Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Letting it go...kind of...

I mostly left my job right before Thanksgiving...
We negotiated me down to one day and week in the office
 and working from home the rest of the week.
Guess someone finally realized that if I am not working my 10- 20 hours every week...
someone else was going to have to  do it!
 
It may not be much, but it will let me make my car payment and keep the kiddos in art class

Wolf in watercolors by the Boo Boo - 8 years 

Hedgehog in oil pastels by the Bubba - 14 years


And since they pretty much rock this whole art thing...
I will suck up working with a bunch of bitchy control freaks.
 
Actually started making real dinners, packing lunches everyday except pizza day and getting my crafty on.
Can't wait to see where all this will take me!


Friday, November 14, 2014

Channeling my inner Caddy Shack


 
 
I wanted a change...
and boy am I getting it!
It's time to be the ball...
Fulfill my own destiny...
Quit my job!
 
My last day will be November 25th and then I am gearing up to go into the memory quilt business!
I love to sew!
Have done it for years.
My first job was to make cording for my mom's slip cover business when I was 9 years old.
Sitting on the front porch sewing my little fingers off for a whopping 10 cents/yard!
Made Barbie clothes, my own clothes (still wear a shirt that I made as a junior in high school), blankets, basic slip covers, quilts...etc.
I have boxes of stuff set aside to make quilts for my own girls and now I am going to do it!
Besides - I need before and after shots!
Have a few friends that I am going to do quilts for here and then I'm hitting etsy!
I will never be rich
I may not even be that successful...
But I will never be disrespected in the work force again.
It has been 17 years since I last cried and work...I quit that job.
And now I am quitting this one.
Life is too short to be unhappy.
I have a father who is very ill
I have a great friend who just completed her last chemo and getting ready to start radiation...she has 3 kids and is only 37 years old.
There are so many uncertainties in life
So many things that can make can make us happy, why on earth would I willingly go out of my way to go someplace that makes me cry?
A little thing about me - I don't cry...hardly ever...the hubby jokes that I am part Vulcan. 
 I just don't do tears...
If you see my crying, it's usually because I am frustrated and can't punch anyone.
Or I am being thrown into a meeting the minute I walk in the door to be told I am being insubordinate...
when all I did was follow directions clearly laid out in an email.
I would rather save the money I spend in gas and collect cans on the side of the road for the CA CRV (5 cents each baby!)
then work in a place that chastises you for following their rules...
I need logic and that shit doesn't  make sense.


Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Take this job and shove it!

I am still alive
I am still employed
for now...
turned in my notice
and on November 25th
I am outta there...
 
gearing up for a new creativity fueled
etsy driven
homespun kind of lifestyle
 
why should I worked harder
for more hours
although the paycheck is nice
I always
end up spending it on gas, convenient groceries and fast food
when I could be
staying home
sewing
making a food plan
sticking to a budget
baking for my kids
actually doing laundry
cleaning my house
 
we shall see...

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Learning to balance...

Found out my big girl isn't as crooked as we thought!
 
Met with the Orthopedic Surgeon who is also my nephew's doc, got some x-rays, some scans and the results are in...
Leg length is only 3mm off, her knees only twist in slightly and it looks like she is done growing in her legs!
I still need results from the growth plate in her hand to see if she is really tapering off, but I have to wait for those for a bit.
Hoping that she is about done growing so there isn't a more noticeable difference in her face.
 
We have a physical therapy evaluation coming up to give her some extra stability with the knock knee-ness and Asperger's eval over the summer...
probably one for myself as well...
I told her that there is a good chance that I have Asperger's too...and that if I don't, I am definitely peeking over the fence...if she gets a diagnosis, I told her I would get tested too and we could get some t-shirts that say "I have Asperger's - what's your problem?!"
It would explain A LOT about my life and the way I view the world.
 
The Geneticist wants to do a genetic study on the family since we have 5 confirmed cases of the skeletal abnormality here in the area and then we can screen for the 4 little ones instead of waiting for puberty.  Can't tell if my little one will be pissed if she has it or pissed if she doesn't and feels left out...
 
I am just going to grab on to the kids when they will let me and love on them as much as I can.  Support my husband as often as I can, even though I want to throttle him half the time...
I tell most people I have three children...
 
