In Which I'm Doing OK / Monday, February 04, 2008
Hey people.
Well where do I start? I guess I should start about a month ago....
Ashley died in a car accident on the 8th of Janurary. (I'm sorry if this is the first you've heard of this) She was hit by a ten ton truck on the drivers side and I am told that she broke her neck and died instantly. She was the only person in the car.
My boss called me while I was building a display that I'd just managed to sell into a Walmart in Hammond (about an hour away from Baton Rouge) telling me that Ash had been in an accident and to call a person who works in a store at the intersection. I called him as I was driving back. He passed me over to a police officer who said he hadn't been over to see the paramedics. Neither of them would tell me anything. I half knew that she was dead by then.
So I raced back, as I was coming up to the junction down from the one that the accident was at and Joe (FIL) called me and told me to go home. I told him I was just down the road so I came up.
The car was a wreck. Joe and Dianne (MIL) were already there. I parked by them, the policeman directed me to Dianne and she just said "She's gone."
The pain I felt at that time was physical. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I can't describe it, and I truely hope none of you feel anything like it.
The policeman drove us back to Joe and Diannes house. Joe and Dianne got out of the car and I just said that I wanted to go home and see my mummy. I am so glad she was here.
The rest of the day is kind of a blur. Lucy had an appointment at the doctors and it was the most important thing in the world that I take her. She didn't have a mummy anymore and I couldn't fail her as a daddy.
There was people who were round at my house, for the rest of the week pretty much. I think that's enough details for right now.
People have been helping me so much. Mother has just helped by being here, Cindy a deacon from my church has helped so much with all the details. Father Vic, the old reverend from St. Margarets changed his plans with great difficulty to fly in to do the service, Murphy Ash's Christian Counciller has given me sessions for free, Tobys sitter has looked after Toby and Lucy for me. My church family and friends have been supporting me so much. I have enough nappies and formula to last a year. I had a fridge and a freezer full of food. People came over and have cleaned my house for me several times.
Ash's online friends have helped me as much as they possibly can from a distance. Dan, one of Ash's Twitter friends set up a fund. He came over last week with a cheque for $7,800. I have got various cheques from all of the mommy boards that Ash was a member of. That is all very much appreciated, but the biggest gift they gave me was their memories, thoughts and prayers. There was an Ashley I never knew. Fortunately their was a lot of people who did. I call them online friends but they were as true friends as anyone she met IRL.
I have so much gratitude for all of the people who have helped me. I wish there was some way to express it. There are so many wonderful people who have helped me. There's nothing I could do to repay it. All I can say is thank you.
The service was beautiful. Ashley would've loved it. It was standing room only at the church. Chelsea, Mindy and Tammy all got up and said beautiful things about Ash, about how she changed their lives. Some of her friends from church sang a song for her. I couldn't move more than a foot without getting a hug from someone.
The Monday following the Saturday servicewas my birthday. I went to church on Sunday to get blessed. That wasn't easy.
A couple of weeks later Lucy got Christened. That was hard too.
The next three big things coming up are Going back to work (on Wednesday), Valentines day, and our anniversary (the 3rd of March).
Now, I know you all want to know how I feel. I'll try and let you know, but I'm not too eloquent so you'll have to forgive me...
Emotions I am feeling:
ANGER: Why did she do something stupid like get herself killed and leave me two little kids to look after? Where's the timing in this God? You had to take her now?
FEAR: How am I going to handle looking after two children and keep a roof over their head? How am I going to tell them that their mother is dead? How messed up will they be? When is my time? I can't die now. I have to look after my children.
LONLINESS: My bed is too big. I miss her. I miss her smile. Heck I even miss her nagging. I miss cudding up the couch with her watching rubbish TV. I miss her laugh.
RESOLVE: I HAVE to stay alive, for my children. I must love them enough for two. I have to be there for them. Everything else comes second, my childrens happiness is first.
BLESSED: To have so much support. That my children and mother weren't in the car with her. That she was the happiest I'd seen her in a while for the last couple of weeks of her life. That she spent the morning before playing with Toby. That the last thing I told her was "I love you". I know Ash isn't just looking down on me. She's carrying me.
Linda, mother, Lucy, Toby and I have just got back from Florida after a long weekend. It was refreshing. It gave me the strength to write this.
We're going to be alright.
God bless all of you. I beg all of you to drive carefully. Saving two minutes on your journey isn't all that important.
/Hopped!
8:28 PM
In Which It's Been Almost Two Months, So I'd Better Write Something! / Friday, October 26, 2007
Well I've had a busy time the last couple of months, but not really much to talk about. This is only going to last as long as my drink and then I'm going to bed, so don't expect much now..
