4/11/10 - That and This

Bloody migraines. Seriously.

I went to bed last night with a headache and woke up this morning with a migraine. Not even remotely close to how I wanted to spend my first weekend home. But oh well. At least it’s allowed me to just lie on the couch like broccoli and catch up on my DVR’d shows. And my husband gallantly took the kids and played and played and played. He got The Boy a little closer to being done with his homework, thank goodness. And he had to work yesterday afternoon. It was a pretty cool sight to see my husband on one end of the desk typing away while The Boy was on the other end of the desk diligently working hard on his homework. Made me smile.

What also made me smile was watching The Boy zoom down the street on his bike today. He learned how to ride his bike with no training wheels at the end of last summer, so he didn’t get a lot of time to get it down pat. And then with how wet this winter has been he hasn’t had much time to practice since then either, but it just thrilled me to watch him fly by this afternoon.

I finally got to watch Julie/Julia tonight. And it was lovely. I’m not a huge fan of Amy Adams so I was afraid she’d ruin it for me, but Meryl Streep made up for all of her shortcomings in just being brilliant. I think I would have been happier to just watch a movie about Julia Child’s life instead of this Julie character breaking up the timeline. But overall, it was lovely.

The Boy goes back to school tomorrow. And life as I typically know it resumes. Taxes go in the mail tomorrow finally, although I’m refraining from getting too attached to our projected refund as the bankruptcy estate may still take it. We did finally get our official bankruptcy discharge though! That was a happy sight for my eyes to be sure. It’s almost over. Maybe we’ll still be able to make it to Georgia to see my husband’s parents this summer – keeping my fingers crossed.

Chief Blahety of Blahsville

I’ve had a really lovely day. Starting off with coffee with sweet E and her even sweeter new baby L. We don’t get to see each other nearly enough for my tastes, so it’s always a treat to be able to get together. She had to leave before me to pick up her kiddos from school, so I just stayed at the coffee house and read. By myself. Without anyone interrupting me every other sentence to get them water or listen to this song or, or, or…it was glorious to just sit on a comfy couch with an almond latte and get into Neil Gaiman.

The Girl and I had a nice lunch at home that merged into a nice afternoon.

The only downside to today? I’ve had exactly no (read zip, zilch, zero) motivation to finish my story for the week. Like I sit and stare at the page with the little cursor eye blinking at me expectantly and it’s not that I’m blocked or frustrated or stuck. I’ve just so many other places to go in my head right now than to finish telling this story today. It pretty much boils down to, I don’t wanna. I just don’t want to write today. This post is going to be chief blahety of blahsville as well. Sorry about that. But I’m just sort of content today. The anger hasn’t really made a comeback. I’m not screaming or sobbing. I’m not all tweaked out over my story this week. I just sort of am. Content. Makes it hard to weave drama and interest into much of anything when you’re totally content to just sit and stare into space.

So I’m afraid that my story will be late this week. Because I’d rather it just be late than be crap because I forced it, and ultimately didn’t give a damn about it. So for any of you cross readers, sorry about that. I’m going to try my hardest to make the wait worthwhile.

And I’ve just about got our taxes done for the year, so we’ll soon know what we get to keep and what we don’t. Hhhmmm…maybe I do have some angst broiling after all…

Smooshed Car

Here’s a little karmic riddle for you. If we take the responsible path, use a good portion of my husband’s annual bonus to pay off his car once and for all, saving us that monthly car payment to put back into our budget which will help tremendously, one would think the universe would reward us by smiling down on us in some way right? Yeah, apparently, not so much. Because instead of being bathed in the light that comes from making the right financial choices, my husband instead got into a car accident this morning on his way to take The Boy to school (he and the kids are both fine, thank goodness). So now, we have to use a good chunk of what was going to be socked away into savings to meet our deductible to get his car fixed. I’m sighing hugely right now. But everyone is safe, so I’m trying to focus on being grateful for that.

And we got our pantry almost completely restocked today as well, so that’s a good thing. My husband tried valiantly to talk me into getting a PS3 or XBOX 360 but I reminded him that it was choices such as those that got us into trouble to begin with. He laughed and agreed with me, but there was still a glint in his eye that told me all I had to do was say “Yes, my darling husband, you work your ass off so if you want to take some of your bonus that you worked your ass off for to get a new toy, by all means, have at it!” Perhaps if he hadn’t smooshed the front end of his automobile this morning I would have relented, because he does work his ass off and he totally deserves a new toy. Alas and alack however, his car is smooshed and in need of repair. Plus I think we’d both rather use any extra money we have to put into a travel fund to go see his parents or take a family vacation. Maybe I’ll just save my pennies and get it for him as a huge present. Christmas is only 10 months away right?

