Surviving the Domestic Jungle

I have said this before and I will say it again and again and again: when I write these posts, most of them are written when I am in the heat of the moment. I prefer to do it that way because the raw emotion comes across. Sometimes I sound like a lunatic and sometimes I sound like a brat (or insert any word you find relevant) but all in all, these are my emotions, my thoughts and my opinions. In my day to day life I am not even afforded the luxury of peeing alone (if you have kids you will 100% understand that) and so this is my one place that is for me. I work out my emotions and thoughts on here. Writing things down can be very therapeutic and sure I allow people to enter my personal moments, but in some small insignificant way, I believe it may help people. No one has a perfect life and sometimes I feel like no one opens up enough about things that make them normal. We all have struggles and I am just an open book about it. I have put my marriage struggles, my parent struggles, my family struggles but at the same time I have put my triumphs and my happy memories. To be human is to have bad days and to have good days and I am just one of the people who is open about both. Do I expect criticism? Sometimes. When you put yourself out there you have to be prepared for judgment. I understand that but I will not, have not and absolutely refuse to ever censor myself. These are my stories and my experiences and I tell them how I see them and to censor myself would be not living authentically (in my opinion). Like I said, what you read on here is RAW emotion and in the past 806 posts, I have maybe deleted 3 that I regretted. Other than that, I stand by what I say and I am proud of myself for having the ability to be open and honest about my life and who I am. It is not easy to say “I failed” or “I am not perfect” in a public place which I why I put the fact that this is even public out of my mind and just write. I apologize to those who are offended or hurt by my words but trust me, when I write, it is not about anyone but ME and how I feel.

Well the weekend flew buy without me making a peep! I was a little busy! Saturday was a great day because we got the kids bunk beds!!! I may have been more excited than them because I got to redecorate both the kids rooms. The bunk beds open my girls room up tremendously and gives them so much more room to play. I have mentioned about 5000 times that I live in a small house, and lets just say, the bedrooms are sized accordingly….small. My son then got a ‘big boy’ bed which he will not and does not sleep in but hey, I still get to decorate his room. It is so cute with a little jungle theme! Yesterday we headed over to my brothers for my nieces 2nd birthday party. I had a blast and I am always a little envious of my brothers life when I go there. He has the nicest (and I mean the absolute nicest) in laws in history. I love love love love his mother in law!! He has great friends who are always so friendly and my kids have a blast in their idyllic backyard. I’m not really envious I guess, just really happy for him. Sometimes I don’t think he realizes how lucky he is…..I would kill for his backyard! In Texas, your outdoor space is super important because when it is 100+ degrees, you need the right space or you don’t go outside. I would use his backyard all day everyday. My kids would never come inside! I need to spruce up my backyard a bit. It has great “bones” it just needs some TLC. Anyway, all in all a fantastic weekend

I watched Wall-E for the first time yesterday and I have to say it was kind of depressing. My faith in humanity is not that high but it is high enough that I do not believe we would allow our planet to get to such terrible conditions that it is inhabitable. I think the average person cares a lot about what happens to the earth their children will inherit and I think the politicians need to get real. In our city plastic bags are not going to be available at retail stores starting in a little less than a year from now. While it is kind of a pain, as soon as we are all used to bringing our own bags everywhere we go, it is a fabulous start. Recycling programs are a fantastic start as well and it makes me want to literally knock on doors and scold people when I see they are not recycling. What the heck do you think? The earth can tolerate the incessant abuse year after year? Well, the answer to that is no. I also think we are insanely unprepared for our society to fall apart. We have zero skills that don’t require electricity and computers. If the power should ever go out, all the knowledge in the world is useless next to knowing how to dig a well and grow a garden. I wish I knew how to garden and live sustainably. I make little efforts here and there and I often think back on the times where my ignorance lead to very bad decisions as far as mother earth is concerned. Like I said, I don’t think humanity will destroy our home, I just hope that someday soon we start making the necessary changes before we are forced to make them. People cant handle long lines at the grocery store let alone have a food shortage! We need to start looking into smarter more efficient ways to live so that Wall-E isnt our future.

I went wedding dress shopping with my sister and mom yesterday and had so much fun! She ended up with a beautiful dress that fit her perfectly (she is a big girl so it was really quite a miracle that we found one that didn’t need a single alteration) and she looked really great in it. I was perusing the bridesmaids dresses and got super excited. I have never been in a wedding and am very much looking forward to being in this one. Shopping for wedding dresses also got me thinking about how I want a wedding. I had a wedding (very very small one) with my first husband but my parents planned the whole thing because I didn’t care…my heart wasn’t in it. The best part of that wedding was the cake and getting my hair done. My second wedding wasn’t even a wedding! We went to the courthouse and didn’t even say our vows. The judge asked us “Do you really want to say your vows?” and I think we were so shocked we just said no and left. Ahhh the romance….I just want to wear one of those dresses! I could careless about the marriage part! Perhaps comments like that are the reason I have had more than one marriage….moving right along…my sister will look beautiful on her wedding day and should I happen to pull a Pippa Middleton then that’s just the way things go Im just kidding!! She looked too beautiful for all eyes not to be one her!

