Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Settling Back In...

:big contented sigh:

So I officially started this SAHM thing last Monday, but it was too overshadowed by Christmas and felt a bit vacationy.

Yesterday was the real deal. No office to jump up and get to, no harried breakfast or drill sergeant routine. Of course, next week may look a bit different as we will be back to making the school bus again, but *I* will not have to have myself together and ready to leave at the same time as them.

We had errands of course; my end of the year dental work that I needed to squeeze in before my coverage ends tomorrow (fillings - fun!), grocery shopping for a home that had been uninhabited for nearly a week, etc.

Grocery shopping with both kids - who were rather opposed to such an outing, even if it meant no food in the home should we have opted out - was not exactly fun per se. They were in re-entry mode and pushing every button possible on each other, or even worse, on me - together.

In all, it was a good day though. And we finished it with a fabulous home-cooked dinner (I love to cook but with the FT work gig we often ate out to avoid further exhaustion) of lemon-teriyaki chicken, rice pilaf and green peas. The kids ate it like no tomorrow and Charlie Brown was very appreciative of dinner at 6 o'clock instead of 7:30. As was I.

Today we've accomplished a fair amount of laundry and unpacking of the Christmas stuff, I've done my prenatal yoga DVD, showered, and got to enjoy LMNOB's heart-felt sing-along with the Francisca Battistelli cd I had in.

These are the days....to enjoy and savor.

I'll be around a bit more hopefully and can settle back into the regular writing thing.






© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

We've officially "done" Christmas with both sets of parents and we are officially blessed with loving, kind, and thoughtful family.

On both sides.

Loving life.

Hoping the same for all of you!



© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Friday, December 19, 2008

Surreal Surrenders

What a week.


At any given minute this week, I felt as if my head would just wind up and spin Linda Blair style and life as I've known it would just stop.


There were the mornings, the relentless "Oh my hell, child how many times do I have to tell you to get your shoes on before you even motion to do so," preparations before school, the incessant and shrill "Go, go, go - Do this - Don't do THAT's," that automatically fired out of my mouth like a machine gun, and tears, always tears. We made the bus none times this week. None. These mornings leave me so frustrated - but hopefully they are a thing of the past.


There was the Particularly Bad morning - Wednesday - this week where Punkinhead had once again misplaced his snow boots and mittens (I am finally beginning to understand Mother Cat's wrath towards her kittens in new light) and of course this was made known to me at 8:10 a.m.. We leave for the bus stop at 8:12 a.m. So the hunt for the aforementioned boots and mittens ensued, and as you can imagine, took longer than the 2 minutes we had allotted to Make The Bus In Time. I had decided to give up the search, Punkinhead would just have to live with the natural consequences of being irresponsible with his boots/mittens: be unable to play in the snow at recess and have cold hands, respectively. I threw everything together, grabbed my lunch, grabbed backpacks to cram into the car, locked the door and proceeded to the car.


Without my keys.


The babysitter has our spare!

Called Charlie Brown with a plea for him to come be my white knight and open the door so that we could get the kids to school and me to work. He was soon on his way.

In the interim, I called my OB's office as the night before I'd come home to a voicemail asking me to please call them back about a lab result...I hadn't had any labwork done at my previous appointment so I was a bit confused. Then the nurse proceeds to tell me that my urinalysis was suspicious, so they'd cultured my urine and I indeed had my 2nd UTI of this pregnancy - I was supposed to begin antibiotics immediately, and had I had any symptoms? Nope.

So I had her call the rx into the Safeway by my office. Call my boss to let her know it is a morning from hell and I am running late. Get to Safeway and the pharmacist tells me that they no longer carry the old antibiotic that the doc has rx'd. He calls Walgreens to see if they have it.

They do.

Backtrack a bit and go to Walgreens, and proceed to wait 45 MINUTES for them to fill my Rx. Ya'll I so will not be fun when I'm elderly and on a million drugs, because my idea of a trip to the pharmacy is 15 minutes total. Plus, you know, I kinda had a place to get to. Called WORK.

That all was frustrating enough but the realization that I had had some menstrual like cramping, which I'd written off as uterine stretching and/or round ligament pain, and had also had an untreated UTI going on meant that this babe could now be at risk for preterm labor. Not to mention all the frackin' stress that we'd had lately in the mornings. I really am questioning whether to stay with my present OB or if I ought to be shopping - I mean, she's the one who was so concerned about the POTENTIAL of me having preterm labor before these UTI's came on and yet when I have something that could actually CAUSE preterm labor, she is inattentive to detail (the prior UTI she put me on antibiotics the day of my urinalysis, before the lab culture even came back as a preventive measure) and potentially put me and the baby at risk. Nice.

So there's that.

