Filling the Gap

Time flies when you're having fun.
or
when you are hanging on by your finger nails to every scrap of sanity and reality that may exist.

I spent the summer trying to recover from pregnancy and giving birth. All while trying to entertain my 2 older kids and take care of a newborn who does not believe in any kind of consistent sleep schedule.

I had contact with a friend who abruptly changed our relationship well over a year ago. We exchanged emails as we tried to work through what happened and how or if we can move forward. I'm still not sure what will come of it or what i want to come of it.

I was so looking forward to school starting for a break, but that desperation seemed to paralyze me for at least three weeks as I did very little but sit on the couch and watch T.V. Which in turn only let me gain a few more pounds which is just awesome (NOT).

I sat by my computer and watched a woman's marriage be tested, unravel and then implode in a spectacular event of infidelity and betrayal that I still cannot truly comprehend but yet I know happens all over the world everyday. I feel a kinship with this woman, we have the same sense of humor. We swear ALOT. We love our kids and we both have a fierce determination to make our lives just the way we want them, no matter WHO fucks with it. It makes me happy to exchange with her.

The last week or two I have been feeling better, getting some rest and moving back into some light exercise. My muscles are sore, but it feels good.

I think I am well on my way to making a come back. Good thing too. Because another close friend of mine has a nasty habit of reminding me all the time how many days are left until CHRISTMAS.

HALP!

Comings and Goings

WOW! This is definately the longest I've gone without posting. Not that I haven't thought about it, it has just been pure chaos around here lately.

Coming into our lives a beautiful baby boy.

Going somewhat peacefully after a long wonderful life our steadfast canine companion of 13 years. He stayed just long enough for our new arrival and then his time came about a week later. Funny how animals are. I still miss him everyday!

ahhhh! speaking of chaos some is happening right now and I will have to post more later!

Moving on...

I can't believe that I haven't posted in over a month. I don't think I have ever done that before.

Can't believe in a month or so I will have a brand new baby in my arms and all the joy and fun that comes with that.

What a crazy few months this has been. My replacement at work started this week and we got a good block of training underway. I realized that my job is REALLY hard to teach someone that does not have any background in medical terminology, computer software programmed by a bilingual programmer who leaned more to french than english.

the whole F'd up system makes no sense to anyone but people who have worked with it for a year or more. Craziness.

I caught a friggin cold again from my germbag 6yr old. Curses.

I am stuffed up, puffed up and big, bitter and bitchy at this point.

I feel like my belly is going to explode, I'm not getting much sleep and I am working my ass off to prepare my replacement to take over with minimum inconvenience to her.

I can hardly wait to have a year off.

Now all I have to do is push a bowling ball through a baseball sized hole.....GREAT!

Just so you know and maybe its just me......BUT I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN HOW UNPLEASENT OR PAINFUL CHILDBIRTH IS.....

Who are these women that say you forget all about it??? bitches.

Not looking forward to this ...however I am looking forward to being able to sleep on my back again and then my tummy again. For all that is good and holy.

most of my baby laundry is done and I have a good supply of diapers and wipes, my bags are packed so I think I am prepared as I can be at this point.

the kids are well informed of what will happen and who will be looking after them when the time comes.

All we have to do now is wait.

My first was a week early, my second was three weeks early. I swear to all that is held sacred in this universe and beyond if I go past my due date (may 30th) with this one. I will be one very large UNHAPPY camper. I decided to leave work 3 weeks early just to maybe give myself a few days before the event. If that little break is all my body needs to keep this kid on board I will FREAK OUT.

Although I feel like that baby has shifted and started to settle in my hip a little and I have no lap left whatsoever, and I have had a few contractions already, so I would guess that I am on track to deliver sometime between my due date and a week or two early.

It is snowing again and the kids want to get back to painting so I am out of time.

Until next time.....

What do you believe?

What we believe about ourselves has such a great impact on our lives.

Awhile ago someone shared some early childhood memories and how that has impacted her life and her relationships.

My heart went out to her, my childhood was really pretty good, lots of love, lots of people, lots of hugs and smiles, nothing overly traumatic.