I'm still an ASM (Account Sales Manager) but I'm no longer merchendising. I haven't got my own route yet though so I'm just riding round with people. It's not great, I've pretty much learnt all I can. It good to be a partner with whoever I'm riding with rather than a trainee, we work together and help each other out (two heads are better than one) rather than me just standing around watching. I still would like my own route though.
My grass is coming up nicely, I didn't put enough seed down in the back so it's a little patchy. I'm going to have to wait until spring until I can overseed it, but it looks a lot better than it did. I learnt from my mistake and put down plenty of seed in the front so hopefully that will turn out just right. The grass is just popping out of the ground right now, give it another week and it should look nice. I've also cleaned out the garage (we've finally finished upacking) and we can fit two cars in there now, which is nice. It makes me happy anyway...
The Sequel is coming out on the 19th of November. We're about three quaters of the way to being prepared, but the last quarter is making Ash very anxious. It's starting to make me a little anxious now, been as we only have three weeks left. The only thing we really really need are bottles. Now I think about it though the hospital gave us a bunch of bottles after Toby was born. I'm a little less anxious now! The Sequel is looking like it's going to come out at around 7lbs, which is about average. Ash thinks it'll be bigger though. I don't think it'll be as big as Toby (he was over 10lbs)
Ash is not having fun right now. She's uncomfortable all the time. The baby has decided to sit right up under her ribcage and squish her lungs. Well actually the baby is so big now it's squishing all of her insides. Work is becoming very tiring for her and just moving around a little bit is exhasting her. Three weeks seems like an awfully long time (but not long enough) for her.
Toby is still a happy little boy. He gets a little stressed a bit easier when something doesn't work how he wants it to. For example the other day he had two new bath toys, a rubber duckie and a little scoopy thingy and he threw a fit when he couldn't fit the ducke into the scoop. Meltdowns and injuries are getting more common, but he usually only cries for a minute and then he's back to his happy self. His vocabulary is getting bigger, his favorite words are "Mummy" (not mommy - I'm happy about that!) "Daddy", "Truck" and "Doggie". Doggie is his newest one. Oh, and "Bubbles" that's a great one. The other day some friends of ours from Mississippi came down with their son who is the same age as Toby (he calls Toby "tobytobytoby" he can't just say it once. It's very cute!)and they were playing with a bubble machine and they were both flapping their arms everytime bubbles came out and saying "Bubbles!" pretty much in unison. There's avideo of it somewhere, but only Ash knows how to get to it. I'll have to find it so you can all have a look.
Oh, I gave up on the drainage thing for now (if you remember back to my last post) and have been concerntrating on the grass. It's just a bit too much money for right now. I'll get back on it when we've got some money. Ash is going to be off for three months without pay so things are going to be hard for that time, but We'll struggle through somehow...
My cousin Sarah had a little baby girl a week ago. Her name is Annabel, and from the pictures she looks very cute.
The weather here has cooled off a bit. It's only about 23 degrees centigrade here, so It's a bit chilly. Alright, you can say it. After five years of living here I've turned into a wuss! When it gets colder it reminds me of home. Although right now I don't really want to be reminded of home after the result of the England Russia game last week. We were playing so well! How could we loose? At least it the past I could say we weren't playing very well, but team that played the last four games looked like a good team, a team that had a chance in the world cup. But now we probably won't even get there. Bah! Well at least we got to the finals of the rugby world cup. Someone at work ruined it for me though. I had the Quater finals onwards left to watch, and the guy tells me the result! The only person I've ever met in this country to take any interest in a non-American sport and it was then. Talk about bad timing!
Anyhow, my drink is gone, it's 12:30 and Toby is probably going to wake up at 7 tomorrow, so I'm going to bed. Goodnight!
/Hopped!
11:47 PM
In Which I Do A Day In My Life / Sunday, September 09, 2007
It's right here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=21151&l=c07c9&id=564141083
You can have a look if you want.
As far as news goes there's good news and bad news...
The bad news is that Ash is sick. She has a cold and been as she's preggo as well it means that it feels worse than it would for any normal kind of human being. She also got her face scratched by Max. Here's a picture:
Max was sleeping next to Ash and something started him. He decided to run across Ashley and jump off the bed.
The good news is that I got the promotion, right now however I'm back mechendising again, but it's alright because I'm getting paid an ASMs salary to do it!
The other good news is we got ourselves another cat. Max really need a companion been as Ash and I are away everyday. Her name is Georgie and here's a picture of her.... Alright there's not a picture of her, the computer is rufusing to play nice. Anyway she's a sweetie. She's white with black dots, in fact she looks like a feline version of a cow.
We painted the kitchen, living room and our bedroom. The alllook very nice now, it's made the house a lot more homely. It was all the same colours all the way through, which was very boring. All we've got to do now is finish unpacking and sort out the garden.
