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A continuation of my original blog, "Surviving Motherhood". |
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Welcome to my world of middle school, high school, and motherhood. The life of a mom is never easy, especially as children grow, and especially when you have a special needs child. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Cookie season is upon us, and that means I have more than enough work to keep me occupied! I feel like I did a poor job setting up TCM training back in December; I guess I just didn't realize how in depth we'd go into each topic, and how many questions there would be. We didn't even talk about ordering from the cookie cupboard, how to put a pending order in the system, and how to do inter-troop transfers. I've decided next year that I'm going to put in for a longer meeting, and try to expect more questions and going over more things. Gotta hand it to my TCMs, when they're curious, they ask! I'm glad to know that they're willing to turn to me and find out rather than just try to figure it out themselves. Granted, a lot of information is in the manual, and for the most part, they find that and do what they need to, but there are some things that aren't, and they have asked about them, and brought them to my attention. I'm writing them down to put into the TCM training for next year. So far though, things seem to be going smoothly. Hope I don't jinx it. So I've got all the paperwork for both my troop, and the SU taken care of. I've prepared the bubble sheets, wrote out the initial order pick up forms, created bags for each troop to put their initial rewards and another inter-troop transfer sheet in, as well as some grocery sacks to put the drawstring bags the girls and volunteers are getting as an initial reward. All I'm waiting on now is the initial rewards to place in the bags, and then all I have to do is gather the paperwork in the envelope, grab the bag with all the initial rewards bags in it, grab my troop's transaction record sheets, and the papers I made to split up each girl's order, and head out the door. Chances are very likely that something out of our control is going to happen, and shove our pick up times down farther (been going on the last 5 years I've done this. Just once, I'd love to see an initial delivery that DIDN'T go south.), but, I have a great mom who is picking up our cookies while I dole out the rest of the SU's, and we're able to use her garage to split the cookies for each girl's order. I pray for good weather that day. It's a hard enough day as it is! My girls did some excellent sales this year, and I am super proud of them! I have us signed up for 11 booths this year; that's 3 more booths than we pulled last year. So far, participation looks good-we have at least 2 girls and 2 parents at each booth, and we have all hands on deck for Walmart, which will be the first time we're selling at such a highly populated location. I really hope we do well! We have our winter camping trip coming up on the 3rd and 4th, and the girls are looking forward to that! We're up to 11 girls so far! I was kind of hoping that the mom of girl 12 would get back to me, but so far, no response. Either way, I think we'll have a great time! The girls begged to make most of the floor a giant air mattress, and although it's not exactly camping (more like glamping!), they are super excited. We're going to be putting on a badge during camping as well, called Simple Meals. The sweet thing about staying in a lodge is that it comes complete with an indoor bathroom and a kitchen, so I thought we could put this badge on while we're there, knock out all the requirements. We're going to have lots of fun! Thinking Day is also coming up fast (the second week of booths actually!), and this year we're hosting Argentina. This is the first year I've been so on top of things, and I'm planning them accordingly so that we'll have enough time to do all we're planning to do. This has been a pretty good year so far for our troop! |
| Speaking on trend of myself... My license is set to expire on my birthday this year. Like a good little Jamie, I did my diligence, saved up the money to pay for it, and walked into the MVA (AKA Maryland DMV) to get it. Funny thing though, they didn't tell me that EVERY time I have to make an in person appearance to renew my license, I need to have paperwork with me from my optometrist showing that yes, I am blind in my left eye, but I am quite capable of maneuvering a vehicle. I went on Friday, and was told this by the nice lady that tried to set up my license renewal. She then told me to come back as soon as possible with the paperwork in order for my license not to expire and thus I would have to take the driving test once more, which, of course, costs extra. Pressed for time and money, I called in a favor for some up front birthday cash, and scheduled the next available appointment the optometrist had. Luckily, he had an opening yesterday. Good news abound as well; my eyes are fit as a fiddle, and my prescription only changed slightly from what it already was. I am quite happy with this information, and