Tumbling Through

How strange it is that I have left this abandoned through this year. The year of uncertainty.
In just one week my Bee starts kindergarten. One week left of everything I know and we tumble on to the unknown. My parents held me back until I was 6. I understand why. She's just 5- how can I set her free in this way? I will miss her terribly. This makes being a parent far more real.
I have a friend. Emily. The little sister of the family I cannot escape. So very strange. It alters my perception of all things.
While still getting checks of a certain amount, the business is faltering. We remain uncertain. Where we will be and what it will look like is a grey area we are not allowed to see at this time.
I have gained an obscene amount of weight back. Not all the way to the worst, but well on my way. Finding the motivation to start all over again is a heavy burden to sludge through.
My parents are a constant annoyance to me. To us. More so than expected. We broached the subject of holidays in October and things have never been the same. Not that they were good. Now it's just worse. How can this be? They have no bearing in my day to day life. Why do I let them make me feel this way? Many things they do, say, think are so ridiculous, it's unbelievable.
I am 29. One year to 30. Both afraid and intrigued.
Around every turn is uncertainty.

The Summer. So far.

I've been thinking lately that I am a la-ay-ay-ay-ZEE mom. It's true. I suck. And the kiddo is FOUR. Being a stay-at-home mama is the job I've held the longest. EVER. And I've never embraced it properly or figured out what I'm doing. I just fall through the day willy-nilly like I'm not responsible for a HUMAN BEING. What the what? So, there it is. Anyway, I'm not getting better by leaps and bounds but I've decided to document the summer for all it is in hopes that I can find my motherly self in the mix. And it's the last summer where we don't have to think about school and big kid things like that and the first summer where she seems like a real live kid, not a baby. Not a toddler. A kid. And so. June. According to Phineas and Ferb, there is 104 days of summer vacation. I don't catch what days that's including. To me summer is June 1-August 31. 92 days. And how. And so I document them for what they are.

When You're Alone and Life is Making You Lonely

I'm there again. Down Town. Not downtown, where all the lights are bright. Down Town. An ironically cute name for the place I go in my head when I feel like shit. Where I don't give a shit about what I put in my body, what state my house is in, whether anyone has clean clothes, whether I showered lately. Actually, not true. I DO give a shit. Because I hate myself for all these things. I hate myself for filling my body with junk and not exercising. I hate that the house is atrocious. I hate that the closet is carpeted in dirty clothes. I hate that my hair is limp and my legs are stubbly. But I just can't make myself do anything about it. I have VERY few friends. And they like me. A lot. But I try to forget that they actually have friends that aren't me. Circles of them. And they go and do things with them in ways that I can't be involved. So I'm stuck. Alone. With the kid. Which is depressing. Depressing because I'm stuck with the kid. And also depressing that I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm just using the kid as an excuse to be pissed off.

And Twelve

Life has run full force into a cavalcade of A DECADE. Ten years with Billy. Ten years since graduation. Ten years since the beginning of everything that is now.

Now I'm even more motivated to kick the last two goals of my weight loss party. I've completely stagnated at 160. Considering I kept off the weight I did lose, well, things could be worse. ^_^ But stagnating so close to Goal #2 is a little lame. I would like to be there by the end of the month. Ultimately, I would like to be at my high school weight by June- ten years exactly since graduating. Ten years.

August? WTF?

So I'm crazy surprised that I've gone this long without writing anything. Since the last time I wrote, we've Insanity-ed up and now we're slackin'... But! I lost 23 ugly, nasty pounds! When we started, I set a trifecta of goals to hit: Pre-Baby Weight, Wedding Weight, High School Weight. I hit Pre-Baby Weight in the first month of Insanity! Right now, I'm 5 pounds away from wedding weight. I went from a (tight) size 16 to a size 12. I don't know why we've been slacking as long as we have especially since I'm so close to Wedding Weight. Luckily, I haven't gained any weight back during the laziness. One way or another, I am thrilled! My biggest push is that there are a series of perks in the next few pounds: At 156, I'll have lost 27 pounds! At 155, I'll be at my Wedding Weight! At 154, I'm no longer considered overweight! So frickin' close! Woot!

Pudgy Around the Edges

I can sit still and breathe silently.
I can climb at least four flights of stairs without wanting to die.
I can still shop at regular stores.
But.
I can blitz out a bag of Doritos without thought.
I can justify my bad decisions.
I can gain back all I've lost across three weeks in five days.

