Be it resolved...

I don't think that anyone in my office is actually doing any work today. On top of that, we're all waiting for our supervisor to send out his usual pre-holiday last- minute- excuse- for- why- I -have- to- leave- for- the- day email. Like he's really fooling anyone. How coincindental that these things always come up either on days when we're getting bad weather and the roads are awful, or the day before a holiday. But whatever.

The problem with the timing of W.T.'s birth is that I went out on maternity leave a week before Christmas in 2003, and was off until mid-February 2004. I was off work during the entire holiday season that year and LOVED it. It spoiled me. Not being able to take extra time off at the holidays (because let's face it, my vacation days are LONG gone by the end of the year!) has added to my normal holiday grumpiness these last 2 years. Thus my inability to concentrate on my work today. Boredom with my job is contributing to this, also, but that's another post.

So I am sitting here today, trying to look busy but really contemplating the upcoming new year, and of course along with that comes the new year's resolutions. I've never been too hip on the resolutions. I, like everyone else, has made the commitment to lose weight, exercise, etc at the beginning of the year and have never followed through, which inevitably leads to guilt over the fact that I have once again failed, blah, blah, blah. You get my drift. This year, I'm setting my sights on what hopefully are some more realistic things...

1) I will do my best to be more thankful for what I have, rather than being upset about what I want but don't have. I will choose to have a more positive attitude about and outlook on things.

2) I will take care of myself, because I'm worth taking care of. I will (most of the time) be more careful about what I eat. I will make time for myself because I'm worth making time for.

3) I will stop blaming my husband for the things in my life that I'm not satisfied with.

4) I will look up recipes for the wonderful dishes I see being made on the Food Network and try one new dish each month. I will plant herbs in pots and put them on my kitchen windowsill so that I have fresh herbs for these spectacular dishes.

5) I will make time to read again. Before W.T. came along, I read voraciously. I consumed books from the library, and our shelves at home were stuffed to overflowing with fiction and non-fiction alike. Since W.T. came along, there just hasn't been the time... or the inclination. By the end of the day, I am so tired both mentally and physically that opening a book is the last thing I want to do. At the same time, though, I miss it desperately and often long to have a free hour, or even 1/2 hour, to just sit and lose myself in a book.

6) I will turn on the television less, and turn on the radio more, and dance with W.T. in the living room, and enjoy my son before he gets to an age where he doesn't want to be around mommy any longer.

7) I will, in a nutshell, do my best to enjoy my life more, because really it's not a bad life when you really look at it.

Wish me luck...

Another Christmas come and gone. And I've decided that I truly am the most ungrateful person walking on the Earth right now. But, in my defense...

Each year for K's side of the family, we are required to create and exchange Christmas 'wish lists' of things we'd like to receive as gifts. EVERYONE must make a list. And if you buy something from someone's list that they would only want ONE of, you must notify everyone else IMMEDIATELY so that there's no duplication of gifts. You'd think we were coordinating a NASA lift-off each December.

So K and I agonize over our lists, and W's, because we have to turn in one for him also. Not too much, not too little. Not too expensive, not too cheap. Easily accessible. We've done this since the first Christmas that K and I were together. Almost 10 years.

And I kid you not, we have YET to get ANYTHING that we've EVER put on a list. Some years, the gifts have come close (take, for instance, Christmas 2004 when I asked for 'Finding Nemo' on DVD but got 'Shrek 2'... both animated DVD's, so at least we were in the ballpark...), but it's never been exact.

I have to say, I think this year was the worst, though. And this is what makes me feel ungrateful. Because I will be honest... the St Vincent DePaul society will be at our house early Friday morning to collect items we want to donate, and more than one of these things we got Sunday will be in the box we set out for them...

So, on my list this year I asked for...

*the Dave Matthews Band 'Weekend on the Rocks' 2cd/1dvd box set (at Walmart for $18.99)
*Patricia Cornwell's latest in the Kay Scarpetta series, Predator. Or a gift certificate to a bookstore (let me digress for a moment, because I feel it's important to point out that MY BROTHER-IN-LAW WORKS FOR BARNES & NOBLE)
*a gift certificate for Bath & Body Works (because you an never have too much smelly stuff for the shower)
*a coffee grinder (to use to grind spices, as I am not a coffee drinker)
*a subscription to either 'Southern Living' or 'Martha Stewart Living' magazine (I love the recipes)

... and I got

*a watch - I've already got 3 that I don't wear, and as I was opening it I saw my sister-in-law pull the Patricia Cornwell from a gift bag
*slippers that vibrate (yes, vibrate), that don't fit
*a tub of 'body butter' that smells like the air freshener in a gas station restroom

Obviously, I set my expectations too high. Next year I'm going to ask for 'Dorf on Fishing' and see what it gets me...

From our house to yours...

Peace and joy to you and your family during the holiday season and into the new year!

Found this on a site that a fellow blogger/friend mentioned in one of her recent posts. Has this man been peeping through my bedroom window for the last few years???

MESSAGE TO
sadge

If it weren’t so maddening it would be laughable. It is in fact absolutely, ridiculously ironic that so many people thnk you are at the strongest most powerful point of your whole life, and that you have it all totally together, when they have no idea how close to the edge you have been over the last few years. Personal, financial, even physical issues have worn you down nearly to a nub and have all but extinguished the life you were living ten years ago. So, if you are slightly unavailable these days, and if you seem now and then to be exploding a few kiltons of primitive rage, well, pardon your Pluto, but until someone experiences a transit of Pluto through their sign, they have no idea of what it’s like. It’s odd, too, the more you withdraw and withhold, the more appealing you are, and that’s got to speak volumes about what people find attractive in others. Now, with Mars going forward in your solar sixth house, working to stay healthy and working to earn money are the major tasks to renew your energy. Projects you may have begun last summer may start to percolate again Will, in fact, begin to cook big time and it is this sort of disciplined energy that will ignite you mentally and emotionally. You will be dealing with a very gung-ho guy at the job site who will light a fire under you and get you to produce.

