Expectations

After a month of waiting, last night I finally went to the local flashlight corn maze with my girls and my sister and her family. Mark was unable to come he had to work late, which was a disappointment. I always look forward to the weekends and my time with Mark, so when he told me he was not going to make it, I had second thoughts. I decided it was not worth adding this to my list of things I did not do that I had wanted to, so I forged ahead.

There was some hesitation as I waited for my sister and her family to arrive. I did not want to be cold or wet, so I was trying to come up with just the right selection of clothing to be comfortable. Certain warm socks and shoes, a fleece pull over and a jacket over that should work, than I had to locate some flashlights and make sure they worked too. I was filling with anxiety. What if it is boring? What if it starts to rain? What if the kids don't like it? I had myself pretty worked up by the time my sister arrived.

"What's wrong?" she asked when she arrived. "Nothing" I lied.

Why ruin her fun with my giant list of worries and complaints.

My habit of building up my expectations and then having second thoughts has ruined many of my outings. I can never seem to just settle in with my plans and be happy I have to pick them to death. What if's have a way of plunging into just about everything I do. I know I mentioned just the other day how I look at things from every angle. That can work for me and against me it is a double edged sword. It is also the worst excitement killer I know of. You just get my mind racing mulling over all the if's ands, or buts and the party is over. It's like calling the police to tell them there is trouble before the party even begins.

After all this emotional mental drama we set out for the corn maze. We were dressed warm and cozy, had our flashlights, along with our get her done attitudes. Look out corn maze here we come. Over all it was fun, mostly because we were all together stumbling around in the dark. It was fun to spend time with my sister's kids and it was also fun to spend a few moments with my own before they ran off into the dark. I do have to say that I can think of a lot better ways to spend $5.00 per person but they do not involve spending time with my kids and sister and her family which in the big picture is priceless.

The life lesson that I keep learning and then forgetting is that expectations are most often the devils workshop. There is no way that after thinking everything through it will actually turn out exactly that way. Your mind is a great playground where you can set everything up just how you want it, but life is the real test and very often things go quite differently. I guess the lesson that I need to remember is that even if my vision does not match the outcome I can still have a good time. Expectations give you the prospect of future good, the rest is up to you. That I did not want to disappoint myself one more time was a great motivator and I am glad I listened to that voice, I had a much better time than I had "Expected".

Decisions Decisions

As I walked with my girlfriend this morning, I shared with her how my week has played out and it caused her to comment "Wow, you have made a lot of decisions this week". The funny part is that until she said that, I did not realize I had made decisions at all. I had been going along these last few days, just trying to get things figured out and in the process cleaned up some loose ends. Bam! I am a decision maker.

 Now I know to most people it is no big deal, but it requires a lot of effort for me to make a decision. I do not take decision making lightly, and as I mentioned a few days ago, I weigh out the good and bad of everything I do. Honestly, when I am going to run errands I always plot it out in my head so that it makes the most sense in time and distance. I do nothing without first looking at every option there is. It is a long annoying process that can potentially take the fun out of things. The other issue is that once the decision has been made I tend to continue to rethink it trying to make sure I am still making the right choice. Phew, the whole thing is exhausting. My family is use to it, they don't like it, but they are use to it.

 

This week I stirred my family pot by suggesting that we should move Aly's surgery from the week of Thanksgiving to during her Christmas break. The initial reaction was not good (Note my blog Miss Understood) but after some thought Aly decided to go along with my way of thinking. I just wanted her to have more time to recuperate and I also worried that thinking she was better she would get back to school and after bumping into people in the halls, and contending with 6 hours of school etc. she would need to take more time off for recuperating. With the course load she has chosen this year, I saw the potential for an extremely stressed out young lady. Honestly, that part did not sound fun to me at all. It can get pretty stressed here on a normal homework day, why make it worse? Ta da, a decision was made and I am relieved.

