Happiness is ...

Happiness is

1. the baby sleeping for more than 2 hour stretches (one week of it and still going strong! YEAH!)
2. swinging in the hammock with my dh
3. my child telling me she loves me as she gives a great big bear hug just because
4. catching up with my cousin on the phone yesterday =) Hopefully I will have more catching up with some phone calls today!
5. sleeping in on a Saturday morning
6. doing pilates with my girls - okay doing pilates is not happiness, but the girls wanting to be like me makes me happy ;-)
7. Doing more catching up yesterday - one with a friend expecting a baby boy in November (and I hate to admit it but we haven't spoken in about 14 months :X) and another cousin who just bought a new house!
8. Hanging out with other moms who, like me, are not quite perfect and being able to commiserate together on the tough days!
9. Trying something I wouldn't have thought to try a year ago, and even if it doesn't work out, being satisfied just in trying and not letting fear of failure hold me back!
10. Buying 30 boxes of crayons for $3.00, 30 glue sticks for $4.50, 5 bottles of glue for 45 cents, and 10 notebooks for $1!!! I love deals on things like that LOL!
11. Good friends to laugh with and cry with.
12. My dh letting me sleep all night long while he contended with the baby!
13. Finally finish knitting all the pieces to make my dds sweater (last night at about 11:45pm I did it LOL!)
14. Birthday celebrations
15. A cousin staying to help decorate cookies and a cake even though she doesn't have to and probably has about 100 other better things to do - all just to help out!
16. Whole grain goldfish ... I love them and so do the kids!
17. A cousin who will watch the girls and give me a break!
18. Pretty pictures drawn for me by the kiddos!
19. My daughter walking up to me, on her own, and asking to start school
20. Hanging outside with the family on a beautiful day
21. A cremsicle shake on a warm day.
22. Venting with a friend when I'm feeling stressed and knowing she is just listening and not judging at all.
23. Babyboy suddenly deciding he did not need to be attached to my hip all day today!
24. Not having to wake up for school early this am when we were awoken by a bad thunderstorm in the middle of the night ... homeschooling is good for that ;-)
25. Playing a new game called Fish Tycoon ... I am trying to convince dh that I need to buy the full version
26. dh pampering me when I don't feel well.
27. sleeping 5 hours last night all because I pulled babyboy into our bed - apparently he sleeps well in our bed.
28. Welcoming a new little one into our circle of friends! Welcome little Miss M! =)
29. Babyboy giggling hysterically in his sleep in the middle of the night!
30. Finally buying Fish Tycoon (see number 25)
31. Paying off debt (as of today, my dh and I are officially debt free! WOO HOO!!)


August is Happiness Is Month! Come on and play!!

Well ..

I had fun things to write about tonight ... earlier I couldn't wait to come and type.
But then my mom called. Not feeling ready to go into details, but my youngest sister is in the hospital right now. :-(
I just, I don't know, maybe it's what she needs (no she is not in there because of infection, virus, cold, etc).
Here's hoping she gets out soon, but yet not too soon if that is in fact where she needs to be to get the help that she needs.

Misc Updates ...

So, we started school last week. It's going really well. Once again my 6 year old is blowing me away. Things are just too easy for her - much like when we started last year. We are going to plug along with the easy stuff to build up confidence, and soon it will be getting harder - well at least I hope so. I had some logic puzzles that I thought would really test her. Well they did, for one day. Now she has it down and runs with it. I do hope they pick up here as we get farther into the book. We'll see. I have another math book that has some puzzling tasks so I think it's time to pull that out soon (something I thought I wouldn't be using for a few years @@)
My 4 year old keeps asking to do "school" as well. I've given her a few projects to work on. She does them, for all of a few minutes, and moves on to just playing. It's fine with me, and it shows me where her attention span and readiness is (which is where I thought it was - not ready to start anything).
Babyboy has been pretty cooperative through all of this, which I very much appreciate! =)

On other notes, I have not started running. :-( I want to, I do. I can not seem to get away to run. My dh leaves for work at insane hours in the am (Last week he left for work between 4:30am and 5:30 am each day). And he is staying at work late - getting home at 6 or 7, then it time to get the kids down, babyboy gets exceptionally cranky at that point. When can I go? I can't. However, some very good news, is that in a mere 3 days we will be out of debt. Completely debt free. I do not kid when I tell you we have paid off a ton of money over the last 2 years. I think the average american has something like 7500 in debt. 2 years ago we had more than that, we had more than double that. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited! I think we shall have champange to celebrate no debt.
But, that means we've been making hefty credit card payments to get it paid off. Now we won't have to (but we plan to stock pile the money away and pretend we are still making those payments as a house purchase should be soon).
So, I say all this because our treat to ourselves will be memberships to the local YMCA. That means I can go work out and take the kids to the childcare and finally get going on this. I am SO excited. Dh even said, he plans on coming home, having dinner with us, and then maybe all of us heading over there so he and I can work out together. Or maybe he'll go over there, take the kids, and give me some free time at home - however it works out. I am so excited. I wanted a membership there this spring, but it would have delayed paying debt off, and in the end I decided it was not worth it.
So, for the moment running is sidetracked, but it's still on the agenda.
And I swear this time I am not saying I can't get away as a convenient excuse. I really can't get away. And it's eating me up. I am eager to get started!
Aside from that, not much else going on here. I'm very anxious to move and move soon. That is definitely on my radar right now. It's not on dh until Jan. 1 but I can look on-line all I want and plan the perfect place to move without him ROFL!! =)

