I really can’t believe it’s been a WHOLE WEEK since I posted. This is the longest I’ve been “away” since I started taking this whole blogging thing seriously. But boy, have I been busy!
Alison is getting ready to start Kindergarten, and we got all of her back-to-school shopping done. Can I just say how grateful I am that she will be wearing a uniform? Because otherwise, I’d have had to get a second mortgage on the house to buy a whole new wardrobe for her rapidly growing frame.
I started cleaning that little black hole of mine, and it got me on a roll like you wouldn’t believe. My house hasn’t looked this good in a year. Here’s the After Photo:
and just in case you didn’t see the Before Photo, or are too lazy busy to click the link above, here you go:
I know, right?
I’ve also been called for Jury Duty. That whole “student waiver” from five years ago finally expired, apparently. I’m torn between hoping to get called for all the great blog fodder, and praying they resolve all their issues before tomorrow.
Finally and most importantly, my two favorite cousins are visiting from Arizona and Oklahoma, so we’re busy cackling it up and drinking wine, as usual. They’ll be here until Thursday, so expect me back in all my blogging glory after that.
My husband and I are both pack rats by nature. We try to purge, really we do. But just as we kick some crap stuff to the curb, it seems like more crap stuff creeps in through the back door.
Our general living space is not over-come with clutter. Those spaces are actually (relatively) easy to keep clean because everything has a place to call its own. I don’t think I’d be able to have people in my home if I had clutter all over – I’d be too embarrassed.
In fact, the only reason I’m going to willingly put photos of my clutter here for everyone to see is so that I can have some motivation to post the after shots.
Here’s my sewing area, about an hour after I started working on it:
It’s like a black hole, that desk. I swear – if I had set that suitcase anywhere else it would have been back in the garage rafters the day we got back.
So, tell me: Do you have a black hole of clutter somewhere in your home? Don’t worry, I won’t hate you if you say NO! However, it is brutally honest Monday, you know.
I have a torn rotator cuff. How do I know? Dr. Google told me so!
After doing some extensive research, the recommended treatment is not as drastic as I assumed it would be. In fact, I can ice it, compress it, and us it less often right here at home, no medical degree required.
Which makes me feel pretty stupid for letting it fester and get worse for a whole year.
Dr. Google also listed some of the more common ways people tear their rotator cuff. None of them really apply to me, so I’ve come up with a list of possibilities.
1. Blythe has always preferred to nurse on the right side – so all that holding her in place was just too much for the old shoulder.
2. My shoulder just couldn’t handle lifting my 35 pound child and carrying her back to bed night after night. After night.
3. Something I’m calling “Soccer Mom Arm” which could also be known as “Mini Van Arm”. I neither drive a mini van NOR have kids in soccer, but the syndrome is the same, regardless. I reach into the backseat every two minutes, the whole time I’m in the car with my kids. Who wouldn’t tear their rotator cuff with all that backward reaching?
4. Hatch-closing. On our old SUV, I had to reach up, grab the hatch, and pull it down hard to close it. Luckily, I am now spoiled with my remote hatch-closer, and I couldn’t possibly love that feature more.
5. Lifting all those weights. Back and shoulders are my favorite body parts to work on, so this is a possibility. Although, why the right and not the left? Am I lopsided and just haven’t realized it?
6. My body did not like turning 30 last year and is staging a revolt. Is it all down hill from here?
Now I’m off to try and wrap an ace bandage around my armpit. With the current heat index, that bandage should be smelling quite nice by the time I’m done.
Categories
Raw and Unfiltered
Dear Heather,
I just re-read the email I sent you earlier, and it made my face burn with shame. I didn’t say anything I set out to say. As I read, all I could see were the excuses I made for my postpartum depression. The things that made it “acceptable”. And while all of the things I wrote are true, they are not what you need to hear. Reading that made me realize that I am still so afraid of my depression, and of what I fear it says about me as a mother.
Rather than tell you the logistics of my situation, I wanted to tell you how I felt. About my fears and anxiety. I wanted you to not just see my words, but say to yourself as you read, “I am not alone”. Because you aren’t.
Even though I felt alone every hour of the day as I went through PPD, in truth there were many people around me who knew I wasn’t myself. They seemed so far away, though, as if I were on the other side of a deep chasm.
I felt so ungrateful. I had just knocked on death’s door and lived to tell about it, yet there was no happiness, no joy. People would say, “You are so blessed!” and I would nod my head emphatically, because I knew it was true. But I didn’t feel blessed. I felt burdened.
More than anything, I was afraid. Horrible thoughts went through my head. At times I felt resentful of other people’s happiness. My own sweet baby that I tried so hard to have, irritated me when she needed to be cared for. I went through the motions, meeting her needs, but my heart wasn’t in it.
Every day, I felt helpless. Every task overwhelmed me. I read books as often as I could, because they allowed me to escape my mind, if only for a little while. My family and friends would ask me if I was OK, and I always said things new mothers say – I’m just tired, I’m so in love with the baby, Life is Good. I put on a mask and pretended my way through my life.
I was terrified of what they would think of me if they knew what kind of darkness reached way down deep into my very soul. I fantasized about leaving, because I thought my family would be better off without me. Because I felt incapable of being a good mother, a good wife. I felt like I was failing at every part of my life, with no end in sight.
But the end came, Heather. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. You have to search for it, ask directions. There’s no sense wandering around in the dark when people are there, just beyond the bend, and all you have to do is reach out to them. They are there to catch you, to build you a bridge across the chasm, to show you the way.
I am so proud of you for reaching.
I pray you clap your hands, right along with Maddie and Mike, and mean it with all your heart.
Be Well,
Andrea
Categories
Resistance is Futile
Back when I first met the puppies, I was all, “We are so not getting puppies”. And then when they came to live with us as foster puppies, our chubby Labrador, Cage, was all, “I am so not down with the puppies”. And even when Bella made it her mission to win Cage over, and Lucy was working hard to win my vote, we were both all, “No way, puppies, our hearts are made of stone”.
But then, you know, well, I have good reasons, and… *picture hands behind back, eyes averted, toe of shoe drawing circles in the dirt* I caved. Cage nearly disowned me when I announced we’d be keeping Lucy. There was a look of disgust on his face each time I offered him a biscuit, for days. Not that he didn’t eat them. He is, after all, Cage the chubby Labrador.
However.
I looked out the window the other day and discovered Cage and Bella like this:
This morning, looking out of a different window, I found Cage and Lucy like this:
They’ve accomplished their mission, people. *Sigh*
(Click on the links above to read the back story. Here’s one other puppy post if you’re interested.)