I have made many more decisions this week but mainly it feels like I have been scraping my heaping plate hoping to clear out my brain. I am tired of feeling overwhelmed and worried and I just want to have a little fun. Tonight I have "decided" to go to a local orchard that has a flashlight corn maze. I like the idea of that because it is not spooky or haunted, just some nighttime darkness fun. The girls and I (Mark might have to work late) and my sister with her family and hopefully some friends will spend some time roaming around in the dark and laughing. This is a much needed outing for all of us and I am happy I have decided to have a little fun. This morning as I sit by the fire with my feet up contemplating my life I am feeling very fortunate that I can make decisions and change my mind. I am also happy that I have a life that is full of friends and family that keep me thinking and deciding every day. That is one thing I do not have to rethink!

Enie Meanie Miney Moe

I am an uninformed American. I have no idea who to vote for to be our next governor, I also do not have a clue about school board members or state senators or even the judges or college presidents. I am completely unaware and I am not proud of it. I jumped on Mark this morning for throwing out my Sunday paper. I had planned to read it and inform myself, please note it is Thursday and I am just now thinking of reading the Sunday news. Fortunately, Mark had put the Sunday paper down with the papers he uses to build fires. I will still be able to attempt to inform myself.

Now I must answer the hard question…Do I want to be informed? Do I even care? It feels like apathy. No interest or concern, just boredom. I agree with Jon Stewart the host of the Comedy channels Daily Show. Most Americans are too busy and too tired to care about much of anything else. When I finally have a chance to sit and read about the people running for office, I will have to make a decision based on an article that will be swayed a certain way by someone else. They may sway towards a candidate or they may swerve away. I will have to decide based on very limited knowledge who will run my state for example. That just does not seem like what our fore fathers fought for at all.

The truth is this, I am having a hard enough time planning good dinners and caring for my family, do you think I should be choosing someone as important as our governor? I will do my best to become more educated in the next few days. I do not want the sacrifice that others have made for my right to vote to be a waste, however at the same time I am just as concerned about my family having more balanced meals and enough choices when they make their lunches. I am probably not a very good example of a good American. I am however a darn good example of a typical American who is just doing the best they can to keep their head above the debt chopping block and keep their family running smoothly.

I am also very turned off by the negative television ads that muddy the waters of the campaign trail. How do you make well informed decisions about people you know nothing about, when you are bombarded with information that means very little about the job a candidate will do? This will be no easy task. My only hope is to have enough knowledge when I vote that I am not playing enie meanie miney moe with my ballot. In the midst of this information hunt today I will be racking my brain for a dinner idea that does not require me to run to the store for anything. I will also be driving my kids and picking them up, supervising the doing of homework and doing housework. Somewhere in there I also have to work on our monthly budget with Mark.

Today, I am the face of America, concerned but ill informed. Striving to make good choices for my states future and simultaneously my family's future, all of this while I also fight the feeling that I do not matter to these candidates. Welcome to America, the home of hard fought freedom, now what are you going to do with it? Hmn let's see…Enie Meanie Miney Moe…

Miss Understood

So sometimes you set out with the best of intentions and you fall flat on your face. You attempt to say or do something that you are sure will be a good thing and it is misunderstood or even tossed aside like yesterdays news. Just now for example I suggested a blouse to my youngest for her choir concert tonight and she balked. Look, (I want to say) it is not like I am pinning you to the floor and putting it on you, settle down, it is just a suggestion. Isn't that what Mom's do? Help, suggest, run around making things right? Apparently, this is out dated…or maybe, I am out dated. Hmn, that's something to think about.


 I am not going to sit here and say that every time I make a suggestion, it is a good one. I am merely saying that I try to think things through and if it seems like there is a better option, I am going to point it out. Sometimes this blows up in my face, like it did last night. I am not going to get into the gory details, but let's just say that I was trying to point out another option and apparently my delivery of the said option was not taken well. In my defense, I am full of anxiety right now. I am stressed to the max trying to hold up the lantern of life so that my daughter can see her way through this sticky teen patch she is in, and she is not receptive to my support. I am feeling over whelmed and underappreciated and basically, you can call me…Miss Understood.



