Is it a Midlife Crisis

In Need of New Beginnings

Wow, I haven't realized how off the mark I have gotten.  Christmas this year was one of more stress then holiday bliss.  We've been through tight Christmases before, but for some reason this one really got to me.  The old house is still on the market and hasn't seen much action as of late.  We seriously considering finding some cheap way of dumping it off and using some serious overtime or second job to deal with the left over bills.  It's like a cloud hanging over my head, and has made it hard to get excited about much, including the holidays.

This week marks the end of another year, and it seems to be hitting on a very down note.  It would be nice to find a way to make a nice upswing to bring in the new year, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards for me.  The job is still there and ho-hum and there's been no stellar performance from me to warrent any kind of a decent raise.  Thankfully the year has ended better here then it started, and somehow I think I'll hang on to it for another year.

On the brightside, Football is getting ready to start up again and hopefully will bring a bit of fun to begin the year.  The bootcamp workouts have been fun and demanding, but not quite the same.  Hopefully it will have paid off once the regular practices start.

Broken Radar

I think I’ve fallen off the radar! I’ve been sort of wandering through the past couple of weeks in this insomnia induced haze, trying to keep my head from bobbing below the surface for too long. I’m not even sure why, but my ability to sleep and sleep soundly has somehow escaped me recently and I would very much like it back! I’ve never had serious sleep issues before and I’m not sure why I’m still having issues. I know it kicked off while hubby was out of town, which usually causes some fitful sleeps, but things tend to get back to normal after a couple of days. Not so this time. I have now gone for two weeks straight with 5 or less hours of sleep. I have compiled two up all-nighters, 3 less then 3 hours and almost a dozen of 4-5 hours broken.

I did managed one night of blissful ten straight, dead to the world, couldn’t wake me up with a band, hours of blissful sleep, but it required 10 rum and cokes, hours of good sex, and 3 hours of sleep the night before, plus 6 hours in the sunshine and 3 hours in Chuck-E-Cheese Hell for a nephew’s birthday in order to achieve this bliss oblivion. Unfortunately the body didn’t even respond the next day as if it had slept for ten hours, instead I felt like I had drunk 10 rum and cokes and spent 3 hours too many around 100+ screaming kids.

I’m beginning to believe part of the issue may be the selling of the old house, or the lack there of. We haven’t completely run out of money yet, nor are we in danger of doing so in the near future, but I think I’m expecting this to be the proverbial shoe that so far hasn’t dropped yet. You see, my mate and I have this weird relationship with Murphy’s Law. When ever things get going in the right direction and everything seems to be going just right, we make some major decision feeling confident we’d be fine and then… The shoe drops and things begin to fall apart fast. It doesn’t seem to even matter how well we research something or how prepared we think we are, Murphy always finds a way to get us in the end.

Next month will begin the first month of double house payments, and I know we had hoped that wouldn’t happen. Even though we are prepared for it, having to actually do it sort of feels like the beginning of that downward spiral that always manages to find us in the end. While the house seems to have a pretty steady stream of lookers over the last month, so far, no one is buying. Three more showings in the next couple of days, so there is still hope, but I’m afraid to hold my breath.

The Secret Underground

I have officially been inducted into the secret realm of Bunko. Can we say WHEEE?!?!

I have to admit, I had never heard of Bunko before moving to Kentucky, but since moving here it appears to be this quietly moving underground that is slowly taking over the world. Now the game itself is anything but quiet, actually loud and a bit obnoxious is a good description. In the 5 years I have been here, I was constantly coming across people who played, but there always seemed to be this shroud of mystery surrounding it.

“Where ya going”
“Off to play Bunko”
“Play what?”
“Bunko”
“What’s that?”
“A game... see ya” and runs away

You could never really get a description of the game, not even something as simple as “it’s a dice game” Like there was something worth hiding in this silly pastime. Invites weren’t an open thing... not like “Hey, we’re off to play Bunko, wanna come?” After playing I know it’s because invites must come in fours so as to keep balanced tables. So when I finally got my official invite, curiosity got the better of me and I jumped at the chance.

“Off to play Bunko honey”
“Oh good lord, my life has ended!”

Apparently Bunko is a female dominated game. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve never met a man who played it. The male species assumes Bunko is some sort of Hen roosting party in where women spend the whole time bashing men. If you ask me, I think a woman got the myth started just to keep the men out, but why... I have no idea!

