26, grey, and loving it

Well hello again....

I have nearly forgotten about having this blog space....its been a few months since I've posted anything. With the Holidays nearing the time of the last known post, along came busy work schedules, some winter weather, and as the age old story goes....just life getting in the way of free time....

I have to say, in some small way I've done some little bits of maturing or growing the hell up in the past few months. That's not to sit here and say that I'm all higher and mightier than any other 26yr old woman out there; but I've slowed down and taken a reality pill. While my life is busy and at times i feel bombarded, distraught, and discombobulated, this is my life, I've made my bed and now I have to lie in it, I have to pick up the pieces of the puzzle and live it. And I'm OK with that. I'm actually satisfied with most of it. Happy about it even.

No one ever tells you what to expect life to give you other than to expect the unexpected. Welcome to my world. I live and breathe the job I have, and I genuinely enjoy the work I do, although I never expected to be making a living working for who I do, doing what I do in that company. I had dreams of making it big in the world of artistry, although lets face it, it hasn't happened and probably never will - again I'm OK with that, if not OK then happy. I never thought I'd be spending a Saturday afternoon sitting on a living room floor typing here while my toddler is napping, and my oldest playing games in the next room, with my husband off at work. Here again, and surprisingly, I'm happy, imagine that! Ha ha ha....

I've taken a good look in the mirror lately and am embracing who I've grown to be. I'm young and am greying early - its hereditary, and I've given up the thought (so far) of chopping off the length of Hair I have currently - even though short hair would be best with two kids in tow...however, I'm discovering a newer, if almost sultry side of myself. I've noticed that I try to make sure I look decent - yes even on the weekends when i would normally want to just sit in sweat pants and a t-shirt. I've gone and minimized what make-up if any I put on, and even have discovered new hair styling techniques to polish off the re-vitalized inner me. I dress the age that I feel, not the age that I am...because skinny jeans are not only just not my style, but i have my own style, and I don't care if it makes me appear slightly older than that of my actual age. It's a mature, sophisticated style, and I can use it at work, and it still looks good for outings with my family.

These things cannot be taught or found in a fashion magazine. They come with the experience of life, and a little bit of common sense. If you just try to be yourself and not what the current fad is, you just might surprise yourself.

I've also decided that its time i make time to do some writing as well as doing some artwork....I sat and thought about it and the last time i picked up a paint brush was literally just over a year ago. I think i need to spend some time doing some of those little hobbies again - and soon.....I've also decided I'm going to go to my lovely neighbor and ask him to teach me (if it's at all possible) to play guitar....

So my goal or belated resolution this year is: to stay true to myself, and strive to become the older, classier version of the person I've always been and will continue to be...Happy, slap-stick silly, humorous, thoughtful, insightful, respectful, intelligent, wistful, artistically ambitious, and driven to top off the small list. I wish more wives and moms would join me in this new adventurous ride to excepting the fact that we are getting older, so lets do it with some class ladies....because after all men just won't get it....they wait til they have a "Mid-Life Crisis" and go get their ears pierced like its some new bold statement...HA!

"They become a version of what you're training them to be - civilized human beings"

" Children are the Fabric of a Community "

I fell in love with this guy. It's statement is so true. Just thought I'd share. We saw this when we were leaving Robert up in DC for his chance of a life time experience - they had this statue in the courtyard where the children's dorms were located.

Shop-a-fobic-ism's.........a short story of what its like on Friday's with a Shopafobic

I hate shopping.