Wow....................................

I have not posted in a while, quite frankly, because I have nothing good to say. My mood has been black and foul, and there aren't prospects that it will get better any time soon.

I have ZERO Christmas spirit this year. None at all. Zilch. Zip. Nada. It could possibly even be a negative number if there was a scoring chart for something like this. I just don't have the energy for it this year. We have no decorations up. No tree, no wreath on the door, no stockings hung with care. I've thrown away most of the cards we've gotten after looking at them, and haven't sent out a single one. I think K is very disappointed by all this. I know he wanted a tree up for W.T. (although at 2 W.T. is not going to remember it, so what's the big deal?), but I don't see him taking the initiative to get the boxes down from above the cabinets in the garage and re-arranging things in the living room to accomplish all this. I almost said this to him the other day when all this came up, but kept my mouth shut instead. Choose your battles.

I am spiteful and bitter this year. Christmas is about family, but I have none... at least that's the way it feels. Both of my parents are gone now, and my brother might as well be. I've had two 10-minute conversations with him since my dad died back in May. He didn't come up while my dad was in the hospital. He didn't help plan the memorial service (but made himself look very good by giving a little speech during it about what all he'd learned from my dad... yeah, right). He didn't come up in August when we buried my dad's ashes on a very rainy Saturday morning. It was just me and K and the man from cemetery office, holding umbrellas and watching the groundsman do their job. He didn't call on my birthday last month, either, or send a card. And of course I can't help but wonder if it's something that I've done that has made him this way; made him shut me out. And yes, I've asked, and practically pleaded in emails, and apologized when there's nothing to apologize for... and he's acknowledged none of it.

I've done the Christmas shopping and gotten the presents for my in-laws, not because I have the desire to give them presents but because this is what's expected. And I'll go to my father-in-laws house on Christmas day and eat and open presents and put on a good show, when I'd really rather be at home watching QVC. But I really just don't see the point of it all, at least not this year, because the holidays are about spending time with your family, but if you don't really have any family then why bother? Now I know, I know... I have my son and my husband, and my in-laws (God help me), and close friends that are very much like family... but it's just not the same. It's not the same as the family that you grew up with... the family that all of your history comes from. Or at least it doesn't feel the same. It feels lonely and isolated. I feel like I've been slapped in the face one too many times. I feel like I'm the last man standing.

Right now this feels like a hurt that I'll never get over, and I don't like that. I don't like feeling so bitter and beaten-down by life at such a young age. But what do you do? When does the sting go away? Maybe someone could take a look in their Magic 8 ball for me and let me know...

You'll only feel a little prick...

Well smack my ass and call me Judy...

Having the type II (non-insulin dependent) Diabetes requires that I see my doctor every three months to have blood drawn. They check the fasting blood sugar (reading first thing in the morning before you've eaten anything) and the hA1C (a kind-of 3 month average of what your blood sugar level has been) among other things like cholesterol and all that. I hate this. I hate waiting to talk to the doctor so he can write up a slip to give to the lab tech so I can a little longer for her to draw my blood. I hate that they always have to draw the blood from the back of my hand instead of my arm, because the veins in my arms always roll when they try to get the needle in. And I hate the inevitable phone call from the doctor's office to schedule an appointment for me to discuss the results with the doctor. I've done this for 3 years now. I should be used to it. But it still irritates me.

I found out I was diabetic about 9 months or so before I got pregnant. When you're diabetic and you're pregnant, you're high risk right out of the gate. For me, this meant 2-3 times the number of normal doctor's appointments, checking my blood sugar 4-times everyday, giving myself an insulin injection ever evening, watching zealously everything that I ate, calling my doctor's office twice each week to report my blood sugar readings, and on and on and on. By the last 5 weeks or so of my pregnancy, I was going to the doctor - no joke - twice a week. It was EXHAUSTING.

Once he was born, I couldn't help but thing 'Oh heavenly day!! I can eat without worrying about what it's doing to the little creature growing inside me!!' and I went a little nuts (I'm even craving a Kit-Kat as I sit writing this...). I thought I'd give myself a month or two of a little freedom, because I'd earned it, hadn't I? K would get on me about being too hard on myself and worrying too much about what my readings were. I love him with all my heart, but he'll never understand the feeling of being completely, utterly responsible for a living being that's growing inside of you. And knowing that if this baby is born with problems because you didn't keep yourself in check, that it's your fault. I have enough guilt... I should be Catholic I have so much guilt... I don't need anymore. Of course, then, a month or two turned into 6, which turned into 12, and now here we are almost 2 years later. And the end result of my month or two of freedom is that the results of last week's bloodwork were SO bad that the doctor has put me back on a daily insulin shot until it's under control.

I was livid when I left the doctor's office.

I don't care what anyone says, it fucking hurts to stick YOURSELF with a needle, no matter how big or small it is.

At least I got a cool, new, state-of-the-art injection 'pen' to use instead of having to measure the insulin into syringes and tap out the air-bubbles like I did while pregnant. But I won't even go into what I had to go through to get the prescription filled (trips to 3 different pharmacies plus a return phone call AND visit to the doctor's office).

Of course, K says it will all be okay... as he cringes while watching me give myself the injection in my stomach.

I have no one but myself to blame for all this... and that only makes it worse. But K says he's going to 'get healthy' with me this time. We'll see. Back to scouring the cookbooks for healthy recipes that don't take too much effort and that he'll eat. Back to the treadmill in the corner of the living room, unless I want to dance along to the Wiggles with W.T.

Serenity now... serenity now... serenity now...