A great weekend and a BIG BIG week!

Now that I am a full-time working stiff I treasure my weekends more than anything. Most all of the time they pass waaaay too quickly and most of the times they are pretty good.

But, once in a while I am treated to a weekend that is nearly perfect in every way - the boys behave for the most part and treat each other like brothers, we have some really cool adventures and no blood is shed. This weekend was one of those weekends.

It started out early, on Friday morning,(one of the reasons is was so great) with myself and the boys loading up the van and heading up to Neskowin, Oregon with my best friend and her son which is also Captain Crazy's best buddy. My husband's cousin owns a beach house there that is truly a little piece of heaven and we are lucky enough to get to stay there pretty much whenever we can.
The weekend ended with us pulling into the driveway late Sunday, very tired and still nice and sandy. In between Friday and Sunday our time was filled with lots of playing on three different beaches, long walks exploring new paths, ice cold Mike's Hard Lemonade, lots of sunshine and fresh air, and watching the boys play Star Wars on the deck overlooking the ocean. Our husbands got to go fishing and we even got to go shopping!

I wish I had taken pictures but our camera really sucks and we are in the market for a better one. And even though I am trying harder at remembering, I just get caught up in the moment and forget to snap a few shots. Hopefully I will get better as time goes on because this is the only shot I took on the whole weekend - Captain Crazy playing with his bubble gun after we got home.
Now that I have rambled on about my great weekend I guess I should let you in on the BIG BIG week I'm going to have, right?
Well, today I start work on the set of Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. I am one of the daytime volunteer coordinators. I report to the work-site today at 3 - about an hour after they have done the "door knock" and surprised the family.
For the next 10 days I will be working 10 hour shifts at the work-site - coordinating volunteers and making sure people are where they are supposed to be. That's why I guess it was so important to me that this weekend was a good one - I feel like I'm not going to see the boys at all until sometime next week - and I feel badly about that. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I didn't want to pass it by. My husband has pledged to keep the boys alive and happy and the house relatively intact while I'm doing this so I guess I am set.
So for the next week or so I will try my best to post often, with pictures, about my experiences throughout the week.

Anniversary

This year it should have been copper, last year candy, the year before that wood, and the year before that flowers.

If you are the other half of a couple that marks milestones with presents, cards and sweet little nothings, then you get the picture.

This past weekend was our 7th anniversary. And this year, just like in all the past years, it came and went without much fanfare. Again it felt like the date snuck up on us, took us by surprise. We scrambled to find a baby-sitter and rushed to make dinner reservations. Again no presents -just dinner and a movie and then home before 12 so the babysitter wouldn't be out too late. We didn't even open our cards on our anniversary - I forgot to take mine to dinner and I left his in my purse - so we opened them separately when we each had time this weekend.

Our lackadaisical attitude would surely bother some, but my husband doesn't have a romantic bone in his entire body so this kind of half-assed attempt at celebrating such a big milestone doesn't bother him. In fact, we often poke fun at how unromantic he can be - which we often back up with the story of how he asked me to marry him by handing me my ring in it's box and saying "here ya go" while his roommate ate a burrito the size of a small baby on the couch right next to me.

Sometimes I think back and wonder where the time went. but other times it feels like I have been married F.O.R.E.V.E.R. Not to dump on my marriage or anything because I know for a fact he feels the exact same way at times. We each have our little habits that drive the other to drink. He swears that I have poor organizational skills which he likes to point out every time I misplace my car keys or my cell phone. He leaves his shoes right, smack in front of the doorstep so that when you step out the door, you risk twisting your ankle or falling and breaking your neck - it all depends on the size and number of his shoes that are left there. We both of course deny having any faults of any kind - but I have photographic proof. This was taken last year on our trip to Hawaii to visit his parents. It's a death trap! So now I know why he does what he does. Yikes!


But as half-assed as our date nights and milestone celebrations might be - it's still great being married to him. And what he lacks romantically he makes up for with heaps of loyalty, dependablility, kindness, and humor - which comes in handy when I'm yelling at him because I just tripped over his sneakers....again.

Bounce Back

I started this little blog of mine a little over a year ago when I was working part-time and still had time to peck out a few random posts here and there. Then that nasty recession caught up with me and overnight I went back to being a full-time SAHM.

That's when things got a little crazy. Being home with my two boys was non-stop activity and by the end of most days I had just enough energy to keep my eyes open until 9 and then it was "game over". My blogging decreased dramatically and I missed it. I made several feeble attempts at a "come back" swearing to myself that I would resume a regular schedule of reading my favorite blogs and throwing a little something up on here as well. I failed miserably.

Then I got another job and found myself juggling the demands of working full-time and being a full-time mom all the while beating down the guilt and sadness of not being with my boys. I enjoyed working though and soon adjusted to the entirely new pace my life had acquired when change swooped down again. I was asked to apply for new position within my company. This new position came with more pay but also more stress, hours, and responsibility - so of course I took it. I am a glutton for punishment if nothing else! Now my work sometimes calls me into the office at 7 and keeps me there until after 5. Most nights it keeps me awake long after I should be asleep.

Being so busy has forced me to zero in on my priorities and focus on what is important to me. I have dropped a lot of activities from my schedule and I haven't missed them - except for blogging. For months now I have been thinking about all the things I would like to whine -I mean talk about, on my blog and I have just decided once again, to yank back my towel, wring out and go another round.

This time I plan to stick around.

Some times you just have to laugh

I know this has been on YouTube forever but it's one of my favorites. It's literally impossible to feel crappy after watching this little guy.

