Is it a Midlife Crisis

The primping begins!

Who in their right mind invented the art of painting nails? I have yet to master this stupid rite of passage. I can get my nails painted, obviously, but have yet to actually not manage to fudge at least one nail up before they have time to completely dry. Personally, this shit takes way to long to dry, IMHO. Who can go without using their hands for 20-30 mins, after already spending 20-30 mins getting the dang polish on? The other part I have yet to figure out, is how to get this stuff to last more then one freakin day on my nails. Not matter if it’s one coat, or a base coat + 2 coats + top coat, the stuff always starts flaking off my nails in no time. I was blessed with naturally strong nails, that will grow quite long with absolutely no care or attention. I love the look of this nails painted, but the fuss to get them all dressed up, with no place to go, just to have the damn stuff chipping off within 24-48 hours of application, is so rarely worth it. Of course with parties to attend tonight, I am once again, trying to solve the mysteries of long lasting nail polish. Chances are, by Friday morning, almost half my nails will be showing again…. *sigh*

Dang it… now I have to go the bathroom!

A Year ahead or behind?

So the year is almost over and the new one fast approaching. I hate New Year resolutions, but I decided this year to actually make a few goals. I refuse to call them resolutions, as my rebellious self will literally bend over backwards to break them... so we’ll call them goals, so my ambitious self will feel the need to actually try to accomplish them. Fooling the psyche is a tricky game, and one I work so hard to win. Don’t think it’s working yet.

So goal one of course is to get my butt back in shape. The football team, I’m sure, will go a long way in helping me do this. But I know I need to really get a better handle on my whole start and stop exercising cycle that seems to be constantly spinning. I was doing pretty good for about a year, but then got frustrated with the crazy schedules it was causing and pretty much gave up. Now with DH having his first ever 9-5 job, one kid in school, the other much more self sufficient, I’m hoping it won’t be such a nightmare. Of course I’m probably wrong, as we tend to have a pretty busy and hectic life (even without friends), but I’ll give it the ol’ college try!

Goal two is to take a little better care of myself. Something about marriage and kids, has a tendency to make one lazy as far as the grooming and primping department goes. I’ve done better this year, actually putting on makeup, buying new clothes from time to time and actually shaving once in a great moon... but I still don’t seem to take much time to do the things that make you feel a bit more like a woman. I tend to let my haircuts go far too long, I seriously need to catch up on routine Dr visits, and some general pampering to help slow down some of the aging crap. I’ve also decided when I hit the next 10lb mark; I’m doing a major wardrobe overhaul. I’m still seriously outdated and very plain in my clothing style, and would love to add a bit more flair and fun to it.

Goal three is to simply get out more. With a new house waaay out in the country, we have turned into a pair of homebodies. Opting to stay home more and more over going out to do things. The kids also help in that department, as even with family around, babysitters are bit hard to come by and sometimes a bit cumbersome to deal with. But even if it’s with the kids in tow, I really want to spend much less time holed up in the house. Maybe if we got out a bit more, we’d finally start meeting new people and making friends, though I doubt it!

Goal four should probably be to get a little more ambitious with my career. I’ve settled into quite a lull since my second child was born, when I opted to take my current job, for a little more stress free work environment. The work is OK, can get a little exciting from time to time, but mostly it’s the same old, same old. I’ve been here for 3 years now, which technically means this is my longest stint in a single job (While the Army was 4 years, I basically had three different jobs during that time). Part of the problem, is I’m not sure what I want to do. I loved being an IT manager, but that type of job would require a lot more overtime, and frankly, I love not having to work constant 50-60 hour weeks. Also, to be more of a general catch-all management type, I’ll probably have to move to a smaller company, and most likely would actually lose pay, while adding the more stress. Here at my current company, most positions above mine require a master’s degree. I know I should get it done and out of the way, but as I said before... I like and cherish my free time. Not quite sure how ready I am to give that up yet for higher education. Even more so considering, I really haven’t seen any jobs here that really excite me enough to help motivate me to get the degree either. What I would really love is to just take a break from this whole IT thing and try working at landscaping. A little more labor intensive and something I find a bit more interesting. But the money difference is just too much to even consider. Maybe I just need to make this goal about figuring out what it is I really want to do.