Later that day (Wednesday, still) was my going away party at work. I could lie and say it was overwhelming that so many people showed up and embarrassed me with their kind words, but truthfully, it was really energizing for extroverted ole me and I felt really loved and encouraged by a lot of people whom I respect greatly. I was surprised by the turnout being as big as it was - and with so many community players (as opposed to strictly City employees) - but it was a great time in the spotlight for me and I felt like a shining star.

Thursday and today were a bit anticlimactic at work after that, but they flew by.

It was bittersweet.

On the one hand I am so looking forward to being with my kids - and this week really hammered home for me that they are too. Sometimes you wonder if kids really get it, and LMNOB dropped enough clues in her conversation for me to say, "Yeah, she does get it and it means a whole heck of a lot to her." I.e., "The bus driver is going to be really surprised to see you every day when we get back from break," and other things that illustrate the nuances of what my being home with them will mean to her.

On the other hand, I had to keep telling myself - especially after Wednesday - that I am not putting my SELF on a shelf. I am kind of mannish in this regard that I tend to overly identify my sense of self with what I DO, and I think particularly because I have long felt that I'm better able to use the gifts God has blessed me with in the career path I've taken than say being a SAHM. But that's the thing...Just because I'm not going to be on a payroll doesn't mean that I'm going to become a recluse and insulate myself from my community. I'm still on the IHN board of directors, I'm still going to volunteer at my kids' school, etc. My gifts will not be "wasted" says my head, but my heart struggles with believing that at times.

And, I was with the City for 4 1/2 years. It was my 2nd post-college job and by far the longest one I've held. It's a pretty big chapter on which the final page was turning for me.

And it wasn't totally the end today, either, because I'm going back next month for a few hours here and there to train my replacement. But I still cried as I drove out of the parking lot after the Boss helped me pack up my things and gave me a hug. The tears almost felt foreign to me as I have been so happily looking forward to this day that sorrow seemed out of place. The uncertainty of our financial picture is nervewracking to say the least, but every day I'm asking God to help me grow in my faith that He will provide - and I know that He will. And then the relief flooded over me - the stresses of our mornings will be reduced, I can rest and take care of myself and my baby and not feel guilt for it, my kids will benefit from having more of me, and on the list goes.

And then I realized, it's all ok.

I've surrendered my old life and am now embarking on a new one. Filled with wonder and excitement.



© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Dream a Little Dream With Me

Ah, pregnancy dreams...they're so.......


  • Vivid

  • Memorable

  • Wacky as hell

  • Pleasurable (:wink wink, nod nod:)

  • Terrifying

And on down the list we could go.



Some people say the dreams associated with pregnancy are due to hormonal shifts, while others insist it is because of more interruptions in REM sleep (nighttime potty breaks, waking up with hip pain and the need to flop over to the other side, and the like), and still others insist that these dreams are expressions of the mixed emotions a pregnancy can create.



I've had a bunch of dreams this pregnancy, but three in particular stand out.



Every Mother's Worst Nightmare

It's been awhile since this one ran - and the details are foggier than ever now - but in a nutshell, we'd been kidnapped as a family and our abductor was horribly violent, in the worst kind of ways.



Thankfully he was not putting LMNOB and Punkinhead through his tortures - but somewhere along the way it became clear that he wanted us to murder our own son. I pleaded with him to take my life instead, that if he was so sick as to want one of us to do it that Charlie Brown could kill me. To no avail.



I'll spare you the remaining details. They were awful and I can still recall that part of the dream as if it were yesterday. Suffice to say that I woke sobbing and screaming from that one. And when I realized it was "just a dream," I ran first thing to Punkinhead's bed and just sat there stroking him as he slept, telling him how much I loved him.



Ugh.....now there are two funny ones....



One Stop Shopping

This one is just so kooky to me. You know how when you're dreaming and something is this, but it's also that and this too? Yeah, it was one of those dreams.



I had a dentist appointment and upon arriving at my normal dentist's office, I soon discovered that the dentist was also now an Asian nail salon. Because they just pair together so naturally, right?



So anyways, a Vietnamese nail tech/dentist leads me to the exam chair and proceeds to tell me they are now doing routine ultrasounds with all expecting dental patients - again, it made COMPLETE sense to me in my dream, but after the fact??? WTH?



He begins the ultrasound and I tell him, "I DON'T want to know the gender because my husband and I are going to the OB/GYN ultrasound next week and we're finding out together then." He says ok, does the exam, does the cleaning.



As I'm leaving, the nail tech/dentist says, "You baby girl be beautimous like her mama! Bye now."



I was left saying, "I DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW!!!" and then debated as to whether to tell Charlie Brown or pretend like I didn't already know at the u/s we'd go to together.



Infant Style

This one is based on a true story, lol. Apparently a particular detail from my day stuck out at me and my psyche decided to make a whole dream centering on it.

