It’s Just One of Those Days…

Wake up. Go to work. Pick up boys from work. Go home. Sleep. Rinse, repeat.

That has pretty much what my life has been for some time now and I am not that upset about it. It has been calm and quiet. Everyone is well, everyone seems relatively happy. There have been various things like I got a promotion at work which came with a descent pay raise. My student loans were forgiven and the relief that has given me to know I don’t have that debt hanging over my head anymore is wonderful! I believe my husband feels the same way. Office life is pretty good. New job has its stressful days but its the workload that can be stressing, not the work itself. I’ve become pretty good at “leaving it at the office” and not bringing it home. Took me a while to realize that there are no merit based raises and that I didn’t need to do all the things because the percentage raise I would get is the same from year to year whether I was doing excellent or just satisfactory.

I have done something I thought I would never do: I applied to graduate school for a Masters in Science for Rehabilitation Counseling. There is a scholarship that will pay for all the tuition through the state. I talked to several friends who I am very close to and asked their advice on going back to college and pretty much all of them said a free Master’s degree is not something you turn down. The pay increase to become a counselor is something like 20K + a year more than I am making now. I had my interview for entrance into the program the other day. I feel like I totally botched it but my coworkers who are currently in the program said I didn’t and were very comforting. I was pretty upset. I have some really great coworkers. A couple of them wrote recommendation letters for me for my application. They are very reassuring and have offered to help me with schooling and my studies.

Its Friday, work is nearly done and the weekend is upon us. Its time to start the garden and ill be buying many bags of dirt and fertilizer to get it going. Its time to plant peas and lettuce. More later. Im determined to blog more about my boring and every day life. But right now, its about time to leave and there is a glass of Cardbordeaux sangria in my very near future. Ciao!

It was rough last week…

It’s Monday. It’s raining and cool out. The “I don’t wannas” are strong this morning. It was very difficult getting out of bed, perfect sleeping in conditions. This past week was rough, the weekend even more so.

Over Easter weekend I spent that Saturday in the ER because my oldest had a seizure three days after being weaned off the meds. I don’t know if it was from going off the meds as my brother in law suggested or if its something else. All the brain scans came back negative. They put him back on the meds for now. We’ll get a couple other tests done.

Wednesday, I spent the morning in the ER with my husband, who’d taken a fall in the rafters of a roof and ripped the skin back on his forearm on nails sticking out of one of the boards. He got six stitches with steri-strips. They’d have put more in but since he’s allergic to lidocaine or Novocain or any of those types of meds, they had to stitch him without any numbing agent. He said it only hurt a little bit. He never flinched so he is either good at hiding it or the fact that it didn’t really do any damage under the skin kept the nerve damage down.

Also on Wednesday, my friend Ernie, lost his battle with colon cancer, which he’d been battling since 2019. It hit me hard. He was a very good friend, a teacher and a surrogate father. I was warned he most likely wouldn’t make it through the night by my best friend who was also close to him, so my very understanding boss let me go early from work so I could get up there and say goodbye. He was heavily drugged for the pain with hydromorphone so he wasn’t very alert. I held his hand and talked to him and told him how much me and my family loved him, how he affected our lives and gave him a hug and kiss. He squeezed my hand a few times. I know he could hear but alertness and verbal response was not there. While talking to his wife about some topic i cant recall, he shook his head quickly no in disagreement to it, so I knew he could hear. His breathing was very labored because of the tumors in his lungs. It was so painful seeing him that way after knowing him for over 20 years as a boisterous, happy, laughing man. I left at 8pm when visiting hours were over and drove the hour home in tears. At 10:20pm, my best friend called to say he was gone. I cried and cried. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I called off work the next day because I was too emotional to deal with work, but also I looked like I went five rounds with Mike Tyson in a prize fight and lost. I cried most of the morning reading stories and seeing pictures on Facebook that people were sharing. I went back to work Friday. He was buried Saturday with full military honors. So many people came! Id bet there had to be at least a hundred people there and i know of at least a dozen that lived a distance away that couldnt make the trip for various reasons, that wanted to be there. People spoke good memories of him, some making us laugh and some cry. I was a pallbearer to carrying him out of the hearse and onto a stand for the “viewing”.

