The Count Down to Christmas

How in the world does almost 3 weeks go by so fast? Funny I don't remember time passing so quickly when I was young, a year seemed like forever didn't it? Well in 10 more days I will be seeing another birthday come and go, funny how you stop really looking forward to them at this point... what point is that you say? Let's just say mature. Or if you want to do the math, my oldest daughter is 23 and I had her when I was 18.

Speaking of older daughter, I just got word she is driving out to Arizona to spend Christmas with me! For the first time in many years I will have all my kids together for the holidays, I'm excited and nervous... could be a very stressful week in the Ackerman household with a 23 year old, 15 year old, 2 year old and 8 month old! Yikes! Hoping to finally get this house put together as we still have boxes everywhere since moving in 3 weeks ago.

Ebay has been steady, keeping us afloat at least! I'm hoping my stuff is the kind of stuff everyone wants to shop for after Christmas. I'm disciplining myself right now and only listing listing listing, no buying buying buying because I discovered during this move I have WAY too much inventory! So I'm working on getting my inventory down to a comfortable amount before buying more.

Oh and did I mention I'm going to be a gramma again? Yep my oldest is expecting, she will be out here to go through my maternity clothes, how crazy is that?!

Here's some of the latest from Noah and Rachel:

A very sad day for us

What do I say about Joe? He was an ornery guy, a tough Navy veteran but a softy at heart. He was the only grampa I had (adopted at that). He was always ready to help with fixing this or that, or always had good advice on stuff. At 86 years old he was still getting up on the roof and fixing stuff, or crawling under the house to do something. So never ever in a million years did I think I would get the call that came today...

That's Joe holding the little Panda Bear halloween 2005.

Trixie, his wife of 34 years, called to tell me Joe had committed suicide. He had multiple strokes over the last year and was very depressed, I had no idea it was that bad. He left her a note saying he was going to see their moms and thank you for 34 wonderful years, she could find him out in the shed... I'm in tears again as I write this, those words won't leave my head for a long time.

Trixie is like my gramma, I am so worried about her now. She said she's staying with friends, I am soooo so sad for her. Joe was her world.

The worst part about all this is I had been having this really strong feeling we needed to go visit them "before anything happened", almost eerie now and of course we didn't get there.

So please go see those loved ones you've put off seeing. Don't have regrets like I now have.

We loved you Joe! I'm sorry you were hurting so bad.

I made it!

Well here I am, blogging, something I've been meaning to do and putting off for ages! So here I am, wait I said that already! My nice organized calm life (ok who am I fooling) was sure thrown for a loop when Rachel made her appearance in my world. I had just about gotten things ironed out with Noah being almost 2 and much less needy, then wham here we go, no sleep, a human pacifying boob machine... and yet... I wouldn't have it any other way, my life is so incredibly full with these two miracle babies.

Ok I think I need to make another paragraph! What I'm trying to say is I still haven't figured out how to juggle and fit in all the little extras, like blogging, that I used to have time for! Heck I was amazed with myself last night for reading a book! Ok so I read like 3 pages and skimmed the rest who am I kidding/!

And as if life isn't crazy enough, we are getting ready to move, again (for those that know me this will be the 3rd move in 2 years time).

So I will get more of a hang of this and it will be a constant work in progress! Thanks for reading if you got this far!