2/18/10 - Strobe Light Writing

So I am sitting here alternately working on my story for the week and chatting with a friend and suddenly what was just a totally clear laptop screen is a strobe light. I’m looking through a strobe light. Am, in fact, looking through a strobe light right now. So I’ll apologize ahead of time for any spelling or grammatical mistakes because I can’t really, you know, see what I’m typing. I’m going to try to get this typed as quickly as possible so that I get my writing in for the day, although I’m not at all sure I’ll be able to post it today with the whole I can’t really see thing going on.

My husband got his annual bonus today and I’m super excited. Although I can feel old habits tossing their grizzled heads in the background. Suddenly having money again makes me want to go out to dinner! Go see a movie! Go out with girlfriends! Go out on a date with my husband! Book a flight to just about anywhere! But it’s those kind of old habits, spend it if you’ve got it, that got us into this whole financial mess to begin with. So instead, we’re paying off my husband’s car. Thoroughly re-stocking our pantry. Maybe taking the family out to dinner to the kids’ favorite place – Red Robin. And socking the rest away into savings so that we aren’t caught another month having to choose between our bills and groceries. It’s the responsible thing to do. Boring as hell, but responsible. We’re hoping that if we get to keep some of our tax refund that we’ll be able to get out to Georgia to see my husband’s parents this spring or early summer (I will not be caught dead in Georgia in full summer ever again). And I thought I might try to eek out another girl’s weekend on the cheap this year as I could really, really use some good, dedicated girlfriend time. But I do have to admit that it feels pretty good to pay my husband’s car off. So maybe this whole responsibility thing isn’t all boring.

And now, I’m going to bed. See you tomorrow.

On the Edge of Panic

We’re home again. And I am really, really crabby for some reason this evening. The drive was fine. The roads were, by and large, fine. I got to listen to a good portion of the awesome CD’s that D made for me. But I got home and The Boy was just bouncing off the walls hyper and full of attitude. And my husband told me about he had to call his parents and ask for money because we couldn’t make our car payment this month. And even though they, of course, graciously offered to help us out, I was mortified that he had to call and ask (their generosity has known no bounds the last few months but it’s one thing to have them send us money because they want to and an entirely other thing to ask for it outright). And I know the reason we can’t make our car payment this month is because of things like me driving back and forth between my parents’ house and home, having a powerful need to eat (can you name the movie?) and unfortunately needing things like shampoo all at once. It’s ridiculous that things like gas and groceries can screw up our entire budget. This whole awful bankruptcy process was supposed to make this better and instead we are still in dire straits. And I feel like I’m inches away from just succumbing to this state of panic and coming apart at the seams. Panic about my dad, panic about our finances, panic about what my mom will do after my dad goes…

And I have this idea for this week’s 52 story but I can’t quite get a handle on it enough to actually write it out. It centers on a woman who gets caught in this sort of dream loop/jump, popping from one dream to another without any control, rhyme or reason. I won’t spoil the end for you, but if I can get it all to work out on paper it could be pretty cool. If not then I don’t know what I’ll do this week, but hopefully I’ll come up with something.

Hopefully some quiet time tomorrow will lend some focus.

Bad Day

I’m having a bad day. And here’s the mind fuck that has been chasing its tail through my bad day pity party: I should be above bad days. Or, more to the point, I should be able to rise above bad days. I should be able to just allow them to move past me without buying into their bullshit. I should just make my mind some soothing tea and let it rant and rave without actually giving it any unwarranted attention. I should be able to slough off bad days without a care. But apparently I can’t.

Because I’m crabby and I want to cry. My husband has half the day off and instead of enjoying the family time, I was actually resentful that he was home. My mom called to tell me she was in a car accident and my first thought was “what do you want me to do about it?” What the fuck is wrong with me?!

