True. I've tried being "normal" and it almost drove me nuts. I wasn't myself but my mom and sister just loved me! Mom told me how proud she was of me and my sister would call me once in a while just to exchange a recipe or talk about the kids accomplishments.

Once my cousin who lives in CA and is married to a wealthy career military guy and has three children wrote a Christmas brag letter about how her son was entering a program to become a politician and a foreign diplomat, how she and her husband had just bought a new Mercedes and how her daughter was graduating with honors from some private women's college and was dating a guy from Iran.

On and on and on it went and it was voted (by her sister in law's teacher's group as the Christmas letter most likely to make you gag.)

I just couldn't help it. I wrote one back saying how proud I was that not one of my three daughters had gotten pregnant this year and how the youngest had made it to the Wal Mart blue light special and how proud I was of the oldest who had just gotten off probation and got her kids back from DCF. What a good year! We got a new trailer house and my '65 Chevy had made it all the way from Arkansas to Louisiana before the muffler went out but I turned the radio up loud enough so we couldn't hear the noise.

I never heard from her again......

I'm a rebel and a lunatic, but I love deeply and am an advocate for the underdog. I really AM happy for her, and I don't envy anyone else having nice things and having successful children, I just think sometimes people's priorities get so messed up that they take themselves too seriously and forget to see the humor in life.

Chatty, I gotta love ya. You really are a wonderfully bright spot and so honest. I like that.