getting my groove

I don't love to work out and will usually find any excuse not to but I have really been stepping it up the last 2 weeks.  And today.............dare I even say...I looked forward to going to the Y.  I finally figured out that I can almost comfortably read while I am on the elliptical machine.  So now, even if there is nothing  good on tv, which lately has been the case while I am working out, now I can read!!  Woo hoo.  I don't know why this was such a break through for me today but it was and now I think I am really going to enjoy my 40 minutes of uninterrupted reading.  I haven't had that since Jack was born. :)  Oh and because the weather has been colder and my boys are going all wwf on eachother they are actually liking the playroom at the Y.  It is nice for them to have "new" toys to play with or be rough with for a little while.  Oh and I just started a book that I can't believe I haven't read yet.  No one told me how good this was.  I mean I guess I should have gathered that from all of it's time on the New York Times bestseller list and all but I guess I am a little behind.  I might be the last one to pick up this book:

I am only on page 24 and so into it already that I am really looking forward to getting back to the Y again tomorrow for some more reading oops I mean working out.   Has anyone else read this book?  Did you love it?  Does anyone else like to read while they work out? 

crabby pants

Umm Hello there.  I miss you little blog and your imaginary audience.  I just wish I had something interesting to say.  Lately not so much.  At least not happy fuzzy things and isn't that all you want are the happy, fuzzy, funny stories.

Alas, I don't have any happy, fuzzy, funny.   I have been pretty crabby.  Everything seems to be bugging me lately.  My dogs are always wrestling and fighting.  Why can't they just lay on their dog bed and chew on their own things not the kid's things. (Since writing this, I have had to take 3 of the boys toys away from Tucker.  I don't even know how he is getting them little houdini dog)

Mackenzie is a senior this year and that is kind of bumming me out............I mean, my Gosh, she is a senior people!  

John is bothering me and he is a good husband and father.  I guess I am just a mean mean mean wife.

I am having a hard time with Jack still pooping in his pull up every night.  Sometimes right after he has sat on the toilet for a half hour.  WHY?????????  Is it a power struggle.  By the way, most of the time I think he has come so far and the words autism spectrum almost never creep into my brain but when he and Charley had their well child appointments a week ago....................well, he was very different.  He knocked Dr. Howard's bag down and tried to grab her i-pad out of her hands and when she asked him a question he spoke in kookas.(what I call his made up language)I was so mad and embarrassed because I want her to know how well he is doing overall.  But she was really nice and said that it was probably the high anxiety he was feeling.  He was self-soothing with his hand in his mouth the whole time.  It is just so frustrating to have a child that you know and everyone else knows is different but you just don't have a name for it yet.  Don't know why.

Charley has been an adorable 3 year old for the most part lately.  I am really loving this 3 year old little boy. He has his moments too when he is stubborn and must do everything his way.  "I DO  I DO IT"  But he really is sweet and cuddly still.

Me, not so cute but maybe cuddly because I have only lost one lb so far since the last time I wrote about my weight.  I have been managing about 3 times to the Y a week but I have also been managing to eat as though I am on the high school boy's wrestling team.  I don't know why I am doing the self sabotage but I am.

So basically, I think I am in need of a good counselor.  Will you be my counselor blogspot?   I really hate counseling but I do feel like since I have been off the anti-depressants.............I am just not a nice person.  I really do not want to go back on them either.  The brain zaps I had from coming off of them are still too recent in my memory.  The other idea I had because I really don't believe that I am just naturally a mean crabby person is that I have been taking ambien to fall asleep pretty regularly.  Maybe that is affecting my mood somehow?  Ahhhh, but I love how easily it is to fall asleep after taking that little pretty white pill.  No racing thoughts, no worries about money, bad job, crabby self.  Just sweet  I can't posssibly keep my eyes open anymore sleep.  hmmmmmmmm

Mackenzie

               

My sweet Jack man

 

 

I don't want to sound too melancholy.  Things really are pretty good.  I am just crabbier then I should be and things are getting on my nerves more than they should.  And I am trying to address it with myself before it gets out of hand.  So I hope this doesn't sound all wah wah but I love my family and I just wish I wasn't so crabby.  Grrrrr

Jackisms

Today I was walking ahead of Jack and he said "Mom, you are missing something.........me."

sunny or cloudy

pretend that this picture is rotated to the right.

