How Many Frustrating Things Can Happen to Trueself in One Morning?

Hmm, well let’s count them up, shall we?

Number 1 – Although N spent much of yesterday begging to go back to school (couldn’t because he hadn’t been fever free for 24 hours) he moaned and groaned and groused when I woke him this morning to go back to school. I will say though that once he remembered that today is “Fun Day” at school he changed his mind and stopped grumbling.

Number 2 – Running late for work and having had no breakfast I decided to pull into the clown’s fast food drive-thru to get a high fat, high sodium highly nutritious breakfast. They have one of those drive-thrus with two lanes. I picked the lane where apparently the person taking orders fell dead of a heart attack or had to take a pee or walked off the job or forgot they were working. The person in front of me was giving her order and the person on the other end just disappeared. After waiting a couple of minutes and calling out “Hello?” several times she drove out of the drive-thru line and pulled into a parking place. I was late enough at this point that I didn’t even attempt it, but just drove on thru and headed to the workplace. At 10:00 a.m. I still have had no breakfast but will probably give in and go get something sugary and calorie laden highly nutritious from the vending machine in the break room.

Number 3 – The project upon which I worked all day yesterday and am trying to finish this morning is a resource hog and bogging down my PC like crazy. I am writing this entry piecemeal during the waiting periods that I have every time I recalculate or save anything. It is frustrating because I can’t do any of my other work-related things during the waiting periods because while not huge resource drains they are enough to cause problems. So here I sit typing this entry in Word since it isn’t sucking up resources as badly. Oh good, it’s saved. Now I can go back to work for a while and continue this during the next interminable wait.

Number 4 – Fifteen minutes before a meeting my supervisor asks me to bring two extra copies of several reports, about 75 pages in all. I hurry to get these copies made in time for the meeting only to have him come and tell me that we have to postpone the meeting until later in the day.

Okay, that’s only four, not as bad as it felt. I’m okay. Breathe in, breathe out. I’m okay. Calm. Cool. Collected. Yes, everything is fine. I’m dandy.

Oh, remind me to give an update on the church situation. I attended a meeting last night. I’ll write a diatribe little post about it sometime this weekend.

Lackadaisical

lackadaisical \lack-uh-DAY-zih-kuhl\, adjective:
Lacking spirit or liveliness; showing lack of interest; languid; listless.

Yep, that pretty well describes me today.

That is all.

Out of the Running

I am fairly certain I will be winning no "Mother of the Year" awards following recent events. Sometimes my mommy instincts fail me big time. Yesterday was one of those times.

To start at the beginning, on Saturday evening N started having the sniffles. Then on Sunday morning he woke up feeling miserable. I checked his temperature, and he had no fever, but he was very sluggish and didn't feel well. We stayed home all day, in our jammies, watching cartoons and movies on TV and just generally being lazy. My stomach started bothering me that afternoon so we were quite the pair.

Yesterday, N awoke feeling better he said. He still laid around most of the morning, but he came into the kitchen when I was making banana bread and wanted to help. He took over much of the mixing duties, and I could see that he was perkier than the day before. N grew restless as the afternoon wore on and begged me to take him to the new Indiana Jones movie. I hesitated because I thought perhaps it was too soon after him being sick, but he really wanted to go. I relented and took him to the movie. He and I both enjoyed it (I don't care what the critics say, I thought it was great) and afterwards he asked to stop at a nearby restaurant for dinner.

During dinner things took a turn for the worse. N went from cheerful and playful to drooping and sullen. By the time I could get him home I had to help him into the house because he said he felt dizzy and off balance. He sat in my lap, snuggled under a blanket, and used about a gajillion tissues blowing his nose. I felt his forehead and realized it felt hot. I soon took him upstairs, put him in my bed, and took his temperature to find it was a bit over 101.

What on earth was I thinking, dragging my son to a movie and dinner yesterday when he was in the throes of a nasty virus?

Sigh. . .

