Surviving the Domestic Jungle

Today was another record breaking hot day. I’m losing what little patience I have. I need the outdoors! I have to be able to walk!! I cannot commit to work out. I have 2 DVDs all brand new and shiny in their wrapping and couldn’t give a crap about opening them. I need to be outside to exercise and I cant go outside when I may be boiled to death. 111 degrees today! I am not walking in that! At 7:30pm it was 107. I may make it one block before I was soaked in sweat and dead in the street. I am getting a little stir crazy. I honestly don’t know how much more I can take of high heat, no water nonsense. I constantly fantasize about autumn temperatures (in a normal climate like ANYWHERE but here) and snow at Christmas. I wish I was mother nature for a day because boy would I whip this place into shape! Sure living in the south has its perks but I am failing to see them at this point. Warm weather is not good when it is too hot to enjoy! I am as white as the arctic snow because I rarely go outside except to walk to and from my car or at night. I told my husband that when my car thermometer thing hit 120 degrees, I was packing up the kids and leaving. It reached 119 degrees the other day and secretly I am hoping it reaches 120 because I will have a nervous breakdown! Who needs to cook in their kitchen….Just cook your food in the street or perhaps on the hood of your car! I could bake bread outside! GRRRR ok moving on! Just had to vent…..

I hate hate hate hate hate to be alone at night. When my husband is gone, I am a crazy lady pacing the house all hours of the night freaked out. I don’t know what the hell my problem is but I am so scared to be alone..with the kids. It just makes me feel so vulnerable. I don’t know how much of a fight it would be for a man to take on a woman and her three small children. It gives me the creeps just talking about it. It scares me so badly. Thankfully he is home now and I feel much better. I haven’t slept much in three days and I know I will sleep like a baby tonight! I don’t mind being alone during the day, it is just the night. I wonder if as a woman I am programmed to feel terrified without a man around to protect me. Then again, breaking into a Texas home is a real risk considering how many people have multiple guns in their homes. One of my brother’s is an avid hunter and I couldn’t even tell you how many guns he has but it is a considerable amount! I dare someone to break into his house!!! My other brother has a dog so big it can look you in the eye. Im not kidding. It is enormous. It looks like a polar bear! It’s because of my intense fear that I absolutely refuse to watch scary movies, murder shows or even the news. The whole bank robbery thing made me even more paranoid and I would never have even known about it had I not had to go to the bank. I wonder if they even found the guy……Either way, I am so happy my husband is home!

Today the kids and I went to Walgreens to get a few things. Outside in the record breaking heat was a little boyscout trying to sell his popcorn. I told him thank you but no when he offered me some and when I got inside, the guilt set in. I don’t carry cash and it is extremely rare that I even have a dollar on me. I think most people are that way. Carrying cash is basically a pain in the butt when you could just have your debit card. While I was inside the store, I decided I would get some cash back and buy something from the little boy. Anyone who is willing to sell popcorn in this heat (and  not benefit!) is a worthwhile person and I wanted to help him out. I got ten bucks and when I got to the little popcorn stand, I realized that my charitable act was actually making me look like a cheapskate. We grabbed the cheapest bag of popcorn ( ten bucks) and left. As I drove away I felt so sorry for these kids that have to peddle cookies and popcorn for what? The kids shouldn’t be selling crap for an organization in this heat or door to door. It is not safe anymore. I would not let my daughter sell the cookies or whatever it was they sent home from her school last year. I understand why it is done but using the kids is just not cool in my opinion. How about the jerk offs in the higher up positions come and sell popcorn with that little boy when it is 110 degrees out! By purchasing that bag of popcorn, I helped the Boy Scouts Of America exploit that little boy but at the same time, he wants to do it and he felt good when we bought from him. Oh the inner conflict! Yes it is just stupid popcorn but it just goes so much deeper in my over analytical opinion!

