5 things about Me:
1. I used to collect recipes that looked interesting or fun. Now my standard for recipe collection is what percentage of the family will mutiny if I cook it.
2. I do an excellent Sybil Fawlty impersonation. Oddly, there is very little call for this in my everyday life.
3. I am very good at yelling. Especially in traffic. You can check with my kids on this one if you need verification.
4. All those years ago, when I told my algebra teacher that I knew FOR SURE I would not need algebra in my future life? I was right.
5. Being a mom is hands-down the hardest job I have ever done. A room full of surly 17 year olds doing a read-through of Macbeth is a cake walk next to this mom gig.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Choosing
Okay God,
I don't know why you've put Tim through all of this job-related stress over the last 3 years, but I have just about had it. I am tired. I am tired of never seeming to have enough money, of busting my rear trying to minimize grocery expenses while always knowing that the stupid house is on the verge of falling to shreds if we don't get new siding. I am tired of having to pay dental expenses out of pocket because my husband's employers are too cheap to get decent dental insurance for the 400+ people who work for them. I am tired of always feeling guilty when I buy myself new clothes. I am tired of having no margin financially. I am tired to feeling endlessly frustrated by our situation.
I don't want to learn any more lessons. I am satisfied with my character as is. I don't want to be grown, stretched, enlightened, humbled, or chastened.
Why, God? Why us? Why do we have to struggle so when for other people it is so easy? Why, on a day when I was finally feeling like I'd actually accomplished something, did you have to let this additional brick fall from the sky.
"Dear Tim, thank you for your recent interview...however..."
So now we are as stuck as ever. No money, crazy boss, house falling apart, aching hearts because frankly, God, it feels like you aren't noticing us here. We are stretched to the very limit financially, and it feels like you just don't want to see us.
I have a few ideas to fix this.
1) A large financial windfall -- about 25,000 ought to do it -- to cover the new windows and siding.
2) See No. 1
All right, that's really all I've got. But Lord, it would certainly help us sleep better at night. I really thought that this job, This Job, was the one...the one that would make it all okay. We'd be able to relax a little and start saving for some of these huge expenses. I was feeling kind of excited about it, about the possibilities. Especially The Possibility, that you laid on my heart so many years ago but which we've just never been even close to being able to afford.
Do you want me to go back to work? Is that it? I really thought you wanted me home with the kids, but maybe I was wrong about that. I don't know anymore. It seems more and more like we're not going to be able to make it if I don't. I know Tim thinks so sometimes, if only to relieve him of the pressure of being the only breadwinner.
And it is a lot of pressure. And it's hard to live under that kind of stress all the time. It has made our marriage a bit strained sometimes. Not always, but it does make us feel like less of a team.
God, I am going to choose here to believe that you know best. That this dumb job is not the be-all it seemed. I choose to believe that you're not ignoring us. That you have a plan for us and we just aren't seeing the big picture right now.
I choose to keep my eyes on you, but I am freely admitting that they're full of tears.
love,
me
I don't know why you've put Tim through all of this job-related stress over the last 3 years, but I have just about had it. I am tired. I am tired of never seeming to have enough money, of busting my rear trying to minimize grocery expenses while always knowing that the stupid house is on the verge of falling to shreds if we don't get new siding. I am tired of having to pay dental expenses out of pocket because my husband's employers are too cheap to get decent dental insurance for the 400+ people who work for them. I am tired of always feeling guilty when I buy myself new clothes. I am tired of having no margin financially. I am tired to feeling endlessly frustrated by our situation.
I don't want to learn any more lessons. I am satisfied with my character as is. I don't want to be grown, stretched, enlightened, humbled, or chastened.
Why, God? Why us? Why do we have to struggle so when for other people it is so easy? Why, on a day when I was finally feeling like I'd actually accomplished something, did you have to let this additional brick fall from the sky.
"Dear Tim, thank you for your recent interview...however..."
So now we are as stuck as ever. No money, crazy boss, house falling apart, aching hearts because frankly, God, it feels like you aren't noticing us here. We are stretched to the very limit financially, and it feels like you just don't want to see us.
I have a few ideas to fix this.
1) A large financial windfall -- about 25,000 ought to do it -- to cover the new windows and siding.
2) See No. 1
All right, that's really all I've got. But Lord, it would certainly help us sleep better at night. I really thought that this job, This Job, was the one...the one that would make it all okay. We'd be able to relax a little and start saving for some of these huge expenses. I was feeling kind of excited about it, about the possibilities. Especially The Possibility, that you laid on my heart so many years ago but which we've just never been even close to being able to afford.
Do you want me to go back to work? Is that it? I really thought you wanted me home with the kids, but maybe I was wrong about that. I don't know anymore. It seems more and more like we're not going to be able to make it if I don't. I know Tim thinks so sometimes, if only to relieve him of the pressure of being the only breadwinner.
And it is a lot of pressure. And it's hard to live under that kind of stress all the time. It has made our marriage a bit strained sometimes. Not always, but it does make us feel like less of a team.
God, I am going to choose here to believe that you know best. That this dumb job is not the be-all it seemed. I choose to believe that you're not ignoring us. That you have a plan for us and we just aren't seeing the big picture right now.
I choose to keep my eyes on you, but I am freely admitting that they're full of tears.
love,
me
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
If I Had a Hammer...
I am frayed around the edges today, pulled in 6 different directions, feeling like I am only half getting things done. Committments are fulfilled, but not to perfection and certainly not with good grace. And then, at the end of Day 3 of the Week of Total Craziness, the neighborhood clique strikes again.
My boy went over to see if he could get in on the pick-up baseball game going on in the yard behind ours. The game in which every child in the neighborhood is playing. Even preschoolers. Even 2 year old Lola. The game hadn't quite started, but my boy was told, "no, you can't play."
Why do they do this? I have asked myself this question over and over because it happens a lot and it ONLY happens to my son. The only answer I can come up with is this:
Because they can.
It's some kind of school-age power play, this ability to exclude at will anyone they feel like. And they've decided, by some complicated process of social dynamics, that my son is The One.
And it hurts.
It hurts him. And it hurts me to watch it. I have never seen this kind of consistent exclusion in children. It is so wantonly cruel, so purposefully targeted, so relentlessly evil. And I have to watch him weep when the do it over and over and over.
I hate them.
I wish I were back in 2nd grade. I would so kick their butts.
My boy went over to see if he could get in on the pick-up baseball game going on in the yard behind ours. The game in which every child in the neighborhood is playing. Even preschoolers. Even 2 year old Lola. The game hadn't quite started, but my boy was told, "no, you can't play."
Why do they do this? I have asked myself this question over and over because it happens a lot and it ONLY happens to my son. The only answer I can come up with is this:
Because they can.
It's some kind of school-age power play, this ability to exclude at will anyone they feel like. And they've decided, by some complicated process of social dynamics, that my son is The One.
And it hurts.
It hurts him. And it hurts me to watch it. I have never seen this kind of consistent exclusion in children. It is so wantonly cruel, so purposefully targeted, so relentlessly evil. And I have to watch him weep when the do it over and over and over.
I hate them.
I wish I were back in 2nd grade. I would so kick their butts.
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