Not sure if I am approaching a mid-life crisis, in the middle of one or finally just figuring out life a little bit more each day, but I am ready to start letting these guys start taking care of themselves a little bit and me taking care of them a little less...can you say control freak?!  I think you can!
 
It's time to let me take care of myself a little more...
 
This is not where I thought I would be in life, not with my current struggles...self induced, imaginary and real.  But what I have realized is that I am the only one that can truly change anything.  I can lead by example, I can communicate more clearly, but I am done waiting for everyone else to get in the car...mommy said it's time to go.
Someone else can be mommy a bit.
(and in the hubby's defense, he has been stepping it up a bit more)
 


Thursday, March 20, 2014

There once was a crooked girl who lived in a straight world....

Well, it's official...
My oldest is lopsided
:(
 
Not the end of the world.
She has more testing to do and an appointment with my nephew's orthopedic surgeon in a couple of weeks.
We need to see if her knock-knee-ness comes from ligaments around the knee on the outside being looser than the ligaments on the inside and drawing the knees in or if it is from her bones actually twisting in.
The first option involves PT, the second, potential surgery.
There really isn't anything we can do about her face except pray it isn't too severe and start saving for plastic surgery and bone grafts.
 
The geneticist had a field day when she realized that there are 5 official, 1 potential and 5 yet to be discovered "victims" and is trying to see if Children's Hospital will authorize genetic testing on the fan-damily.
If she gets the ok, we could see if my youngest is just waiting for puberty to hit before she changes or if she dodged the bullet so to speak. 
 
Next stop Asperger's...


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Getting it all out...and wishing it would go away...

My problems compared to others are pretty small...
but they are mine
and
they suck
.

My oldest is getting ready to go on a field trip across the county to D.C. which by itself is making me nervous, it's just that when she gets back her world is probably going to majorly change...
 and in more than one way.

Way #1
we are having her evaluated for Asperger's
She has always been immature and impulsive, but now that she and her peers and falling headfirst into puberty, the gap is becoming wider and her uniqueness more apparent.
I am having her evaluated so that I can make sure all the resources that are available are made accessible to her.

Way #2
A genetic anomaly for an asymmetrical skeleton that makes itself apparent during puberty.
We have an appointment with my nephew's geneticist in March.
We need to see how much of her body is being effected and get a referral to an orthopedic doctor to see if her knees are showing the same juju that her cousin's and dad's do...I want to push her to her own personal limits, but do not want her held to the same standards as her peers if they are too physically challenging for her or could cause her knee to dislocate.  We had noticed that her gait was off and she is a bit knock kneed, but didn't think it was the skeletal thing until we looked at her face.

So, we get to tell her, hey your brain doesn't process the way everyone else's does, but on the bright side, we will know why everyone thinks that you are weird...and by the way your face is starting to get call catty-wompus and we aren't sure how off center you will end up, but we can start saving for your facial reconstruction surgery now...you can have a head full of titanium like your Aunt!


The upside is that she doesn't think like a "normal" 14 year old right now and doesn't really care how she looks, but right now doesn't realize that her face is changing...hell, we didn't even notice it until the other day.

I hope and pray that her trip to D.C. is incredible and can become a "Happy Place" for her to go to when the cards she has been dealt start to bring her down.... 

Friday, January 17, 2014

While you were out...

The hubby is headed out of town for a the weekend to do a 1/2 Marathon
and I am going for a Marathon size surprise make-over on the house...

The first week of the year I organized both girls' closets...


I would show a pic, but experiencing technical difficulties...


Knowing that I am going to overhaul some things, I have let this place go...it looks like a bad episode of cops in here...it's pretty bad...and I grew up in a trailer park...I've seen bad!


I am going to shift some things on the walls
complete the gallery wall at the bottom of the stairs
get unused furniture out of the teenager's room
paint a dresser I now have placed under the stairs
hook up a new phone system
trailer park engineer 2 queens size quilts into one cal-king
sort out and purge my 4 giant boxes of "Stuff"
New blinds in the little one's balcony door
Install cork board art area on the back of her bedroom door
and general putting away of things that haven't been put away for the past two weeks


:)


Hope I can pull this off!