Really on journaling ...

Okay, so about this journaling, which is what I had originally set out to write about last night ...
I have loved journals. I started keeping my own in middle school. What first prompted me to write was Ann Frank's diary. I used to imagine that I would live through some very important historical event and my diary would be one of the few things left to document it. So I wrote. Mostly about silly things honestly! As I didn't have any historical thing happening, and honestly, were it happening, I probably would have been oblivious to the real impact of what was going on around me.
Anyway, I kept my journal. And as I mentioned yesterday I had the love of my life in high school. And so I wrote about him in my journal. And I wrote about my sad heart and the love that would not be and how I was sure I was destined to grow up old and lonely and bitter because no one would ever be as great as he was.
And that's when it happened. My younger sister (who was 3-4 years old at the time) went in my room, grabbed my journal, brought it to my dad and asked him to read it to her. And read it he did, although not to her.
I was so upset. I was devastated. He teased me, thought it was funny, and said half of it didn't even make sense to him.
I yelled at him, I went to my mom, I cried, I was determined my entire life was ruined. Well, my life was not ruined, but my trust was destroyed. I vowed to never write in a journal again. Because I didn't feel comfortable writing what was in my heart. And I didn't. And I took the diary my dad read and burned it. I was beyond upset.
I wish now I hadn't burned it. I'm sure it would have given me a few laughs now, and I wish I hadn't stopped keeping one.
I picked up journaling again briefly during my pregnancy with my oldest daughter. Mostly I wanted to journal the pregnancy to someday show to her. But it didn't last long. And I didn't think about it again.
Until March of 2004. I read about a group of moms who all kept journals for a week and read each other journals to better learn about each other ... to learn about moms who worked, moms who stayed home, moms with several kids, moms to one, etc, etc. I was a member of an AOL message board. I thought the idea sounded neat, so I went to my message board and proposed we all start blogs on-line to better learn about each other.
[I will interject here to say I am responsible for Actual Unretouched Photo, My Life or Something Like it, sMoov, as well as a few more but those links I could pull up very quickly]
And so began my new blogging fever.
At first I mostly blogged about fluff ... not really ready to trust and really expose myself. But as I blogged and read more blogs I felt a need to open up more. So I did. But I started another blog through tripod. I released the address to only a few people and wrote to my hearts content. I made sure to not use my families names so no one could google my family and find the site. I wanted to be able to write freely, but I wanted protection from people reading it who shouldn't and laughing - much as my dad did that day roughly 12 years ago. It stung. And it hurt. And I don't want to go through that again.
Now I blog sometimes getting deep and really opening up. And sometimes I blog still guarded about what I will release.
What I will do with these blogs of mine I do not know. Will I save all the entries? Do I want my children to someday read all of this? Honestly, my husband doens't even read this blog - he knows it exists, he's never asked for the address and well, I've never offered it freely. Not that he doens't know anything I write about in here, but I don't know, it would seem weird to me if he was reading it. Maybe that makes me weird.
But that is my story on blogging, on journaling, on writing my deepest darkest thoughts ... or on not writing those deep dark thoughts.

On journaling ...

