Tuesday Rant

The primary purpose of this blog was to serve as a journal for me since I abandoned my journal-ing habit many years ago.  And today is one of those days when I just need to write and get all the things in my head out into words.  Maybe then I might feel better, stop crying, sleep, or at least just calm down a little bit and do something productive.

Tuesdays are my least favorite day of the week.  For the past few months, I seem to be sick every Tuesday, and things seem to stress me out more than usual on Tuesdays.  Pete thinks that it is partly due to my separation anxiety creeping up on me, because Tuesday is when he has to go back to work after two days at home, and I never want him to  leave.  It doesn't seem to be too hard to say goodbye to him on any other day, but every Tuesday there always seems to be a reason why I just wish he could stay home.

Today's reason?  I want him to be here to deal with Ryan, because I don't have the energy to.  The past three days have been really rough with him for some reason, an he has been on a rare rebellious streak where he is refusing to do a single thing he is told (mainly cleaning his room).  Since Sunday we have grounded him from friends, TV, movies and video games, we have thrown away eight of his favorite toys, and he is now down to only two hours left to clean his room before I cancel his birthday party.  It has been well over a year since we have had this kind of battle with him, and I am so over it.  Five has been such a great age for him, and the past three days have done nothing but cement the fact that he is almost six, and the sweetness of five is probably going to be history very soon...and I am not ready for it at all.  I'm not ready for the snottiness, the rebellion, the attitude and the behavior of the years to come.  I dread it, and it makes me cry when I think about it.  I will not be his best friend for much longer, and his desire to please me is already flying out the window.  It breaks my heart.  This is what happens when children grow, and one of the hardest parts of parenting I think.  I doubt it will ever get any easier.

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I have been battling urges to throw up all day today.  That is something I am very much ready to say goodbye to.  I wish I knew how to get better at just accepting it and not letting it get to me...but I don't. The only productive thing I have done today was scrub the tile in our entryway, and that made me so sick that I have literally been on the couch ever since...and that was four hours ago.  So I sit here in front of the TV feeling sick, lazy, useless, and stressing about all the thing I should be doing (sewing binding on K's blanket, ironing interfacing for K's blessing quilt, painting the crate upstairs, vacuuming the couch, balancing the budget, working on Ryan's photo books, and more laundry than I even want to think about).  I guess it will all get done eventually...just not today.

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I am stressed about money.  One of the greatest joys Pete and I have experienced since moving to Utah has been the increase in income which has allowed me to worry much less about money than I used to.  Things have still been tight here and there, but it has not been overly challenging to figure out how to make ends meet while still having a little extra to play with...until the past couple weeks.  Thanks to birthdays, Christmas, insurance issues, medical costs, and the list of purchases needed to prepare for the baby, things have gotten much tighter with the past couple paychecks, and it is all exaggerated by the fact that the insurance settlement case has taken a turn for the worst in the past week.  We very desperately need the money from the settlement to pay off bills and buy a car and maybe help with Christmas, and we have been counting on having the money by the end of the year.  But due to recent developments in the case, that hope is looking highly unlikely, and it is weighing on me heavily.  Everything regarding the car accident is pretty difficult for me to deal with emotionally, and this case is just making it worse.  I know that in the end all that matters is that I am alive, my injuries are healed, and that I will get my medical bills paid...but it is very hard to focus only on those facts while ignoring how much we need the money.  I cry every time I think about not having a decent car to bring our baby home in.  I know it shouldn't really matter - we do have a car, even if it is 18 years old, falling apart, and not really big enough for two kids, so that should be good enough.  But for some reason I just feel this tremendous guilt about it, guilt about how quickly and awfully things turned for the worst last March and how those things led to us having the Mustang as our only vehicle, and guilt about the fact that it was all just supposed to be temporary.  The Mustang was supposed to be temporary, the credit cards were supposed to be temporary, the bad credit was supposed to be temporary.  Yet here it is, almost nine months later, and it is all still far from temporary as we continue to wait for the insurance settlement to fix everything.  Considering I am not a patient person to begin with, it is very trying for me to continue to wait for something that is completely out of my control. But I must...so I guess I must also continue to pray and search for ways to ease the guilt, pay the bills, keep the car running, and just make it work.

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I will be 27 in five days.  I wish I was more excited about it.  I wish we had money to do something fun to celebrate, and wish even more that we had money to do something fun to celebrate Pete's birthday in two weeks.  Oh well.  We will be together, so I guess that is all that matters.  And I am very grateful for that.

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Ryan now only has 10 minutes left to get his room clean.  It is not going to happen.  So I guess I get to be the mean mom and cancel his birthday party after all.  Maybe I could take the money I was going to spend on that to buy Pete something for his birthday?!  I guess all clouds have a silver lining somewhere, right?  Even if it means my son is going to hate me?  Ugh.  But I have tried everything else....and I am at a loss.  Parenting can really suck sometimes.

