Questions and answers

Every now and then, when I can't come up with anything to write about, I ask the people on my facebook page to ask me questions so that I can answer them in a blog post. We did that tonight, and here are the questions....and answers!

Wendi asked: Any advice for a mom and daughter who are going to do their first 5k?

Resting after a 5K is always important.
Just ask Emily.

Coming from someone who runs jogs occasionally gets out and walks as a hobby and not seriously, the best advice that I can give is to just get out there and do it. Don't worry about your speed or your pace or anything like that - get out there and have fun. Of course, you should train beforehand, but you have to do what works for you. There are lots of great websites and apps that can give you pointers, but for me, I found that the best thing to do was to get out and walk/jog as much as I could in the months/weeks leading up to a race. I tried to steadily increase my distance but haven't really worked on speed yet. Hopefully when life calms down a bit I can get out there and do it again.

Shannon asked: Do you watch any reality tv, like The Voice?

Honestly, I don't watch any TV. Shocking, huh? But, I don't have cable (another bill from my past life that needs to be paid off but it's not a priority) and although I have a converter box to get the local stations, it died. So I have a TV that is useless, other than for DVDs. I don't even watch anything online because my internet connection isn't good enough - and honestly, I don't miss it. Once The Dude and I get moved into our new place, we will have cable though - and really at that point the only shows that I plan to watch regularly again are Parenthood and The Biggest Loser.

I did watch the first(?) season of The Voice, and I really liked it!

Sherrie asked: What compelled you to blog? Do you regret it?

See that picture of my boots up there at the top of the page? A couple of years ago, I had posted that picture on my personal facebook with a caption that said something like "oh, my old ugly boots, how I missed you!" because it had just gotten cold and I had dug them out of the closet, and I love those boots. Anyway, my friend Kat over at High Heeled Country commented and said "you should start a blog!" Discussion ensued, and I was convinced to do it. I believe someone actually said "I bet you could get 30 followers in no time!"

As for regretting it, the only thing that I really regret is not staying totally anonymous. There are many more things in my life that I could write about, but without anonymity I won't do it. And because this has gotten so much bigger than I had ever planned, I do try very hard to keep some things private - like our last names and specific information about where we're located. I don't ever want my kids to be embarrassed by anything that I've ever written.

Brandon asked: If you were a woodchuck and were able to chuck wood, how much wood would you chuck? On average, of course...

Enough to build a dream house for me, The Dude, his mom, and all of the kids.

Bianca asked: You share so much already!! Ok. If you could go anywhere on vacation, with no worries about cashola or the logistics, where would you go and, if you don't mind sharing, why? 

Right now, that's an easy question to answer. I would without a doubt head back east to Pennsylvania to see family and friends, take the kids back to DC (for more than a few hours this time), and visit our friends in Virginia again. My parents can't really make the trip out here anymore due to their age and health so it's up to use to get out there to see them. We make an almost-annual trip to do that and had planned to do it this year for a family reunion and high school (not a) reunion, but finances won't allow it. We have to focus on moving instead. Sometimes being a grown-up stinks.

Pam asked:How awful or not as bad as one would think is working where you do?

It's both. Since it's fast food, when we're busy, we're busy. Today, I ran my butt off from 6:30am until 2:15pm without a moment to breathe. People are cranky, coworkers snap at each other, and there are times when I have to do so many dishes that I could be buried under the pile of them and no one would notice. But, at the same time, the vast majority of my coworkers are really cool (even if I have clothes older than some of them), most of the customers are decent, and when I'm on drive-thru first thing in the morning I get to see some amazing sunrises. And occasionally half-naked people. Or men in dresses.

Bruce asked: If they made a movie about your life...what actress would play you?

Oh, that's a good one. I think most of them are too glitzy for me.....but if I had to choose I'd have to say Sandra Bullock. She's one of my favorites and she just seems so down-to-earth and easy-going.

Gayle asked: What kind of work do you do?

In a nutshell, it's fast food. I can't say which one (not that I would anyway) but while I'm there I mainly run register, prep all of the food for the grill on the mornings when I open, clean the dining room, and do lots and lots of dishes. It started out as just a few hours here and there while the kids were in school, but it's kind of fun...... on the good days. So I work when I can, without taking too much time away from the kids.

Suni asked: How do you manage I stay sane, or semi sane with how you busy you are?

Ha! Sane?? You call this sane???? OK, seriously..... I don't know. This crazy life is just normal to me. I live by my datebook, which keeps me somewhat organized but for the most part it's just what I'm used to at this point. When I don't have anything to do, I go insane with boredom! Playing around online and blogging is a great stress reliever for me, as well as sewing and doing crafty stuff, so I have my outlets when things get to be too much.

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.

Random stuff and a personal request

A little bit of crafty stuff....