the good doctor set about to filling out the paperwork, so that I could take it with me in a rush to get to the MVA before it closed at 4:30 pm. When I got there, the place was dead; I was worried that they had closed it for the inclement weather we've just been hit with. Luckily, it was open. I turned everything in, and good to say that #1-I will have my license once again, #2-I was given a temporary paper to act as my license until my license comes in, and #3-my eyes are doing quite well! The kids had a snow day off yesterday. We got hit with a storm that dropped about 7 inches. The snow itself doesn't bother me much, but the ice does. There's ice ALL OVER the sidewalks and the roads, and it's horrible. Journey and I attempted to make rounds in the neighborhood to sell cookies (yes, on the coldest day of the year so far! I wasn't sure when the next time we could do this would be, so I thought it would be best to hit then. She was a trooper; we hit 35 apartments until she needed to come in from the cold to thaw her hands and feet, and then we hit another 20 before we took a break at a good friend's house and thawed out a bit more. We hit the last 15 after that, and we came home to more warmth. I am super proud of this girl, she works her tail off every year for this!), and pleasantly to say, we did quite well! Sold 40 boxes just in the neighborhood alone, and Journey is now only 4 boxes away from her 150 goal. Granted, we haven't purchased yet, and I know that when we do, it will take her over the top of that, but I wanted to see if we could hit the total first from other people purchasing, and then us. I still have 2 friends offering to buy, Ryan is going to hit his school, Journey is going to ask two more teachers at school, and Don has two more people to ask at work. Hopefully we'll get quite a bit from there! I am attempting to schedule some booths for the troop. It's kind of hard, because I'm not sure what parents are going to have their girls work where. I know that I may schedule some that just Journey and her friend Morgan can work, as they're used to multiple booths throughout the season. I will talk to her mom about it and see. |
| There's a recent song out that is kind of resonating with me. It's called "It's not Easy", and some of the lyrics are "We were two dumb kids, full of hopes and fears..." and of course, the chorus "It's not easy breaking your heart". The reason this song is resonating with me so much right now is because it somewhat mirrors mine and Don's lives since we got together. When we got together, we were two dumb kids. Two idealistic kids, who loved each other so much, and were stubborn and determined to make this all work. We were headstrong, and made a lot of heavy decisions. We made mistakes along the way. A baby got thrown into the mix. We both had a LOT of growing up to do. The first three years of our face to face relationship and marriage were hard and rocky. The difference between the song and our lives is, we didn't call it quits. We didn't "know it would end from the start". We love each other so much, and no matter what, I would choose Don every time. We grew up together. We learned from our past mistakes. We took more time. We thought things through. We realized that the only two people we needed to make happy were ourselves. We are in a very good place right now. I'm quite proud of where we are. We have been through some serious shit in the 13 years we've been married, but we've come out the better for it. The fact that we were so young and dumb was kind of a silver lining-we didn't know any better, and we didn't know what it was all supposed to look like. we made it our own. and i'm quite proud of it. we're still growing up together, day after day. I love him more now than I've ever loved him before, but it's different now somehow. I've come to the realization that I've been a very selfish person these last 11 years. The good news is, on the outside of these walls, that's not how I acted at all. The bad news is, I took it out on Don and the kids for so long. I realize and regret that now. And this is where the chorus comes into play. I never thought about, for one second, how hard it was for him to make the choices he made. He didn't want to break my heart. He didn't want to make the choices he had to make. He was forced into those decisions; we all were. None of it was ideal. I spent so much time harboring resentment for not having my perfect dream, that I dragged everyone down with me. As you can see, I needed to grow up a lot more than I thought I did. In the end, we did the best we could with what we had. I no longer regret the decision I made to move here, and now, I want to make the most of it. I've spent far too much time wallowing in pain and taking it out on everyone. It's time to let go of the past and start moving forward. No more blaming people and time and circumstances and letting them dictate my feelings, thoughts and moods. My perspective is not the only perspective out there, and the attitude I have doesn't only affect me. I'm not saying I need to make my life centered around other people, but at the same time, I don't need to take it out on other people for something that hurt me. Life is too short to harbor hurt and resentment. It's time I let it go. from here on out, my new understanding is, nothing is or ever will be perfect. The trick is to find all the good things and hang onto them. Hard times will come, but they come full of opportunity and growth for EVERYONE, as no one is immune. It's time for me to start looking up again, and reaching out. |