I think that’s enough. They are pretty big, general goals, which should make it easier to just work towards each one a little bit at a time, with no real final point I’d be desperately trying to reach… just a direction to start of the new year.

Shopping anyone?

Just call me “Fabric Junky”! After having to spend several hours staring at a computer with next to nothing to do, and overly hyped up on several forms of stimulants on Friday, ones natural reaction is to surf the web. Somehow my surfing lead me to a few old links to on-line fabric shops, and something in me just went berserk. I don’t know if the stimulants were at fault here or not, but I found myself hitting several sites, looking for a combo of fabrics for a certain quilt I had in mind. This quilt requires 8 different fabrics that would blend and flow nicely together, 2 of which I already had on hand. The quest for the perfect remaining 6 had proven to be a tougher challenge, but I finally had the copious amounts of time and the extra xmas cash on hand to find them ALL. After a few hours, I managed to find the last 6 between 4 stores. The junky part came during the whole checkout process at each of the 4 stores. Being a frugal type, I wanted to ensure I got my monies worth in the shipping and handling department, and being that many on-line fabric stores charge shipping based on the price range, I had to try and make sure I was at the high end of that range. This meant, at fabric store A, even though I only needed 1 yard of one fabric, I bought 2 more yards of different fabrics to hit the max shipping. Multiply that by 2 more stores, and well, that’s 6 yards of unneeded fabric bought to satisfy my frugal self! (Yeah, my sane self does not need help in realizing that the cost of 6 more yards of fabric is a WHOLE lot more then the few pennies I saved in shipping!) The only saving grace was store number 4, which had free shipping on orders over $30, and since three of the fabrics were found there, and one I needed 2 yards of anyway, no extra was spent, and free shipping still attained!

Of course, after my whole shopping frenzy, my local fabric shop decided to be kind and send me a 40% off coupon in the mail! How much you want to bet I find a better fabric there?

oops - xmas part 5

OK, so I forgot that we had a slight change in plans this year, and actually did have a Christmas part 5 this year. You will see why it was soo easy to forget! This was Christmas with DH’s Dad and family. Dear FIL was a drunken bastard who pretty much ran out on the family when DH was around 4, leaving his Mom to struggle with raising 5 kids on a minimum wage salary. There was pretty much no contact with dear FIL for most of DH’s life. An occasional phone call or visit, on the level of about once every 5 years. But apparently, around the time that DH and I met, his oldest sister took it upon herself to reunited with said bum and bring him back into the fold. I remember about the time we came home after getting married, for my first visit with the IL’s, SIL decides to mention that DH should be a good son and visit his father while home. To which, DH basically blew like a giant cannon and told her to piss off. Thankfully, home was far enough away (With a large body of water in-between) to save us from some of the melodrama that was to unfold over the next year, but suffice it to say, FIL was sort of brought back into the fold. DH would get occasional comments from all 4 sisters, about how he should call the man, since he was after all his father. To which DH would just reply “No, he is not!” When our first son was born, we of course called as many people as we could, and sent birth announcements to everyone we couldn’t, which included DH’s Paternal Grandmother, with whom DH did actually adore for a silly old woman. But not one was sent to dear old dad. “Wasn’t worth the stamp”, was DH’s comment when asked. Of course, he got scolded by one sister for not calling FIL, let alone not sending him an announcement, which promptly lead to DH hanging up on her. When we left Hawaii and moved back to Kentucky, someone decided we would start a new family tradition, of everyone going over to dear FIL house on Xmas eve, in-between our other functions. This consisted of everyone piling into his house, exchanging gifts, about 10 mins of half hearted talk, since dear FIL had no idea what even went on in all our lives, nor we his, and then a quick bolt for the door. The air around the moment had been about as comfortable as swimming in a pool of glass with salt water being poured on the wounds. Even the kids could feel the tension and began asking to leave less then 5 mins after walking in the door. But regardless, a new tradition was started, and has held ever since. Over the next 5 years, it never did get anymore comfortable. The man has managed to call DH only once, with the gall to ask to borrow money, and has stop by the house once, when our daughter was born, so we still have no idea what’s going on in his life, nor he in ours. So anyway, due to timing and logistics, it was decided this year to move the event to this past Sunday, and hold it at my SIL’s house, where there was a bit more room. Of course this made for round 3 of the SAME fucking meal (Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, etc), with pretty much the SAME fucking people (plus dear old FIL and family), in less then a week. To top it all off, it occurred on one of THE nicest days we had seen in about 3 months. We stayed roughly 2.5 hours, long enough to eat, chat it up a bit, open presents, and to let the poor kids be chased once again by relatives they rarely see begging for a kiss and hug. I did a quick round of clean up and then we bolted. Apparently, someone deemed our quick departure in poor taste, as a comment was made to dear MIL (the only one not in attendance, since FIL was there). Excuse me for being familied out!!!!!!

