The Good, The Bad, The Ugly... and The Holy

The Bad:

Oh what a stressful weekend, but with such a beautiful result.. Sunday Madison was to make her first holy communion and prep work here at the house was in full swing. Earlier in the week I had painted the alcove behind the entertainment center and did some mighty painful damage to my back. The pain kept me up during the nights, getting out of bed was a 10 minute ordeal with lots of grunting and the occasional scream, and getting down the stairs was more of the same. But I had a whole house to clean and organize and no husband to help me. Thank the good Lord for Motrin. If not for that nothing would have gotten done.

My in-laws drove here Saturday night (4 hour drive from the west coast) and my mother-in-law was a huge help on Sunday. But Jimmy? Oh my, he did nothing but make my life more stressful. See, for the two months we've been in the house I've nagged and nagged for him to get his various boxes out of the pool table room and the family room, but to no avail. "I don't have time. You can do it yourself." were some of the excuses. So when did he "organize" all of this crap? TWO HOURS before the family was to arrive on Sunday! But did he go through the stuff and organize? Oh, no no Nannette (as Shelia would say)! Instead he carried boxes up the stairs and put them all in the guest room closet. Except for decor stuff of mine, which he quickly and haphazardly stuck on any available surface, disregarding all the decorating I'd been doing for weeks. So as I'm trying to do my hair, do Madison's hair and get her dressed, I was also running back and forth removing items from different surfaces in the house and stowing them wherever I could. Yep, just what I needed.

At 12:30 the family descended on my house and off we went to the church. Picture if you will, 168 children making their first communion and the church stuffed with all of their relatives. This is a rather huge church but it was bulging at the seams.



Now I suffer from panic disorder and this was not an ideal situation for me. It may not have been too bad if we only needed to be there and hour or so. But three? Oh boy, I was one miserable girl. I did my best to zone out for most of the mass, but needed to get outside for fresh air a few times. A few glances at my brother and I saw he was in some alternate zen state of mind, far removed from the exceedingly long and boring celebration. If only I had the power to do that!

Okay, so maybe he was just snoozing, but still.

The Good:

Back at the house food was prepped and appetizers were laid out. My family swooped down on the goodies like a pack of starving animals. Jimmy says he's never seen anything like it in his life, the way my family can plow through a plate of 7- layer Mexican dip. I told him to shut up. We're Italian, we're fat, and all of us had low blood sugar by that point. Neener neener you little wiener!

I realized at some point that Jill and I never have pictures taken together. I made the mistake of handing the camera to my brother, Jeff. I say mistake, because he's just as sick and twisted as Jill and I, but hides it better.  Usually.  He grabbed Alexa's Magnadoodle, wrote on it, and made Jill hold it, but we weren't allowed to look at what he wrote. This is the outcome.

Oh, the respect he has for his little sisters, eh?And Sis? Must you always have that sexy, come-hither look in your eyes? You're making me look bad. Like innocent or something. Eeks!

I guess from now on Jill's ginormous boobs will forever be known as ginormous glands.

Hey! I resemble that!

So thank you brother, for taking the opportunity to ruin what could have been halfway decent pics of the sisters together. It's not every day that we both have our hair and makeup done at the same time, ya know! I'll forgive ya though, 'cause it was pretty damn funny at the time.

He didn't leave his poor, defenseless wife out of the hilarity either. I love the look on my nephew, Jeffrey's face. It tells it all, don't you think?

But what I said about Pat being poor and defenseless? I lied. She is the #1 bitch, which truly pisses me off, because that's MY title!

The Ugly:

It's all about Jill here. Have I ever told you she's a klutz? I'm talking a serious threat to those around her at times. First I had her on some light KP duty. Just rinsing some dishes to put in the dishwasher. Next thing I know my trifle bowl is in a million pieces, half of which were down the drain.

Next, I'm standing in the kitchen with Jeff and Pat, making coffee. Jill is again at the sink, this time rinsing her hands or something. I took the coffee filter out while it was blistering hot and hightailed it to the sink to dump the grinds. I put my arm over and across hers and said, "Hot hot hot. Jill, move please!" Well, for some reason, she decided to flick her arm. What happens? The filter goes flying out of my hands, ground coffee flies through the air, landing on the counter, the floor, and all over the back of Jimmy. Even though he jumped and cursed because it was red hot, I couldn't help laughing. Then Jill goes on and on about how I pushed her arm, it wasn't her fault, yada yada yada. Well, Jeff and Pat were my witnesses. She pushed MY arm. Neener neener sister dear! So then I made her clean up the mess.

For the rest of the day, people kept moving breakables out of her way.

The Holy:

After all, this day was all about Madison so now it's time to show you pictures of my little princess! She was so excited to get dressed up, and I have to say, her dress was exquisite, if also a bit on the itchy side.








So that's it folks.  The good, the bad, the ugly, and my holy little girl.   I'm sorry that I haven't been visiting as much as usual the past few days.  My computer's power cord died and I have to steal time on Madison's laptop when she's not in school and not using it for homework.  Ugh.

Pssst! If you love me, you might love my sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!