Muy Mal

Alternatively titled: "Bad, Shitty, Terrible, Stressful Morning"

Warning: This is a rant and nothing but. There are no morals, or life-long lessons included; it’s just simply me bitching about my morning because it makes me feel better.

For starters, I went to bed angry with my husband. Yeah, yeah I broke the cardinal rule of marriage and went to bed angry. F that. It’s a dumb idea anyway. Secondly, I woke up late because I was tired from working late the night before. As soon as Alexandria was ready I asked her to bring her dog back inside and put her in the kennel. Well apparently she translated that to, “stay outside and play some more”. I finish getting ready, get Olivia’s shoes on, remember I need to bring a lunch because I work through lunch today……Olivia says her new shoes hurt her feet. “okay, I’ll run get you some socks…….where’s Alexandria? Why hasn’t she come in with the dog yet?......Aly!!!!!!”. She comes in,

Me: “why haven’t you put your dog up yet??”

Aly: “oh, I didn’t know that’s what you said to do”

Me: “oh well it’s too late to chase her down now, she’s out of luck we have to go or you’re gonna be late”

Knowing that at this point I am for sure 15 minutes behind for work now. We all get in the car, I then realize that it’s probably not a good idea to let the dog stay out all day because not only could she get stolen (a girl can dream can’t she??), but she could possibly kill one of our kittens who are now staying on the patio. (she thinks they are her toys and tries to force them to play with her) So I get back out of the car, attempt to chase her down and get her inside to her kennel, meanwhile one of the cats runs in and I literally chase it all over the kitchen and back out the door. THEN as I’m cussing the dog out under my breath and through gritted teeth, I call her over to the car so she’ll think she’s getting to go, it works, she comes, I grab her and we go inside, I resist the urge to hurl her through the window for running from me (but can you blame her?) and instead put her in her kennel. We race to Aly’s school, or at least as fast as the law allows in a school zone, and just as Aly is getting out of the car I notice that she and her dad picked out a skirt the night before and I say “does that have shorts under it for PE?” she lifts is up and………..NO. There are no shorts. So she will most likely have to sit out in PE and get points deducted.

I race on to Olivia’s preschool, as I’m getting her out of the car I realize I forgot to go back and get her socks, we go all the way to her classroom, as fast as a 3 yr old can walk….sign on the door : “We are at the playground”. Thank you lady at the front desk who watched me hurry by with my child in tow, knowing full well who we are, which class she’s in, and that they are on the playground! Thank you for doing your job so excellently. We backtrack all the way to the playground, I tell her teacher "she may need band-aids later in the day cause she’s breaking in new shoes" and I’m such a bad mother that I forgot to give her some socks to help out the pain. I rush back to my car, spin out like a bat out of hell pull safely out of the drop off zone, and as I drive past the playground on my way out I look over to see my precious, sweet faced, baby girl waving bye to me so enthusiastically that I felt even more like complete shit for forgetting those damn socks it brought me to tears. And let me tell you, it’s been a long time since I drove out of a preschool parking lot with tears in my eyes, but that pretty much did me in.

My morning didn’t get much better as I arrived 30 minutes late for work only to realize that I left my notes for three assessments I have yet to type up, in the car my husband is driving today. Now I'm just waiting for a big boulder to fall out of the sky and squish me....and at this point I'm kind of waiting with open arms.


*Addendum* My husband usually helps me get the girls ready in the mornings as well as he takes Olivia to preschool on his way to school. However, this particular morning was different, and things just didn't go as planned (to say the least). But I felt I should add this since I'm always on my soapbox about how things should be equal among parents. :)

Divorce

I have been married for 10 ½ years and not that that makes me any kind of expert, but I do think that I can definitely say I know a thing or two about marriage. And since I’m a big believer in keeping it real to others about my marriage, I felt compelled to share a revelation I recently had on divorce.