Here is what’s wrong with me today: my dad has started going downhill again and I’m not there to help or see any of it for myself. My cell phone is dead as dead gets and we have zero funds to get a new one. My car needs about $1,000 worth of work. My husband’s car needs about $1,000 worth of work. I desperately need a haircut. I have zero confidence in my ability to write anything more than simple journal entries and am considering aborting my 52 project. And we have zero wiggle room in our budget and none coming in the foreseeable future and that just flat makes me angry. And we’re out of brownies.

That’s about it. That’s what’s wrong with me. So pretty much nothing has changed. My dad is dying. We have no money. I’m struggling with how to actually be a writer. What the hell else is new? And yet today is a bad day. Because today I’m mired down in the muck of circumstance. Because for some reason, today, I let myself sink down into the swamp water of my mind.

And now I’m all slimy. So I guess I’ll go take a shower and just keep breathing.

Court Date

So we went to court today. Except it was more like a meeting that just happened to take place in a court room. And with a large audience. And a lawyer. But other than that, it was just like a meeting. I am not entirely sure what I was expecting, but definitely something with a good deal more formality than what we got.

What we got was a guy probably about our age sitting in front of a laptop, vaguely bored, but good natured, asking us the same questions he had asked all the people in front of us. As well as asking interesting questions about what we both do for a living. He was understanding as well as extremely efficient. And I found myself utterly grateful for his humanity. Because I was terrified that we would get grilled about our spending habits and lectured about financial choices we had or had not made. I was sure I would start crying in the middle of the hearing and I was so worried about who we were going to have to come face to face with. Turns out, it was just this guy (and his assistant who was actually the cold one), doing his job, working his way through the massive roles of others in our same position for one reason or another.

I walked away from the whole thing with an overall feeling of relief. Except for the fact that they want to see our 2009 tax returns in case our tax refund can make a “considerable contribution” to offset our debt. What that means is that if they take our tax refund then our ability to shore back up our savings account will take a gigantic hit below the belt. So I will have to work to keep that worry from itching the back of my mind for the next several months and just take it all as it comes.

But mostly there is relief. Relief that we’ve done our court face time and are one step closer to having all of this behind us, so we can continue to focus on where we want to be, and more importantly, where we already are.

Over the Top

I have six words for you – Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce. Oh. My. God. This is how my day began. Sitting next to dearest R, having breakfast and being grateful for my taste buds. I don’t usually gush over pancakes, but these were over the top amazing.

It was pretty much an over the top kind of day that just kicked off with breakfast.

My mom was having some work done on her car so the dealership gave us a fully decked out Honda Pilot to drive around while they messed around with her car. This sucker had GPS, the rear camera that turns on whenever you back out and fully automated seats. The Girl crawled into the backseats and proclaimed “This car is awesome!” I had to agree.

We proceeded to the gigantic mall just down the way to polish off the remnants of our respective shopping lists. When we arrived, it was quiet, subdued even. And I was so grateful for it. Then all of a sudden it was jam-packed full of people and I was not so happy. But we found everything we needed and then some.

And the big event of the day was that The Girl got her ears pierced. She has been talking about it for quite a while and we just decided that we would be completely honest with her about what it is to get your ears pierced. We would not leave anything out about the pain or how long they take to heal or anything else and if she still wanted to get them pierced that we’d let her. So today when she proclaimed that she was ready to get them done and I reiterated everything again and she was still gun-ho to go, we took her to Claire’s, let her pick out her first earrings and got her ears pierced. And she cried. A lot. And then she got over it and is now fine and thrilled to have “sparkly rainbow daisies” in her ears.

And now I’m back from our 36-hour tryst in the big city, valiantly trying to pull my head out of the pancakes and put it back into what’s next.

12/11/09 - All for a Good Cause

Every year the big hospice organization that serves the area my parents live in holds a major fundraiser in partnership with the local community college. The art department donates handmade pottery bowls to the event for them to sell for $10 each and you get soup with your bowl as well. It is a lovely idea that so completely embraces the whole idea and purpose of hospice in my opinion. As a career fundraiser it’s so often that you see organizations holding fundraising events that have absolutely nothing to do with their mission. And I have often found myself saying “now tell me again what the hell a silent auction has to do with child welfare?”

But this? This is perfect. You have an organization dedicated to helping patients and their families through the death transition raising money by partnering with a major community based institution whose entire reason for being is to further life through education. Together these two organizations raise money by offering good, homemade, warmth giving soup in the middle of winter served in bowls made by hand with materials from the earth. Maybe I am just feeling overly cheesy tonight, but to me that right there is a circle I want to be a part of.

