I Wish

I wish.........

I knew how much longer Joe will be unemployed.

I lived closer to my sister.

I could pick up the phone and call my Mom.

I could  find the motivation to walk again.

My extraction site didn't still hurt.

We could afford to go out to dinner for Joe's birthday on Sunday(or that I could afford to get him a present).

I didn't have to spend the money I won on the radio on a new set of tires.

We could take the job Joe was offered  in another city and just pack up and move away.  They couldn't offer him enough hours per week to warrant us doing so.

The weather would cool down again.

I  could go to sleep right now.  Insomnia sucks.

What are you wishing for?

Should

I should be:

Excited about Dragon Boat practice starting this morning and Joe attending with me for the first time.

Enjoying the beautiful weather we are having.  (High in the mid-eighties with a slight breeze).

Loving driving down the freeway with all of  the windows down and the radio blaring .

Thinking about all of the things in the post below that I am thankful for.

Instead I am:

Waiting on something that is so long overdue that are lives are unravelling right before our eyes the longer we wait for it.

Wondering if my husband will ever find a job and our lives will have a sense of normalcy again.

Isolating myself from friends and family.

Dreaming of a child I don't believe is ever coming.

Dreading the time I took off from work in a couple of weeks for the camping trip we won't be able  to go on.

Crying myself to sleep over an e-mail I wish I had never sent and the repercussions from it.

All I feel is sadness.

I am going to church with a friend later and dinner afterward.  Maybe that will make me feel better.  

Because this sadness?

It sucks more that I can convey.

And It's  getting old.

Stress Reliever

I have been having a hard time the last week or so.  We have been working through some very heavy stuff around here and it has left me feeling sad and stressed out and at times a little bit gloom and doomish.  As I have written here before, I tend to bottle things up inside until they burst out of me like an explosion. Someone close to me suggested I try to find things to do that will help me deal with some of this stress in an appropriate way so I don't bottle it up like that.  The first thing I did was start exercising again.  This has helped me immensely.  I have walked every day for the last 4 days and I intend to continue.  The physical release of some of those emotions has been cathartic.

The other way I (used to) deal with stress was to be creative.  Scrapbooking, making cards or frames or otherwise using my hands in some way. I haven't been doing much of that lately.

I wanted to make something for some people who have helped us in the last couple of months but I didn't want to spend a lot of money.  Everything I came up with I realized I needed one or more supplies that I was out of.

Then I was cleaning out the freezer and I found a bag of white sugar(we had an ant problem a month or so ago), and a bag of chocolate chips.  A quick search of the fridge and pantry revealed that I had the ingredients to make a batch(or ten)  of cookies.

That's it!(I thought to myself)  Cookies it is.

Now baking probably seems like a perfectly normal thing for most people to do.

It's not normal for me. To begin with, I hate to bake.  Secondly, I don't even particularly  like chocolate chip cookies.  Before you think I'm a freak for not liking chocolate chip cookies, it has something to do with hormones.  After  I had my hysterectomy I couldn't eat chocolate.  I mean I can eat it.  But I just don't enjoy it like I used to and I can only eat it in small amounts or I feel sick to my stomach.  I can't explain it.  It just is.

O.K. that does make me sound like a freak.  I swear I'm not.  :)

Anyway, back to the baking.

 I started some cookies on Friday night.  My first 2 batches I made off of the recipe on the back of the T ol l  h o u s e   bag.

These turned out so-so.  They tasted good, but didn't have the look or feel I was going for.  I wanted them to be like a chocolate chip cookie you buy at the bakery.

I packaged them up and gave them away on Saturday anyway :)

So yesterday I went on the internet searching for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I found a whole bunch and started reading the reviews on each recipe.  After reading twenty a few, I decided on one and hit the kitchen again  to try them out.

Today I made 6 dozen of them.  And they are so much better than the last batches.

As I was baking I noticed something.  I started to feel more relaxed.  Less stressed out.  The more I felt relaxed and less stressed out, the more I started to actually enjoy it.

There was something about measuring out the ingredients and  pouring them into the bowl, mixing the ingredients by hand(I don't have an electric mixer), and lining them up in neat little rows on the cookie sheets that made me start to feel so much better. Like I was in control of something when I feel out of control in so many other parts of my life right now.

It was very therapeutic.

So therapeutic in fact, that I made 6 more dozen cookies.

That brings the total up to 11 dozen cookies people.  We're pretty much drowning in chocolate chip cookies over here.  I don't eat them, so this is a problem.  Because Joe does eat them.  So I have to get them out of the house.

They are being packaged up to be dropped off at different places tomorrow.  I hope they bring a fraction of the joy to the recipients that they did to me when I made them.

I'm going to have to find another way to relieve stress though  :)


If you could send some good thoughts our way regarding the gloom and doom stuff, I would appreciate it.


