Busy busy

As always we are busy busy. We had my father's birthday party this weekend and had 30 people over the house!!! We had a buffet dinner and we ended up with 6 cookie trays. Do these people not know that my jeans are already way too tight? That's okay, I am still very grateful for the cookies as I have brought them to work and now everyone is my friend.  It also means that I have been eating cookies for breakfast, and as a dessert after lunch, and a snack after supper and they have also been making their way into our room before bed. This means that I have had to stray from my diet of  potato chips right before bed, but that's okay. I'll get right on track once the cookies are gone.
My father had a wonderful time at his party and we truly surprised him with everyone that we invited. I think I surprised everyone for that matter. Thank you dear Jesse for all of your sound advice. My husband is so very smart and not emotionally attached to anything which makes him one of the only rational and sensible people on the planet. He is also a wonderful party planner.
My cousin came and I finally got to meet her two boys! She also brought her camera as she is a part time professional photographer and she got some wonderful shots of my dad and my children which I will add later. Fiona was so helpful as she gave all my cousins tours of our house including showing everyone all of our closets. She is so very glad to show everyone where we hide everything.
The highlight for me was seeing my Aunt Viola, my mother's sister, whom I have not seen in over 10 years. She was a riot and even climbed up to the third floor (she is 81 or so) while Fiona gave her a tour. It made me miss my mother.
Well, back to work. I have to grab a cookie before my lunch break is over.

Tired

I am just plain tired. Tired of snow, winter, cold, driving, working, getting things wrong. not seeing the big picture, not noticing enough details. working.  Okay so I said working twice. It is all that I am doing. Working. Working at letting things go. Working at building things up. Working at  doing "Gods work".  Working at doing my best at each moment I am alive. Working at keeping my awareness. Working at being a mother to 5 completely different individuals that need totally different things from me all at the same time.  Working at being a supportive, loving wife and all around best friend. Working at typing and let's not forget really working on grammar.
I tell myself breathe. I do. I breathe. It is a moment. And life is full of so many of them, thank goodness. But many, lately, are flying by at an amazing rate and I feel like I can't do any of it right. It's all half assed. I hate being a half ass but that is all I can do right now. I just hope it stops. Someday.
Off to get 5.5 hours of interrupted sleep.

It's all good. I've got love. I've got many people to share my love with. I've got food and so do my loved ones. I've got shelter and so do my loved ones. I am fairly healthy (physically anyway, let's not talk about mentally) and so are my loved ones. We have food, Lots actually. Especially since Jesse went shopping for my father's party. There are even homemade chocolate chip cookies downstairs.  What is wrong with that?

Let it go. Love what you got. Breathe.

Amen.

This winter has been insane with the amount of snow we have gotten.  For the month of January, Connecticut got almost 4 feet of snow.  That means I now hate snow. Well, I hate driving in snow. I have always hating driving in snow. Well, except for making donuts in the snow. 

My normal commute takes me 45 minutes on a good day. Lately it takes me well over an hour to get to work and today I couldn't even get out of the city because the ice was building up on my windshield wiper blades and I had to keep stopping to clean them off.  I figured that was okay in town, but not safe if I had to stop on the highway. 

So I took the day off. However, the good catholic in me still feels the guilt. Like I am not doing my best or something??? Let it go girl. 

We are going to be celebrating my father's 82nd birthday this weekend. We are having a party at my house and there should be about 30 people all together. I am very excited to finally have my family over. I really like my house. It's beautiful and wonderful and huge and really really pretty. The thing is, it feels more like home when the house is full of people. So I like having parties and inviting people over.  I never knew it before because we didn't have room. Now we got LOTS of room.  We have had lots of parties too. Now it is my turn to host. My family, from both my my mother and my fathers side and almost all my siblings. I haven't seen some of these people for many,many years. 

It is interesting since most of my interactions with these people has been as a child. It is has been so long, that part of me still sees them from that child point of view, even though I am a 35 year old mother of 5. I was always referred to as the baby. I am the youngest of 5 and my parents were in their mid-forties when they had me. It was as if I was some sort of anomaly and the rest of my siblings were the normal family. There is a 9 year difference between my closest sibling and me, 20 years between my oldest sibling and me. I know there is something about birth order and how the gap of a few years between children can somewhat start the birth order over, but I am not quite sure how it would apply to me. My high school psychology teacher once referred to me as the "passionfruit" of my parents marriage.  Perhaps.

to begin again

The end of December 2010 I began to feel antsy. Bored and searching for something along the lines of a distraction or a little snack for my mind. That's when I found Babbles list of  Top 50 Mom Blogs.

I have been missing hanging with other mothers. Most of the people I work with are not moms so there isn't anyone to share my most important experiences with. There is always my lovely husband, but we always share. I want unadulterated Mom talk. The kind that is honest, questioning, observant, and true of themselves. This Blog list is an avenue to it. I have only read portions of about 15 blogs, and I feel as if a door has opened up that I closed long ago. That maybe this struggle of love, growth, and sleeplessness is not just for our children's sake, but for the sake of our American society as a whole.  Children growing up in families that encourage awareness of themselves and those around them. Not to keep them in constant doubt, but to keep them on the track of gratefulness and wonder. Seeing what really matters, the small stuff.

So here I am, back at my blog. Remebering to give voice to that Mother in me that I have been working on for the past 16 years and counting.