I'm participating in this quilting swap thingee. I can't think of what it's actually called right off of the top of my head, but basically there are 5 people in a group. We each make a row. Then we send our row to the next person, who adds a row. Then it gets sent to the next person, etc etc etc. So when we get our first row back, it now has 4 more rows attached to it, all made by different people all over the country.

Anyway....this is the row that I got from one of the ladies in the group. She is going with a "rustic fall" theme.

I laid it out on my bed and stared at it for a while, trying to figure out what to do with it next. I had a couple of ideas but decided against them and decided to just make some more traditional squares.

Of course, I wasn't paying attention on the first square, and it came out way too small, so I had to start over. But as of right now, I have 2 squares done, and I'm hoping to get the other 3 done this week so that I can get them attached and mail her row on to the next person - and then wait for the next row to come to me.

It's a fun project, and something that I've never done before - so I'm really anxious to see what my quilt looks like by the time that I get it back - although that won't be for several months yet.

In other news, I've been on a quest for a new datebook for the past couple of weeks. I had bought my typical little cheapie from the dollar store, but they changed the format of the pages in it and it just wasn't going to work anymore. I looked online to try to find something, but I didn't really like (or couldn't afford) anything that I saw there. I had to take The Dude to the dentist today and when we got done there we had to go to WalHell to get his prescriptions filled and so I looked at the datebooks that they had there.

It's a little bigger than I wanted and it was a little more expensive than I wanted (I'm a cheapskate. I admit it.) but it has lots of room and I think that it'll work just fine. I already started transferring information into it while Emily was at basketball practice tonight - when I wasn't dealing with argumentative kids who wanted to do absolutely nothing but irritate the snot out of me for the entire time that we were there.

Now....for the request.....

Please forgive me for the vagueness of this, but I just can't go into specifics because of the situation.

I have a friend, a dear friend from high school. Our lives went in different directions after graduation, but we stayed in touch for years and then lost each other, and then found each other again through the miracle that is facebook, and got to see each other live and in person last summer for the first time since graduation (I think), and I got to meet her kids, and it was wonderful.

Anyway, she is now going through something that I believe is probably the worst nightmare that a parent can endure, short of the death of a child. I had heard about the situation before, but didn't realize that there was a connection between it and her until today, when we exchanged some brief messages. My heart is breaking for her and her family right now, and I can't even begin to imagine how she is feeling. She is devastated and heartbroken and there is nothing that I can do to help her except to be there for her and love and support her from afar, and it just doesn't feel like enough.

So I am asking you to please, say a prayer for her and her family. Or if that's not your thing, send a happy thought or a good vibe or something to her. Go out and do something to help someone else. Make a donation to a charity. Something. Anything. She's in the midst of hell right now, and something good has got to come out of it. Somehow. Some way. And I don't know how else to do it.

There's too much bad crap happening in the world. Go do something good.

Datebook insanity

It's insane. That's just all there is to it.

This is just a snippet of what I'm dealing with this week - and I've already added 3 more things that I need to do tomorrow since I took the picture 5 minutes ago.

As much as I am ready for school to start and for us all to get back into a routine, I can feel the stress building already.

~Trying to coordinate with Ex1 to get the older 3 kids everywhere that they need to go (remember, they don't go to school in this district - they go to another one that's 13 miles away).

~Coordinating everything with getting Alex and Daniel to school (luckily, only 3/4 of a mile away) especially for the first 6 weeks when Daniel only goes half days.

~Keeping track of The Dude's work schedule so that I can get him back and forth to there.

~Parent/teacher conferences and open houses at schools this week.

~A birthday party/sleepover to get one kid to on Friday night and back from on Saturday morning.

~Haircuts for the older 3 on Saturday.

~The Dude has a playdate (*snicker*) with his best friend on Saturday, so I have to get him there too.

This doesn't even include all of the "normal" stuff that I have to do - the laundry and the cleaning and the cooking and the canning....and stuff that I want to do, like sewing and reorganizing some things in the house to make room for the canned stuff until it sells. And I have a million ideas running through my head of things that I can make and sell to make more money to try to get more added into the Transmission Fund so that I can hopefully get my van back and give The Dude's van back to him to cut down on the chaos.

Seriously, I feel like I'm about to lose my mind. I hate not having my van. I hate that The Dude is without wheels because MINE broke. I hate that we don't have the money to get it fixed right away and I hate that the kids are having to deal with my anxiety and stress as we try to get through all of this BS.

But, at the same time....I am so beyond thankful that we have a vehicle to use. It might not be the *cough* best vehicle, but it runs *knock on wood*. I am thankful that most of the things that we need to do are here in town, so even though we are running around constantly, at least it's only for a few miles at a time (until school starts). I'm thankful that people have been so very kind and generous and have helped us out on our way to getting the new transmission. As of right now, we currently have $1046.65 out of the $2495.21 that we need to get it replaced, so we're about 42% of the way there. I am thankful that even though I've had to deal with a few haters, that the majority of people have been supportive - whether through a donation, spreading the word, or even just saying a prayer or a word of encouragement. It's nice to know that there are still kind people in the world, given the generally negative news that gets blasted to us from almost every media outlet today.