I loathe it, i hate the fact that when i go to the store to buy 1 gallon of milk I buy two or three, just in case I forget to get another one at the end of the week on my way home from work on a Friday when I'm battling the most ignorant and incompetent people on the planet who've been so stupidly granted the go ahead to get a License from a division of moronic vermin ( haha get it??) who are just as moronic as most of those they sign off to be free to roam the highways at 90 miles an hour, in stop and go traffic...anyways back to the milk - I know that by the end of the week I'll go through traffic and forget completely about a spare gallon of milk due to some fool in front of me who pisses me off and i get vengeful and refuse to let up thinking that I'm making he or she understand me while i sit in the same lane at a red light behind them, violently cursing up a storm and waving my arms in my car like a complete and utter idiot - i get so worked up over this incident that i make it all the way home - finally - only to realize that now i cannot start cooking dinner for my family because i got all pissy because someone cut me off - at least i thought they had at the time when it was more like i was in a rush and they cleared my car by like 20 feet......again this is one attempt at shopping.....for a gallon of milk.

So, now i have to pack my disgruntled self back into my hot car, because of course its still summer time here, and drag myself to the local store so that i can avoid Walmart where all the reaaaaalllll crazies are. I get to the store and go figure they're having one hell of an awesome sale - on everything I NEED....Efffing figures.....so now i tell myself ok, get the basket you can carry not the cart with wheels....and then i walk to the baskets and somehow when i look down i see my purse staring back up at me while i push it along and i instantly start regretting even leaving the house because i know where this is leading me.....

i look around and to my surprise i find that they have ketchup on sale, its a buy one get one type deal, so i grab four - ya know 4 for the price of 2 (when you go through as much ketchup or Chech-Up, as my lil one calls it, as we do then you'll understand the intense importance of the whole 4 for 2 deal....) i then glance up from my cart to see that coffee creamer is also on sale, so i grab one of those because i'm almost out. Next i happen to move out of some person's way, to find myself staring at the never ending aisle of cereals, knowing i'm out of that and will need it the next morning i grab a few of the bagged type because again i'm trying to be thrifty here, after all i only came to get milk.....then i make it to the milk lane and suddenly realize i'm out of eggs, so i bypass the milk and grab 2 things of eggs and oh look there's the bread. I end up doing a complete circle of two totally different aisles only to end right back at the milk. So i grab one gallon of milk and start to walk away and then stop - leave the cart and go grab just one more - again just in case i forget next week like i did this week all in an attempt to avoid this very scenario playing out before once more.....

The Check out lane

I hate this because i always go through the line laughing and care free and joke with the casiher i even use my handy dandy store savings card thingamabob and then it hits, like a mack truck...$88.02....for WHAT??? All i came here for was ONE gallon of milk!!!???!!!! What in the hell did i just buy?????

I have this sudden urge to want to punch and scream at the cashier like he's the idiot here, but i don't, i stand there having what feels like a heart attack, swipe my card and leave with the ever pissed off frustrated smile thinking to myself, those bastards!!! Those conniving advertising Moguls are ruining every trip i take to the store!!! How do they know i need all this stuff and know when to make great deals i apparently can't pass up!?!?!?! Damn their good, those S.O.B.'s need to share there handy little secret so i can tactfully use it against my kids some day.......

Then I go home, unload everything and realize that i just went through all of that stress for nothing. I am home with a bill of $88.02 and out of all that money spent, i still have nothing to make one complete meal....effing figures, its the story of my life....

Crap, my shoe just started talking to me, guess i have to go to Walmart anyways......

Kids - nuff said....or maybe not...

I must remind myself quite often that I have willingly chosen the life I currently have. I have no regrets and with all the ups and downs I wouldn't trade a day of this life I have with my family for anything. Well, I know i follow the aforementioned statement but I often find myself fighting the thoughts of a stress free life - not even stress free really just terrible 2 and pre-teen know it all-ism............free....

I love my kids with every ounce of my being, but damn it there are those days, moments, outings, or trips to Walmart for the umpteenth time, that reeeeeaaaaallllly make me stop and ask my inner self WTF is wrong with you woman?!?!?! You willingly Volunteered for this??????!!!!! I can bet my bottom dollar that almost every mother at one point has had this same or similar thought. If even only for a brief moment.

And then of course they bring you back to reality by doing something either so heinous that you immediately scoop them up and leave where ever it is you currently are or they try doing something so cute like smiling or hugging you in public when the see that you're about to open some whoop ass in about .. 2 seconds.... its amazing....

