mombasa
i had a farm in africa.
we watched out of africa last night. jason had never seen it and i had never watched it from beginning to end. he loved it. i was surprised, it is so very rare that he enjoys a movie that i adore.
the wedding is saturday. i am excited and nervous. i know i am going to forget something or sylvie is going to run screaming up the aisle during mass. plus there has been an issue with the accommodations. apparently, the general manager of the baymont inn and suites in stevensville is a complete moron.
isabel was at her friend’s house last night for dinner and a sleepover. the difference in sylvie’s behavior was unbelievable. she was helpful, sweet, and ate most of her dinner with little complaint. on evening’s when isabel is home, dinner is a battle and bedtime is an all out war. not so much last night. the only issue we had was a bedwetting at 4 am.
i have been having the most bizarre dreams. no, not dreams, nightmares. i have been waking up every night for the past three nights with my heart racing and drenched in sweat. and this is numerous times a night. doesn’t make for very restful sleep.
i am exhausted. i may need a nap today, but i have to squeeze a run in at some point. sigh.
resolve
this is a feeling i feign on many occasions. i am resolved to lose weight, eat better, read more, drink less, not take any crap from anyone, not back down, go to yoga less sporadically, go to bed earlier, finish school….
it was pointed out by my oh so tactful husband that i am, in fact, a weenie. i always back down or give up. i don’t have it in me for the long haul. i win a battle here and there, but i always lose the war.
i took the opportunity to point out that he is one of the people in my life who bulldozes me. i think he took exception to that. i was accused of only pretending to be interested in pop culture for the sake of other people in my life who are interested in pop culture. i was accused of only liking fluff rom-com movies because others do and liking some popular television shows for the same reason. huh. apparently he doesn’t know me quite as well as he thinks he does.
and all of this started because i was expressing regret over not making something french for bastille day. as i have done every year for the past ten years. it is just something i like to do, i think it is fun. but, i was met with disgust and annoyance, as opposed to reassurance that there was always next year.
i cannot remember the last time i went to the movies. oh wait, yes i can. it was to go see 17 again. in march. so roughly four months ago. i used to go to the movies(pre-isabel) twice a week. i don’t expect to go to the movies with the same frequency as i once did, but i don’t think once a month is too much to ask. i cancelled our netflix subscription after we let dvds sit on the cabinet for a month without us watching them. he refuses to watch a movie, which is all fine and good, but he also refuses to watch baseball or the antiques road show in our room. the television in our room is dying and the picture is dark, so watching a movie in there is impossible. not to mention, i cannot start a movie until the girls are in bed, but by that time he is asleep on the couch. movie watching was a big part of my life and now, not so much. i didn’t realize the new harry potter was coming out this week until two weeks ago. i used to be someone who went to the midnight release.
that seems like such a superficial thing to lament, but it isn’t just movies. i am mocked about my choices in reading material, music, and television viewing. i don’t see why i need to apologize for not limiting my viewing to the discovery channel, the history channel, and fox sports detroit. while i enjoy watching the shows on those channels, i also like to be entertained. i will watch an episode of scrubs i have seen 20 times and will pop in an alias dvd on occasion. i miss watching smallville. and as for the accusation that all i watch is what other people like, i will point out that four shows i watched enthusiastically were cancelled mid season for being too quirky and intelligent.
so, i am a weenie. i sit on the couch with my eyes glazed over watching modern marvels without really paying attention, resenting the person next to me who is starting to bob his head while he falls asleep. grrr.
visualization
i am imagining myself thinner, in better shape, with better skin, and a little more talent in styling my hair. if only that were enough. the other day, i was relegated to wearing my jeans that look great on me when i’m feeling a little bloated. they were tight.
so tight that i had the mortifying experience of seeing my stomach bulge out over the top of aforementioned jeans. did i go out and do some crunches or go jogging? no, i ate half of a box of macaroni and cheese.
as an emotional eater, i find it very hard to lose weight when i am angered, depressed, or otherwise. on some occasions, i will eat just because i have nothing to occupy my hands while watching the television.
jason is imagining me thinner as well. sigh. his not so subtle admonishment of, ” you were in such great shape last year” does not do much for the ego. i know i was in better shape. sylvie was still halfheartedly nursing because i was too lazy to be rigid with weaning her, so i was burning an extra 1500 calories a day. it is easy to be thinner when you burn calories simply by lactating.
i did go walking the other night. a brisk walk for about 35 minutes. i was in a tizzy about a friend receiving some potentially really bad news about her health and the kids were making me nuts. so i put on some tennis shoes, turned on the ipod, waved to the husband and kids and headed out the door. it felt good.
i need to do some abdominal work, which is no easy task with a cat and a three year old, both of whom want to either play with your hair, jump on your head, or sit on your stomach.
i am full of excuses, which makes me full of flab.
wednesday, i went out walking when jason got home from work and left him to prepare dinner. i downloaded a podcast from itunes, “chubby jones: from the couch to 5k”. however, since i downloaded more than one thing, the only track that made it to the ipod was “chubby jones: music to sweat by”. but that was okay. the music was perfect and i walked briskly, despite the discomfort in my shins and then miraculously started jogging. i found myself setting little endurance goals. (i am not a runner, i never have been….i attempted in college and the only running i ended up doing was from my dorm to the frat house parties.) i was pretty proud of myself. the only deterrent was if other people were walking up the street. i just cannot handle other people watching me exercise. not that they are truly watching me, i know they aren’t. (it’s like jason and dancing, he doesn’t want other people seeing him dance and i have told him time and time again, he isn’t that cute, everyone isn’t stopping what they are doing to look at him) i came home sweaty and blotchy and feeling really good.
i just need to keep doing it.
jason said last night if i am going to push him into going back to school, i have to keep with the exercise regimen. i don’t see how that is fair.
