Sometimes

I wish I could start over.

New friends (only I love mine, but hate the commitment I feel to be who I've been and said I will be with them).

New job (this would mean a job period).

New city (only I would want it to be near family this time).

New living space (one that doesn't involve living with every little thing that goes wrong because we don't have or want to spend the money to fix it).

New slate (preferrably one where I already attended college and earned a degree).

Thought of the Moment

Why do we put so much faith in each other to make our lives happy? Why can't we just make our own happy by doing what it is we know we need to do?

Sux

He makes me feel like I always complain.

I don't.

I loved the apartments.

I hate this house.

I love having a purpose.

I hate having too much downtime.

These are things I can fix, but not with out his "permission" so to speak. I have to be a stay at home mom while he's working 40 hours a week and we have no family support to watch the kids. I have to be in this house while we wait for it to rent out. I'm not complaining. I hate it. And I can't wait for it to change.

Comment turned post... (or email!)

Left this on ...lovemaegan's most recent post and thought I would post it here since it says exactly where I'm at:

I'm so glad to have discovered you during this time. Reading about your anxiety and thoughts makes me feel better about mine. Anxiety is such a crazy thing that I can't seem to pull myself away from except thru depression which I also hate! But hearing somebody else deal with it, especially someone who is so creative, reminds me I will be okay. We all will. We just have to get through and make sure and do what our heart desires. For you, that's getting into a house. For me, it's getting out of one. I can't WAIT to get out of our house and back into the city and the community of our old apartments. And back to the amazing school my boys went to. Long comment to say I love reading your thoughts while I'm going through the same thing, different version.

I love...

being able to explain to my children that z + z equals 2z and that pie is a number that keeps on going and never repeats, and that e stands for the number that best represents exponential growth.

While driving around looking at Christmas lights tonight (we forgot to do it before Christmas), Starbucks hot chocolates and vanilla lattes in hand, the boys were creating a code for the alphabet where each letter represents it's number in the order of the alphabet. A letter plus a letter equals a letter unless it is over 26, then you minus 26 and it equals the resulting number. Well, that sounds all fine and dandy, but we had to pull the rules out of our ten year old tooth and nail who was trying to explain that a + b = c but z + z = z . It was a half hour of conversation and fun including the aforementioned subjects along with it.

Those of you whose parents granted you the gift of education, be grateful that when your kids come to you with questions for homework you will have a vague sense of what they are talking about. When you haven't taken it (even if you slept through or missed class, you still had to cram and take the tests), you aren't even afforded the possibility of a vague idea. I LOVE having a vague idea, even a very solid idea, even with it being from going to school now.

Depression

I fight depression way more often than I'd like to admit. It often hits me the worst in times of high stress or when I feel like I have no purpose.

Take this morning for example. The boys are off from school and happily playing. I am off from school and so not stressed. Yet, last week, when I discovered we have $600 in toll tag fees I freaked out and immediately stopped spending any sort of money. Now I feel like there's no purpose.

One thing I have been trying to do to give myself a purpose is research transferring to a university. The amount of information available is so overwhelming I often have to stop shortly into it. I am bit by bit comprehending the information, though, and now just need to wait until the schools open again to meet with an advisor. In the meantime I am overwhelmed by the amount of information and feel like it will never get done.

And so here I sit. In pj's. Contemplating it never getting done. And not calling a friend who I told I would call this morning. Mostly because I don't know what we can do to hang out together that doesn't involve money.

Whew. Now I remember why I started blogging in the first place. It helps so much to get that all out on paper somewhere where it doesn't stay hidden in a file. I'm off to shower and get dressed.

Things I Want to Do for School

*Join Phi Theta Kappa, ACC's honor society

*Decide on a major

*Apply to schools in California - possibly Stanford

*Start a school organization for mothers in school

Memories that wouldn't have happened had we not moved to...

The House:

*Hours of playing in the backyard

*Forts in the lobby - built and slept in

*Their own rooms

*Biking in the street

*Ice cream truck driving by (at least that they remember)

*Neighbors calling to return our dogs when they get out

*Going over to a neighbors house and playing for hours

*Driving up a driveway

*Not walking up stairs to our front door

*Having a two story home

The Apartment:

*Barbequing poolside

*Spending endless summer days in the pool

*Playing baseball in a drainage ditch

*Making a backyard out of a sidewalk

*Playing for hours inside

*Cultivating a garden on a deck

*Making lifelong friends

*Having a business center - indoor basketball court, gym, computer center, tv center

*Having parties thrown in our community

Shopping!!!

