…today I’m overhauling my blogs and who knows what craziness might occur. 🙂 *hugs*
…today I’m overhauling my blogs and who knows what craziness might occur. 🙂 *hugs*
Category: What I Love
I am starting to think that what I really need is a mental health blog. Or to combine all my little blogs into one big blog so I can stop repeating myself from different angles. Who knows.
A friend of mine committed suicide this weekend. We weren’t close lately, hadn’t been for a couple years, but once upon a time I lent her all my books about depression and gave her my number and talked to her about my experiences with therapy and brain chemicals that just don’t work right . Through her, I lent her husband the book “How to Help When Someone You Love is Depressed” that I’d gotten for my husband ages ago. She still had a few books that hadn’t made it back to me. I guess they never will. These aren’t the thoughts one generally shares, I know, but somehow they are the ones my brain is holding onto right now, instead of blubbering insanely about how sad it all is and how hard I tried to help her and how I failed to keep up and how I regret it and how I am never ever the person I mean to be when it comes to other people and how I should have kept up with her when she went silent. Because once I get started with them, the tears start, they don’t stop.
THIS YEAR. I CAN’T TAKE THIS YEAR.
One of my good friends from junior high died this last year: breast cancer. My ex-boyfriend from high school was accused of sexual misconduct with a student and I can’t quite bring myself to admit that I really do think it’s something he did, because then I’d have to admit out loud to my family and other people how awful he was (in college I had girls email me out of nowhere and ask me to join their therapy group because ….) and they don’t need to hear that. Then there was my mom and the hospital last summer. And another ancient friend’s husband died unexpectedly from pneumonia. Another one’s brother died and I somehow totally missed it and I feel awful about it, but don’t know what to say now. Another friends son had a terrible car accident months ago and is only now walking. And then the husband of a girl here in town that was one of those friends-of-a-friend that you always hear about that you feel like you know even though you’ve actually never met them? The one you’ve heard dozens of stories about? Yeah. Her husband died trying to save someone after a car accident. And now this.
I told my spouse that I needed a Self Care day. He was busy, of course, because we are NEVER not busy these days, and said the wrong thing and that made me cry more. He apologized and said the right things later but I ….well… I am broken at this point. And thanking God or the Universe or Whatever I’m Believing In This Week that I asked the doctor for those anti-depressant, anti-anxiety meds way back in October. Because I don’t know what or who to believe in these days, but SCIENCE seems like a good thing. Quantifiable, you know. I don’t, I just don’t know. Nobody is available on a Saturday to talk, so I’ve been making due with a bunch of movies (The Decoy Bride I need to own and Wild Targets I’m going to rewatch and A Good Woman I’m in the middle of, but it’s kind of bland so far despite good reviews – I’m thinking I just don’t like Scarlet Johanssen) and a bottle of wine and a box of chicken quesadillas.
Thank you for listening and thinking about me. I know we don’t see/know each other in person, but you mean the world to me, you really do. *big big hugs*
More old family photos, a set on Flickr.
Most of these are from the trip we took to Europe in 1983 — I was 7 and got a camera for my birthday for the trip. My parents occasionally took photos of us, but most of the photos I took. The other one is one of our engagement pictures (the color weirdness is due to the fact that it sat in my Dad’s office window for 15 years. I think it’s the only copy we have of this picture).
It’s my middle son’s 8th birthday today. I love him so much! We had special cranberry orange muffins (from a package, not homemade, that was part of the request) for breakfast and played Quirkle (his new favorite game – from his Aunt Kay). I will be bringing his class homemade white cupcakes with colored frosting & mini m&m’s on top after lunch. After school I’d planned on having one of his friends over for a while (but haven’t heard back from the mom yet). Then we’ll have pizza for dinner and his present from grandma after.
Well, around day 11 I got a fever and tried to rest by not exercising. Didn’t help. Food wise I did okay.
Day 12 I was still feverish. I also tried to rest by not exercising, but I HAD to work the school book fair, so that wasn’t really restful, was it? I did okay at breakfast and lunch was a salad at the school (oh happy day!) Sadly, dinner was at the pizza buffet with my mom watching me eat (she hates that I eat practically nothing at a buffet, so I tried to eat more to make her happy, which makes me unhappy. it’s a bad cycle.).