It is so unfair that I've wasted my 20s being completely fat. It's so unfair that I didn't get to be one of those people that was just thin without thought. This is the time my metabolism should be working for me but NO. I've just screwed up my body time and again and I'm too damn selfish and lazy to work for it. And keep up with it forever. Suck suck suck.

Insanity

Over a dinner at McDonald's, Billy talked me into doing the Insanity workout with him. He didn't try to, I kind of initiated it, but here we are. We're working up to it at the moment and I'm kinda freaking out about it. We've been waking up early and working out for two weeks now. Today we skipped the workout and have been working on pushups. I've done 50 pushups today. That is exactly 50 more pushups than I've done in the last 10 years. ^_^;;
Anyway, we're dabbling in better eating habits as well. So far, though right now my muscles are aching, I haven't been super thrilled with the results. I dropped some weight last week, but it's rebounded this week. I'm going to see this through with Billy, but I have this tickly feeling in the back of my brain that thinks I'm not going to see any difference even after pushing myself more than I have in almost a decade. *sigh* If I do all this, and I'm still hovering around 180 pounds I will be PISSED.
It's not helping that I'm quietly becoming a hypochondriac. Headaches in weird places? Potential aneursym or brain tumor. Strange tingling in my back? MS. Everything else? Flat out terror that I'm pregnant. I am constantly afraid something medical is going to happen to me. It's so not fair that I have this fear.

>Overwhelmed

I am so not good at this.
Keiren is at that transition point where I was getting super comfortable with what and who she was, and now she's a whole new kid. And I'm not adjusting well.
Don't get me wrong, the new sleeping schedule is FANTASTIC and the self-inflicted drop of most bottles is more than I could've asked for. It's just the flat out responsibility that this is engaging that scares me. She's not a baby anymore. My job is not caring for her every physical need anymore. I don't have to do everything for her anymore. My whole life revolved around feedings, diaper changes, and whatnot for so long, and even though she's been shedding that for so long, in essence she was still a baby. But not anymore. Not at all. All these things are on the way out and strangely, I'm responsible for so much more now. It's not just a "keep the baby alive and make sure she doesn't cry" thing. Now I'm responsible for teaching.
Potty training. Preschool. These are at the forefront now and I'm freaking out. I have no idea how to do this. I can feel myself shutting down again. I have no idea where to start in any of this. But I have to do it. And I have to do it soon.

Eleven

2011 seems like some futuristic date that has nothing to do with the life I'm living. But... it's not and it is and time keeps marching on.
I'm having an uberhard time settling on some goals for this year. I feel like things are slipping out my control again. But I don't think they really are. I think I'm just lazy.
My biggest issues are: having to end the nice break from the snowball and jump back into the crazy debt attack. The four months of being more relaxed about our money was glorious! It was the first time we have ever not had to worry about making ends meet. Ends met and there was plenty left over to screw around with. Yes, we probably should've paid more debt and/or invested something somewhere but this was so frickin' nice, I don't regret it for a second. Now here we are: lower paying job, student loans out of grace. Bleh. Which brings me to the next issue: our mouths. *sigh* We have been skipping the dentist pretty much our entire adult lives. We went right before and right after we got married and that was it. We either had no money, no time, or both. But mid-December, Billy broke a tooth, essentially, on a rib. We could avoid the dentist no longer. So far, we've gotten through an intense consultation and a root canal. Thursday will bring two crowns into the picture.
SO. The plan is... to get Billy's mouth in tip-top shape while I start getting regular cleanings. While Billy's mouth is in progress, my teeth repair will be put on hold. Once Billy is done and paid for, I'll start getting fillings and filings and whatever.
Here's the rub: The consultation was $187. The root canal was $2500-ish. The crowns... I don't even know yet. We're putting all of this on.... a credit card. *sigh* Here we go again?? Not if I can help it. Here's the thing. We've paid $187 and a $400 down payment on the work so far. We scraped together some extra funds and that left us with $326 left on the credit card plus a bill still coming from the root canal that will be broken into payments. The debt snowball is being paused and all extra money is being diverted into the dental fund/paying off whatever has already racked up. The problem is I'm not sure if I should put our emergency fund in play since I know everything already surpasses what we have in the EF and there's so much more to come. Plus we're contending with lower pay and student loans. PLUS we have two empty buffer accounts: gifts & travel. PLUS I'm seriously floundering in terms of grocery deals; I'm out of practice and now it's becoming a necessity again. GRRR!!! I really gotta step it up and not fall full force into those bad habits again.
I think I'm trying to do too much at once again thus I freeze and stop doing anything. My list of things to do include: get back into the frugality routine, start preschool with Keiren, get hardcore into potty training, get my sleep in check, get my eating and exercising routine going, get back into the house cleaning routine, all while trying to maintain the other stuff (financials, personal time, etc.) I'm freezing!!!
THIS IS YOUR JOB. YOU JUST HAVE TO DO IT!

