I'm thankful

This has been a really hard month. I've had problems with my husband, problems with my health, problems at work and problems with family. But today, I just want to be thankful. The song "It is well" keeps going through my mind. It is well with my soul. While life around me in a lot of ways seems to be falling apart, it is making me stronger. This is what I'm thankful for today:

1) My amazing children
2) My cute puppy, whose fleas we can't seem to get rid of, but who is still happy to see me every day.
3) My friends- I don't feel like I have a lot of close friends, but the ones I have are amazing- whether it's letting me cry on the phone or coming over in the middle of the night to take care of my kids while I'm at the hospital- I am so thankful.

4) My family
5) My in-laws
6) I'm not sick anymore
7) My creativity and the opportunity to express it thru this blog and my other sites.
8) My iPhone that let's me type this even tho I'm not at my computer
9) My bed- it is one of the most comfortable places in the universe
10) Podcasts- free and inspiring. What more can I say.

Have a good weekend- look for things to be thankful for and it can really change your attitude no matter the situation. It won't fix the problems or make them go away, but thankfulness can remind you how strong you are and how you can get thru it.

Adios!

Creative Blog Inspirations

I'm so inspired by the Rockstar Diaries, Hip Tranquil Chick, Naturally Nina, and Pennyweight Online blogs. I want this blog to inspire others like theirs inspire me. But I'm not super Internet savvy, and I'm not indie rock chick. I want to be indie rock chick, but the fashion doesn't suit me. I'm better in some nice work trousers and cute, work appropriate tops and jackets. Not ever ever ever an actual suit, but the pieces. Skinny jeans don't work on me because I'm not, and I've never had much luck at vintage shops- apparently the women of old didn't have my body. Actually, I think it's more the proprietors of the vintage shops that don't have my body, because my grandma had some rockin' clothes back in the day that I had no problem pilfering. But anyway- I want to be inspiring. I want to post my photography and have other people grab it and go. I want to have my blog linked to by other people- not because I'm so super cool, but because it is somehow inspiring to them. I want to be inspiring to my daughter as she gets older. She seems to have a bit of an art streak in her- I want to encourage that as much as possible, without pushing her in a bad way.

My book will be published by December 3, 2011. Wow- that's coming up quick. I need to get writing!

Goals for the Day

Today this feels more like a to-do list than a goals list, but what can you do:

1) Do more research on online masters programs

2) Either walk or ride bike for 45 minutes

3) Figure out how to keep Austin awake all afternoon- it worked all weekend, why can't he sleep during the week when we work????

Pilates 101: The Cadillac

Check out my latest examiner.com post. It's the first in a new Pilates Equipment series- I'll be posting a new item each day this week.

Goals for the Day

1) Plan Meals for Week

2) Not puke

3) Go through closet and clean it out.

Blog Addiction

I have a confession. I have an addiction to blogs. Not so much to blogging, but to the idea of blogs. I think I want to make another blog about my efforts to deal with my stress and to become more content. I am going to sleep on it for the night. Thinking about trying to find a guided Bible study about contentment, but wondering now if striving for contentment is the wrong thing- I should instead be striving for thankfulness. Because if I'm truly thankful for what I have, then I will be happy. And it's not bad to be working towards being the best, but it's being dissatisfied with where I'm at that causes the problem.

Monday Goals

I'm having a hard time thinking of goals for today that go beyond a list of to-dos, and at the same time I'm thinking that I should start setting weekly and monthly goals in addition to my daily ones. I've really got a problem with biting off more than I can chew.

1) Pull out all creativity books so that I can at least see what I have

2) Indulge in sweet potato fries for lunch. (Homemade. Yum.)

3) Clean bedroom.

Book Review: The Knockout Entrepreneur by George Foreman w/ Ken Abraham

Rating: 2/5

The Knockout Entrepreneur is told through a series of analogies from George Foreman’s business and boxing experience. You can skip all of the stories, though, and read just the “Knockout Ideas to Stimulate Your Success” at the end of each chapter to get the gist of the book.

While the analogies are often entertaining, they aren’t often incredibly relevant or inspiring. There is little organization or flow to the order of the stories, and many seem like they have been included in the wrong chapter. Some of the analogies- such as his statement that your accountant is akin to a technician in the boxing ring (the man who scouts the competition for you and helps you strategically fight) are downright wrong. Yes, an accountant can help you make strategic decisions, but I’ve yet to meet one who is a scout.

George does to an excellent job encouraging integrity and honesty in all business an personal situations. However, it appears that George has built his business entirely on the success of endorsement deals and he has never been involved in the inception of development of a product or idea. This begs the question: What makes him an expert I should listen to? There are better business books on the market which follow the same ethical standards.