Day 13 I was feeling better, walked a bit back and forth and back and forth to my mom’s house. Ate next to nothing for breakfast. Lunch was a sandwich and chips shared with Greg from the fancy Fresh grocery (running errands can be fun if you do it right). I spent an hour and a half at the sink washing dishes, which completely wore me out.
Day 14 was a busy day (and a “no exercise” day because it was the Sabbath) with early church, dinner at a friends house, then a late youth group planning meeting afterwards. I did a lot of fast walking here, there, everywhere, trying to meet all the needs of Hospitality.
Day 15 I realized that if I was going to get back into exercising that today needed to be that day. But I woke up completely drained, kids had to be corralled into doing their work, Nick was literally at work, and by the time I was awake and alive enough to do anything, dishes & laundry beckoned. I worked on that (not finishing, no) until it was time to leave for the super-extra-long rehearsal (I’m playing clarinet for the ensemble playing “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at a local high school). Came home, at dinner, collapsed in heap.
And now it’s Day 16. I’ve woken up late, everyone’s late this morning, in a panicked rush, and I’m posting this because it’s been sitting on my desktop for days and I’ve been adding this in dribs and drabs, so no photos.
Question: Should I start over on the book or continue where I left off? Most of the other ladies in my group are doing worse than I am and one is starting over. I just don’t know.
Friday morning was the Royal Wedding, so we all got up extra early. Well, that’s why I got up extra early. 
I don’t know why everyone else did. But I commandeered the TV and switched it over to wedding programming, which I’d been recording for hours earlier. We fast-forwarded through the commercials and less interesting bits. I made muffins (I’d wanted to make scones, but was outvoted by the children who’d be NOT eating them) and several kinds of tea. 
We put up decorations and wore fancy/silly hats. 
The kids were mesmerized by the hats and fancy dresses.
We managed to just finish watching the ceremony in time to leave for school. We dropped off the big kids, then hit the grocery store for Field Trip supplies (water bottles & lunchables). We met up behind the buses by the school to caravan over to Camp Tyler. G and I got out and were once again given bad information from the office. Fortunately we talked to the bus driver (who we recognized from last years field trips) and found out that we would have been following the wrong bus (which some other people did later), as he was taking the kindergarteners to the zoo. Eventually we followed the right bus and even though that driver went the wrong direction we managed to get there thanks to my map. The kids had a blast at Camp Tyler. 
My kids like going because they feel super-extra-smart there, as we follow things at home like the Nutrition Pyramid and Recycling and Composting and Gardening. 
Nick’s parents and sister’s family have farm animals, too, so the kids do know a lot about everything that happens at “The Farm”. The other kids? Not so much. They’re mostly low-income kids whose parents grew up in the city/town and haven’t ever been out in the country. 
It’s fun for me seeing them get to explore this other world and it’s beyond comprehension to them that one of their classmates actually lives this way every day. After lunch I gathered up our classes recyclables, which astonished the teacher because she didn’t know our city had a recycling program. 
G and I spent a little while after we got home just resting, as the day was warm and we were tired. Nick got the big kids and took B out hiking for scouts. I took my two out to Taco Bell for dinner, then gathered up the party supplies, and met Nick and B (who’d dined at Wendy’s) at Fire Mountain Amusements for D’s birthday party.
We’d not invited a whole lot of kids to D’s party because at $20 a kid, it was way too expensive to invite the whole class. Four of the 10 invited showed up (the kids from church all had too far to travel to come – I tried to tell D that before he invited them, but he was insistent on it), 2 brought siblings, plus our three kids brought the number up to 9. We used the 10th wristband to get everyone extra tokens for the arcade at the end before parents showed up. So it was actually good that not everyone showed up. 🙂 We spent the first part of the party in the arcade. The kids loved running around in that dark room, playing whatever they wanted. After that we split up a bit, with the younger kids going to the smaller kart track and the big kids going to the bigger one. I ran around trying to get photos of everyone.
