Unexpected break

Today my daughter was attending her first rollerskating party.  She was so excited to go!  An hour into the party, during the 5 minutes I took my eyes off her in the rink so that I could get drinks, she fell & broke her arm.  She broke both bones down by her wrist.  I raised 2 boys who did tons of stupid & risky stuff...they are 19 & 21 & have never broken a bone.  My only girl who is 7 falls & really messed up her arm!  It was a scary experience because at first they were concerned about her nerves in her hands and they told us she may need surgery to repair it!  We went to an urgent care, then the hospital to see a children's orthopedic specialist.  After many hours and x-rays, they sedated her & set her arm.  The new x-rays show her arm looking like brand new.  I've been through a lot with my kids through the years but this scared me to death!  My husband was the one who laid my guilt to rest reminding me that even if I had been watching Bella out in the rink, I couldn't have stopped the break from happening.  My wonderful friend Deb drove my car with me & a very upset and hurting Bella in the backseat.  Leaving her own girls with friends at the party to help us out.  I am so blessed to have such wonderful, loving and supportive friends who not only care about me, but care about my kids.  This broken arm is going to present some new challenges for us but we'll muddle through it just fine...another opportunity to learn & grow for all of us.  

New Year = renewed spirit

I'll be honest.  The last year and a half of my life pretty much sucked. Each time I thought I had slayed the dragon, there was another one.  I became run down, physically and mentally.  One challenge after another left me feeling like I had one of those big black clouds that followed me around.  I couldn't get out of the funk I was in no matter how hard I tried.  I reached a point where I began to wonder if this was just what my life was going to be like from now on.  The love, support and strength that my friends and my family provided to me has been amazing.  There was always someone there to offer a hug, a kind word, a listening ear prayers and it was always coupled with understanding.  One night after a long talk with God and after many, many, many prayers from me and from others, I felt renewed strength and a sense of calm and peace.  I suddenly felt that everything was going to be ok and it would start getting better.  And...IT DID.  Things are far from perfect but things are good.  My son who was supposed to be deployed for over a year, came home after only 6 months.  He's home for good or until the next deployment comes along which probably won't be anytime soon.  I found out he & his wife will be blessing us with a granddaughter in May.  I have actually started to LIKE my job.  I let go of volunteer commitments that I didn't enjoy and focused on those that I DO enjoy.  I am still fighting working mother's guilt and battling with the ever growing laundry monster & wishing that the cleaning fairy would stop skipping my house but if those are my biggest worries right now, I'm totally ok with that.

I have no words....

I have no words to truly describe how I feel these days.  I am on an emotional roller coaster.  I find myself sitting a puddle of tears, sobbing at the drop of a hat.  I hate it.  I mean, I really hate it.  Yeah, I could probably ask the dr. for a prescription but honestly, that's not going to take the things away that are causing these feelings.  It may be a band-aid & I honestly don't like anything that anti-depressants do to me.  This year, I turn 40.  I am ok with that...what I am not ok with is my new station in life.  I am not ok with where things have gone in the last year of my life.  I am not ok with not seeing my son for 14 months, I am not ok with him giving his girlfriend a promise ring (they are too young & I won't even go into it).  I am not ok with knowing that I can no longer be at things at my daughter's school.  I am not ok with feeling like I am now going to miss out on so much of her day now that I work outside the house. I am not ok with how my mother could not find the time to spend with my daughter when we visited last month.  I am not ok with now having 2 adult children.  I am not ok with much of anything these days.  It's a terrible feeling & there's nothing I can do about it.  I have to come to terms with all of these things.  They are out of my control.  So much change in such a short period of time, none of it good. 


I am trying to focus on what I am ok with right now.  I am ok with my job.  It has grown on me.  I am ok with the attorneys I work for.  They are actually very nice & very understanding about my schedule needing some flexibility.  I am ok with bringing home a paycheck.  I am ok with the friends that I have....more than ok with that.  I have some awesome friends.  I am ok with the fact that my house isn't as clean as it once used to be.  I am ok with having my nights & evenings off.  That's something I rarely got when I worked from home.  I am ok with the fact that I took my first paid vacation...a non-working vacation in 6 years.  I am ok with the fact that I just unloaded all of this into cyberspace!  I needed to put it somewhere!