Fortunately, he seems a bit better this morning after sleeping fitfully throughout the night. I let him sleep with me in my bed so that I'd be close by if he needed me instead of at the opposite end of the house as I would have been if he'd slept in his room. His temperature is now down to just below 100 so hopefully he's on the mend. I'm staying home with him today since W is out of town. I will call the doctor's office when it opens and see if they think I should bring him in. I'm hoping he'll take a nap this afternoon so that I can too.

---------------------------------------------

Late edit:
You learn the darnedest things when you stay home from work. Since I'm home today with N I got to meet the cleaning people who come every other Tuesday to tidy up the place. What I found out from the cleaning people is that most of the people that work there refuse to clean here because of W. They were thrilled to find out he will not be here anymore when they come to clean. Apparently, he has been known to pat some of the cleaning ladies on the butt as they are bent over cleaning. Oh. My. God. I am appalled, absolutely appalled. Of course, that's just their side of the story, but what good would it have done for them to lie about it to me? Besides, it isn't the first time I've heard of people not wanting to work for W due to his behavior with them. He apparently has never had the tact gene or perhaps it was damaged long ago. Whatever the case, he is not Mr. Tactful and often offends people without understanding what he did to offend them. Leaving was the best thing he ever did for me.

Memorial Day - More Than BBQs and a Day Off

Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May in the U.S and commemorates U.S. men and women who perished while in military service to their country. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War, it was expanded after World War I to include casualties of any war or military action.

While I have many in my family who have served in the military, I am fortunate not to have had any lost in military service. However, I grew up in a family who honored those lost in military service every single Memorial Day. I have attended many services on many Memorial Days and have participated in many as a member of Girl Scouts and school bands when I was growing up.

It seems to me that there are fewer people out there spending Memorial Day as anything other than one more day off, a day to play, a day to get a few more things done, part of a long weekend that affords the opportunity to travel. That saddens me.

No matter your opinion of wars that have been fought and the political decisions behind those wars, it seems the least we can do to one day out of the year take time to honor those who gave their lives fighting for their, and our, country. I salute those that have given their lives in service for the U.S. I offer hugs and sympathy to the families of the fallen. I think it isn't too much to ask that we all take a few minutes out of our day filled with fun and frolic to appreciate those that have made the greatest sacrifice that one can make so that we can have these days of fun and frolic.

Yes, even this bleeding heart liberal is a big fan of Memorial Day.

Perhaps

I don’t know much more about the church situation than I did when I last posted about it. However, I’ve gathered a few more pieces together, enough that I’m working at putting the pieces of the puzzle together even though there are still big gaps.

Perhaps the office manager was having a difficult time of some sort in her personal life. Perhaps this difficult time was causing her to have some difficulties at work, perhaps not always being there when she should or forgetting to get essential things in her job completed. Perhaps she was confiding in the pastor about these personal problems and perhaps he was counseling her and trying to help her as best he could. Perhaps the church council was aware of the job performance problems of the office manager, but not being privy to their cause they pressured the pastor to let her go. Perhaps he balked at this and assured the council that he was working with the office manager on resolving the issues. Perhaps the church council demanded to know what the issues were that were contributing to the office manager’s poor performance, and perhaps the pastor respectfully refused to divulge information shared with him in confidence. Perhaps the church council insisted that the pastor fire the office manager, and perhaps he refused. Perhaps the power struggle continued on for months until finally the office manager resigned. Perhaps at this point the church council was so enmeshed in the power struggle that they asked the pastor for his resignation with the caveat that if he did not resign the church council would fire him. Perhaps his wife, standing by her husband, chose to also resign.

And perhaps I am way off base.

However, when one takes an action and fails to explain it until a month later it gives people a lot of time to weave scenarios in their head, some of which may be very close to the truth and some very far from the truth. Give me a few threads, and I’ll weave quite the tapestry.

