dreams

It's really hard to be excited about your dreams and plans when no one supports you or wants to help you.

It's the very reason why I've put what I want on the back burner for so long. There are only so many times a person can get excited and then get shot down before they shut down.

I'm at that point now. I'm done discussing what I'm planning and I understand that my support is limited.
I'm just going to do what I need to do to make my dreams real and you can all be surprised when it happens.

I won't look to family for assistance or guidance or excitement. I can't rely or depend on them. I can't blame them either. It's not their dream and they've heard me chirp about it for so long I'm sure they are numb to it. 

I'm going to have to find another way to get what I want.
I'm a resourceful gal. I'll figure it out.

Shasta

So today I had this crazy epiphany about my business plan and how I can set it apart and make it cooler and more ass kicking than anything else out there.
Do all my baking in the rented space that will be pimped out as my small commercial kitchen and then get a vintage trailer to use for event catering and to bring my cookies to the people.
Not just any stupid old food truck though. No dopey step van for my business. Oh no.
No, we go super cool vintage bad ass.
We go with a Shasta Trailer.

(gesticulating wildly like a game show bimbo) Huh?! Huh?! Come on! That's some cool stuff right there!
I know what you are thinking.
You are thinking
"Diana, WHERE are you going to park a trailer in Hoboken?!"
Silly silly common folk. (patting you all on the head)
We park her at the Monroe Center!
Stop. I know what you are thinking now.
"Diana, that's not a truck, that's a trailer. You will need to buy a car or truck to pull it"
Yup and ya know what? I'm gonna need a car/truck/SUV anyway if I'm going to do deliveries.  We find a used truck or whatever with enough horsepower to pull a 14' trailer and we are killing two birds with one stone.
(sitting back and looking triumphant)
Oh, but this story isn't over! I didn't start this to tell you how I have this all worked out. I started to share because I wanted to tell you how the universe/fate/God/whatever has once again thrown a sign my way that I cannot ignore.
I went hunting for a Shasta just to see how much one might cost and the first place I searched (South Jersey) brought me back this:

1962 Shasta Travel Trailer that was partially restored for a mobile coffee shop. Frame was reinforced for extra weight in trailer, rough wiring is finished for all electrical appliances. New insulation board has been installed, as well as many other upgrades. The trailer is great for somebody that wants to start a mobile food business or who is just getting it for recreational purposes. Give me a call and I will answer any questions you may have, and we can set up a time for you to come see it! $4,000 OBO Call Joan at (732)xxx-xxxx or E-mail, Thanks. PLEASE NO SCAMMERS OR TELEMARKETERS 

Is that just a teeny tiny weird or is it just me?
I contacted the owner and asked what she thought it would take to finish it up inside. She said she thinks about $3,000 to restore it.

Hubs is headed down to Atlantic City this weekend and I'm hoping that I can convince him to convince his BFF to take a drive up and see this gal.

I'd like to see more interior photos and ask him to haggle with the owner over the price. (He's MUCH more charming than I am and when he wants something, he can get it and leave you wondering what the hell just happened.)

This trailer doesn't figure into my business plan till the start of the second year of the doors being open so whatever work has to be done on her can be done in bits and pieces and slowly.
(Never mind that I've already begun to pimp it out and it's my evil plan to repaint all that blue with a purple/fuschia metal flake paint and have metal flake vinyl on the seats inside)



First let me see if I can convince hubs to even take a look at her....

Space

$2,000 a month for the space. Owner is getting me a price on all the necessary construction including adding a bathroom and installing sinks, and drains and upgrading some of the electrical.

I LOVE this space!

Merry Christmas

 The beautiful, unique, Christiana. There will never ever be another human like her anywhere. 

Since we lost her not one single day has gone by that I don't in some form think of her.
This time of year however, I have one very specific memory that never fails to make me smile no matter how many times I play it over in my head.

We were about 17 years old and had our brand new drivers licenses and she had that amazing car that you see in the photo above. We had spent the day Christmas shopping, getting her tree, running around from mall to mall and just loving our happy, carefree lives.

Earlier that year we had gone to see Anthrax play and at Christmas they had released a new single of their new album. The song was their rap metal number "I'm the man" We each picked up a copy of the single on cassette but waited till we got back to my place to slap it into my boom box.
With that song cranking we decorated the window in my room with fake snow. We went through 3 bottles of the stuff writing our favorite bands names and silly designs.

I remember just being happy and the two of us giggling and gossiping and planning our outfits for the upcoming weekend.
It was just one of those pure happy, hanging out with the (at that time) one person who made me happy, who understood and loved me for who and what I was. She always made me feel safe and understood.

My point behind sharing this?

It isn't always the big moments that count.
They ALL count.
Moments that you think mean nothing or aren't of any special significance can end up being a favorite or important memory.
Some of my favorite memories with her are just driving in our cars, or being in a mall.
Not events or celebrations (though I have lovely memories of those too) but how she made me always feel important and loved and worthy even when she wasn't saying a word.

During this time of year when we are with those we love (if you are lucky) tuck away some of the quieter moments. Pay attention to the smaller stuff. A laugh, a look, a story, a moment shared. They all count, but so often we don't realize it till it's too late and all we have are those memories to look back on.

Here is Anthrax doing "I'm the man" It's a nice festive holiday ballad

Merry Christmas all of you!

Popularity

Heaven help me. Patrick is breaking my heart tonight. We've been away from school for a week in Disney World and he was so happy. Tonight he's in bed crying because he's dreading going back to school tomorrow.
He's going through exactly the same crap I dealt with with the social scene in school when I was his age and it's killing me to see him like this. 
He's trying too hard to be all things to all people, trying too hard to ensure everyone likes him, trying too hard to fit in and be cool and it's backfiring.
Classmates are ignoring him, making fun of him, picking on him which only makes him become more desperate and try harder which gives the classmates more fuel.

It's one thing to go through it yourself, it's quite another to watch your child suffer with a pain you can still feel. I remember the isolation, the burning sensation of the blush on my cheeks when the girls would mock me. I remember wondering why they didn't like me.

Knowing I had a lot to offer, that I was a good person and would make a great friend if they would only give me a chance. Trying so hard, willing to stand on my head and laugh at their cruel jokes at my expense, even learning to poke fun at myself so they would laugh with me rather than at me.
Being invited to birthday parties only because I had to be and when I no longer had to be, being the only kid in class who wasn't invited.

It got so bad, my parents changed my school twice till we found one that was the right fit. It took 4 years of non stop agony, of my coming home each day crying, of my parents trying to figure out how to make it better to make it right. 

I want to kill these children for putting PJ through even a small tiny taste of this. Even if it never gets to the point where it was for me, the fact that he's now lying in his bed crying because he's dreading school tomorrow because his "friends" ignore him makes me want to go to school tomorrow with my claws sharpened tomorrow, ready to tear out the eyes of these horrible mean children who are causing my son pain.

I know that I can't. I know that I along with thousands of other adults made it out of that hell to the other side and grew up to be a decent human.
I know that anything I say to him is going to go in one ear and out the other. I know that drive to show them, to prove to them, to make them see that you are a worthy friend overrides anything I might tell him.

I am going to talk to the school psychologist tomorrow and see if I can't set up an appointment with her for him to see what she might have to offer. 

Ideas