As I thought of this person often over the week that followed I reflected.

Memories started bubbling up for me. The usual ones, being 2-3 yrs old and getting to skip my nap because I was helping my dad build our backyard pool. Not sure if i actually remember this or if I have heard the story so many times I can picture it in my mind. My most "em bare assing" moment, a gymnastic meet where my uniform did not fit properly and I made the ill decision to forgo underwear and follow my coaches instructions to never touch your suit during your routine, you guessed it 2mins of my bare ass hanging out while I turned cartwheels and danced around a highschool gym infront of a couple hundred of my peers and friends. Traumatic yes at the time, but not horrible in the grand scheme of my life. After finding my Mom and crying for an hour and surviving the next month at school the incident slipped from the social conciousness and I was able to continue on.

Then a few more painful ones like being in grade 7 and having my best friend suddenly and with out explaination deciding she did not want to be my friend anymore. then taking it a step further and trying to turn the entire class against me. Again fairly usual stuff although we never regained our friendship and I realized this memory does effect my current life. Next, Gr 8 when the cast list for our School wide play was posted. Clearly posted for all to see was my name in the title role, erased and written over with another girl's name. I am not good enough. Very painful, very acutely aware that life is not fair. Can't remember much about that, I remember writing about it in my homeroom journal and my Gr 8 teacher (who was directing the play) apologizing to me for the insensitivity. I remember gutting it out and performing my part in the play. Because that's what I do. My parents always said life isn't fair. I remember my mom clearly talking to me saying it is only one more year and then I'll be in highschool and there will be so many more people to choose my friends from.

Needless to say, reflecting on some of these memories made me realize how cautious I am with building friendships today. I am standoffish, I do not share alot about myself, it takes a very long time for me to trust people and I guess I never really do, I subscribe to the "time, reason and season" philosophy for friendship and do not expect my friendships to last EVER. Sooner or later everyone finds a reason to not be my friend anymore. I've stopped trying to figure it out, question it, I just believe that someway, somehow it is me and my fault and I just let it go.

Going one step further, I know that it can be hard to be my friend, I never give people alot to go on. I am usually brutally honest and sometimes I know how much that will affect someone but I say it anyway to try to be heard, to try to get my point across. I can be harsh.

I realized I have a tendancy to latch on to one or two people and forgo building other friendships to avoid being "dumped" by many and only to be hurt by a few. Therefore making me look cliquish, or like a snob.

I am usually not very clear or specific when I need something from a friendship and sometimes over promise on support and under deliver. (my perception)


My point being that reading this persons memories and reflecting on my own memories and what they mean or have meant to me, has given me the opportunity to take some time to decide how to proceed with this aspect of my life.

My general philosopy at this point, my past no longer has the right or priveledge to control my future. I want to have valuable friendships where I feel safe, nurtured and there is equality to the give and take, ebb and flow, I want to be supportive and open and trusting.

Friendships come and go for a variety of reasons, I need to stop the belief that it is always me. It is usually a combination, my logical brain knows this.

I want to thank this person for openly sharing a painful piece of herself. It affected me and has helped me work through a part of my psyche, that will open opportunities for me, that will help me understand more about myself and help me feel better about myself.

I am grateful to her.

A more sugar coated version about beliefs is here.


thanks to this person, you know who you are.
:)

So EARLY

Oh my goodness.
My darling children....where up at 5:30 AM this morning. What the Hell?? How is this even possible. What would possess them.

Even better, my husband who is the early bird... helping a friend today and had to leave shortly after 6AM.

Icing on the cake, the volume is not working on our TV?

Again I ask you what the hell?

What could possibly happen to our TV from 9:30pm last night when we turned it off, to 5:frickin 30 this morning????

Luckily our basement playroom TV is working so I dressed everyone up warmly and we headed down here to spend the morning. The girl has dance class but I don't think I will be able to get them out of here so I just may skip it for today. I hate doing that but the prospect of fighting with them and bundling them up and sitting in a waiting area for an hour, just does not appeal to me today.

