Getting closer!

I've been so incredibly busy that my updates have been non-existent. So here are a few kitchen updates.

We took down all of the paneling and replaced it with drywall.

 I had to paint the ceilings in most of the house.

 I somehow failed to get a picture of the other layers of flooring. But then most of you probably don't care. =)

I finally settled on a textured, grey, rectangle tile. It was special order, but it only took about a week to come in. Because the tiles are so large, it was faster to put down. So that was a plus.

I was almost giddy this morning because the cabinet guys arrived to install our cabinets. But almost immediately they ran into problems. I had ordered 42" cabinets and 36" were sitting in my kitchen. The lady I had worked with the entire time was no longer working there and there had been a major break down in communication. So after about 45 minutes of discussion I opted to go with 36" instead of waiting 4 more weeks for new cabinets to be ordered. I might have hid in the bedroom and cried a bit. I was so frazzled that by 11am I left the guys there and ran away from home.

I returned to find a lot less finished then they'd told me would be done. Turns out none of the instructions (where/what extras I wanted) were written on the paper so they were winging it, but ran into a snag. Long story short, they are coming back tomorrow. I think we've fixed any issues that might come up. But at this rate, I'm not holding my breath. Wednesday they will come in to measure for the counter top and sink. Then I wait another week or two for that.

 On a side note - they couldn't get the tall pieces into the house without lifting them over the porch railings. So I told them they could remove it since we would be doing that in the next month or so. They were quite happy to save themselves the extra work of lifting up those solid wood cabinets. And I was happy to have another step taken out of the way in our next renovation project.

 Jon is in Chattanooga tonight and I'll be down there tomorrow. We finished one townhouse only to start another one. But hopefully this one will be the last for a while. In the mean time we are juggling a way too many balls. And dealing with way too much stress.

Crazy!

Remember I said this wasn't my month. Here is further proof.

Today I went to Walmart after dropping off little man at school. I had gone to the grocery store yesterday, but both stores were either out of things or I forgot to get them.

I get to the checkout with an almost full buggy. As I placed the last item on the conveyer belt I reached into my purse for my wallet. It wasn't there.

I put everything back into the cart, reassured the clerk I would return soon and rushed home to get my wallet. Since it was Coffee Girls I decided to get the things that I needed from home and just put my one bag of cold stuff in Wendy's frig. But I ran into the house, grabbed the wallet and returned to Walmart. It wasn't until I was leaving the store that I realized I hadn't gotten anything from home and would need to return AGAIN. I returned to pick up my coffee cake that I was taking and realized that I'd left it on the top of the toaster oven this morning when I'd heated up the waffles. The plastic container was completely warped and wouldn't snap shut. So I had to wrap it in plastic just to keep the stuff from coming out in my truck.

The vet called with an update on our dog. She had surgery this morning to remove something that looked like a plastic screw from her intestines. Turns out it was the dog version of her appendix that was growing inside her intestines (they are supposed to be on the outside) and blocking off her food supply from giving her nutrients. It was caused by the large amounts of non-food items she inhales daily. So now we need to purchase a muzzle for her so she can't eat anything without our consent. She will need to stay there over the weekend to be under observation since intestine surgery is risky. Sigh!

So often it's easy to be depressed and frustrated with the way life is dealing your hand. Are there not any breaks in sight? Why me?

But this past month has really shown me how amazing and wonderful my friends are. It's shown me that I'm not all alone and that people really do care. Life is survivable. It's often the little things that help - An article about mothering, a blog about life being hard, Coffee girls giving my mom a breast cancer key chain or taking pictures with a friend.

So while life can have some sucky* parts right now, it also has some really awesome parts. And that's what I'm going to try to concentrate on and be thankful for.

*Spell check says this isn't a word, but I disagree!

It's not my month

I’m sure you’ve heard the song with the line “it hasn't been your day, your week, your month,

or even your year” Well today has NOT been my day. This month has been pretty bad actually and I’m really, really hopeful that it isn’t an indication of what my year is going to be like. Because if it is, I’m going to crawl into bed and emerge in 2013.

For the most part, it started going down hill on Thursday. It was one of THOSE days. It started out with the typical forgetting stuff, tripping, and usual aggravations. But then while at Coffee Girls my mom called with some news. For the past two months she’s been having tests and x-rays to figure out whether or not she has cancer. And on Thursday she called to tell me that she’d had some of the results back and the doctors were sure it was cancer. I was crying by this point and when she asked me if I knew what stage 5 was I said yes. Turns out that she meant to say level 5 x-ray, not stage 5 cancer. They actually don’t know what stage she’s at yet. But this meant that I spent an entire day thinking my mom didn’t have very long to live. Not a good thing. Today they are in the process of working through the insurance mess so they can set a surgery date. She’s positive and hopeful. I, on the other hand, am a mess.

Friday was the 13^th. Usually those days are really good. But my email account, which is linked to my blogs, facebook, pinterest, twitter and google+, was hacked and all of my contacts were sent spam email. It took a youtube video and about 30 minutes to fix it, but it certainly wasn’t fun.