It was natural burial with no casket. He was a veteran and buried in his uniform, on a board and wrapped completely in what looked like muslin fabric with hemp handles for carrying him. He was laid to rest in the ground right into the dirt. No concrete vault like they do with a casket. I like that idea. I was thinking about being cremated but I think this sounds better…feeding the trees.

Afterwards we had a wake and there was so much food!!! So many stories told, so many laughs. I think he would have loved it and he was smiling down from above. I went home afterwards and sat on my sunporch listening to classical music, knitting and decompressing. A real whopper of a thunderstorm blew in and lasted for about an hour. It was awesome.

I will miss that man so much. I feel like there is a hole in me because he’s gone. It will take a long time to heal and it will leave a scar I’m sure. Rest in peace, Ernie, and if you wouldn’t mind, say hi to my Dad for me and that I love him.

Ernie Sanford-Martinez 11/14/46 – 4/12/23

2023 is All About Me!

Yea, I’m a poet and I didn’t know it. Anyway, I spent New Years with my friends like we do every year. A lovely time was had by all, though it was hard to stay up to midnight and watch the ball drop. It was just me and the three teenagers. I was glad I did.

I plan on focusing on me. What I want to do. What I want to make. Getting in better shape and health. Finishing unfinished projects that have been in limbo for so long (*cough, cough* basementrenovation *cough,cough…gives evil eye to hubby*)

I want to rationalize the money I spend. Take a pause when I see something Im about to buy and think is this something I actually need or is it an impulse buy? Put more in savings for something down the road like traveling.

I want to learn more. Since I started dating my now husband, he took over the cooking in exchange for I do all the laundry. While this is great for me, it means my cooking talents have gotten lost. I also have no imagination except for really simple things. Im great cooking italian but other then that I stand in front of the fridge or freezer completely uninspired. I started compiling a list of thing I wanted to do or learn.

-Take some cooking lessons. I want to be able to look at whats in the fridge or pantry cabinets and come up with something tasty and fun or interesting for dinner. Something my picky boys will eat too.

-Start taking guitar lessons again. Years ago when my boys were young, I was taking lessons in PA at a local music shop. I had to quit because their Dad got overtime and I had no sitter for them to go to the lessons. Now, they are 18 and 21 so no worries about needing a sitter.

-Yoga. I have never tried yoga. I have always had the mindset that because I’m overweight that I would not be able to perform the moves. I had given up before Id even tried. That changes now.

-More art and creativity in my life. I knit. I embroider. I feel like I’m in a rut though. I cross stitch, which i have done since I was 7. I do free embroidery where i draw the image on a transfer medium and then use that as a template. But, thanks to Pinterest and Instagram, I have found so many different types of projects, embroidery techniques and styles and I WANT TO TRY THEM ALL!!! So, break out of my rut, my comfort zone and try something new. My Pinterest board has so many ideas pinned it would take me a lifetime..or more to try them all.

-Organization and housekeeping. My house is pretty clean. With three corgis there is dog hair and of course, dust (which is the chore i hate the most). Years ago my Mom use to use this index card system that sorted the chores into days of the week. I want to say it was called The Fly Lady system. Monday you would vacuum and do two loads of laundry. Tuesday you would dust and run the dishwasher. Wednesday: clean the bathroom..etc., etc. with chores for each day of the week. Its purpose was to not make you feel overwhelmed and things got done and didn’t take a lot of time. I think each chore card had an estimated time of how long it would take. I remember helping my mother (I was maybe 10?) as part of my chores. She’d always give us the little ones like dusting the end tables. But anyway, to get into something like that again.

-Read more. While I love having paper books in my hand to read, it isn’t always feasible. Therefore my Kindle app or Audible app keeps me reading when Im someplace and do not have a book with me. On facebook, I shared a post from someone else about suggesting books to me to read and there is quite a few listed in the responses. I’ve made a list by my computer to check them off and read them before 2023 ends. Also, some classics. Kindle usually offers them for free.