My sister is getting married in a few weeks (3) and I got the phone call today from my mom and my sister that they need my help. I am certified in planning weddings after all They waited until it was down to the wire but oh well I am still excited about it. I waited all day to find out what theme/colors she wanted her wedding to be and she chose Rocks. Now, if you knew my sister, this would make sense….I just never thought she would choose it as a wedding theme! After my initial shock, I got kind of excited because there are so many things you can do with a rock theme! I have all sorts of different ideas and to top it all off, I am the Maid of Honor!! I have a lot of work ahead of me for this quick of a timeframe but the hardest part is motivating my mother and sister to do anything! I talked to my mom this morning and she said she would call me back about us all getting together tomorrow and by 9pm I called her. My sister was on her way to happy hour when I got a hold of her so if I am the only one that shows up to buy a dress tomorrow I am going to throw rocks at them! I am really looking forward to this opportunity actually and hopefully I come up with a beautiful and memorable wedding for my little sister. Most importantly the cake will be fantastic if I have anything to do with it because wedding cake is no joke. If I were ever to have another wedding, my theme would be cake

I took my kids to this water play thing today that is in our little downtown area. It is just basically water that shoots up from the ground and has fluctuations of being really high and really low and it will probably only be open for a few weeks as the summers tend to be drought conditions so they shut down things like that. My kids were happily playing and laughing when teenagers showed up. Teenagers are like locusts. They destroy everything and have awful hair. They started showing up in groups and I knew we were going to need to leave pretty quickly. My little Hailey was playing in the water when this boy (at least I thought it was a boy….his hair was down to the middle of his back!) decided to be a jackass and ride his bike through the water and HIT Hailey in the head and knocked her over. I could have shot the little jerk. She has a huge purple mark and was screaming crying and I wanted so badly to lecture him but all I said was “What were you thinking?” which is what I really meant. Were you trying to be cool kid? Ugh we will never go there when there are a herd of teenagers there ever again! When I was a teenager I wasn’t all stupid and disrespectful but I also wasn’t a teenage boy. Thankfully Hailey is ok!

Just when you start to get a tad cocky about something, life is there to knock you on your ass and remind you that you have no reason to think you are special. Such an event happened to yours truly today at the Y. I was on the bicycle machine (there may be a technical name but I have no clue what it is) and I was feeling pretty darn good about myself and the fact that I could do it for more than 15 minutes and these two older gentlemen sit down next to my friend and I. These men were at least in their 70′s and one made a joke that he was stuck reading an AARP magazine. I was kind of jealous because it had Dianne Keaton on the front and I would have loved to have read the article. Anyway, we are gibber gabbering away and giggling about this and that when I look over at one of the older gentlemen’s resistance number which is a solid 9. I then glance in the other direction and the other guys was at an 8. 9 is the max by the way. Here’s where my ego got deflated in about three seconds….my resistance level was fluctuating between a 1 and a 2. These old senior citizens were kicking my ass while leisurely reading the newspaper. I was sweating like a beast in the sun and thanks to those physically fit seniors, I was able to successfully complete 45 minutes on the bicycle machine and could barely walk by the end

The old saying “You are who you hang out with” is kind of true. The people I have spent significant amounts of time with have really altered who I am but not in the sense that I act like them. I have spent countless hours with liars, manipulators and in general not very good people which in turn has turned me into one of the most honest people on earth. I find it ridiculously easy to say how I really feel about things as long as it is truth. I cannot lie. I know how to after studying a few pros in the dark arts but I just cant do it. One of my best (in my opinion) qualities is that I can say I simply do not care rather than give a thousand crappy reasons pretending that I do. I just am fed up with acting one way then feeling another. I am not spending my life pretending I care about things that I don’t and I think if this world was based more on truth and less on pretend then everyone may be just a little bit happier, less burdened and less desired to lie to your face. At some point accepting that you cannot make everyone happy all the time becomes mandatory for your own happiness. In a way it comes off as cold and uncaring but I would rather have someone tell the truth and appear cold and uncaring than lie or manipulate me. The fact of the matter is that living honestly and being able to be honest with yourself and those around you is the only way to find warmth as the lies and other dark arts are not even real and how can something that doesn’t exist ever be warm?

Fact: I should not say bad things about my mom on the Internet. However, I do and sometimes I forget that people actually read what I write. I really need to stop writing when emotion hits and let myself chill out before I say what I want. However, I do not do that…obviously. I am a very emotional person and I am very sensitive. I don’t know if its a bad thing or a good thing but it is what it is. On another note, I have been working out a ton and I have to say it really makes me feel good. I always feel very happy after I workout and I am even slightly enjoying sweating. I usually hate to sweat. The ONLY time I am ok with sweating is when I am doing adult activities ( ) and even then I sometimes hate it. Anyway, I need and crave to sweat now. I have been doing treadmills and bikes and rowing machines and then walking with the kids at night! I am finally going to firm up after having Hudson! I finish my workouts with a nice cup of tea and great conversation with my workout bud/bestie and I really really enjoy it. I just gibber gabber away while we take long walks standing in the same place. She is really knowledgeable about exercise machines and I am a virgin to the whole exercise world so we help each other. Ok, she helps me more but I feel like maybe I provide the entertainment!! The lessons of the day are: Working out is awesome and writing scathing reviews of your mother online is probably not the best idea.

In my attempt to find childcare, I have been looking into private babysitters and I have to say some of these women are insane. First of all, the hours I offer are perfect, my kids are a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e and there is no cleaning or laundry or driving involved and these women want 12-15 per hour to sit and hang out with my kids. Um, are you crazy????? You have experience? So does everyone with a sibling, child, niece, nephew etc etc. You are interactive and play with the kids? Isn’t that a given?????? According to my zip code that is what you should make? I didn’t realize I lived in Beverly Hills $$$$$. And to top it all off, you are doing a job I did when I was 12 and it is tax free and cash AND you want to bring your kids along! Give me just a small break. GET REAL!!! When I worked at a daycare (for about two weeks ten years ago) I made minimum wage and was required to take classes on children every Monday night (after working a full 8 hour day) and also take a CPR class. If I were to ever get a personal babysitter, I would for sure get a young girl who isn’t trying to pay a mortgage! If you break down the hourly rate some of these women have requested, they want to make between 35-40k a year!!! You are not Mary Poppins ladies. Ugh, daycare sounds better and better each day!