| 2017 has finally arrived, and with it have come extremely clear realizations. I've finally gotten to the root of my depression, and things make clear sense again. I've also come to the realization that I do indeed need a new therapist. One that I can bare my soul with. I know this sounds awful, but I need someone to hear me when life has me down, and I can't make sense of anything. I need someone to let me vent and be selfish, to allow my problems to mean something and give me the satisfaction of being heard, validated, and finding reason and solution within that time. Everyone tells me to lean on them in times of trouble, but I have a hard time doing that when #1-it involves the people I'm having issues with (the reason for this is because, I need to work things out on what to say to make amends with these situations. Don and I had the hash out to end all hash outs a couple of nights ago, and that's when the painful realization came to me. He's the one that shaped that time, so I wanted to lay blame on him for what happened, but when I did, it hurt and upset him. He didn't want to be told he hurt me, and that hurt him in the process. If I could've hashed this out with a therapist first, I could've found a better way to present it to him, thus not causing a rift between the two of us.), and #2-everyone's got bigger fish to fry in their own lives. I don't like being a burden on my loved ones or friends, so I tend to bottle it up, and end up making things worse in the end. A therapist gets paid to listen to me try to work things out, and gets paid to be an ear and help me through things. They're doing their job when they listen to me and help me work through things. It's not Don's or anyone else's obligation to do that. Journaling only helps so much, and considering that my hand can't seem to handle a long handwriting session anymore, and I don't feel comfortable talking about my actual problems online anywhere, I'm at a loss. Finding a good therapist can help unload this burden that I carry with me all the time. My life is not always sunshine and rainbows, and frankly, that's all Pat wanted to hear from me. If I have to hide my dark side and who I am and what makes me tick just to appease my therapist, then that's not the right therapist for me. Sometimes I don't want to hear the myriad of solutions, or being told "Grow up","Stop throwing pity parties" or, "I told you so". Sometimes, I just want to vent, and someone to say "You know, it sounds like you're having a hard time in your life right now, and I'm sorry to hear that. It's okay to feel this way. If you want help finding solutions, I'm here for you." That's what a TRUE therapist would do. At least, I hope so. I'm going to look into finding someone that can help me more this coming year. Because I live by the school calendar right now, to me, this is the middle of the year, in the year that encompasses 2016-2017. A lot of great things were accomplished at the beginning of the school year for my kids and my girls, and I couldn't be more proud. I hope that the 2017 portion of the year holds just as many accomplishments and good things as the portion of 2016 did. Break has been interesting to say the least. I don't know what exact mood I'm in these days, but there were a couple of days where I just wanted my day to myself, with no one but me and the cat...who usually ignores me. I found it quite odd, as usually I'm game for having everyone home with me. I'm not entirely sure where these feelings are taking me, but hopefully I can find a happy medium solution that benefits all involved. We've arranged a winter camping trip for our troop in February, which my girls are very excited for. I know they loved it when we went in September, so I'm hoping this time around, they'll love it just as much. Speaking of camp, Journey has decided that she would like to attend sleep away Girl Scout camp again this summer. I think her reasoning for not wanting to go at the beginning is because of just how sweltering hot it was, and how it was the middle of summer and she missed us terribly. She's decided that she'd rather go mid-August, right before her birthday, and just a couple of weeks before school starts. I hope she enjoys it. We're hoping to maybe get a friend in scouts to go with her this year, but I think even if no one does (no one did last year), she'll be okay. Things around here are changing every day. At this point, I'm somewhat nihilistic, so I just go with what's going on. I've lost the will to fight whatever changes come, so although I don't embrace them, I let them come, and try to figure out what to do to make it through. That's really all any of us, can do, right? |
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