 

 

That is what it looks like outside here today.  You couldn't ask for a more beautiful sunny day for November 2nd.  Right?

picture from storm one week ago

 The second picture is how I feel on the inside today.  I just hate everything about myself today and feel like I could just sit and have a big long cry.  For some reason I can't make the tears come so I am just left with all of these emotions rolling around inside of me like those clouds in the picture.  Have you ever felt like you just wanted to be someone else?  Not necessarily a feeling of jealousy but just this huge feeling of "if I were so and so everything would be perfect, I would be happy all the time if I looked like her or if I had her house or her husband or her job".  Maybe those are things that you usually outgrow in middle school or Hell, I don't know even grade school.  I have never outgrown them.  Sometimes it is better than other times.  The first time I am really conscious of feeling that way was after my mom died when I was 9.  I don't know if I ever had those feeling before but I sure had them after that day.  Even as soon as the week she died.  My dad has a twin sister that has 3 daughters all within a years age of me and my 2 sisters.  We stayed at my aunt's house the week of my mom's funeral and I remember feeling so strongly that I just wish that I was one of my cousins.  Why couldn't I just be them and not have to be this strange motherless kid.  That was probably normal then but it has never really stopped with me.  Now I do the same things with my friends or people I don't even really know.  I am really into some of the wonderful blogs out there and I love to read them.  But after I read them I have a huge feeling of...........I don't know, I guess let's call it what it is, JEALOUSY.  I want their houses, I want their hair, I want their clothes, I want my husband to be more like theirs.  Ahhhh, I hate it.  I just want to be happy with myself and sometimes I don't know if it will ever happen.  There are the obvious changes I can make; work out, eat better, save money, find a job that makes me feel less worthless.  All good things and reasonably easy.  There is also this............

magic happy pill?

I haven't been on an anti-depressant for a couple of months now.  Should I go back or stay on this path and hope that it eventually gets better especially if I add exercise and other changes to the mix.  I am kind of going for the latter because I know how hard it is to come off of those drugs and they never seem to be this magic happy pill for me anyway.  Maybe I should try the counseling thing again.  I don't know the last one I had was kind of kooky.  If it was quiet the silence was so painfully uncomfortable I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin. 

I hope someday I look back at this post and give myself a big hug and say wow, look how far you've come and you are so worth it Nicole.  I have no idea why you didn't feel worth all the great things in the world.  ~~~~ Besides the fact that I need to feel that, my kids need me to be strong and happy and positive.  Especially Jack.  I saw him with the regular pre-k kids last Friday for his Halloween party and that kid is already going to have it harder.  The least I can do is try and let that sad little 9 year old girl that I was go and look around me and see all the blessings that I have now. 

loose ends

 

Charley waiting patiently at post office

1. Yeah!! My passport is being processed finally!  John found a website to get my birth certificate from South Dakota and I finally went to the post office last week.  Fairly painless except for the $135 fee.  Ouch.  I'd rather buy something for the house for that price.  Not an ugly picture.  The only mistake I made was that I thought I had to bring 2 color photos of my own with me.  The directions just said "two recent color photographs"  hmm so I found a couple of me that weren't two fugly and had them print over at Walgreens in the wallet size.  I was so proud of myself for thinking they needed to be small.  So after going to walgreens to pick up ugly pictures of myself, Charley and I headed over to the post office and waited in line.  When it was our turn I handed over proudly my birth certificate, filled out paperwork, and photos.  Uh oh, wrong photos.  They have to be special passport photos.  So I loaded Charley back up and ran across the street to Meijers.  The girl takes my photo and tells me I can't smile and that my ears have to be showing.  What?  Why would my ears have to be showing?  But I pulled back my hair as much as I could and hoped that my chubby chipmunk cheeks wouldn't block my ears.  You could see a sliver of them in the finished photo.  Oh well, I thought hope that is enough ear for them.   So got back to post office and unloaded Charley to wait in line again.  Everything was golden, except when I asked about my ears he laughed and said he never heard of that.  Oh well, I will have ears in my passport photo but at least I should definitely have it by December.  Can you hear my huge sigh of relief?