My December

Oh, December. The end of the year? Really? Holy cow.
We are in such a different place than we were at this time last year. We are completely out of credit card debt. Hell. Yes. The absolute pride I feel in that accomplishment is unbelievable. After finishing that monumental goal a full four months early, we have given ourselves some reprieve from the snowball. The reprieve ends in T-minus 6 days and counting. Billy's school loans are out of grace officially on the 7th. But oh what a wonderful time it's been, actually being able to do happier things with our money! For our anniversary we bought a new living room set (couch, entertainment center, rug, curtains) since all of our stuff was completely dilapidated. Then, our dryer completely died. We've been keeping it alive but this time it really bit it. I trolled Craigslist, trying to find something that would work. A couple popped up but then it just didn't happen. Good thing too since Billy & Kevin gave Black Friday a whipping and got me a brand new set of Kenmore front loaders at Sears for $600. SQUEE!!! Plus, Billy got his Kitchenaid and I got a sewing machine. We've set aside money for trips, Christmas, Keiren, emergencies, started the "navel" fund so I can get my belly button back... All of this in CASH CASH CASH! Never again credit cards! Mwah ha ha ha! Take that!!!
Phew. Now it's back to the snowball, in force. The new plan is to continue to attack the second mortgage, while attempting to refinace. If both mortgages can be lumped into one at a much lower interest rate, the snowball will shift to attacking the student loans. I'm going to play the next couple months by ear since Billy's changed jobs again and our income will be varied depending on commissions... Again. Suck. His last job was a crazy ride. Now we have to live like normal people again.
In conjunction with that, I'm still getting used to him being home all the time. 99% of the time, it's frickin' awesome. But sometimes I'm like, "Don't you need to go somewhere?!?"
In other news, I'm really getting the hang of just being MOM and everything that goes with it. I really think I can stick with it this time. The house has been "together" for a full two weeks now and getting better all the time. I almost feel completely moved in. I can do it this time. I know I can. I just have a few kinks to work out and it will all come together.

3 a.m. Again. But Brighter!

So... I've really been feeling completely worthless in the last few months. I feel like there's no way I can do all that I am responsible for so I don't even try. No really. I don't try. I go, "OMG, I'm responsible for raising Keiren, cleaning the house, laundry, cooking, finances, pets, shopping, keeping up on EVERYTHING and I. Just. Can't. So... I won't. I'll just sit here and let everything go to hell around me and spend a good portion of time griping. Yeah."
BUT... I've been anticipating this series on Money Saving Mom about time management. I read the first few and was like... mmm *shrug*. She was talking about concentrating on what your good at and capable of doing well and dropping everything else that's cluttering your life. That's when that panicky feeling popped up where I'm like, "I'm not good at ANYTHING! I'm just not. The only thing I'm good at is budgeting our money." And then she told us about... the Time Budget. Holy. Frickin'. Crap. So obvious! Why didn't I think of this before??? Oh yeah. Because I've been wallowing for 2.5 years. That's why.
I'm not really ready to set out the Time Budget yet... But it's coming. And it's close. And I'm so excited! This could be really good.

Weakness is my Strength

I have zero time management skills. ZERO. As I am typing this at 3 a.m., it's a pretty obvious fact. Oh, plus I am LAZY. So the issue of needing at least the framework of a schedule and real work in the time management area is so very much at the top of my list of goals. BUT...
The first little snippet of advice was to find your strengths and let those be your guide in how you manage your time. Unfortunately, I have no strengths. I have a household to run and the only strength I have is weakness. I am weak weak weak. Emotionally, physically, spiritually weak. In every aspect, I do the bare minimum. Bills are paid, we have food, and sometimes we have clean underwear. My daughter is alive and clean. My husband doesn't completely hate me. My eyebrows are actually plucked. But I didn't shower today. Or do dishes.
Okay, what did I do right? Um... I did give Keiren and Josie a bath. Yeah. That's about it. I am so lame, it's not even funny.

