Last Blog Post of 2015!!

For Pennsylvania, which is where I first celebrated my New Year holiday, making it the only time zone I have to honor when it comes to waiting for the ball drop.  Considering they only show the rest of the country repeats of the NYC ball dropping, I figure that's fine.  Oh crap...3 minutes until the ball drops, gonna wrap this up way quicker than I intended.

Happy New Year...here's to eating healthier, doing more stress relieving activities, and trying to get published...I turn 33 in 2016 so I feel like it has to be a good year.

Love you!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

Christmas Day...Holy Shit, Where's the Tylenol

I'm in Colorado Springs, typing this post with my awesome Christmas present (husband surprised me with a Surface 3!!!! I cried.  I've been begging for one for months and he made me believe it wasn't gonna happen...then there it was!  Love it!).  So I'm currently sitting in the basement of our new home with my whole family.  We had a very eventful couple of weeks.  I flew with the kids to Atlanta and drove to Alabama for Steve's graduation for a one night trip.  That one night turned out to be the new worst night of my life (the runner up is now the day Jane threw up on the plane and in the airport).  Jane started throwing up in the hotel around 11 p.m. She ate 11 chicken nuggets, I learned the next day.  She threw up from 11 p.m. all over the bed and floor (I was in the other bed, Abby in her pack n' play) and didn't stop until about 4:30 in the morning.  She slept through most of it, thankfully, but I didn't sleep more than a couple of hours broken up throughout the night.  Somehow, we both still managed to make it to Daddy's graduation the next morning at 8:30 a.m.

Then Jane went with Daddy to drive to CO Springs and I flew back to Arizona with Abby.  The next morning we packed up and picked up my very amazing friend from work who offered to help and keep us company for the drive to CO.  We started our drive and stopped at the Grand Canyon (GORGEOUS..breathtaking..so glad Jane wasn't with us..that thing is a death trap!).

That day was a great day...we made a lot of progress on the drive and thoroughly enjoyed the gorgeous scenery this country has to offer.  

The next day...not so much.  Husband texted me throughout the night to let me know he too had fallen ill with a stomach thing...was puking from midnight until the next morning while he was driving with Jane to CO.  So of course, I'm now mentally convinced I'll be getting sick, as well as Abby.  Then we start driving through the Rocky Mountains and that takes my mind off of anything else. 

 

The roads were snow covered for almost the first 2 hours of our drive that day.  It took us an extra 2 hours at least to get to Denver and we barely made it in time for her to have enough time through security to make her flight.  She's always calm and cool though, which made it a lot easier for me.  And now I know my van doesn't suck too bad in the snow, so that's good, I guess.

So now we're here, with a million more boxes to unpack, but we're able to breathe again.  I'm so glad the past few months are over...

Time for another beer...bedtime is soon for the kids, and even though we showed up at this house two days ago, we're still watching the kids play with their Christmas presents and eating Christmas cookies in our home.  I love the house, by the way.  Can't wait to spend some real time here and get truly settled in, but it's a damn good start so far.  

Merry Christmas!

This is so depressing.

My kids are asleep in a house full of the boxes of all our things.  I'm battling with feeling sadness and feeling detached from all of this.  I was thinking earlier that the last time we did a move, I did something similar.  My mind's way of coping is apparently to pretend this is all normal, but it compartmentalizes these moments.  For instance, I vividly remember walking through our house in Pennsylvania when it looked like this and feeling the same way.  Like I'm sectioning off the memories of my life by states I've lived in and things I've done in each.  Lots of uncomfortable encounters in Louisiana (really bad job...then a really good job which only lasted a few months but almost made up for how bad the first job was), baby in Pennsylvania, baby in Arizona ...wonder how I'll categorize Colorado (bc for sure no more babies).  I really want to publish a book while I'm 33 (I turn 33 on 3/3 so obviously I'm a fan of the number 3)...that would absolutely be the highlight of our next state if by some miracle it happens. 

I'm drinking wine out of a kid's cup from Chili's right now because literally everything I didn't set aside today is packed in boxes.  I was proud of myself for remembering a cup for my daughter for milk and water (she's got it in her room now but I almost resorted to borrowing it tonight for my mommy beverage...I'd've cleaned it and returned it before my own bedtime...probably). 

In the past few weeks I've:

• Celebrated a major holiday without my spouse (Thanksgiving...it was rough...just me and my kiddos...and I'm no cook but that dinner was damn good)
• Made over 50 pieces of jewelry and shipped the last 8 packages out today...it was a lucrative holiday season for my jewelry shop and at least a few of the orders were extremely emotional for me...I make personalized items (handwritten keychains, baby footprints, etc.) so I often have sales for memorial jewelry and one in particular had me crying pretty major tears as I packaged it up
• Worked a full time job (2 hours each night and 6 hours each day...those were the least exhausting 6 hours of my days for the past several weeks...I love my job and my coworkers and will miss them terribly)
• Cleaned out our house of all garbage and junk we didn't want moved to CO (well...most of it)
• Bathed and fed my children regularly (it deserves recognition)
• Exercised regularly (highlight of most days....aside seriously from picking up my kids from school every day...that makes my heart smile every time)
• Worked a conference with my children over a weekend in Phoenix
• Cancelled a few utilities here (hubby helped with this)
• Set up utilities in CO
• Survived at least 5 major mental breakdowns
• Oh...and moved a treadmill out of my house single handedly....then me and my awesomely strong friend from work lifted it onto the back of her truck WITHOUT the hatch down...because we're awesome....she's driving up with me to Colorado and I seriously love her...I could write a full post on her

So, I'm not trying to display how amazingly badass I am...I am just reminding a future version of myself that I can handle a hell of a lot.

I really, really, really, do not want to publish this post and go back to my reality...it is much easier to avoid than face.  I just want to write endlessly about how I feel than actually feel it.  It takes me a step away from it all.  I'll just keep writing then.  Right after I pour myself another Chili's cup of wine.

I'll write until I should go to bed...and then maybe I'll watch some Netflix on my phone.  I'm obsessed with Criminal Minds right now. 

There's so much to clean in this house...only floors and walls and sinks but there are sooo many floors and walls and sinks.  Once the movers load a room I plan to vacuum it and clean the walls (dog hair on white walls/molding is gross)...I'm hoping to get done when they do.  I have a hair cut scheduled tomorrow for 3:30 and I only have tomorrow and a couple of hours Wednesday morning to finish earning our deposit back on this house.  We close on a house in Colorado a week from tomorrow. 

One hellish week.  Thursday morning (early, early, morning) we fly to Atlanta, rent a car, drive almost 2 hours to Alabama and spend one night there for my husband's graduation from OTS...then drive (the day after we get there) back to Atlanta, fly back to Phoenix, pick up our dog, then get up early the next morning for 2 loooong days of driving to Colorado.  I know I'll be exhausted so I can't even imagine how my kids will handle it.  My older daughter will stay with her father and drive to Colorado with him...which should be fun for her. 

So one more week of this and we'll all be together again and for better or worse, we'll start the next chapter in another state.  I'm so tired...