The Rat Race

Boy howdy folks - time hasn't been flying for me - it's been moving at warp speed - or so it seems.

Again it's been forever since I have posted and I really miss you all. Honestly I am trying to post more, but finding the time has been hard since I don't have a job where I sit on my arse all day where my main responsibility was to just look busy.

I AM busy in this job....very busy and I love it. At first I have to admit it was very difficult being away from the boys. There were a few times I tried to write a post about what a crappy mother I felt like for going back to work, but I never had time to finish it. Now I'm more or less over that feeling. More or less. It also sucked having to be at the gym at 4:45 AM so I could get my workout done and be home in the shower by 6. And it really sucked having to pluck the little guys, all warm and toasty out of their beds at such an early hour and then listen to them whine, argue and complain all through breakfast because they were so tired and cranky. Yes, the first couple of weeks were very lovely.

But as we humans do, we have all adjusted to the new routine of mommy bringing home some bacon too. And things are going well. Little D and Captain Crazy are doing great in school and honestly I think they adjusted faster and easier than I did. (I actually carried one of Little D's socks around in my pocket one day I missed them so much)

I do have lots to write about. Some of the people I work with are crazy, and some are a few fries short of Happy Meal, but they are all good people and really nice and fun to be around. One of the managers is a nice, tall drink of water and since he's not my boss so I don't feel bad getting all slobbery when he walks by. But, more about all of that and other things will have to wait for now. I have to hit the shower early this morning.

Thanks for still stopping by and checking to see if I am alive. I do love to see to you here!

Day 3 and the best Christmas gift ever.

So so so much has happened since I last posted what seems like a thousand years ago. The obvious major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the visits from family, trips out of town, and all the other little ups and downs of life - all stuff that came and went without so much as a whisper about it on my blog.

Why?

I don't know really. It could be that I knew my time at home with the boys was limited and I wanted to spend it as fully engaged with them as possible. Or it could be that they just kept me so busy that even if I had wanted to write, which I did try to do several times, I only got a few lines deep before something blew up, broke, or blood was shed. Hmmm, yeah, I think that was it.

But anyway, today I want to share two big things with you all so here I am - up waaaay before I should be so I can hopefully get this post up before the chaos of the new day begins.

Drumroll please.......I finally found a job - a full time job with nice pay and nice benefits to boot. Yah! I finished day three of orientation last week and my two week training starts Monday.

And while I am quite thankful to have a job now, I have a lot of mixed feelings.
When they offered me the position, part of me was jumping up and down and the other part of me panicked because in just 5 short months my boys and I tossed structure out the window and slipped into some pretty comfortable and relaxed routines like sleeping till 9 (them, not me)and I didn't want anything to change that.

Anyway, I'm back at work now and the first week, which thanks to the New Years holiday, consisted on only three days. The boys seemed just fine but the real test will come next week. When they have to get up at 6:30 am for five days in a row and go to school and daycare all week long - then we'll see how they do.

And selfishly I pray they do fine - I hope they rock the house. It would be so much easier on me because I have some major guilt about going back to work. I just wish I could split myself in two sometimes. I don't have
to work. We could continue living the way we have been these past 5 months - cutting out the fat and living leaner. But I still have professional goals and the longer I stay out of the workforce the harder it will be for me to achieve them. And what happens when the boys are older and in school most of the day? What happens when they want to be with their friends more than they want to be home? What then? So yes, I am trying to put some salve on my guilt by thinking of the future - a future that has me working and earning money and "getting ahead". I just wish I could prolong things a bit.

The second bit of news is that Dane potty trained himself the week before Christmas. I had tried coaxing him into using the potty on several occasions, all with mixed results. He knew exactly what he needed to do but actually told me a couple of times that he just wasn't ready and still wanted to use his diapers. Can't argue with that so I let the issue drop completely. Then one morning I casually asked him if he wanted to try using the potty and he said he didn't like his potty because it hurt his butt and that was why he still liked his diapers. So, we got him a different potty and he never looked back. Problem solved and diapers gone!

I have to hand it to Little D. He knows what he likes and doesn't like and when he's ready to do something, he does it. No wishy-washy crap and no looking back.

Maybe I should take a cue from him.

Happy New Year's everyone.

I'm still here -surprisingly.

Wow it's been a long time since I last posted and it seems to be getting harder and harder to find the time to sit down and write.

It seems like now that I am a full time SAHM I am busier than ever. I have been a SAHM mom before, but back then I only had one kiddo to watch over and I wasn't trying to find a new job on top of everything else. Now I have two kids - not that two is some unmanageable number but it is more than one, and I'm trying to find a new job and juggle about a billion other things at the same time. And the juggling thing - I know why I'm doing it - because I feel like I have to or I should because I'm not working right now. I just can't seem to slooooowww down and enjoy the ride. Crazy, I know.

Anyway, so many fun things have happened that I just haven't had time to write about. The Captain's 5th birthday, waaaaaaaay back in September. (I know, shame on me) A family trip to Colorado - again waaaaaaay back in September. And who could forget the arrival of Autumn with it's pumpkin patches, pumpkin carving and Halloween? And now Thanksgiving is staring me in the face and Christmas is right around the corner. And then there all the funny things I see and hear my kids do on a daily basis - the very reason I wanted to start this blog in the first place. So, so many things to write about and yet I have barely managed to eek out one post a month. I am trying to figure out a way to carve out more time to write because I really do enjoy blogging and visiting other blogs.

But for the immediate future -sporadic posts will have to do for me. So with that in mind I want to make sure I wish all of my bloggy friends who stop by here a "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Now I have to go - Little D is up and he wants his "Bweckfist"