Silent, Screaming Breakdown

With Billy & Kevin driving back from Cali right now, rushing to a birthday promise, I had to take all the sanity I had left not to go into pissy-pants mode on the phone. And I really didn't have much sanity left. But now it's gone. Maybe not.
I could feel the angry, teary, green-eyed demon trying to sneak out in my voice, but I reeled her in, thank God. I don't think he noticed, but I did. Oooh, that was hard. Then, when I got off the phone, I went in the kitchen, grabbed my Diet Coke and then picked up three pumpkin cookies... and set them down. That was pretty impressive since I HELLA wanted to just go into an eating frenzy. OH WHY must I deal with stress by eating??? Right now, slowly sipping on my soda, I'm not even really hungry. And dinner's coming up, as soon as Bee wakes up. Those cookies would have served no purpose. I had a snack. Now I'm going to have dinner. The cookie inbetweeners just would've soothed me down from the jealously spike. Good Lord, I am a mess.
I am so deep in this ugly identity crisis I don't even know which way is up. I have no drive to do my actual job; I've really tried this week, but I think I'm just spinning my wheels.

Worse. Poorer. Sickness.

The negative side of the vows are pummeling us yet again.
I'm losing my mind.
We're taking a pay cut to the max.
Billy probably has celiac disease.
After the maddening visit to the doctor yesterday that left us with far more questions than answers, Kevin called to say he lost his job.
With everything going on, I really can't take anymore. I really can't. I cried halfway home and prayed my heart out. I. Just. Can't.
I'm not a good mom. I'm not a good wife. I'm not a good homemaker. I'm not good at anything and I feel so alone. And trapped.
I wish I had had a clue back in the day and actually done some spontaneous stuff while I still could. Now I can't. We wasted so many opportunities and it's all my fault. Good thing we took the lifestyle sabbatical or I'd really hate myself for wasting the beginning of us.

Lackadaisical Has Nothing to Do With Daisies

I have reached a level of laziness that is unforgivable. I don't ever want to do anything. Ever. I've been at this stay-at-home mom business for darn near 2.5 years... quite honestly the longest I've stayed with a job ever. Yet, I still have trouble viewing it as a job. This. Is. A. Job. This is my job.
Sometimes, I get the gumption to really get it together and keep it together. But then I just let it all go. I've let Bee run the show for so long, she doesn't understand she's not the boss. We all let her boss us around. It's ugly. And wrong.
I've done this wrong from the very beginning. I think... I think I need to make a job description or something. Just without structure, without deadlines, without interaction with others... I have zero drive. Does that sound like I should go back to work? Billy thinks so. He thinks it would do me a world of good. I just don't know. I honestly think I would be miserable. And Bee would be miserable too. *sigh*
That's it. Enough is TOO MUCH!

Quarter-Life Crisis

I'm feeling... lost. Not... unhappy. Just without identity... or maybe just distanced from life.
I feel like everything is going on around me but I'm not part of it. Hmmm. Even that's not it.
Maybe it's just that everything's going too fast. And my past, such a small blip of history, is haunting me in dreams. Again.
Yup. The Limbo of Youth. I think others around me have similar pits in their stomachs but we just don't talk about it. We just march on without really knowing what's next.
Just came back from Disneyland. Bee's first visit. It was wonderful! But now I have post trip blues mixed with more of the thoughts of the march of time. Ridiculous but true. Bleh.

