I love drama actually… as long as it doesn’t involve me. Shows like Desperate Housewives make me happy because ah! the crazies! and they don’t involve me at all. I can sit back and enjoy my comparatively normal life.

Until my life isn’t normal. Actually I’m pretty sure it never is normal but sometimes it seems that way. When I really realize how crazy my life is is when I try to explain even simple things, like my family.

It’ll start with a simple question like, “how many siblings do you have?” My answer:

“Well, I’m the oldest of six… but I also have two older half brothers. They’re a lot older though so I didn’t really grow up with them. They’re almost my mom’s age. See, my dad was married and had two kids. My mom is his second marriage and he had six more kids with her. Oh yeah, my dad is 21 years older than my mom.”

Or something along those lines.

Maybe I’m just a chronic oversharer. Probably considering I blab my life on my blog.

I just feel like people won’t truly understand me if they don’t have all the information. I was raised as an oldest child and have the personality to go with it. However, I love my half brothers very much and don’t want to discount them in my life. I really have seven siblings. At the same time, I still feel like the oldest.

Confused enough yet?

Obviously I don’t go into the whole spiel every single time siblings come up in conversation. Sometimes I just say I have five younger siblings. Or seven siblings. Or I just say I’m the oldest. It depends on what I feel like they’re up for listening to. Although I imagine I’ve read the signals wrong and left someone wishing they hadn’t asked.

Fortunately my complicated family groupings aren’t any part of my life drama. Usually. Obviously I’ve had some spats with all my siblings and I wish I had more time with all of them but for the most part we either get along really well or at least live our lives without bothering each other. My family is just an illustration of how abnormal my life is.

The drama is of a whole different variety but it’s equally, if not far more complicated. Sometimes it weighs on me so heavily it would be nice to just spill it to someone. The issue? There is not enough time in a day to explain even the back story so I could start explaining what’s actually wrong.

I’m not over dramatizing this. It’s that ridiculous and complicated and just plain crazy.

I love my blog. I love the people I’ve met through my blog and on Twitter. However, there are time I wish I were an anonymous blogger. Then I could spill my guts to the world without having to worry about the backlash. If I started an anonymous blog though I’d lose everyone I’ve worked so hard to get to know over the past year. Making friends is hard enough, I don’t want to start from scratch.

So, I have no real outlet and all the thoughts and stories and feelings just tumble around in my head. Of course I can talk to Joel about it but he’s kind of in the middle of it like I am so he doesn’t have a very neutral perspective.

It’s quite a conundrum for a chronic oversharer like me.

patience

love

peace

forgiveness

Despite the fact that I feel:

STAB STAB STAB STAB

It’s a choice. Happiness is a choice.

I want to be happy. I want to be at peace. I want to just let it all go.

I know I am a good person.

I’m occasionally selfish but I believe I am mostly empathetic.

I’m sometimes snarky and sarcastic but I’m usually a pleasant, kind, loving person to be around.

I try to always think of others and how they would feel about a situation. I try to put myself in their place and understand where they’re coming from.

I work hard and love harder.

I’m fiercely loyal and deeply passionate.

Most people enjoy my company. Or at least they pretend to.

I try to keep a positive outlook on life and smile as often as possible.

I know that some people will be impossible to please. I won’t get along with everyone. Some people just won’t like me. I also will not like everyone. Some people are assholes.

However, even to the assholes I will strive to be as polite as possible. You never know what someone’s background is.

There are so many things about myself that I would like to improve. I’m so very far from perfect. Perfection shouldn’t be my goal.

Love is my goal.

Happiness is my goal.

Peace is my goal.

My name means joy and my biggest goal in life is to create joy in others. I love people.

I refuse to let the occasional crazy person ruin my day.

I choose not to.

Joel and I with our contact, A and his cousin M. M is a politician but I’ll write more on that later.

The house we stayed in was M’s with his wife, mother and three kids.

The kids adored us despite what it may seem like by the look on the littlest one’s face in this picture.

One other semi- member of the family?

Aws! Ok, so it was a stray that had decided to make their front yard it’s home. Joel about killed me for picking it up but it was so freaking adorable! As far as I can tell I did not catch rabies, fleas or lice from it so yay.

The kids, Joel and I had a ton of silly fun.

My phone was fascinating to them. I guess that’s pretty much a universal thing.

One of their favorite things was playing hand clap games. They taught me a couple in their language. Don’t ask me to repeat them back now, I don’t remember. They were fun though.

Their mom braiding their very long beautiful hair for school.