Went shopping today and bought SEVEN Victoria's Secret bras for $138!!! SOOOO excited. Imagine how my heart dropped when half an hour after we left the mall I realized I had left my bags at the mall!!!! All the way back to the mall my emotions ranged from "I don't deserve bras any way.", "That's what I get for spending $138, even if it was needed and I've only owned maybe ten bras the entire time I've needed to wear one.", and "I'm so irresponsible. What's happening to me?" Thank goodness I finally realized it was a possibility I set the bags down while trying on an awesome pair of $20 Rocket Dog tennies that ended up being too small for me. Sure enough, I ran back by that register and there were my VS bags just sitting there pouting because they missed me! Soooo happy. And relieved. My body so went straight to parasympathetic mode where I was completely exhausted from all the stress I'd gone through while thinking they may be gone! So time for a margarita.

After Outlines, Breakfasts, Girlfriends, and Shopping...

then the kids got out of school for winter break. I spent the first day realizing I couldn't go shopping and couldn't even go out to my sister's because we had no money. And no I didn't blow it all the week before which Brando first tried to convince me I did. Both my Mom and his Mom helped us out with Christmas money for shopping. Well the money my Mom gave, Brando designated for his $400 Santa gifts, and the money his Mom gave, he designated for our budget. Guess what he forgot to give? Our budget. I was busy spending our budget AND our Christmas money with only the Christmas money so of course it ran out very quickly. After getting over the guilt trip he gave me for being so irresponsible, I wrote down where it all went and figured out exactly that. After which I went to my Mom and asked for her help "under the table" so to speak. Somewhere Brando won't see it. And I can actually use it for budget and Christmas shopping like it's supposed to be for, and save some for backup. I used to be so good with money. I hate that with our money mixed up I'm not anymore. But that's okay. I do what I can and make do and learn as I go.

Outlines saved my sanity...

Since school let out my brain has been going 100 miles a minute. The first week the kids were still in school and I filled the week with cleaning, shopping, breakfast, and friends. I LOVED it! The week flew by and I felt like I got SO much done (not so much on the Christmas shopping spectrum though) and had SO much energy. It was ahmazing. Because the house had got tossed on the backburner during school it could've easily been overwhelming. Fortunately partly through my practice creating outlines and writing papers with English and partly from having to write down and then prioritize all my homework when I got overwhelmed, I was able to come up with a simple system to get it all done quickly and in one day. I didn't get to the piles of paper, but I had it looking spic and span with hardly any effort. And I've been using the simple outline system for getting other things done, quickly and simply taking care of the highest priorities and getting the job DONE. My outline system?

Bedroom

Bed

Clothes

Nightstands

Bathrooms

Floors

Counters

Toilets

Living Room

Coffee Table

Chest

Floors

Boys Bedrooms

Beds

Clothes

Dressers

Kitchen

Counters

Floors

Dining Room Table

I even used a simple outline for accomplishing my blog goals today:

Blogs

New blog

Outlines

Christmas

So simple. And ta-dah. It's DONE. After that, I can add to it as I please, or not, since the main part is DONE. Did I say DONE? Yay!

Christmas this year...

is different. No family, no fanfare, gifts under the tree only two days before Christmas along with the tree skirt we found last night in the garage. No meal plans yet with Christmas a day and a half away. Stockings not all the way covered. Oma's gifts may get here tomorrow night, they may not, in which case we'll have more stockings and gifts after Christmas. No baking. No cookie making. Not much to make it a holiday. Actually. I still feel like Christmas is a month away. But I'm not really sad about it. Is it strange to say Christmas doesn't feel like a priority this year? It just doesn't. Admist our struggles of moving, life, and school, Christmas seems like the least important thing on the list.

The kids are still excited about it, thank goodness. They decorated the tree this year, hung the stockings, and wrapped the first presents under the tree. I sit back and wonder if this means they'll help out when they have homes of their own. I hope so. I don't like doing it on my own, and being excited about it on my own. Brando is laissez-faire about the holiday as he always is.

Though this year he is taking care of Santa's presents. That's a help, I guess. But his Mom usually takes care of it, so maybe not really. It is something our oldest really realllllly wanted though. So that's nice. Who remembers the little presents any way (except for me ; ) ? It's all about the big ones isn't it. Well, that's what Brando believes and this year I just let it be. I got a few special ornaments that will remind me of the bittersweet memories of this year and I am happy.

Between the Lines

A place where I'm not Pink Sun Drops that I loooooove, and not Quiet Dreams and Passing Nightmares that I sometimes love and sometimes hate. Just me. Not sure where I am.