I've always been drawn to journaling.
I used to keep one as a child. Mostly started in junior high. And then in high school.
And in my journals I was honest - blatently honest. And at one point (okay, more than one time, but this particular time) I was in love. It was true love. True love of the most deepest kind ever. Of course, the problem with all of this love is that it was unreciprocated love. The love was walking a one-way street.
It was painful. I was in love with my then best friend Mark. My world revolved around him at the time. I am actually blushing as I write this now remembering all of this. We were connected, bound to be tied to each other for life ....
I met him in 8th grade. I loved his hair, his eyes, oh, well, I loved just about everything. Except for the fact that he was dating one of my friends. He advised me to get a boyfriend so we could doubledate. I did. A loser. I didnt' really like him, but how could I let my true love down? and maybe if we did something together, like a double date, he would "dump" his then girlfriend and discover I was his true love just waiting to be ...
I did eventually dump my guy, he broke up with his girl. And I hoped upon hope upon hope. Until I was sidetracked by guy B ... eh, what can I say ... I was young, free, wild - okay,s o I wasn't, but Homecoming was coming up and I didn't want to be dateless! LOL!
But I felt so badly for B that we didn't last long. I never even kissed him. I was on my second boyfriend, 14 year old and still had not been kissed.
And then I got brave ... very brave. I told best friend that I didn't want to be friends anymore. Just like that. Told him. He wasn't shocked. He knew. He said he liked me, as friends, and that was that. So to spite him I started to date a kind of bad boy/popular/jock at school. Well, that didn't work out too well. Bad boy/popular/jock, whom we will rename as jerk, and I broke up, and my friendship was on the rocks. But that was it. I was done with guys. Recently turned 16 and jaded. I had only had a few boyfriends, all 3 of which weren't exactly the nicest guys on the block and the guy I was madly in love with wasn't talking to me all of a sudden.
Fine. Then. I was done. with. boys. forever. Except, I really wasn't!
My friendship with love of my life got good again. I did manage to stay away from the whole dating scene for almost a year. When in walks another loser - we'll call him stalker boy. Well, it's not like I knew he was a stalker when we first started dating. I was soon to be 17 and apparently dumb still.
Anyway, things with him didn't work out so well. We broke up. And at the same time the love of my life and I had a HUGE fight. I mean BIG fight. The problem was I didn't know what it was about. I tried to hard to figure it out and to no avail. I managed to find out later, through the grapevine, stalker boy was extremely jealous of friendship with love of my life and did things to sabbotage our friendship so he could have me all to his self. I suppose, in some wierd twisted way that should be a compliment, but I'm glad I didn't think so back then and knew it only meant to stay even farther away from him than I had already planned to!
So love of my life and I became friends again once it was apparent I really wasn't the mean, back-stabbing friend he thought I had been. And that's when it started to get tricky. Prom was coming up, our friendship was back on track. I was still in love with him. Life was good in that "I am stuck only being friends with the guy I totally love" sense. And prom came and went. And ym hopes of hooking up with him were dashed again. Until he told me that he really did want to ask me to the prom but was too nervous. He decided he was in love with me too, and we should have dated, but he changed his mind and dated someone else. I was livid. Just livid. So done with him, it wasn't funny. I moved on, and dated the next loser - we'll call him wimpy boy. Of course at the time, wimpy boy was the love of my life and we were going to get married, but get this .... the whole time he was telling me how much he loved me, he was cheating on me with the girl my real true love of my life was dating! How dare she, steal one guy from me and now two?! Not to mention, how could she cheat on the real love of my life! He was a gem, a jewel, an amazing guy! The nerve! And then to top it all off, the love of my life admitted he was deeply in love with me, but now far away at college and so it was meant to be the love that never was ...
Yes, high school drama can be so fun when you look back on it! But it all exploded a few weeks after I left for college. So there I was, my second month at college, boyfriendless, friendless, feeling sad.
And that's when I met my now dh - as my mother has said "The first non-loser Brandie ever dated!" Now, if that aint' a compliment, I don't know what is!
But I have to admit, in the back of my mind I still wonder about my friend. What is he doing? (he's in med school somewhere in the US right now) Is he dating anyone? (Last I heard, no he is not) Does he think of me?
I know I shouldn't, but I think of him. I'm sad I never got to kiss him just once. But I'm glad I never got to kiss, not even one time did we cross that line.
I imagine if we met today, things would feel awkward at first, but after a few moments, I have no doubt we would be laughing, remembering all the silly, funny, stupid, crazy things we did during our teen years. I imagine my dh would like him, think he was an okay guy. I have to picture if he is with anyone right now, she is a nice girl.
I think of him and I smile. I do. I'm glad I'm here now though. I'm glad he was the great love that was never meant to be. I'm glad our friendship survived high school, that he was always there for me to call or go hang out with. As a matter of fact, I should even go e-mail him now and see where life has taken him. [We do typically exchange e-mails about once a year when something big happens i.e. I'm getting married, I got into med school, I just had my third baby]
It is getting close to what should be a ten year high school reunion, I have to wonder if he will be there ... if I will be there ... and then my dh can meet him. I'd like them to meet. I'd like my dh to know who this person was who was so important to me back then.

Okay ....
that is honestly not the direction I had planned to take tonight at all ... but it was a fun trip down memory lane for me.
Tomorrow I shall write what I originally planned to write tonight! LOL!

Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

Music Video of Unwritten by Nataha Bedingfield I am just loving this song right now ... I even turned it into the ringer on my phone! I called myself several times to make sure it worked tonight. And yes, my dh did laugh at me and say I was quite silly!

