Things, Observed

Things I can't stop buying even though I don't need any more:
-cute hair clips/bows/ribbons for my daughter
-a good baby blanket
-slippers
-beach towels
-throw blankets

Things I have too much of but also can't get rid of:
-clothes my daughter has outgrown
-sarcasm
-grey hair
-scrunchies
-fat
-endless fear
-single socks just hoping that the match will magically show up.

Things I notice about NH:
-so this is where all the lesbians have been (loves it!)
-EVERYONE looks like they shop at LL Bean
-the edgy people shop at Lands' End
-they hate makeup here
-people like to stare
-enough with the personalized license plates already!
-nobody beeps their horn. Ever. Good when you cut someone off, not so good when you are trying to get the point across that you in fact do not change lanes while looking for lost coins on the floor of your car. Fuck it, I still beep.
-these things they call bagels? They are the distant cousin of a roll. Not even close people.

Things that I just cannot do no matter how hard I try:
-meditate. I mean how do you turn off your brain?
-poop on vacation or out of my area of comfort (anywhere but home. shhh)
-sit on a public toilet seat
-a back bend, past the age of 20. It would make a great sex trick.
-pick up the phone without checking the caller ID
-knit anything other than a rudimentary scarf, dishcloth or hot plate.

Planning

I am a planner.
I like to make plans and lists. I like to know what I am going to serve for Christmas dinner in October.
I worry about what birthday gifts would be perfect for my kids months before their birthday.
I like to know where I am going to be, how long I will be there and exactly what route to take to get home.

The past few years have tested my planning capabilities. It is hard to plan for Christmas dinner if you don't know where you will be, or how much money you will have to spend for food that week.
It has tested my patience and my faith.

I decided when we moved to NH that I will reinvent myself. I would lose my bad habits and be open to change.
Change is usually not a word in my vocabulary. I hate change.
I made a pact with myself to do things that were outside of my comfort zone once a month. I have kept that promise to myself did so by doing things like joining a MOMs group here, jumping off a 25 foot cliff in Colorado, going to a blog event without knowing anyone and putting myself out there more.

Still, I feel unsure of myself and my life. There is something to be said about letting life take you away without any plans but I think that is a life better suited for single people. When you have kids you have to plan.

I have no idea why life is testing my faith, marriage, trust and children this way. Still I am open to what is to come, even though that comes with deep sadness and complete fear of the unknown.

Ghostly Encounters

Well, I think it goes without saying that I need some cheering up.
I have always liked Halloween but now that I am a parent it has renewed my love for this holiday and everything scary.
I have always loved scary movies and books and I am obsessed with ghost stories.

I have no real experience with ghosts although one time we were staying at a rental property at the beach for a few days with our kids. When we pulled up to the old house my then 4 year old son asked me whose house this was.
I told him it was the house we were going to be staying in.
Then he asked who the girl in the window was, and when I looked nobody was there.
Creepy!

Tell me your ghost encounters or stories and amuse me.
Please? Don't make me beg!

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

You Would Think Maybe Once I would Have Good News For You

You would think that maybe, I would have good news for you. But you would be wrong.
The rinky dink job E took just so we can squeak by? The one that was a 50% pay cut? The one we were thankful to have because at least we had health insurance?
They laid E off today BY FED EX!!!!!!!! They can't pay him anymore so they let him go.

I swear life keeps getting better.

Please if anyone has any connection with pharma sales on the east coast let me know!

Please vote everyday.

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

My Six Year Old Son

My son L is one of the three sweetest gifts I have ever received.
Sure he is a rooster and wakes at the crack of dawn every day of his life since birth. Even though he awakes before any person on Earth should be upright and have to function, he does so with a smile. He never wakes up grumpy or cranky. He finds beauty in the mundane telling me "how beautiful the sky looks" at age 3.

L is sweet to everyone, a love. He gets very worried when I am sad or upset. He is worried that he was the one to disappoint me. He is the most sensitive of all my children. He will cry over a mistake he made on a drawing, or gets frustrated with himself if he doesn't remember how much a dime is worth or can't read a word.
We try and be patient we tell him that everyone makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect.

Last Christmas we gave the kids each $5 to buy the other and E and I a gift at the holiday gift sale at school. Christmas morning he presented me and his twin sister R, with a box. He picked out a single red rose for R, something he knew she would like (and she did. For me he picked out a gold ring with a blue stone set in the middle.
"Because blue is your favorite color" he told me. I cried, I was so proud of this thoughful, loving, kind boy of mine.
This sweet son of mine picked out such a lovely gift for me and his sister.


When we went back to NJ for my grandfather's funeral, he promised he would write one of my cousins, that they would become pen pals. Today he wrote his first letter to his cousin, a little note thanking him for writing and that he loved him. On the back of his letter he wrote something I have to remember more often, something I vow to remember in the sunlight but sometimes in the darkness I forget.
He wrote: Life is good.

Yes son it is, it can be very good.




Please remember to vote for me everyday here.

Wordless Wednesday

It is so beautiful here this time of year it almost makes me feel guilty for hating New Hampshire. I really don't hate it here, but I am angry we didn't make it work. There has to be a reason we ended up here, I am just waiting to see what it is.

I normally never post pictures of my gorgeous kids but this is a great picture of the twins.


Also? Please don't forget about voting for me! You can vote every day through October 30th and feel free to tweet it or pass it along!
Thank you so much!

