Words On the Wall

Originally posted on November 19, 2008

Ryann, reading the three little pigs:
Then I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your house down. Go ahead, blow my head off.

Words On the Wall

Originally posted on November 5, 2008

I sit down next to Georgia who is paging through a book...
J: Are you reading 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Blue Fish?
G: Yup and this other book is called: Little pigs little pigs come in come in the house the house i'll blow it down now

Fricken A thats a long title for a book, but it works I guess

Words On the Wall

Originally posted on October 16, 2008

Ryann brought a doll in the car with her when we ran errands this morning -
R: I think dolls are made of real babies and they just put hard stuff and plastic on them.

Yes - disturbing.

We also had an argument over how many people were in the car. She was adamant that Brady is a people - just a different kind of people.

Thinking I finally convinced G to get her hair cut -
J: Georgia, how short do you want to get your hair cut?
G: As long as David's

Words On the Wall

Originally posted on October 14, 2008

Ryann last night as we're getting the girls ready for bed...
R: I hope I throw up tonight (remember, Nora threw up Sat. night)
J: Uh, Ryann, no one HOPES they throw up.
R: I do.
J: Throwing up is not pleasant - please don't wish to do it.
R: I do.
J: Okay, Ryann. Why do you hope to throw up tonight?
R: So I can get new sheets on my bed.

Words On the Wall

Originally posted on October 3, 2008

Ryann explains aviation:

R: How do birds fly without flapping their wings?
J: They spread their wings and ride the wind.
R: I know how planes fly without flapping their wings.
J: How?
R: There is a driving wheel in them and the driver spins it.

Words On the Wall

Originally posted on September 19, 2008

This morning - all 3 playing in G's room. G runs out with Ryann following behind crying and yelling, "Nooooooo"
G: "Mommy, Ryann pushed me"
(Ryann in background - "noooooo")
Me: Georgia, I didn't see her push you. What are you trying to accomplish by telling on her? Do you want me to yell at her?"
G: turns around and runs away, "Yup!"

Just so we're clear - we tattle so the other will get in trouble, DUH. Sometimes mom's need to be clued in to whats REALLY going on:)

Words On the Wall

Originally posted on September 11, 2008

Talking about kids in her preschoo class (ages 3 &4)...

Ryann: She is 6
Jana: How do you know she is 6?
Ryann: She has bigger shoes than me.

Words On the Wall

Originally posted on September 9, 2008

setting: lunch

Jana: You two are very cute. What do you think, Ryann - are you very cute?
Ryann: I can't see my face.

Words On the Wall

My children are funny sometimes. But usually they are funny in a way that is only funny if you really know them. So when they say or do those kinds of things I post it on my friend, Doug's, facebook wall. Because really, other than me and Dave, Doug and Jenny and their boys are probably the only ones who really "get" what is said or done.

I was thinking, though, that it would probably be good for me to have them here, too, so I can keep record of them without having to search through Doug's wall. So I will be posting them over the next couple of days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Originally posted on August 29, 2008

Ryann wants to know if she can have a tea party on her honeymoon.

Uh, don't think so...

So last time I posted, I mentioned that I had been having gum issues and that I went to see my dentist and he said it was just due to stress. That was Wednesday.

Every day it got worse and worse. Until finally on Sunday, after drinking a room temperature slim fast (thinking this was my only option left - liquid diet), I was literally on the floor crying. Rocking back and forth, sobbing. Sunday night, I stupidly decided to brave pizza and ended up jumping out of my chair, blinded by pain and wanting to crawl out of my skin. Each time I kept telling Dave, "There HAS to be something wrong. It can't be stress. I don't know what to do."

I tried to isolate and identify triggers. First I thought it was solid foods, but then I went to a party on Saturday night and ate mosticiolli just fine. HOWEVER, I did drink several beers because the alcohol was numbing the pain. So I thought beer would help. Sunday night, beer did not help. I had soup on Saturday afternoon and thought maybe the main trigger was HOT, but again, mosticiolli was fine. So on Sunday afternoon I resigned myself to liquids and hoping my gums would heal. I was upset about it because I was quickly realizing just how important chewing actually is... So I had my room temperature Slim Fast (terrified to make it cold) and went through the roof. And that made me kind of depressed - did this mean that I would seriously have to fast until healed? I didn't think I could do it.