Grief & Sleepovers

I am numbing out on the winding road of grief management as of late. I literally feel numb, almost lethargic. My energy is zapped and I have completely let the house go to pot. The ugly realizations of mortality and the steady, quick march of time zoom through my mind often and just as often put me into a state of panic. I have no control over how fast a life goes by. I've been watching the Twilight Zone a lot and just the fact that the young, vibrant actors of the 60s are now either old or dead gets me depressed, irritable, pissed. Maybe I should stop watching it... but when that show was in its last season, Grandpa was my age! A young parent just back from war. My dad was born that year. Not so long ago yet still a lifetime. How quickly we age without even realizing it is painful once you do notice that it's happening or has already happened.
Right now I'm sitting in my old room at my parents' house for quite possibly the last time. Billy is putting in his notice tomorrow and that could mean he's coming home immediately or he's in it for another two weeks-30 days. It's been an absolutely crazy year but this has become the new normal. We'll have to learn how to be us again in a normal setting. Weird but true. I really resented this situation at first but now it's almost peaceful... It doesn't seem like home at all. This is quite a revelation to me. I've lived in this house as a high-schooler and I've lived in this house in the interim when we sold our house then off and on when we were on sabbatical then when our current house was being built. We lived here when Billy went to PA for a week and I cried myself to sleep every night. I stayed here when he went on his first business trip ever when he started working at Highland Manor when Bee was a newborn. I cried for a day. Now he's been away so much and been on a myriad business trips it seems silly that I was ever that distraught to sleep without him. It will be strange to have him home all the time. And that in itself is disconcerting.

The Beauty of Zero

Four months ahead of schedule, our credit card debt is no more. It feels like this post should be full of exclamation points and "squee"s and "woot"s and happy dances in general. This is a HUGE feat and accomplishment as well as a giant burden lifted. But I can't get over the fact that this year we brought in an excess of $25770.77 that went to debt. That is SO much money. And it's gone. It's zeroed us out to where we always should have been. Every stupid purchase, mis-paid medical bill, commuter gas fill-up, furniture or baby stuff shopping spree, Christmas gift that we couldn't afford, yay debt moment... PAID OFF. PAID OFF! We have exorbitant student loans and a seriously misguided second mortgage sitting us deeply in the negative to the tune of about $36,000 but these types of debt are not as ugly. It feels weird. The light at the end of the tunnel was really just a brief reprieve from the darkness of debt but we're soaking in the sunshine and basking in the glow of being damn near half way out of the depth of our debt.
As we reached the end of our credit card debt journey, we found out that Grandpa has/had $56000 in credit card debt. This is about double what his life insurance is worth. As this is a community property state, Grandma is in a predicament. Sitting here in our mid-twenties with more debt than life insurance, I'm feeling a strong pull to get our affairs in order. It seems too practical, too depressing, and almost like I'm beckoning for something bad to happen. But what if something did? I don't want to be financially screwed if my life got turned upside down.

And Now We Are 26

Today is my birthday. While the 27th is a recurring theme of life highlights for me, sometimes my birthday has tragedy hovering around it. One of my dad's best friends died on my 12th birthday. Come to think of it, I think he was... 26. Three years ago, I was in the hospital, broken and in shock. Today, we are only two weeks worth of raw from the loss of Grandpa. Seeing my birthday card signed only by Grandma was a sock in the ribs and has left me with an ache in my spirit.
26. Young. Maybe even more awkward of an age than 16. Not young adult. Not adult adult. It seems like 25-30 is the limbo of youth. So much left but so much lived. Not the beginning, middle or end. Maybe that's why I'm half-heartedly wallowing in my rut. Something must be done.

The Following Monday

This day marks the end of one of worst weeks of my life. I have a handful of those in my past: post-Billy's dad, post-Missy's dad, post-almost dying x 2, post-the Missy fallout. This one tops the list for me. It has been a whirlwind of family, flowers, food... and deep deep pain.
I haven't been sleeping. I am exhausted. I look like hell. And I still feel strangely empty and lost. And confused. The funeral was... indescribable. I saw Charles after eight years. I vaguely reconciled with Faith after two years of hate. The potential for reconciliation with Emily is on the horizon. Katherine apologized for being an absentee aunt. Regrets abounded. Taking family for granted was a recurring theme of regret. My daughter has upped her level of "challenging toddler" this week and I am just too raw to deal properly.
What are the stages of grief? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I think I've felt all but acceptance simultaneously throughout these seven earth-shattering days. The markings of today are certainly not what I would have guessed one week ago. Right now I am confused by all the family that have made themselves available, Blue's Clues is on in the background, I'm exhausted beyond measure, and Grandpa is gone. None of these things were even a thought last Monday.
Glimpses of him keeping popping in my head and I want to hug him. I want to see him smile while telling the same wry joke to someone new. I want to see the way he cocked his head and smiled when he didn't hear what you said but genuinely wanted to know. I want to have a family dinner at Stockman's that he would insist to pay for no matter who's idea it was to go out. I want so many things I can never have again.