And also, anyone want some cookies?

I had a couple requests on FB for the recipe, so here it is. I got it off of AllRecipes.com.  I read all of the reviews and used a few suggestions from each one.  They really turned out yummy!

I doubled my recipe.

Ingredients
    •    2 cups all-purpose flour
    •    1/2 teaspoon baking soda
    •    1/2 teaspoon salt
    •    3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
    •    1 cup packed brown sugar
    •    1/2 cup white sugar
    •    1 tablespoon vanilla extract
    •    1 egg
    •    1 egg yolk
    •    2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
    •    Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
    •    Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
    •    In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon.
    •    Refrigerate dough until chilled. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
    •    Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. 

I have found that these should be taken out when the edges are brown but the middles look not quite done.  Let them cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet until they set.

I am exhausted.  

All we did today was drive from one place to another, over 60 miles total, trying to get some necessary things done and return cars to people who so graciously lent them to us. 

Tired.

But guess what?

We now have one operable car!  Yay us!  Seriously, I'm doing a happy dance over here.  What a huge relief.

The only bummer is that it is Joe's car that got fixed, and not mine and I can't drive his car because I don't know how to drive a stick shift.

I know, I know, I need to learn to drive a stick.  I really do.  But I'm scared. Don't give me a hard time.  O.K.?

Joe says he is going to give me lessons this weekend.  That should be interesting.  

In the meantime, the car sharing continues, only now I am completely reliant on him to get me to and fro.  I'm very independent, so this is going to drive me crazy.

But still!  We have a working car!  And as soon as our tax rebate comes, we're getting my car fixed, so not much longer. 

(Am I the only one who totally searched the internet to find out exactly when our tax rebate is going to be mailed? Because I did.  And I know the exact date the check will arrive at our house.)

I'm off to make dinner and just chill knowing that 

Dude!  We have a car!

Sorry if yesterday's post scared some of you. No, nothing happened. I was just looking at my wedding ring and wondering if it was some kind of foreshadowing that they cut it off two weeks ago when I was at the emergency room. I'm feeling sad. And tired. There is so much work involved in "fixing" the problems we have been having. Lots of appointments to go to and lots of talking to do. I'm tired of talking. I wish everything would just be O.K. again. We are coming up our fifteenth wedding anniversary next week. I'm supposed to be celebrating. Not worrying and shedding tears and being angry at the person I love. I wish last week never happened.

Wordless Wednesday

I just got back from the gym. I have to say, I am very proud of myself for going. I didn't want to go, and we have been putting it off since before Christmas. I thought it might be a good way to work out some of the anger I have been feeling. Because I have been feeling a lot of anger. And most of it is directed at a certain other person living in my house. We went together and he helped me with the weights and there was no yelling(on my part), so it was all good. The only problem is that dinner won't be until close to 7:30 and I don't like to eat that late. Oh well. On Wednesday I'm going to get up early and try out an AquaFit class. I think I will like it. I like to do exercises in the pool at our apartment in the summer, so I'm sure I will enjoy this too. The pool is indoors, so I won't have to worry about the weather. Otherwise there is no way I would go. I don't like to be cold. Yes, I am a princess.

O.K. It's gone. All of it. Thanks for the support and advice. And don't worry. I am not ignoring the problem. Far from it.  There are measures in place to get us back on track.  Something like this doesn't go away on it's own, and you don't stay married to someone for fifteen years by ignoring problems.  Also, to anonymous who had concerns about my ability to parent a child. You think I don't have worries and concerns about parenting a child?  Of course I do.  I also think I have more "issues" to overcome than a lot of people. But you know what?  I worked in childcare for fifteen years and I had serious reservations about many, many of the parents I came in contact with.  My husband and I will make  wonderful parents one day. Regardless of how much money we make, or if I have  health conditions, or even if one or the other of us go through some tough emotional times. I have no worries there.  Way to be supportive. Sheesh. And you know what?  That comment wouldn't have bothered me in the least if you had put your name on it. I never leave comments anonymously. Ever. If I have something to say, I have the guts to stand behind it.   I'm erasing the last week from my thoughts. All I can do is look forward, and start doing the things necessary to get my life back in order again.

I took the advice of someone I trust and deleted parts of the two posts I did. I put too much out there, and she is right, we need to protect ourselves because of the adoption. And I just plain felt bad having it out there. My husband is not a bad person. He has some problems and he has some work to do and he made some bad choices. I don't think it's fair for me to tell the whole world about some those choices. Even though I did. I also took out some of the stuff I wrote about work, because Hello, every one I know knows about this blog, including some of the people I work with, and I am not trying to make anyone feel bad or hurt their feelings. I'm just trying to get across that I am having a very hard time right now and I am doing the best I can. I just hope my best is good enough. I am beyond glad that it is Friday. I want to go home and get into my pajamas and forget this week ever happened.

