I vowed a long time ago never to make New Year’s resolutions. I am not breaking that vow now, I have however committed to living a healthier life. I have been saying for months that I wanted to stop smoking, I plan on making that a reality. I have tried to quit in the past and something always seems to get in the way. I am not really sure how the best way to approach this is going to be. I have tried the patches and they do help, I have tried chewing gum but don’t really like it, so where do I go from here?

I have also started an exercise program. I got the WiiFit for Christmas and have been doing that pretty regularly over the past couple of weeks. I usually do between 1/2 an hour and an hour every day, and the exercises are getting easier and easier. The new fitness routine should be easy to follow since we are starting a new wellness program at work, and I am on the committee (kind of have to set and example for everyone else). 

And finally, on my road to a healthier life, I have once again started following the Weight Watchers plan I was on several years ago. I have lost 3 pounds over the last 2 weeks, cut my coffee consumption in half (and I am not being a total grouch about it), gotten my soda count down to 1 a day, I have switched to Splenda instead of sugar, and am trying to snack healthier.

I have said all of this to let you know that I plan on writing more regularly and tracking my progress in each of these areas on here. I am planning on posting some before pictures soon, and hopefully can post progress pictures along the way, and eventually post the after photos. I am not shy about my weight, so I will tell you that when I started my exercise on Christmas day I weighed in at about 160, I am now at 157. I am in a size 10 currently. My goals for this are to be in a size 7 and weight around 135. I don’t know how long this will take me but I am committed to this endeavor.

Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling christmas eve
I stole behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve

She didnt recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried.

We took her groceries to the checkout stand
The food was totalled up and bagged
We stood there lost in our embarrassment
As the conversation dragged.

We went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldnt find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car.

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how.

She said shed married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didnt like to lie.

I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes I wasnt sure if I saw
Doubt or gratitude.

She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly
But the traveling was hell.

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how.

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving in our eloquence
Another auld lang syne…

The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away.

 

Just for a moment I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And as I turned to make my way back home

The snow turned into rain — Dan Fogelberg

This is one of my favorite Christmas time songs. No one ever seems to understand why. For some reason this year, this song hits home much more than usual. I guess I am just hitting an age where you start thinking of past friendships that no longer exist, and wishing to reconnect with old friends. I am sure that some of this comes from being on Facebook recently, and actually getting back in contact with people that I haven’t seen in over 15 years.

This song makes me think of of how great things used to be before I had the responsibilities of work and kids and family. Like staying up all night with the girls watching horror movies, hanging out on the weekends wondering what to do next, lying about your age to see rated R movies, and having some of the best ice cream. It seems as you get older these things lose something. Staying up all night watching movies and talking is harder to do, Disney replaces most other movies, and ice cream just isn’t as good as it once was.

Up until a few days ago, I was really looking forward to Christmas. Now, I am just trying to maintain. Hopefully, by tomorrow morning I will be back into the holiday spirit. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

I never thought that I was one of those people… you know the ones that hire a Nanny to come in take care of the babies. Well, as it turns out, I am one of those people. We officially hired a Nanny today. I have been having some issues with daycare, and Geoff is trying to work, and neither are going well.

Our daycare has always been wonderful, I have known the people that own and run it for years, but lately I have not been happy. Graeme is not getting his breathing treatments like he needs them, and there have been a few days where he has only had 1 bottle all day.

We decided to look into hiring someone to come to the house to watch Graeme and Aegwyn, and I lucked out. I found someone who will work for about the same amount that I am paying daycare, plus she will help with the housework.

So, as it turns out, I am one of those people that I used to make fun of. But as I see it, having the kids at home keeps them from being around all of the sick kids that parents insist on bringing to daycare, lets Geoff and I monitor more closely what the kids are doing, gives us some help on keeping the house up, will help us run errands, and isn’t costing us anything extra.

The new Nanny came by this afternoon to meet the kids, and I was mildly surprised that Aegwyn liked her from the very begining. I think she will work out very well for us.

Things have been so crazy lately. I started a new job, which I LOVE!!!! The company is fantastic, the people are great, and the job itself is amazing. It has been so long since I actually enjoyed going to work, and had fun while I was there. What is the job you ask, I am the Office Manager for a major governmental construction company beginning a new project on the arsenal. We have just started with the construction phase, and I am so excited.

We have also begun basketball season, which unfortunately with Graeme and Aegwyn, we have only been to one game.

