How do I still have hair

Have you ever felt like giving up? Simply just throwing up your hands and saying frack it I just don't care anymore!?! Well I feel like I am stuck here. I just can't seem to pull myself out of this slump. Right now I can pin point two causes but there may be more.

The first cause, my kids. More specifically my kids attitudes. I literally want to pull my hair out. The oldest isn't even nine and I find myself cringing thinking about the teenage years. I try so hard not to raise my voice and then before I know it I'm yelling at one or more of them for doing something that they know better not to or just makes absolutely no sense why they did it. The oldest know not to talk back. This was a major rule that he was taught since a toddler, well now not a conversation happens with out him talking back.

Then you have the second oldest who is resorts to whining about any and everything. He especially turns it on when his Dad is around or when he is talking to his biological Mom. It will go from normal tone when talking to me to the second his Dad walks in he is whining up a storm. It drives me up a wall!

Now the oldest girl and middle child can be summed up in two words, DRAMA QUEEN! Every little thing is blown way out of proportion. Take this morning for instance, she was told to get dressed for school and instead of just getting her clothes out she went into a meltdown of not having anything to wear! I'm talking full on screaming, kicking, snot running down her face and hiccuping. She is six! She has a closet full of clothes. When I told her she needed to knock it off and calm down she looked at me like I was crazy. What is she going to be like as a hormonal teenager! Oh my goodness, prepare world, PRE-fricken-PARE!!!

Then the second youngest and youngest boy. He is so flip flop. He can go from being the sweetest, kindest, little helper to a crazed child in .1 seconds flat. One example he decided to take a toy from the youngest because she was "thinking about writing on it" this threw her into a fit and when I told him to give it back he threw it at her. Not gently handed or even tossed, but chucked it at her. That earned him a time out and he was sent to his room. This led to stomping up the stairs, an almost slammed door(told him to stop before he did it), and then almost 10 minutes of blood curdling screams on how unfair it was.

Now the youngest, where even to start. Whoever came up with the phrase "terrible twos" knew nothing! She started at two and never stopped. Yes she is only three now but there is no calming down yet, if anything she gets crazier and crazier. She is constantly screwing with the other kids and making them freak out. She loves to take things that are not hers and take off running. And don't get me started on my makeup. Keeping her out of that is a chore in itself.

I don't want to raise my voice to them anymore but find myself at a brick wall with coming up with something else that works. Time outs? Ha yeah right. They do their time, get out of the corner, and I swear within 10 minutes do the exact same thing again. We tried making them do exercise as punishment. Nope didn't work either. They thought it was fun and asked to do push ups all the time. I don't expect my kids to act like perfect little angels all the time but my goodness I am exhausted. I need to come up with different stratagies but so far nothing.

Until next time...

Starting Anew

So here it goes again. I am starting over on the blog front. I realize that I have done this multiple times. I decide to start blogging again and hype myself up and lay out all these goal and then never follow through. Its the same list of excuses, I'm too busy, the kids need me, I have to clean, I need to do laundry, I could go on and on but the real reason is I just get lazy.
   
 In addition to that I think its time that I admit that I started a blog with the idea in my head that it was going to be read by a bunch of people who would leave me encouraging comments and we'd start this weird camaraderie but that's not the case. Just the sheer volume of blogs out there makes that an insane idea. Plus I refuse to share on my own social media pages that I blog. It seems to much to have people who I know know reading anything I write. Hell what if I wrote about them.
 
We all are guilty of it. I personally have no one in my life that I am happy with all the time. Even my boyfriend, who is the love of my life, pisses me off at times. I know there are times when we both want to lock the other one in a room and leave them there for awhile. And that's the nice version that goes on in my head.
 
Now can you imagine what I think and or say about other people in my life who piss me off? I have one best friend who I love dearly and would go to the ends of the earth for but at times she's a SHITTY friend. There are others who never pick up a phone to call except when they need something and then there are ones who are more of glorified acquaintances then friends.
 
Part of the shotty friendships are my fault. I do get busy, I have five kids on a daily basis. When there's time with no kids, the first priority is time with my love. But come on. I'm sick of being the one to reach out, to always make the phone calls, to set up the dinners, to try to plan get togethers. Their reasoning, I moved. Yes I no longer live 5 minutes away but I didn't move states. At most we are an hour apart. Before the move, every single one of them supported it, even encouraged it. They saw how happy I was and told me to go for it. See not always shotty friends! But not long after I moved it became the one sided friendship.

