I'm (Hopefully) Coming Back

I am going to be coming back around blog land.  I can't guarantee how much or how long, but I'm going to start making my rounds again.  I've done as much as I can do for now.  I've applied at every place in our area in my field and had several interviews.  So, now it's the waiting game.  If I don't hear good news from them soon, I will go back to waitressing.  John is in the same boat except put manual labor in place of waitressing.  So now we're just waiting. 

I will tell you all that for now, we are doing OK and I really mean that.  Still no answers but we're feeling more at peace and resigned to what God has planned for us. 

If you've ever seen the movie Facing Giants, there's a theme about preparing the fields so God can send the rain.  The story goes...

There were two farmers who were praying for rain.  One went out and prepared his fields for the rain, the other did not.  Which one do you think received the rain?  The farmer who prepared his fields. 

So that's our focus right now.  We're preparing our fields and praying for rain.

Update: What's Been Going On

I've decided to come here and tell you all what has been going on.  John lost his job and since he was the bread winner of the family, that put a  huge financial burden on us.  I do work, but it's normally only part time and is more for my mental well-being then an actual source of income.  So we've been trying to find jobs, him a new job and me a full-time position.  Plus I've been picking up extra hours at work to help bring in some money.  When I'm not filling out applications, looking for places hiring in and out of my field and working extra hours, I've been taking care of the kids so they feel like everything's OK.  Also, we only have one family vehicle and since I have to get a full-time job now, we'll need another one, so we've been looking for ways to get one and looking for one.

I honestly thought I'd be back by now, but it's taking so long to get this all figured out.  I wish I could be here with you all, reading and commenting and supporting, but I just feel so disoriented right now.  I know you all understand.  You've been so supportive, it's truly a blessing for me.  I will never be able to express what it has meant to us.

People we know keep asking if we're OK and I keep smiling and saying we're fine.  Everything's good.  Trying to be positive and optimistic.  But the truth is, I'm not OK.  Inside I'm falling to pieces.  I'm hurt and pissed and I really just want to cry.  I can't though.  We have to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. 

I just keep looking at the bills and the bank accounts and wondering how this is going to work.  How we're going to get another car when we can't even figure out how to pay the bills we have now.  On top of all of this, several friends we made through the department that we've grown close to have stopped talking to us altogether.  That hurts the most.  It's like we're not part of their "clique" anymore.  There are rumors that they were told if they had any contact with us they would get fired, but not everyone from the department has wrote us off, so I don't know what the truth is and it hurts either way.  We don't have these friends anymore and that hurts.

This has been a huge blow to John's ego.  He feels he's let me and his family down.  He hasn't though.  There was nothing he could have done to prevent this, it's all political BS.  They wanted him gone and found a way to do it.  He's been depressed and mopey and kind of locked inside himself lately, which I completely understand.  I'm trying to be supportive of him and to just be here for him, but I miss my husband.  I want him back.  I have seen some life in him a couple of times, but those moments are so rare and brief lately.  I want him to feel good about himself again and not like a failure, I want him to smile and laugh again.  This all just hurts so much.

I really just wanted to tell someone, I'm NOT OK.  I know that I will be, but right now, I'm just not.

P.S.  If you want to get a hold of me, you can e-mail me at suzieplus6@hotmail.com.  My e-mails are sent directly to my phone so it acts like text messaging to me.

I Will be Back

I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know where I've been.  Something has happened to our family that has shaken us a bit.  I don't really want to go into details on my public blog, but I will tell you all we are all fine.  As of right now, we're still working on picking up the pieces so we can move forward.  I will be back to blogging as soon as I get the time, until then, I'm asking for patience from all of you.  I promise to be back soon.

Distancing and Goodbyes

There have been many times I've felt tempted to distance myself from my husband.  Always a bad idea.  Most of the time it stems from his deep commitment to his job.  Don't get me wrong, the kids and I are higher on his priority list than his job but his job is very demanding and important.  In order for him to do it right, he must make some family sacrifices.  There are times my emotions play tricks on me and I tell myself I don't matter to him.  He doesn't even notice me.  Well, if that's how his is, I'll make him miss me.  But I never follow through with this thought.  When the thought hits me, I curl up into him, let him wrap his big strong arms around me and revel in the joy and comfort of his touch, even if only for a moment.

There are times I am tempted to do my own thing and go back to just a single mom mentality while he sat around missing me.  "There!  Now you know how I feel".   No hugs and kisses and sincere goodbyes for you.  Nope, I'll just nonchalantly say bye while busy with other things as you walk out the door to do whatever it is you want to do that doesn't include me and if you insist on a kiss then it'll just be a quick peck.  I am tempted, but I don't follow through.  Instead, I turn TO him.  I may not tell him at that exact moment what's wrong with me because sometimes it's not always convenient for us to have an in depth conversation about my very complicated emotions.  But I sincerely say goodbye, with real hugs and real kisses.  I stop whatever has my attention at that moment to go to him to say goodbye, I give it my undivided attention.  I do the same for my kids.