Early in my marriage, everything was honeymoon-ish; we were so in love and never wanted to be apart, blah, blah, blah. When I got married I believed that we would stay together forever, but being the realist that I am I knew that it would take work—not just love. Afterall, you can totally love someone that you could never be married to! Over the years we’ve survived two pregnancies/births, several moves, career changes, college, having money, having no money, and.....well, just life. We have sad depressing memories, but we also have really, really happy memories too. Someone once told me there is a natural ebb and flow to marriage and I totally see that now. Anyway, over time I found myself feeling more resentful about things, getting angrier during arguments, feeling more hopeless about resolving them, and I started throwing out the D word. I didn’t so much threaten divorce as I just started bringing it up as a resolution. I was so frustrated and exhausted from arguing, from having to cope with stress as a couple, from having to work on being a wife. The problem solver in me couldn’t get past not being able to nip the arguments in the bud; no matter what we came up with and tried we were still arguing about the same things, and I was still walking away feeling resentful. The only thing left was to not be together. But when I thought that option through, I realized all the things I would be taking away from life and it made me sad. I was heartbroken over the thought of divorcing, yet I didn’t know what else to do. As time went on I found myself bringing divorce into the equation more and more. My husband seemed to be against it (thankfully) but I was starting to look at it as a very real option, no matter how heartbreaking it seemed. I couldn’t understand how we’d continue on arguing so much and never finding resolutions. I prayed for an answer and finally one came. It wasn’t like a big light bulb going off, it wasn’t some great epiphany, it just slowly crept up on me and really just now as I type this I’m realizing that it was the answer to prayer that I’d been looking for: I had to not only stop playing the divorce card, but I had to retire it completely. It had to be scratched off my list of options. As long as I kept divorce a plausible solution in my head, I would get closer to making a reality. I mean if it’s in your arsenal you’re going to use it eventually, right? And let’s face it, deep down it’s not ever what I really wanted. I just wanted to be free from the arguments and the stress, but divorce is not the only way out of that! Once I promised myself that I would stop considering divorce, I knew that I was in this for the long-haul. That meant making it as happy a marriage as we deserved. I still don’t have all the answers of how to do this, but that’s just it—marriage is a work in progress. He’s the man I chose, he chose me, and God blessed us with two amazing children….that gives us all the reasons we need to make our marriage a beautiful thing.

Now I’m not saying that no one should ever divorce, because I know that there are always exceptions and there are lots of circumstances that could warrant divorce. I’m simply saying that it’s no longer an option for me. If I put just as much energy and love into being happily married as I did to coming up with plans on dealing with the hard times (i.e. divorce) then I don’t think we’ll have many reasons to not stay together. We will always have arguments, we will always annoy each other at times, and our bad habits aren’t going anywhere; but the bottom line is I wouldn’t want to go through this life with any other partner.

30 Years Old, and What Do I Know?

Definitely not proper comma placement and how to avoid run on sentences, but that’s neither here nor there.
In honor of my 30th birthday (7/11), I wanted to write about what I have really learned & discovered in the past decade. What were my epiphanies, revelations, and “aha moments”? I know you’re just dying to know…..LOL. Here are some of the high-lights………

Never turn off the alarm clock until you are completely out of the bed!

Relationships are hard, work is hard, and parenting is hard; life is hard in general…….so it’s important to seek out the good times.

It’s fun to laugh at inappropriate things…….

Rules are always made with exceptions.

When you are a cocktail waitress it’s amazingly easy to cheat men out of their money; and just as easy to get free drinks. {didn’t say I was proud, just said I learned it}

It’s important to know your roots, and revisit them every now and then.

It’s okay to not be friends with everyone.

Know your priorities in life and stick to them, otherwise they don’t mean much.

Your parents don’t know as much as you once thought; they are only human just like you.

Everyone I know grew up in a dysfunctional family.

Know what you stand for and what you will not stand for.

It’s okay to not always know what to do!

Taking “mental health” days off from work are vital!!

Not only is it okay to not have a perfect marriage, but it’s okay to accept that they don’t exist.

They don’t call childbirth “labor” for nothing! It’s the hardest, most important work I’ve ever done; and the sweetest reward I’ve ever gotten.

The “perfect time” never comes, so don’t wait for it.

It’s important to figure out when to fight and when to surrender, I think most of us tend to do the opposite of what we should.

It’s just as important to have a plan as it is to be flexible.

Sometimes the little things are what’s important, and other times they are truly the things that should not matter. Go figure.

The more you have to fight for control in a situation, the more the situation is actually controlling you. {This one took me a long while to figure out…}

I am imperfect; I am definitely a sinner.

I love to laugh, I love hard, and I am a loyal friend.

I attempt daily to do right by my children, and as they grow I pray that I succeed at this.

I have many titles, but there is not one that completely or utterly defines who I am.

This life is temporary, this life is temporary, this life is temporary…

and is too difficult to navigate without belief in a Higher Power.

Running While Fat

For a lot of years I kept a pretty busy schedule between classes, work, kids, schoolwork, housework, etc. Since August I have been enjoying the fact that I’m done with classes and schoolwork forever! Only now I realize that I’m a person that kinda has to stay busy. I seem to thrive on it. So…I thought about running. I know, I know. Me? A runner? Not likely unless there’s a fire, even then I’d probably just walk quickly. However I need something to work on; a goal, something to appease my ever waning attention span. Not to mention something to stop my ever growing midsection! Really, it’s time to face the fact that I’ve gotten fat. I stand at 5’10 so that actually helps camouflage most of the fat, but I can still see the rolls when I sit. Even while standing I look 3-4 months pregnant!