-The big one: learn to love myself. In truth I don’t hate myself, I hate my body. Im very overweight and its hard to drop any weight between medical conditions and serious injuries ive suffered over the years (broken back, herniated disks in neck and low back, etc). I want to look in the mirror and not hate myself. Not feel badly about walking in front of a mirror that is lower than my upper chest. I see these women on Tiktok who have such confidence and self love (and yes I’m sure its not every day and that they have their bad days) but one in particular use to be a model I believe and then had children and as lots of women do, she gained weight. She is happy that way because she isn’t starving herself and having food intake constantly at the forefront of her mind. I want to be like that. This is a change in thought process, which is not easy. I grew up with a parent that was very concerned with how you looked, dressed, whether you wore lipstick, if your hair was coifed, etc. If you put on weight (which with puberty is when I started to) she would let you know it and lets just say tact is not something she knows. But I digress. I want to love myself more.

I know my goals are probably the same as many, many people in the world. I purposely will not put deadlines on them (especially the weightloss ones) because I dont want it to be “I hit the date, reached my goal, Im done!” I want this to go on and on for the rest of my days. Broaden my mind. Self improvement. Learn as much as I can.

Well, Its about time to start dinner.

Ciao!

WTF IS GOING ON!?!?

There are so many things going on in the world right now between the war in Ukraine, COVID cases spiking again, people not wanting to work and so many businesses are closing because of it. A month or so ago a local diner that was our favorite Friday night take out place closed because he couldn’t get people to work there and the cost of food for the restaurant was just getting too high. When he announced it, business boomed. The place was always filled and it was hard to get an order.  They day they closed, they were nice enough to give my son a t-shirt with the store logo on it. I think he was upset the most when they closed.  To a special needs kid, change can be catastrophic, and it did make him cry, which he rarely does.

Gas prices are soaring because oil companies are greedy bastards. Democrats are trying to pass a bill against gas price gouging but from what I’ve heard, all republicans voted against it, which is not surprising because the owner of the oil companies are primarily republicans, and they certainly don’t want to give up any chance to pad their bank accounts further. 

And now another mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas with 21 dead. I just cant. Why does this keep happening here? Why must they resort to killing children or anyone for that matter because of what they are feeling?! How does taking someone elses life….innocent lives…help!?! Its depressing, so very, very depressing. My heart hurts for the families that lost their loved ones yesterday. It scares me too because I still have one kid in school. They sent a notice out last night that they were upping security even though there is no threat to his school. I always tell him to hide, don’t be seen or if you can safely get out and away from the school to do that but not to take any chance at all of being hurt.  I tell my older son who works at a Walmart to do the same thing. Ive told him ways he can get out of the building from the department he works in without hopefully being seen. They give them mandatory videos to watch for “Active Shooters” that he was to watch quarterly.  This shit didn’t happen when I was a kid.

Things have to change. Things have to get better.  With everything going on, it makes me consider moving to another country. Italy is my first choice.

Anyway..I gotta work.  Promise ill try to be more uplifting and positive in my next post.

Ciao!

Hitting the C2 Mark

Fifty. 5-0. I turned 50 years old a couple days ago. It’s a milestone. A big one! Though it kind of bothered me a little in the sense of feeling my mortality a little more, but I still wanted to celebrate it..and no one did (I know, sound like a whiny 12 year old kid). My husband gave me a card and bought a key lime pie (I like but its his favorite) but that was it. No candles, no gifts or cards from my kids, no party, nothing. We went out to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant that opened. It was ok food. The mariachi band was quite good but loud so conversation was pretty much out.   I came into work this morning thinking my coworkers would have done something while I was off because it’s what I do to their spaces when its their birthdays (put up balloons, streamers and sprinkle glitter all over the place, card and a gift), but nothing was done except for piles of work on my desk for when I got back.  My boss did give me a card and a Dunkin gift card last Thursday from herself which I hugged her for. I adore her.

So I am back to work today and am depressed. I don’t want to be here. I loved being home. I hate coming in here. It’s a job and the benefits are good but the pay sucks. My kid that works at Walmart is making more money than I am and I work for the State Education department. I think I will start looking at county jobs as they tend to pay more, have more time off and the benefits are about the same. State jobs are…not as good as they are made out to be that’s for certain.

Kids are doing well. The pool is open and I floated around in the sun yesterday for an hour and it was glorious. This is my season.  Will write more later in detail but work calls.

Cheers!

How is it almost July already?!

