Category: being an adult

March 2018 Goals

Below are my goals for March 2018:

Pack up 85% of my house.  I have my fingers, toes and boobs crossed that this house works out.  We plan to close on March 30 so after that we can start moving.  Yay! We plan on giving my cousin 30 days notice on April 15 that we will be moved out by May 15.  That will give us six weeks to paint, move and clean the place we are currently in.  I still have a lot of stuff packed in boxes from last time so I’m sitting pretty good.  The bad thing is is that I don’t know how to tell my cousin.  We’re not on good terms right now.  He still thinks I’m three and that I should sit in the corner and not have an opinion.  That doesn’t work for me.  He doesn’t see me as a grown up.  He still thinks I’m his little cousin who he needs to look out for.  In a way, it’s very sweet.  I get that.  But I’m 52 years old.  I’m fully capable of making my own decisions and having my own opinions.  He’s also a tight wad.  I’m sure this will be another post.

Submit the first 50 pages of my novel and an outline to the James Jones First Novel            Fellowship.  I’ll be finishing this up in the next couple of days.  I plan to mail it on March 8.

To edit and rewrite the next 50 pages of a Time To Leave

To write a new post every Sunday and Wednesday

This seems like a very boring list.  Maybe this is why I don’t post my goals.  Oh well.  I thought I’d give it a shot.

Have a great day!!

Shit Happens

I did something really stupid today.  I’m embarrassed to tell my story, but everyone makes mistakes and nothing bad happened.  It could have been bad, but luckily for me someone upstairs was looking out for me.  I’m grateful for that today.

I’ve been sick all week with one of the viruses that have been going around.  I went to the doctor on Monday because the wheezing in my chest scared the crap out of me.  My doctor told me it was a virus and it would run it’s course.  Monday I called in sick to work.  My doctor said Tuesday I took a vacation day.  My chest was better but my nose wouldn’t stop running.  Yes, I was taking cold medicine, Mucinex, Delsym, rubbing myself in Vick’s and sucking on cough drops.  Wednesday I worked 10 hours and thought I was going to die.  I couldn’t breathe.  My face was all red from blowing my nose on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Yesterday I called in sick.  I felt a little bit better, but I wanted to rest.  Normally I wouldn’t call or take vacation but my husband was home on and off all week and I didn’t want to him sick with this virus because he had all of his teeth pulled today.  If he was sick they wouldn’t pull his teeth and he really needed it done for health reasons.

Last night was the first night since Sat. night that I didn’t take any cold medicine.  I felt kinda off kilter because of all of the medicine I took, but I was confident that I could drive him home, grab his prescriptions and take care of him the rest of the day.  I would take a nap later on that afternoon.  I was fine until the called me in the recovery room and the nurse showed me how to fold the gauze and place it on his gums.  I almost puked when she took the old gauze out and showed it to me.  It was all bloody and gross.  She talked me thru all of the stuff I would have to do.  Pain meds, foods he could eat, antibiotics, and time intervals for changing the gauze.  The ice packs.  I can’t forget the ice packs.

After we were done I went to get the truck.  His truck.  The truck I don’t drive all of the time.  I know I’m making excuses, but hear me out.  As I’m driving up to the door all of the instructions are running around in my head and I see him sitting in a wheel chair.  I’m thinking I need to get out of the truck and go to passenger and get him settled in.  I get out of the truck and it starts rolling backward.  I screaming for someone to help me.  I’m looking at all of the cars I’m going to hit if this truck doesn’t stop.  I’m panicking.  I’m reaching over (no i didn’t think about jumping back in the truck on stepping on the brake) to grab the shifter.  I don’t know if I stopped the truck or if it was something my husband did, but somehow the truck stopped.  Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I felt it was.  I haven’t talked to my husband about it and he hasn’t said anything.  I don’t know if he even remembers.  I feel horrible that he had to get out of the wheel chair after getting all of teeth pulled to help his wife because she didn’t put the truck in park.  Obviously all of the cold meds I took during the week didn’t make me competent to drive.  It was the first time in my life that anything like that has happened.  I still feel like a dumb ass.  Maybe it was seeing the blood and knowing I had to replace the gauze every 15 minutes that got me in a funk.

No one got hurt.  My husband is doing fine.  I am fine.  I was a little shook up this morning.  I kept apologizing for being a dumb ass, but he knows how sick I was this week.  I didn’t damage the building, grass or anyone’s vehicle.  All is good.  The only damage I did do is to my pinkie finger.  It must have got caught it  in between the shifter and the steering wheel or something as I tried to get the shifter into park because it is black and blue and hurts like hell.  And now that I think about it I need to give myself some credit.  At least I ran after it instead of standing there and watching it crash into the building or some cars.  This makes me feel a little bit better.