I am hibernating in the house today due to the fact that today’s weather is going to be record breaking hot yet again. It is getting to be bothersome. I mean, it has always been bothersome but now I am getting worried. Someone posted on Facebook that we need to keep an eye out for snakes because they are coming out looking for water. If I see a snake, I will never leave the house again. I am not kidding! I hate a snake! I think they should all be belts or boots! I wish we could have just one day of rain. Even the tail end of a hurricane would be good. It’s just too dangerous for my kids to go outside for longer than it takes to walk to the car. By that time my daughters cheeks are bright red. I am so sick and tired of this. I feel like I have cabin fever. While I am not the most outdoorsy girl on earth, I do like to go outside and walk and walk for hours. Thats what I miss the most. Before we moved here, the girls and I walked every day. We are supposed to be conserving our energy so we have turned off all the lights and Im only going to do one load of laundry. I have been thinking that after the girls take a bath, I might take the water from the tub and dump it on the grass. Maybe the soap will kill the already brown grass but Im guessing the fact that its brown may mean that it is already dead! I could use some snow right about now.

Sometimes I struggle with my posts and having something reader worthy to say. Tonight I am at a loss but I am in a good routine of blogging a few times a day and I don’t want to stop. I could talk about so many things but nothing really seems all that interesting. One thing I do want to say is I watched Friends With Benefits today with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake and it was pretty good and further evidence that friends with benefits does not work. It may start out that way but 99.9% of the time ends badly. I think calling someone a ‘friend with benefits’ should just be called ‘I cant commit to you because what if there is something better out there.’ That’s basically all it is. Wanting to have your cake and to eat it to. My husband is my friend (my best friend) and we benefit from time to time! I wouldn’t want it any other way. I could understand how in theory being used for sex could be fun but ultimately chances are very high that feelings will arise, if they weren’t there from the start that is. Men are one step above apes and way better at not caring about who they…benefit with. Although, some men are very emotional and develop the feelings. Either way, you are setting yourself up for disaster. Chances are very high you will lose your friend and get hurt. This world is full of people willing to have sex anywhere, anytime and with anybody so why risk your friendships? Then again there is the argument that men and women cant be friends. I think having a successful opposite friendship is way more likely than friends with benefits ending well. I have never had a friend with benefits in the traditional sense but I have had many male friends I would never ever sleep with so who knows. Maybe I am wrong but in my little opinion, it just seems unlikely that it would end well.

When it rains, it pours! First with the earthquake, which how often has that happened,  and now with a monster of a hurricane and then my local bank got robbed! Things are a little crazy at the moment but the thing I worry about the most is the hurricane. I have been thorough a few and they are NOT fun. You can feel it in your body. The pressure in the air is insane. The whole experience is actually quite terrifying. While it seems all exciting with all the media coverage and hype, it is actually extremely dangerous. Once you make it through the storm, you are not remotely done with dealing with the effects of the hurricane. Power outages, flooding! Ugh those poor people in the northeast have a monster headed their way and I don’t know how prepared they are as it is rare for that area. I am actually quite worried for them. On top of mother nature being a grouchy bitch recently, my bank was robbed today. Who robs banks??? Why even bother? You will get caught and how much money do banks have anyway? Everything is electronic now so its not like they have a bazillion dollars in the back. What a day! Just some serious drama going on. I hope my neighbors to the north are getting to safety and taking this seriously!