There is hope ...

So reading other blogs - which I like to do often - and came across Rocks in My Dryer and over there she's talking about sleep issues and insomnia.
So I read - 1) because I like to read her blog and 2)I have trouble falling asleep at night - I toss and turn, no matter how tired I feel, I just can't fall asleep. Now, I have been complaining about being tired lately due to baby being around - but this is not a problem that is just around when I have a baby. Oh no, I have been fighting it forever as far as I am concerned.
Now, I have anxiety issues - which I think I have actually mentioned before, and I always thought the anxiety was why I couldn't fall asleep - all those racing thoughts running through my head, that I just can't turn off my mind - even when I'm soooo tired it hurts, etc, etc.
But I've been working on the anxiety (thanks to therapist T) and it's getting better - not 100% where I want to be, but a lot better than where I was 2 years ago (when I honestly felt like I was on the verge of completely losing it and snapping because I was borderline to the point where I wanted to hide away forever and stop functioning in the world as it was too overwhelming which was easy to do with the internet because I only had to type what I wanted and no one could look at me and be wiser when I put on my facade ....
Okay, so where was I? Oh yes, the anxiety is getting better. But the sleep issue is not getting better. Even on the nights when my dh will take baby to let me sleep, I have a hard time falling asleep. Which just is wrong.
So, yes, over at Rocks in my Dryer when I see her mention Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. And I'm thinking at first delayed what? So I click and it sounds interesting. So I google DSPS to find out more. And the more I'm reading the more I'm thinking oh my gosh! that is sooooo me! that is exactly how I feel. Holy cow. How could I have not heard of this before.
So dh gets home and I practically run him over at the door - YOU HAVE TO READ THIS RIGHT NOW AND DON'T YOU THINK THAT IT TOTALLY DESCRIBES ME AND READ IT NOW AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!!!! Oh, yeah, hi dear, welcome home - READ THIS!
So he reads it. And he agrees. That it sounds like me practically perfectly.
And so now I feel like there is hope. What if this is in fact why I can't fall asleep at night and I toss and turn and turn and toss and never feel rested and feel kind of blah most of the time because I NEVER GET ENOUGH SLEEP.
I can't even believe it.
Dh and I are going to look into this more. We are going to figure out where to go from here, what to do about it. And hoping that babyboy starts to sleep through the night soon because once he sleeps through the night, then I'm going to be working on getting myself to sleep through the night!

One tired mommy ...

My child is sleeping terribly again. He was okay for a week maybe a month ago? But he is back to where he was and actually getting worse :(
I just don't know what to do about it. And I do not hold him all day - he gets put down and he does cry. And it does break my heart, but I can't hold him all the day long. I have two other kids and a house to take care of. Not to mention he is a big kid! It's not easy holding him all day long honestly LOL! Poor kid. But it seems instead of things slowly getting better, they are getting worse and rapidly. I hope this si the "it will get worse before it gets better" and that in a few days things will be doing really well.
In the mean time, I'm ready to run out of this house screaming as fast as I can. I need a BREAK. Not just a break, but a BREAK. I thought I would get one tonight, but lo and behold, dh got stuck at work @@ Which happens all too many times IMO. It is all adding up to make me want to just scream as loud as I can.
On the good side, a friend came over today and got us out of the house. We took my 3, the one extra I was watching and her one to the park. The older kids ran around and played. My babyboy mostly sat on my lap or crawled on me, but occasionally he crawled more than 2 inches from me. It was nice to get out with her and just talk and vent. And she talked and vented, so it did us both good I think. And it was nice to get out and chat. And even though babyboy was attached to me most of the time at the park, it just felt better than when he is attached to me at home ;-)

Well ...

It seems my son has recently developed an allergy. And not only did he get this allergy, but he contracted some sort of virus, sickness, whatever. It has gotten much worse over the course of the last few days. My husband and I have been treating it as best we know how, but my ability to be sympathetic towards him is wearing thin.
Unfortunately, this isn't something that we can rush him off to the doctor for ... you see my son's new allergy is to the floor and his new virus is need-to-be-attached-to-mom's-hip-itis.
I love him, I do, but this whole wanting to be held all day long and not giving me a break is really really really starting to wear on me.
Last night dh gave me some "free time." My son cried for about 30-45 minutes. Dh said he crawled around, dh believes that he was searching for me. And only after he had crawled around the entire basement did he consent to letting dh hold him. During which he cried for a bit more and then quieted down until he fell asleep.
Meanwhile, I was upstairs, hearing him cry, having my heart break for him, but at the same time, thankful he was screaming next to dh and I was at least getting a bit of a break. Probably I should have left the house, but it was 9ish at night and not many places to go. So I sat, watched Psych and did some knitting.
I know 9 months is a big seperation anxiety phase, but my other two were never this bad - constantly needing to be in my arms and crying if I was so much as 2 inches away from them ... yeah, they were nervous when we were out and about, but they were at least okay at home.
::sigh:: I just keep telling myself that this phase will pass too. And hopefully soon.

