Smiling Mom

This has been quite a year month for us.  Boy, what a year month!  Aside from a party, anni­ver­sary, and gene­ral sum­mer hoo­pla, we had to up and buy a bran span­kin’ new refri­ge­ra­tor. Ouch.

Um…Hello, unex­pec­ted cost!!  Didn’t see you coming!

The day our fridge died was the hot­test of the year thus far.

107 degrees in the shade.

And 65 degrees in our freezer.

Not a good thing.

Our past year has been much like our past month, Unex­pec­ted:  To date we’ve:

Repla­ced:

oven/stove, parts of our hea­ter, our water hea­ter, part of our fence, found a crack in the pipe under our house that must get repai­red (not done yet), a big com­pu­ter issue (read, would no lon­ger turn on)

Paid and need to pay for:

a new master’s pro­gram, a new year of preschool, an upco­ming vaca­tion, and a myriad of other small unex­pec­ted expenses

Wor­ked through:

a torn shoul­der, a repai­red shoul­der, an almost vasec­tomy, an actual vasec­tomy, and most recently my grandma’s imma­nent death of ova­rian cancer.

Wow.  Just typing makes me want to curl up in the fetal posi­tion and suck my thumb.

I’m tired.  And when I get tired, I retreat.  When I retreat, I become a bad mom.  When I’m a bad mom, I get angry.  When I’m angry, I become a bad wife.  And when I’m a bad wife, I become tired all. over. again.

On Thurs­day our family lea­ves for our first cam­ping trip of the sum­mer.  And it couldn’t come at a bet­ter time.  I hope to use my time to refo­cus on the impor­tant pie­ces of my life, (read: family and friends) and not sweat the huge gla­ring, pen­ding CRAZINESS going on back an home small stuff.  I hope to remind myself this to shall pass and some day we’ll look back on these years fondly as we remem­ber how we relied on love burri­tos and cheap wine and not much more to raise our kids to the best of our ability.

Some­day when my Master’s pro­gram is done, I’m back to work full time, and am armed with more know­ledge and matu­rity, I’ll pro­bably see that I didn’t have to have heart pal­pi­ta­tions, weeks of anxiety, and slee­pless nights worry as much as I did.

But for now, I’m in need of a few good vaca­tions.  And a whole lotta margarita!

First up: Our second annual cam­ping trip with our good friends.

Second up:  BlogHer BABY!!  Hey Roo­mies!!  So excited!

Third up: My dad’s con­fe­rence. Where I not only hope to enjoy the pool, but also learn more about being a good leader.

Fourth up: An adult Carib­bean vaca­tion WITHOUT KIDS. peo­ple.  without kids.  (Thank you air miles and nice sti­mu­lus check!)

Fifth up:  More cam­ping with Hubby’s family.

Ya.  So like I said, I’m in need of a vaca­tion, or five.

This is an email I recei­ved by my friend. She’s about as preg­nant as you can be without actually giving birth. And she’s frea­king hila­rious! She really needs to start a blog, hint-hint.

So here’s rea­son # 100 why Cash’s Mom should really start a blog…

So V (her sis­ter) and I (Cash’s Mom) went to the mall today– and I stop­ped by the Bene­fit eye­brow bar, because seriously the cater­pi­llar had to go!!

 

They were having some sort of MEGA event and one of the super fierce little Bene­fit hot­ties con­ned V into get­ting her eye makeup done.

 

So I’m sit­ting there wai­ting (with super hot bad ass eye­brows) and this really fun spunky Bene­fit gal con­vin­ces me to hop in a chair and shows me some “hot mom” makeup tips.

 

The entire time I’m get­ting my makeup done, peo­ple are floc­king around. This lady asks them to get this they run and get it they are all com­men­ting on, “how fab this looks on me,” and yadda yadda…

 

Now at first I thought I was get­ting the hard sell, but after quite a while of peo­ple stop­ping and watching (gaw­king even) I rea­li­zed it’s because I’m a super fierce hot mom. Heidi Klum watch your ass, because when I drop this truck load of baby off… I’m hit­ting the run­way. HOLLA!!

 

Any­way as I’m chec­king out (I bought some bad ass eye sha­dow) V says, “You know that was like Miss Bene­fit her­self right??” This lady is the REASON for the big Bene­fit event!!

 

WHA WHA WHAT???

 

All the girls in the store were gushing and couldn’t believe that Arianne Dam­boise, known as Bene­fit Cos­me­tics’ “Makeup Maven” just did my make up….

 

PRO: I look AMAZING and this is the first time I’ve felt hot in WAY too long..

 

CON: All those peo­ple gazing on at how abso­lu­tely stun­ning I am… yeah they were there watching her.

And that folks, is why I love her. Please Cash’s Mom, start a blog! Please!

Play Date #1

So today was pac­ked full of play dates for us.  In the mor­ning Lia from Frei­tas Family and her daugh­ter LG came over.  It’s been so long since we have had a time to catch up.  Frankly I’m always ner­vous to get together with peo­ple one on one.…  This was no exception.

A few years back Lia and I were teaching part­ners for almost three years and sha­red over many hours together before school.  We rarely tal­ked about school rela­ted items during this time.  She often caught me up on the cele­brity gos­sip and I caught her up on real life gos­sip.  We’ve always got along great.  But that’s in the work place, not in real life.

The truth is that I’m not a great friend in real life.  I don’t keep in touch.  I get quiet and shy and often don’t know how to carry the con­ver­sa­tion to the next level.  I often feel ina­de­quate.  The list goes on and on.

But today we had a blast.  We chat­ted it up as if we never stop­ped wor­king together.  All was great!  But, damn, who invi­ted the kids?  They kept inte­rrup­ting our con­ver­sa­tion!  Just kidding!

Play Date #2

Hubby and I went out to see Ocean’s 13 tonight.  Mmmm.  I love me those men in the Oceans movies. This one did not disap­point.  It was great!

When we got home we had a play date of our own.  It was way bet­ter than Oceans 13!

Lia wrote and account of this morning’s fun.  And frankly I think she’s just but­te­ring me up, as she said some pretty nice things about me.  Go on over and tell her that she’s wrong.  I’m not as great as she said I was!

Today I was given a gift. The gift of time. My good friend AM and I have been switching child­care for about a year now. I watch her daugh­ter about 4 hours a week and she watches my kids when Hubby gets called into work on one of his days off. Our kids play so nicely together so it’s wor­ked out quite well!

Since Hubby’s pro­mo­tion, his hours have become more sta­ble, which is very nice for me! But that means that I don’t ask AM to watch our kids as often. So… this week I deci­ded to ask her if she wouldn’t mind me brin­ging my little terrors ado­ra­ble chil­dren over to her house once a week for a cou­ple hours so I can sit in my empty house and work on our finan­ces, in total and com­plete silence!

Nice huh? She agreed. So, today I was for­tu­nate enough to have a 2 ½ hour chunk, all to myself, in the mor­ning, to sit down and focus on our finances.

I was able to pay bills, recon­cile our savings and chec­king accounts, and get us back up and run­ning on this whole mana­ging our money thing.

The gift of time.

It feels good. As much as the thought of wor­king on and doing our finan­ces paraly­zes me, being orga­ni­zed and up to date seems to free me!

Funny, huh?

I feel for­tu­nate enough to have a set of spec­ta­cu­lar friends who have shown me sup­port in the last days.

Thank you AM for your willing­ness to take my kids, and J-Doc for your kind, kind email. I am so lucky!

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