Life's Seasons

10 weeks

lifeseasons — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:13:19 +0000

We have been in our new town and new home a mere 10 weeks. The older two girls have been at the public school, the baby at daycare, and I at my new job. Everyone seems to have adjusted well. Making friends, getting involved in activities, and enjoying the relentless sunshine! Only to have it all blow-up in our faces. The job we moved here for…is no longer. They laid of 60% of the company last week. Being as upset as I am, makes me want to write. Yet I am not sure what to write. Its scary. Feels hopeless. I want to be angry at someone, but I don’t want o blame my husband. Its not reallly his fault and he hates it too. I wish I could write the man who hired him a nasty mean letter. He knew my husband was moving his whole family here AND leaving a stable paying job behind, so just WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING!?!?!? So again I am on the same rollercoaster ride, waiting for the opportunity to get off, hoping it comes before I completely LOSE IT!!!

on the move

lifeseasons — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:48:32 +0000

I am packing boxes. My 1 year old is sleeping (thank heavens) and my 7 and 9 year olds are outside playing in the sunshine. My husband is already gone 2 states away working. So I am here packing. The last 5 weeks of a being a single parent, selling the house (which means keeping it clean all the time!), and packing have been exhausting to say the least. And I just keep wondering why. I know my husband got a better job somewhere else, but my friends, my support are here. I will miss them more than I can even say! Now I am sad AND packing boxes!

In-laws

lifeseasons — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:09:28 +0000

Need I say more? Mine were here for a mere three days and yet I sense the recovery time will be at least double that. A visit from my mother-in-law means…meddling, questioning, judgments, double standards, criticism. Not on my part but her’s. Anything I say in my defense is met with hyper sensitivity, generalizations, more criticism, and judgment. How does one deal with a person who has no respect for boundaries? So I am left behind in a wake of questioning. Why is it that I let one person have such control over me? That is for sure what she wants and I am handing it right over. Yet every time I realize this after she has left. So I promise to hold on stronger to my resolve next time and not let her get the better of me. Some day I hope I can actually do it!

Bargain Curtains

lifeseasons — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:21:32 +0000

Today I made curtains. Yes two sets. One for my room and one for my daughter’s room. There were two great things about this venture. #1 was price. See I went to the fabric store to buy fabric with which to make curtains and quickly realized it would be about $50. Then I found a set of sheets at TJ Max that would work perfectly for about $10! Wow, how else do you buy fabric that cheap. #2 was how simple they were to make. Each set took a total of about 30 minutes each. It was simple, it was cheap, and it was done quickly. Thats about how much time and patience I have for these types of projects. I love actually finishing something…it feels good!

Changes

lifeseasons — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:18:53 +0000

So I am officially a SAHM! (Stay-at-home-mom) The last 4 years I have spent trying to keep a failing business afloat. We have closed the doors of the business and now I can focus on keeping our family “afloat!” That is where my heart is anyway. And so my family is in recovery. Some of the changes are easier than others. Back to cooking and homemade meals, but with that also comes coupon clipping and bargain shopping. (I actually enjoy both.) More time together also means more time cleaning and shopping together. That too can be a double edged sword. Last night I watched “American Idol” for the first time with my 7 year old. That was interesting, but not probably how I would chose to spend most evenings at home. I am excited for our changes! I’ll keep you posted on how its going, but mostly I want to use this blog and this time to process the near insanity of the last few years. Because I have changed, but some of those changes are still in process. So I need a place to vent, process, think, write, whatever. More on that later…

Broken

lifeseasons — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:22:50 +0000

Last week my nine year old daughter fell ice skating and broke her leg. It was an unfortunate event of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She and one of the dads on the rink (who we know) got tangled up and he landed on her leg. Resulting in a spiral fracture of the tibia starting right above where the skates ended. The doc says they saved her ankle. I guess that is a good thing. Apparently the bone heals stronger, but joints are another story.

This is our second visit to the emergency room. The first was with the same daughter 3 years ago for a broken are, right above the elbow. That one required a trip to OR in order to set it and then a night in the hospital to make sure she did ok coming out of anesthesia. For some reason I managed to be strong for her and didn’t have to fight off the waves of nausea usually brought about by hospitals. But this time I was stuck in the hall with my head between my knees trying not to become a patient myself.

I could go into many angles of this whole experience right now…like how stupid EMT’s nurses are compared to the intuition of a mother, or how irate I was that they left my 9 year old to endure the pain and scream for 45 minutes straight, or how my 5 month old is sick from spending the day at the hospital where it is supposedly CLEAN and everyone washes their hands! Can you tell I HATE hospitals! That is why I have a mid-wife and family physician and we eat right and exercise and utilize natural remedies as much as possible. Because I think our Western medicine SUCKS!