On other news, ever have that feeling someone is mad at you, but instead of just telling you they are mad or upset they ignore you? Yeah, I've got that feeling these days. It's frustrating. I just wish that if someone was upset with me, they would at least tell me, then ignore me so I knew what was up. Maybe the person is just busy and doesn't have a moment or maybe they are mad, or maybe my messages have been lost in translation ... I don't know. I just hate not knowing.

Sad ...

Grandpa has been not feeling well lately.
Anyway, the short version is that he is now in the hospital. :-( I'm sad. But glad he finally went to the doctor who sent him to the hospital. He needed to be convinced to go there.
I'm sure he will be fine, but I don't know. I see a lot of things happening here that happened to my grandpa before he passed away. It makes me worried.
Sadly the hospital is packed. Apparently a bad virus has hit our area. He went in through the ER - my dh (who was there) said people were in the halls of the ER. They said they needed to admit him to run more tests and watch him but there were NO rooms left and there were several people ahead of him waiting for rooms as well.
My dh's and my fear is that the hospital is full, the staff is overworked, and they will keep him the shortest time possible and let him go. And grandpa will say he's feeling better just to come home, even if he isn't really feeling better. He's that kind of stubborn guy! He didn't even want to go this time - but thankfully he did go.
I just have to say bless the people working at the hospital right now and I'm glad I'm not there. The staff surely has to be kept on their toes right now with all those patients.
I wasn't the one there with him, but I wonder will they transfer him if space is that tight? I don't know ....
Anyway, praying that they can figure out what is going with him and fix it. And he will be home in better health soon.

Pigsty

I feel like I'm stuck in a pigsty. Not because things aren't clean, it's because they are not organized. It's very frustrating. We have things everywhere - but we have no real place to put them anywhere. So they end up in piles and boxes and spread and all over the place.
All I want is to organize everything. I want book cases and shelves and storage bins and drawers, chests, cabinents, whatever I can get my hands on to organize these things.
Of course, this is not an option for me at this time. 1)this is not our house so I can't move all their things to organize mine. 2)the basement and our bedrooms are our "areas" to do as we please with. But with moving looming pretty near in the future - who wants to drag a bunch of furniture downstairs, unpack all the boxes we have, place things, only to have to repack boxes and move furniture out within a 6 month period? That would be silly to do. So for the moment I'm stuck. Not a whole lot can be done.
I could in theory reorganize my boxes and actually sort things out. I do this every so often since we have moved in here. And it seems like it lasts for about, oh, 2 weeks, before we have torn apart boxes in search of some missing things.
It's all frustrating and annoying and well, a PITA. We will move soon. We have to move soon. Or I will go out of my mind and just flip out!
And you know what will happen then? I'll complain that I have to organize things and find ways to procrastinate on it! Such is the story of my life! LOL!

Yet another crazy scheme!

So today, I kind of out of the blue, told dh I'd like to run a 3K race at the end of August.
"Yeah. Okay." He said - obviously this is not hte first time I have just told him something out of the blue that would make anyone else go "Really? Why would you want to do that? You are nuts! No way can you do that!"
So we'll see what happens with that. I am actually pretty sure I can not run in the race I want to run in, as I have a bridal shower later that same day that is far away. But I think if maybe I can pull it off I will try!
So, today I went to the track by our house. It wasn't pretty. Not one little bit.
I am embarrassed to say it, but I will anyway. I run roughly .39 miles. Then I walked about the same bit. And then I ran about .2 miles, and then I walked until I hit 1.5 miles total. And when I ran that last bit, everything was burning and I couldn't breathe too well.
So, yeah, like I said not pretty.
I have since come home and gotten some links to read (thanks wendy!) and realized I should have warmed up by walking first, then tried to move into running. But oh well, what's done is down.
I also read today when first starting to run, one shouldn't run more 2 days back to back. Who would have thought? Not me! I would have figured it would be better to run each day, but apparently it's not! Anyway, now I feel on a mission. I've never run before. I can tell you the last time I ran a mile was for high school gym class my junior year of high school? So not anytime recently. But I am going to work on it and see what I can do.
Prior to today, I would have never started. I would have assumed in the end I would have failed and so why bother even starting. Of course that meant I never did do anything too terribly tough becuase I never attempted to do anything hard which only made me believe that I couldn't do it. Afterall, there is not a lot of cofidence to be gained when you look back and have pretty much almost no accomplishments. But it's misleading. If I had tried a few things, maybe I would have achieved. but I never even tried. Pretty sad.
I don't want my kids to grow up like that. I want them to have confidence and not be afraid to try new things. And this is the kind of thing I think is best taught by example. So an example I will be. I will try. I will do my best. I may not run the race (can't miss the shower) but I will try to do it and we'll see what happens. I won't run it to be the first to finish. I won't run it to try to break any time records. I will run it to prove to myself that I am strong person who does not have to live afraid of failure and afraid to try. And I will show my kids that really, if they put their minds to it, they can essentially do anything!
Anyway, wish me luck and I shall try to keep progress posted! =)

I have a twin ...

