That's What Jenni Said

The last weekend in April I took a long weekend in Hawaii on the island of O'ahu for the fun of it. Really it was a combination of mile run (Hawaii was on sale with Delta/NW), group trip for my travel meetup ( http://www.meetup.com/nova-travelers ), and adventure trip to explore new territory.     Jon opted to stay home for this one, so it was just myself and another friend Jeanette. The flights to Hawaii were rather uneventful except that of course I can now saw I have flown over the Pacific ocean. Another box to check off the list… We popped in and out of the Delta Sky Clubs in the airports along the way and that was a nice respite from the noise of the gates. I did meet a really nice couple on the plane who were also mile runners. They were the really ambitious type too, having gone to Asia recently for dinner! They didn't know anything about the mile runner's site flyertalk.com so I explained to them all about our little group online and they were thrilled to discover...

I'm 33. I've been overweight all my life with the exception of one year in 4th grade when we moved from NY to NM and I spent my summer outdoors exercising and lost enough weight to be in normal girl clothes instead of 'husky'. (Gah how I hated husky). The first time I really remember tracking weight was in college. I was 185 then. I met my boyfriend (now hubby) and was so head over heels in love I couldn't eat much nor sleep and I lost enough weight to get down to 170 and a size 14. Stayed around there until moving back to NY when I was 21 and edged up to 200. About 6 years ago I edged up to 250 and a size 22 and stayed there for a couple years until I got the motivation to actively try to lose weight. (Before that I just wished a lot but never made any behavior changes).     My mom is diabetic - since she was 40- and never has followed the dietary guidelines. Therefore she suffers from neuropathy, has had toes removed, and all sorts of other horrific complications....

So I got a new haircut today:        

Just when I think I might be moving past some of my family hurts (I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family) someone manages to let out a little more "truth" that devastates.     Last week on a visit to my parents apartment, my mother acknowledged to my older sister that yes, she knew my brother was abusing me when I was just a helpless 5 year old (having me stand next to the target while he shot at it with a 22 so I could report to him where it went in which lasted until I got hit with a ricocheting bullet once, slamming my fingers in the door, and all sorts of other crazy mean stuff that goes beyond standard big brother jerkyness). When Suzie asked her why she didn't do anything about a boy 10 years senior to her little girl tormenting her and do you know what my mother said? She said she didn't want to cause any trouble that would upset my father and cause him to leave her. (My brother doing the jerkyness was his son from first marriage.) So there you go - a lit...

I'm a bit behind on my photo and blog documentaries of my latest trips, but I did manage to get the Dublin pictures posted finally. You can find them here:     Album 1 of 3: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111502&id=603259739&l=9a34a921c0     Album 2 of 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111504&id=603259739&l=40558a671e     I'd love to get your comments on them. (The blog post describing the Dublin trip is just below this one here on songsofgratitude.blogspot.com in case you missed it.)     Also, I've added the pictures from the Hotel de Glace (Ice Hotel) taken on the Weekend in Quebec that was documented in the post here on songsofgratitude.blogspot.com titled "January Happenings" (about 5 posts before this one). The Hotel de Glace pictures are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111490&id=603259739&l=0b8e3fa86c    

I'm caught up for the most part with work projects. This is a good thing. I really need to squeeze more time out of my schedule to pick up some more consulting clients but right now I'm just not motivated. We shall see what summer brings.     Recap for March/early April travels:     Jon and I went to Dublin, Ireland the last weekend in March with a few members of my travel meetup. Overall it was a lovely time, although I did have some personality conflicts with one of the attendees who was a bit subversive. Ireland is so very green and beautiful, even in winter. We spent two days touring Dublin proper and one day in the country seaside town of Howthe. I think we managed to see almost every key point of interest in Dublin sparing the Goal (prison) and Guinness Factory. We did try a pint of Guinness at one of the pubs and the stuff is rubbish. Sort of tastes like bitter water with cigarette droppings inside. Absolutely hideous. We managed to make it to a flyertalk dinner for mi...

The more contact with my siblings I have, the more rumors I hear bandied about and I am sick of it. According to the rumor mill, I've just found out that allegedly Jonathan and I forced my father to liquidate all his assets, including his car, and kept all the profits ourselves to fund our travels and happy lifestyle. Keep in mind I have little to no contact with my siblings so none of their ideas on my parents' circumstances is based on any sort of actual facts but all pieced together in their minds like some conspiracy theory based on bits of information they obtain when talking to Dad on the phone.     First, I really have no understanding why my siblings think our father has or had major assets to be liquidated in the first place. My parents had next to nothing (a little bit of savings) and in fact were at such a low income and asset ratio that they qualified for income sensitive housing here in VA. Second, my father sold his car long before they moved here to VA and it ha...