we made a three bean quinoa salad the other night with dinner. it was beyond delicious. i think i like quinoa better than couscous. isabel looked at it like we had fed her grubs.
so maybe by my birthday, i will be the thinner, healthier me.
gets me every time
anger makes me clean up clutter. which i did. which makes me, in turn, wonder if that is why he threw such a fit to begin with.
our holiday weekend pretty much was a regular weekend. jason worked friday and saturday. we had a barbecue at our friend s.m.’s house. it was our first visit there. it was weird being in a house laid out exactly like your own, but a million times trendier and tidier. he only has one child.
we had a wretched inspection of the beehive. poor planning on the head beekeeper’s part, a few of our dearies lost their lives (inadvertently), and their was uncured honey everywhere. on the plus side, the honey had a slight bouquet of mint.
i have found that when i answer the phone at work, if the person on the other end asks who they are speaking with before anything else, i will not like the phone call or the caller.
the smell of fresh cracked pepper on melting butter over pasta is such a soothing scent.
i think “better off ted” is one of the most well written shows on television.
there is clutter on the kitchen counter. this is standard for a monday night. too bad i’m not angry anymore. i will have to settle for some flamenco music to get me motivated.
lifeline
the past couple of weeks have been difficult to say the least. well, difficult from the domestic goddess perspective. i am trying to still get used to having two children whining every morning and i am a week behind on that since having shingles knocked me on my arse for an entire week. we have had birthdays galore, orthodontist appointments, engagement parties, father’s day, and out of town friends in rapid succession since school let out on the 16th of june. i have a friend getting divorced, a friend struggling in a marriage, a friend with a health scare, all of whom i have made sure to be available to at all times. i am not complaining about any of that, i am happy to support them, i know they would do the same for me.
i have only been spot cleaning my house. i make sure the bathroom is clean every day. this is hard to do given that isabel and sylvie squeeze half of a tube of blue toothpaste all over the sink every morning and evening. i have been trying to keep the living room picked up for when people just show up. my basement is destroyed, isabel’s room looks like a bomb went off in it, my room had laundry every where, we were living out of laundry baskets, and the kitchen had not seen a mop in quite some time.
in my defense, the weather has been very wet and we, my family and our numerous visitors included, have been tracking dirt, grass, and plant leaves in my door, up the stairs, into the kitchen and then into the bathroom. i don’t know how to avoid this short of having a foot bath on the basement landing. as for the laundry, there is not enough room in my dresser for all of my clothing. i had done the switchout of seasons, but with my scrubs and all my jeans, etc. there is not enough space in my very narrow drawers. i have been asking for some sort of shelving unit for the closet for at least two years. not to mention, i hate matching socks so there is an entire laundry basket just of socks.
so yes, my house is a bit of an unorganized mess. it seems like when i finally get a handle on it and have a good routine going something swoops in and throws me off track. with two children and a husband who cannot seem to put his socks or underwear into the hamper or put his beer cans away, things quickly disintegrate. and who gets the blame? not the perpetrators of the crime, but me.
i thought i had been doing well for a while. i was keeping the house clean, not piling things up by the phone, tossing the junk mail, making sure the kids put the dvds back in the right cases, cleaning up before bed, vacuuming when the house needed it, preparing great dinners…i was trying really hard. but doing all of this, working twice a week, maintaining friendships, helping isabel maintain her friendships, paying the bills, making phone calls, and trying to be a sex kitten got a little exhausting.
little by little things have fallen apart again. the last to go was the sex kitten part, which is probably what led to wednesday night’s chastisement, thursday’s beratement, and friday night’s humiliation.
i cannot do it all without losing something of myself in the process. i keep being told that i need to go out and find a hobby, exercise more, and go back to school. where is the time for that if i am expected to be june cleaver and bettie page all rolled into one?
i understand how it looks from the outside. i have eight hours every day before he comes home to complete the tasks on a given day. that should be ample time for anyone to complete them. i agree. but if you throw in a trip to the library for the kids, naptime, a doctor’s appointment, grocery shopping, banking, whining, arguing, someone stubbornly refusing to get dressed, indecisiveness at breakfast, cat vomit, and spilled juice, the day gets away from you.
then when he gets home from work, if he isn’t out in the garage tinkering around with something or on the computer, i am supposed to sit with him, have a drink, and listen to him complain about the same things he complains about every night. his job, money, traffic, noise, the neighborhood, the house, movies, television, books, music, my parents…every night it is pretty much the same thing. and this is time i could be cleaning or grooming myself for a romp in the sack.
then there is bedtime. which now that school is out has gotten later. i bathe the girls while he half cleans up after dinner. i put their pajamas on them, comb their hair, and read to them. he comes in, either yells at them to hurry up or riles them up by tickling them or acting like a monster. either way, they are excitable again and bedtime is set back another fifteen or twenty minutes. but that is my fault. and then he gets mad because they won’t settle down.
by this time it is probably ten, because i have had to go back into sylvie’s room to tuck her back in, retrieve a thrown stuffed animal, bring in a glass of water, and then take her to the bathroom. he has, by this time, gotten in the shower and dropped the soap twenty times and has left at least two beer cans on the coffee table and the tiger’s game blaring on the television. the kitchen table and the stove have yet to be wiped off and there is probably still some food leftovers still on the table. but that is my fault.
my back and feet hurt by the end of the day. i am exhausted. but at the end of the day, i am expected to do what? most nights if i bustle about cleaning when he’s sitting on the couch he tells me to sit down and spend some time with him. so i do. but the mess is still there in the morning and i start the day off a little more far behind than i was before. this is how it snowballs into the mess he walked in on wednesday night.
and he is just one of the people that has been beyond disappointed in me as of late. i am tired.