Everyone I meet when I'm kid free seems inevitably doomed to hear me chatter on and on about my kids. At first they don't hear the plural and then they ask how many kids I have and i say 2. This also brings on the pre-programmed question of how old the each are. Let me tell you something, i get the most odd and inquisitive looks when they hear the ages 11 and 2 1/2 ......some of the older mothers sit there and say oh lord sweet heart you've got the worst of both ends of the spectrum there - and i happily agree with this statement because it is true.

I love my two boys, they are extremely smart and extremely different. My eldest son can sit and watch TV for hours on end without so much as moving, my youngest - can't figure out how to sit still in a Highchair - let alone on a couch.

There are many other differences between them as well, one example is that my eldest is slightly more reserved and my youngest is definitely going to let you know he's present and accounted for - unless he wants to play hide and get mommy to chase me when she finds me.

All in all I'd have to say that at the end of the day when it gets all quiet - i almost can't stand the silence, as welcoming as it seems to most parents - by the time they're fast asleep, i find myself feeling almost as if I'm missing something.

Kids truly are the greatest gift ever made.

finding peace in passing on

I don't have very much to say tonight....today was a very long and stress filled doozey....

I awoke to my cell phone alarm clock at 5am...in preparation to have the gumption to get up and shower before running out of time getting my 2 yr old off to his first daycare day extravaganza....once i looked at my phone - and promptly disabled the alarm clock - i laid back down to "snooze"...

not even 15 minutes have elapsed and my phone goes off again - now I know I turned the damned thing off just moments ago.....

I have a text informing me that my Poppa (grandfather) has just literally passed away. It was so surreal - there really aren't any words to describe my moment of total relaxation/realization and relief combined with my husbands instantaneous "Baby I'm so sorry, are you going to be OK?" I replied to my husband with a "yeah i'll be fine; hey did i ever tell you that he sort of resembled captain luke bacard and popeye?" I think i threw him off with that last line.......but it fit the moment.....

It was a true moment of peaceful clarity. I didn't cry, at first, I responded to my aunt in Phoenix with an OK, thanks for letting me know. This has been a long drawn out painful 8 or so weeks, he had stage 4 untreatable cancer, and now he's gone, no longer in pain, and I'm OK with it.

I mentioned before that i hadn't cried at that peaceful moment, but i had the sudden urge to find a few pictures i had stashed away somewhere that i felt utterly compelled to share with my husband at 5 something in the morning....I cried because i thought I had lost them, but I finally found them, and shared with him the visual image of my Captain Luke Bacard(yes i know the spelling is probably off on that one) / Popeye descriptions of my Poppa in his Bright Red Leather Hiking boots. And then i cried a little more, but then i was done, I dropped off my son at daycare and nearly lost myself again seeing him standing there at the door window crying for me. But I didn't cry then either, i went all day at work with everyone telling me how sorry they were for me and hugs all around but i just felt almost zombie like. I went to work, didn't really speak to anyone unless i was spoken too, and came home.

I guess its just one of those surreal moments or days that might take a while to recover from, or maybe I'm just too busy as a wife and mother to take the time i need to, to just sit somewhere alone and have a damned good and lonnnnnng overdue cry session.....or maybe I've just been around too many boys and men that i have that whole, "pull it together and move on fast" attitude....whatever it is, i know this is just the start of a long winding road that i know will catch up with me sooner rather than later....i just hope that my eyes don't puff shut....that would be a real bitch to try and drive to work that way.....ha ha ha....

Optimistically Pessimistic.....

Suddenly I am realizing I'm not quite as young as I once was, for goodness sake i get tired at 7 at night these days - oh wait that's right, I have a 2 year old under foot, or rather hollering in every one's ears.....

I think that when we're young we set ourselves up for failure -but not completely or always in a bad way.