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Okay I guess I have written enough now.  Here's hoping I can get off the couch now and make dinner, and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Hello, Third Trimester

Yesterday was the first day of my 28th week of pregnancy.  Which means we are now in the third and final trimester, and counting down til D-day.

I guess it is time to do a prenatal update of sorts, seeing as how I haven't actually written about this pregnancy as much as I had planned.  So, as I begin the home-stretch, my darling daughter is currently rolling around, doing some sort of uterine gymnastics inside of me.  She does this every day.  She is incredibly active, although the bigger she gets she does seem to be calming down a bit.  She loves to play a game with Daddy where he tries to find her kicks, then she moves once he finds them.  The two of them can keep this up for a good 30 minutes.  I am still suffering from nausea and occasional vomiting, depending on the day, what I eat, when I take my meds, and the ever-changing sensitivity level to chicken or vegetables.  Some days are better than others.  There are days when I can go the whole day without drugs, be on my feet shopping or working on the nursery or cleaning for several hours and stay up late without a problem.  Then there are other days when I'm too sick to even get out of bed, when I struggle to stay up and get anything done, when I fight back throwing up in the shower or sink (or cup in the car), and when I can't even function without a nap.  But I am very grateful that those days are not every day.  The biggest struggles of the past couple weeks have been incredible back and hip pain, unrelenting heartburn/acid reflux and restless legs syndrome.  On the other hand, the greatest joys of the past couple weeks have been my little Bean's kicks when I'm feeling lonely at night, sitting in her room adoring how cute it is now that it is almost finished, Ryan insisting that we buy every pink thing he sees in every store for his baby sister, and my crazy hormones keeping me warm in this new winter weather.  As of today I have gained 10 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight, which makes me cringe...but I realize many women have gained much more than that by the third trimester, so I'm trying not to think about it. This morning I had my blood drawn for my gestational diabetes test (which I am not worried about) and liver function/bile acid tests (which I am very worried about).  I have had uncontrollable itching on my legs which is a symptom of Cholestasis of Pregnancy, and we are very much hoping the test comes back negative or else the rest of this pregnancy will be very, very different.

In other news, I began my day crying thanks to the continuing issue of my insurance settlement, we have no idea what we are doing for Thanksgiving next week, and my baby shower is on Saturday :)  And the very best news of the day is that we finally got Netflix back on the TV, so I get to watch Friday Night Lights over and over again - again. I guess that's it for now...here's to the next 12 weeks of backaches, throwing up and dreaming of my sweet little K.

28 Weeks

Official Statement from the desk of Mrs. McGirr

Many of my loved ones are truly devastated over Obama's re-election.  I have my own personal feelings on the subject that I generally keep between my husband and I, and I had a non-public rant of my own last night regarding my beliefs of the United States of America and our future that had absolutely nothing to do with either candidate.  But the truth is that I (nor anyone else) can actually see the future, so maybe the Republican states will actually succeed and the nation as we know it will perish, or maybe things will level out and we will see 1960's Camelot again in 10 years (plus civil rights - how awesome would that be?).  Either way, I am not too torn up about it just yet, but I have been having a hard time trying to explain exactly why...until I saw this photo on my news feed tonight.  

Those close to me know that my relationship with spirituality has run a rocky course over the years...but I cannot deny the validity of this statement by one of the Apostles of my church.  As a Christian, I know how it is all going to end up so I do not see the need to fight and bicker and rant and mourn over politics.  It is what it is, and in the end it will never be about red states or blue states or the Constitution or socialism.  It will be about our own personal souls and the choices we have each made, and what side we want to be on in the end will have absolutely nothing to do with our political parties or who runs this country.

In the words of Forrest Gump, "that is all I have to say about that."

Election Night (This is not about the election at all)

So yes it is election night here in the United States of America. As I'm watching the election coverage on the news and waiting to see the results in a couple hours, I find myself thinking of many things that have absolutely nothing to do with the Presidential election or politics...

1. Election night four years ago.  Pete and I watched the results snuggled together on my couch in my tiny "shoebox" apartment in Phoenix, and we had been dating for 8 months.  It is hard for me to believe we have been together that long. It's hard to believe how much we have been through in that amount of time, the obstacles we have overcome, and the ways we have each changed and grown.  We did not have an easy relationship when we were dating. We struggled in many ways - I was battling irrational fears and scars left over by my divorce, Pete was struggling with commitment and expressing his feelings, and we were both dealing with an immense amount of financial strain and emotional stress.  But I remember that election night was a good night.  We were in love.  The awesome kind of love that exists before you even start thinking about marriage or kids or joint banking accounts.  It was still long before we lived together, shared finances or did each others' laundry, and it was an exhilarating feeling just to wait for him to come over at the end of the day.  Do I miss those days?  Sometimes. I would be lying if I said there weren't times I wish I could go back to that.  But was it better than what we have now?  Never.  I can't even describe how much I love my husband and how much I love the life and marriage we have now.  We may not have the same kind of "spark" that existed four years ago...but the love and friendship is so much better.  However, I think I speak for both of us when I say that I would love to go back to the way we looked four years ago ;)

