the typical day

From 6 pm to 9 pm I grab a nap which is really like 7 pm to 8 pm followed by an hour shushing Layla who sneaks into bed with me and messes with the dog while talking nonstop until she literally crashes out.




9 pm Get up and get ready. Depending on how tired and sore I am this might include a second shower in my day.

9:30 pm forage for something to pack for lunch and find the things I need for the night (like my phone charger and headphones)

9:45 pm drive to work


10 pm to 6:30 am work, without a real break because we are understaffed, if I get a break use it to eat while doing homework if not then eat while working and possibly swap cars with Jon in the parking lot at some point during my shift

6:45 am the car window is finally defrosted enough to drive home, I on the other hand am frozen solid


7 am the girls are up because the dog goes crazy when I get home, get the girls settled by the tv, turn up the heater and let the dog out


7:30 am or so, make breakfast as requested... Usually either waffles or eggs for the girls but today oatmeal which I have to keep Anyah from feeding Pixie




8 am to 9:30 or 10 am juggle homework, with two small kids overstocked on energy playing and bickering around me and a small dog going crazy... Also play with kids and dog as needed, get little people dressed and do hair

10 am to 1:30 pm give or take this is my main sleep time.


1:30 pm get up for lunch, send Layla to quiet time in her room and if Anyah skipped her morning nap put her down and nap but today she is up so so am I, play and cuddle watching TV

3 pm Layla is out of her room and of I am lucky the girls go out to play or need a bath... Use this time to clean house because omfg what happened to the floors

4:30 pm start making dinner


5 pm dinner and dinner clean up, then put myself and kids in jammies

Omg it's 6 pm again, time to start over





This is typical for a non doctor appointment or other commitment day. Things get more crazy when one of us has an appointment, daddy has a strange schedule day or god forbid we need to run an errand at the grocery store or target

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Staycation

My vacation is officially over and I started back to work and school this week. Four days off sounded big but it felt so small.


The quality time spent doing projects with the girls, taking them to breakfast and playing outside was amazing. Plus a lot of the honey do list got completed.


Hopefully my next vacation will find us better off financially and with me feeling healthy though because I would much rather have a vacation, staying at home was a lot of work.

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Time for a new year

My year end time always gets a little reflective. I look back at this hard hard year and I see so many blessings. Even in the hardest parts if I stare long enough a picture comes out of the chaos, a blessing.

I hope I'll see more clearly in 2012. I hope it will take less time to feel things deeply and more time to lose the good parts as they fade into memories.

If nothing else this year made me so much more aware of my time.


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It was Christmas

I came home from work a half an hour early and crawled through the darkness plugging in lights and straightening bows. I stepped cautiously around Santa's magic dust and brought in the milk and cookies plate from outside. I clicked on the floor heater in the back room, let the dog out and started making breakfast which woke Jon and sent him stumbling down the hall to see what the ruckus was. After the egg casserole was in the oven and the bacon was arranged for cooking I took a break before the chaos. I didn't have enough time to nap so instead I enjoyed listening to everyone else start to stir and sometime around 7 the baby awoke and then the big kid thumped down the hall.

"It's Christmas Baby", I told them. When the adults gathered blurry eyed under the Christmas tree the girls went through their stockings and swapped their pillow pets and then we assembled some things while we waited for Papa Glen to come at 8. I finished making the bacon and sausage and mixed some pancake/waffle mix.

From 8 am to 9 am there was a flurry of wrapping paper, squeels, begs to assemble and open things and the chaos and the noise got a little overwhelming. Then we showed the girls their outside swing set and they learned to swing and slide in the PJ's and jackets in the frost while I finished up the waffle making. After breakfast there was a good dose of making toys and giving praises until eventually I couldn't wait any longer to sleep and the grandparents filtered out one by one before I padded off to bed just before noon.

I woke occassionally to the sound of outside play or toys going up and down the hall and I know I missed some good parts so I forced myself up at 4:30 and heated up some dinner for my girlies and listened to endless stories about what they got and what they did. I watched Layla pretend to be Nannie with a back the hurt so she couldn't get out of her toy car before dinner. I watched Anyah lay the kisses on a Princess Belle baby. I was the receiving end of silly walkie talkie conversations and the samplier of pretend food from a plastic dish and before long I helped people back into their Christmas Jammies and kissed them so I could head back for a few more hours of sleep before work.

It's the smallest Christmas we've ever had. I feel blessed that the kids were overwhelmed with awesome gifts and quality time. I sort of liked how condensed we've become sometimes because I don't have to be anything I'm not…especially when I'm tired. For the first time in many many years the tree stayed up tonight because I had to go to work. I'll walk passed it on my way out the door tonight, surrounded by the toys left right where they fell and the small bits of wrapping paper that didn't make it to the clean up sack and it will make me a little sad that I'm not all snuggled with my husband and enjoying the Christmas night…

And then I will say "it was Christmas" when I tell the stories and I'll remember how much Layla loved her new toy car and swingset or how Anyah made messes with her gifts all over the house and cried when we tried to clean up… and I won't remember how tired I was or how the bacon wasn't as crispy as I had hoped. Because that's how it goes. By this time next month it will be something we did once… a fond memory and a tradition kept. I'll forget how stressed we were about everything, I may even eventually forget how tight the budget was or how I much I worried it wouldn't be enough. Even now that part seems silly, because it's always enough. Because it is Christmas… and they got what they wanted… time to play with us.