For example, I swore up and down that I was going to go to college and make something of myself - wrong answer.
            Did I attend  college, yes, very briefly and i managed to throw every academically praised part of me down the toilet. Why? Because my head wasn't where it should have been. Where was my head you ask? Well, to think and speak like an actual adult I'd have to admit it was square up my ass. Now, that's not to say that i regret anything I've done, because I don't. If I had succeeded where i realistically failed I don't think I'd have that oh so gorgeous 2 year old screaming in my ears at the moment.

I wouldn't have the job that I'm starting to really enjoy - and swore i never would - it was just a paycheck, now i look forward to going to MY desk every morning - well most mornings....and its not really a desk its a section of cubicles I share with two yummy guys and a very stinky coffee pot.....or is it two stinky guys and a yummy coffee pot?

But back to my point of Failure (if there ever was a point to this - maybe there was but I've lost it now). We as young kids group together and map out our great destiny and inevitably muff it up somewhere along the thin lines we never knew were there to begin with.

Moving on.....

We all said at one point in our young lives that we would never be like our parents....you can laugh here because I'm hear to tell you, we're spitting images of them all. And having to admit it the first time - oy vey - that takes a lot to swallow that kind of pride........

Have you ever been talking to someone or scolding your kids or folding clothes only to stop dead in your tracks and realize you're doing or Saying the SAME things your parents once did????

I've done this quite a few times myself, and the first time it happened it sort of freaked me out. Now, i just laugh because i can see my Nana laughing at my mother who's laughing at me and they each are standing there holding up all ten fingers and on occasion they hold up their feet to add more appendages...as in you get everything back to you 10 Fold......makes me want to scream when they do this mostly because i don't see them doing this - i hear them over the phone.....they each live 3,000 miles away from me.....which in turn makes my rants and raves to them, about how crazy my kids and husband are making me, that much more entertaining to them because they can sit there and wave their 10 folds around all they want to and i can't stop them......unless i hang up....

Man oh man i can't WAIT for my turn throw up them fingers to my boys and say "HA!!!!!! Now do you finally realize why i told you not to run around Walmart and whine incessantly over a video game 15 years ago?? It's embarrassing isn't it??!!!!"

The countdown to that glorious day began at birth.........

"its nature honey"

So I'm talking with the best and dearest friend of mine tonight about today's latest status, and she says to me (in regards to my grandfather who has cancer and is finally ending his struggle with it) in her own version of "its almost over he won't have to suffer anymore" by using our lovely realistic terms and humor - so anywho she says to me "just remember its nature hun".

to which i giggle and reply; "yeah that's nature - she sure is a bitch just like a whole lot of ex-wives"

This is how we speak to one another to help each other in our time of need or better yet the need to hear the other one's own version of "Words of Wisdom" - like we're even old enough to pass for that type of knowledge. We both have seen our fair share of shitty situations and the even shitty-er outcomes and kept our heads on our shoulders long enough to live thru it and tell the tail and pass on our own worldly advice to one another, probably better than even our own mothers - at times- ever could.

One of the greatest things about her is that no matter what, she has something that is truly ingenious to say.  Well at least that's how i see it. Needless to say our conversations - even 24hrs apart- seem to almost always last at minimum 3 to 4 hrs and when our husbands ask, "Hey who are you on the phone with" we tell them who it is, and even though the two men have never met they each reply in response "Ooooohhh well I'll say goodnight to you now then...." or "God i feel like I'm married to her too now sheesh"

Good friends are hard to find and even harder to keep.

We each have a different outlook on life and yet its still the same if that even makes any bit of sense. So right now I've set this page up to just get some relief much the same as she has, and i feel like I've sort of jipped her idea - but damn it, it was a good one......so thanks girl! I know you're reading this and laughing your ass off right now, so live it up as i aim to please with humor - you know i missed my calling.....keep reading as I can assure you from here on out my sign is going up out front - i see it in Pink - pink, pink, blink-ity pink and it says NO VACANCY....

yet the crazy shit just doesn't end ha ha ha!!!!!

i wonder what tomorrow will bring...........................................