I swear it. It doesn't matter that she looks like her parents, I look like mine, we were born in different months and in different years (although really it's only about a year that separates us). I swear we are twins. We are so alike it's scary. And yet, it's exciting!
I love calling her and talking to her. We see eye to eye on so many issues - and the issues we don't see eye to eye on, well, we are able to disagree politely and not get upset about it. We can talk about anything and everything, and actually we do! I can call her and say "I know this is crazy, but I was thinking ...." and chances are she has had the same thought! And then we laugh because we were both sure that we were the only person EVER in the world to think that.
I feel like I have a bestest friend ever - and well, apart from dh (which is great and I love him, but come on, every girl needs a girlfriend) I've never really had a best friend like this before.
I can laugh with her, cry with her, have her come over and help me great ready for a big fancy evident, or she could come over while the kids and I are still in pajamas, last nights dishes in the sink and me being exhausted cause the baby was sick and kept me up all night. And I wouldn't feel self-conscious or worried that she might think badly of me. I would be relieved she was over helping me get through the day! I could call her and ask her to babysit in a pinch or I could call her and tell her to get a babysitter cause we are going out to lunch sans kids!
I LOVE it. I have not had this kind of comradery with anyone before. It's amazing. I love it. And I can't imagine how I survived so long without that kind of friend in my life. I'm just glad that I did find it and she doesn't think I'm strange or weird or crazy (okay, well, she might actually think that about me, but it doesn't scare her away from being my friend! LOL!)
Okay. I'm all done gushing now. I just realized that I'm truly lucky to have this and I wanted to write about it

Pilates

So, Sunday I started to Pilates again.
Now, when my soon to be 4 year old was a baby still, I had to have the Winsor Pilates DVD's. So I went on-line and ordered them. Yes, them. Not only did I get the one DVD, but the DVD for arms, the one for butts, and the one for the tummy, along with the DVD set that included the basic work out and the advanced work out. You can imagine how thrilled this made my husband.
And I did it. I started with the 20 minute work out and after a week moved to the advanced work out. I even did the work out for arms once and the legs once. And then after an entire 3 weeks, I quit.
I had many excuses - the baby, my then 3 year old, keepipng up with the house, blah, blah, blah.
And the DVDs sat and sat and sat.
Until Sunday. Sunday I pulled it out and did the 20 minute work out. And I did it Monday. And I did it today. Since I stopped doing it last time, I kept saying that I was going to start again tomorrow. And tomorrow never came, until Sunday. Of course I'm doing it to be healthy - my cholesterol is on the higher side of normal, and I'm tense a lot - so it will be good for me to do this. Of course the real motivation is a dress that I'm wearing at a wedding in October. And it will look a bit better if my waist was a little less "poochy."
I have to admit, I'm enjoying doing it. And was actually bummed I didn't do it yesterday (you know between running around and trying to get my child to stop crying it didn't happen). So I hope I can continue to do it. And next Monday I think I'll be ready to move up to the advances dvd, but I want to take it slow and not put my body into too much shock ;-)

Holy Tired ...

I am so tired today it's not funny.
Babyboy did not sleep well last night. I'm actually not sure if he slept at all or not. We were up until very late - around 1. From about 10:30 to 1 he pretty much cried, screamed, whimpered, cried, etc, etc. Then he fell asleep in my arms. Every time I tried to move he would jump and scream.
So I held him for about 90 minutes all the while dozing in and out myself. At that point I nursed him and then managed to get him to sleep in his own bed - but he was up so often.
Today we actually had places to go, people to see and things to do - which is rare for us. So I could not catch a cat nap here or there as time allowed.
And he's been quite fussy all day. If he sees me, and I'm not touching him, then he starts crying. It's been rough with him for the last 24 hours.
So tonight dh says "let me try to put him to bed for you." Oh sure, because he's been so crabby today and dh thinks he just put him in his bed and he'll go to sleep. So I'm rolling my eyes as dh takes him upstairs - ready to go up and get him when I hear those first cries. And you know what? The kid laid down and apparently went to bed for my dh @@ Okay, I'm thrilled he's sleeping. I'm thrilled I'm getting a break from a clingy child. But hello! What does dh have that I don't have? Actually the question I should be asking is what doesn't dh have that I have. I'll tell you - breasts. Dh doesn't have them. So when babyboy looks at me he thinks: food! I must eat! Feed me now mom! Now! NOW! WAAAAHHHH. When he looks at dh he thinks: daddy! Haven't seen you around all day. Let's play.
I love feeding my baby. I love knowing that I can provide his nutrients and his food. I love the time we get together, when he eats and he looks up at me, pauses eating, and smiles, and goes back to eating. I wouldn't give it up unless I absolutely had to. But I will tell you this. I do not enjoy being thought of as a giant boob that must constantly provide milk for him.
But this time will end. He is my last baby. Once he weans, I will be forever missing those moments with him. I just also need a break every now and then. I know that and I can admit that. ::sigh::
I'll get it - I told dh he can choose to take baby Friday night or Saturday night - I don't care which, as long as I get one night of uninterrupted sleep. Which will be glorious and wonderful!