And with that, I am off on a scavenger hunt to find coupons for groceries - because that is officially the last thing on my list of things to do today, and I will get that done.

Conquering Mt. Laundry

Today was a relatively uneventful day. The boys and I got up this morning (after I finally got a decent amount of sleep last night) and we went to church. After church, we went over to The Dude's house and hung out for a bit, then we decided to get something for lunch. We couldn't figure out what we wanted, so we ended up going to the grocery store to get some stuff and then we came back to my house. The Sprint Cup race was on, so The Dude fixed lunch while I sat on my butt and watched the race - have I mentioned lately how wonderful he is?

Anyway, we ate and watched the race, and then we took him back home and I started working on laundry. Like, seriously working on it. Over the past few days, I have stripped all of the beds and washed all of the bedding - including the comforters - and I really hadn't put away of it away. I hate when I do that - I really prefer to do the laundry from start to finish in one shot and get it done, but for whatever reason (might have had something to do with the chaos of the past few days) I just washed it and dried it and threw it in a pile on top of the chest freezer in the laundry room until I had time to deal with it.

I'm also pretty sure that every single towel and washcloth in this house was dirty too, so I did a couple of loads of them and actually got them all folded and put away, along with random other loads of laundry that also needed to be done. Of course, there's still more to do (it never ends) but I think I only have enough detergent to do maybe one more load. So, I will be adding a trip to the grocery store to my list of things to do at some point tomorrow.

The next few days will be crazy again. I'm taking a friend to the airport in Kansas City in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, so she and The Dude are coming over tomorrow night to stay. We are going to leave around 2am to get to the airport, so he's going to take Alex to school Tuesday morning and then hang out with Daniel until I get back in town. Then I have to go back up there Thursday afternoon to pick her up and bring her back here. Of course on Saturday, I have The JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes and Sunday I have the half-marathon.

So bear with me as I lose what's left of my mind this week, and if I don't post as regularly, don't panic! I'll be around - racing around trying to get things done with my datebook clutched tightly in my hands!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Almost forgot - before we took The Dude back home this afternoon, Daniel decided that he was tired. So he curled up on the floor in the middle of a pile of crap, and used the footstool cushion as his pillow. We picked him up, asleep, put him in the van, took The Dude home, and came home. I put him on the loveseat and he proceeded to take about a 4-hour long nap. I woke him up for supper - he ate, played with Alex for a while, and then went back to bed at his normal time. It's so nice to have an easy kid sometimes!

Mechanic'n and Sewin'

You might remember a few weeks ago when Alex broke my van. I finally ordered the new piece that I needed to fix it after I gave up on trying to find one in a junkyard.

The nice shiny new part finally arrived today. I was a little hesitant about it, because it definitely did *not* look the same as the old one, but I was assured by the dealership that it would work, so I took it and headed home. Some friends had offered to come over this evening to help me replace it, because I knew that I was going to need a second set of hands to hold the weight of the van door while I switched the parts.

Anyway, I went outside early this afternoon and started messing around with it - I figured that I could get the job started, and then when they got there we could just finish it up and be done with it. While I was scoping out exactly what I needed to do, I heard a voice coming up from behind me. It was my neighbor's son - the one who came over a few months ago and cut down some of the annoying trees out in front of my house for me). Anyway, he asked what I was doing and I showed him, and then he yelled across the street to my other neighbor to come over and help, and between the three of us we got the part changed out in just a few minutes.

So I now have 2 fully functional sliding doors - and I will sell the next child who slams either one of them.

The majority of the day was spent doing laundry (*muttering under breath as I realize that I still have two loads of mine in the washer and dryer*) and cleaning and making supper and doing dishes and all of that fun stuff. But in between all of that I did manage to finish the other set of quilt blocks for the Christmas quilt block swap. I'm not completely crazy about this set, but that's typical. I never like my own stuff. LOL

Tomorrow is going to be a fun and crazy chaotic day. We have to all be up early so that I can drop Jared off with his father at 8:45 to do a Cub Scout thing, and then the girls are running in a 5K at 10:00 (I'm sitting this one out since I have Alex and Daniel with me). Then there are a couple of quilt shows that I'd like to go to, plus some friends are having a holiday open house for their Scentsy and Mary Kay businesses so I want to stop there. Alex's father is supposed to pick him up at 2:30 - we'll see how that goes. And I know that there was something else that I was supposed to do, but it's not in my datebook so if I forget something important, it's the datebook's fault. Uh huh. Yup.

I can blame the datebook, right?