Planes, No Trains, But a Reliable Honda

If/when any of you have the opportunity to travel with a one year old, DO NOT do it.  We just got back from Missouri last night.  Between driving, flying, and a quick grocery store stop once back in town for milk, we spent 11.25 hours traveling with Maddie.  And that was after a pretty exhausting visit.  The trip home yesterday was not great.  Not great at all.  There was a lot of whining and crying.  Maddie also does this blood curdling scream now...when she's happy, mad, sad, or just bored.  Like when you were a kid and had the who-can-scream-the-loudest contests.  Yeah, like that.  Ugh. 

The visit itself, while exhausting, was pretty good.  It's so hard with a toddler, though.  She came off her schedule, lost sleep, and was on high alert due to the stranger danger phase she's in right now.  Yeah, not a good mix.  It was good for her to see the family, though, even though she stayed fairly uncomfortable with Joe's mom for the duration of the visit.  But alas, everyone got to see her, play with her, hug and kiss her, so I guess that makes it a successful visit.  Also, the trip there went remarkably well, so things started on a good note. 

The best part of the trip for me (other than seeing family) was probably going on a long (well, long for me) run with Joe one morning as the rain started moving in.  We got in a 50 minute, 4.38 mile run under wonderfully cloudy skies.  The scenery was beautiful - fall leaves and plush green grass against the gray backdrop.  To me that kind of beauty beats anything here.  It just felt so good to cut loose and just run, especially in that weather (and closer to sea level).  Never thought I'd feel that way.  Definitely the highlight for me. 

Now we're back here, and I'm not too depressed.  Just tired.  I guess Thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow.  Whoops.  Due to family relations, I'm planning for the three of us (plus dogs) to have a quiet little Thanksgiving by ourselves.  The dish on the fam is more about Joe's stepmom.  I can't believe there's more...and it's stupid FB stuff (with is actually a pretty decent representation of the reality of our relationship).  I've already written how she became offended by the negativity on FB (to include me saying Sierra Vista wouldn't suck while the Croat was here and her response of how could I say that when I have family living here???) and deactivated her account.  Well, she got back on.  Bummer.  Over the weekend I noticed that she wrote something about how she is back on but will steer clear of the negativity, along with how she can't understand how people wake up in the morning choosing to hurt their families.  With that, I had enough.  I un-friended her so I wouldn't even be tempted to read more of the ridiculous, hypocritical crap she writes.  I figure it'd be a positive for her too, as she would no longer be offended by my negativity.  Well, last night on the drive home, Joe got a text from his brother asking if Wendy had blocked us on FB.  He and his fiance noticed something was up, and it turns out that yep she blocked us both.  I guess trying to minimize the drama created more?  I dunno.  It's ridiculous.  I can't even believe I just wrote all this, and even more that this is my life.  But I will say that one of the last comments I read from Wendy (before she blocked me) was on a picture of Joe's older brother and his wife, saying "WE WANT MORE GRANDCHILDREN."  Yep, a nice comment to a couple who have been trying amidst fertility issues for two years without success.  How thoughtful.  If anyone has any advice for how I'm supposed to handle having a person like this in my life, please let me know.  I do not think she is well, and I do not think I can in any way reason with her or address our issues to some sort of actual solution.  That leaves me with few options.  Help?

That said, the remainder of this week will be spent recovering from our trip and trying to get back on schedule.  It seems like I had more fun, witty things to write, but I can't remember them.  Right now I'm gonna just kick back for a minute with the rest of my coffee and a book and have a FREAKIN' MINUTE TO MYSELF.  Wooooooooooooooooooot.