Woo-hoo!

It is too good to be true. Over the course of the last week - I have planned out my entire school year! Okay, not my school year, but the year for my 6 year old (who will tell you that she is going to be 7 soon and therefor almost grown up!).
So I have all my yearly goals and I have them broken down into month goals. During the next week, I will plan out our first month in detail - which will be easy, because for the first month we only go for 2 weeks. I also work on the unit studies for the second month as well. It feels so good to have it planned and things in line for the moment.
I will admit, it's not perfect. Some of the language arts is a little sketchy. I don't have a curriculum for it - I have guidelines for it, so I know what she needs to know by the end of the year, so I'm kind of winging it. And by winging it, I mean not using a set curriculum from a publisher and doing what they say to do, but pulling my own resources and creating a curriculum from several different sources. We will be keeping a close eye on it though so in case that doesn't seem to work for us, I will start researching curriculums later in fall.
The other up in the air thing is starting history now or not. I think I would like to dabble in it with her for now but not sure how to dabble in it. I know what curriculum I would like to do with her but I'm not sure if now is the time to start it. It is not a common first grade curriculum, but I don't want that to hold me back. However, I have filled our schedule with the other subjects. I think what we will do is take a few breaks from other studies during the year to do short history jaunts. That will be a good compromise I think. Glad I just thought of it LOL!!

Things going on here ...

Lots of things going on here lately.
First, dh's company is 90% sure they will be relocating to a place just 15 minutes away from where we lived 2 years ago. So that will increase my dh's commute when it happens. Not by too terribly much - it will probably jump from 20 to 40 minutes. We can live with it. But if we stay here (as opposed to picking up and moving across country) we will probably want to move closer to over there.
Second, dh told me he is going to put his business on the market when the season ends in November this year. This thrills me to no end because it takes too much of my dh's time, it causes him stress, and life has changed dramatically since we started the business a few short years ago. Along with this he will step down in a role he performs for my parents business, which also thrills me and again gives us more time as a family. He will still help them out, but just not in the capacity he currently does.
The background on all of this is that dh grew up with a workaholic father. He worked a lot and a lot. My parents had periods where they did nothing but work, but then had times where they didn't have to work so much, but at that point, well, hanging out with me was not what they wanted - and as these periods really started happening close my teen years - well, I didn't want to hang out with them either! LOL!
Dh vowed he would not spend his children's childhoods working away and not really knowing them, and I decided I wouldn't wait to get to know my children until they hit the point in life when they didn't want me to get to know them. I also always dreamed of staying home, but my dh working a 9-5 job and being home in the evenings and weekends and having all this glorious family time to spend. Then came reality. We started out with our first child young and broke. I was still going to college and dh was working his butt off to provide money for us. I worked part time when possible to help get bills paid. At that point dh had his full-time job and seasonal job for my parents (which is mostly every weekend in September and October with about 10-15 days of work sprinkled through out the summer). It wasn't that bad - we still had time together and when he was away I was doing college work and taking care of baby and blah blah blah.
Then we bought our first house - my "baby" was now about 18 months when we did it. Although we didn't buy a very expensive house - it was expensive for us. Our house actually was borderline condemnable when we bought it - we could not get the permit to occupy until we had completed 2 weeks of work (which including an entirely new electrical system, new flooring over 80% of the house, taking some parts down to the studs, re dry-walling those parts and then scrubbing and repainting every wall, new plumbing work, sealing leaks in the foundation, etc - which we were blessed to have friends - both who were professionals in terms of all this work and then just those good friends who came and helped. We did it all in 2 weeks and moved in. How I remember those days - we paid all the bills and at the end of hte month had about 20-50 dollars left in the account! But we were happy - I was still going to school, dh was working hard, we were so into our little girl. Then came dd number 2. She was born adn I still had one semester left in college (so still paying hte babysitter), dh had had a few raises, but we still were living on a pretty tight budget, and we were welcoming another member to our family. So things rolled along and dh decided there had to be a way to generate more money and so he started a business! And the business made money. At first was a simple business and didn't take up too much time, but ti was a good business. So after one year we tripled the business. Which took up more time. Dh couldnt' do it alone, so he hired a few employees. Now we are 3 years later and the business could grow even more, but dh has niether the time nor the desire to do it. He has recieved more raises at full time job, so money isn't so tight, we are about $3000 dollars away from being completely debt free and so there is no need for my dh to work 1 full time job, 1 part time job, and 1 seasonal job each and every year. You add up all those jobs and it means he is almost always working, almost always stressed, and almost always busy. We hardly get time together the two of us. He hardly gets time with the kids. He's stressed and tired. I'm stressed and tired, and it's just not worth it anymore. We want more than that.
So, the business will be sold (and it has already broke even so anything we sell it for will be pure profit for us! Yeah!) and he will lessen what he does for my parents.
So yeah, that is where things stand now.
So just think - one year from now things will be so different. We will not be in this house anymore and there is a possibility we will not even be in this state anymore! My dh will no longer own a business. He won't have to work more than a few weekends a year for my parents, we will be the parents of a 1 year old, 4 year old, 7 year old! All three of them will be running around and ready to have fun and we will have a husband and a father around more often to hang out with and spend time with. And though I know life won't be perfect, it will be a lot better in a space of our own with the time to actually spend time together!