Tomorrow I'm going to try and build a stone drainage area round the outside of the house. It's good for two reasons, first the houses here don't have gutters, and second it makes it easier to spot termites, thirdly it just looks nice. Then I'm going to build a little sitting area out the back, some raised flowerbeds and a little area for a shed. We still have to put grass down but it's just a wee bit too hot still for that. Maybe in a couple of weeks we can do that. I want to get the flowerbeds in before that though.
Anyhow, I'm unpacking some stuff right now, so I'd better get back to it.
/Hopped!
4:30 PM
In Which Charlie Passes On / Thursday, August 23, 2007
Charlie got out a couple of weeks ago and got eaten by a dog. It's very upsetting. He was a great cat, very fond of feet and he was always very silly. I remember when he was a kitten he would crawl up under the bottom of the duvet and sleep on my feet and tickle me, and there was a certain spot on his back where if I scratched him he would rub against my foot so hard he would flip over. He will be missed, especially by his brother, Max. When we took them on a eighteen hour car ride up to virginia they slept on top of one another.
There's lots of other stuff I have to tell you, but I don't feel like doing it right now.
/Hopped!
8:43 PM
In Which I Get A Promotion! / Saturday, July 28, 2007
Ok, so I'm now a trainee ASM. Or at least I should be sometime next week. It's all very exciting and I'll let you know more about it when I'm actually doing it.
I read Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (I actually finished it a few days after it came out. I enjoyed it, but I wish there was more in the epilogue. What did they end up doing for a living? I'm being vauge just in case y'all haven't finished it yet.
I also read The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Nighttime. That's a very good book. I didn't mean to read it as fast as I did, but I got around the point where Christopher and the rat go into the garden (yet again I'm being vauge - if you've read it you know when I'm talking about, if not I don't think this'll ruin it for you) and my heart started racing and I just had to finish the whole thing last night. I really enjoyed it. Even more than Harry Potter I think... I guess it's kind of hard to compare. But Harry did get rather borning in the middle of the book didn't he?
Now for something completely different.
I realised this morning that I'm living in a foriegn country. Sometime I forget this. Not when I'm watching the news or anything about politics (then I think "These crazy Americans!) but just driving around and doing normal day-to-day stuff. I have been living here for almost 5 years. Or maybe 6. I know that the anniversary is coming up (or maybe it's just gone? I can't remember) that's more than one sixth of my life...
Maybe I just realised this because I have just read two English books. for some reason me reading "20p" (as in twenty pence) seems like something from way back and I felt strange handling English (and Scottish) money when I was over recently. The only thing that really sets me apart is my funny accent, but even that has started to be a routine thing for me.
Well anyhow the point of this rambling is that I'm basically writing to you from a forigen land and you probably don't know about Donk cars.
Apparently, from what little I know of these cars (I'm no expert and I certainly haven't Donked my car!) It's easier to see what I'm writing about than me trying to explain it... So here's a picture:
Not just on huge wheels, but spinners! here's a link to the site (there's a video too, you can watch the spinners in action! Oooh!)http://carblog.99rides.com/2006/11/06/donk-on-30-inch-rims/
This is a very shiney looking one, I've seen five or six of these riding round town (not many on 30s though) and they look ridiculous. In fact that's where the name comes from. ReDONKculous. I just thought I'd share that bit of Southern culture with you. They do always make me smile when I see one.
Anyhow, I've got to go and feed the cats. They're settling in very well in case you were wondering. We haven't let them outside yet, maybe next week.
I also did my day in pictures, but the battery has run out on the camera, so as soon as we find out where we packed away the charger I'll get those up on here.
/Hopped!
8:47 PM
In Which Our House Becomes Our Home / Friday, July 20, 2007
Ok, It's late, so this is going to be a quick one. At least as quick as it can be with all the catching up I've got to do!
First off here's a picture of our home:
It's very nice. The house is 4 bedroom 2 bath (I don't know if I told y'all that before, it's been a while...)
We were furnitureless for a couple of weeks. That wasn't fun. I was kind of dreading coming back to the house because we only had patio furniture to sit in and an air bed to sleep on. Not exactly comfortable! After a couple of weeks we had a washer and dryer, and furniture.
This was our living room for the first couple of weeks (give or take a few boxes):
I did get fed up with that after a while though and made us a couch:
And now we have loverly furniture!
Here's our table:
Here's Toby enjoying the table:
That's not his real laugh by the way, that's his sitting at the table telling a joke laugh. He's a very funny guy!
and our sofas in our living room:
We also got a very comfortable king size bed, which is GREAT! there's now space for me, my preggo wife and all her various pillows! I haven't got any photos of that though. We're still waiting on the bedroom set (it'll come in the middle of august) so we've only got the mattress and box spring right now.