Shit happens.  It’s called being human.  I have to learn from the incident and move on.  It was a fluke thing.  I was sick.  And I need to forgive myself and call it a day.

If only it were that easy.  I still think I’m a dumb ass and probably always will. I can’t believe I did something that stupid and irresponsible.  I know better than that.

That’s my story.

 

 

 

 

Today Sucks

 

I’m not finishing NaNoWriMo.  I’m still working on the first draft of my  novel, but not at 1,700 words a day.  I tried my best to write 1,700 words a day, but with the busy week I had last week and then walking away from the house we put a bid on was just too much.

I never knew trying to purchase a house would be this difficult.  We walked away this time because we felt the seller was trying to hide something because they didn’t want us to get the home inspected AND they wanted more money.  I’m sure they wanted more money to pay for part or all of what they knew was wrong with the house, but I wasn’t going to pay more or NOT get the house inpected.  The counter offer didn’t leave me with a good feeling and I had trust my gut and walk away.  It was a hard decision.  I’m finally ready to buy a house, but things aren’t working out.  I’m bummed out today because of it.

I took empty boxes to the dump yesterday that I brought home from work to pack stuff up in for the first house we lost.  I had left them in the basement hoping we would find a house and I could continue packing, but since this house didn’t work I’m not sure what to do now so I took ten boxes to the dump.  I’ll take the rest next week.  I’ll probably unpack the some of the coffee cups and tupperware items and bring them upstairs, but I’m unsure what to do with the rest.  It just sucks.  We got our hopes up again and it didn’t work out.

I thought the first house would work out because I was ready, but it didn’t.  I put myself out there again and that house didn’t work out either.  I know everything works out for a reason, but I don’t know why this isn’t working.  I’m at a good place in my life.  My marriage is great.  I have a good job and great coworkers.  I’m beginning to get to know the real me.  The Menopause me.  I’m at a good spot in my life now so I don’t know why this house thing isn’t working.

I don’t even want to look for another house because I’m afraid of getting hurt again.  I’m just hurt and disappointed and I know my husband is too.   We really wanted this work.  I’m grateful that we found out right away and we didn’t lose any money, but it still stings.  I was cleaning the office today and found some brochures with paint samples in so I tossed those in the garbage and I put the paperwork for the two houses in the basement.  Maybe if I get rid of the old……

Today is one of those days where I would love to curl up on the couch with my dad, not say a word and watch football.  I always felt better when my dad put his arm around my shoulders, but I can’t do that because he’s not here.  That makes me miss him even more so I’ve just been puttering around the house, cleaning the office, watching football and writing a little bit.

I know that in time we will know why those houses didn’t work, but I just wish I knew now.  My mom and coworkers tell me to be patient and that everything will work out.  I’m not so sure.  I lost my faith and feel that I will be renting forever.  I want out my cousins house and to get into my house.  I don’t want to live here anymore.

Maybe I need this process to grow in ways that I don’t understand right now.  Maybe I’m suppose to be in the house I’m renting right now for what ever reason.

Maybe.  Maybe.  Maybe.

All I know right now is today sucks.

 

Yes I Am Still Going To Vegas

My plane leaves for Las Vegas in less two weeks.  I’m excited, but also have a heavy heart.  My heart goes out to everyone that was at the music festival and I pray for everyone daily, but my trip has been planned since April and I am going.  There are three reasons why that I will share with you below.

  1.  I’m not letting some random dead guy (there are plenty of other words I could use describe this guy, but he’s not worth the time or effort so I’m just calling him dead guy) dictate what I’m going to do, where I am going to go and when I’m going to do it.  The reality is that if the right person is in the same place I am I can get shot anywhere….at work, at the grocery store, in my home, etc.  I think every time a shooting happens we are more aware of how it can happen anywhere and at anytime.  Unfortunately I can’t hide from it.  It sucks, but this is reality.  It makes us realize how vulnerable we are and how precious life is and lives are.  I can’t stop living,  live in fear or stop doing what I love just because there are people like the dead guy out there.  People like him scare the shit out of me, but I can’t let that fear dictate my life.

2.  Vegas is a tourist town.  This is how people make their living.  If people stop going              businesses suffers and people get laid off and things spiral downwards.  The                        gunman did more than kill innocent people.  He messed with their livelihood.                     From what I understand the airport cancelled flights and some casinos were shut               down.  This is a loss of income for the people of Vegas .  People need to eat.  People              need to pay their bills.  Traveling to Vegas is my way of helping the city getting                    back to normal — whatever normal is right now.  I want to go.  I want to help.                      Vegas needs me to go.