Part of my problem was that the pain would go away after about 15-20 minutes (and a LOT of direct pressure and ambesol) and by the next meal time I couldn't leave well enough alone and I would try to eat again. And evidently I had worse results each time.

So Dave called a dentist that he met in the OPACC and asked him to get me in yesterday for a second opinion.

Uh yeah. It wasn't stress related.

My appointment was at 12:30 and Dave offerred to take all three girls to his office for the whole afternoon since the market was closed. I was looking forward to an afternoon of getting Georgia's room back in order, making menu plans and grocery lists, vacuuming and general picking up.

Instead I spent 12:30 - 5:30 in the dentist chair getting a root canal and two additional crowns. And lets just mention that $2900 was not something that we had really been planning to spend this year, let alone this month.

I will also mention this... At the end of high school and the beginning of college I was bulemic. Not sure if I've mentioned that before. Due to genetically soft teeth and that specific issue, I effectively destroyed my teeth. To the tune of 16 cavaties in the course of one year in high school. And the end result is I'm paying for it 15 years later - literally. This is not my first, nor will it be my last root canal unfortunately.

And last Wednesday was my last visit to my previous dentist. Dave is steaming about it - he simply does not get this angry about stuff, but he is fuming. And needless to say, I don't trust him with our girls either... so the new dentist it is:)

sooooo bored

12 random thoughts for discussion:

1. I think this weekend is God's idea of a cruel joke... The temperatures are below zero - like 20 below - so school = cancelled yesterday and today, which results in a 5 day weekend. Okay, fine. But because it is so cold I can't bring the girls anywhere - or don't want to or have been asked by Dave not to, whatever. In addition, it looks BEAUTIFUL outside! The sun is shining. The snow is pristine and is a perfect blanket on our back yard. But its too cold to go out and play. Woofy is doing his best to dehydrate himself so he doesn't have to go potty... What is this?

2. The girls have virtually destroyed the house. If it wasn't in shambles before, it is now. Correction: GEORGIA has destroyed the house.

3. My mouth is killing me - on and off. Something has happened with the gums on my lower right side. If I eat - even if I keep it to the left side - the right side of my mouth starts hurting really badly. So I floss. Flossing relieves the pain eventually. But now my gums are so torn up and tender. Went to the dentist - he said there is no decay, no gum disease. He thinks it is stress and the economy (wacko). This has been going on since Monday.

4. Due to #3 I have officially placed myself on a soft foods/liquid diet. Last night I stocked up on slim fast, yogurt, and beer. That should get me through the weekend. A week from now I will officially weigh less than Nora... I'm not happy about this situation.

5. We were supposed to have free babysitting tonight so we could go out. We got a gift card to Longhorn Steakhouse (is that right?) and were going to use it. Figured it would be easy to get in and out if we went early and because of the weather. However, due to #3, I don't want to waste the giftcard so we're not going out and it doesn't make sense to bring the kids to our friends' who live 30 minutes away just so we can sit home by ourselves and eat Jimmy Johns (or yogurt and beer) and still have to bring them home to put them to bed. No other night this month works for free babysitting and Dave and I haven't been out by ourselves in a really long time.

6. The girls are playing bunny - and for some reason, Nora the bunny has been named Poopy so Ryann is running around the house calling for Poopy. This doesn't make me remotely happy. I hate that word... but I'm afraid that if I call attention to myself they will stop playing and start bugging me.

7. Friday Night Lights comes back on tonight. We are EXTREMELY excited about this! But we don't have a vcr or a dvr so we have to be in front of the tv at 8pm - another glitch in our free babysitting plans.

8. I've started counseling/therapy. While I wasn't thrilled about the way it came about, I'm actually enjoying it. Okay, I'll qualify that: I don't enjoy digging up crap and thinking about it and thinking about dealing with it in depth in the future, however, it is so fantastic to sit on a couch for an hour and talk - about myself - and not be interrupted and not have someone else's agenda subtley interjected into the conversation. EVERY stay at home mom needs to spend an hour a week in counseling.

9. Yesterday I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what the essential pieces of a winter wardrobe would be. As in, what are the timeless, classic pieces that will not go out of style and can be built around. What are the pieces that you should spend a little extra on to get a higher quality item because it will last and won't go out of style. Right now my list includes: Black ribbed turtle neck sweater, white wrap sweater, colored sweater, good pair of black trousers, good pair of jeans, khakis, black boots and black loafers/shoes (i'm not going in the brown direction right now).