Dinner?

I started menu planning again.  It's a must.  I have to know what's for dinner that night...some nights we eat this & that rather than a true meal.  Tonight, I let my daughter have wheat thins, turkey pepperoni & colby jack cheese for dinner.  I also gave took her to Dairy Queen right after I picked her up from daycare.  Right at 5:00 p.m. I got her a snack size brownie buster blizzard.  Yep...I didn't do stuff like that before.  Now, I realize that there is some nutritional value in the "meal" she had tonight & she was pleased as could be that I left her eat that for dinner.  She was thrilled with the blizzard.  The Dairy Queen just opened yesterday & we have anxiously awaited it's opening.  It was a nice surprise & treat for her.  What am I having for dinner?  I don't know.  I had a delicious beer at my friend Deb's house after work.   Perhaps another one along with a Brat & some potato salad.  Brats were on last night's menu but we had leftovers....tacos from the night's previous meal.  I have a new appreciation for leftovers these days!  It means I don't have to cook & less dishes to wash!  Woo hoo!  But you  know, I am thinking that Bella's meal of wheat thins, pepperoni and cheese sounds pretty darned good right now!  

I have really let go...seriously!

So I thought I would have a hard time letting go of perfection...it has been much easier than I thought!  My house had not fallen apart, no one is running around naked, we are not starving to death and we have not been infested by rats!  The house is tidy...I spend a few minutes a day doing my best to keep it up but I don't stress over it.  


I discovered that I have totally spoiled my 18 yr old who felt that he was only responsible for cleaning up after himself & didn't think he needed to do anything above that....honestly, he rarely does that.  I adore the kid but man....he's SO lazy!  So I laid it all out for him last week.  He works part-time, just graduated from high school.  I don't ask him to scrub the bathroom from top to bottom.  Honestly that's the one room that I feel like I have to be the one to clean.  Anyway....I leave him a short list of things to do.  An example?  Clean your room, make your bed, put your laundry away (do you see a trend here?), vacuum your room, the hallway & the living room, put the load in the washer in the dryer & unload the dishwasher.  Really, I only asked him to do a couple of things that were not specific to HIM!  He was waiting until I got home from work to even start anything so another conversation came where I told him that I would appreciate if he would get those things done before I got home.  I leave my house around 6:30-6:45 a.m., I return a little after 5.  He's got plenty of time to get it done before I get home.  It's kind of the point of asking him to do it!  He's been doing as I asked since our conversation.


Oh...he's not the only one that's spoiled!  My husband is too although, he does cook and do the dishes.  He's not allowed to do the laundry....fear of shrunken clothes forbid it!  If I ask him to help, he does.  My issue?  WHY DO I HAVE TO ASK?!  DO YOU NOT SEE THAT IT NEEDS TO BE DONE?  I think we view things through very different eyes!  Sometimes, he gets sick of the way things look & he takes the initiative.  I love to see that, what I don't love to see is that state that it typically has to reach before he reaches his breaking point.  


So...I do let things go bc most of the time, I am just too tired to care when I get home or I'd rather be doing something I enjoy.  I mean REALLY enjoy.  I do like to clean, to a certain extend.  Mostly, I just like the end result. I love to organize, but really it's all about the end result.   Ha...I guess that's life & it's really all about the end result which is why I have let go of perfection when it comes to my house & started to enjoy my life more!

