The Value Of Me

I blast the blinking cursor of doom.
These days I am just not sure what to write about. Like most bloggers, I started this blog to connect to other people in my new position of a new mom and found myself in this great untainted territory.
My words meant something to me and that was all that mattered.
Now, well, I am not so sure. When I write about my current situation, I get myself more worked up, I get very emotional and I am not sure it is cathartic or torment.

I want to write about silly, non-meaningful things but sometimes I just don't have the heart to do so. It has my mind and heart wondering if my words mean anything anymore. This agony of the past 2 years of losing everything except my family has taken its toll.
The pain and unrelenting bad luck can be seen on my face, on my husband's face on our marriage, on our lives. I can't believe we have ended up here with no idea what to do next.
No idea where to go, when we will land jobs, where my kids will go to school or how to pay our bills.
Writing about our lack of, well, everything, has not been helpful to me. It makes me realize more how tired I am of being on the losing end of opportunity, what a terrible parent I think I am and how hard it is going to be to dig back out of this hole.
It makes me sick to my stomach on a daily basis.

I wonder if my hopes, faith and dreams don't make any difference, than just what value do my words have?

Vote!

You can vote once a day until 11/6, so I hope you please vote for me, tweet it or beg strangers like I am to vote for me to get this job:


Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

Thank you!

Things, Observed

Things I can't stop buying even though I don't need any more:
-cute hair clips/bows/ribbons for my daughter
-a good baby blanket
-slippers
-beach towels
-throw blankets

Things I have too much of but also can't get rid of:
-clothes my daughter has outgrown
-sarcasm
-grey hair
-scrunchies
-fat
-endless fear
-single socks just hoping that the match will magically show up.

Things I notice about NH:
-so this is where all the lesbians have been (loves it!)
-EVERYONE looks like they shop at LL Bean
-the edgy people shop at Lands' End
-they hate makeup here
-people like to stare
-enough with the personalized license plates already!
-nobody beeps their horn. Ever. Good when you cut someone off, not so good when you are trying to get the point across that you in fact do not change lanes while looking for lost coins on the floor of your car. Fuck it, I still beep.
-these things they call bagels? They are the distant cousin of a roll. Not even close people.

Things that I just cannot do no matter how hard I try:
-meditate. I mean how do you turn off your brain?
-poop on vacation or out of my area of comfort (anywhere but home. shhh)
-sit on a public toilet seat
-a back bend, past the age of 20. It would make a great sex trick.
-pick up the phone without checking the caller ID
-knit anything other than a rudimentary scarf, dishcloth or hot plate.

Planning

I am a planner.
I like to make plans and lists. I like to know what I am going to serve for Christmas dinner in October.
I worry about what birthday gifts would be perfect for my kids months before their birthday.
I like to know where I am going to be, how long I will be there and exactly what route to take to get home.

The past few years have tested my planning capabilities. It is hard to plan for Christmas dinner if you don't know where you will be, or how much money you will have to spend for food that week.
It has tested my patience and my faith.

I decided when we moved to NH that I will reinvent myself. I would lose my bad habits and be open to change.
Change is usually not a word in my vocabulary. I hate change.
I made a pact with myself to do things that were outside of my comfort zone once a month. I have kept that promise to myself did so by doing things like joining a MOMs group here, jumping off a 25 foot cliff in Colorado, going to a blog event without knowing anyone and putting myself out there more.

Still, I feel unsure of myself and my life. There is something to be said about letting life take you away without any plans but I think that is a life better suited for single people. When you have kids you have to plan.

I have no idea why life is testing my faith, marriage, trust and children this way. Still I am open to what is to come, even though that comes with deep sadness and complete fear of the unknown.

Ghostly Encounters

Well, I think it goes without saying that I need some cheering up.
I have always liked Halloween but now that I am a parent it has renewed my love for this holiday and everything scary.
I have always loved scary movies and books and I am obsessed with ghost stories.

I have no real experience with ghosts although one time we were staying at a rental property at the beach for a few days with our kids. When we pulled up to the old house my then 4 year old son asked me whose house this was.
I told him it was the house we were going to be staying in.
Then he asked who the girl in the window was, and when I looked nobody was there.
Creepy!

Tell me your ghost encounters or stories and amuse me.
Please? Don't make me beg!

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

You Would Think Maybe Once I would Have Good News For You

You would think that maybe, I would have good news for you. But you would be wrong.
The rinky dink job E took just so we can squeak by? The one that was a 50% pay cut? The one we were thankful to have because at least we had health insurance?
They laid E off today BY FED EX!!!!!!!! They can't pay him anymore so they let him go.

I swear life keeps getting better.

Please if anyone has any connection with pharma sales on the east coast let me know!

Please vote everyday.

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

My Six Year Old Son

My son L is one of the three sweetest gifts I have ever received.
Sure he is a rooster and wakes at the crack of dawn every day of his life since birth. Even though he awakes before any person on Earth should be upright and have to function, he does so with a smile. He never wakes up grumpy or cranky. He finds beauty in the mundane telling me "how beautiful the sky looks" at age 3.

L is sweet to everyone, a love. He gets very worried when I am sad or upset. He is worried that he was the one to disappoint me. He is the most sensitive of all my children. He will cry over a mistake he made on a drawing, or gets frustrated with himself if he doesn't remember how much a dime is worth or can't read a word.
We try and be patient we tell him that everyone makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect.

Last Christmas we gave the kids each $5 to buy the other and E and I a gift at the holiday gift sale at school. Christmas morning he presented me and his twin sister R, with a box. He picked out a single red rose for R, something he knew she would like (and she did. For me he picked out a gold ring with a blue stone set in the middle.
"Because blue is your favorite color" he told me. I cried, I was so proud of this thoughful, loving, kind boy of mine.
This sweet son of mine picked out such a lovely gift for me and his sister.


When we went back to NJ for my grandfather's funeral, he promised he would write one of my cousins, that they would become pen pals. Today he wrote his first letter to his cousin, a little note thanking him for writing and that he loved him. On the back of his letter he wrote something I have to remember more often, something I vow to remember in the sunlight but sometimes in the darkness I forget.
He wrote: Life is good.

Yes son it is, it can be very good.




Please remember to vote for me everyday here.