I know have to wonder though, what the whole big deal is about this game. It doesn’t take any skills what so ever. The game has a fast enough speed, that socializing isn’t really an easy task. The only thing I can think off, and why it’s probably popular among women, is that it’s sort of mind numbing. As long as you aren’t the sucker stuck keeping track of points at the table, you can pretty much shut off the brain and just go to town. Maybe that’s the other draw, especially for older, overweight country bumpkins. Anybody can win it. I think more thought, time and energy goes into the whole selecting of gift prizes, so as to make the endeavor even more rewarding.

But personally, I didn’t really get the whole attraction thing of it. Maybe with alcohol things would have been different, but at least a game of quarters takes a bit of thought and talent and gets more interesting the drunker one gets. I just don’t see how much harder rolling dice while completely inebriated could really get. It was all well and fine for a time killer/ party breaker, but it’s not something I could ever do habitually. Personally I’d rather waste my time in front of the TV instead!

Downward spiral

I’m having a serious lack of motivation issue going on in my head. Not just work, but on everything. For almost a week now, I just can’t seem to get myself to really do any of the things I need to. I still have not gotten my butt to a gym to get started on my off-season workouts. Other then a few sporatic walks in the new neighborhood, exercise of any kind just isn’t getting done. I haven’t touched a box, let alone unpacked one, in over a week and a half. The house is just sitting in this semi-settled state with many things still waiting to be done. I actually sit on the couch arguing with myself about things that need to be done, but still my laziness persists. On rare occasions, I’ll manage a feeble attempt and getting something accomplished, but usually it only results in a slight movement of this item or that project to getting only partially done. Work seems to be going about the same speed. Things are moving a little better then at home, but nothing seems to be getting accomplished and I’m rapidly losing my zeal to fight them anymore. I think I’m waiting for some magical inspiration to come my way to push me into some type of accomplishment. I know once the ball gets rolling, I’ll be fine… I just need to get that preverbal ball rolling somehow!

A Brief Glimpse of my Future

The step kids were over for the weekend, to help us properly indoctrinate the new house. Having these kids over from time to time always gives me a brief glimpse of what is to come with my own to children and gives me a this hope that I might be able to head some of it off at the pass. My stepdaughter has been rapidly approaching that hormone driven, teenage stage for the past year. After this weekend, I have decided she has officially crossed the line. I left the house to drop DH at the airport and she instantly gets on the phone AND the internet to chat AND AIM her friends for about the next two hours. Every time her brother walked into the room, she shrieked. Oh and she had to take a walk around the new neighborhood to see if any cute boys lived there. I’m chaining up my daughter in her closet on the day of her 13th birthday!

Elbow Room

It was sweet bliss! At one point this weekend, the new house contained 9 kids in it somewhere and there was still enough room for 5 grownups to find a place to sit and quietly converse. No flyby screamings, no Mom and Dada jungle gyms, no getting whacked by flying toys. Not to say there were flyby screamings going on somewhere, at times we could hear the faint screamings, but the house is big enough for the screams to get muffled too much lower audible levels that us grownups could respond to in a much more sane manner. There was room for the groups to get split up when they weren’t playing nicely and room for the general maylay that occurred when all 9 roared as one. In the old house, 9 children would have been impossible indoors. Anything more then 4 required the weather to cooperate enough to allow kicking them all outside. Even 4 inside got a little crowded, as flyby screamings extended from one end of the house to the other. All those things I miss about the old house are now just distant memories. The new changes I’ve had to undertake now that I live in civilization are well worth it. I am now fully happy with our new investment and can see many happy quieter years to come.

Childlike Insanity

I have an imaginary friend. Yeah, like those childhood phantoms that used to exist to fill some strange void in your little childlike brain. Those times where life didn’t allow you to have any real playmates, so instead you made some up in your head. At least that is what DH has decided. You see, in two years of working with her and a year of doing lunch with her, Dh has never had the joy of meeting Sarahspace. Even when she managed to come out to our house, poor DH couldn’t swing by as he was off on an install in Elizabethtown. So since he has still not managed to meet Sarahspace in the flesh, he has determined she is a figment of my imagination. Something I’ve created to fill the ever enlarging hole in my life since moving here to Kentucky. I needed a playmate to stay sane, so my demented mind created Sarahspace to level this all out.

