There are days...

...when I seriously doubt my sanity.

...when I wonder if I'm really cut out for this whole motherhood thing.

...when my kids push me to the brink and I come *thisclose* to totally losing it.

...when it seems like the universe is out to get me and wants nothing more than to beat me down just a little bit harder.

...when all I want to do is crawl into bed and hide from the world.

I'm not going to lie. I'm going through a rough time right now. There are a lot of things that just aren't making my life very easy. There is so much drama right now that there are days when I seriously just want to run away from it all and hide somewhere warm and tropical with a fruity drink beer in my hand on a beach somewhere.

But the reality is that I can't do that. I can't go anywhere. I have to deal with the crap that is thrown at me - and as it's being thrown I have to decide if I want to catch it, drop it, or throw it back at someone. There are people who are making life difficult for me. There are situations that are beyond my control. There are choices to make and plans to implement and things to do - but somehow something always manages to get in the way.

Realistically - I know I'll get through it. I'm not sure how right now, but I know that I will. One, because I'm stubborn as hell and two, because I have no choice in the matter.

Kind of like my tulips that got frozen the other day - I was pretty sure that they were goners, but they survived. Maybe I need to take a lesson from the flowers.

A new start

Today was the day. My first day of work in almost 6 years.

I had to stop and really think about when the last time was that I worked. Daniel was just a bitty baby, maybe a month old - and I remember working that last shift all too well now because when I got home that night, the person who was supposed to be caring for him was passed out drunk. At that point, I knew that I couldn't continue to work unless I found a daycare that I could trust...but I wasn't allowed to do that. So instead, I stayed home.

I don't regret it a bit. I loved being at home. But now that the kids are in school, it'll be nice to go back to work even for just a few hours a week. The little bit of spending money will be nice, but I think just getting out of the house and having real live adult interaction on a regular basis will be the best part of it!

My first shift was good - it was a bit overwhelming, but it was good. I'm worn out and I was only there for a few hours, but I'll get used to that eventually. I'm actually looking forward to going back tomorrow, so that's a good thing!

Anyway, the day started out with the normal running around to get the kids to school. The ice was still coating everything, but the sun was shining bright and made for some good shots along the way - although the stupid flash kept going off and so you can see every speck of dirt on my windshield. Boo.

I did actually stop and roll down the window to get this
shot - and a bunch more. The deer are almost always
in this same spot, but usually not this many of them at once.

You can even see the ice on the power lines.

I just thought this was cool after getting the other picture
of them the other day.

A little bit of ice

Our weather has been really wonky lately. Yesterday started out in the mid-70's and by this morning, this is what our (local) world looked like.....

Those aren't water droplets - that's ice.

It didn't even get a chance to open.

Same ones I posted pictures of a couple of days ago.

Neighbor's tree

(Empty) bird feeder

My naked ladies are looking a little cold.
(insert dirty jokes here)

Even the trash can looks kind of cool.

Favorite picture of the day

It's supposed to be something like 45 degrees tomorrow, so hopefully all of this crap will melt and go away. I'm ready for hot weather. Seriously.

A step in a different direction.

Today has been another one of those insanely crazy busy days. It seems like I say that a lot, but it's true. I got the boys off to school this morning and immediately took off on a 45 minute trek to another WalHell to get the rest of the stuff that we needed for Emily's (and 5 of her friends) costumes for her upcoming talent show - because of course our local store didn't have enough of what we needed. So I drove an hour and a half in order to spend about 15 minutes in the store grabbing the rest of it. But, that mission was accomplished, and now I just have to make the costumes - which shouldn't take long at all.

I came back home for a few minutes after that and sat down at the computer to check on a few things. What I found was shocking, as I learned about the death of someone from high school. Seems like we've been going through this so often lately - old friends, acquaintances, ex-boyfriends, family friends - some expected, some not, but all seemingly without rhyme or reason. I hate it. I so wanted this to be a good year, and well frankly.....it hasn't been all that stellar so far.

But.....maybe, just maybe things are about to change a bit. I've been tossing around the idea of getting a part time job for a while. However, the chances of finding a place to hire someone who hasn't worked a "real" job in the last 7ish years and can ONLY work when the kids are in school were slim to none - or so I thought. Long story short - as of today, I officially have a very part time job. Because of their "social media policy" I can't say where it is (so if you already know because you know me, hush!) but it's just a few hours a day while the kids are in school and she'll totally work around my schedule if I need a day off to go on a field trip or whatever. So that's kind of cool. And scary. But cool. And a little bit of extra money here and there is never a bad thing. So, cool. And it's close enough that I can walk - once Mother Nature gets over her little attitude problem that she seems to be having.

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

On a funny note - and just because it's one of those moments that I don't ever want to forget - this is what Daniel can do with his hair when he runs around so much that he's super hot and sweaty. Something tells me that it's time for a haircut. Needless to say, he got a bath as soon as we got home tonight.

"Mommy, look! I gave myself a mohawk!!!"

Could it be........SPRING???

Maybe, just maybe...

When I walked out the door to take the boys to school this morning, I was greeted with this.

Within just a few hours, they had morphed into this.

At that point, I knew that it was time to get outside and start working on that flowerbed. However, because Mother Nature is evil, I knew that I couldn't do too much - because you know, it's supposed to freeze again.

Anyway, I started to clean up the area between the porch and the garage, dug the "gate" out from under the leaves and repaired that and rehung it, cleaned out the gutters (all 2 of them), put up a little trellis for this really annoying ivy-vine-thing-that-I-can't-seem-to-kill and did a little bit of weeding.

The rest of it can wait until after this next round of freezing weather - hopefully the leaves and crap around the rest of the tulips will keep them from freezing too much - but with my luck I'm sure that I've seen the last of the tulips in this flowerbed this year.

As for the backyard....that looks more and more ghetto every time I go back there...the naked ladies look good. I don't think they bloomed last year, so I'll be anxious to see what happens with them this year. I want to mark where they are since they'll totally disappear again - and I want to take them with us when we move.

And just in case you think I'm kidding about the weather around here....seriously, it's just about midnight right now. And it's 66 degrees outside. Tomorrow night at this time, it'll be 31 degrees.

Busy busy day

Yesterday was non-stop running. But it was awesome.

We started out at our local information fair for families and kids in the area.

At one of the booths, the kids could do a "check up" on
a stuffed animal.

The local humane society had a couple of puppies there.

Exploring the ambulance.

Obligatory shot in front of the fire truck.

"Mom! It's so heavy!"

Even he thought that it was pretty heavy.

In the fire truck, like 'real live firefighters'!!

Without a doubt, one of my favorite pictures of the day. He
was in heaven to have a 'real live firefighter' help him with the headset.

After we got done there, we took off for the library for a little bit to return some stuff, get some more stuff, and kill a little bit of time before our next destination for the day.

....and they walked out of there with free books. To keep.

Then it was time to head back across town to a home and garden show.

Best. tostada. EVAH.

Let's see if we can keep these alive, shall we?

The annual painting of the gourds.

Finished product.

Ta-daaaaaa!!!!

Then we took off for the park to burn off just a little bit more energy...

Alex's father picked him up shortly after this, and Daniel and I came home to relax. The Dude came over later, and the three of us went out for a late supper.

Those two are like peas in a pod...

Waiting patiently for his food....

Long, fun, awesome, fantastic day. Just what we needed.