*photos to come eventually when I download the camera since this is the only one I took with my phone (before we got started)

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Traditional Christmas Eve

Least you think our Christmas Eve was too tragic...


We did the traditional Christmas
Pajama and Book opening without a hitch.



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Hagiophobia

Def: fear of saints or holy things, also a fear of Santa Claus, which may occur in small children and babies

She is 4 and she stayed up till 1a.m. Santa found his cookies and milk outside on the porch. The North Pole was contacted and elves assured us he knew our house was do not enter.

Nannie had to spend the night and sleep in her bed since I was at work and Jon had things to assemble.

Turns out Santa is just another creeper with a beard. At least now I am much less worried she will walk off with a stranger with candy or a puppy because if a national icon of present bearing kindness can't get in the house... She's got stranger danger down.


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Disconnected & Reassembled

Sometimes the way you feel consumes you. It's been a hard year ending in a hard month so what I know about myself and others gets a little clouded in what I wish we could have together. A friend called it isolation, a family member called it disconnected and I call it scared.

I choose this week to focus on my children and the hope that they will fell overwhelmed with love, joy and laughter. I hope that I can give back to them what they give me: an overwhelming sense that the world has endless possibilities, that people can act out of pure love, and that time is a powerful gift.

I pray and wait for grace amongst my own raw emotion. I find now that I open myself to truth amongst my friends they find new and surprising ways to pull me out of myself, out of the dark. They literally deliver and remind me that we are part of a greater family, one that shows up when we need them and responds sincerely without judgment. We are all God's children. We are all in this together.

One points out the things I have done for others and says she just wanted to be like me. I point out the things she and others have done and how I want to be remade like them.

Maybe next year I'll resolve to take the best parts of those around me and make them part of myself. Because we could all use more good parts and everyone has so many to choose from.


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Sometimes I think God & My In-laws hate me

There was a bid this week at work where a position that paid the same amount as mine came up for bid. Money being tight recently since Jon's job is only part time with not great hours sometimes, high childcare expenses and a house payment this looked like the only opportunity I would have any time soon to get off the overnight shift. The overnight shift, simply put, is killing me. Just ask my Dr who tells me constantly I need to switch to a shift that allows me a normal sleep pattern for my lupus.Plus the overnight shift is ruining my relationship with my husband, my time with my two small children and makes everything from school to drs appointments very difficult. The only way I could get the shift was if no one else bid because I had some swine flu absences last year and this position bidding is based entirely on attendance and not on anything else. Taking time off for my kids last year screwed me because if you are on the night shift and everyone's ill you have to call in sick or be up 24 or more hours. No one wanted it when I bid but on the last day someone else decided to bid. She has no kids, no school, no husband but needed the $2 an hour pay increase it would give her and as I knew it would, it knocked me right out of the running.

I haven't spent one minute of this lupus experience mad at god but that schedule bid I prayed so hard for, it has knocked me right odd my knees. Constant pain combined with knowing I am stuck in a life situation is crippling my faith. Meanwhile, Jon is stuck at working waiting for the last step off a possible position change for him that would allow me to bid off the night shift but there is no end in sight for that right now and so I can't even bid for the other girls shift in good faith.

I have debt... Personal, medical... I can't take a pay cut when I am not making ends meet now. God may love me but I do not see how this life situation reflects him liking me.

It's sort of the way I feel about Jon's side of the family. They think I am ok because its the Christian thing to do but they don't love me. They must not because eventually they have all thrown out an opinion about something they've been judging me on since they met me. Like the conversation 3 years ago when my mother in law told me she doesn't understand how honest I can be after praising my honesty in the passed or the sister in law we supported through bad life decisions and was positive to until she started handling her own junk jumping my shit over the fact that I curse in front of my kids. I have a father in law who seemed to like me until his kids all started talking to him again. I guess I just don't understand them. And after 5 years I think I have to let go of the hope I ever will.

I just feel like I can never be me. Thanks for becoming a Christian enjoy the life of Job while acting like you can manage because God has your back.

But I can't manage. Just so you know. Last week I tried to tell my mom how bad I am taking my feelings at the moment and it blew back at me like sand in a wind storm. I miss having someone to talk to who got me, this year I feel JB's death to the core of me. In a room full of people I feel alone and judged and like it is my responsibility to make it ok for my kids sake. I don't trust anyone or anything not even myself. In the end, maybe that's why they don't like me.



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