2.  I CANNOT WAIT to see Lincoln. Anyone want to hang out with Ryan for a few hours next weekend??

3.  It is November!!!   As mentioned in previous posts, I have been looking forward to November.  It feels like this month marks the beginning of all the excitement - the holidays, birthdays, and my FINAL trimester of pregnancy.  It starts next week with my baby shower (so excited!), then Thanksgiving and my birthday are the week after that, then the weekend after that we get to go to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional in SLC (cannot wait!), then it's Pete's birthday and then Ryan's birthday (not so excited about that one because I get super emotional each year he gets older, but oh well), then the week after that we get to go see The Forgotten Carols and stroll through Temple Square covered in Christmas lights, then the next week brings Christmas and hopefully a weekend getaway for Pete and I, then New Years, and then every week after that we will be waiting for labor to begin and for our baby girl to make her entrance.  OMG.  It is almost over. In case you haven't noticed, I do not enjoy pregnancy.  But it feels like the last trimester will be much easier to get through with all that is going on.  I know it is finally on the road to being just a memory, and I will be holding my daughter in less than 12 weeks.  That is an amazing feeling.

4.  The Electoral College is incredibly hard to explain to middle school students.  In my experience teaching so far, it is one of the most confusing standards to cover.  Just thought I'd mention it.

5.  We should *hopefully* be getting our settlement offer from the car accident sometime this week.  This brings me a severe amount of anxiety, but I am trying my best to keep it at bay.  While it is great that we should finally be getting an offer after eight freakin' months of legal work, the offer may or may not be enough for what we need, and all I can do at this point is hope and pray that it is.  Just writing about it makes me somewhat nauseous from anxiety (and I've already thrown up once tonight).  So I'm just not going to write anymore about it.

6.  I am really sick of my husband working nights.  But I am so very thankful for his job.  So I guess that's all I have to say about that too.

7.  Heartburn. Oh, heartburn. I need ice cream. Does anyone deliver ice cream?

8.  Fox News just declared Obama has won a second term as President.  Which means I need to go prepare myself for my brother's incredible rampage.  He may demand we move with him to Canada...so I guess I better start packing.

That is all I suppose.

Momma's Birthday

Today would have been Mom's 63rd birthday if she were still here with us.

I don't really have much to say about it...but it is impossible for me to not think about it, just as it is every year on November 1st, so I feel I should write something.

Tonight as I was eating a boring and somewhat lonely dinner of canned soup with Ryan, I found myself thinking about what we would be doing if Mom were here in Utah with us.  I figured that Nathan and Angela and I would have taken her out to dinner at Red Lobster, because that was where she liked to go on her birthday.  Ryan would make her a cute card that says "I love you Grandma" covered with crayon hearts that actually look like fortune cookies. And maybe we would come back to my house for some cake.  Probably would have been a much better evening than canned soup and crying alone in front of a computer...but it is what it is, and life moves on.

Since moving here I often think of what life would be like if she were here too.  I never used to do that much before living in Utah...maybe because I was so miserable that I wouldn't have wanted her to be part of the misery as well.  But sometimes now I find myself looking at some of the little old houses downtown and thinking "Mom could live there"...and thinking that Nathan wouldn't be living in Egypt (better known as Tooele) if she was here in Provo.  I have yet to determine if thoughts like that are good or bad in terms of my emotional progress.  I can argue it both ways.

What I do know is that she is here with us as much as she can be. I know she is happy that Pete and I are here building our family and I know it brings joy to her heart that I have a beautiful and strong marriage to a man who supports me with all he has, because she knew the pain of being alone for so long.  I know she is incredibly proud of Nathan for being the glue that has held her family together and proud of the immense sacrifices he continues to make for his family, just as she used to do.  I know she is happy that Ivy has found a woman who truly loves him for him and that he has found a way to support himself despite his many obstacles.  I know she is proud of Josh for being a faithful husband and father and that she looks down on his six children everyday.  And I know she watches over Michael, wherever he may be, and that she loves him unconditionally even if he doesn't know it.  All these things that are the best of us are all the things she taught us.  She taught us how to love, how to work, how to sacrifice, how to forgive.  She taught us that there is joy in life even in its very darkest moments, because she lived through so many of them.  Even when she was poorer than poor, when she was lonely and sick, when she was heartbroken and hurt...she loved and forgave and sang her way through it.  All of the goodness that we, her children, possess are because of her and her faithfulness in God.  And I hope that is a good enough birthday present for her today.

Momma, wherever you may be tonight, perhaps you are sitting by my side, or bringing warmth to Grandpa in Prescott, or maybe you are singing with the angel choir, or maybe you are talking to Elvis (it is your birthday, after all!), I hope you know that I love you and miss you every moment of everyday.  Happy Birthday to the greatest mother I could have ever asked for.  P.S. I hope you have lobster in Heaven. 
Love, Your Daughter

(My sixth tattoo; my oldest brother has a
matching one on his shoulder)