I am very proud of myself, I have almost completed my Christmas shopping. I have had my tree up since last Sunday, and all of my presents are wrapped. We, as in Micah, Noah and I, are getting ready to start baking cookies. Noah has requested sugar cookies and snickerdoodles, Geoff has requested white chocolate macadamia and mint chocolate, and I want peanut butter and chocolate. Who wins? Everyone, by the time we are through making cookies I will probably have 10 dozen cookies… hopefully those will last us until next weekend:)

These past few weeks have been nothing but pure and utter madness. Ends up that my crud from a few weeks ago was pneumonia, cough still hasn’t completely gone away but otherwise feeling much better. I had to send Geoff and the kids to B’ham last week while they came and replaced our floors. They look fabulous now. I just wish the house was put back together after having to clear the living room and Aegwyn’s room. I still have stuff stacked up in the laundry room, computer room, and in the boys room waiting to find a permanent home.

On a brighter note, I got a job and start next Monday. The problem is the paper work I am having to go through for the job, and the fact that my first 3 days on the job are going to be spent traveling. I have to go to Ft. Benning to train, which means sending Geoff and kids back to B’ham for 3 days. The company is flying me down there (why I don’t know). My flight leaves out of B’ham Monday at 6:30, goes to  Atlanta, and then to Columbus, GA. I am set to arrive at 11:00am. The bad part of this is that I could drive to Columbus in 2 hours, but instead I am flying which is going to take 3 1/2 hours. They are putting me up in a nice hotel though and getting me a rental car.

With me going back to work, Graeme is going back in daycare. Aegwyn will be staying home, I am afraid to chance it with her. When she was in daycare before she was sick constantly. The docs say she has bad allergies which compromise her immune system. So she will be staying home with Daddy, and hopefully she is old enough now to keep herself occupied so that he can actually get some work done during the day.

We took the kids trick-or-treating Friday night, and Aegwyn had a blast. She was alittle scared at first but by half way through she was running to the doors yelling “twick-r-tweat” and grabbing handfulls of candy from any bowl that was in her reach. She wanted to walk the entire time too, and would allow no help carrying her little pumpkin. When we got back to our street and were headed home she was so tired she just got down and started crawling, dragging her pumpkin alongside. She still wanted to go to the houses though, and was very upset when we told her no, and picked her up to carry her the rest of the way home. Since then she goes to where I have the candy in a big bowl, and asks for her “tweat”.

It has finally gotten to me. I thought that after all of these months avoiding the plague that the rest of my family has had I was in the clear. It started a little over a week ago with my asthma acting up. I figured it was the change in the weather causing this so I started using my inhaler again, bought me some cough drops, and continued on as usual. This treatment has been helping, I was feeling better so I didn’t go to the doctors on Tuesday like I was supposed to. (I mean why waste a doctors visit and all of that money when it was only asthma right?) Well last night this stuff hit me full force. I was up all night coughing, my nose started running and now I have so much sinus congestion I can’t breathe. Can this screwed up horrible 2 weeks I have had get much worse?

“It is just the end to a long weekend.” This is what I keep telling myself. I know however, that I don’t have anywhere to go tomorrow. I am already pacing the house trying to find stuff to do, I am already getting cranky, and I feel like my skin is crawling. I hate being out of work. I love spending time with the kids, but I hate knowing I am not spending the extra time with them because it was my choice.
I knew my job was ending soon, I was just hoping to have a few extra weeks there and enough notice to find a definite position elsewhere. I have a few prospects, but nothing in stone. Hopefully something good will come of this, and hopefully it comes quickly.

Yesterday was my birthday, 36th birthday to be exact, and it was awful. I guess I should go back a bit and explain my birthday curse. My birthday’s have always been bad, not all of them but a majority of them and always the ones that end in 6.

My 16th was traumatic. I had been dating this guy for several months, and in the weeks leading up to my birthday he kept telling me he had a huge surprise for me. We had a small get together planned with some of my friends, pizza and movies at my moms. We were all sitting there waiting on him to show up at 5:30. 5:30 rolled around and he didn’t show up. 6:30, and still not there. 7:00 and still no Joe. One of my friends knew his ex-girlfriend and she started making some calls. My big birthday surprise was that his girlfriend had come back, nope she wasn’t an ex she had just been away for a few months working. That’s right folks I got dumped in front of all of my friends and family on my 16th birthday.

My 26th was no better. My now ex-husband tried to throw me a surprise party, which Drew told me about before hand. We arrived at his parents house to a house full of our friends. Micah was only 6 months old at the time, and was very sick. He had a rare condition that caused him to stop growing and he would vomit uncontrollably for hours. Well, all was looking good for the party, until we walked in the door. Not 5 minutes after arriving Micah began vomitting. I spent the next 6 1/2 hours sitting in the back room on a quilt surrounded by towels and covered in puke while my party went on without me.