Of course I replied that he either had to have my insane self locked up, thereby forcing him to deal with children, all the cleaning, cooking and the like or retract that statement. I don’t think he liked that idea.

All about the girls

I guess the best term to describe it all was a “Girl’s Night Out”. It was something that won’t be forgotten anytime soon! It started off with the National Women’s Football Association championship. Our team was volunteering at the event and I got stuck on parking detail with 3 other ladies. At first we thought we had sort of been hosed, but turned out to be the best deal. We were pretty much relieved by the event staff about 15 mins prior to the game and able to watch the whole thing, from kick off to finish with out worrying about much. It was great to see everyone from the team again and the general attitude was that we were bored without everything going on.
The game itself turned into a blow out, with Detroit shutting out OKC 52-0. The first half was a pretty good game to watch as both defenses pretty much ruled the turf and dealt some punishing blows. By the second half though, Detroit pretty much clinched the game, and things turned simply ugly on the field. Lots of personal fouls going on both sides of the ball.
Afterwards everyone went to hang out at a local bar, and invited several of the other teams that had come down for the game to join us. Columbus, Pensacola, Pittsburgh and Indiana were several of the teams that made it over. Of course the bar in question turned out to be a gay bar. Most of the straight fans were a little put off by it and seem to leave shortly after arriving. Though we got to chitchat with a lot of the other teams’ players and got a good sense of how things were going around the league. Most of our team that showed ended up staying and closing the place down, so all in all we had a pretty good time!

Oh the stress!

The move is over and we are now officially in. The new house is wonderful and clean and I actually got to sleep in an extra 45 minutes this morning and still made it to work on time.

But moving sucks snot!!! I have become a stair master after having to walk up and down our one flight of stairs over 60 times a day for the past 5 days. My butt and thighs should be lean mean fighting machines by now, but unfortunately the fast food meals three times a day for a week have managed to counteract any benefits gained. Of course, that much fast food has a way of really messing with your body and I’m sure it’ll take at least a month to work itself all out again! Then tack on the extra stressed cause by the thankless utility services who have managed to screw up the most basic service functions. We still have no phone, and will not have a phone for at least another week, thanks to an incompetent Bellsouth agent who must of neglect to KEY IN OUR ORDER, as their only excuse to us was the fact that they LOST our request. Could they get us in within a seven day time frame? NOOOOO. It takes over 14 days for bell south to unscrew a blunder on their part. Like we truly have a choice anyway. Then there is the satellite company, whom up until now as been heavenly to us. But this go around the first day no one showed, when we called they were apologetic saying their technicians had fallen behind and we had to go, ya know, move things, so we rescheduled. Second go around, they send out an incompetent buffoon who basically tells me our setup is too complex for him. WHAT??? Climb that monkey ass up that high ass ladder and give my damn TV reception! Then the moron tries to tell his boss that I was asking for a reschedule because I wasn’t comfortable. My ASS!!!! I was willing to give this guy a little break until he tried to hide it all under the rug. I pretty much let into he dispatcher and then on up the chain till we got a reschedule within 1 day AND a $60 credit to our bill. Add on to this the fact that the electrician managed to gouge a hole in our sewer pipe when laying the wires that somehow nobody managed to catch until yours truly ran the washer for the first time and flooded out the brand new kitchen. Thankfully the builders know a thing or two about service and had a plumber out early on a Sunday morning and managed to have the issue resolved (which included picking up a back hoe) by noon that same day.

BUT the new house is BIG! And as Sarahspace says “It’s a grown up house”, though DH and I have decided big just means bigger parties… no grown ups allowed!

That time again

I’ve been officially placed on notice. Fall league soccer sign-ups for our new home are tonight. Apparently, they need coaches and refs. I have my ref license and they actually make some money, so I’ve been told I may volunteer for this. Coaches make no money, and while I’m allowed to coach the kid’s team, I am in no way allowed to be suckered into any additional coaching jobs, assistant, head or otherwise. I need strength!

My daughter is officially old enough to play this year, and as she has been dutifully begging me every Saturday for the last two seasons to play, I feel I must let her. I have reservations in coaching little Miss Moody Pants. The son, who is usually an eager to learn and pretty easy going type of kid, gave me some fits last season. I’m really afraid of the stunts Moody might pull. I think I’m going to need a serious dose of sanity by seasons end.