Wacked Fridays

An unintentional experiment gone completely wacky. After having to get up and actually come into work on Friday, just to sit around and do nothing, had me literally falling asleep at my desk. In an effort to stimulate myself, I consumed large amounts of caffeine and sugar. This was after taking the magic pill earlier that morning, in a vain attempt to minimize my fat gain for the week. Apparently, the combination is a bit unstable to say the least. I spent most of the afternoon, in some weird fishbowl type haze, feeling like every muscle in my body was doing a rapid non-stop double time. The benefit, when the crash hit somewhere around 10pm, I was able to fall asleep the minute my head hit the pillow, and sleep rather soundly for 12 hours!

Christmas - Part 4

Part 4 is usually my favorite. This is the typically Christmas day, kids up at the crack of day, parents with eyes barely functioning, trying to untangle and piece together toys, eating mounds of chocolate for breakfast and then knocking the kids over the head hoping for a long comatose nap induced by early rising and high levels of sugar, so that parents can flop back into bed for a few more precious zzzz. That typical Christmas story Christmas. The kids seemed pretty happy and managed to completely trash the entire house with their toys. I did finally managed to get breakfast cooked, somewhere around 2 pm. This prompted me to announce there would be no officially dinner cooked that night (Three hours away!), so I fell into another football induced coma on the couch, while the kiddos apparently played “My Little Pony” all over me. The hoof prints on my forehead are all the proof I need!

Thankfully part 5 and 6 will not be played out this year. Christmas with my geographically challenged family is on it’s by year, so I concluded the day with calls to them all, obligations finished for now!

Christmas - Part 3

Part 3 is ALWAYS played out on Christmas Eve, at dear old MIL’s house. Once again alcohol free, and now, after the fact that we’ve seen them all at least twice in the last month, we have nothing left to really talk about. We spend the first hour stuffing our face, which helps minimize the small talk, usually centered around the families current set of ailments (Just what you want to hear about over food! YEAH!). Then we all adjourn to a way too small living room to dive for presents. In a frenzy of wrapping paper, everything gets opened and we proceed to the toy building segment. Thankfully, since DH and I come with 4 kids… we have plenty to keep us busy enough to avoid any more conversations of death and/ or bodily functions. All of this wouldn’t seem quite so bad, if I could only have a beer or two or half dozen!