3.  I LOVE Vegas!!!!  I love the food.  I love the architecture.  I love the art.  I love the                vibe.  I love the casinos.  I love the shopping.  I love waking up to the mountain                    views.  I love the energy and lights of the Strip.  I love the different hotels and how            each of them has their own vibe.  I love that my husband loves Vegas as much as I              do — he’s the one that got me hooked.  What I love most about Vegas really has                    nothing to do with Vegas, but with my husband and how we get to spend five days              together.  No work.  No daily grind.  Just us.  Together.

I know this trip will be different because I have a heavy heart, but life has to go on.    There’s no way I can go there and not think about what happened.  The city is grieving and will continue to grieve for a long time.  Will I be more aware of my surroundings?  You betcha.  Am I aware that there is a small possibility that another shooting could possibly occur?  Absolutely.  If it happens and I die then I was my turn to die.  My name was on that big chalkboard in the sky.  There’s nothing I can do about it.

I didn’t think about cancelling my trip once after the shooting.

F U dead guy.  You are not winning.   (Sorry for the language).

Happy Wife Happy Life

I hate this phrase.

To me this means that the husband should be doing whatever his wife wants, when she wants, to make her happy.  She barks.  He jumps.  She’s happy.

This is bullshit.

What about him?  Is he happy?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Does she care?  Probably not.

I don’t know why, but that phrase pisses me off.  It irks me because there are two people in a relationship and both people deserve to be happy.  Not one.

Both people should have the chance to be happy, to have separate friends, to go after their dreams, to pursue their hobbies, have a relationship with their families, to have their voices heard and their opinions matter. When I was married 8 years ago (it was our anniversary on Aug. 29 🙂 ) I don’t remember Roger, our pastor, telling us during our vows that my husband should treat me better than I treat him.  I remember Roger telling us that we should love and cherish each other and our relationship.  Marriage is two people.  Not one.

Happy Wife Happy Life.

This phrase doesn’t fly in my house because I don’t feel I’m the only one who deserves to be happy.  My husband deserves to be happy, too.  We both do things that make each other happy.  My husband and I do things together that help us reach our goals as a couple.   My husband and I give each other the time to pursue our individual dreams and help each other whenever we can with whatever resources we have.

I don’t want to be that happy wife.  I wouldn’t feel right if I got my way all of the time.  It would be nice for awhile, but I wouldn’t want this.  Marriage is about compromise and helping each other.  Neither of us get our way all of the time.  I want to see my husband happy so if I have to compromise once in awhile that’s ok.  I like to see my husband happy.

I feel my husband and I have a unique relationship.  He drives over the road so he’s gone during the week.  What makes our relationship strong is that I talk to him on the phone for an hour every day.  We talk.  We talk about what needs to be done, family, and what we would like to do among other things. We talk about what is important to each of us and why.  We talk.

I don’t bark orders — he wouldn’t listen anyway.  I’m used to doing things by myself because he’s on the road all week.  When he does come home he has a limited window of time that he has to get what he needs to get done.  I never give him a “honey do” list because by the time he comes home he has his own list of what he wants to get done that weekend.  If I need his help I will ask “Hey honey can you help me with this please?”

Our relationship doesn’t have score cards.  We don’t say “I did this for you. Now you have to do this for me.”  Some weeks I do more than he does.  Some weeks he does more than I do.  It all evens out.  We do things together.  I gather the trash and put it in the truck and he takes it to the dump.  We prune our bushes together — he prunes and I rake. He cuts the grass with the rider and I rake it up – if there is a lot he helps rake.  We run errands together.   He makes breakfast.  I make supper.  It all works.

Honestly, I admit I am bossier since menopause.  If I sense that I have been too bossy I will back off and/or do something special for him.   If I am too bossy and I don’t sense it he’ll give me a look and I will give him the reasons why I think the way I do.  We talk about it.  Sometimes I get my way.  Sometimes I don’t.

Happy wife.  Happy husband.  That’s the way we roll.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Issues With Finding a $50 Bill

Last Friday I walked into the mini-mart to pay for gas.  I get to the register and out of the corner of my eye I catch what I think is the corner of a $ bill.  I look down.  Holy shit!  It’s a $50 bill on top of the Extra gum.  OMG!  I slide the $50 into my pocket, paid for my gas and quickly left.

I didn’t turn it in.  I felt a little guilty about this, but I felt if I found it then I should keep it.  If I knew who dropped it I would have gladly given it back.  I felt bad that I didn’t return it so at work I asked a few people’s opinion on if I did the right thing.  I received mixed reviews.  I believe in karma and that I should do the right thing and be honest.  I would have liked to return it to the owner because if I lost $50 (or anything of value) I would hope someone would be honest and return it to me.

Questions started to form in my head.  What if the person who lost the $50 needed it to buy groceries?  What if the person who lost the $50 was well off and shrugged the loss off to his fault for being in a hurry?  What if it was an elderly person who was on a limited budget?

This is how screwed up I am about money.  I’m embarrassed to be sharing this part of my life, but part of the reason I started this blog was to share my story (good or bad) so I’m putting it out there.