Also, just so you know, I share my theories here alone. I will not power the rumor mill in real life. Nope. No good comes from speculating with others in real life and spreading gossip.

Do Not Say This to Me. . . Ever

"I'm sorry you're angry with me."


I know this means that you are sorry I'm yelling at you, but you aren't sorry for what you did that made me angry. This makes me want to place my hands one on each side of your neck, and bring them together as tightly as possible.

Just sayin'. . .

No Se Nada

Today I’m delving into the topic that is weighing heavily on my mind lately, particularly since attending church yesterday. If my little forays into religion aren’t your cup of tea you might do well to come back another day although this is less about religion than it is about human relations that just happens to be taking place within a religious setting.

First, I want to lay out the facts that I know, some of which may or may not be related to the situation. I just want them all here to serve as the foundation for me as I roll this around in my brain. Then I intend to see what those facts tell me and see what conclusions, if any, are possible at this point in time. Finally, I want to put down the questions I have over the situation and some musings about where to go from here for myself. This is, my friends, mostly an exercise just for myself, but if anyone thinks they have something productive to offer me or a point of view that I’ve missed, please feel free to weigh in with it. I realize I may very well be looking at the situation through a narrow straw and might benefit from a wider perspective.

The Facts
Fact #1: Two weeks ago I received a letter from the church council informing me of the departure of the pastor from the congregation. The letter referred to “performance appraisal issues” and mediation that had been ongoing for some months between the church council and the pastor and indicated that an inability to reach agreement was the reason for the pastor’s departure.
Fact #2: About a month ago the office manager for the church resigned with the announcement that she was returning to work at her home church.
Fact #3: Yesterday the situation with the pastor was mentioned two times during the church service: (1) during the joys and concerns when one member of the congregation asked that the pastor and his family be held up in prayer and another asked that the congregation be held up in prayer with the request that those who were blindsided by the “resignation” of the pastor would be willing to listen and have patience, and (2) during the announcements when it was announced that meetings will be held in a couple of weeks to better inform the congregation of what has occurred and how the church will proceed forward.
Fact #4: The pastor’s wife who has also held a staff position within the church is no longer listed as a staff member in the bulletin nor was she present yesterday at the service.
Fact #5: No mention was made of the pastor’s wife in the original letter I received.
Fact #6: It was announced yesterday that a certain person will be taking on a subset of the pastor’s wife’s staff duties for at least the summer months.
Fact #7: As of yesterday, the church’s website has not been updated to reflect any staffing changes.
Fact #8: I felt more uncomfortable in that church yesterday morning than I ever have in the year I’ve been attending there. There were several times when I felt an incredible urge to jump up and bolt out of the building, not because of anything specific that happened but just the overall general discomfort I felt.

Conclusions
No matter how much I go over the facts above there just is not enough there for me to draw much in the way of conclusions. Certainly I could put some pieces above together and develop some speculations, but to what end? What purpose could it possibly serve for me to speculate other than to stir me up and bring me into a state of further agitation? Why should I do that? I will admit that there are speculations that have taken up far too much space in my brain as I’ve pondered the facts above, and yet without further factual information it is impossible to know which, if any, of my speculations are close to the truth of the matter. I refuse to draw conclusions based on my own ill-informed speculations. I guess the only real conclusion I have from all of this is that given what I know about myself I will not be able to determine my reaction to the situation until I know more about the situation. Oh, and one other conclusion I’ve drawn is that to announce a situation like this and then to wait a month to provide explanation of it is not good, at least for me it is not good for the longer I am left in limbo the more difficult it becomes for me to accept being there.

Questions
In no particular order, just as they pop into my head, my questions are:
Question #1: What was the basis for the pastor and church council’s disagreement?
Question #2: Why was the congregation not made aware that there was a disagreement and mediation effort under way?
Question #3: Is the resignation of the church’s office manager related to this situation, and if so, how?
Question #4: Why was the decision made to allow a month’s time to transpire between the announcement and the explanation?
Question #5: What should a congregant learn from how this was handled by the church council?
Question #6: (This one is a question that I alone can answer and can’t be answered until I have the other questions answered.) Can I stay in this church with a clear conscience?
Question #7: How does the absence of the pastor's wife tie into this? Did she resign, get fired, something else?