I loved being their “Auntie” and treasure all the happy moments I got to share with them. Our flight out was early in the morning so I figured I had to say my goodbyes the night before. We were scheduled to leave the house at 5am and I was surprised that everyone was waking up while we were. But every one of them got up, showered, got dressed and piled into a tiny five-seater car. For the record it was Joel, Me and the wife with a child each on our lap. Then M, A and one of the pastors we met with in the front. In case you weren’t counting that’s NINE people in a car the size of a Geo Metro. I was afraid that little car wasn’t going to make it. It definitely bottomed out more than once. We did though and they parked and went as far into the airport with us as they could.

We were very lucky to have met them. I’m so glad that I now have an Indian family waiting for me whenever we get to go back. I hope it’s soon.

This post is about something I find strangely weird and uncomfortable about Facebook. That is, having my immediate family on my friends list. Not so much my brothers and sisters, most of the time we’re more like friends anyway. It’s my parents. For some reason having my mom and dad as my Facebook friends is just strange.

The thing is, I can’t place my finger on why it’s so odd to me. I mean, I have many friends on Facebook. Some are even my parents’ age. Doesn’t bother me. It’s also not that I think they’re going to discover something about me that they don’t already know. We’re a close family. Plus, I’m pretty much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of a girl.

So far I haven’t had to deal with it much. Until recently only my mom had a Facebook account. She basically never gets on because she’s a teeny bit busy raising her six kids. Oh, and the nursing degree she’s in her senior year of getting. Have I mentioned my mom kicks ass? My mom is probably the coolest woman alive but there’s still that tiny part of me that cringed ever so slightly when she created her account.

Then there’s my dad. I had no idea he’d even heard of Facebook. My dad has many talents and interests but social networking was never one of them. Then a friend invite popped up on my homepage.

Jim Staub

There’s no picture. Just a name. Very little information on the account. But I’m pretty sure it’s my dad. Or at least someone pretending to be my dad. But I would guess an impostor would ad more than the bare minimum to their profile page. Still, I can’t be 100% positive. It just seems so out of place for my dad, of all people, to join Facebook. Of course I accept. Because I’m a good daughter, and even more so because I do love my dad. But it’s still just a little strange.

My dad has one status update: “Jim Staub is trying to understand facebook :/” At least he has the “status grammar” correct, which is more than I can say of a lot of Facebook users. Where the heck did he learn to make that emoticon? It’s still surreal so the other day, when my family was hanging around, I remembered to ask him about it.

“Oh hey Dad, is that really you on Facebook?”

He jerked his head over his shoulder and exclaimed “Where?!”

Joel, my siblings and I laughed until our stomachs hurt and tears were running down our faces.

I guess my parents being on Facebook isn’t going to affect my life that much after all.

Caroline and Me, we missed each other!

She and Joel had a lot of silly fun too.

We got to watch the boy’s judo exams Saturday afternoon. They both did very well and passed to the next level.

We also went with Ineke and the kids to the market and enjoyed some delicious Dutch treats, yum!

Nothing is quite like some delicious patat.

Speaking of Dutch treats, Ineke’s apple taart is to die for!

Sunday the weather was sunny and warm..ish so we decided to take a trip to Hoek van Holland.

Not quite so sunny and warm once we got to the beach but it was still windy.

It was a little too windy, this is one of the short times the kite actually stayed in the air. Most of the time it would go up and almost immediately come crashing back to the ground. Actually, the kite probably came crashing down shortly after I took this. For the boys it was pretty frustrating but it made for some really funny video footage.

Building a sand castle.

Happy couple. Can you believe it had been almost four years since we were last in The Netherlands together?

It was a really fun trip full of good food and even better company. I love my Dutch family and I wish they weren’t quite so far away. At least my job makes them seem a lot closer. *smile*

We spent Christmas eve at my Grandpa’s house as is our tradition. Here is Hunter snuggling Grandpa while we were watching The Polar Express.

My grandma and the newest member of our family, Jordan.

Joel and I spent the night at my parents house and this is what we were greeted with Christmas morning. My family is so blessed.

It was baby Jordan’s first Christmas. Isn’t he adorable?

My dad, Anthony, Naomi and Bekah waiting to open presents.

What’s a dinosaur say? “Grrrrrr!”

Hunter was being a helpful cousin and feeding baby Jordan.

My mom was really surprised by her Christmas gift.

My littlest little sister Anna

Liz has a little trouble with directions sometimes so this will come in really handy.

Madison was such a good little puppy and slept right in the middle of all the presents.

My mom made her famous biscuits and gravy for Christmas brunch, yum!

That evening we went over to my brother’s house and had Christmas dinner with them.

I can’t imagine the day being any more perfect. I hope everyone’s Christmas was equally full of fun, laughter and magic. Merry Christmas!