Just Life

Sometimes I think I try too hard to find the exact right topic or something profound to write about and I forget about what is going on right around me.  I mean is the earth being moved with my every word?  Are my (6) readers waiting with bated breath for my next post?  I think not.  So here you go....

Keelin has worn contacts since she was 9.  She rarely wears her glasses but she just got new ones and she LURVES them.  We all do, except she looks about 16 and that is NOT cool.

Ella also celebrated her 11th birthday which meant a countdown on our calendar, daily reminders, and general nagging about the iPhone she so desperately NEEDS.  I managed to sneak one last picture of her as a 10 year old.....

Oh my, she is so sweet like this.  Her fist tucked under her chin...I could just.....

And then I snapped a group selfie of us on our way to school the next morning....the first of her being 11 (although she reminded me she wasn't REALLY 11 until she went to drama that afternoon since she was born at 4:35 pm-yes, Ella I remember WELL)

And one more of her cake.  She requested a cookie cake this year.  And being Mother of the Year that I am, I made it happen.

And it was delicious.  And totally Ella.  

My last little bit is about me.  I have been really trying to take time for me.  Taking care with a little help from my friends and my sister.  Eating better is always a goal for me but I am horrible at remembering to eat.  I skip meals which is bad.  I have been making more of an effort to eat the right things at an appropriate time. I have also been trying to do one form or another of working out at least 6 out of 7 days.  So my January totals were.....37 miles of running with an average pace of 9:18.  Yippee....I also fit in some 21 day Fix and PiYo workouts.  My true goal is to do PiYo every morning and then a run or fix video in the Pm.  If I can run, I will.  The videos are my fall back.  

Here is me and Dawn on our first run of February.  My goal...to run at least 40 miles this month.  

And there it is...a little bit of Real Life .... Until next time....

xo~M

Getting Real

...deep breath....literally.....It took the writing of a dear, sweet girl...whom I used to teach and babysit and who is now a high school senior ....to get me to this place.  I love you Ali.
I left Facebook not because I don't care about my friends on it.  Not because I wanted to lose touch.  But because for me it became "Fakebook."  And it made me feel bad about myself.  Not to anyone else's fault.  It was how I saw it.  I saw everyone's happy life.  Everyone's smiling pictures.  Everyone's "best day ever!" And I was at fault too.  Who posts real life?  Who posts the real stuff?  Very few people do and I left and I am ok with that.  It has taken me a long time to get to this point.  I don't know why.  I have encouraged other people to this place.  I have been a sounding board.  But for me. I am not sure why.  I don't think it is shame or stigma.  It lives deep within me.  It was a seed planted when I was little and it grew and grew.  And it just got too big for me.  I remember first being anxious when I was less than 9 years old. I do not remember my exact age only that I know it was before 9.  I didn't know it was anxiety but feeling that way other times in my life after I knew the word, I figured it out.  I had my first panic attack in 2002.  Right after we lost Ben.  I was in a grocery store.  Surrounded by babies.  They were all over.  They were looking at me.  Every single one of them.  I thought I was dying.  I couldn't breathe.  Fast forward.  2007-ish I am at the Drs because I feel wrong.  I can't get anything done.  I don't feel I am doing my best at anything....work, mommyhood, wifeness, life....It is the first time I have asked for help.  My Dr. gives me a list if therapists.  I start looking through the list and cross referencing with my insurance plan.  No one.  Out of pocket.  100$ an hour?  At this point, it may as well been a million.  I dug in (because I am stubborn) and figured, I have done it before, I can do it again.  I can do this.  Another fast forward.  2012....in Drs office.  I have found a Physician's assistant who listens to me.  I am crying.  I can't do this.  Time number 2 I have asked for help.  I can't sleep.  I THINK all the time.  I WORRY all the time.  My mind is always going.  I can't sit and read (which I LOVE to do) because I am worrying about something, someone....She prescribes me some medicine.  I am ambivalent.  I am skeptical.  I am worried.  She asks me to try.  I say ok.  I try.  I try taking it at night and it keeps me awake.  I call her.  I start taking it in the morning.  I can think.  I can sleep.  I worry - but I don't worry to the point that I am a worry puddle.  A cough isn't pneumonia.  I fever that won't go away isn't leukemia.  A tic bite isn't lyme disease (I will save THAT story for another day).  I have anxiety.  I am dealing with my anxiety.  I take medication and I talk to other people who suffer from it.  I still have not found a therapist (although I have not looked in a while) . Instead I have my family,my circle of few friends, a bible study group....
So thank you Ali....for helping and even though you didn't know it, challenging me to be real.

xo~M

My new daily reminder....I absolutely LOVE it

Everyone can use a little help being happier!  Bring it on, Gretchen!