Musings
This will be an interesting time in the life of this church. Once I listen and hear what the church council has to say on the matter, it should become easier (I hope) for me to discern the proper course of action for myself. It would be an extraordinary shame if after only becoming an official member a few months ago that I would have to move on. However, I can only make that decision once I know as much as I can about the situation. A lack of forthcoming on the part of those directly involved will weigh heavily against my being able to stay, and my fear is that is exactly what will happen. “Trust us. We did the right thing.” That is the message I fear that I will hear. I have always been, and will always be, one who will fight for as much openness and honesty as possible. It is part of my personality that I bristle at the very notion of doing things that are not to be revealed (hence my huge internal conflict over many of my sneaky behaviors in the last couple of years).

My hope here is that, as usual, the act of putting this all down in writing will allow myself to let go of at least some of it so that I can go about my daily life without stewing over various aspects of the situation. Here it is, right here, all the thoughts that I have about it, all in one place. May God grant me the peace that will allow me to leave these thoughts here for the time being, to be picked up again when the congregational meetings are held on the issue in almost two weeks.

Scattered

I have a huge mishmash of thoughts in my brain. I want desperately to write them down but can't seem to get them out in coherent form. Even stream of consciousness writing isn't working for me. Maybe it's 'cause I have too many different things running through my head, such as:

BJ moving to this area,
Turmoil over the whole church/pastor/mystery of leaving thing,
W being totally frustrating,
My struggles with being responsible for the household.

Oh yes, you've heard it all before. I've yammered on and on and on about it all. Yet these things haunt my brain, stalking me as I go about my daily routine.

Yuck.

Blech.

Sigh. . .

Where There's a Will There's a Way

Got to see BJ last night after all. It was just for a couple of hours instead of overnight, but we got to have dinner together, a bit of a picnic.

Life goes on. . .

Post in Haiku

Be careful what you wish
This is wisdom without doubt
I wished time alone

No BJ tonight
As we had planned before but
Time with kids comes first

So my wish came true
Just not the way I wanted
Sigh, life goes on, sigh

Seeing Daylight

These struggles with depression scare me sometimes, but generally only when I’m heading downward into them. The good news is that while I can sink pretty fast, I am much more buoyant than I used to be (God bless the major pharmaceutical companies even though I’d like to punch the lights out on every one of their sleazy reps stalking medical offices) and I pop back up to the surface much more quickly and without as much difficulty as in the past.

So with that opening, let me say that while all does not look peachy keen just yet I am seeing that the light at the end of the tunnel is drawing nearer and is indeed daylight and blue skies.

Thank you to the readers who responded to my cry for help yesterday. Thank you to my counselor who also responded to my cry for help last night during our counseling session. Thank you to BJ who listened patiently as I droned on and on about all that is awful and negative. Thank you to N for proving that the counselor’s advice was right on target by reacting exactly as she predicted when I tried certain parenting techniques.

Yesterday after work I managed before W brought N home for the night at 8:00 p.m. to have a well balanced healthy dinner, get gas at what appeared to be the last “cheap” station in town so that I paid “only” $3.71 instead of $3.89 a gallon, and stop at the grocery store for some much needed staples (milk, juice, frozen pizza). I got home maybe 15 minutes before N did. Then I spent an hour on the phone with my counselor. After that, I made N a snack because he was “starving” and put him to bed. I got two loads of laundry washed and one dried while talking to BJ on the phone before settling down for the night. This morning in addition to the normal routine I managed to get some things put away in my bedroom that have needed it for a very long time, unpacked a box of blankets that had remained unopened since the move a year ago, dried the second load of laundry from last night, and got one more load of laundry washed and into the dryer although all three loads (in addition to a load of sheets I did a couple of days ago) still need to be folded. All of this productivity helped me feel better about things even though the house is still a disaster. That’s okay though because it is less of a disaster this minute than it was 24 hours ago. As long as I keep making progress, even slow snail-like progress, I will consider it to be a success.