The only bit of furniture we're missing is a couple of bookshelves, and a futon (and my big screen TV. That will have to wait a while though.... That's long enough! where is it?!) We're going to get the futon after mother has been here, we're going to borrow a twin bed for the three months she's over, that will give us time to save up for a nice one.
Anyhow, so there's a little tour of the house. there's a lot more pictures at: http://www.dropshots.com/adspencer
Well apart from the unpacking and everything else, I've also been hard at work at work. The thing about hot summers is that everybody wants a cold drink. What with promotions at my Walmarts and merchandisers quitting all over the place, I've been working an awful lot! I just went in for an interview yesterday for a relief ASM position, so who knows? either I'll get it or I won't. Whatever, either would be fine with me.
Toby is doing great, he's handled the move with no problems, he's still got teeth coming in and has crazy rash all over his bum but that doesn't stop him from being the happiest baby in the world.
Ash is doing good, The Sequel likes lying on her nerves though (she should be used to that though, I've been getting on her nerves forever!) so she always has pain going up and down her legs, and we found out today she has gestational diabetes again. She's still finding time to laugh though, and she's the happiest I've seen her since we were living in Virginia. Probably since all the way back when we were living in England...
The Sequel is good and healthy. I'll scan the ultrasound pictures sometime so y'all can have a butchers. Don't hold your breath though!
Ash and I have seen a couple of movies recently, in fact we just got back from seeing Transformers. Man that's an awesome movie! It's what cinemas are made for! I told Ash I refuse to go to the cinema to see a movie without explosions. What's the point in paying the price of renting 5 DVDs to go and see a couple of really big dudes talking? Big explosions now that's what you want to see. Dudes talking can be TV sized, but the bigger the better with explosions!
So the other film we went to see was Spiderman 3. It was alright, nothing beats the first one though.
Now with all the explosion stuff in mind, we will have to go and see the new Harry Potter movie. But that's got it's spectacles in it though right? I told Ash she'll just have to be happy with the new book this weekend (she's going to have to finish it, I've got to read it on Monday and Tuesday when I'm off work!) and maybe we'll go see that next weekend.
We also rented out a few movies. Stranger Than Fiction, which was pretty darn good, Happy Feet, which was pretty much a waste of time, and Fearless, which I'm going to have to watch tomorrow. (See what I mean about talking and explosions? I'm sticking to my guns on that. Oh guns, they're also acceptable in a cinema. Any kind of action really. Nothing beats huge robots fighting though!)
It seems like I've given more space to films than I have to anything else. I feel like I've done an injustice to my new home and my family. Oh well. Films are made to be talked about though aren't they? Well I guess here's another video of Toby enjoying his new kitchen:
/Hopped!
10:44 PM
In Which We Have A House! / Friday, June 29, 2007
Yup, we closed today. It was pretty stressful. Our mortgage advisor told us two hours before we closed that we had to come up with $5500! Shocked? Yes we were! Luckily we had that money, but we were expecting the seller to cover that (that was how it was explained to us when we put in the offer) so we're going to have tighten the purse strings quite a bit.
Apart from that (major) hiccup everything is good. We have to wait three weeks for the furniture to be delivered, so we're not really sure when we're actually going to move in. On one side we've got a furnitureless house, and on the other we've got the crowded condidtions in the Brewer house. Still we don't have to make a decision on that right now. I've got most of our stuff over there, I think I may have to make two or three more trips. Anyhow, that's enough of that. Y'all will have to comeover and have a look at our new pad sometime.
I have a very funny story that one of Ash's mummy friends sent to her, I have to share it because it's so funny! I mean it's really funny, even if you don't really care about kids. By theway, Parker is her little boy. He's about Toby's age.
"Tues I was at my parents' house. Parker was extra hyper and really
getting on everyone's nerves. He kept trying to take Teagan's milk
from her so when she dropped her cup under a chair, I grabbed his
hand and held on so that she could get it before he did.
Well, it took forever for her to get it and he was putting all his
body weight into trying to get free from me. Eventually he started
getting angry so just as I let him go I said, "Oh NO!!!!! Parker,
mommy made that arm longer than the other from pulling on it!!! You
better give me the other arm so I can make them even."
So, he gives me the other arm and seems genuinely concerned LOL
I pull the other arm and as he leaves to go torment the cat I
say, "Parker!!!! Now your arms are longer than your legs!!! I better
pull on those!"
Back he comes and lays on the ground while I "even out" his body.
Next thing I know he is standing in front of me with his pants down
and holding his penis as if to give it to me. I guess he wanted that
longer too LMAO"
Isn't that a funny one? Well anyhow, I've been going at a hundred miles an hour all day and I've got to build two big displays at my Walmarts tomorrow, so I'm going to bed.
/Hopped!
7:22 PM