Since then I have a dog at the vet who swallowed something she shouldn’t. She’s scheduled for surgery tomorrow. The cost isn’t going to be pretty.

My internet, cable and phone are a hit and miss because one of the dogs (or both) chewed the wires going into the house and it all needs to be replaced.

And the list goes on and on. My mind is fried, my cell phone won’t stop ringing and my kids are picking up my stressed vibes and have staged an all out war against each other. I never cry. If I’m crying it’s because I’m really, really mad. And all I’ve done since Thursday is cry. I’m lethargic, sad and whiny. So if I do something crazy, don’t hear you when you’re talking or forget something important – please just say a prayer for me and try again.

Commitment

I have no clue who reads this blog except for the tiny number of people who are "following" me.

So hopefully this blog won't be stepping on toes. I am not mad at anyone. I'm just a bit stressed and need to vent. Here goes -

Several months ago I made a commitment to something. There were quite a few other people who made the same or similar commitments. 

We all agreed to take our part and do it to the best of our ability.

The thing that I'm struggling with is the complete and total lack of respect and care that some people exhibit. If you've promised to do something then step up and follow through with your commitment. 

Man up, put your big girl panties on - whatever it takes. If for some reason you can't perform your responsibility then find someone who can. Don't back out just because you've come up with a better plan and now don't want to be inconvenienced, thereby dropping the problem into my lap.

I guess you could call me a rule follower. Some people have the philosophy that if there is a rule then it's meant to be broken. What they forget to take into consideration is how they would feel if put into another persons shoes. People are so self centered that they can't look beyond their own inconveniences to see how their actions affect the ones around them. I know how it feels to be used and I don't like it. Therefore, unless I'm having a clueless moment, I will try very hard to think of you before making a decision that affects you. Please treat me with the same courtesy.

If the rule is that you must have your family signed up by a certain date then please don't come begging me on the day of the event for extra tickets. I'm sorry that your family member will no longer speak to anyone here if they don't get invited. They knew for weeks what was needed to get the tickets. I printed the tickets based on the people who signed up. It is not my fault that you didn't plan for the future.

That being said (and yes I do feel better for venting), I am so thankful for the people that, even though their homes and lives are a mess, have still stayed by my side to make this event a success. We had a construction project gone wrong, a death in the family, and sickness and they still came to help me. Since the people in charge of this event decided to do something that sounded like more fun, I'm thankful that I have friends who are willing to step up and keep me from stressing out.

Thank you!

C.R.A.Z.Y

I'm not sure how I get myself into these predicaments. How do I go from having a little free time to being so completely swamped that half of it is still unfinished at the end of my crazy long day?

It doesn't help that we've had funerals, out of town trips, house renovations and extra school activities.

But I'm hoping that someday soon I won't head to bed closer to morning than night still feeling like I haven't gotten enough done in the day.

I think part of the problem is learning to say no. If it sounds fun and even remotely feasible I find myself saying yes. If it will help someone out and THEY won't be as stressed then I say yes and then stress myself.

Here are some of the things I've agreed to or "done" to myself.

My son's school has a talent action each year. There are several great photographers so I certainly can't submit my photos for people to buy. I'm not very talented in the crafty department. But I do make some pretty decent hair clips for my daughter. So I made almost 20 of them to sell in the auction. But that seemed so small and I really wanted to help the school out more. So I came up with the idea of giving out gift cards to a hair clip making session. Girls and their mom could come to my house and learn how to make hair clips. I made three of them. This is way more fun than actually making the clips, but also takes some extra time. And one mom bought two of the cards so she can have a party for her daughter's birthday. Ahhhhhhh! I am freaking out just a bit about that one. Lots of screaming girls in my ears (more on that later) and lots of little girls and hot glue guns with minimum adults.

When we went to parent orientation I saw the parent volunteer form. I want to participate with Dominic's school and help out any way that I can. So I signed up. I get an email from the teacher asking when I can come to the school. And when I looked at the calender I realized that I only have one day out of the entire seven that I don't have definite plans. So I told her I could come on that day. And then I realized that I had taken the only day I have to get my house clean, laundry done, extra errands run. I spent my first volunteer day this week and it went really well. It certainly isn't something I want to cut, but it's definitely something that is making me a bit crazy.

Jon and I have been married for fifteen years and wanted to do something special. So we planned a trip to Charleston. My wonderful, amazing in-laws are coming to watch the kids while Jon and I escape for a few days. I'm really looking forward to it, but getting ready and frantically working on the house to get it company worthy is also another stress factor.

And probably the main stress right now is my blog. I'm not a big fan of change so unless I've got plenty of time on my hands =) I don't spend much time exploring how to do things on the computer. This really great author contacted me about being in a bloggerthon to help promote other authors. The benefit for me is extra followers on my book review blog. But it involves adding some things on my blog and I'm completely clueless. Enter stress! I'm working on it, but it's a very, very slow process. I'm just hoping I'll be ready by December when the bloggerthon starts.

Case in point - I am writing a blog over at the kids blog about the hair clip session one of the parents purchased at the auction. I remembered writing this post so came over to find the blog so I could link the two and realized I'd never posted it. Sigh!
So here is this post, several days late because my brain is fried.