The Working Mom

Seems like everyone is doing okay except me. I’m really not over it. If you ask me anything about him I will spontaneously burst into tears. Sometimes you don’t even need to ask. I was listening to a song and the lyrics were “I forgot to tell you I loved you” – I burst into tears. I told him I was sorry, but I forgot to tell him I loved him. I keep remembering to do things that I don’t need to do anymore. I get up in the morning, and my first thought is “I have to walk the dog”. I go to bed, and I look at the empty spot where his bed used to be. I miss hanging out with him on the couch, and the way he’d curl up by my feet and keep them warm while I worked.

Sam is already talking about what dog we should get next. And part of me is glad for that because if/when I’m ready to put myself through this heartbreak again, at least I know I won’t have to twist his arm. On the other hand, I am so not ready. No dog I get will be him – it won’t do the things he did, it won’t be the same. Not to mention, we have no idea what our life is going to be like in a few months. Are we moving? Where will we live? If we have to live in apartment for awhile, it would be better for us to wait. Maybe by then the spontaneous crying will stop.

Late in the middle of the night, Charlie’s (our dog) spine suddenly ruptured. Most likely from all the various ailments he’s been dealing with, and the medication to help him. He was in terrible pain, more pain than I’d ever seen any animal in. I didn’t want to see him suffer anymore and decided to put him down. I didn’t want to stay to see the vet do it, but he’s been faithfully by my side for the last 12+ years, I couldn’t bear to let him die alone. I can’t really get the picture out of my head of my dear friend dying before my eyes. I know he’s at peace now, even though I am not.

All this on the eve of my daughter’s birthday. At first we weren’t going to tell her, but I don’t like deception so we told her in the early afternoon. She’s definitely handling it better than I expected, (and certainly better than I am)

Zachary has been fascinated with printable masks recently. He colors them in and then wants to wear them, of course. The problem I’ve run into though is making it so the mask will stay on his face. We’ve tried string, but it doesn’t take much to pull the string right off the mask – usually ripping the paper (and inducing much crying from Zachary). And the string is just a pain to work with in general.

Side story: A few months ago, I had taken Rachel in to get her eyes checked. (She had been complaining about vision issues) They put drops in her eyes and then gave her these “disposable sunglasses” to wear until the drops wore off. Basically it was just a flimsy shaded piece of plastic with these adjustable (and detachable) cardboard “ear hooks.” For some reason, the contraption fascinated me so I saved it. Those sunglasses were lying on my desk when yet another one of Zach’s printable masks ripped.

*Lightbulb moment* – what if I used those ear hooks as a template, and cut out new ones (so I’d be able to keep the original), and just taped the ear hooks on the paper mask so they’re in just the right place to fit over his ears. (You can cut little slits – just the size of the ear hook arm, and adjust the size then tape in place.)

It worked perfectly! I scanned the ear hooks in and recreated the outline using Illustrator. If you use them for your kid’s masks I would recommend printing them onto card stock. (Or printing them out and then using it as a template to cut out the shape from something sturdier than regular paper).

Here it is for your downloading pleasure

Here is Zachary proudly modeling his latest fun mask:

If you’d like to find some fun printable masks for your little one to use with the ear hooks here are a few:

Moshi Monsters – These are very cute little monsters. On that page, if you scroll down, you’ll see the color-in / printable masks. Zach is modeling Diavlo in the picture above.

Activity Village – There’s a few cute animal masks on there – and the site has a bunch of other fun printable activities. Of course, this only helps feed Zach’s printing obsession. (Did I already mention He LOVES printing from the computer!!)

childcareandbeyond.com – There are a bunch of safari themed masks there. My favorite is the Tiger Mask – that one looks really cool.

Fantasy Jr. – Somewhat creepy – but right up Zach’s alley. (Also clicking around there, I found this Dragon Mask – on Animal Jr. (which had a few more cool animal masks) On that Dragon Mask page, it also showed a very cool looking Chinese New Year dragon craft! I know it’s not currently the Chinese New Year, but that dragon looks WAY COOL. We are SO making that very soon!!! – that last site is on Craft Jr., which, as you can imagine, has a bunch of fun kids crafts!)

Nick Jr. has a bunch children masks too, but they’re kind of spread out in different sections. Doing a search on their site though you can see a compiled list.

Today he was told that previously, job postings that would attract about 150-200 resumes – in this economy, are currently attracting in the range of 2000 resumes.

Ugh.

I can’t even begin to express my frustration and worry right now. I honestly have no idea what’s coming next, and I’m becoming more and more afraid to find out. I’m desperately trying to hang on to that little glimmer of hope that “something good is going to come from this” but when faced with a statistic like that… I don’t even want to tell you what’s going through my head right now…

The future is still undecided, and we’re only making rough outlines of various possible plans – but at least we’re starting to think about the next steps and starting to move forward. Finally, we’re going to see what other possibilities there are. I have no idea where this road will take us, but I’m excited to find out.