Thank you Babble.

Our newest family member

I'd like to introduce to you our newest family member. This is Bluebell, our new Dyson vacuum cleaner. She was asked to become part of our family because of the need for a performance vacuum cleaner, meaning one that actually sucks up particles on varying floor surfaces instead of just pushing them around. She cost a lot of money, over $400, and, yes it is just a vacuum cleaner. We look at it as something like the Lexus of vacuum cleaners.
  It has a 5 year warranty and a list of features that make cleaning up after 7 people and a rough collie, a lot easier. We have bought 4 vacuums in the past 9 year and all were very clumsy and didn't always perform up to par. The bag was constantly full, belts always needed replacing, and after every use,  we had to dismantle it to clean off the rotating brush. Never mind the incident where the vacuum actually sucked a large clump of hair off of the head of my daughter! I have been eying a Dyson for some time now. Ever since I stayed home with 3 and then 4 children and had to vacuum every day so that little crawling babies wouldn't try and eat all the little things left on the floor from the days events. Not to mention, the dog hair! Yuck!
      Bluebell (my affectionate pet name- I feel like if I give her I nice name and treat her right, she will be kind to us and last a long time:)) has a canister to empty and filters that need cleaning on a monthly basis. However, this baby is very lightweight, so much so that the 5 year old can pick it up and can help with the vacuuming. It is also extremely easy to maneuver around anything and gets into the corners and nook and crannies that no other vacuum could. There is a wonderful extension wand for getting the stairs and all those other hard to reach places that is lightweight and very effective. It  sucks up all the stuff our other vacuum never seemed to get. It is also small that it hides easily in our closet, which in our tiny house with only 2 closets, is a big selling point. There are 2 down sides other than the price tag- 1- emptying the container after every room  and 2- the cord isn't as flexible as others I have used.
So Welcome Bluebell! May you be with us for many many years to come!

The places I find myself

I don't know how it happens, but whenever I get a job, I usually find myself in a cubicle making lots of calls to people I don't know and leaving voice mails for potential sales opportunities. I don't particularly find it easy or fun, but for over 9 years on and off, this is what I end up doing as work. Mind you, it does pay the bills and, again, it is one of the only ways to make enough money for a family when you don't have any special talents or a degree of some sort. Still, it is amazing the limits that I put upon myself time and time again. Yes, I sit in traffic an average of 80 minutes a day. Yes, I sit on my butt all day and have gained a ton of weight and have now what you call the secretary butt. Yes, I wait for someone to tell me what tasks need to be done and then, like a good cube worker, efficiently finish the task. I find that most days I am asking myself, just like Michael Byrne from Talking Heads, "Well, how did I get here?".
I am a somewhat educated woman with a good head on her shoulders and a very good (an ever improving) work ethic. What ever happened to my imagination? It is still the best way to play with my kids. Weather we are Care Bears in Care a Lot or Pirates in a flying ship, we always play pretend at home. What does it say of me, as a mother even, to encourage my kids and say you can do just about anything you want to do, yet here I am slogging away, gaining weight and searching for meaning in my work.
I could blame my plain as mayonnaise on white bread upbringing. I could blame years of public schooling that sucked the creativity and life out of me. I could blame a society that encourages "cube working" from the rich on down. "You can't be a dancer, that doesn't make any money.Never mind the competition. You need money." So here I sit in my gray cube.
Still, even if I wanted to do something else, I wouldn't know where to begin. I can't even tell you what exactly I would want to do, never mind what I do well. People seem to have these passions about things. Baking, fixing things, helping people, writing.
When I think about it, the only thing I am at all passionate about it to do God's work and to do it whole heartedly. Whatever the Universe decides that it is. Perhaps that is what I am doing. But it sure gets boring!

Vital

There are some things that this over emotional mother has learned I can't function well without.
#1- Coffee The best legal over the counter drug that comes to me hot, sweet and creamy. In New England, there is no other way to wake up early in the morning and work when the weather is 0 degrees and the landscape is barren and gray. (Missing our North Carolina days now). It also helps me navigate the rocky mountains of my ever gushing emotions by never letting them get to the surface. Thoughts are racing and there is no time to get carried away with feelings when there is work to be done.
#2- Chocolate- Nothing is as grounding and soothing as chocolate. Good chocolate- well medium good chocolate. We can't quite afford that great stuff, even the good stuff is expensive. But when you think of the savings from skipping breakfast and lunch, it isn't a problem! The chocolate I am currently enjoying, thanks to friends and family, are Lindt Truffles. Not those fruit filled ones, those are for my daughter. The chocolate filled ones are my vice at the moment. How do they make that creamy yet unspreadable stuff in the centers? There is a variety pack that contains, white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, very dark chocolate and chocolate with peanut butter. One for every mood! Heaven in a bag.
#3- The last thing on my list isn't a tangible object, but an experience I let myself have. A good cry. This doesn't have to be on a daily basis. However, I do notice that when life is full of, well, life, I get a back up of sorrow, sadness, grief, anger and helplessness (this girl knows her emotions). Once I let the gates open and the tears go, the waves flow through me and I can express all those painful emotions that I have been pushing around for a while. It is a selfish expression of my ego. Why me, why this, why that.....? It lets me give voice to the fears and anger of living a life without complete attachment to the things around me. After all, you can't take it with you and this form is only temporary.