2021 has been crazy but not nearly as bad as 2020 was. So, to catch up my readers (all, like 5 of you, LOL) my entire family has been fully vaccinated. My boys went to school virtually the entire year because I sure as hell didn’t want to expose my oldest. who has thus far had clean scans from his cancer four years ago, to COVID. While I would say virtual learning wasn’t better than being in school, the two of them past with only one (my youngest) failing math that requires four weeks in summer school to make up. I’m not chastising him too much because, well, I sucked horrifically at math in high school so, I get it. My oldest graduated high school this year. (OMFG WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE!!??) A week before graduation, they lifted the two tickets per student limit for graduation and opened it to anyone and everyone and made it one big NORMAL graduation ceremony with kids sitting next to one another and no “6 feet apart” (of course masks if you hadn’t been vaccinated). I cried. A lot. My sister and Mom…cried..a lot. He is so happy and proud and went around showing everyone his class ring. Have you ever seen that commercial of the mother watching her son grow up and stating through each scene “if he xxx, it’ll be a miracle” and at the end of it he’s graduating high school and she says, with a tear in her eye “its a miracle”.. Yea. I said that. I live streamed his graduation for those that couldn’t be there and you can probably hear me say that on it, LOL! Five years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer I was fearful I would not see this day. I’m not overly religious but I thank God everyday that he has come through that and I thank all those that prayed through their various religions for him to beat this. It was so touching and heartwarming friends and strangers were praying for him. I’m getting choked up about it now again remembering. One more year and he will be considered cured and be placed in survivorship status and just monitor for side effects of the treatments. And if you are the praying type, I’ll take any prayers you wish to offer on his behalf to make sure he has no return of cancer or side effects. (I thank you in advance)

Work is work. Working remote three days a week, but that goes to two days starting next week and unless something changes, back to in the office fully in August, which I am not happy about. I like working remote. Anyway, still an assistant to a visually impaired woman (who I adore) but apparently my memory issues from a previous car accident make it difficult to remember all the nuances of information I have to remember to enter into the computers when entering plans for her. Bad review last quarter with the threat of letting me go if I cant get the knack of it. That, was a lot of stress for me. I kept it together during the day and when I got home I broke down to hubby who told me not to sweat it. If it comes to that, we’d be just fine. This is why I love this man…one of the many reasons anyway. If it comes to that, I am going to take this as a sign that office work is not my niche. I’ll figure something out. Its not great pay anyway, which you’d think with a state job it would be better. Maybe I’ll take the plunge and do my art fulltime. We shall see. Why can’t I just win the lottery?? This would solve a large portion of my problems. LOL!

We have done a lot of work on our yard. Hubby has gotten the terracing bug and working with stone creating walls and putting levels in our yard and a pond (not quite done yet). We have a larger garden this year. The smaller garden that we started with last year has peas, radishes, lettuce, carrots (which failed but for three, can’t figure out why either) and some stray tomatoes that came up from seeds that had fallen last year. The larger garden has about 8 tomato plants, corn, beans, a couple different kinds of peppers, basil and cilantro. We did ornamental gardening too. Planted a Bartlett pear tree, fig tree, 5 strawberry plants, Japanese kousa dogwood, vanilla/strawberry hydrangea, a couple more lilacs, four rose bushes, a blue rhododendron, another regular hydrangea and a climbing hydrangea near our one fence. I also scattered moon flower seeds around my yard to see how they come up, which probably won’t be till next year but here’s hoping they take in those dingy corners of the yard that have a lot of rock.

Health…gained weight. COVID was not kind and I, like everyone else, baked ALL THE BREAD! Worried about my current state of health I had all that special fasting bloodwork done and while one thing was slightly elevated (thank goodness that was all!), they just stated to make lifestyle changes and get more exercise. So…I’m doing just that. I’ve started doing more, watching what i eat, logging all that goes into my mouth and counting calories. I’m also working out in smaller time bits instead of one chunk of time. I am finding I’m doing more exercise that way and its less boring to do it in ten to fifteen minutes segments than 45 mins to an hour in one shot. I hate exercising. Boring as fuck to me so breaking it up and doing different things helps me still get movement in. One of the things I do is every time I go down to the basement to do a load of laundry, I jump on the bike for ten minutes. Usually gets me about two miles in that time.

