I'm Still Alive

Note to self:  Do not take two days away from blogging without giving some prior notice or explanation before doing so.

Because if I don't, people will get upset when they start emailing out of concern just to find out that I decided to take a couple of days to sleep in rather than get up and blog.

And to those of you that were concerned and noticed....thanks.  It meant a lot to get your emails and messages, even though some of you weren't so happy when you found out why I hadn't been writing.

Yeah, I just decided to take a couple of days off...just so that I could sleep in rather than getting up at 4:30AM.  I needed the sleep.  I needed the time off.  I needed a break.  Not because I'm getting tired of writing or running out of stuff to write about, but I wanted some time to process....some time to take a step back and internalize what I want to write versus what I should write.  My daily posts were becoming a little narrow minded, one focused...boring.  I was writing for the sake of writing rather than the desire to write.  I just had to get words on the page because it was my routine.  Not because I wanted to write or felt like I had something to say.

So, I decided to upset that routine a little...just to see how I felt.  

Honestly?  I felt great.  Getting to sleep in an extra hour did my body good.  But, by the time I left for work, I noticed I started getting a little niggling feeling.  Something wasn't right.  Something was missing.  And then, throughout the day, I found myself thinking about what I could write about on my blog.  What I should cover when I started writing again.

This morning, I hit the snooze button a few times, but found that I had to get up.  I couldn't go another day without writing...this time because I wanted to write rather than it being the routine.  And what I have to say isn't necessarily interesting, but I wanted to write.  I wanted to say something.  I needed to get some words down and out.

These past couple of days have been busy.  Jelly got sent home from school on Tuesday because she wasn't feeling well.  Before Hubby could get there to pick her up, she threw up in the school office.  Then again on the drive home.  Unfortunately for Hubby, he's the kind of person that can't handle puke.  So, it was a tough drive home for him after Jelly had upchucked all over herself and the car seat.  He managed to get her home, striped off, cleaned up, and in bed without too many problems, though.

Then, Butter went back to school for a day, and had an extremely tough day.  Being without his pain medicine was just too much, and the OTC pain pills he was suggested to take wasn't cutting it AT ALL.  He ended up in tears on our drive home, telling me how much pain he was in.  To make matters worse, he ended up getting sick that night.  I'm not sure if it was Jelly's crud he had or nerves or pain or stress from his fracture...but he had to stay home again yesterday.  That's five days of school missed in six days.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, because I'm taking weight loss pills and have to be monitored every 30 days.  The doctor took one look at my progress over the last month and asked straight away if the past month had been stressful.  

Well, let's see.  I have spent the past month being gone more than I've been home.  I've spent entire weeks coming home after 10PM and surviving on 3-4 hours of sleep each of those nights.  Because of all the late nights, I had to bring tons of work home with me on the weekends and then spend my weekends doing the work.  Traveling almost every night has put a major strain on my gas budget, causing me to dip in to other areas of the budget, which in turn put a big strain on our financial situation.  The shower in our bathroom broke, putting us down to 5 people using the same shower, and that was followed up with a MAJOR water leak under the house.  The leak didn't really affect me, but Hubby had to take care of it, and then I had to spend the next several days listening to him complain constantly about how tired he was from doing that work...all the while me thinking he should really shut his mouth because I've gone an entire month working my behind off, getting very little sleep, and spending all of my free time catching up and I never complained about it.  He works at night, but then he gets to sleep all day long if he so chooses, and he has the house completely to himself until 10PM when he goes back to work.  A few hours of digging in mud and replacing a water pipe is the last thing I want to hear him complain about.  Then throw in a child that broke a bone, requiring a lot of extra care and concern from me.. because no matter what I do, I can't take the pain away.  Finished up nicely with my youngest getting sick, and having to miss a day and a half of school.

Stressful?  Hmmmm...you think?

The drive back from the doctor's office did make me think about how crazy this past month has been. And I think I've handled it like a champ.  I didn't whine and cry about it constantly...other than on here. I did what I had to do.  I got it done.  I sacrificed my time to make sure those around me were happy, even if it meant that my needs weren't met.  And I know some will say that it's my own fault.  I brought on a lot of that stress just by being that busy, letting my kids play sports, having too much on my plate at once... but I'm not complaining about it.  I'm happy they got to do it.  I was willing to do what I did.  I'd do it all over again if I had to...and I will once the next sport season comes around that both kids are interested in.

Sure, my house is in disarray from the lack of care I've had to show it from being so busy.  I have felt pulled in a million and one directions.  I have sacrificed time seeing Hubby.  I have drained every last drop out of my checking account.   But, that time is over now.  Life can start to get back to some form of normalcy.  I'll be just fine.

And, I can also get back to writing about other stuff than stress and lack of sleep.  

Starting tomorrow.  HA!  

OK, it's field trip day for me, so I better get to getting ready.