I’ve also come up with a plan to start going through all the shit crap junk unwanted treasures in the house and dividing them into three categories: Sell, Donate, and Scrap. I am going to put them in designated places in the garage and tell W he has until a certain date to go through the things and take what he wants. After that, I will dispose of the items according to their category.

Yep, that there is daylight at the end of the tunnel. Whew!

I Need Your Help

Drowning as I am in this depression, I have been trying to go back and read some of the blog entries in my archives that show my strength, that show me I can pull myself out of this and do better than this. As I was doing this I thought who better to ask than my readers who often have pointed out my strengths to me to send me back to some of their favorite posts of mine that might help me see that all is not bleak, that the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed daylight and not the headlight of an oncoming train.

So blessed readers, if you would be so kind, point me in the direction of some of my old posts that reveal the strength I know I have in me but just can't find right now.

Thank you kindest readers in the blogosphere.

Blue or Maybe Shades of Gray

I am in a blue mood (Who am I kidding here but me? “Blue mood” as used here is simply a euphemism for depression.) and can’t really pinpoint the reason other than life isn’t perfect and feels too difficult to be worth the effort right now.

Maybe I’m overwhelmed. I certainly feel overwhelmed when I look at all that needs to be done, and I feel like I’m never going to be able to get on top of it so I don’t tackle anything at all and then it just gets worse.

I can’t seem to get my brain to settle on one thing for very long. It flits from this to that from here to there, and I feel like I get nothing finished before I start the next thing. Then there’s something else that must be done right now so I stop and work on that until the next interruption by something that requires immediate attention.

I really want to go crawl in bed and stay there for about a month. I’d do it, too, if I thought things would be better at the end of that month. But they wouldn’t. If anything, they would be worse. I hate that I get myself stuck in these places, yet I do it over and over again.

Depression is an interesting phenomenon. I can see that I’m in the throes of depression right now. I can intellectually understand that the depression is not rational, and yet I feel incapable of moving beyond it. Indeed, I even feel incapable of moving at all. I am so very tired of the feeling of depression. I don’t know what I need to make it better, and maybe because of the depression, I feel like any attempts I make will fail to make it better anyway.

It is so hard to explain the feelings that swirl about inside me when depression takes hold. I feel like nobody will understand even if I do give voice to the feelings. They are not thoughts and feelings that are easily understood for they are complex and not simple thoughts. They are almost too complex to be able to articulate through words.

It’s moments like these, when the depression looms heavily, that I long to check myself into a psych facility. I know it probably isn’t as pleasant as I imagine, but when I think of it I picture myself sitting in a sunlit room reading book after book. I picture attendants taking care of me and me having no responsibilities at all. I picture being told when to get up and when to go to bed. I picture being told when to eat and what to eat. I picture sitting and reading and waiting for an attendant to come along to tell me it is time to move on to the next thing. Yes, it sounds so simple, and I long for the simplicity of it. I’m sure the reality of it would be much worse than I imagine. It is for that reason, and for not wanting to jeopardize custody of N, that I continue plodding forward. I have to keep moving forward, even if it is a struggle and feels too hard at times, for if I were to stop making the effort I might just end up in that facility, and worse yet, I might just lose N. I can't take chances with that.

Happy Mother's Day

N woke me this morning at 8:00 a.m. demanding breakfast. He wanted oatmeal, and he wanted it immediately. I groggily made my way to the kitchen and made oatmeal. Inadvertently I put too many dried cranberries in it to suit him so he refused it and got himself some cold cereal of chocolatey goodness for which he goes cuckoo. Perhaps he felt bad after I bitched about his behavior because he ate both the oatmeal and the cold cereal.