I like that name. It has a certain ring to it, respectful yet to the point, Miss Understood. I am really not trying to "get my way", or "run the show" I am trying to look at things from every angle and come up with the best solution. I have always been this way. Honestly, it is like I have a bag full of ideas and I throw them on the table and try to sort out the best one. Sometimes I will be confident that my idea is a good one and I will be repacking my bag and realize, "Nope, I have a better idea, let's try this instead". That is how I am, constantly scanning for the best deal, the best idea, the best option.


Now, because I am misunderstood I am moping around defensive and a little hurt. I want to pack up my lantern of life and tell my family to take a hike. They can head out without Miss Understood and find their way on their own. Good luck maneuvering through all the variables. I don't care, I will be here licking my wounds and I will not be feeling sorry for myself either. All right, that is a lie; I am feeling very sorry for myself right now. I just wanted to make things better instead I created a big messy family brawl. Or did I? Maybe they all just misunderstood and that needs to be corrected, but now Miss Understood is gun shy and does not want to bring it up again. Somehow I have to get back up on my Mom saddle and get back to making things right. Agh, some days I really hate this job! This is one of those days where Mom will have to just put on her big girls panties and get back to work. Good deal or bad deal, aggravated or not there is a situation that needs straightening out, and Miss Understood is just the person to do it!

A Dirty Dish Day

    

"You don't care about me!" my middle daughter yelled at me last night. This after six weeks of driving her to doctors appointments, contacting counselors and teachers at school about her current physical issues and school clothes shopping. Add to that list the regular stuff like grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, and giving out money for voice lessons and many other activities including homecoming, plus the constant cheerleading to keep my children motivated. Yeah, she is right I don't care about her that is obvious

This all started when I gave her, the fed up Momma smack down yesterday afternoon for her constant negative attitude lately. She started griping about a teacher that she has and she started making angry protests about the teacher's inability to teach and also the teacher's poor communication skills. This is not new territory, I have heard all of this before, and guess what nothing has changed. I get the teacher is annoying, I also get it that she does not like his teaching style either, but I am done with the angry war dance about this and I want it to stop, and that is exactly what I told her.

Mark and I have both sat and talked with her recently about the fact that life is filled with people you do not like or that you think do not do a good job. You will have bosses you don't like and coworkers that drive you mad, but you will still have to go to work. Somewhere along the line my daughter has gotten the idea that she is the only one that has this issue and that if she keeps ranting and raving about it that it somehow will fix the problem. The problem is that she has now lost her audience. Because of her inability to let it go and make the best of it, I now tune her out. I am done with the loud chest pounding about something that is not going to magically change anytime soon.

Here's the thing; Aly is going to have to make the change. She is the one that is going to have to "turn her frown upside down" and make the best of it. She may get a whole new teacher next semester, but for now, this is the teacher and she will have to learn to make the class or classes workable. Years ago I had someone tell me in a "suck it up" moment that "Every job has its dirty dishes". That has stuck with me, that one comment has been a constant reminder to me that nothing is perfect. Everything in life has potential; it is how you look at it that makes it work. How many times have you had a boss that you liked, but someone else did not or a job that you hated, but others that you worked with had been doing it half their lives? Right now, my daughter is stuck in the teenage all about me, "Everything sucks" mode and it is coloring her outlook on everything she does. It has even colored her opinion of her mother.

The truth is obviously I do care, but honestly I have no patience left. I really do not even want to be around negative Nellie right now because she is dragging me down. I have nothing encouraging left to say. If that means that she thinks I don't care, oh well! I just need a break from this daily rampage of negativity. It is absolutely mind numbing. This is just another example of the "dirty dish" portion of parenting that I must make my way through. Today, I will do more things that prove that I "don't care", things like going to the store, doing laundry and making dinner. I know, it is a shock how little I care isn't it!

A New Normal

Yesterday my youngest sister and her family came for dinner. We enjoyed an afternoon of good food and heartfelt conversation. My sister and I talked about our kids and the challenges we are facing with them and every so often we would touch on the painful past. It felt good to not have that pain full on in our faces for a change. We were able to talk about lives in a somewhat normal way for the first time in a long time.