Letting go of perfection

So I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my house.  I like everything to be in order, nothing out of place, no dust to be seen, no dirt to be seen on the floors, beds made....you get the picture.  Now that I am working outside the house & commuting, I am finding it way more difficult to keep up with my own expectations of how my house should look.  During my vacation with my family, I made a decision.  I had to let go of perfection when it comes to the house.  Truth is, most of that stuff, no one notices but me.  I also am requiring more help from my family to keep things up.  I want to use the time I have off to do fun things with them, not be working on a picture perfect house.  I want to make memories with my family, those memories do not involve me cleaning while they do fun things.  Now I am not saying I am letting my house go to pot, I am just letting go of perfection.  For me, this is very difficult but I am already seeing the benefit of focusing on the family vs. the house.  I do as much as I can, here & there, it's still clean, it's not like I am living in episode of Hoarders.  I don't run & grab the vacuum as soon as I notice stuff on the floor.  I don't mop every single week.  I do it every other week.  That's what swiffers were invented for.  Today, instead of cleaning I will be going to the waterpark with my husband and daughter, then this evening I have a neighborhood girls night out planned.  Those sound way more fun than scrubbing my house to perfection!

Finding my groove....

That's easier said than done but I am working on it!  I was able to switch my hours at work.  I was working 8-5 & the commute was miserable.  I am now doing 7:30-4:30.  That 1/2 hour change has made a big difference.  Here's my routine:
Up at 4:45

• shower & brush my teeth
• get my coffee & turn on the news
• feed & water the dog, let her out
• pick up the living room
• put lunches in lunch boxes, make my husband's lunch (bc he says his sandwiches get soggy if I make them the night before).  If I do not make his lunch, he doesn't have time in the a.m. before work which means he'll buy lunch each day.  Costing us about $50/wk.  This is not ok since that's 1/2 the grocery budget. 
• I fold any laundry that's in the dryer from the night before,  gather up all the laundry & put a load in the washer to start before I leave for work.  I might have a load to put in the dryer too. 
• dry my hair & put on my make up

6:00 a.m.

• wake up Bella & get her dressed, make her breakfast
• while she's eating, I make beds, get myself dressed, turn the AC to 78
• fix Bella's hair bc of all of her curls, there's no way she can do it herself.  I hose her down with detangler each morning & comb the knots out of her hair.  
• I get her toothbrush ready & make sure she's brushed her teeth.

I leave the house between 6:30-6:45.  My husband drops Bella off at daycare since he doesn't have to be to work until 8:00. 

I leave my job between 4:15-4:30.   I call this my daily battle with the traffic monster.  I get on the Brent Spence Bridge from KY to Cincinnati.  It's a terrifying 6-7 minutes, maybe less.  I get on that bridge & I stay in my lane until I get across it.  Every night I watch as cars attempt to change lanes without using their blinker or apparently, looking to see if there's someone coming.  One night I braced myself for what I was certain was going to be an ugly accident....at the last minute the collision was avoided.   I always run into an ugly jam of traffic.  Three lanes that are supposed to be going 55 or 65 depending on the location, at a complete standstill.  It drives me NUTS!  Anyway...I fight that monster on the freeway.  I get to my daughter's daycare around 5:00-5:10 and get back on the road to head home.  We usually hit our house around 5:30-5:45.  I race in & get dinner started, unpack lunch boxes & bags, I let the dog out, switch the laundry over, sort the mail & talk to Bella about her day.  My husband gets home around 5:45 & changes out of his suit & usually comes down to help with dinner.  I usually try to get lunches made for the next day while I am making dinner so there's no extra clean-up.   Things are left pretty willy nilly until it's time for Bella's shower around 7:30-8:00.  While she's showering, I lay out clothes for the next day & put laundry away.  By 8:30 I read her a story, we say our prayers & she's usually passed out within minutes of laying down.   I try to read or watch something mindless before bed.  I like to read my  Bible sometimes before bed, I have The Message version & I love it.   I usually find myself dozing off by 9:30.  I get up & do it all over again.  

My goal is to squeeze at least a 1/2 hour of exercise in there somewhere!  I try to keep the house up during the week by keeping it picked up, etc.  It's hard for me bc I am bit on the anal side when it comes to my house so I am doing my best to ignore the little things & enjoy my evenings with my family.