You see, this is how my brain works...

What if I did follow through on my temptations.  What if I were too distracted to give him a real goodbye.  What if I moped around not being with him while he was home then he left and I barely said goodbye, acted as if it were inconvenient for me to do so.  He left not feeling that closeness from his wife and something happened.  To him or to me.  What if that half hearted busy goodbye was the last time we ever saw each other.  What if that was the last moment we have of our relationship.  I couldn't live with that and I can't bear the thought of leaving him with that.

The only thing certain in life is death.  We may not know when or how, but we know it's going to happen.  I'm not pessimistic, I'm realistic.  None of us are promised tomorrow or the next moment for that matter.  Anything could happen, from the more common tragedies such as car accidents, to unusual tragedies such as what happened in Aurora, CO, to terrorist attacks.   My husband's job isn't the safest and to be honest, neither is mine.

Have you ever seen the movie Uptown Girls with Brittany Murphey and Dakota Fanning?  In one scene, Brittany's character is telling Dakota's character about the last time she saw her parents.  They were getting ready to go on a tour without her and she was mad because it was the first tour they would take without her.  She locked herself in her room and refused to say goodbye.  Her parents ended up dying in a plane crash while on tour and she never saw them again.

So, I treat every goodbye as if it were our last because we never know if it will be.

The Morning Grump Needs Some Attention

My family and I just returned from a camping trip over this holiday weekend.  Normally, I don't like going to this camp ground during a holiday, but there was rain in our area and it kept the majority of the camp ground empty all weekend leaving just us few campers willing to brave the rain.  It was a great weekend.

However, I somehow earned a spanking today.  It was a punishment spanking per se, but it was definitely not what I wanted to do at the moment.

You ever have a spanking that just pisses you off at first.  This one did.  I woke up grumpy this morning (from lack of sleep all weekend?) and I didn't want to be bothered with anything and especially not a stupid silly spanking.  I was just plain annoyed.  I laid there thinking "this is annoying" "this is stupid" "why does he have to do this anyway" "what a jerk he's being" "I have other things to be doing" and more.  I'm pretty sure it was that attitude that landed me OTK to begin with.  John wouldn't stop until he broke through to me though and he did.

I think it's my reaction after the spanking that freaks him out the most these days.  After, I kind of pout a little.  Maybe shut down.  I don't feel shut down but I don't talk about what I'm feeling because to be honest I don't fully understand it.  I feel pouty for no reason, I feel like I screwed up and I don't really want to end up OTK again.

Before I could be comforted back to a normal temperament, the baby (who's not a baby) had an accident in her pants so John took her to clean her up and I began cleaning the mess on the floor.  When he returned he said "Baby, I was going to do that" this made me frown a little at him.  I hadn't intended to and wasn't really aware I had done it but he sent me back to the room anyway.  I went in and began to cry.  He said "Baby, what's wrong" and I blubbered out "I don't want to get spanked again"  He said he wouldn't and laid down with me in our bed to cuddle a little.  I began feeling better and I'm not a grump anymore.

Note to John:  After this spanking today I feel much more awake or alert or whatever I wasn't feeling earlier, definitely less grumpy or annoyed, not motivated though (not sure where that went) and I feel much more relaxed right now.  Things just feel right when they didn't earlier.  Thanks for that.

I'm a Woman, Hear Me Roar (or Cry)

Ugh!  Sometimes I get so busy with my daily life it's difficult to keep up with this blogging thing.  I think honestly, I just need to lower my expectations of blogging.  When I started blogging, I was semi-disabled (OK, I had a broken wrist, but I would honestly rather have a broken leg than a broken wrist.  And I would know, I've had both), therefore I had more time for blogging.  Now that I'm back to my full work ability, I need to realize that I can't blog the way I did in the beginning.  So here's what I'm thinking.  I can usually find time to read blogs fairly easily, so I will continue to do that.  If I erase the idea that every time I log into blogger I need to write a post as well as read and comment, I think I will be more willing to log in more often, like quickly in the mornings after working overnight or before bed when I don't work to leave comments, but not always post.  (maybe a laptop or and Ipad would help as well, but as of now, I'm stuck with an old school desktop).  I'd like to at least find time once a week to leave a post.  So there's my plan.

Now, I have a story to share.  It's semi-Dd related.  There's a situation at John's work which is a source of stress for us.  I was internally dealing with some of the emotion and stress I was feeling.  To be honest I was frustrated with the whole thing.  John at times gets upset if I get upset about anything.  He doesn't get upset with me, but more that he can't "fix" everything.  Just as every parent wishes they could put their children in a bubble and protect them from life, John wishes he could do that for me.  When John gets upset though, he's not very good at expressing it appropriately.  It will sometimes come out as anger directed toward me.