The thing I learned from this is that I believe that I shouldn’t gain because of someone else’s misfortune.  This is a stupid belief and I have no idea where it came from.

First of all — what is misfortune?  Google defines it as “bad luck or an unfortunate condition or event”.

Second of all  — why do I let misfortune guide my life?  People gain from other people’s misfortunes every day.  One person gets a job because someone else is sick and can’t make the interview.  A small business gets in over their head financially and a bigger company buys them out.  These are the only two examples I could come up with at the moment.

I definitely need to change the beliefs I have about money.  They are not working for me anymore.  I don’t know what I’m going to replace them with, but I have to replace them with something positive and uplifting and that gives permission to have the money I want in my life.

After thinking about how I let money into my life, I realize that there are only two ways I allow money into my life — my job and the lottery/gambling.  Laugh if you will.  I’m shaking my head.  It’s interesting and ridiculous at the same time.  How could I be this closed off mentally for this long?  How did I not know I had these beliefs?

Maybe this is why I haven’t achieved my dream of becoming a published author because I won’t let myself get paid for my writing because it’s not on the list of how I’m supposed to get paid.   It’s ridiculous and angers me, but that is a whole different blog post for a different day.

I’m saving the $50 for when we go to Vegas in October.  Maybe it will bring me luck when I play the slot machines.  🙂

 

Do I Push Money Away?

My husband and I took our change the we had been saving for the last two years to the credit union to cash it in.  My husband wheeled it into the credit union in my yellow garden wagon.  There were funny looks and some whistles.  It took almost forty-five minutes to run it through the change machine.  End the end we had over two thousand dollars.

Two thousand dollars.  Holy crap!!!

On the way to work I was all smiles and very happy.  I was proud of my husband and I for saving that much.  But as the day wore on my good mood faded and doubt and worry kicked in. I wondered if I deserved to have that much money.  Why I was wondering this I don’t know.  It’s been our money all along — we just didn’t know how much was in the containers.  Then I wondered what if something happens and I loose it all?  Why I was thinking this I don’t know.  We had the change in the house and something could have happened, but didn’t.

Negative thoughts.  Fear.  Negative thoughts.  Fear.

Then I thought — I’m 52 years old and I deserve to have a lot of money.  Why can’t I have over two thousand dollars and feel good about it?  Screw good — what about feeling GREAT????!!!!!

Honestly, I’ve had a problem with letting money into my life my whole life.  I never thought I deserved it or was worth it.  I’ve always wanted a lot of money, but I have always wanted to stay small and not attract any attention to myself and my talents.  I don’t know where the idea of staying small comes into play.  Maybe it comes from being bullied when I was a kid.  Maybe I felt if I didn’t draw attention to myself then I wouldn’t be bullied??

I know if I want money I have to get big and let people see me and my talents. And then I will have to deal with my insecurities and everything else that comes up while I’m getting big.

On the flip side, that leads me to a whole bunch of questions.    If I have a lot of money will my friends be my friends?  Will people be jealous of me and/or hate me?  Will people hound me for money?  And the BIG question — do I deserve it?

How do I begin to think/feel that I deserve to have money?  Do daily affirmations? Write in my journal about my insecurities?  I’ve tried all of this before and it hasn’t worked for me.  Wait.  It has a little bit, but how do I find out what is truly keeping me from letting money in?  How do I excavate whatever belief(s) I have from deep within me?  This is what I have problems with.  Over the years I have become a little wealthier, but not where I want to be.  It’s been a slow process, but I have overcome some of my issues and danced around (but never fully embraced) the rest of my issues

I think menopause throws our issues and/or parts of ourselves onto the table and we have to deal with them – whether we want to or not.   We don’t get a choice.  Our issues bug us or haunt us until we deal with them and work through them.  We have to learn to get out of our own way.  We have to learn what we were put on this earth to do and give ourselves the love and space we need to figure it out.

I think finding our real selves is the part of menopause that is really hard.  We have to find our real selves.  We have to dig deep.  We have to be gentle with ourselves and the people are around because as we change our relationships with the people around us change as well.  Some people may not like this.  They may feel threatened by it, but that’s not our problem.  We can’t let this stop us from finding our true selves.

Something deep inside of me is stopping me from making/getting/having money into my life and this is the current issue I have to deal with.  It’s what menopause threw on my table.  It’s messy, ugly and probably mixed in with other issues I have to deal with, but so what.  That’s life.    I am a women going through menopause.  I am an adult and adults deal with things. I’m scared to see what is really there, but I have to do it.  I have to keep digging.  I can’t let the issues from my past dictate my life and keep me from what I know I’m suppose to be doing and having money.

I have to find a way to let money into my life.

Thanks for reading this post and have a great day!