It's been over a month since my mom passed away. All in all, I'm doing okay right now. Although it still feels raw and not real in certain ways, I'm doing okay. The weeks after her death I found myself to be rather calm and melancholy. I found myself going through the motions, but not really emotionally attaching to much. I found myself not very motivated in the evenings. Steve can get to the laundry when he gets home. I found myself detached, maybe. I found myself watching tv in bed all Sunday afternoon. I found myself not giving a shit when paint was found on Cici's bedroom carpet, all the ..read more

Steve has been doing this "lake weekend" thing for 25+ years. Every summer he gets together with three generations of guys for a weekend at a island on the lake where we keep our boat. I've always hated this weekend. He went on this lake weekend when Ben was an infant. He also went when Cici was an infant. With no fail he made the date every year. Meanwhile I was "stuck" with the kids, having to care for them, yet again, as a solo-parent. Did I say that I've always hated this weekend? But I have to admit, this year it didn't suck. Ironically, he was actually gone an extra day this time, and ..read more

I am a strong supporter of the 5 Love Languages book. I swear by it. I encourage every couple to read it. If you've followed me enough, you know my love language is physical touch. Although, every now and again words of affirmation creep into my needs. Is 'thank you' considered words of affirmation? There are times when I feel taken for granted. It amazing how two little words came mean so much. I'm sure us pilot wives have felt this from time to time. I'm sure all mother's have felt this from time to time. This is never fun. As you know, we bought a boat. It took a lot of work to buy it. No ..read more

We got our first dog shortly after we bought our first home. Her name was Lexi. She was sweet as pie. A blond, cross-eyed, lab/chow mix. She was found in a junk yard. Her mother was hit and killed by a car. Her fur was matted and covered in mud chunks, but her sweetness still shined through. We had her for a couple months before I started to feel the impact of a solo dog. After I got home from work, all I wanted to do was lay on the couch. You know, because when you're 22 and work 8 hours, you're SO exhausted! All Lexi wanted to do when I got home was play. So, we got Lexi a playmate. Cali ..read more

I casually tweeted the other night and didn't think I would get as big of a response as I did. Usually my tweets gets swallowed up in the Twitter universe, but not this one. My daughter, Cici, just turned 13. She had to get a sports physical for fall, and so I took her the other night to the local CVS. The woman doing the physical was very kind, and at one point asked Cici wanted she wanted to be when she's grown up. "I want to be a pilot." I just sat in the corner chair and didn't say a word. I've heard her say that she wanted to be a pilot, but never as a response to a stranger asking her th ..read more

3 years ago, my mom died on December 22. It was a total blur. What Christmas? My daughter and niece wore their Christmas dresses to the funeral. Merry Fucking Christmas.  Christmas 2019 marked the one year anniversary of my mom's death. Oh, and I was about 2 1/2 months post Achilles rupture. The entire family gather together, which was nice. At the start of the Christmas Eve dinner my father tried to say the Our Father (in Polish). He couldn't finish it...my sister did. Lots of tears. That Christmas sucked too...a part of us was missing.  Christmas 2020 was a very Merry Covid Chri ..read more

Anxiety came into my life after a certain flight. Southwest into MDW. We were below 10,000 feet. The sterile cockpit light was on. A man took his son to the forward lav. How dare he? Doesn't he know he shouldn't get up? On his way back, with his young son walking in front of him, our plane dropped. I grabbed my armrest. He grabbed onto his son, and they made their way back to their seat, clutching seat backs until they tucked into their row. When I say the plane dropped, I mean dropped. I don't know how much. But, I do know that the engines powered up, and it seemed like we climbed back up a ..read more

 Hello? Is this thing on? Anyone still out there? I've been blogging for 10 years, yet I failed to post in over a year. Truth be told, I didn't have much to blog about. Covid was, and still is, a hazy time warp. Overall, life is good, albeit a bit covid weird. My anxiety has been a beast lately, and creativity hasn't really been flowing. The kids are good, work is good, health is good, so basically nothing blog-worthy. Blogging usually starts with a spark, and a recent dialogue has given me that spark to write. The topic? Upgrading.  Couple points: Steve is a mainline FO. He doesn ..read more

Holy Shit, April was the last time I blogged. Sorry. Frankly, just haven't felt like writing much. I think about it, but actually doing it has been a different story.  Every since December 2018, life's been pretty upside-down. That's when my 68-year-old mother passed away. It was three days before Christmas. She was packing the car, preparing to drive up to our house for a number of days. My dad found her in the driveway. Losing your mother sucks, plain and simple. I was not in the right headspace for a solid 6-9 months, or maybe it was 12 months? It seems like a blur.  Then O ..read more

Have you ever seen the movie The Truman Show? 1998. Jim Carrey. If you haven't, watch it. It's a really decent movie. If you have, then you know the scene at the end of the movie, when Jim Carrey's character, Truman, is sailing away to escape from his life behind the cameras. And the director brews up a storm. The waves get bigger, the lightening gets stronger. The boat struggles. Truman falls into the water. But, he rises from the water and gets into the boat. He survives. When the waters quiet Truman yells out, "is that the best you can do?" I sort of feel like that's been our life the last ..read more