Christmas - Part 2

Part 2 is usually played out with the step kids. My DH’s oldest two from his first marriage. The time honored tradition, is for us to pick them up on the 23, open gifts with them the morning of the 24 and then head off to Granny’s for the immediate family dinner and gifts. Thankfully, it’s the one thing his Ex still respects. We actually used to get them longer, but it seems the older they get the less we see them, and though we expected this... it’s still a little hard to take sometimes. So anyway… this year, due to the fact I had to work today, we opened our presents last night. I figured it would at least give the older two something to play with, while they were here. Of course, my step daughter has hit that age, where everything revolves around friends and boys, so once the gift opening had ended she was off like a shot to the computer to get on AIM with all her friends. My Stepson was at least a little more animated with his gifts and even got into playing with my son and his new toys. I’m beginning to feel that the trips to our house are starting to become those annoying obligations these kids would rather do without. Maybe it would be smarter to cut the visits to a few action-packed mini vacations and just become the Dad and Step mom that spoil them to the hilt and give them great stories to tell their friends. Of course we are already sort of on that track, as we got them both surround sound/DVD systems to go with their TV in their rooms, so now they can blast their moms eardrums with movies as well as music! I think DH is actually looking forward to seeing the look on her face when the kids carry those into the house tomorrow night!

Christmas - Part 1

We are one of those types of families that generally spread our Christmas celebrations over several days. This past Sunday was Christmas part one, which was the big extended family Christmas dinner on my DH’s side. A nice little (OK, HUGE) dinner, a few presents for the kids, and a game of pass the present for the adults. The one thing that kind of stinks is my IL’s no alcohol rule. It’s not a hard written rule or anything, but after a father and step father who are major alcoholics, you will never see alcohol at any family gathering. I definitely respect the whole reasoning behind it, but well... it seems to make all the younger IL’s (the ones more our age) bolt very early. That leaves DH and I stuck with the almost 50 + crowd to socialize with, since we are a bit more obligated to stay. DH is the youngest of 5 kids, but there is a 10 year age difference between him and the next youngest sibling. But being a sibling and having kids, usually means we are expected to hang out till the majority of the crowd disperses and help with the clean up. After about the first two hours, I find myself sitting at a table with DH’s sisters staring off into space, as the conversation has usually drifted into topics I’d rather not be a party of. After a half hour of trying to tune them out without looking tuned out, I’ll usually go find DH and catch him vegging in front of the TV. Somewhere around hour 4, I start doing rounds of picking up abandoned glasses and plates and anything else I can think of to try and complete my assist in the clean up obligation, and yet still cut out of there soon. Usually, by the time I complete this DH is giving me that look of “let’s bolt” and we round up the kids to make our escape. Unfortunately, we can never escape quietly, as we would be forever chastised for not letting the kids get their rounds of holiday hugs and kisses goodbye and of course that ropes us in for another 30-45 mins of drabble about topics we have already beaten to a bloody pulp! I’m beginning to wish my family lived closer, so I would have the great excuse of blowing early for “other” family obligations, but then I think the constant torture my Mom would deliver upon me would be much worse then these gatherings!

Oh the Vanity!

Unlike most women, I don’t tend to be to overly vain about things like clothes, jewelry, and hair. Instead my vanity tends more towards the things I do. Last week, I started going back to the gym for the first time in well over a year. Generally, I'll go mid afternoon, when the gym is close to empty and I can getin, do my workout and out of there without too much fuss. Yesterday, I went to the gym a little earlier then normal, and I found the free weights room full of guys. I don’t know what it is, but I always feel like I’m being graded by the men when ever I work out in the free weights area. Like the place is off limits to females, unless you happen to be one of the few that actually know what your doing. So of course I felt like I had to over impress. I’ve been around weights for a large part of my life and very much know what I’m doing in there, but it has been well over a year since I had done any lifting and frankly, starting over is kind of a painful process. Add in a little vanity factor and of course I was piling on more weight then I should have touched. I did manage to lift it all and looked pretty damn good doing it, if I say so myself, but I seriously can not walk today! Stairs are my current demons, which I am avoiding like the plague at all costs.