We were sitting in the car waiting for the kids to get out of school and talking about this.  I began telling him how I was feeling, my voice was a bit tense, but that's because I was very frustrated about the situation.  He sensed my tense tone and snapped at me that he wasn't going to tell me anything anymore if I was just going to react that way.  I bubbled over and began telling him that when he keeps me in the dark, it makes me feel like I'm pretty much useless to him.  Like I'm just his trophy wife to look good on his arms but that I'm incapable of dealing with life, incapable if thinking or anything.  That he views me as just some bimbo.  He told me that's not how he meant it.  I knew that wasn't how he meant it and he's gotten a lot better at telling me about things that affect me over the past several months, but he isn't perfect yet either.  I told him, I knew that wasn't what he meant it to say.  I know that he doesn't tell me things for the same reason a parent doesn't tell a child about problems affecting the home, he wanted to protect me from all the negative emotions.  If John had his way, I'd be happy all the time.   I told him he can't shield me from the world, that I will get upset, that I still feel pain and frustration and stress, but those emotions don't limit my ability to deal with situations anymore than they limit his.  He told me, he felt like it was his job as the man to protect me.  He said he views me as his delicate little flower.  He never meant to hurt my feelings or to make me feel like I wasn't a partner in all this.  He just wants to make me happy.  I appreciate that.

I am a woman capable of dealing with some harsh situations.  John knows and appreciates this.  However, like I've mentioned above, he wants to protect me.  He knows most of what I've gone through in my life before him and he wants me to have a better life, but at times his image of a better life for me is impractical.  I don't think he realized before the above conversation that just having him in my life and not facing everything alone already makes my life better.

I never used to cry.  I would shake everything off and continue to move forward with never a tear spilled.  The stress mounted itself on my shoulders but never revealed itself in my actions or behaviors.  I hid everything from everybody.  I smiled and moved on.  Hey somebody had to.    That was before I met John though,  Since him, I've learned to cry, to trust in him, to let go of things I can't control.   I have a partner now to help me.  Unfortunately at times I feel weaker because I show my emotions more.  I have to remind myself that I am stronger now than I have ever been because I do have the love and support from John.  Sometimes I, like John, see me express all these emotions and think I am not capable of handling a situation.  It's not until John tries to protect me that I realize, I am still strong, in fact stronger.  When I have to tell him that it's OK for me to cry and get frustrated, but I can still handle all life throws at us, I realize that I am not weaker because I cry, but stronger because I have the love and support of a man who cares about how I feel.


The first part of this post was typed earlier today, the rest I'm typing now...

I let some things with my mom overwhelm me today and I let it all out to John (while waiting to pick up the kids again, go figure).  Instead of jumping up to "fix" it, he listened to my feelings.  It relaxed me that he didn't jump up (figuratively) to save me.  Some situations you can't change, especially when they involve other people's actions.  This particular situation is an example.  He can't "fix" it anymore than I can.  Doesn't mean I won't get frustrated about it or that I won't need to vent.  He accepted that I had to cry and get it out.  Then he provided me with wine and cuddles when we got home.  :) I truly love that man.

Passing Notes

One day, I came home from work not feeling very upbeat or happy.  I was over tired, over stressed and depressed.  I had been working a lot of hours I'm not used to, my normal everyday life hadn't slowed down or demanded any less of me just because I was working and I was missing my husband, who had recently switched shifts causing us to not see or talk to each other.  While I was sleeping, John was watching the kids and getting the house cleaned for me so I would wake up to a nice clean house.  When I woke up, I found a folded up piece of paper next to my pillow.  It was a note from John.  I smiled as I imagined him sneaking into my bedroom while I was sleeping to leave a note for me to find when I woke up.

As I read it, my smile got bigger...

To my one and only love,
These past few weeks have been crazy.  I have been lost in thought and you have been running around and thinking about this job.
We have been so out of it that we have not been to the garage for reconnection in a while.  I want to get this life back on track.  First I want to start with our Dd lifestyle and get back on track with that.  I want a membership to the gym and I wast us to use it three times a week.  I want to start getting out of this house  go to the park hell anywhere, walk, let kids play.  I want my wife to be happy again.  I want her to lose some weight so she can be happy with herself again (I have been depressed a lot lately about my added weight, John likes it but it bothers me so he is allowing me to lose weight but I'm not allowed to get below a certain weight which is higher than what I was when I met him).  Hell I want to lose some too.  I know this new schedule is going to be hard but we can make it work and the extra money will help us get to where we want to be.  I love you and miss your smile.

Well on a diff note you are always asking about my fantasies so I will try to lighten you.

He then went on to write one of his fantasies which he kindly snuck back in our room to read to me and then we reconnected in a different way.

I thought this was sweet and wanted to share it with you.