 Maybe I didn't choose the best of friends but they are honestly great people. Maybe I need to make new friends but I've never been great at that. I'm a tough nut to crack but once we become friends its a different story. Then add in that my love has an ex-wife that had friends around this neighborhood but then burned those bridges. Unknowingly to me I befriended the one friend she had left around here(that we know of) and that completely blew up in my face. Its amazing that grown women can still revert to the he said, she said bullcrap. I didn't like high school drama the first time around and I can't stand it now.
   
Plus how do you make new friends in your late twenties? I'm a stay at home mom so there's no work friends(even though that didn't work before). I've joined Mom groups before and still felt like an outsider. There are always the older more established Moms that give me the brush off since I had my son at 18. Then there's the other group of younger Moms that only show up at the groups once or twice and then disappear. And the final group is the "regulars" they started the group and have been around the longest and are not okay with new people.
   
 Maybe I haven't found the right group yet, I don't know. I have made a couple connections with people but sadly its not the friendship where you call just to chat. I know it's partially my fault but maybe I'm not ready yet. One day.

 Now that I've excepted that this blog is going to just be an online journal for me maybe I will write more. If not it's not a big deal and if I do then 5 years down the line I can always look back and giggle or realize how different I am.

Blarg...Cleaning Overhaul

     Well this has been coming for sometime now but I'm finally starting the project of doing a complete deep cleaning/organizing/purging overhaul. Back in July of this year Mr. Big and I moved in together. Or more specifically my munchkins and I moved into his house. I used to live in an apartment to the logical step of living together was to move into his house.
     As you can imagine being a single Mother and living on my own with my kids for so long we had a ton of stuff. So basically you have two fully loaded households now trying to merge everything into the space of one of them. Think trying to park two SUVs in a two car garage. Ideally it all should fit but good luck getting out through one of the doors. Well seeing as both of us suffer from some minor OCD the clutter is not okay. It will literally drive us both insane. Not really conductive to raising 5 five kiddos if you ask me. I'd say about 50% of my belongings are still packed in boxes and taking up part of the garage. This is not ideal. I love Mr. Big and my new life but I would like for this to feel 100% like home. I'd say right now I'm sitting at a 75% feeling of home.
     So that brings me to the lovely operation clean house. Originally I had told myself that finishing two entire rooms a day would be no problem. Well as I am already almost three hours in and still working on one room I don't know how well that is going to turn out. I guess I neglected to take into account the two munchkins at home with me who have now decided that they can only play in the room I am in or the fact that I am dealing with some things that are pushing my stress to an insane high, oh and did I forget to mention I went to the Chiropractor last time for my first adjustment in oh seven years. Yeah I am in a little a lot of pain and trying to sit and take the time to do all the stretches is proving difficult. And yes I am neglecting the cleaning for the little bit of time its going to take me to write this but hey I'm entitled to a little break.
      Well onto the first room I am tackling. Its the living room. Out of all the rooms this is probably going to be the easiest but its also one of the ones where we spend most of our time. So far I have emptied the back shelf of stuff that doesn't belong, dusted, cleaned up all the toys, got rid of all the papers, and fixed the movie collection. Yes this doesn't sound like much in type but trust me it was. Left on the checklist I still have to sweep, vacuum, and clean the coffee table and window seat. If I really push myself I should be able to get this done in the next hour. Worst part about getting this room done... the next room is going to be the kitchen. And let me tell you that is the second worst. Once I get to the basement I'm in trouble. Its literally a disaster area down there. If i'm not heard from for a couple of days someone should probably send a search party. I'll more then likely be buried under an avalanche of toys.
   

Change is good

Well for quite sometime now I have been unhappy with my job. I have worked for the same company for over 5 years. Originally I worked full time in the office but ever since my move I was working part time from home as a way to help them out. Well I had called into the office yesterday on a completely unrelated subject to then be asked if I could come in and train my replacement. This came out of nowhere and I wasn't even going to be told until I drove into the office. Which is more than an hour round trip and close to 60 miles! Not only have I been going out of my way to accommodate them but then I find out that they have been looking for a replacement for awhile and had hired someone over two weeks ago.
No longer having this job is not the end of the world but what has me upset is the way it was done. Maybe just a heads up that they were replacing me would have been decent. A phone call or at the minimum an email. I guess if I really think about it I shouldn't be surprised on how this all went down. The owners of the company have gone from upstanding respectable married couple to divorcing bitter owners who were, and could still be, practicing illegal billing practices. I don't know for sure since I am so far removed from the office but it is my experience that people who get away with something once tend to revert to doing it again. This is no longer my concern seeing as I am no longer an employee.
The immature side of me hopes that they crash and burn but the mature side of me just doesn't care anymore. Mr. Big gave me some of the best advice, "Yes it feels sucky to be laid off and yes the way they went about it was utter bullshit but look at it this way... We don't really need the income and now all the headaches and stress associated with the job are gone." As simple as that sounds it was perfect.
No matter what has happened or what is to come I am going to be fine. I have 7 munchkins who always know how to make me smile and the worlds best boyfriend who knows exactly what to say to make me feel better no matter how crappy, angry, stressed, or sad I feel. Plus another bonus now I have even more time with my munchkins and maybe I can get to all the cleaning, crafts, and projects I have been planning and pinning on pinterest! I may even get back to blogging more :)