I use the term "somewhat normal", because it is a new normal of our real life mixed with a splash of occasional pain. Every so often we will learn some morsel of information from the ocean of paperwork that is surrounding us that reminds us that our life is still not 100% our own. We are all still victims of a mistake that was never meant to happen. This disaster that started over a year ago now is still randomly beating us down and reminding us that we have a ways to go to get back to what we knew as normal, if that ever even happens. We may just have to learn to live in the new normal.

The new normal has taught us that even the for sure things in life are never a sure thing and that trust is sometimes given too easily and to the wrong people. As my sister and I spoke yesterday, she shared with me that she felt that I had been gracious and giving throughout this ordeal. She also commented that she was humbled by how open handed and understanding I had been. While I thanked her for the compliment, there was a small piece of me that felt uncomfortable. I have only done what I know to be right. There is no gain to come from hoarding and smacking hands yelling "Mine, Mine!!" It is best that we move through this open handed. That is what my heart knows as normal and that is how I wish to live. There is no compliment needed for living my life the way I know in my heart is right.

I look forward to more time with my sisters and I also look forward to walking through this maze of deceit and hurt and coming out on the other side with an open heart and mind. I have forgiven my Dad for the mistakes he made which has made this journey much easier and I have also spent time reflecting on my Mom and genuinely learning to appreciate and love her idiosyncrasies, I have to because I now realize that I am more like her then not. I also realize that no matter what someone else thinks normal looks like, normal changes and you have to learn to adapt. There will always be a new normal.

Search and Rescue

It's no one's fault, I am just lost. Over a year ago I started the search for myself with a quest to understand what the perfect Mom was and now I am trying to unfold "The Me I want to be". The issue is that there is no tried and true method to finding yourself other than time and perseverance. You have to be willing to face the truth and walk through it. Yesterday, I realized I was on the other side of two of my truths.

 Both of these revelations came as Mark and I enjoyed a date night last night. The date was not anything overly ambitious; we just went to the Mall to poke around and then stopped at a favorite restaurant for dinner. On our way home we decided to stop at a cute new bar/restaurant for a drink and that's when the AH HA moments came pouring out. Mark and I were chatting about our life and some possible changes that might take place for us in the years to come, and I told him how dedicated I am to being there for my girls. I enjoy being able to take them where they need to be and help them when they need help without having to juggle a work schedule on top of it. I also like being home when they get home from school to ask the important questions like, "How was school? Anything happen today? Do you have any homework?" That was when it hit me, I like being a stay-at-home mom. I like what I do here at home and I would not trade it for anything. AH HA!

 Later in the conversation, we talked about our budget. We took a workshop a couple of years ago to learn how to budget and handle our money. We have been doing a fabulous job following the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University way, paying off our debt and working towards living a better financial life. The rub is that within that I have curtailed my shopping and spending on myself to the point that I just do not feel good about myself. I do not feel like the put together gal that I once was. I am working so hard to be a good steward with my money that I have let myself go. It is nothing that would stand out to others; it is more a feeling inside of me. On my favorite shoes, the heels are worn down, and my dresser drawer is full of old worn out tops that I hate to wear. My bathrobe I bought on the clearance rack for $7.00 a few years ago, and although I hate this bright orangey red fleece (totally unfeminine) thing, I do not want to spend the money to replace it. I am tired of stepping out into the world not feeling pretty. Even my comfy clothes for hanging out at home make me feel like an ugly blob. Last night as I talked to Mark I realized that my feeling good about myself requires a little more personal attention and some splurging. I did have to confess that I had already started to reclaim myself with some (very cute) purchases. This revelation may of course make you think of me as vain, but I had to be honest with myself that I feel best when I am comfortable in what I am wearing. That also means it is time for the orangey/red robe to go. Budget or no budget, I have to reclaim my fashion.

 The rescue is underway and the casualty will be on the road to recover very soon. I am not going to lie, I do feel a little embarrassed that this stay-at-home mom needs fashion to fulfill her, but I have been searching for the truth and the truth is what I found. Flat out no holds barred truth. I love being a stay-at-home Mom, but I want to look and feel good while I perform my maternal duties. This segment of the search and rescue is now complete. Now if you will excuse me, I have some shopping to do.