10. I have never been able to find a pair of jeans that fits me correctly. This is extremely frustrating. Apparently mainstream jean manufacturers do not cater to those of us with bigger hips/thighs and small waists. Every time I find a pair of jeans that fits me in the hips/thighs, I end up with a huge gap in the waist (like 2-4 inches). I'm so sick of it and I always feel frumpy because of it. It just sucks to wear something that doesn't fit quite right. I've been told over and over to try Lucky or Seven jeans, but I know those cost more than $100 and I just can't do it right now. Even though I've been told the investment is worth it, I just can't.

11. I'm taking a week off of exercising. Partly due to my gums, partly because my body justneeded a break. During Christmas break I had gotten up to 6 miles at a time, 3-4 times each week. After the new year, though, I've struggled to get to 3 miles. My next door neighbor, who is a runner and a former personal trainer, told me to take a week off. I'm a little worried about my momentum, but I have to say my body is enjoying the break. She wants me to run a half marathon this spring... I'm seriously considering it, but will decide next month after I get back on the treadmill. Its taken several months and a lot of hard work, but I finally feel like I might just be a runner.

12. My favorite beer is out right now: Full Moon by the makers of Blue Moon. Mmmmm. It is so good. I cannot wait to crack one open tonight while watching FNL. I love beer - good beer. I hate college crap beer, but I've gotten into beer in the last year and love it. More than wine. I'm kind of over wine. But beer... Full Moon. Sam Adams. Michelob (thats as cheap as I go). Mmmm. And Bailey's. Why is bailey's so expensive? We just ran out and I don't want to spend $20 on a new bottle. Mmmm. Bailey's;)

Feeling hmmm...

I'm feeling so... not sure what the word for it is. Restless isn't quite right.

Basically it comes down to this: I want my house redecorated. Like Right NOW;)

I've always liked the color scheme that I've got going on... 3 different shades of the same color throughout the house with red as the accent color. I added blue in the hallway/entry, but other than that the whole house (with the exception of the girls' rooms) is khaki/green with red accents. But I think I'm sick of it and I'm not sure where to start.

One thing that I need to do, is restrain myself and remember that I should focus on ONE room at a time, rather than thinking about the entire house. Doing that will make any projects more do-able and less expensive and less overwhelming.

Part of the reason why I'm feeling this way, I suspect, is because I'm ready to redo the girls' bedrooms. I've ordered the bedding and curtains and now I have to wait to get those before I start painting and accessorizing. I am totally not one of those "theme room" kind of moms, so there won't be a ton of accessorizing, but a few things here and there would be nice, I think. Here are my plans:

Right now Nora and Ryann's room is painted purple. They have Aqua comforters and white furniture. Until two days ago they had towels hanging on their windows to block out the sun. There really is no theme or order to their room.

I have ordered these comforters:

I have also purchased and hung up some chocolate brown blackout curtains. I'm planning to paint the wall with the windows and probably one other wall the light pink color. The other two walls will be painted something else - the aqua maybe? Or yellow? I don't know yet - any thoughts? I'm really not very good at this stuff. I'm also thinking of painting some dots on the walls, but I have to think about that some more. In addition, I need to paint the ceiling and would like to paint a fresh coat on the trim and windows and their furniture. So that room will be a bigger project than I realized (of course). I WISH we could afford to change the carpet - they have a light brown carpet that was there when we moved in. There is a big hole in it (was there when we moved in) and I have few furniture arrangement options that will cover the hole.

Georgia's room:
Right now her room is painted a bright yellow. She has no curtains on her windows because the curtain rod somehow got yanked out of the wall and I haven't repaired the damage yet. She just moved into a twin bed so she has a comforter that is left over from when we used that room and bed for guests - it is an army green.

I have ordered this quilt for her:

I haven't received it yet, but I'm thinking the yellow flowers might just match her walls so I may not need to repaint. I've also purchased navy blue blackout curtains for her windows, which I need to get hung up. I have no ideas for wall decorations or accessories. She may need an additional small piece of furniture like that little table with drawers - I'll have to look at IKEA and see if there is anything inexpensive that would work.

