13 years ago, I was still living in Australia.  I had just gotten out of the shower, when my friend Einid called me, and told me that a plane had crashed into a building in the US - and she insisted that I turn the telly on.
 I didn't think too much of it, thinking it was an air show crash or something, but I turned the TV on, and dropped straight to my knees.  I swear I didn't move from that spot for what literally turned out to be hours.

  My first thought was my son Josh... and I tried frantically calling the US, while still kneeling there on the floor watching the TV.... but I couldn't get through.

 I didn't know where Josh was, and although I knew somewhere in the deep reaches of my mind, that he wasn't in NY, my heart was still frozen with dread.  All I wanted, was to hear my son's voice - and to know that he was okay.

It took 3 days before I could finally get a call through to my Dad, and once he had assured me that my son was okay, I could finally start to process the horror that we, as Americans, had gone through.

Labor Day and a Happy Birthday.

Labor Day, a Happy Birthday Day... and a Labor Saving Day all rolled into one!

Today is "the boy next door"'s Birthday, and since the birthday boy gets to not only choose his birthday meal, he gets to choose his birthday cake as well,  we went very labor saving - in his honor, of course.

If it had been up to me, of course I would have happily worked my little tail off, cooking a fancy schmancy, multi-coursed birthday dinner for the man who's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

But he won out.

Bisquick for the waffles

Oven baked bacon

and homemade apricot cobbler.

All served on paper plates.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart!

Too much water under the bridge?

I hope not... but time will tell, I guess.
I had every intention of keeping this blog going, and sharing all the new "I've finally moved back home" adventures with you all,  but truth to tell, once I got back, my new life didn't slowly "unfurl" gently and peacefully before my eyes.
It  unraveled.
Almost instantly.
Too much has happened to even begin to explain everything fully... so I'll just gloss over most of it, and just hit the high points for now.

The house that was supposed to be ready and waiting for me - the house that I had sent my kids the money for - to both purchase outright, and to do approximately $40k of renovations with - was still here... only it was in foreclosure, due to non-payment. And since I still don't completely understand what happened or didn't happen, or why it happened or didn't happen, there's no point in going into the very few details that I do understand. It's enough to say that I managed to get the house out of foreclosure, the payments caught up, and I paid off the final balloon payment in June of 2013.
I can finally say that I now own my own home - but the cost - both emotional and financial - isn't as easy to accept.


But easier to understand, and to explain, was the now non-relationship with the Old Guy.

Before I even left Australia, the relationship with the Old Guy had well and truly unraveled as well.
He had decided that he didn't want a commitment ceremony before I left... because he figured that that would in some way make him legally and financially responsible for me.  And the 3 or 4 trips a year to come see me  in the States had been whittled down to maybe once or twice a year.... because he said that it costs money to put his pets in a boarding kennel - and he wasn't made of money.  The kicker was when I was getting ready to do a change of address so my mail would go to his house - and then he could either send it on to me, or pay any possibly outstanding  bills with the money I had set aside for him.  Because in his eyes,  he thought that by allowing my mail to be inserted in his mail box, it would somehow mean that there was /could be/ might be, a financial commitment on his part...and that he would therefore be responsible for not only me, but he would be responsible for my bills as well.
And we certainly couldn't have that, now could we?.
So instead.... I had the mail forwarded to my friend Jenny, and she dealt with it all.

Oh believe me,  I did a bit of crying over the Old Guy, and I got some flak for "dumping" him... but the friends that knew me well, and the friends who personally had watched the day-in-and-day-out  "real" relationship between the Old Guy and myself, were only surprised that it had taken me so long to wake up to his almost  obsessive "non-involvement" and empty promises.

Then two months after returning "home", my son introduced me to the "boy next door" and things changed for the better...and  in so many ways.

But that's a story for another time