My mom has been supporting this fundraiser for years and has quite the lovely collection of bowls for her efforts. I have always thought it was a wonderful idea, but haven’t ever been in town visiting when it was happening, until now. Because of the snow days the beginning of the week, my mom has been working all day every day the last three days to get caught up, so I offered to go for her this year since she had to work.

The Girl and I trekked into town to the college campus and wandered around the event looking at pottery and carefully choosing our bowls. She made quite an impression on everyone she met and I walked away knowing that I was not only supporting an organization that does great work in general, but one that will very soon play a pivotal role in my life. And for both, I am immensely grateful.

12/6/09 - Random Thoughts

Target is a time suckage vortex from hell. And I love it. The Girl, my mom and I lost several hours in there today. We meant to run errands today. Do pricing and research for the last of our Christmas shopping. You know, generally be really productive and tick things off the to do list one by one. Instead, we spent hours wandering around Target (admittedly doing some research and pricing). I haven’t just wandered around Target for a long time. Because typically when I just wander around, looking at whatever happens to catch my eye, I end up spending entirely too much money. So I’ve taken to only going in there with a very specific list and I make a beeline for the locations of my items and then get the hell out of there with a quickness.

And it’s not that I had more money than usual or anything. It’s just that, I felt like browsing. The Girl needed new Christmas PJ’s and my mom wanted to find the kids new slippers (she’s dubbed herself the Slipper Queen). It also turns out that we’re in need of some new ideas for Santa since what The Girl had originally dubbed her number one present request is a piece of thin, janky, plastic crap. And I cannot allow Santa to spend money on, or put in our house, thin, janky, plastic crap. So we’re back to the drawing board for her and wandering about allowed for some additional brainstorming on that piece of business.

The advent calendar gave The Girl her tutu for this first week. And it’s a wee bit big on her and I may have gone a wee bit overboard with the layers of tulle. It’s more of a gigantic, gorgeous, floofy, red and pink skirt than a tutu in the strictest sense. And I think I’ll have to tighten it a bit for her to wear it as much as she’d like. But ultimately I think she really likes it, which gives me great hope that my niece will also love hers when I’m done with it.

Anyway, it’s up and down and the breath continues to move in and out.

Christmas Research

**I'm heading back down to almost no internet service, so I'll keep up on the blog as much as I can!**

Well, icy roads and a cumbersome to-do list put my departure back to New Mexico on hold for another day. The Girl and I will be leaving first thing in the morning to head back to my parents’ house for the remainder of the year and beyond most likely.

I spent most of the day on the computer doing research, organizing and getting things organized for having a tightly budgeted, split in half Christmas. Oh, and laundry. There was a fair bit of laundry in there as well. Trying to plan a big family Christmas that was already going to be complicated because of a super tight budget, and has now compounded that complication because we’re going to be in two different places, has required a tremendous amount of organization and research. But I think I’ve just about got it figured out.

Although I’m in a bit of a quandary because what The Girl has her heart set on is a large, expensive piece of flimsy, plastic crap. She desperately wants it, but I cannot in good conscience spend that kind of money on something that in all likelihood will fall apart within the first few days of her playing with it. So my mom and I will be going to Albuquerque at some point before Christmas to do some shopping in “the big city.” An attempt to find something fabulous and worthy of the little bit of money we do have set aside for hopefully fabulous gifts for our children.

The Girl is ridiculously easy to buy for. She knows exactly what she likes and wants. The Boy on the other hand is in an in-between stage where he spends so much time in school he doesn’t have much of a chance to really figure out what he likes or wants. He does know however that he’s moving up a bit as far as toy sophistication goes. The same old, same old is just not going to cut it anymore. So we all know he loves Star Wars, so that’s where we’re mostly focusing. Hopefully there will be happiness come Christmas morning.

It’s a good thing I love Christmas stuff so much isn’t it?

11/27/09 - Black Friday

Aaaaahhhhh….Black Friday. I always have every intention of skipping it altogether. Of staying in the house or at the very least only going out to places that have absolutely nothing to do with the exchange of money for goods. But I always have to peek at the ads and I inevitably find some deal that I just can’t pass up. So I always find myself out in the throngs of people, cussing loudly as soccer moms cut me off in parking lots and blue haired ladies push me out of the way to grab the last copy of some DVD. And I always end up wondering what the hell I was thinking getting out in this mess?!?