The point I REALLY want to make here though, is how strongly connected a mother and child are. As much as I wanted to be strong for my daughter, I really felt her pain and her disappointment. She is a VERY active child, with hopes of her team taking first in indoor soccer this season, ice skating and swimming lessons, skiing this winter, and maybe some more basketball at Grandpa’s. Now she is stationary (and in a lot less pain thankfully) on the couch. It being Christmas, I really want to try to keep her spirits up. That is my sole task for my broken daughter right now!

today

lifeseasons — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:17:08 +0000

Cranky, teething baby up at 6am = Cranky mama

Cranky, whining 6 year old = Crankier mama

Cranky, needy 9 year old = Crankiest mama

today…everything feels like too much!

Jealousy

lifeseasons — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:42:18 +0000

It will rot your soul. I have let it consume a very dear friendship of mine and I am trying vigorously to correct that. Don’t get me wrong, we all have our fair share of issues. But sometimes you look at another person’s life and you want to yell “Honestly, what on earth do you have to complain about?!??!”

She is at home raising her two sons who adore her. She has a supportive husband who makes a comfortable income for them. Her extended family is all close by and interested in being involved in her kid’s lives. She drives a nice car, shops if and when she needs or wants something, has supportive in-laws who adore her….and I am so freakin’ jealous!

My in-laws don’t like me to the point that they swear at me and hang-up on me on the phone, or they just conveniently forget to buy me Christmas presents. My husband has started a seriously failing business in all his immaturity and we are destined to lose everything we own! I work nights and then get up with three kids in the morning and try to put on a smile. My family lives 5 hours away and for the most part I am alone in this world to do the one thing that is most important to me…raise my kids!

Yet the one solitary support I have, I am destined to ruin because of my damn jealousy!

When Babes Fall Ill

lifeseasons — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:29:54 +0000

The last few days have been full. Full of life. On Tuesday I decided to try to push our holiday travel plans up a few days. This meant laundry, finding a cat sitter, figure out work stuff, packing, shopping, etc. So on Thursday morning hubby and I pulled out of the driveway with only three and half hours sleep!

We drove to Seattle (about an hour and a half) to see “The BFG” by Roald Dahl put on by the Seattle Children’s Theater. Which was fabulous, as they usually are! My two school age daughters enjoyed it immensely and the baby slept. I had an inkling she wasn’t feeling well. No fever, but a low throaty, hoarse voice. After the show we had lunch at the Seattle Center and went on to spend the afternoon at the Pacific Science Center. It was perfect on a miserable, rainy, Thursday afternoon. We almost had the whole place to ourselves! (We home school by the way.) But by 4 o’clock hubby and I had headaches, were totally exhausted and we had a cranky baby.

We decided to stay the night in Seattle and make the 3 hour drive on to Vancouver, WA the next morning. I am so glad we did. Because now I have a truly sick baby. So much for our relaxing vacation, but more than that…I hate there is nothing I can do for her. We are running the humidifier, giving her tylenol, and trying to make sure she stays hydrated, but watching her cry this totally miserable cry makes me want to cry too! I know it will be gone soon, but right now it is consuming!

A New Season of Blogging

lifeseasons — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:03:26 +0000

It is Monday morning in early November and the wind is roaring at speeds of 65 mph outside our Pacific Northwest home. My two oldest girls are gone at play dates and my 4 month old is fast asleep. My husband is at work. I am here enjoying the first couple of hours I have had to myself in I don’t know how long. So I have born a blog. A blog I have been thinking about starting for a year now. I have been trying to decide what exactly I would blog about and have decided not to pigeon hole myself.

I have started this blog without telling anyone I know. I am hoping this will achieve a certain amount of honesty on my part. Because I need a safe place to proclaim “I don’t like my 6 year old today” when she has pushed me to the brink of my motherly patience. Or maybe it’ll be “I absolutely despise my in-laws!” when my mother-in-law comes to my house for only the third time in 10 years only to denounce my parentlng and tell me there is something clinically wrong with my 9 year old! Or it might be “I have the greatest husband ever!” even though I don’t want him to think too highly of himself, that I would proclaim it to the world in a blog. This way no one will no…except me and you!

I hope you will leave me notes along the way about the seasons in your life too. This way we can celebrate or commiserate together. Who knows what this new season of blogging will bring. Here’s hoping…