Nick took G on the big track, as G was too small for the smaller track. After that I took G on the bumper boats with the rest of the kids. That was soo much fun! I was drenched by the time I got out.
When that was done, each kid picked their favorite thing and went on it. Some kids did karts, some did more bumper boats, some did more arcade or checked out the other rides there.
Finally it was time for cake and presents. We weren’t given any time in the party room to decorate beforehand, as the party before us went over, but I think the kids weren’t really paying attention to that anyway.
All in all, it was a great party! 🙂
Saturday was a regular Saturday for the most part. Got up, ate breakfast, got ready for church, went to church. I was feeling weird all day, lots of dizziness, tingling, and crazy brain fog, so I spent quite a bit of church out in the foyer trying not to fall over. The kids prepared for the Pentecost Presentation coming up. Nick did his media stuff. Eventually the kids and I went home, ordered a pizza, and watched a crazy French Canadian puppet movie about a dragon that ate all the stars while Nick went to prom with his mom. Yes, I did say “prom” and “with his mom.” His brother was the DJ and Nick went to dance with his mom since his dad doesn’t dance AT ALL and she was one of the sponsors for the prom. Anyway, he came home not too late, telling me that he got to dance with our little nieces at the house, who were hanging out with their Pa, and that most of the kids at prom didn’t dance at all. Also that his brother played the Doctor Who theme song for him. 🙂
Sunday was…well, what’s becoming a regular thing, where Nick gets up early, grocery shops, and then goes to work. I got up a bit later, fed the kids toaster pastries, and started on the cleaning. We cleaned until Nick got back around lunch time and then I headed out with my Girls Night Out ladies for an afternoon performance of The Diviner at our local junior college. It was so good. 
🙂 Came home later to my husband making a special dinner (steak, baked potatoes, caramelized onions, zucchini, all so yummy). Sent the kids to bed and watched the latest Doctor Who. Oh, that show! So mind-twisty! Love it, though. 🙂
And now it’s Monday. It’s cold & rainy & we are keeping the house warm by doing laundry. So much laundry.
This last week was our spring break from school. I’ve already told you about Monday and Tuesday, so I’ll start today’s story with Wednesday. We didn’t make any big plans for Wednesday, since that was the day that we were swapping out D for B at Nana & Pa’s house, but it turned out to be a big day anyway. My parents came up to town and told us that they’d decided not to make us wait for a month to get our new van (which is their old one), they were going to sign it over to us right now. 🙂 And so we began our day long journey to get the car retitled, re-registered, and in all ways made our own. We ended up visiting the registry twice, once with just me and my dad and once with both of us, my mom, and two of the kids as well. By the end of the day we’d gotten it done. G and I spent the rest of the afternoon emptying out our old van, then vacuuming it out, scrubbing it down inside and out, then cleaning all the windows we could reach, all so Nick could start driving it as soon as he came home. (D spent the afternoon catching up on three days worth of Animal Crossing.)
Thursday morning we visited with my parents a bit, then went home very quickly for D’s early playdate with his best friend C. They had a great time playing video games, riding bikes & skates, and wrestling on the trampoline.
While the kids were playing, I once again worked on some jewelry (a post on all of that coming soon). That afternoon my mom watched the kids so my dad and I could also go out and check out a netbook at Best Buy, which they did not have in stock, and to buy a camera, which they did have. We spent some time updating his regular laptop and getting it set up with the camera software and then learning the new cameras ways before going home for the evening.
B came home just before dinner, bearing sundaes from McDonald’s. My in-laws got a tour of the new van and all it’s shininess before they left.
Friday morning B’s friend A came over for a playdate. I made some more jewelry. They spent quite a bit of time playing the Wii, but we also had a picnic in the backyard, since the weather was beautiful for it. We experimented with playing baseball/tee ball in the yard.