But this year? This year I got lucky, because even though there were a few enticing deals out there, I have no money to spend, so any urge I may have had to fight the masses got taken care of for me. Such a relief.

My husband and I did think, however, that it would be a good day to see a movie. Wow were we wrong. The movie we had chosen was sold out for most showings by 2pm, so we were out of luck. So we just enjoyed the drive back and forth from my parents’ house (which is about an hour) in the relative quiet of having no children in the car. It was a chance for the two of us to share some space, which is always appreciated.

I ended up making beef stew for dinner by my dad’s request (trying to make up for him having to take over Thanksgiving dinner duties for me and my migraine from hell). He was happy, so my mission was accomplished. The kids spent the day with my mom at a bounce house place she found in town, so they were happy (and tired) campers when they got home

All in all it was an easy, quiet day, which is pretty far from how my normal Black Friday goes, so for that I am grateful. Except for the parking lot at the mall where the movie theater was, but I guess we couldn’t get away entirely unscathed.

This? This is a Vent

I woke up crabbier than crabby this morning so today’s post is just one big ‘ol vent session. I was going to vent on Facebook and then remembered that today is Veteran’s Day and felt like a big ‘ol selfish person for wanting to vent instead of thanking all the soldiers past, present and future. So you get it instead. Feel free to just come back tomorrow.

The children don’t have school today and I would love to take them to Denver and go the Natural History Museum or the Children’s Museum or go out for a fun lunch at one of their favorite places. But I can’t do any of that. I can’t drive to Denver because I have to conserve gas. I can’t even take them to McDonald’s for lunch let alone Fargo’s or Chuck E. Cheese. I can’t really do anything with them today because we have no fucking money.

I’ve tried really hard to stay positive about this whole financial crisis that we’re in. I’ve tried really hard to keep it all in perspective and know that it’s for the best and will give us a chance at real stability instead of credit card funded illusion. I’ve struggled to keep the bitterness at bay by taking responsibility for my actions while not laying a gigantic morass of guilt around my neck. I’ve done all of these things every day since we first realized that bankruptcy was our only option.

But today? Today I am angry and bitter and guilty. Because I manage the money in this house and I am apparently so good at it that I managed us right into near complete financial ruin. I so want to take my sweet children and do something fun and frivolous today and I can’t because I fucked up. And that feels pretty awful. And that’s not even touching the guilt that floods if I consider what would happen if one of the cars broke down or our heater went out.

Today I want to throw a huge, out of control temper tantrum about the whole thing and go to Starbuck’s on the way to Red Robin. But I can’t. And that sucks.

Random Acts of Kindness

I always assume that people will do the right thing when it comes down to it. There is a cynical streak in me however that always points and laughs at that “cup half full” part of me whenever I run into generally mean for no reason people. But today, that part of me that believes that people are generally good in all the ways that matter most, good naturedly poked and giggled at the cynic.

My husband is sick with the same vomit madness that The Boy had, so he has basically ceased to exist for the last 24 hours. In an effort to keep from having to drive back and forth into town in between taking The Boy and The Girl to their respective schools, I decided to splurge and take The Girl and me out to breakfast while we waited. It wasn’t a huge splurge but it gave us a bit of time to talk and color and eat yummy food that I didn’t have to cook. After we were done eating I went up to pay and I swiped my debit card only to discover that the card was expired. Oh. My. God.

Thank goodness I grabbed some cash we had laying around the house on my way out the door (thank you subconscious!), but I was still short. The hostess who was ringing me up totally could have pulled the bitch card on me and been well within her rights. I should be more together and aware than that. Especially now that we are completely credit card free and rely only on cash/debit; I have to have my shit together more than that. But I didn’t. And you know what? She was extraordinarily kind and gave me the difference in cash from her own wallet. And then when I was on the verge of tears because I felt so badly for not being to leave a tip for our server who was equally kind, she offered to give her a slice of pie on her break on our behalf.

I am just so thoroughly grateful for random acts of kindness and I’m on the lookout for ways to pay it forward.

10/17/09 - Jumping through Hoops

Here’s the most irritating thing about filing for bankruptcy (other than having to give a lawyer a big pile of money to have it legally, and publically, recorded that we don’t have any money) – having to take the pre and post-filing classes that are required by federal law. We have had to go through several companies that offer these classes for an assortment of fees (yet again having to spend more money to prove that we don’t have any money) and figure out which one will not only be the cheapest, but also the most expedient. Because we can’t legally file with the courts until we get the pre-filing credit counseling course taken and the completion certificate sent to our lawyer so he can include it in the final petition.

Now, let me be clear in that I really, truly understand why these classes are required. No one wants people to use bankruptcy as a way of hiding from a huge pile of debt that they got into on purpose. And no one wants someone to file for bankruptcy without having explored every single available option. It really is a last resort sort of thing. So making these courses mandatory gives people two more hoops to jump through as well as making sure they are educated on the process and its ramifications. I totally get that. Having said that however, they are a presently a gigantic pain in my ass.

Especially this first class because it’s a two parter. We each have to take the online course which I’m guessing will take about an hour or so and then we have to schedule a phone counseling follow up call to help establish a budget which will probably take another hour or so. I know that 2 hours sounds pretty inconsequential. But it’s really not. Especially since it’s computer and phone time where I have to, you know, pay attention. Show me a mother who time for this.

And the part of me that has painful clarity on why we are in this process resents the fact that I am forced to pay someone to tell me this is a bad place in which to be.

Western Union

“In a few minutes your love can be tangible.” – Western Union slogan

This particular slogan makes me irrationally angry. Maybe because I was pretty much raised in a time when wiring money has gone completely out of fashion except in the movies where the only people who wire money are felons and white trash kids stuck in some hickville trailer park without a clean wife beater. It makes me think of men with huge pot bellies sending money to their old ladies who are standing in their curlers, hair nets and polyester muumuus. It makes me think of dirty out of the way offices that you have to search out in the seedier parts of town.

It pretty much makes me think of anything but love.

And maybe that is what the slogan is trying to change. Trying to shift the point of view back to a quick way to send your oldest son money across country because he blew a tire on his spring break road trip. Because I think most Western Union offices are probably in well lit grocery stores nowadays.

But it also speaks to the part of me that is just flat royally pissed off that we’re in the financial state we’re in. Because to tell me that THE way to make my love tangible is to send money to family and friends just makes me want to scream since it’s just about the only thing I can’t presently send them. I can send virtual hugs and all of the positive vibes and thoughts I can muster. I can send cards and emails and Facebook love notes. I can think of all kinds of funny, silly, creative ways to “make my love tangible” should I ever feel the need, but sending money is really not one of them (not that I wouldn’t love to receive that kind of token of all of your love).
Also on some philosophical level it makes me irate that I should ever have to make my love tangible. I mean who really wants their loved ones to nail down how very much they are loved into a hot pink teddy bear or a bouquet of flowers?

The Week Ahead

We sent the children to my parents’ house today. The Boy has this whole week off for fall break and my parents were missing the kiddos so I took The Girl out of preschool for the week and off they went. I’ll probably head down there later this week to hang out for a couple of days and then bring the kiddos home next weekend to get ready to move back into the daily grind.

I’m hoping that having the next few days of quiet will allow me to banish this sickness back to whatever rock from under which it crawled. I’m thoroughly done with it now and am ready for it to vacate the premises. Post haste. And I thought I’d go thrifting to see if I can’t find the kids’ Halloween costumes for cheap.

I wish I could say I had some grand plans to pamper myself proper. I could really use a mani/pedi. And a girl’s night out. But we are in the midst of trying to figure out our cash only budget and it’s a bit tricky at the moment. So we’re not spending any money on anything but necessities. Although my husband has tomorrow off, so I thought maybe we’d raid all the penny jars to see if we couldn’t come up with enough to go see a movie or something just a wee bit fun since it’ll be just the two of us.

And it’s freaking cold here. So any temptation I may have had to go anywhere got pretty much nixed by the multi-car pile ups on the highway caused by the entire city being covered in one big sheet of ice. Colorado is apparently going through some sort of weather schizophrenia and has totally screwed up the seasons this year. We skipped fall altogether much to my butterfly bush’s dismay.

I had an unexpectedly good fantasy football day as well. So that’s always nice. After this morning’s games I was counting myself lucky to be above a total of 50 points, but then my boy, Peyton Manning, swooped in to the rescue and pulled me through. I like winning; not a bad way to start the week.