Commercial ...

Pardon me while I give a little commercial here.
It's for a friend of mine ... our oldest dd's were born a few months apart. She lives down the block from my mom, and is a wonderful, smart woman.
She just wrote a book and I feel it's my duty to plug her book! It's such a neet book. It is called C is for Carbon.
This is a book about chemistry for kids. She is a chemist and she used to be a special ed teacher - so she is smart, knows how kids work, and the book is fabulous!!
Not only did she create this wonderfully fun, yet informative book, she also has lesson plans to use with her book (in case any fellow homeschoolers, teachers or parents who want to work with their kids at home are reading this).
I am so excited for her - and excited to use this book in my curriculum this year!! The best part is if this book takes off, she is planning on writing a series of chemistry books like this for children. And as I'd like to see more books from her, I have made it my duty to share this book with as many people as possible so that she can sell, sell, sell and start printing up the second book!
Anyway, I think it's a great book and it's written by a great mom.
So there, that's my commercial! Hope you enjoyed it ;-)

In an unrelated note, I'm going to be updating my links soon - they are dearly out of date. So, I know I don't have more than a few people reading, but if you do read and I don't have a link to your blog, please leave me one so I can add it =)

I'm not fat but ...

I'm not fat, but I'm not skinny.
I'm not fat, but I could tone up a few areas.
I'm not fat, but I have a little bit of a belly - both from food and from my 3 kids!
I'm not fat, but I have curves.
I'm not fat, but I have a larger chest area.
I'm not fat, but I often feel like crap about my body.
I'm not fat, but I secretly think that I am.

Why? Why, is it, that I can cognitively be aware of the fact that I am not fat, but yet I hate my body? Hate my curves? Hate my hips widened by pregnancy? Hate shopping for new clohtes? Get frustrated after walking out of yet another store without one thing that looks good on me? Feel like it's all my fault?

Well, I have decided (and was talking with a friend about this which is why I bring it up now) the problem is not me. The problem is the clothes manufactures. Woman's clothing is a joke. A size 6 in one store is an 8 in another, a 4 in another, and 10 in yet another. In one store, I can wear a size one size in their jeans, another size in skirts, and yet another size for shorts. Seriously, what is up with that?
I am in my 20's. I do not want to dress like a teenager, but neither do I want to dress like my mother. I have boobs. Decent sized ones at that - I don't do well in strapless bras, I can't wear the shirts with built in shelf bras, and they don't make bras in my size with tiny cute little straps easiy hidden. Yet, so many shirts out there are designed to be worn that way. And if I get a top with a large enough bust area, it hangs on my waist and makes me look bigger in the tummy. If I buy a shirt that fits my tummy area nicely, it's stretched across my chest, not giving me a look I particularly enjoy.
I don't want my shirts up to my neck, but I don't my boobs hanging out either.

Clothes shopping is frustrating for me. But I won't blame me anymore. It's not my body that is the problem. It is the lack of regulated sizes of clothing, it is the lack of manufacters thinking that all woman must be 5'8", 115 pounds, and a 32B. That is not me, and there is nothing wrong with me for being different.

Anyway, that is my latest realization. And I wanted to share ;-)