After he went home, Nick and the kids and I went out to the bookstore to get the kids their celebration books for having great report cards (and we may have picked up a couple things for ourselves as well. maybe. possibly. what? we never ever do! Leviathon & Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld and Good Eats: the Middle Years.). D got the second Percy Jackson book, B got three Magic Treehouse books (#20, #21, and a research guide about Knights and Castles), and G got two Barbie books (one 3 Musketeers and one Fairies) and an audio book about the movie Toy Story. Then we headed out to tour the big new exciting store in town: our local markets version of Whole Foods.
It’s called “Fresh” and wow, was it packed with people. It’s a beautiful store, filled with lots of things our regular stores don’t carry: lots of organic, whole grain products and a huge array of cheeses, meats, and ready-to-eat foods (for which there is a balcony seating area outside).
We amazingly managed not to lose any children, nor to knock down any displays, though we did pick up a lot of stuff that was knocked down by the little old lady near us, as she had a large purse and was trying not to hit my kids with it, and since we were behind her in the herd (seriously, it was so packed that you pretty much followed the same people all through the store) we did the picking up. We eventually made it back home and Nick and the kids tidied up there while I went over to help my dad with his new netbook, which he’d picked up that morning. I did all my computer magic over the course of a couple hours and got him hooked up with all his software and file needs and headed back home to start reading my book. Bwahaha. Nick went over and spent the evening hanging out with my dad.
Saturday we hung out with my parents again in the morning before we left for church. The kids climbed ropes and played on the swings. Nick and D and Dad played chess. It was a good morning. We went to church, listened to our new pastor (who was a fabulous speaker, lots of discussion of Greek words, loved it), and then kids had snacks while my m-i-l and I practiced our duet on the big piano (which has keys that are very hard to press compared to my piano at home). We headed home, I changed clothes, and headed out for Girls Night Out. Nick and the kids stayed home and did whatever boys do when their mama is away (hung from the ceiling? shot themselves out into space in rockets? who knows! It was Boys Night In!). I had a lovely time with my lady friends and this time we managed to get a photo of all of us together (something we’ve never managed in the two years we’ve been meeting).
Came home and couldn’t sleep, as I am always excited after a night out, so I stayed up late finishing the book I was reading (the second Percy Jackson book; trying to keep up with D), never realizing that the clocks hadn’t already been set ahead for daylights savings time.
Yesterday we all got up unreasonably early. The day turned out to be one of those ones were everything goes wrong. G ran into my room yelling that D was throwing up from atop his bunk bed, B was asleep below, mercifully, or there’d have been extra mess. I got up, cleaned up the mess, got the boy into the bathroom, then looked at the clock: 5:45am. My husband, who was mysteriously in the kitchen and not at work (he’s been working a lot of overtime lately), hugged me and told me he’d reset all the clocks already so I didn’t have to. I tried to go back to bed, but couldn’t since I had a snuggly, wiggly boy (G) in there with me. So we all got up, ate breakfast, then sat around reading until it was time to leave for the last basketball practice of the season. David and I stayed home because of his icky tummy. He played more Wii and I wandered here and there doing chores and trying to finish up another necklace. The laundry that I thought was clean was mysteriously dirty, the necklace that I “finished” I turned out to have left a bead out of.
After the other kids came back home, we tried to go to the zoo and got verbally assaulted by the director of said zoo for bringing in a check that wasn’t signed by me — it was a gift membership from my in-laws, which I had filled out paperwork for and brought in with me, but he refused to listen one word I said, no matter how polite I was. It was a disaster all around, so I decided to take my children elsewhere. We got to the frozen custard place and discovered that my two-for-one coupons had been left in the hallway when we were swapping stuff around between the vans earlier in the week, but by then I decided to just make the best of it and we paid full price. The custard was perfect and by the time I’d finished venting to my husband, my best friend, and finally to my mother-in-law (who is going up to talk to the zoo about their communication skills today) I was feeling much better. We had a movie night with the kids, watching an old Valerie Bertinelli movie about a robot dog, which they loved. The movie ran late, so the kids ran late getting into baths and storytime, so it was nearly 9:45pm before they went to bed. I made their lunches last night and set out clothes for them so they could sleep in this morning and it’s just now time to get them up so that’s the end of this post.
- 8:53am: Hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving! 🙂
Lisa Holcomb 