Happy Easter!

The bunny wowed my kids will all kinds of sugary greatness... and Larry left the door unlocked last night so that the bunny could hop in and hide eggs inside. That bunny is so thoughtful, he must have known nobody would want to hunt eggs in the pouring rain. We couldn't have timed our garage sale better.

Bad news this morning though. I had plans to travel to Covelo, CA (northern part of nowhere in the state) during spring break to finally spread my dads ashes. My brother got the time off, and everything seemed to be in order. Then my Uncle Fred called this morning. He's the only guy that can get me and my brother up to the property and help facilitate all of this, especially since I haven't been to Mendocino since I was 5, and Richard was a baby.

My cousin Matt (Fred's youngest child), is apparently struggling with addiction again, and has caused a lot of trouble up in Covelo. So my Uncle doesn't think the Borton clan would be very welcome up there right now, and he doesn't want to run into Matt up there either. Fred is actually not in the state of CA right now because Matt won't leave him alone. It's just awful. But Matt is also about 36 years old and didn't start using until he was 30, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for his problem. I really don't see me trying to use Meth at my age, pretty f'ing stupid. I think it's pretty stupid to do drugs at any age, with all the drug education kids receive these days (it was drilled into me when I was in school, so I can imagine what it's like now).

But it does make me that much more thankful that my brother has stayed clean for over 5 years now, and hasn't relapsed. I know that he is an anomoly for getting clean and staying clean with only one stint at rehab. Totally awesome. He asked for help when Brady was about 3 days old. I like to think (have no idea if it's true or not, and don't really care) that him holding his brand new nephew kind of shook his foundation, and a reality set in. He held a baby while he was high (I didn't know that, of course) and in the hospital it really upset him. And he was on a plane heading to recovery before Brady was a week old.

So there's the silver lining. I am sad for my cousins struggle, and sad for my Uncle, but have an ever growing love and respect for my brother's battle.