Prelude: Earlier in the day The Boss and I attended a data release meeting re: homelessness in the highschools of our district. The man who sat directly in front of me was a principal at one of the highschools. He had weird hair - with a wiry texture that one could expect from a crack whore who'd fried her hair one too many times, and color that can only be described as harvest ORANGE. But the worst part was that he had a large comb-over; rather, and in fact exacerbating this fashion faux pas, it was a comb-up. The hair well below his crown (in line with his ears!) was combed up and over his crown to cover his bald head. I chuckled inwardly and wondered how anyone could even attempt to pull that off, let alone the principal of a highschool! I mean, it was straight out of a bad teen movie!

So the dream....I was in the hospital, had had the baby and it was a boy. With red hair similar to the shade of Punkinhead's. But, it was patchy and predominantly located on the back of his head.

So what did the nurses do?

You guessed it - my infant had a comb-over and was doomed to geekdom from birth. I gave the nurses what for for this and reamed them about not even giving the poor child a chance at social acceptance.

I woke up and had a good laugh at that one.

What's the wackiest dream (pregnancy or no) that you ever had?



© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Brain Dump: A Blogging Free For All

I started the below post 2 weeks ago...I feel like I'm losing my blogging mojo.

I've had so much stuff rolling around in my head lately that it's caused severe anoblogia.


an·o·blog·i·a (ān'ə-blog'ē-ə)
n.

  1. Loss of blogging appetite, especially as a result of overwhelm.
  2. Similar to anorexia nervosa, when one is afflicted with anoblogia, one thinks about blogging (eating) obsessively; however, cannot bring oneself to blog (eat)
I'm quitting my job in 3 weeks less than a week. The 19th is my last day. I am having trouble wrapping my head around it - despite the frantic brain dumps I've been doing for my possible soon to be successor. (THAT was quite a story too - after much drama, a hiring freeze being implemented the day after the posting for my job closed, and again, drama - they finally decided to hire someone to fill my spot)

There has been much to do at work to tie things up...and thus no goofing off and blogging in the interim....

Because at home I've been desperately trying to get my lia sophia business up and going (Excellent Beginnings goal is probably easier to achieve any month but December - duh). But, I made my goal at the 11th hour and I'm so proud!! Now I can breathe a bit and get my house cleaned, because if ya'll thought this place was suffering, you ain't seen nuthin'.

My house is a disaster. But it is getting there. When I'm home and the holiday rush is over - this place is going to be a clean machine. I can't wait.

I've been doing too much in life, juggling too much trying to go through the motions and avoid the emotions, I think. I'm looking forward to rediscovering who I am supposed to be in this world - or wait, do we ever find that out?

Charlie Brown and I are doing good - found out yesterday (really - this part was not written earlier) that the baby is a boy - which is great, of course - no pleas from the children to send it back, as they were both hoping for a brother. He has an in utero nick-name of Bud now because the u/s tech announced that he was 12 oz, the weight of a soda (or a beer in this case).

My writing is suffering in my absence - I feel like this reads similarly to a 5th grade book report. Will improve, I promise.

Have had some funny pregnancy dreams this go round and will be sharing them with y'all shortly - good for a snicker or two.

Well, must go - have chores and bathing children to attend to before going to a Christmas party tonight.

Ciao....




© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Help a Girl Out, Will Ya?

I need your help! (This is a repeat of my facebook note if you're on there, I apologize for the redundancy)

As you all know, I recently signed on to become a lia sophia advisor.

One of the first goals to meet as an advisor is your Excellent Beginnings goal: hold 3 parties and sell $1,500 of jewelry within your first 5 weeks as an advisor. If I meet this goal, then not only do I get my share of the profits off of all sales, but lia sophia will award me $200 in jewelry to add to my display stock for parties.

My starter party got me 1 party and over $600 toward meeting this goal. It seemed like I was off to a good start when one of my colleagues offered to host a party, then another, and then my mom! This would be easier than I thought.

Except the first party got cancelled, the next party is fizzling out as a catalog party, and my mom's catalog party is not faring so well either.

Now I'm on deadline to meet my goal (Dec. 12th) and the only way for me to meet the goal is to get plenty of outside orders.

That's where you come in!

I know you gals love to look good - But, I also know that bargain shopping is your modus operandi!

And the December Special is a steal: Buy 2 items at regular price and get up to 4 items at half-price! But, that's not all - your most expensive items get the discount! Also, if you refer a friend to me and they mention it when placing an order, I will grant you $10 off your order!

Please stop by my website, browse the catalog by clicking the "Our Jewelry" and either use the "Contact Me" tab or e-mail me at hthrmyr@yahoo.com to make your purchase!

Thank you so much for your support of my new business with lia sophia - you'll fall in love with the jewelry, I just know it!

xoxo




© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved