On a mission...

I'm not sure what's gotten into me over the past few days, or even a week, but I've been getting so much more done around the house that it's kind of scary. I've actually been keeping up with the laundry (more or less) and keeping the kitchen clean and really just staying more on top of things than I usually do. I've been sitting here thinking about it tonight - because God forbid I should just take it at face value, and instead I have to sit here and over-analyze it to death.

I think a lot of it has to do with our impending move. I'm super excited about it, but there are so many stresses and so many questions and so many variables right now, and it's ....... I don't know ...... I think it's one of those things where right now, there are so many things that I can't control, so instead I have to go all control-freak-crazy on the house.

The Dude and I have looked at a handful of houses. Some have potential. Some..... not so much. But they are all within our price range if everything else falls into place.

My income is supposed to increase significantly around the end of August. I know about how much it's supposed to increase, but not exactly. And I can't find out the details yet, because well..... it's Social Security. And they don't like to answer questions. I just have to wait a couple more weeks to get the letter with the verification, assuming that what a worker told me several months ago was correct. A lot is riding on receiving that letter.

My credit score is so close. I bit the bullet and I'm paying to get my credit report cleaned up and looking respectable. We already went through Round One of their efforts, and it paid off big time with one of my credit scores going up just over 100 points! They think that by the end of this month when they complete Round Two, my other scores should be where they need to be in order to qualify for financing.

And of course, we have to find the right house.

At this point, even if we found the perfect house and were able to make an offer tomorrow, we still wouldn't be able to be moved before school starts. So that leads to more questions about what to do with the boys - do I enroll them in school here for the first month or two, and then transfer them when we move, or do I enroll them over there and drive them back and forth every day until we move? There are definitely pros and cons to both, but I'll figure that part out soon. I hope.

Walking home from the
grocery store with survival
food for the next couple of
days while I'm working.

So with all of these questions and random scenarios playing in my head, I've gone into uber-cleaning and organizing mode - which serves two purposes. It gives me control over at least part of my life AND it's getting the house ready to be packed up and moved. (I swear I will never be as unorganized as I was for the last move - I still apologize to this day to the people who were kind enough to help me with that disaster.)

In the meantime, I'm just trying to work as many hours as I can so that we can save up a little bit more money to put towards all of this mess. The Dude has been amazing with his willingness to watch the monsters kids while I work and I am forever grateful to him for it - especially when he has to be over here by 5am some mornings in order to make it all happen (like tomorrow). I'm just ready for us all to be in one house so that life will be just a tiny bit less chaotic.

Of course, I don't think he's going to complain too much tomorrow when he actually sees the 2 loaves of banana bread that I made for them tonight.

Control

My life is crazy. Suddenly it's much crazier than it usually is. And with crazy comes stress.

I have a love/hate relationship with stress. Obviously, it's bad for me (ok, bad for everyone) but at the same time, I work best under pressure. Give me an impossible task with a deadline, and I'll get it done with time to spare - but give me all of the time in the world and I won't get it done. I am the Procrastination Queen at times (hello? 70 days to get ready for a half-marathon?) and it usually bites me in the butt.

I'm also a bit of a control freak. Not about everything, but about a lot of things. I admit it. Sometimes I can let it slide and relax a bit and go with the proverbial flow. But at other times, I go a little nutty with it.

This is one of those times. With all of the stress and chaos and disorder that is going on in my life right now, I feel as though I am totally out of control. And I hate that. But some of the things that are going on right now are completely and totally out of my control. I can't force other people to make up their minds  or to decide what they're going to do and when, and so I'm left just kind of hanging out here, waiting.

So here I go with the overcompensating. I can't control a bunch of stuff that's happening right now, so by God I'm going to control everything else - not that it's necessarily a bad thing.

I've spent the weekend stripping every bed in the house and washing everything right down to the mattress pads - because I can certainly make sure that all of our beds are clean. I've been going through stuff and throwing away stuff and organizing stuff and putting more stuff together to donate because I can do it and get it done and no one can stop me.

I've been going nuts with my datebook, getting everything put down in it for the week so that I can keep track of where I need to be and when (see it there on my desk?) and I've been trying to just get organized in general. I have all sorts of tips saved in my email thanks to my wonderful aunt and I need to go through them again and get to work. But I know for a fact, that if I don't do it tonight - my first job in the morning after I get the kids to school is to organize my desk. The clutter is about to kill me.

And in between now and then every facet of my life will be neatly scheduled in my datebook, because that's the only way that I can keep track of anything, up to and including my own head.

Sorting out the pieces

Remember the puzzle that I was talking about last night? Well, my brain still feels like that, but maybe not quite so much. I've been jotting down some ideas here and there, but it seems like any time I come up with a plan for one thing, something else occurs to me.

But the good news is that in general, I'm starting to get some things sorted out in my head. I'm starting to form game plans and figure out how to make things actually happen.

At the same time, when I get stressed or overwhelmed or have too much on my mind, one of the things that I do to deal with it in the moment is to clean. I think it's my subconscious way of maintaining control - if I can't control the crap that's rattling around in my head, at least I can control the crap that's been tossed around in the house, right?

So I tackled the boys' room today.

I don't know what in the world happened in there over the past few days, because I swear it wasn't that bad before - but whatever happened, it's been cleaned up now. And it's not quite as scary as it was to walk in there. I even have most of their laundry done too.

Of course, once I start cleaning, it's never a simple process. I ended up having to basically gut my vacuum to get it to work right, and it still ended up clogged and limping by the time I got that room done. But, it's done for now. And at some point in the (hopefully) near future, the vacuum will be laid to rest and replaced with one that has a better attitude.

By the end of the day I had the boys' room, the bathroom, and the kitchen clean, and had most of the laundry done too. So I really can't complain too much about that. Apparently I need to get stressed and overwhelmed more often, since that's when it seems that I get my best cleaning done.

Then I was cruising around online, looking up some information for another something that I want to get accomplished, and I stumbled upon something that definitely appears to be too good to be true. So, I shot a couple of messages out to some friends who can help me to get more information on that one, and hopefully...... *fingers crossed* ...... this one aspect might work out a little sooner than I had even dreamed. But, I'm not saying anything specific about it yet because I don't want to jinx it.

Yeah, maybe I'm a tad superstitious at times. At this point, I'll take superstition, prayer, hope, luck, pixie dust, karma, and whatever else I can possibly use to make things work out in the best possible way.

The next project

OK, I know that it's way too early for me to go into pre-vacation cleaning stress mode, but I am about fed up with my desk area.

Realistically, I know that it's nowhere near as bad as it has been in the past. And on the surface, although it's cluttered, it doesn't look that bad.

However, as I've been working on paperworky projects over the past few days, this desk has gone beyond irritating me. I mean seriously, it should not take as much effort as it did to open up the top filing cabinet drawer, pull out the file that should contain the information that I needed, record it on the forms, and replace the file. It should be easy.

But, it wasn't. It was a nightmare. I mean, I found everything that I need, but not without totally pissing myself off at the lack of organization. And the thing is, that it was all totally organized not all that long ago!

So, my project over the next few days.....is to go through EVERYTHING on/in my desk and on/in the filing cabinet. Truth be told, the filing cabinet scares the crap out of me. I just glanced in the drawers - the top is jammed full of papers. The second one has some patterns, wood putty(?), an antique camera, and various other junk. The third one is mostly empty except for some crap. I have no idea what's in the fourth one because the shredder is in front of it, and I'm feeling lazy.

So hopefully, in the next few days, everything will be nice and neat and organized and alphabetized (ha - not really) and I'll be able to find what I need when I need it. If I disappear, you'll know that I got lost. Or something fell on my head. Or I bled to death from a paper cut.

I figure that if I can't control everything that happens in my life, maybe I can control the mess that is my desk. It's worth a shot, right?

Weekend recap in pictures

First there was basketball. Emily's team won in overtime.

Then there was the drive to Oklahoma City. And yes, I even let The Dude drive for a while. It was stressful - not because he's a bad driver (he did fine) but because I suck at letting go of control.

Then there was the wedding...

...and the reception...

....and the afterparty...

After The Dude and I checked out of the hotel, we went to the Oklahoma City Memorial. I had been there before, but this was his first visit. The foundation from the Murrah Building is still there, and the memorial is in the footprint of the building. The reflecting pool is where the street that ran in front of the building was. At one end of the memorial is a chain link fence where people have left mementos - I had not seen that before, and it was powerful to say the least.

And just to lighten up the mood a bit...

My friend Kelly and her son Alex (you might remember them from our road trip to Texas last spring) met us and we all went out to lunch together. It was great to see them again and to visit with them - we just need to do it more often!

We left 70+ degree weather down there and headed back. We stopped in Wichita to get Daniel from my friend and then came home, driving through freezing rain and snow. Alex got here shortly after that and then we took The Dude home.

The weekend was amazing. Just amazing. The Dude and I had so much fun and it was so nice to get away, even if it wasn't for a very long period of time. It was great to really have some quality time together to just talk and tell stories and enjoy each other's company. Plus, it was nice for me to have a hottie for my date! :)

Now, it's time to plan the next road trip....which might be even more of a challenge than this one was. But, I figure that we survived this one without killing each other (and we still like each other) so we should be able to make it through a bigger one!



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rest in Peace, JoePa.

So this is what it's supposed to be like...

The Dude and I have kind of an inside joke. We refer to it as "processing".

Let me explain.

In the past, I have been in not-so-wonderful relationships with not-so-wonderful men. There was abuse and addiction and disrespectful behavior and lies and manipulation, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. To me, that was normal. It's what I was accustomed to having in my significant other.

The Dude isn't like that. He'll say or do something that most people would consider to be normal - for example, take out the trash - and I give him "the look". The look mostly comes from surprise because he did it voluntarily and because he didn't complain about it, but mostly just because he did it. He didn't leave it for me to do. The first few times that he did things like this, I really had to take a step back and think about it, because no one had ever really done those kinds of things for me before, and I had to convince myself that it was ok for him to do it - I had to process that maybe, just maybe, this is the way that things are supposed to be.

Apparently, it's rather obvious to him when I do it - and he'll just say "are you processing again?" and smile. It's funny - he doesn't look at it as doing anything special, but to me, the little things like taking out the trash or stopping to get me a soda while he's out or doing the dishes while I'm busy with something else - those things are amazing. I am so grateful to him for everything that he does.

Today was a prime example - although it was way bigger than just taking out the trash or getting me a soda.

I have the Frosty 5K coming up on Sunday, and I really haven't gotten out to do any walking/jogging for about the past month. I was getting a little stressed out about it, and mentioned it to him the other day. His response?

"Let me know when you want to go run, and I'll keep the kids for you while you go."

Huh? What?

He offered to keep the kids while I went out to prepare for a 5K.

Had to process that one for quite a while.

Seriously, in any past relationship, that would not have happened. First off, I wouldn't be preparing for (another) 5K because I would have been told that I was too fat and lazy to do it (and yes, I did try before, and that's what I was told) and even if I 'defied orders' and did it anyway, there's no way that I could have done it without the kids.

Things like this - that most people would consider to be "normal" - seem strange to me. And I have to process them and think about them, and make them make sense in my head before I can 'let go' and let him help me. I'm so used to doing things on my own that actually having help is strange - and it's hard for me to let go of the control and allow him (or anyone) to help. But as time moves on, I'm beginning to realize that it's ok for him to help me. I don't have to do everything by myself anymore. I think I've finally started to realize that this is what a normal, healthy relationship is supposed to be like - and although I'm still getting used to the idea, I think I'm beginning to accept it.

So anyway, we met at a park and he kept the boys there while I took off...

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, especially for the end of December, and I did a lot of processing while I was out there by myself.

It really kind of hit me as I was out there jogging along, enjoying the peace and quiet. I've never had someone stand behind me like he does. Whether it's getting things done around the house or helping me to train for a 5K - I've never had the help from anyone like I do from him.

It is such a new concept to me - to have someone actually help and support me. But this is the way that it's supposed to be, right?

Anyway, while I was walking/jogging, the boys played and The Dude snapped some pictures...

And when I got back, we both started goofing around with them...

Now, I will admit that I did find another flaw in him today - beside the obvious one (Cowgirls fan). He does have another serious flaw. Are you ready for it?

He likes to take pictures. And he likes to get ones that may not be oh-so-flattering at times. And those pictures might be of me.

But, it's all good. I promised him that I would post them - and I have serious doubts that these will be the last ridiculous pictures of me.

For the record, I do not routinely run around making this particular face or picking at my butt. However, there was a puddle of water at the top of the slide, and although I gave it my best effort, I still landed in it. And it was cold. And wet.

I will get even with him though. I've been known to snap pictures when it is least expected. Just sayin'.