Dear 2015.....

We pulled out our 2013 letters and each took one anothers' and read them.  We laughed....ALOT.  One of my "goals" was to blog more.  Fail.  Epic fail.  Dang....I thought the purpose of goals and NOT resolutions was to NOT feel failure.  Ergh....Another was to learn to take better pictures.  I have made more of an effort with that one.  I like my own pictures though, so I am not sure to whom they are supposed to be better....maybe that one was ambiguous.  A friend of mine chooses a word to focus on for the year.  I really love that idea, but I even struggle at THAT. One word, Megan.  One. Word.  And I am blah.  Nothing.  Blank. I guess I don't feel as motivated?  Encouraged?  for the New Year.  Ok, maybe I need to take an extra couple of days to get more introspective.  I wanted to blog every day last year.  I realize now that was WAY to big.  I am shooting for weekly this year.  Surely I can do THAT.  Surely I can TRY to do that.  Here are my first pictures of the new year...

xo~M

Celebratory 2015 champagne!

First SELFIE of the New Year with my Keelin

First run of the New year!  Working to start it off right!

It's the MOST wonderful time of the year

I LOVE Christmas break.  I love the break from school.  The time to re-charge.  To just BE at home with my own kids.  I love that Josh and I have the same schedule and we can all be together. I know how lucky we are that we can spend this time together.  I love that my sister and her family live here so that we can spend part of the holidays together.

Me and my beautiful sister, Kristin and she (below) with her hubby, Chris

I love watching the kiddos open their presents.  I love their surprise.  Yes, I over-use the word LOVE...but it is true.  It is the most wonderful of the year...for me.  I truly enjoy giving.  I find so much JOY in watching someone open a present that I have held onto in my head for almost the whole year.  Ella has this gift.  She remembers pieces of conversation.  She remembered Keelin loves cozy socks so she bought them for her (all on her own). Josh got a Georgia Bulldogs bracelet, I got a butterfly necklace, Max a little bottle of GOOP, and Charley a tennis ball. The thoughtfulness of Ella brought tears to my eyes as she remembered and held onto her secrets and surprises.  I tried to catch joyful expressions.....

Who wouldn't be excited about nunchuks?

And the Bills!  (poor girl)

A How I Met Your Mother FAN! and below...the beloved cozy socks!

Charley also enjoyed Christmas this year.  Although, we had to keep getting her more presents to open so she would leave the kiddos alone.  (Good thing I visited the Dollar Store- as she had about 20 presents!) 

Here are a few more from Christmas...hope you all had a wonderful day too.......

Love my kiddos

The one whom my soul loves.....

Opted in front of the tree....since the fire burned out....

Because everyone watches Christmas 90210 in Night vision goggles

Josh's new "man scarf"

Ella's cozy socks from Aunt Bean

Charley and Daddy...it was a RUFF day

Man Down!

A little late in posting this and Ella is going to kill me when she sees the pictures.  So Max had his tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy in October. Ella was scheduled for sinus surgery in December.  Ella had a deviated septum and she had bones growing into her airways.  They are called conchubalosas.  Which sounded like cancer to me, disasteress that I am, so I was VERY happy to hear they were just bones.  Which...is just "unlucky" for Ella.  Poor thing.  She was a total ROCK STAR.  She went through surgery (although it was an hour LONGER than they said it would be).  We went home and I gave her one dose of crazy pain meds.  After that, she insisted she wasn't in pain.  Tough girl recovered with no meds.  She tried to go back to school on Thursday but ended up throwing up from swallowing so much blood.  So we ended up home one more day.  She was more uncomfortable than anything else because of the plastic tubing in her nose to keep her septum in order.  Girlfriend got her plastic out on Tuesday and was a new woman.  She gets debreided on Monday and then we should be done!  WooHoo....Here are the latest and greatest gross nose pictures....

xo~M

Waiting for surgery

Post surgery with her popsicle 

Kinda gross, but she wanted me to take a pic of the plastic tubing inside

The tubing!

