Tuesday

‎1. The only person that can ever truly make you happy is yourself. Stop depending on everyone else. 
2. People lie, stuff happens. Don’t take it too personally.
3. Want people to think you’re amazing? Start believing you are, and then they will too.
4. Smiling is the ultimate anti-depressant. Smile and laugh out loud, it doesn’t look stupid, I promise.
5. The world is never just black and white, right or wrong, one way or another. Try and see things from as many points of view as possible.
6. Celebrate the things you have. Think only positively of the things you don’t (but would like to have) and they too will come.
7. Have empathy.
8. Gossip, problems of the past, events you cannot control, negative thoughts and negative people; time spent on these is time poorly wasted.
9. When you’re jealous or find yourself filled with hate for someone/something, stop. The only person its hurting is you.
10. Although the newest, most expensive material things may make you feel as if you’re a better person, they won’t hold you at night or listen to you when you need it. Make sure your priorities make sense.

#8 is going to be my focus for this year…beginning today.  Alabama won the BCS championship game last night, so when I got up this morning I decided to go post congratulations on my oldest niece’s FB wall (since she’s a sophomore at Alabama) – but then I realized she wasn’t on my friends list anymore.  I have a couple of dummy accounts that I use for FB games, so I logged into one of those and saw her profile just fine.  Which means she’s blocked me.  

This is just an extension of the disagreement with my ex-SIL, I’m sure.  She must have said something to her daughter which caused her to block me on FB.  I’ve called them out – I sent ex-SIL a message on FB just asking if anything happened with my niece since I can’t see her on FB anymore, and DH (who she didn’t block) sent the niece a note asking if she’d blocked me for some reason.  I’m not going to escalate this or make a big deal out of it, I’m just letting it be known that I noticed.

And honestly, while I’m a little hurt, it’s not like I’ve ever been close to her.  I didn’t get to spend much time with her when she was growing up, and even though she’s going to college two hours away from me, she’s never wanted to visit for Thanksgiving or anything.   And while I’ve always sent gifts for her birthday and Christmas, she (and her sister) never sent thank you notes; in fact, I usually send the packages with delivery confirmation just to be sure they got there since no one mentions it.  I asked DH this morning if, assuming this doesn’t get resolved, we can now stop sending her gifts; but I think that would be petty, and anyhow I’ve pretty much decided I’m going to continue doing birthdays & Christmases for my nieces & nephews until they graduate from college.  

Anyhow, what’s done is done.  I came here to vent and get it off my chest, and I’m not going to focus on it going forward.  She’s my oldest niece, and I will always love her, but I can’t make her want to have a relationship with me.