That brings us to this year. All in all the day was looking good. I had been sick all week but was finally feeling better. I had appointment at lunch for a facial and a make-over. The boys were with us that night, and all seemed right with the world. Geoff had ordered me a workout series on dvd that I wanted. I was happy. I was waiting for the bomb to drop though, it always does. Then at 3:00, right before time for me to get off of work, the boss calls me into his office to inform me that I was being let go. Thats right I was fired on my birthday. I started doing some snooping before I left and discovered that my boss and his son had been snooping on my computer and found my blog. They read the stuff I had previously written about work. Now it may just be a big coinky dink that he decided to fire me on the first day that I was back at work, but I think not. So anyway, another fine birthday for me.

Now like I said it’s not every birthday, and it’s not just the ones ending in 6 either. One year we went out to a nice expensive dinner and I got food poisoning, ooops make that twice that this happened. One year we went to a nice restaurant with friends, and the service was bad, the food was worse, the server actually bled in our food and had to get a replacement tray. This is a restaurant where service and food are normally wonderful, but we went on birthday… I think I am giving up my birthday, not because of the getting older stuff, but because every year on the 6’s it seems to get worse and worse and I can’t imagine what horrible thing awaits me on 46.

It has been one of those crappy days that you just kind of wish you had never gotten out of bed for. I started my day off running late, Graeme puked all over me and him on our way out the door. Got the babies dropped off to daycare shortly after getting cleaned up, and then I was off to Lowe’s. I am trying to match some Formica to a door frame for the project we are doing at work. I picked up 3 samples for my boss to look at, because he didn’t like the one that had already been chosen. Ran back to the office to drop them off and get my reports ready before heading to my 1st (and last) appointment with a new shrink. I was then off again at 8:30 to go see the doc. When I scheduled the appointment last week I chose this particular shrink because she was supposedly one of the providers that my insurance paid 100% benefits for. When I arrived at her office I was informed that they were not one of the providers and my copay would be $125. I paid it since I would have been charged the entire $250 if I had left. I was supposed to have had an hour appointment beginning at 9am. She finally called me back at 9:30, talked to me a little while, informed me that indeed she agreed with my previous doctor’s diagnosis and that I am bipolar. No kidding, where did you get your degree from again?
She gave me some new meds to try, and then informed me to watch how I felt over the next few days since most people on this medication experience dramatic weight gain. If I start to feel overly hungry call her and she would change the medicine.
Ok, for starters who wants to take medicine that is almost guaranteed to make them fat? Secondly, I struggle with my weight anyway, and have just lost a crap load of weight. So again, why would I want to take this medicine? Oh yeah, it’s supposed to make me feel better. The catch is that she only gave me enough for 1 week and then wants me to come back in and shell out another $125, and this is supposed to make me feel better? The funny side of this is that when I have a manic episode, I spend money that I can’t afford to spend, and I can’t really afford to put out $125 a week for the docs sooooo…. do I blow the money at the docs or do I just keep going it alone and spend the money on cool stuff like the Wii Fit, clothes, make-up, shoes, and going out to eat?
Actually, I get to do both. I called the office that actually accepts my insurance and I have an appointment with them in a few weeks. Won’t cost me anything but the meds, so I still have money to blow on the cool stuff too.
Anyway, after this I went back to the office to over hear a conversation my boss is having with our superintendant telling him that once this project is complete we have no more work. Now this isn’t a surprise to me. I have known this for several weeks now. What bugs me is the fact that he has now had this talk with everyone in the office except me. Like I said, horrible day.

I got up this morning on time for a change, and both babies slept a little late so I took the opportunity to actually spend more than a minute on my hair and make-up. I rolled my hair, and put on a full face of make-up, and wore one of my new tops (which I have worn before, and received no comments on). For some reason today I have received a ton of compliments on how great I look, and how cute my hair is, and that this top is really nice. I guess my question is, “Do I normally look that awful?”

Now granted it is a huge confidence booster to have so many people saying nice things, and thanks to the guy at the post office for the double take, but it also makes me question my appearance when I am running behind in the morning. I usually pull my hair back out of my eyes, and always put on atleast a little eye liner, mascara, and lip gloss. I didn’t think it looked bad, just…. plain, natural, like a woman working at the office of a construction site who has kids to deal with in the mornings.