Hi All! Sorry I haven't written more...it's been a busy day/weekend in the Van Hee household.

Work this past week has been VERY busy! The Global Finals competition is 2 weeks away, but the staff leaves Friday to head down to Tennessee and set up. This means LOTS of working to get everything done before they go! It's been busy, and I'm tired alot when I get home. I've been working at least an hour or more overtime, and hope to put in two or so hours every day Mon. - Thurs. this week. The office manager called me aside Friday to let me know that Robert, who runs the University of Tennessee Conferences division was very impressed with me when he came up to work with us in preparation for Memorial Day. Everyone agreed it was a shame that because of the Mid-Atlantic A.T. Convention I'll be in VA Beach, otherwise I could talk to Robert about a job. Rene (the office manager) thought it would be a great opportunity for me and something I might like to do and that I should go visit after Globals are over. However, she said, they'd like to keep me there too. So, it looks like a permanent job might be looming in the near future. Keep your fingers crossed!

Yesterday was Dad's Birthday. I spent the morning and some of the afternoon with my mom. We took my grandmother and grandfather (mom's parents...dad's are no longer with us) to Value City to look for a suit for my grandfather to wear to my cousin Josh's wedding. Saturday ended a suit sale, so that's why we went yesterday. We picked them up, ate breakfast and went shopping. I ended up with a great pair of linen Liz Claiborne pants, my grandmother got a pretty mint (lime?) green suit with embroidered flowers on it for the wedding, my grandfather got a suit, a sportcoat, a dress shirt, belt, and socks, and mom got a dress, and a couple fo shirts. Not a bad day shopping and in record Value City time at that! :) On the way to pick up my grandparents, I made reservations with the repairman fixing the air conditioning at this restaraunt Dad wanted to try. It was a tavern, which made us a bit nervous, especially after I told mom the only reason Dad picked it was because he saw their ad in the newspaper every week! Turns out (after getting lost and showing up a half hour late for our reservations) it was a cute little place between Moorestown and Mt. Holly. It was a tavern, but the dining room looked more like an inn. They had alot of windows which overlooked the Rancocas River, and they had saved us a nice little corner table where every seat had a view of the river. (It even had a reserved sign on it, which made us feel ultra-important! :) ) Dad got some nice presents, including a little Matchbox Land Rover. :) Hey, we didn't make fun of him for being old...had to pick on him for something! :)

Mother's Day has really been just a blur of a Sunday! The weather has been rainy, overcast, sunny, hot, rainy, thunderstorms, now just humid. My poor nose is like a well-used faucet! (on/off, on/off) I woke up, went grocery shopping, ate lunch, succombed (no way I've tried spelling this looks right!) to my allergies and took a brief 15 min. catnap, then began dinner preparation. My grandparents and Adam, my cousin who's living with them while attending Rutgers came for dinner. Dinner was good, company was good, and mom got her 12 Cup coffee maker, so all is well at the weekend's end.

I, however, am unhappy to report my nightmares have returned. I don't really know what spawned it, but each morning around 6:30 or so I find myself waking, heartpounding for a variety of dreams I thought I had rid myself of having. Somehow I find his name creeping more and more into conversation and think of him constantly. I can't believe 4 months since leaving Greensboro, I still miss him so much. I guess in some weird way, I figured removing myself from the situation would help ease the thoughts and emotions. It hasn't. In my dreams, I see "their" life as if I were watching it through a window. the feelings have yet to subside and the ache seems to grow greater, not less with each passing day. It's hard for so many reasons, I don't know if I can vocalize or put into words all of them - even though I myself know what they are. I think the hardest is knowing that, as David Lee Roth once said, "life goes on without me" :) and it's as if I was never part of his life or even mattered as much as I thought I did.

To add to my neuroses lately, in wrapping all the presents for all the holidays the last two days, I ran across the bag Neil gave me my Christmas presents in one year, with the cute little blonde girl and dark haired little boy sitting on the steps looking at something (or he's watching her open a card). It's really funny (to me, anyway) that each day's events are tough for me without him. I never relied on him much for relieving stress in my life, but I think it's missing out on what's going on in his. When Ellie (the other temp at work) talks about how life has been since her husband died, I understand. And even though your life goes on and moves in it's own direction, it always seems as though something is missing. That each day is just biding time - like when a loved one is on a trip. Your days don't feel the same, but you know eventually they will return and that piece of you will be filled. So you continue going through the motions of life until the day when that person you share your thoughts and feelings with returns and the days once again seem to have meaning and purpose. I, however, know that this is a trip from which my loved one will never return. I am not holding out hope that he will "see the error of his ways and return to me"; Many days I do not even ever want to hear from him or about him ever again. I curse the day I ever met him (as well, I know, as many of you do) and wish he would just disappear from my life and my thoughts - taking all the good and bad memories I have with him. But yet, for as odd as this may sound, some days I hope he has truly found all the love and happiness I always wanted for him. I have been known (on very rare occasions) to be wrong, and perhaps I was merely an obstacle he needed to go through to truly appreciate Christy and his life and find his happiness - true happiness. Others I think he deserves to be miserable and unhappy for the rest of his life, he has made his choice and I want him to live every regretting it. (Not necessarily just me, but everyone in his life he's done this to.) So, I go through the motions everyday, just waiting...

Wow! I went on that tangent ALOT longer than I anticipated! Hopefully, I'll be alot less tired this week and can keep "The Blog" going everyday like I used to. I hope you all are doing well! Now, I feel a nice hot bath and more succombing to my allergies...in my little bed this time! :) 'Night!