I'm almost 7 months pregnant now and all the aches and pains are starting to kick in. Each week is getting harder and harder to get to the end of. I am really enjoying my weekends where the schedule is not as frenetic and I can rest often which really helps with the back pain, enlarged leg veins and everything else that pops up to piss me off at the wrong time.

I have been spending about 2-3 hours on Sundays cooking for the up coming week and that REALLY has helped us during the week.

Speaking of food I should go get some breakfast for the kids since it's 8am and they are probably getting hungry now.

Have a great weekend!

Here's the scoop.

I finally have a few minutes to sit down and compose a post just for this blog. I owe it to me to get my thoughts out of my head and free up some space in there. So hang on this could go all over the place I'm not to sure.

First I am finally feeling better, it seems as though the cold and cough have given up and left. I am grateful, however this has left me feeling so far behind. I totally missed January as I was just hanging on for dear life and getting the basics done both at work and at home.

After some quick calculations I realized that I had overspent my monthly grocery budget by almost $500. I want to VOMIT! Now that would be ok if we ate it all but I hate to confess that we threw alot of stuff out because I was too sick to make what I had planned. It was so depressing.

So we are on the menu planning and committment to cooking train. I still overspent on groceries this week. But I am dealing with one issue at a time. The goal this week is to not throw out any perfectly good food!

Also the weekly spending has gone up because I have started buying diapers and formula so that this won't be quite so taxing on our budget once I go on Maternity Leave. Yes I plan on bottle feeding. I had a breast reduction when I was 15 and for anyone counting that was over 20 years ago and let me tell you they just didn't do a real good job back then. Although I will try to breast feed daily, I will not let it rule my life, nor will I subject myself to the bereting of lactation consultants, nurses, or the general public. I will also not subject myself to the painful process of milk coming in and getting "stopped up" in ducts that go no where and cause me unbearable pain. I am 37 years old this is my third child and if you don't like what I am doing, tough shit!

Everyday I wonder how we will make it on a reduced income. This is really perplexing to me since we are in the best financial shape we have ever been in. I mean we actually have an emergency savings account? So I keep asking myself, why are you worrying so much.

I suppose the answer is I am afraid we may have to cut or sacrifice a few things, like EGAD the data plan on my Blackberry yikes. I'm not sure why I am so worried I just know that I am and its a little crazy so I need to develop a plan to get over it.

So the goal for February is to put down in writing our monthly expenses and debt repayment so that WE can see if we need to cut and where and make those decisions before the time comes and we have a negative balance in our account and have to dip into the emergency fund.

Also I think a more realistic fear for me is that. I don't want to go back to work - better then that I don't think I can. I don't think I can continue to work 30 mins from home and manage the lives of three children, one with special needs.

So I suppose the truth of it is I am feeling this deep seeded anxiety over how to make my life work.

We can make it on the reduced income, butwe also enjoy the lifestyle we currently have on the income we currently have. Saving has been relatively painless and we accumulating savings, debt repayment has been ticking on schedule, and we have started working towards our next major household project a new bathroon. All that will have to get rejuggled on 55% of my current income for the next year and who knows how much if I choose not to go back to work.

I've come to recognize that I am in one of those "dark" places in life where I don't really know where I am or what direction I am going in. All I know is I can't stay still I have to keep moving forward and find a way out.

I am using up all my vacation time before my maternity leave in bits and pieces. I'm hoping to clear our some cobwebs(fears) and have some time to think and sit with myself and get my creative thinking going again. I know I am capable of coming up with solutions that will work for me. I have been coasting for so long I just don't remember how.

I thought 2010 would be the best year yet and it still holds that possibility. Now I believe that 2010 is just going to be ALOT more hard work than I thought, but if I can do it. If I put in the time and GUT IT OUT. I believe I will see happiness and more contentment with my journey.

Here's to a year of hard work and creative solutions.
:)

Menu Planning and Meal preparation

I just don't have the energy to write a full post right now. But you can read about why I'm tired over here.

www.abalancedlifestyle.blogspot.com

Ciao!