 


2.  My sweet puppy has a new home :(  I wanted to keep her so badly, but a good friend of mine who is a dog groomer knew of a girl who was looking for a puppy.  It is a good match and my sweet puppy left last weekend for her new forever home.  I have to keep telling myself to think with my head and not heart.  We already have 2 dogs that are at times (a lot) a handful.  If we kept her it would just really add to our stress level.  We sure don't need that.  Ultimately it is the best thing for puppy, she gets to be spoiled in her new home and the best thing for the 2 dogs we already have.  Still sad though :(


3. Weight loss is unmentionable right now.  Nonexistent.  Hasn't happened.  I decided yesterday though to start a food diary and to really keep track of the calories I consume.  The weird thing was that writing things down and counting the calories made me want to eat more.  I am like a rebellious teenager when I try to take control of my eating.  There is this naughty part of me that just doesn't want to be controlled.  I don't know what would be better?  Like should I just make sure to exercise at least 5 days a week and just eat healthier and try not to obsess about it SO much.  I feel like the obsessing about every calorie and every pound I am not losing is just sabotaging me.  It sounds so easy but for some reason I just can't.  I haven't even been to the gym since the whole "runner's knee" thing.  My knees feel fine now, so there is no reason now to avoid the gym.


4. I can't think of anything else to tie up right now.  I am trying to spend more time reading because a.) I love reading and b.) I could really give up some of my computer and television time.   So I will tell you what I am reading right now and maybe it will spur me on to read faster so I can tell you if I liked it and then tell you about my next book.  Right now I am reading Orange is the New Black.  About a girl who was arrested on some minor drug charges and has to do time in a federal prison.  It is pretty good so far.  I am  reading it on my e-reader and for some reason it is taking me a lot longer than it would if it were a book I cold hold in my hands and turn actual pages.


That's it for now, Happy Halloween!  I will hopefully have some good pictures and stories to post from tonight.

 

 

Monday blues

Our week has started out kind of rough.  Normally we can get until at least Wednesday morning before the meltdowns start.  I don't know what it is but this kid HATES school.  As soon as you wake him up he starts yelling "no school today, it's Friday!" (he doesn't have school on Fridays)  It is heartbreaking to see his panic and extremely tiresome and frustrating.  He can't or won't articulate to me why he hates it so much.  It has been getting worse and it is only October :(  We had a home visit last Friday and his teacher said that he starts out the week pretty good but by Wednesday or Thursday he is kind of zoning out and having to get cued as to what to do more.  Ahhh so frustrating because we want him to do well and get the most out of this year.  I feel like this is our make or break it year as far can we get him in with the regular kids?  He is with them for most of the day right now but I am not sure how that is going yet.  Our meeting on Friday was with the Early Childhood teacher (special ed) and we don't meet with the regular kindergarten teacher until November 4th.  The testing that they have been doing so far this year shows him still way behind on his fine motor skills.  He's a little behind on the following directions part too.  My goal now is to make sure we work on something at home a few times a day.  Some days I think I get into lazy mode and just go about our normal routine without making sure he gets a little extra from me.  I have to remember that Jack is different and everything is going to take a little more from all of us.  I can't just auto pilot parent with him.  Obviously, he is struggling, I am sure that is why he doesn't want to go.  Jack has never liked being out of his comfort zone.  Me either for that matter.

Fall slides in

John and I had a money and budget talk this morning and tried to figure out just how many extra hours a week that I should be picking up at work to make all our ends meet.  Ahhhhh, it was not a fun talk.  No fun feelings afterwards either.   So since the day was a perfect fall day we decided to head out to Robinettes and get some hot apple cider and warm donuts.  They have the best.  They don't have their own pumpkin patch there so we left without pumpkins for today.  There is a local pumpkin patch that I will take the boys to next weekend.  I want them to have the experience of picking and choosing their own pumpkin.  Not just pointing at an odd shaped one in a box.  Jack was a little mad that we weren't leaving with any pumpkins.  I believe his exact words were "I'm going home with nothing!"  Oh poor baby.

Jack checking out the lay of the land

 

 

 

 

 

The ugly pumpkins are only $40 and we can talk about the unhappy looking kids

 

 Where are those donuts and cider you promised me.

There we go :)

 

Even he likes them

Hide your donuts from the big people

 

Uh-oh looks like a Speed sequel

 This driver looks a little devious

 poser

The end, off to grocery shop with 2 tired kids :)