Oh yeah, it's a great start to the day. . .

Exposed

Good gravies, am I brave enough to actually post a real photo of me on here? Oh heck, why not? Why not blow every last shred of anonymity I've pretended to have?

So here you go. Guess I ought to go find out who some of these people are that look like me. Not that I don't know all of them, but I only know 2 of the 5.


Am I brave enough to leave this up for the world to see? Don't know. Look quick. It may not last.

MYOB Trueself MYOB

Call me nosy, but I like to know what’s happening behind the scenes. I like to know the inside scoop. I don’t think I’ve ever thought that I knew too much about anything that was going on within my sphere of family/friends/acquaintances (on the other hand, I really don’t want to know celebrity junk because I just don’t care about them). I am not necessarily prone to sharing all that I know. Because of that sometimes people will confide in me things that aren’t confided in many others. I like it that way. I like to be well informed whether it’s my business or not.

Now there are two situations about which I know very little occurring in the present that have to do with people relatively close to me, and ain’t nobody sharin’ nothin’ with me. Can you say FRUSTRATION?!?!? Mind you, there is really little reason for me to know more than what I do know, but gosh darn it I want to know more! I have questions, and I want answers. In both cases, one more so than the other, it would be inappropriate of me to snoop in order to ferret out the answers. Yet it is driving me crazy, this desire for knowledge. I need to mind my own business. After all, curiosity killed the cat. (Yes, but satisfaction brought it back.) Anyway, I will not be pursuing answers to any of my questions, but I will continue to hope that perhaps in some way some answers will fall into my lap if I make myself open and available to them. Naturally, I will share my quandaries and frustrations here, on my blog, where I can expose anonymously all those thoughts that I can’t vocalize in the real world.

Mystery #1
W has started a new business of sorts. He told me he started two LLCs in two different states, neither of which is a state in which we live. Our counselor made mention of some kind of internet-based business he was starting. He is flying away for this weekend to a training or conference of some sort apparently related to the business and has been receiving “important” phone calls on Mondays related to it. W also asked me to get his name taken off the mortgage on the house because it is interfering with him getting a loan for his business (which I haven’t done by the way, and won’t, until I make sure I’m not hurting myself by doing it by checking with my attorney). That’s it. That’s the sum total of my knowledge. I’m dying to know more only because I’m afraid this is another of his get rich quick schemes, and he’s going to be taken for some amount of money before he finds out that it isn’t all he thinks it will be. It’s not really my business anymore now that we’re separated, but it sure makes me want to get the divorce over with ASAP so that I have absolutely no liability associated with any of it. I would love to ask him a million questions about it, but he wouldn’t answer them. Besides it might give him the idea that I care, and I don’t want that. Sigh. . .

Mystery #2
I received a letter in the mail recently from my church. Now there’s nothing so unusual about that. The letter was a form letter that I presume was sent to all members and regular attendees of the church. The unusual thing is that it was a letter explaining that the pastor was being booted out. I found it most unusual because I have heard absolutely no rumblings or grumblings about the pastor, and usually if there is dissatisfaction with the pastor it is not a big secret since churches tend to have a gossipy atmosphere in spite of the fact that gossip is generally recognized as a sin. The letter specified that the pastor was being let go due to performance issues that have been addressed over a number of months, but was otherwise quite vague. I am dying to know what on earth the situation is that caused such a move by the church council. I am concerned for the pastor and his family because I like him and them and hope that everything is going to be okay for them. I can’t help myself when faced with so little actual information from speculating in my own mind what the missing pieces are. I may be far off the mark in my speculations, and I will share them with no one because I don’t want to inadvertently start off a whole string of rumors that have little to no foundation. While some of my desire for knowledge of what happened is idle curiosity, there is a good portion of it that comes from a desire to discern whether the actions of the church council are ones of which I would approve or disapprove. If I would approve then all is well. However, if I would disapprove then I would need to think about whether a change of churches would be in order or whether I should stay and become more involved in the polity at church so that I could work to influence future actions there.

