Winter Blues Already

I'm getting antsy at this point in time due to this dreaded time of the year that it is.  I used to adore Fall, and while I am still in love with it, the dread is just hovering underneath the surface ready to kick me square in the face, and my nose is too cute to get punched.  

I used to ride out the winter month to month, you know, once Halloween is over I would do it in terms of the following: 

Okay, April, here we go.  *smacks own ass*  Come on, girl, you got this.  You just need to get through Thanksgiving, and then there is the Christmas preparation  that will keep you busy and here comes the Day After Christmas Deflation, but wait, you won't have too much time to think about that depression shit because hold on, here we go with the random week, week and a half of binge eating and binge drinking and random days off of work because Christmas and New Years falls oddly on the calendar some years, but now it's time to get back into the flow of things with the "after-holiday-depression," but wait, there's more, what, with the stupid Hallmark holiday and then it's so close to St. Patrick's Day (which I don't celebrate as it just gets used as a season marker you see), and then holy shit, I made it into April and it's almost Spring again. I'll look back upon the girl who weathered the storm, so to speak, and see if my shorts will still fit after the Winter we just had.  

If you are the person who falls into the above run-on sentence scenario, I hope you feel better knowing you are not alone.  However, this year, I'm scared shitless.  There were more moments than I care to admit last winter that were completely touch and go.  I honestly didn't think I was going to make it through.  Come to think of it, based upon my actions, I don't believe I made it through "whole," and if we are being honest, there's not much left of me to spare as far as what I can afford to lose as a "whole."  I'm afraid that come next March/April, I'll be feeling somewhat like that "hat" part of the acorn that's left on the ground to dry up and get stepped on after the acorn has fallen out of it.  

At least this year I am equipped with the knowledge that if I'm lucky, I might make it out with my sanity only slightly shattered so I have decided that I will prepare now for what I can only assume will be yet another never-ending-please-let-me-make-it-out-alive winter.  Like today, for example, let's start there.  It is absolutely gorgeous out right now.  It's only 3:00 p.m., and I know by 7:00 p.m. I will be in a hoodie, but I'm so looking forward to taking the kids to the playground,  having a picnic, hitting up the library for new books (and pay that $8.50 fine I have from overdue books...I really have to get my shit together on that one) and go home just as the sun is just about set.  I'll feel really good about the couple of short hours I was able to grab with the weather and the kids.  

I'm also forward-thinking in terms of what kinds of indoor activities can I make a list of for when we are all going stir-crazy and I've had it up to my eyeballs in Lego sets.  I don't have too many just yet.  I've got the gym because, well, my ass needs it and they have daycare there.  There's also the indoor trampoline park that Andrew likes, but that makes me pee my pants when I jump so I'll just take voluminous pictures and videos of him jumping.  And that about sums that shit up, and therefore, this is where you come in with any and all ideas of wintertime fun for us.  My 14 year old daughter, I'm sure, won't give a rat's ass about what we do or don't do because, well, she's got her IPhone and YouTube.  However, I'll admit that while I want to keep this 6-year-old of mine busy, I really need these ideas to keep my sanity.

So please send along your ideas.  However, please be advised that while everything you offer me is a great idea, the following is a list of things I will not consider so please don't try to convert me:

1.    ANY AND ALL THINGS OUTSIDE IN THE COLD AND SNOW.

I'll throw the boy out in the snow but I'll stand at the door and hide behind a Bailey-laced coffee, wearing my footsie pajamas, shivering while watching his nose get red and run snots down the front of his jacket and silently beg him to come inside and snuggle with me and watch Netflix.  I just shuddered so please help a desperate mama out.

In the meantime, I'm going to go check out the menu online for the pizza joint next door to the playground because I declare this afternoon to be Pizza Playground Picnic Afternoon.   I'll be drinking wine this evening while looking over all the ideas I know you guys have for me.  I have faith in  ye readers.

*much love*

The Great Tumble of 2015

There's been quite a bit of stuff going on in our household, but for the moment, let's talk about the big upset of the summer shall we. 