Day to day life

Well I could start this again by saying how sorry I am for not keeping up with updates but in truth I'm not sorry. Life has thrown me so may curveballs that this blog took a backseat. Mr. Big and I moved in together back in July and I went from being a full time working single Mom to a stay at home Mom who does minimal part time hours from home. This was and is still an adjustement but I am loving it. Over the summer I got to spend everyday with the five of our munchkins. Yes I typed that correct, five. I have three beautiful munchkins: Alex age 7, Emma age 5, and Izzy age 2. Whereas Mr. Big has two handsome boys: Austin age 7 and Sebastian age 3. Mr. Big has two ex-step children who are still a very big part of his life and are now a big part of my life. There is never a dull moment at our house. Now with school starting it has become a little less hectic during weekdays seeing as I only have two home with me but now the days are filling up with things for us to go out and do. From story times at our local library to speech lessons to running errands I almost have to schedule days to just stay home and clean or relax.
I guess deciding to restart this blog on a night when I'm pretty under the weather was not the smartest idea. I am by no means a writer but normally I can come up with more then this little dribble. I guess I'm just going to call this a night and go and cuddle with the other half and hopefully that will help me to feel better.

T.G.I.F!!!!!

For some reason this week dragged like you wouldn't believe. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm still not used to working five days a week again. Ever since the end of December with the Holidays the office has either been closed, or one of my kids are sick, or I am sick and I have been working three or four day weeks. And yes a four day work week is way shorter then a five day one. I guess another contributing factor is that this is my "slow" week at work. And when I say slow I mean I'm only doing the equivalent of three peoples jobs whereas on my "busy" weeks I am doing as much as five people. But that's the argument that I am betting almost all employed people have, over worked and underpaid. I look forward to the day when I enjoy the work that I do and not start the countdown to Friday on Sunday afternoons. Granted being a single mom is putting the dream job on hold for awhile, photography is not exactly the most stable job, but I would love to even be able to go back to school for something stable. All this talk of the grants out there yet trying to find them and get them is not easy. Well there was a tangent that I completely didn't intend to write. Back to being happy that its Friday :) Going out with Mr. Big tonight, which is always a good time. Pretty sure this is just going to be low key though. Grabbing dinner and then a movie. Finally going to go and see The Women in Black. I had actually won free screening passes to this movie but ended up being sick on the night and then ran late when we tried to make it so didn't see it. I'm hoping that it turns out to be a good horror flick. I love to be scared as long as I'm not alone. The adrenaline rush that you get is worth it. I already have warned Mr. Big that I do tend to scream at horror movies so we will see how he reacts to that! Then a weekend home with my munchkins fixing valentines and baking. I think I'm actually going to go the cookie route this weekend and attempt to decorate the cookies to actually look like something. Possibly Elmo or Star Wars or Transformers. Almost forgot that my son is having a friend over this weekend so lets see how much hair I have left on Monday. Wish me luck and if it stays calm I swear I will get the cupcakes posted that I talked about weeks ago. Geez what a slacker I am!!!!

Head first, feet last.

Well I did it, I took the plunge and am now officially in a relationship again. Mr. Big and I are now a we. It was cute and hilarious and completely off the wall, but so so me. Its odd since my track record since my ex has not been stellar; a crazy, a stalker, and a felon theif, but you cant dwell on the past right. That's a lesson that I have learned and yet am still learning. I find myself comparing situations that are happening now to something that happened in the past. I am actively working on trying to just sit back and take things one day at a time but its hard. I am at my core a planner. Add in three kids and the planning becomes a necessity. After being burned multiple times I have a lot of problem with giving out that blind faith. I don't think that its easy for anyone but for me its extremely hard. I'm talking pulling teeth with no Novocaine or any of that fabulous laughing gas! But if I want to eventually find that one who is going to be the one then I have to put myself out there and be okay with the chance of falling. Just a quick little dribble for now :)