So there. Now that's all down in writing I can let fly free and unfettered from my brain. Then maybe I can concentrate on important things, like work.

Facing Reality

Reality is:
• N and W have trouble getting along.
• Both of them turn to me to mediate when they don’t get along.
• I make the situation worse, not better, by mediating.
• N and W get along better when forced to deal with each other rather than go through me.
• I have to learn to let go and let them develop their own relationship on their own terms.
• As part of the problem, I must work to fix my part of the problem only and let them work on fixing their parts of the problem.
• It is hard to keep my mouth shut sometimes, but I have to learn to do so.
• I also have to learn when it is appropriate to speak up and when it is not, and then follow through appropriately.
• N and W both benefit from having a relationship with one another.

Sometimes it isn’t so easy to face reality. It’s taken a long time for me to really see and understand my part in the difficulties between N and W. It’s taken a lot of counseling by the most patient counselor in the universe (at least from what I can tell) to finally get through to me. I am not the cause of their problems, but I am definitely a contributor. As long as I am available to them to mediate, then they are more than happy to voice all their complaints to me with the expectation that I will bear the burden of it, sit as judge and jury and issue a verdict. That should not be my role, and I am finally able to see that clearly. I am finally able to see that I am not helping the situation but making it worse. I am finally able to see that when I tell N that he will have to deal with W when he is with W and tell W that he will have to deal with N when he is with N that things start to get better. I can see clearly that W and I were never going to agree on certain parenting issues. Neither of us could persuade the other to the other’s point of view. It is better that we live apart and parent N apart from one another. N is starting to accept that Dad’s rules rule at Dad’s place and Mom’s rules rule at mine. It doesn’t matter whether or not something is acceptable one place if it isn’t acceptable at the other. What matters is that the rules are the rules, and just like rules at school may be different than those at home the rules at one home may be different than in the other home.

Oh, I know that some readers are going to think this is the most simplistic thing ever, and of course this is how it ought to be, and why on earth am I making such a big deal out of it, and why wasn’t I doing it that way all along. (Don’t you just love run on sentences? My grade school teachers are turning in their graves right now.) The fact is that being caught up in the middle of it made it harder to see the truth than looking in from the outside. I’m just glad I finally got my little pea brain wrapped around the truth of the situation, and I’m very glad that I am doing things little by little to make things better.

Most Mundane Post E-V-E-R

I’m trying to figure out why I feel stressed and rushed all the time. To that end I took a look at yesterday and today, fairly typical weekdays for me, yesterday with N in my custody and today with N in W’s custody.

Here’s what I found:

YESTERDAY
6:30-7:00 Get up, bathed & dressed
7:00-8:00 Morning chores
8:00-8:15 Commute
8:15-5:15 Work
5:15-5:30 Commute
5:30-7:45 Little League
7:45-8:30 Grab semi-fast food dinner
8:30-9:00 Put N to bed
9:00-10:30 "Free" time
10:30-6:30 Sleep

TODAY
6:30-7:00 Get up, bathed & dressed
7:00-8:00 Morning chores
8:00-8:15 Commute
8:15-5:15 Work
5:15-5:30 Commute
5:30-8:00 "Free" time
8:00-9:00 Counseling
9:00-10:30 "Free" time
10:30-6:30 Sleep

Morning chores include:
Making breakfast
Taking care of the dog
Helping N get ready for school
Putting dishes in/out of dishwasher
Trying to wake up

Things I need/want to include in "free" time:
Exercise
Laundry
Handling finances: paying bills, balancing checkbook, etc
Cleaning house
Grocery shopping
Blogging
Watching TV
Getting together with friends
Reading

Now looking at this makes me realize that something has to give somewhere. I can’t possibly spend my weekends having fun (like I have been) if I’ve got to fit all this into my life somehow. Hard choices will have to be made. Obviously I can combine some things into the same block of time. Tonight, for example, I will do the laundry and pay bills at the same time. Start a load, sit down work on bills, move load #1 to dryer and put load #2 in washer, pay more bills, and so on until done. My house needs more cleaning (actually decluttering because I have a cleaning service in that takes care of the kitchen and bathrooms and floors) than I could get done in a month if I worked on it full time.

