New Location, Same Poor Service.

New blog location.

www.straitjacketmama.wordpress.com

Come hang out.

i'm not cut out for being a working woman

A few weeks back I was offered a temporary (almost) full time janitorial position.

I weighed the pros and cons.  And in the end chose to accept.  It was only three weeks and they agreed to my request of only working those 30 hours in three days.  I still had my other 9 hour per week job, and my other cleaning job as well.  Lots of hours.  Lots of cleaning.

And from what I've now learned.  Little sleep.

I wake at 1:45 AM and am out the door by 2:10 and am at work at 3:00.  I work for 8-10 hours vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, sweeping, mopping, folding laundry, washing coffee pots, and dumping lots of trash.

I do not have to deal with too many people, and those I do, are pleasant.  But by the end of my work day I am fried.

I thought I knew what tired was.  For crying out loud I had a baby that didn't sleep for nearly two years, I have known tired.

But that tired didn't cause me to run stop signs or forget mid-sentence what I was talking about.  It didn't cause me to sit on my bed and let someone else take my socks and shoes off because I was incapable of doing it myself.

This has been a tired like I've not known.

Mondays have proven hard because though I go to bed at 8:30, I wake up about 11:30 and cannot fall back to sleep.  This means I end up being awake for close to 24 hours before I get to bed.  This is not healthy.  Thursdays are hard too.  I get up at 1:45.  Get to work a little before 3:00, work til about 1:00, drive 45 minutes home, get a few things done around the house, or take a quick cat nap, and then I drive the girls 40 minutes to gymnastics, where I sit in bleachers for two hours.  Two weeks ago I decided to just lie down and sleep there.

Two weeks ago my car wouldn't start after gymnastics.  I was near hysteria.  So tired, no way home, and chatty little girls excited about what they've learned in class.  It was my fuel pump.  The rig had broken down a couple of times in the days before and Josh told me that if I just pounded on the fuel tank, it might start.  So I crawled under my rig, pounded on my fuel tank.  Sat back in my van and pounded on my steering wheel, and then I turned the key.  It started.  I started to calm down, but I still had a 40 minute drive home, and I needed to be up in five hours to go to work.

I got home and collapsed on my bed.  My sweet Alison came in and took my shoes off.  Then my socks.  Then she tucked me in.

This is not how it should be.  I should be taking care of her.  Of all of them.

Tomorrow is my last day.  The weight will soon be lifted.

Though this has been one of the hardest things I've ever taken on, it's been a blessing.  I have a nice chunk of money to buy my girls some fun Christmas presents, and Josh too.  I cannot wait to go shopping this Saturday, cash in hand, buying them fun things that I know they want and will love.

And knowing how hard I worked for these gifts, well, that part feels pretty freaking good.

I'll grow up next year.

I was hoping that with turning 35 I'd somehow be grown up enough to no longer care what people think of me.

But I'm now 35 and 3 months and I still care.

I'm getting better, though. I think. Maybe.

I must be, because yesterday I made myself do something totally embarrassing and the entire time I was thinking, "what if people think I'm an idiot?!"

And I am totally an idiot, but I usually like to keep that between me and just the person in front of me at the time.  

Recently I went on a drive, alone, to my sister-in-law's house. I was in the best mood ever. And one of my favorite songs came on the radio. I pulled out my phone and video'd a small clip of my idiot self singing at the top of my lungs.

Now listen. I love to sing. But I am terrible at it. No good. But I have a good time singing.

So I load that bad girl video up to Instagram because Instagram is my picture/video diary and I feel safe on Instagram. It's less intimidating there. And people laughed at me and it was good.

I considered putting it on FB, but guys, FB is so much scarier. More people. More likely to think I'm an idiot. But my goal with FB is to make people laugh. Make people smile. And I had been thinking that maybe my dumb video would do just that for someone. So last night I put it on FB and then I got all hot and sweaty and panicky.

How dumb is that?

Then, to make it worse, I wake up at 3 this morning thinking "I need to just pull that video down!" Who wakes up at 3 AM worried about a 13 second silly video?

ME.

I want so badly to be comfortable enough in my own skin to just not care. To feel the freedom to be silly without worry that someone is rolling their eyes at my dorky self.

Maybe 36 is the year for that, because so far, at 35 - I'm not feelin' it.

just pray

I keep trying to type out words, and then I just delete them all. Sometimes there just are not words for certain things. Sometimes there are only tears, and some anger mixed in, too.

A friend of mine lost her five week old baby girl to SIDS a few days ago.

And there are not words. Please pray for her. For her husband, their marriage, their two young sons. For their hearts. Pray they feel comfort.

