Family is Family

Don't you just love the fall? It's my favorite season. I love the crisp smell, the coolness in the air, the beautiful changing colors of the leaves falling on the ground, lighting my fall scented candles in the house, and being able to add a cute sweater or light jacket to hide the muffin top that's jutting over my pants. I just love it! The October Fests are always fun, and it's such a great family time to go apple, berry, and pumpkin picking. And who doesn't love pumpkin slinging, going through corn mazes, enjoying pony and hay rides, making scarecrows, and putting out Halloween and fall decorations. The kids love it! We have a huge wall calendar with pockets to countdown to Halloween, and we put little candies and Halloween related mini things in there for the kids. We got it at Potterybarn. 

When I said I love when CJ brings me candy, I meant it. I was one of those annoying kids still trick or treating in high school. I figured I was only 5'3", so people might think I was younger. I was going to try and milk it as long as I could. I remember filling a pillowcase! The trick is to go toward the end of the night and dump out most of your bag so people think you're just getting started. Then they feel sorry for you and give you more. Plus they get tired of answering the door by then and just want to get rid of their candy. I had it all figured out.

Anyway, I hope it didn't sound like I send my kid out there trick or treating on his own. Of course Chris and I are always with him. I put the pumpkins in the yard (sort of a homemade pumpkin patch), and the kids go pick their favorite pumpkin to carve. We love roasting the seeds and eating them. It's good family fun!

I was really sad and blown away to hear from Teresa what happened at the christening. It just didn't seem to make sense or seem real. All I could think was, "Aren't you supposed to congratulate the parents at a christening? Why did her own brother call her garbage?" And the banging on the table thing? Must be a Gorga trait. Something in their DNA maybe? It just wasn't adding up. Was I missing something? Teresa never talked that much about her brother or Melissa with me. I'd seen them at all of her parties, but never noticed if they talked to each other. I think I just assumed that all was well. Up until this point I hadn't heard anything that would make me think there were such deep issues between her and her brother that he would call her garbage. (By the way...I just love Joey Gorga in a dress!) 

I couldn't figure out why her brother would be so upset with Teresa. He must have been upset with something. The whole christening party was a big crazy mystery to me and a complete shame. I felt horribly sad for everyone involved. I knew everyone had to be hurting. It hurt me when I saw how hurt Teresa seemed by it all. When your friends hurt, you want to help them. But with her family being involved, I needed to be very careful how it was handled. I certainly didn't want to add any more fuel to that raging fire. 

Knowing that we were all going to be face to face at Kim D's annual Posche fashion show, I didn't want it to be weird. I didn't think it made sense for me to say anything to Melissa about what her husband said or even to Melissa's sister for yelling at Teresa. Besides that when I'd talked to Melissa, she was always very friendly with me. I had no problem with her. Picking sides would only help fuel the fire and put more of a wedge between Teresa and her family. My goal was to help make it better. That's her family. After all if I did jump in to defend Teresa, especially not knowing all of their family history, I could be the one coming out in the end as the jerk when her and her family made up. Families always make up eventually! It could take days, weeks, or years, but they always make up. Family is family.

My only advice to Teresa before the fashion show was to reach out to her brother and his wife and acknowledge what had happened. It wasn't that I thought that Teresa owed them an apology by any means, but I thought that maybe she could say she was sorry it had gotten to that point. I thought that acknowledging everyone's pain at that point would be a step toward getting to the root of it all before they could resolve it. Even if Teresa didn't intentionally do anything wrong, her brother's perception is obviously much different. If she loves her brother, which I know she does, and respects his feelings, I felt she should listen to where this hurt that had turned to anger was coming from. Maybe she could help to change his perception of things, because Teresa truly believed that she has done nothing wrong to him. I did feel, however, that it is wrong for anyone to call their family member garbage, especially for a brother to call to his sister that on national TV. I felt it would help if Joey apologized for the name calling, but then explained his pain to her. The problem I'm starting to see between them is their lack of communication with each other, and then having too many people jumping in to fuel the fire. I wanted to stay as neutral as possible.

The Fashion Show was a huge success minus the slight altercation at the end. Kim D. really knows how to pack a room! I felt like a total idiot on the runway. Like I said, it's not my thing. I wish I had an ounce of the confidence those other girls had up there on that stage. They were working it! Things seemed to be going well. Everyone was being so pleasant to eachother and ignoring the big fat elephant in the room (the fact that there was a huge brawl at a baby's christening!). I knew it was only a matter of time before it got mentioned, although I really think it should have been acknowledged and discussed before coming to the fashion show. 

I don't feel that Kathy had bad intentions when she approached Teresa in an attempt to talk to her. It was the end of the fashion show, and she did pull her into a private room. She obviously hit a nerve talking about the kids. I think Kathy was just trying to explain how chaotic it was, and how she thought about getting out of there and getting all the kids to safety. When Kathy said that Teresa left her daughter unattended, she clearly took that as a jab at her parenting, as if she would ever purposely leave her daughter unattended. Teresa left the baby with her mother-in-law, and it was a room full of family and friends. Teresa felt like Kathy purposely tried to hurt her by saying that. I wasn't sure she meant it that way, but Teresa insisted she knows her cousin better than I do, and she felt strongly that she did. Now a terrible family situation has just gotten worse! What a mess! There is clearly so much more to this puzzle than I'm aware of. It goes much deeper than I thought. I hope it gets resolved soon. I have to add here that Caroline, "Ruler of The Iron Hand," the "Matriarch," put everyone in their place and SHUT...IT...DOWN! Damn, scared of you!

On a positive note, I'm very proud of my niece, Lauren, coming as far as she has with her makeup artistry. She is amazing at what she does. She did my makeup for all my interviews on the show this season. Although I may have screwed it up at times with all of my crying while interviewing. Keep watching what happens. It's an emotional year for us all. Take care and God Bless! XOXO! 

Follow me on Twitter @Jaclaurita or on my new website that should be up and running soon set up by Maziar from After Dark Promotions. www.JacquelineLaurita.com

A lot of my clothes this year I got at Posche in Wayne, NJ. Check out their website at www.ShopPosche.com for Housewife Style. They tell you what we bought.

I also shop at Maluka in Wyckoff,NJ www.shopmaluka.com. The black dress I wore for our opener shot was a Mandalay from www.ReveBoutique.com. The blue dress I wore for my opener shot was by Kay Unger.

My weight loss got jump started by doing Medifast www.Medifast1.com, and I used a kickboxing trainer named Sal from CKO www.CKOkickboxing.com. And when he got real busy, I switched to www.JoleneMatthews.com. She kicks my butt too.