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

A Favor To Me

Friends, I have come across a blogging contest for a job which would allow us to be able to pay for a new place to live.
I would love to win this one but it is going to take a lot of help. Would you consider voting for me? You can vote once a day until October 30, which is not a lot of time.

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

I would love it if you could spare a vote for me and maybe pass it on to friends or family. Thank you for coming to read my site, for caring about my and my family and for your prayers.
I am humbled and I appreciate them more than I could tell you.

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These

"Mom, one day I want you to live with me" I would often say to my mother when I was a child.

"You come live with me and Daddy and I will have plenty of room because I will live in a mansion" I would say
"How are you going to live in a mansion?" my mother would always reply.

"I am going to marry a rich husband!" I would tell my mother with all the determination a 10 year old could muster.
She would wipe the curls from my face and give me the look that meant she didn't think I could do it.

I would do it and prove her wrong I would tell myself.
******************************************

I knew I never wanted to be a grown up. While my friends were all wishing they could be adults and have ice cream whenever they wanted and stay up late, I knew what being a grown up was like and it didn't look like any fun.

I was right.
The hardest part of being me these days is trying to figure out where it all went wrong. I had plans, aren't you supposed to have plans? Why is that mine never worked out?

The life I woke up with today is the polar opposite of where I thought I would be when I pictured 35.
I pictured a medium sized house that I owned, a manicured lawn with many flowers that were always blooming. I saw a turret and four kids, living down the street and around the bend from my family. I envisioned play dates with my friends from school and their children, lots of arts and crafts with no worries of glue or permanent marker and a homemade snack sitting on the counter waiting for my children to return from school.

I never once saw me tired from constant stress, worried about how much I can spend on groceries this week or figuring out how people who are educated and want to work can't find jobs.
I never thought I could not make my vision a reality.
I never thought it could get this bad.
The nights are the hardest. That is when E gets down and I have to pick him back up even though I have no desire to. I want to wallow too.
I want to yell and scream and kick and cry, the ugly cry that wracks my body with convulsions of tears. Sometimes I feel like I have cried every last tear and my body can't possibly produce more.
Then I fall into bed exhausted. Spent. Emotionally drained.

That is when I pray for the darkness of sleep to wash over me so I can dream.
In my dreams I have roses of all colors growing on my white picket fence, the fence that I own and there is no reason to cry anymore.

The Bear

My grandfather was a good man. He was brilliant and funny and always had a great story to tell. He was the man who had great parties. He was the one you wanted sitting next to you on the long car ride.
He was the first generation in this country and like many Irish immigrants did they settled in New Jersey were there was others from the mother country.

He was an athlete and a big man/ His nickname in the neighborhood he lived in for 45 years was The Bear.
He was a hard worker, he didn't have the easiest life but who among us does? When he left this place he left me mad at myself, I still had more to ask him, I had more to learn from him and now the questions will have to go unanswered.

When I walked into the funeral home the first thing I noticed was the big picture of my grandfather and my father with their arms around each other smiling as big as they could.
My father took after his father's footsteps and was the life of the party, the storyteller, the one that carried on the family business.
The peace I have is knowing that father and son are reunited somewhere again.

I know they are somewhere having a million laughs, some good stories and a whole lotta vodka.

Lights go out and I can't be saved, Tides That I Tried To Swim Against

It is just a house, it is just a house, just four walls and a roof.
This house though, is what made it okay to leave what I knew and try a chance at a new life in a new state.

We saw this house when E decided he should take a job with his cousin and move up here since after hundreds of interviews there were no job offers in New Jersey. The owners had the house on the market for years, It was old, and needed a lot of work done, some TLC and some vision of what it could be. The owners were desperate, we made a deal with them and E's cousin to lease this house with the option to buy as soon as we could.

The house needed a lot and it would cost a lot to heat but the kids would each have their own big bedrooms and the bathrooms were enormous. Plenty of room for my visiting family to stay and a playroom that was spacious and perfect for three kids who would want their own "space" away from their parents in the blink of an eye.

Now the owners told us they have to put the house on the market breaking all deals with us and not returning our calls. We were paying the mortgage and taxes on this house, the company is not doing well, E took a second job that is not doing well at all and we can't pay the high taxes as well as the high rent.
As I type this I am waiting for their real estate agent to come in and start putting our lives on hold again.

We put SO much time and money into this house already, money we didn't have. E & his family spent months painting this house, refinishing the terrible wood floor, putting up blinds and a new counter in the kitchen and they want to cash in on all of our hard work and leave us on the street.


We have nothing.
Nothing.

Can you imagine that for a second?

I appreciate your kind comments and sweet emails.
I want to hang in there, I want to believe we are good parents, but I don't.
Good parents have a house for their kids to live in.
Good parents don't disappoint their kids and let them down. Good parents don't fuck up every decision they make.

We don't know where to go, to try and stay or pack it all back in for NJ?

The questions are endless and my mind spins only calmed by the sleeping pills I have to take just to get to sleep every night.
Even they are not dependable anymore.
The only thing I can depend on is feeling like a failure, like a worthless person who can't even get a job interview to help her family from falling into the cracks.

Every month goes by and I have hopes bigger than the last month.
This month the calls will come with job interviews.
This time we will catch a break finally. If we just hope something will come through. We worked so hard, it has to pay off soon, maybe by the end of the week.....
And the days turn into weeks, that turn into seasons and nothing has improved in two long years.

I have to be honest, I don't have much hope or positive energy left in me. I am tired. So very, very tired.

I just want to give up.