So far, those are my plans. I'm eager to get started, though. And since I've got plans and can't get working on them quite yet, my mind is wandering to the rest of the house. I want all new colors, but I just don't know what. We don't have a whole lot of furniture and what we have is not great, but we have to make do with it and work around it. Right now we have some red walls in our dining room and front room, but I'm thinking its time to change that, too. I really like my navy hall... the powder room off of the hall is cream with navy and orange accents - I'm liking that, but not sure I want to accent throughout my house with orange:)

Behr has a program on their website where you can upload pictures of your rooms and try on different paint colors. Benjamin Moore has something similar. I'm just trying to figure out if it is worth spending the money on it ($5 for Behr, $10 for BM). I think it is, but I have to figure out which one to do - Behr is cheaper, however, my cousin works for a BM dealer and can get me a discount on paint, so it would make more sense to try on their colors... I just want the new comforters to come so I can get started on those rooms and get this all out of my head!

Whoa - this one is long;)

What a difference a little structure makes in my life. I feel back to my normal self. Monday - the last time I posted - was a day of journaling for me. I think I journaled in 3 or 4 different places that day. Apparently, I had a lot to think about and get out:)

I believe that I will always struggle with Christmas break while I have small kids at home. Dave doesn't understand it. I'm not sure many people do... I have a hard time articulating it, too.

Its not that I'm sick of the kids. The girls were actually wonderful during the break. And they were awesome last weekend - so my breakdown had nothing to do with them. They played together very well during the break, they didn't bug me a whole lot, we kind of chilled for the time that we were home and just hung out. So its not the girls...

I think its the break itself. Christmas break is 2 weeks. Two weeks would be enough to get into a new "break" routine, however, the two weeks is constantly broken into chunks due to the holidays. So we have a couple of days home, then a couple of days away, then a couple home and a couple more with people here, then a couple home, then one at someone else's house. Dave is home a day here and there. There is extra mess in the house because of the new christmas gifts. The girls go to bed late because of the parties and the break. There is general chaos at all times because of everything. There are expectations on me from other people - expected to go to this party or have these people over. Expected to bring this kind of food here, or plan a menu for this or whatever.

And to top it all off, there is very, very little silence, which means I have no ability to really think things through. I found it difficult to even think about a grocery list during the break. The constant noise was hard for me.

By Saturday, then, when you put all of that together with the anxiety and stress that is related to our financial situation I think I had broken. Sunday I was better. Monday I was even better than Sunday and by Wednesday I was back to myself totally.

Dave doesn't get this. And my counselor wanted to blame it on the girls being home, too. But I reiterate - it has little to do with having the girls home... Summer break, for example, is tough for the first few days until a new normal is established. And that new normal sticks around for 3 months. Spring break is too short for a new normal so we just go with it. Random holidays are fine. Do I look forward to them? Not necessarily, but I'm not a basket case about them (which I felt was somewhat implied).

It is the disadvantage of being introverted, I'm afraid;) I mentioned this to my counselor (had my first session last night) and had this conversation:
C: Have you read the Introvert Advantage?
J: Yes, I have
C: Its a great book.
J: Sure it is - I learned a lot from it, but it doesn't help me out when all of the extroverts in the world have NOT read it.

True.

Another thing that has helped me in the last couple of days is that I have gotten back into some Bible study time. Our church is doing a sermon series on this and although I did not go to church Saturday night, I listened to the sermon online. The preacher gave a very easy, doable way to do regular Bible study and I have been doing that every day after Georgia goes to her room for quiet time. I had previously made the mistake of thinking that I could only do it in the morning before they all woke up and it inevitably got pushed out of the way. I'm enjoying it. I'm learning from it and I've come back to wanting to get to know God. I had moved away for a while... and blamed him for moving away from me. I felt alone and abandoned. But it was me - I was isolating myself, which is typical for me when I'm in the crazy cycle:)

I'm feeling hopeful again. That was the one thing that I could identify last week as the change in my attitude. I lacked hope. I had lost my hope. Throughout this whole EJ journey, I had always felt hopeful - I knew it was going to be hard for the first few years, but the hope remained that his income would increase - albeit gradually - and that eventually, within 4-5 years we would be back to paying our bills and hopefully earning a trip here and there. And we were on that path. His production was on a gradual incline. He was doing well. He earned the bonus and he earned the trip. He paid our expenses one month. Things were looking good.