I am trying to take things little by little. Like I told myself last night after I cried myself to sleep, "If I can just get up and go to work tomorrow, than I'll be O.K". Then after I did that I said "If I can just get to work and make it to lunch time, then I'll be O.K". And now I'm telling myself "If I can make it until five, then I can go home and crawl into bed and then I'll be O.K". It appears to be working so far. 



There's this thing in "Blog Land" that people do every Thursday, called "Thursday Thirteen".

Basically it is just a list of thirteen things about a certain topic. Like, your favorite musicians or thirteen things about your house, etc. In the spirit of focusing on the positive, I thought I would list thirteen things I love about my husband. Because he really is an amazing man. He has just made some very bad choices lately. I don't know where we stand right now. We're kind of muddling through, day by day. But I do know this. I love him.

Thirteen Things I Love About My Husband:




1. His smile. It warms my heart.


2. He is the smartest man I know. He lacks some common sense. But dude-is he smart. My co-worker and I often ponder over things like politics or the war in Iraq and whenever we don't know something(which is every single time), I'll say, "Let me call my husband". And he knows the answer. Every single time.

3. He takes care of me. He goes with me to every single doctor's appt. I have(which are many), he picks up my prescriptions, he makes me dinner when I just don't have energy.

4. He is the most tolerant person I know. He firmly believes that every single person living on this earth is equal to the other. Regardless of Race, Faith, Political Party, Sex, or Economic Status. His favorite saying is "We are all the same. We are Human." He will not allow any kind of stereotype or racial slur to be uttured in his presence. Don't even think of saying something like "Women(or Asians) are bad drivers" or "Jewish people are cheap", or "Blondes are dumb.". Nothing infuriates him more. Nothing. I love that about him.

5. He writes beautiful poetry. For me.

6. He is an amazing teacher. I love to sit in the back of his classroom and watch him teach a class. He is funny and charming, yet firm and in total control of the class. You do not want to give him any Sh**. You will lose that argument.

7. He says Hello to every single person that walks by him. It doesn't matter if they answer back or not.

8. He will watch any television show that interests me. We watch Project Runway, Dancing with the Stars, Super Nanny, Grey's Anatomy, and So You Think you Can Dance together, even though these shows really don't interest him in the least. Same goes for Movies. He will see any Chick Flick I want to see.

9. He has gotten dressed at ten o' clock at night, driven to the store, and returned with chocolate ice cream, just because I really wanted it. Many, many times.

10. When I said I wanted for us to adopt a little girl from China, he said "O.K.", without missing a beat. No questions, no doubts, no fear. Just "Let's do it".

11. He dislikes the dog we have at the moment, because she's not really his(I kind of dumped her on us a few years ago), she is not housebroken, and she is not the brightest light bulb in the pack. Yet I have come out of our bedroom after going to bed and he is cuddled up on the couch with her laying on his chest.

12. He lets me decorate my house with a Shabby Chic theme, with Roses, and purple and teacups, even though he really doesn't like it. But I like it. So he looks past it.

13. He brings me presents all the time. A book from work. A candy bar from the store. Some bath products he got when he was at the Mall and just happened to walk by Bath and Body.

There you go. 13 things I love about my husband. I could go on even longer. But I'm tired. I think we're gonna be O.K. It's like he said yesterday. " I know I screwed up. But we can always begin again."

I guess that's what we'll try to do. Begin again.

This day has honestly been one of the hardest days of my life. But it's over, and I'm still standing. Barely. First off, thank you for all of the comments and e-mails. I cried reading every single one. I want to get back to each of you individually by e-mail, but I need a few days to get back on my feet. There are a few things I do want to touch on though:
Shelley- you are so right about the self loathing. I know it isn't healthy and it isn't helping the situation, but I'm so good at it! :) The doubts that were coming through last night came from a place of fear so deep I felt like it was swallowing me whole. I was so scared. So, so scared.
Oh my, #6-You are right too. Positive thinking is key. Unlike the self loathing, I am not very good at positive thinking. Especially when it seems like my life is falling apart. Must work on that.
Kim-I'm so glad you stopped by because I lost track of you when you went password protected and I've been wondering about you. And I'm sorry things are rough for you right now too.
Avery's Mama-When I said I was pretending like everything was O.K. I meant at work. At home I have done nothing but talk, shout, cry, scream, cry, and scream some more about the things he has done. Trust me, things are out in the open between my husband and I. Way out.
Everyone else-Thank you so much for being so supportive, even though I always have some kind of drama going on in my life and it must get pretty old after awhile. It gets old for me, so I know there must be people that come here and think "Now what?" I think that often.