The first step is to prep the house to be sold. We’ve been lugging so much junk with us every time we move – so we’re going to try and trim down as much as possible. I have no idea what to expect as far as how long it will take to sell the house – the market is so weird right now. We were spoiled in the past. The two houses we’ve owned, we were able to sell within a day of putting it on the market. I’m sure that won’t happen a third time (it would be nice – but I’m not delusional). Once the house is sold, we’ll see what happens next.

A number of years ago, I was stressing about a few particular things going on in my life and a friend of mine gave me this little lecture about trying to focus on the actual things I had control over. He drew a diagram with two circles – one inside the other. The inside circle was me and what I had control over. The outside circle was everything – all the things I was worried about. The area of where the circles overlapped – those represented things I could actually do something about. Anything outside of that were things I had no control over. I think this was taken from a book – discussing “circle of influence / circle of concern”. I of course remember it as “circle of control” because I’m an admitted control freak. So this is what I remember it looking like:

The problem however, is that sometimes in my life, I feel that blue circle in the middle is really really small. And that just about drives me nuts. Makes me depressed. Frustrated. Resentful. Sometimes it seems like what I actually have control over are inconsequential things like – what will we have for dinner. Things that really don’t affect my life on the whole. This is what it feels like right now:

There’s probably disastrous ways to change the shift – but… yeah – they’re disastrous. To shift priorities in my life, I gave up some control of it. It was a choice I made. I don’t regret it. But that doesn’t change the fact that things are not so great right now. I keep trying to dream like I described in my last post but even that has become hard at times. The difficulty is that I need to come up with the idea – and then make other people act on it – as I am not the one in control so I can’t do it myself. THIS is why I am a control freak. Trying to influence people to act on my dream – I’m “nagging” them or “stressing them out”. I just want to move forward.

You have to dream. If you don’t dream you can never learn what it is you want, you can never define your goals. You have to open up your mind to what may seem impossible. You have to be willing to believe that good things can come your way.

The fact of the matter is that most of the time, reality sucks. There’s bills to pay, risks threatening on your every turn. If all you do is focus on reality, you will never move forward. If all you do is focus on the problems that might come up, you will never improve your existence. If you are thrilled with the way things are, then maybe this is okay. Stagnation in itself is not a problem. But if you are not happy, then you have to make change. Life it too short to live it in fear of what might happen, or protecting what you have because you’re afraid to take a risk.

I’m not saying throw caution to the wind and jump off a bridge – but calculated risks need to be taken. I do not believe in a higher power, but that doesn’t stop me from believing that somehow things will work out. Somehow, I’ll find a way to fix the problems that might come up. The reward is worth the risk, and the problems that come up can be dealt with if/when they are a reality.

When you dream, you leave the risks out of the picture, you forget reality, and suddenly you can picture what it is that will make you happy. While you may never acheive that dream to the smallest detail, and things will never be perfect, you need that dream to help define a goal and give you the direction you need to head to.

You also need to continue to dream as you work towards acheiving your goal. By doing so, you allow yourself to adjust your course and fine tune your goal or change directions if you need to. (Sometimes the grass may just seem greener on the other side, and if so, once you start realizing that – change your course).

Because we are human, we are all too aware of the possibility of our own demise. Some completely ignore it – some live in fear of it and by doing so have trouble truly living. There is a happy medium in there somewhere. That is why dreams are so wonderful. Explore the impossible in your dream. Ignore reality just for the moment. You have to know what’s on the other side before you can plot the course to get there.

Faint heart never won fair lady.

Growing up, there was always music in the house. Both my brothers played various instruments, but particularly my second oldest brother played piano and particularly well. I played piano for a few years but never came close to being even a fraction as good as he was. But my brother played all the time. If he was home – there was music in the air.

I miss having music in the house. For awhile, Rachel was taking cello lessons, and when she’d practice – there was music in the house again. But this year we’ve had all kinds of issues with her and her grades and I needed to cancel the lessons so she could focus on getting her grades back up. So it is silent again.

When my mother came to visit us recently, she brought with her a new instrument she’s been playing for the last year or so. It’s called a mountain dulcimer. For kicks, I had her teach me a little bit. It’s simpler than playing piano, so simple it reminds me of playing one of the kids toys – but the sound is beautiful. She taught me a few songs and how to read “tablature” – music specifically written for the dulcimer – it’s very easy to follow. Rachel even picked up her cello and played along with my mother and I. (She hasn’t played her cello since we stopped lessons).

So now I’m on a quest to find a dulcimer. I want music in my house again.

Nothing like watching an epsiode of Hoarders to inspire some spring cleaning! LOL! The kids playroom – previously such a disaster you couldn’t walk in the room – is now looking rather nice. And despite the kids fears that I was going to throw away all their toys – there’s still plenty left to play with – they don’t miss the ones I tossed. (Usually broken toys, or ones that involved numerous (missing) pieces). It feels so good to PURGE! I’d love to just keep throwing stuff out.