Family life is great. Hubby and I couldn’t be happier. Still haven’t gotten our honeymoon yet (five years married this past May) but eventually we’ll save up the money to do it. I’d really like to revisit Italy especially since I just heard they are opening the tunnels under it for the first time for the public to view.

Still knitting socks. Cross stitching things too as that seems to have become a re-budding interest. SCA events are starting back up after over a year hiatus of them being canceled due to COVID. I went to a friend’s elevation for Chivalry a few weeks ago and it was glorious to be in garb again and hug friends I hadn’t seen in ages. The best comment a friend made as he approached me for a hug was “this is going to be awkward” because he planned on hugging long. I laughed, but not awkward at all and it made me so happy. Of course, about 2/3s of my garb was tight due to weight gain but there was a lot of laughter because EVERYONE was saying the same thing “this was the only thing that fit me”. No one cared. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was happy. I missed that so much. I look forward to the normalcy again, which I know is still a ways off. But, its a start.

Alright..back to work. Ciao!

Thanksgiving Eve…

Second day of waking up early to a weird dream regarding SCA life.  Yesterday’s dream was upsetting..someone I consider a good friend turning on me for lack of a better term and giving our friendship the brush off stating in so many words I was not worthy of her friendship.  Last nights dream was about someone asking to fight for me in crown tourney and I guess I said yes because we were walking up in the Greeting line before crown. Just odd in my dream I said yes to this fighter..but before we got to the thrones i woke up.  Like I said..weird..but not upsetting.

About half an hour after I woke, hubby woke. One thing I adore about this man is we never lack for things to talk about. Conversation went all over the place (after dream explanation) and came around to us needing to get in shape. So we bit the bullet at the early hour and went and walked the treadmill and cheered each other on (literally I was bouncing around doing cheerleader chants I remembered from when I was a kid…made him laugh and stumble a little..which…worth it!).  

Dropped the boys to their Dad last night for the holiday week. I miss them already. Funny how you long for alone time and then an hour after the kids are gone you miss their presence. That is me.  Speaking of kids, my oldest had his 18 month scan (which has been reduced to just MRI and CAT scan, YAY!) and have not heard back from them yet. That was two weeks ago. They have never been good at calling with results, but when I go to the appointments, they always say that it was all good. So I am assuming no news is good news.  

We have acquired the fixings for Thanksgiving dinner. Its just the two of us. Hubby mentioned it would be nice to have a couple people but its just us. We had hoped his parents who were vacationing abroad could change their flight and join us for dinner but it wasnt in the cards.

Well I still have to work today. Twenty minutes before I have to leave. Not sure how the day will go as it sounds like several staff will be off. Me being the new hire/low man on the totem pole, in I go. 

Tonight..there will be WINE!!! 

Ciao!!

If Wishes Were Horses…

I would consider myself a lucky person.  I have a pretty good life that honestly, I can’t complain about. I have a good husband who loves me dearly. I have two healthy teenage boys that do pretty well in school and have a descent head on their shoulders and 3 crazy fur babies that I love 98% of the time (not counting when they chew brand new converse sneakers or jump on my knitting needles causing $3500.00 in vet bills to save his hyperactive ass).   I have a good job that, while boring, pays well and isn’t too difficult or stressful to perform. The people here are nice and we even have an office dog that comes in a few times a week. Would I like to be doing something differently for my 9-5? Hell yes but this is what I’ve got for now. A lot of people don’t even have this so..again..I have nothing to complain about.  My own health is pretty good minus needing to lose some weight.  I’m working on that (60 more to go). I have family that loves me, both blood and chosen family and would step up and help should we truly need it. I am not wanting for anything.

That all being said, I have wishes. OHMYGAWD I want to win the lottery.  1.2 billion dollars is a helluva lot of money.  Like most people in this world, I have the “list” of things I would do should I ever win the lottery. My debts (not terribly much but slightly more now because of said crazy corgi of mine) are as such that a 2 million dollar win would cover me and mine completely with lots left over to invest and keep us comfortable. But 1.2 billion!?!  I have a large list of people I would help. I would give money back to the charities that helped us when my son was going through his treatments.  Friends of Karen were such a good support to us between funds to help with extra bills, gas/tolls reimbursement hell they even helped us with Thanksgiving dinner for two years. Back to school supplies too. One of the kindest charities I have seen and been a recipient of Id give them a bunch of money for certain. I have a friend that seriously needs a new house. My sister needs all kinds of repairs after her neighbors house blew up and damaged the hell out of hers back in August.  My help the friends and loved ones list is descent sized.