Please just pray.

that time i got overly excited about cleaning toilets.

I'm really good at embarrassing myself.

And if no one has seen me embarrass myself, I feel I need to tell people about my idiotness.

Let me tell you a story about my getting overly excited to clean toilets. Why I'm choosing now to admit my embarrassing moment, I don't know. Maybe because it's just about been a year since it's happened, and because every time I clean toilets at the church, I think about it.

Anyway.

About a year ago, one of the pastors at our church got up front and mentioned a need for someone to clean the restrooms. It took all the restraint I had not to just jump up outta my chair and yell, "pick me! Choose me! Love me!"

(Grey's Anatomy, anyone?)

But I kept myself still til the end of service and then I made a beeline for our pastor and told him I am the lover of all things clean toilets. And he tells me to talk to a man named Bruce. And so I talk to Bruce and Bruce tells me Andy has been cleaning the bathrooms, and he's probably going to appreciate help.

So I go running up to the Andy of our church that I know and I breathlessly tell him, "I'm going to clean the toilets! I love to clean the toilets!" (I can't help it. I get excited about cleaning toilets.) And the Andy in our church that I know, looks at me with surprised eyes and says, "that's great!" With a silent side of, "freaky lady."

And so the next week I show up to clean toilets and Bruce tells me Andy has already gotten started. And Andy walks out, but it is not the Andy of our church that I know.

Apparently there is another Andy in our church that I do not know.

And in that moment I wanted to die a little bit. No wonder the other Andy looked at me like I was crazy, he probably wondered why the heck I thought it important to tell him I was going to be cleaning toilets.

So now every week, every single week as I clean the 16 toilets, I think about running up to the Andy that I know and excitedly telling him about the toilet cleaning. I wish I could forget this moment, but I can't.

I sure hope he has, though.

giving them opportunities

Today was a big day in our household. 

For a couple of weeks now we knew this day would be here, and there has been a countdown, and thank GOD today finally got here so we could stop with all the counting down.

Gymnastics.

Today my girls went to gymnastics for the first time.

Let's back up to how we got here.

In our local paper I saw that a few things were starting in our town. Tap dance, clogging, ballet, jazz. I was so excited. Fun things! In our small town! And so I asked my girls, "hey! Would you two be interested in ballet?"

Both girls shook their heads. Then at the same time said, "can we do gymnastics?!"

Of course they choose the thing not in our town. You see, we live in a little valley. Where not a lot is offered. We either drive 40 minutes east or 40 minutes west for the shopping and the doing.

And the gymnastics.

They looked at me with those blue eyes I gave them, and I told them maybe. I went outside and I called their dad and I pleaded their case.

For four years they've been asking to do gymnastics, and for four years I've come up with one excuse or another for why they can't do it.

I'll be honest, the money was there, the desire to drive them and sit there and be social and all the other things required of me, was not there. But I'm always a no mom and I'm so tired of saying no.

So Josh and I, we talked about it and he was game, and so I called. I talked to the people, I made the plans, I paid the money, and I've listened to a morning countdown ever since. I am earning jewels in my heavenly crown.

These girls were giddy this morning. I was sure we'd not get any schoolwork done, yet somehow we put two hours in. We ran all the errands. Did all the things. Went to all the places, and then it was time.

We show up (an hour early) and I buy them leos and I find out who their teachers are, then I sit my butt on hard bleachers and I watch my girls jump right in, get in line, raise their hands, follow directions, swing on bars, jump on springs. Do moves they've never done.

All these things, that at their age I didn't do. I wasn't given the opportunity, but I can tell you that even if I had been, I'da been too scared to get out there.

I've been afraid of all the things my entire life, and I'm not sure how, but I haven't passed those fears onto my girls. And I am so thankful.

I had the best time with my mom and my girls today. I love that I'm able to give them this opportunity to grow and learn, and have fun. And I love that my mom was there to share it with me.

tap, tap. psst.

Well, hi.

It's been awhile.

Coming up on a year, while.

I never intended to return to this blog, but I do lots of things I don't intend to do. 

I think I'm ready to write again. For a bit I'll write here, but I'm working on a new blog and I'll let you know when she's ready.

For now, here is good. 

I've missed this place. This place where the words come easily. Not always prettily, but easy. 

I've struggled with whether or not I should start again. So many blogs out there, what is the point to mine? And then I remind myself the point is just to be here. To say the words. To not worry about whether anyone has the time to make to stop in and read. Though I hope they do. I hope you do.

Because good stuff has happened these last few months. Bad stuff, too, but who cares about that. I have a cow!

I'm so happy to be here again in my little writing space.