Recovery...Charley hardly left her side

Nit-Pik

verb (used without object)

1. to be excessively concerned with or critical of inconsequential details

verb (used with object)

2. to criticize by focusing on inconsequential details

noun

3. a carping, petty criticism

adjective

4. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a nitpicker or nitpicking

Today I experienced another definition of nit-pik.  As in, I am picking nits.  Out of hair.  A lot of them.  And they are not inconsequential. I criticized (aka swore) as I nit-picked (definition 3). So really, how did this nit-pik NOT make the list....like 5.  verb the act of picking nits...a lot of them...out of hair.  At one point in time, I wished for a pet monkey.  They love picking bugs.  Why don't I have a monkey?  Before today I never even knew what a nit, egg, louse...looked like.  Um at this exact moment in time their characteristics are etched into my brain.  So anyway, 1st little Nitty....Max! Who is DE-LIGHTED to have lice.  He announces it to everyone who passes the nurse's office.  In fact, we may get a bill board.  Nitty #2....Mommy- who as soon as Max was "diagnosed" knew with 100% certainty that she had it.  I mean, I could feel them crawling (ok so you can't really feel them, but I DID).  #3...Ella who came to the nurse's office in tears...more from stigma than anything else...because really, what 5th grade girl wants to deal with that?! She was cleared.  Woohoo....So we end up going home..Ella included just to do a treatment - safe than sorry.  I called Josh- demanded he come home.  I was not dealing with the joy of lice by myself...why should I have all the fun?  Plus he is bald...so will never experience the true gift.  Keelin, by the way, was cleared at school.  

Another teacher at my school gave me a brochure for a company called the Lice Ladies.  Sold...as it was difficult for me to treat myself and I am pretty sure I am little bald myself after Josh just started to pull hair out.  We get busy....vacuuming, bagging up stuffed animals, and did about 10 laundry loads of hot water wash (hello hot water bill).  Ella, Max, and I head to the LL.  They were pretty cool...it was a neat adventure and unfortunately when you have a moderate case, you need another treatment so it will not be the last time I see the LL :( Oh and they did find some on Ella.  Who took it a little better and received her treatment.  

I picked up an OTC treatment at the drug store to treat Kee.  I found a dead one (woo hoo) and some casings so I hope she is in the clear.  Anyway she was treated.  And here I sit.  

Did you know....At least 60% of the US population will have the critters at least once in their life time....that it is as rampant as the common cold....oh and about 20 kids from my school got sent home today.  So at least the Ungersquad is not alone in this lovely infestation.  

Totally hate that Ella cried so bad about it.  I did not have Max's enthusiasm, but I really felt the stigma attached...I think I will try to be more enthusiastic, like Max, like today was an adventure (that I never want to go on again.)

Post treatment - still loving the adventure

My new BFFs

Ouch....but a nitless head is kinda priceless

Bye Bye Tonsils

So my little Maxer has GINORMOUS, I mean BIG tonsils.  Ever since he was little.  He has a rough, raspy little voice that I love.  He had tubes put in when he was about a year old.  The ENT commented on his tonsils being so big but since they were not continually infected and he could breathe (uh yeah...I sure hope so) - they were not causing a problem.  He is 6 now.  Strep a few times last year...but not typical strep when you have the white spots on the back of your throat.  His tonsils have little pockets in them and they hemorrhage when he gets strep.  So before winter and sicky season rears its ugly head again, we go back to the ENT.  I am armed with all my SLP knowledge, a pleading letter from Max's SLP, and a fighting spirit!  Fortunately, the new ENT who took over the practice, looks into Max's mouth and says, "They are HUGE!  They are almost touching and he's NOT even SICK." Thank you and scene....
2 weeks later finds us in the surgical center.  Max is super excited that he will go to sleep with parts of his body intact and wake up missing both tonsils and adenoids (which were also huge...jeez).  It is awful to watch your kiddo be put out.  Max insisted on knowing how he was going to sleep. He says,"Laughing gas?  No really....what's it called." So he likes to tell ALL his friends about the magic of nitrice oxide now.
We are three days post-op.  Josh and I are switching staying at home.  Today is my day.  Milkshake for breakfast, a little hydrocodone snack, and lots of tv and iPad.  He is not my spunky little Maxer yet, but he is getting there.

xo~M

Right before we left for the hospital-I promised he could have bedhead !

Having fun playing basketball while waiting for the surgeon

Watching Regular Show post-op

Hanging out with his Zoey-dog on the couch