There was that broken wrist of mine from a dumb ass fall that happened hiking and that required surgery resulting in two months out of work.  The most ridiculous thing people said to me had to be, "Well, you couldn't have picked a better time to break yourself."  That line is up there in the Top Ten Stupidest Things to Say to People list.  I think it rivals the thing people from the south say to people up north, "Oh, I just love snow."  No, no you don't love snow.  You have no idea what really living with snow looks like.  It's not snow forts and four wheeling.  Just like a broken wrist in a splint in June and July not working doesn't look like endless days of beaching it or swimming in the pool.  It's pretty much my arm sweating and itching and me being frustrated with not being able to do a damn thing except cry when I can't put my bra on or cry when I finally can put the bra on.  It's the little things, folks.

It also doesn't look like my house is spotless because I have all the time in the world to clean it.  I couldn't even do laundry for weeks because my orthopedic doctor got mad at me when I told him I was excited I could lift the laundry basket.  He actually went slack jawed and asked why I would do such a thing, to which I replied with tears in my eyes, "Because I need to do SOMETHING," to which HE then replied, "Do your physical therapy."  Oh, the defeat because, damn it all, I WAS doing my physical therapy.  To this day, I can't hear the X-Files theme song play without thinking, "Oh, hey, it's my alarm going off yet again reminding me to do my therapy.  It sounds awesome to some being given the go-ahead to do jack shit for two months, but not for this girl who has almost no clue what it is like to sit still.  I sat still for so long that at one point I got hooked onto Teen Mom 2 (yes, yes, it did, in fact, come back) and Catfish.  That was in July, and it is now September and guess who is DVRing Catfish and Teen Mom 2 at this moment?!  FFS I make myself all rumbly tummy thinking about how ridiculous I am.  I blame the broken wrist, damn it all.

It also doesn't look like I got myself into any sort of shape because while it may seem like I could spend countless hours at the gym while the kids were at summer camp, it didn't really happen that way.  It kind of looked like what I would imagine the exact opposite of some celebrity reality show looks like; poor mom with no make up skills struggling to put on a sports bra while one-handedly pouring Fruit Loops into a bowl while some falls on the floor while trying to make a sandwich for camp lunch with one hand while my kid may or may not have brushed his teeth because who the hell has time to follow up on that shit while everything takes twice as long to do because, fuck it, I'll just wear a hat because I can't even put my hair up in a ponytail and then I thank heavens that my kid is somewhat independent and can put his own seatbelt on and sure let's drive that stick shift of a car with one hand because that's always safe, and then drag his ass into camp, sign him in, kiss him and hug him and get back in the car sweating.  Now this is the part where I laugh to myself and think, yeah, sure, I'll get to the gym and put in hours upon hours working out just to get there, find myself completely exhausted from the morning new routine, stay an hour, if that, and go home and fall asleep on the couch.  No one ever informed me that breaking a bone required so much internal energy that to even do normal, every day routine stuff would send one out over the edge of exhaustion.  Seriously, I had zero clue healing would require so much energy.  I consider myself strong, but damn, my poor boyfriend and all the tears he had to witness.  It makes me want to bake him a cake in appreciation, but I'll more than likely just buy it for him because I am still a lazy fucker more often than not.

So let's recap; basically, my summer was not filled with days of laying out tanning (I would just burn anyways, and I would have a horrible white patch where my splint was), a clean house and a loss of 20 pounds.  However, it was a teaching moment in my life.  It seemed that while I was going through the process it was never ending, and once it was time to go back to work, I felt like I didn't take enough advantage of the extra time with my kids.  I feel like there was so much more I could have done with my time off, but in reality, there wasn't.  I did the best I could with the limitations I was given.  I spent extra time with the kids that I normally wouldn't have been given.  I threw a kick ass birthday party for the boy.  I got to see Jillian transition from a camper to a counselor in training.  I eventually got to get caught up on laundry because, despite the scowl I got from my surgeon, I wasn't going to let no stinkin' laundry basket get the better of me.  I did end up painting some of my living room, which I will never do ever again, broken wrist or not.  Most of all, the most important thing I learned is that no matter what happens to me, I will continue to move forward to the positive and that when there never seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, my house is filled with people that love me and have my back and will help hold me up through all of it.  Maybe I will make that damn cake after all.