just that I am SO FREAKING BUSY. So why am I going back to work next week????

Well, to pay the bills, for one. And two, well, there really isn’t a two - because I really don’t want to go back.

The past year and a half has been a very sobering and humbling period for me. Our family experienced a fall from grace of epic proportions….and we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Part stupidity, part foolishness, and honestly, quite a bit of arrogance led to the demise of our financial security.

Bad economy? Eh, we are fine, we are better than fine – let’s just get whatever we want, whenever we want it! A deck as big as our house? nice cars? nice clothes? fun toys? fun trips? cleaning lady? – you name it, we had it. Until December 8th 2009. When I lost my job I thought “no problem, we are good – we are better than good – we will make this work”. Which is true, we could have made it work, had we taken the time to examine our financial priorities and adjusted our style of living. We made some cutbacks, but not nearly enough, and not nearly as quickly as we should have. For example, the $80 a month we were paying (direct withdrawl) to AT&T for a phone line that WE NO LONGER EVEN HAD! I didn’t discover this little ditty until last summer – about 6 months AFTER I lost my job. Sadly, this gives you a very real picture of how well we managed our finances.

I’m not posting this as a ‘cry in my beer, oh pity me’ plea for compassion, but a wake-up call for anyone out there who is miraculously unscathed from the ‘financial crisis’ and is STILL thinking that they are bulletproof. If it can happen to us, it can happen to anybody…only now we are humble enough to admit that we are no better than anyone else, and that we need to make some drastic changes if we ever want to get it back to good.

This week, we started Dave Ramsey’s ‘Financial Peace University’. What an eye-opener! Brady & I thought we had a pretty good idea of our budget and debt….wow, were we wrong. Just reading the first couple of chapters we both realized that we are such a statistic it’s downright SCARY. Fortunately for us, we are not too far gone to repair the damage.

To our awesome friends –we will be doing plenty of ‘hanging out’ this summer. Gone are the nights out to dinner and movies…but we will gladly have you over for a drink on our deck! With as many bad things that have come out of the past year, there have been SO MANY good things as well. As a family, we have realized that all of the things we have been coveting is just ‘STUFF’ and that, quite frankly, we have waaaaay too much ‘STUFF’ - but we don’t have nearly enough of each other.

Nope, I’m really not looking forward to Monday. But I am looking forward to a couple of years from now when my family is free from the chains of debt that have plagued so many of us. I’m also looking forward to getting back to the basics, and teaching my children fiscal responsibility so that they may avoid the traps and pitfalls that their parents didn’t.

So when we sell the Mountaineer and buy our new ‘hooptie’, please feel free to laugh - because we will be too. Because if you can’t laugh at yourself, then really what’s the point?