What do you think is more feared….Failure or Success? I am going to assume failure for the obvious reasons. With failure comes disappointment and perhaps even a blow to the ever fragile ego. After thinking about it for a minute, I realized that success may be the scarier of the two options. Once you achieve success the hard part starts; maintaining it. We all know that what goes up, must come down at some point and once you have reached the top success wise, the only options left are to get even more successful, maintain your success or to completely lose it. At least when you fail, you can pick yourself up and try again and there is something noble about being brave enough to continue even with obstacles. Those who fall from success, from what I have seen, completely freak out. Not all, but some….I suppose that is because once you have reached success you start to buy stuff; the house, the car, the trips, the clothes etc. Once the money is gone, all that stuff is gone as well and so not only has achieving success and subsequently losing it affect your professional life, it can cripple your personal. You cant fear the what ifs when it comes to success. All you can do is squirrel away a little money for if it doesn’t work out because ultimately a lot of stuff doesn’t work out. I guess I wouldn’t fear failure or success as they both have positives whether it be seeing your hard work paying off or learning from your mistakes. I fear not trying for either. If I never try for anything, noting will ever happen and what’s the fun in that! Sometimes you fail and sometimes you succeed but at least you made an effort and put yourself out there.

Love is never as fabulous as it is in the movies. Movies really set us up for failure by presenting such romantic notions and happy tales. The thing they leave off is the end…..and the getting to know each other part. In movies its not crazy for love to happen instantly and be married days later. Fact of the matter is that marriages like that tend to end in disaster. In a movie, it all seems so wonderful and I think it gives us all hope that fairy-tales do exist but they really don’t. Life has too much reality to be a fantasy. People have issues and baggage and bills. Cant just live in those expensive Manhattan apartments and never go to work! My husband and I have a pretty good little love story but looking back on it, I was ridiculous getting all caught up in a moment. For the most part it has worked out but fact of the matter is there was a lot about him I didn’t know and a lot about me he didn’t know when we moved in with each other 3 weeks after meeting. It all seems so right in that moment. If a movie picked up where most movies left off, it would probably tank. As much fun as other peoples drama can be at times (reality tv!) it can also be incredibly annoying and no one wants to see all that. We all want to believe in the good..not the bad! I love romantic movies and have watched too many recently. Love is a tricky business and makes for good entertainment but not for making rational decisions!! I love my husband and I love our story; it was quite romantic but in comparison to a movie, it was probably boring. Oh well, it was special to us and that’s all that matters!

Whenever I drink too much Diet Coke, I become a jittery bunch of energy and need an outlet! For those of you who will tell me it is bad for me, I know. I don’t drink it because I care about the calories or sugar, I like the taste. I think regular coke is kind of gross and way to sweet! My husband drinks coke like it is water so if anyone needs a lecture about soda consumption, it’s him! For the record, I only drink two a day and when I drink three, I consider myself to have gone too far. Trying to get back in the routine of school has warranted extra diet coke consumption! I cant drink coffee without feeling weird and I don’t do energy drinks. I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t do drugs and I don’t smoke cigarettes so my only vice (other than illegal amounts of sweets) is the diet coke! I think about drinking alcohol but I have no desire. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Funny thing is, people always make me feel weird for just saying I don’t drink. They do better when you tell them you used to be a raging alcoholic and you went through rehab. Go figure that one! If I ever were to drink, I think I would be a red wine kind of gal….or a hard liquor girl. I don’t know to be honest but I know I wouldn’t drink beer. For now I will stick with my diet cokes!

Well, sign me up for overachiever anonymous because I am just overachieving all over the place! Last night I was so damn efficient in my two hours of minimal interruptions that I wrote three epic articles (in my non humble opinion) I finished a lesson from my correspondence school program and I felt relaxed. Imagine what I could do with a few hours of uninterrupted time! Imagine a whole day! A whole week! I love being able to catch up on things other than diapers and laundry. If you don’t do something for yourself when you are a stay at home mom, you will go bats*it crazy within a matter of weeks. I have pretty much learned how to (safely) tune out the kids and focus (somewhat) on the tasks at hand. The tasks at hand tend to be writing my blog or writing an article. I always try to do well even though I occasionally fall short. Being fresh and interesting is not always easy when you have someone drooling on you, biting you, saying mommy 40 times in a row and the list goes on. Not to complain but the fact that I get anything remotely good done is damn near a miracle. Like angels and walking on water miracle! I have a sense of accomplishment and that will provide me with at least a few days of personal satisfaction!