Rollercoaster Ride

Today has been an up and down sort of day. I’ve been struggling the past several days with this whole bankruptcy thing. I welcome and cannot wait to embrace the clean slate of freedom it will bring us, but it’s still filing for bankruptcy you know? I still see it as a failure on my part to protect and provide for my family regardless of how irrational or untrue that may be. So I’ve pretty much handed the whole process over to my husband, thinking perhaps if he takes it under his wing perhaps he can shepherd it into a much safer port than I’m capable of. So I’ve been working mightily to strike some sort of balance between curbing my needless self-berating and staying as present with whatever arises as possible. I was already failing in that pursuit today when it was time to take The Girl to the doctor this morning.

I fully expected this appointment to be nothing more than a 10 minute in and out visit so that we could touch base with her doc on her asthma management. I’ve been pretty happy with our progress so far. Her doctor came in and we chatted and caught up a bit and then he dutifully listened to her lungs and heart. Got quiet, flipped through her electronic chart and said that she had a heart murmur and wanted us to get in to see a pediatric cardiologist as soon as we could. I adore this doctor for many, many reasons and one of them is because through everything we’ve been through with The Girl he has always been there to keep me grounded if by no other means than he sees so much worse the majority of his days. But today he looked at me and said he was worried.

The rest of my day has been lost to a haze. A haze of fear and uncertainty with me somewhere in the background attempting to bring myself back down to some sort of rational level. Because really we don’t know anything. Just that we need to follow up on these newly presented symptoms.

And so we will. And I’ll keep you posted.

Pedantics

There are a whole slew of pedantic things I could write about today. Like the fact that we retained the services of a lawyer today and that in another week we’ll be officially filing with the court system for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.

Or the fact that The Boy’s school got shut down today because half of the student body has been absent all week exhibiting “flu-like symptoms.” And that it will stay shut down until next Wednesday as they do a top to bottom sanitization of the entire building and hope that having the kids out of contact with each other for a week will stop the contagion cycle. And me wondering what the hell I am going to do with my children for the next week (with little to no spending money) with no school for The Boy who is now utterly accustomed to being engaged just about every minute of every day.

Or the fact that The Girl has had two solid days of throw herself down, scream and throw things prime of her 3-year old life temper tantrums. I was just beginning to think that perhaps I had escaped the 3’s with her, at least to the extent that The Boy had tortured me throughout his 3rd year of life. And then two days in a row she’s had utter and complete meltdowns to the point where I could not take her out in public. All I could do was sit her in her room and let her go. Whatever she needed to do in order to extract herself from screaming banshee mode and back into sweet little girl mode.

Or the fact that I am so completely focused on hiding from my own emotional ramifications of this whole bankruptcy thing that I’ve totally tuned the rest of the world out. My husband worriedly touched base with me last night; attempting to make sure everything was ok. And I’m not entirely sure how “I’m fine, I just don’t really want to talk to or see anyone right now, I just want to read” could be reassuring. But I think he knows me well enough by now to know I’ll be back soon.

Solitude Please

For as long as I can remember I have craved solitude. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love to be with the people I love and often at that. I love to be fully immersed into a social setting chock full of laughter and cavorting, story-telling and conversation. It’s good for my soul to see my own joy reflected in the faces of those dearest to me and I love to be their mirror as well.

But alone time has always been at the root of my sanity. I need the time to decompress and/or process life and the world around me. I’m not much of a think on my feet kind of girl. I’m more of a think it all through, every last detail, and then stride out into the world at large kind of girl. And because my own internal processes are probably more complicated than they ought to be, I need this kind of alone time on a pretty regular basis. I knew yesterday that I was in need of a solid chunk of peace and quiet when I picked up the Twilight series again (this will be the fifth time). And that knowledge solidified today because every time The Girl shadowed my every move I was overcome with a distinct feeling of annoyance instead of patient acceptance.

Life currently has dealt me yet another shift. Another step stands in front of me demanding to be conquered and learned from. And I’ve gotten strong enough this year that I’m welcoming the opportunity to build yet more strength and experience. But I’ve also learned that I need to do preparations so that I can climb with finesse and purpose instead of just blindly throwing myself at the task at hand. So that I can remain grounded in the moment instead of getting strung out on the future; what lies after getting over the current hurdle.

We’re meeting with the bankruptcy lawyer again tomorrow. This time to retain his services. I am looking forward to the opportunity to exchange this burden with the freedom to make different choices. I truly am. But I thought a little extra calisthenics training with Edward wouldn’t hurt first.