There is of course my list, which isn’t that grand. The usual..pay off the house, the tiny amount of debt we have, get my dream tripped out minivan (Yes I said Minivan!!! no judging!!), do the home renovations we want done, maybe a little traveling, set up funds for the boys and then invest the rest.  Would I still work? Id probably take some time off but then I would open up the store I’ve dreamed about.  Specialty knitting and embroidery supplies that has a place to sit and stitch/knit. Id also have a tiny cooler case with pastries made by my friend and have a coffee maker too. There’s a similar store in a neighboring town but it only has knitting supplies. I am allowed to dream.

So anyway, last night I took a chance and bought a couple tickets. I wasn’t going to but a family member that is out of town asked if I would pick up a couple for them and i got a couple for us. Maybe one of us will get lucky!

 

Life..the Universe…Everything

In theory, I love blogging and journaling.  Seems though life gets in the way a lot of times.  My life is wake at 6am, get the boys up and started for school while i get ready for work. Shuffle them off at 7 to their buses and then leave for work myself twenty five minutes later and get done at 3 (HA! yesterday I was there 3 hours longer than my shift), come home take care of the pooches, start dinner, normal house/life stuff and then by 8 o’clock i’m most likely falling asleep on the couch.  Its exhausting and by that point I have not picked up a pen to journal nor logged on to blog.  I have one of those “I Want to Do” lists that is a mile long but my motivation seems to have taken an extended vacation itself.  Add to that constant aches and pains all day long from wake to sleep. I wondered if I needed a new mattress but mine is only 6 years old and it’s a good model Beauty Rest.  My brain is making me wonder if I have the starting of fibromyalgia.  Googling symptoms shows a lot of what I feel. Course, every time I do that I am reminded of my Mother who use to have a set of Funk and Wagner (?) encyclopedias. They came with a medical set as well and she use to look up symptoms and get scared she had something terminal. At one point I think she was convinced she had a brain tumor and lupus, neither of which she did. I wake in the mornings and get out of bed and my knees hurt, my hips hurt, my back hurts. I thought after a goodly amount of sleep you were suppose to feel rested and recharged not broken and wanting to climb back into bed. Yea i know, meow, meow, meow. I’m probably just getting old. I’m just tired of being in pain all the time.  It seriously kills my motivation to do anything outside of being a couch potato.

Today is a trip to Westchester for my son’s one year cancer check scans. All prayers are appreciated that they are again, clear and unchanged.

 

 

Another page…

Wednesday I turned in my letter of resignation to the post office with the intent of my final day being Monday.  Unfortunately, the postal truck must have had a grudge against me and decided to give me an injury to my elbow today and the doc’s at the urgent care said it needs rest for at least a week and a brace to help. Tendinitis and elbow strain from the sliding truck door lock sticking. It’s disappointing to me because I don’t like not fulfilling my commitments but at the same time, I’m not entirely unhappy because I get to relax tomorrow and Sunday instead of be there before 7am and come home at 6pm, exhausted and stressed.  Had I held a career position that was full time with benefits, I would have fought through it all to stay.   I liked every person I worked with in the post office and have not one negative word to say about them. They were all very supportive, friendly and helpful. The postmaster stated I was well liked and would happily take me back if i were to apply again for a position with them.

My new employer is The UPS Store. The hours will be just about full time. Its an inside job not working in the weather. Benefits after a few months and never any hours on Sunday. I will work an occasional Saturday (one a month, maybe two) but the owner and manager both know about my SCA hobby and know I have teenage boys and they understand I need weekends on occasion. Most of my hours will be during the week.  This makes me happy. Ryan too.  This weekend I will get some gentle arting done.  Art that will minimize the arm lifting/bending.  Must remember to turn off my early bird weekend alarm….or delete it completely.

Just another page in my book of life…the rest is still unwritten. (yes, I quoted a song..no groaning.) 😉