And then the economy crashed. And I lost hope.

Before that, we figured our supplemental funds would get us through the next 2 years if he kept going at the rate he was. We figured we would still need to supplement, but not very much. But when the economy went south, it became less than a year's worth. And that started to get scary... Oh my, there is so much I could go into about this but this is already long. And because of the economy and how frightened everyone was, I felt like no one would be doing business with him which = little to no income.

He has brought me into his office to show me his pipeline, show me his production graph, show me his goals. HE is feeling hopeful. HE is feeling his business turning around for the better. HE is feeling the economy shifting (even slightly). HIS hope has brought mine back. We are, by no means, going to be back at the place we were a year ago, but every month is getting better than the previous (that was one problem last fall - each month was getting worse than the previous) and we have buckled down on keeping track of our expenses in a forward looking way, rather than looking behind us and trying to correct it the next month. Our budget is tighter than I ever thought I would have to live, but it is doable and we will make it. We're not in this alone - we never were.

Wallowing

I have had a very bad few days. I'm struggling to say the least. I'm also wallowing in self: self-pity, self-absorption, selfishness etc. I'm not exactly sure how I got to this point, but I believe that 2 weeks of holiday break, holiday expectations, holiday schedules and very little time alone with myself or with Dave largely have contributed to my state.

We are living a very stressful life right now. A brief and honest synopsis:
Dave changed careers 4 years ago. He went from making over 6 figures per year to making $24,000 per year (each year has increased a little bit, but that was the first year). There is much hope that comes along with the change to EJ, however, there is also much financial difficulty, too. We have been able to finance this switch via our savings, our IRA's and the equity in our home. It has been over 4 years since he switched and we have had only one month where his paycheck covered our entire month's worth of expenses.

Last year at this time, things were looking good. He was gradually increasing his production to the point where we were using a whole lot less of our supplemental funds to pay our expenses. He earned a big bonus last January and he earned that trip to Mexico last February. And things started slowing down from there - my opinion is that he put so much energy into trying to earn those things that he wiped himself out for the month of March - wiped out his own energy and wiped out his pipeline. But it still wasn't too bad throughout the spring and the summer. And then the economy took a dive as did his income. He has struggled to make even 1/5 of our monthly expenses for the last few months - meaning we're taking more out of our supplemental funds again.

And last fall we started to panic - we are now very close to running out of those supplemental funds. We always said we would take this Jones thing to the last penny, but it certainly did not appear that we would ever get that far. And now it is a distinct possibility. We have probably less than a year's worth of supplement left if things continue at this pace. We have scaled back to the extreme - ex: our grocery budget went from $600/month to $300/month. It isn't a pleasant situation by any means and one result is that I feel so much of a burden and so much guilt about spending ANY money - even money that is necessary.

I have a pit in my stomach almost all of the time. I feel like my chest is tight most of the time. I'm not having panic attacks, but there is a pretty high baseline of anxiety in my life right now. I'm not sleeping well even though I'm running a lot of miles throughout the week. I'm crabby because of the anxiety and because of my lack of sleep. I cry often and at dumb things - I spilled coffee on my carpet a few days ago and completely lost my mind. On Saturday - I hesitate to say this because I'll sound like a complete nutjob - I laid in bed for most of the day just staring at the wall because I couldn't find a reason to get out of bed. So I'm struggling. I'm much, much better today, but I still have much anxiety related to stupid stuff.

On Friday Dave asked me to start therapy. In addition to the general stress of life, there is a lot of crap in my past that should probably be dealt with at some point. I'm not eager to do it and I feel like I've been attacked in some way, but I recognize that it is necessary. I've argued and argued with him that I'm just having trouble because of the holiday break - and I still maintain that it has a lot to do with it - but he is asking me to do this and to get some help. The thought of it has brought up memories that I don't really like - in anticipation of digging them up, I suppose - which is causing even more anxiety. Ahhhh - its a vicious crazy cycle, isn't it?

So there it is - I'm struggling and I'm going to get some help. I'm not sure what it entails and I'm not sure how I will look on the other side of 12-18 months and I'm scared to do it and to face some things that I thought I had put to rest. But seriously, I need to breathe again. I need to sleep again.