I have a treadmill in my bedroom but it’s always sort of been my husband’s treadmill. I mean he’s the one who has the luxury of saying “I’m hopping on the treadmill for a while” and having 30 minutes of uninterrupted exercise. Me on the other hand……(ha!) as soon as I get on I’m breaking up arguments between children, gasping for air while I threaten them with all kinds of things to get them out of the room while I exercise in peace kindly redirect them to seek out their father while I exercise. But, I think if I could work something out with dear hubby I could get in at least 15 minutes a night, which is a good start I think.

And, really, let’s face fact #2 here—I’ll never change my eating habits. Not completely. I will always eat hamburgers, pizza, Mexican food, donuts, white bread…(the list goes on and on people). And not to sound corny, but I seriously grew up a country girl who was served vegetables seasoned with pork, grease, butter, or cream; we would bread and fry chicken, fish, steak, pork chops and most of the time served it with gravy. How could I give that up? Food is good, food is great, I love it (herein lies my problem). I will never eat Kashi Lean with mandarin oranges for my breakfast and yogurt with a wheat bread sandwich at lunch. Won’t happen. I would be the meanest woman on the planet if I had to survive on that. But back to my original point (or did I have one?)……running. I need to at least give it a try. And if that actually happens, I’ll be blogging about in the near future. I know you’ll be waiting on pins and needles to hear what happens.

Why Pray?

I grew up in a family that held hands and gave thanks at the dinner table (and not just on special occasions), around a mother and grandmothers that found their strength in prayer and faith, with a family that believed our lives were guided by God and that he always knew best….no matter what. Anytime life threw us a curveball, the adults would simply say “we’ll pray about it”. So I became an adult that prays over life’s challenges, over my marriage, my children; I’ve prayed for guidance on major life decisions, and I’ve put all my faith in God guiding me in the direction He wants me to go.

So why is it that I am sometimes reluctant to pray over certain things? I’ve seen God’s hand in just about every aspect of my life. I know He is there. But, when I want something that I think isn’t good for me, or not what God would want, I find myself almost refusing prayer. One of the hardest things to do is to pray for God’s will and truly mean it. {Especially when you’re a control freak like me.} I mean we all have our own ideas about what our lives should look like, but when you can hand it over to someone who knows all, sees all, created you, and has a special plan for you-- there is no greater feeling. Who better to be in control of your life?

So why do I hesitate to pray? Why are there things in my life that have been neglected? I’ll just say I’ve ignored a certain aspect of my life lately, hoping the problems would go away on their own. Why I chose not to just pray about it, I’m not sure. I think I already had my mind made up as to how it should all play out, and I was refusing to let God take over. I guess there comes a point when some of us have to realize the more we have to fight for control in a situation, the more the situation is actually controlling us. So as I sit here typing, I’m preparing myself to surrender……….AGAIN.

Wanting Less

Seems like a simple concept, but oh so hard to do. I was explaining to my husband the other day that I realized if I just started wanting less then I wouldn’t torture myself about all the things I don’t have. I wouldn’t be bothered by all the thoughts of when I get this, or when I get that, it will make me happy. To be honest, I’ve always been a little materialistic—I like things. Things for my house, things to wear, things for my kids; I like getting new stuff. Don’t we all? But at what point will it be enough to really satisfy me? That’s when I decided that that time will never come. I will never be completely satisfied with things. I’ll always want more; my paycheck will never be enough.

I look back to when my husband and I had our very first apartment---we had nothing. I’ll spare you the details of our shabbily furnished apartment, but trust me when I say we owned not one nice thing. So I compare that to now and how far we’ve come, but it still doesn’t lessen the urge of wanting so much more. New floors, new paint job, new bedroom furniture, a new car, a landscaping overhaul in the backyard….I could go on and on. But instead I’ll get to my point: If I wanted less, I could focus on what I have and be oh so grateful for it. I have been blessed a thousand times over in my life. Not only that, but I have blessings that some women will never receive—a supportive family, children of my own, a loving {albeit annoying} husband, the chance to finish my college education, a job I like, and the opportunity to start a meaningful career--but for some reason I choose to focus on the fact that I drive an old car, my kitchen doesn’t look like the ones in magazines, and my bedroom furniture is worn out.

So I guess my real question is can it be done? Is it possible to live in this country the way it is today, and not constantly worry about more and better while taking for granted what we already have?