In the past, I’ve just shorted myself on my eight hours of sleep, but that isn’t good. I’m too old to do that anymore. It catches up to me way too quickly and causes too many problems so I have to make that a priority. I have to work to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table so adjusting the work time isn’t really possible nor is it possible to cut the commute time without just moving into the office building. I already use many of my lunch hours to run errands, or stay at my desk and make necessary calls, or work through so I can leave on time.

This will get better (I hope). Once soccer and baseball seasons are over I will spend less time ferrying N back and forth to practices and attending games. Of course, by then BJ will be in the area permanently and wanting a little of my time on occasion too.

I’m tired. I think I’ll take a nap during some of tonight’s free time. If that doesn’t help me accomplish anything on my to do list at least it will help me avoid it for a bit longer.

Busy Mind

I dream very vividly and many dreams a night lately. They are mostly of similar themes. W frustrates me in almost every one. Just like real life. What I wouldn't give to have a nice peaceful night's sleep for a change.

First Date

I went out on a first date last night. It was great! I picked him up at his place, and we went out for dinner and then attended a show.

Dinner was nice, nothing fancy, just sandwiches and salads at a café. We chatted and gazed in each others’ eyes as we ate. There was a comfort between us not often found on first dates. After dinner, we drove to the local theater for an NPR event, This American Life. We got there early because we knew it would be crowded, and we wanted decent seats. He took my hand soon after we sat down, and we held hands throughout the entire event. It was a live event held in New York but beamed out to theaters across the nation. Ira Glass is one of the few people who looks similar to how I pictured him when listening to him on the radio. He was witty and engaging as he always is on the radio, and has a way of making me feel like he’s talking just to me, telling me some story of someone he’s interviewed. My date wasn’t the NPR junkie that I am so had no idea what it would be like. Afterwards, he told me that he loved the show and wanted to go listen to a podcast or two from their website.

I took him back to his place. We sat in the car and made out briefly before he went inside, and I returned home to N. We’ll be seeing each other again tonight.

Life certainly is weird when your first date with someone comes more than a year and a half after first meeting him, spending weekends with him, and sleeping with him numerous times. We sure have gone at this thing bass ackwards. At least we’ve now gotten past the first date! LOL

Nothing of Note Here

Move on to the next blog. Nothing to see here but the addle brained ramblings of a woman with a nasty head cold.

I have a cold. I am especially bummed because I have a cold when BJ is here. We are going tonight to the local theater to attend "This American Life" hosted by Ira Glass. If you don't know what or who that is then you aren't the NPR junkie that I am. I will make it there no matter what even if I can barely keep my eyes open and have to bring a wheelbarrow full of tissues to take care of my runny nose.

In other news, I stuck W last night with caring for N even though it wasn't his day to have N. I was sick. I needed sleep. I went to bed before 8:30. W was a bit put out, but who cares? He won't move his PC out of my house and was sitting at his PC yesterday evening doing whatever so I put him to use. So sue me.

It is May Day. I had completely forgotten until a coworker mentioned it being May 1. (Where did April go BTW?) Does anybody else remember as a kid exchanging May Day baskets with the neighbor kids, or was that just a local thing in the one small town in which I lived? The tulips were generally in bloom so I would stick one or two in each basket.

Peggle. If you haven't played it, try it. It's addictive. Sometimes I hate what a junkie I am for free web-based games.

See? You were warned in the title and the first line of the post. There was nothing of note here yet you read it anyway. Tsk, tsk. . .