Book Preview: http://thomasnelson.insidethecover.com/widget/?isbn=9780785222088

Goals for the Day

Take Lily to playground down the road

Set up indoor trainer and ride bike for 30 min after Lily's in bed

Take a nap

Evening Check In

On my way to bed, but reflecting on my day and thought I'd post an update to my goals:

Clean House: Didn't happen.
Make meal plan for next week: Sort of- have decided to try Super Suppers for next week's meals, actually, in order to use my coupon I essentially have to buy enough for 1/2 a month.
Hug Chris- Did it!

Best part of my day: my nap!

Goals for the Day

So, yesterday the goals didn't go so well. In fact, I didn't accomplish any of them. However, I do have an idea for the PilatesforMommies post and plan to do it as soon as I'm done with my Morning Pages. And I had an amazing Pilates lesson. I tried to go for a walk, but Chris had the double stroller. So...goals for today:

Clean House
Make meal plan for next week
Hug Chris

Goals for September 10

1) Write a post for Pilates for Mommies
2) Create a plan for creative time a few days a week
3) Go for a walk.

Hard

I look at my new son, and some of the anger and hurt and pain goes away. I hear my daughter laugh and forget I was just about to cry. And then... I look away, another sound catches my ear, and it all comes rushing back. Not only am I dealing with the actual facts of the situation, I'm dealing with my own fears and speculations- is there more than he's admitting? And the Sex in the City scenes flashing through my head don't help at all.

We are going tonight to talk to some friends that have made it through this. I know it's necessary, but I'm petrified. The last time we tried to talk to someone about the problems we were having I felt blame. I felt stupid and belittled and blamed. (Funny how I still very much respect the people we were talking to, I just really felt like they were having a very off-day that day.) I don't want that to happen again. It can't happen again.

So much of myself wants to run away. Then there is a little bit bigger part of myself that is looking past the self preservation and remembering to grab the kids on the way out the door. Then, the bigger part of myself that knows that space isn't the answer. It's not even really what I want, but the pain is making me feel claustrophobic right now and it's the only answer I can think of. At least I'm smart enough to know that the pain claustrophobia won't go away just because I'm in a different state. It'll follow me, it has no boundaries.

So I'll stay. We have to get through this somehow. I have to get through this somehow.

Goals for the day

1) Stop feeling so tired

2) Find someone I can talk to in confidence about what is going on.

3) Be focused on my kids when I'm with my kids, be focused on work when I'm working.

Goals for the day

So, it's a bit late in the day to finally be posting these, but I've had them in the back of my head all day, and have actually been working toward them:

1) If I can't control it, let it go.

2) Tell Chris about my two newest writing ideas

3) Tell at least one more person about my examiner.com page.

The last week

It's 2:55pm. My son is 64 hours old. I am sitting by his pod in the NICU, watching his rig cage go up and down, ip and down. Sometimes it goes too fast, but at least it keeps going. The last three days have been kind of a blur. Monday we went Into the doctor and were told exactly what we were hoping to hear: "enough is enough, let's go to the hospital and get this baby out." I was thrilled. We had had an ultrasound the week before, so we knew te baby was big enough to be born. I was past the 37 week mark, so we assumed he was fully developed. I was tired of being sick, of having to limit everything I was doing, if nit being allowed to leave the house except to see the doctor, of trying to defend every action I had taken ever time my blood pressure rose
Amanda Moon

No work allowed

I don't hate my job. (It's telling that I typed that with a ? instead of . the first time.) But I really don't- I work with some great people, and we do great things. But it is a job, not a career. And it's the second time I've tried doing it. I really thought when I went back that was what I wanted, but ever since I've been wondering. Especially since getting pregnant again. The idea of taking Austin to daycare when he is 6-10 weeks old (depending on when he actually comes) literally makes me want to puke. Lily loves the daycare, but she might not hate it here if I made her days structured and fun. I would have to join play groups, etc...but it's not horrible.

But I'm not talking about not working. I'm talking about taking a second try at this independance thing. Teaching, writing. These are the two things I really want to do, and these are the two things that I really don't know how I can do with two kids and a full time job that consumes me.

Even though it's been a full 24 hours since my doctor told me that work was over now, completely over until the baby comes, I've still been thinking about it for about 23.5 of those hours.

I jumped back into work because I enjoyed it, I enjoyed being at Next Big Nashville for that week and working. But since I've been back, I really can't think of any time when I would say I've loved my job. I've hated it at times, I've tolerated it a lot, I almost quit a few times, mostly over Cheri but also over the fact that I wasn't excited about putting two kids in daycare anyway.

Then we moved into this new, beautiful house that I absolutely love and I redid the budget and didn't think quitting was an option. Then I realized that, without actually cutting back on anything except daycare, I can quit my job and we'd be okay. If nothing changes with Chris's job, which we won't know until next month.

What sucks is, I know I'm good at my job. I'm really good at it, which is part of the problem, I have done so well that I have way way way too much on my plate. And I've tried to point that out to my supervisors on multiple occasions, but to no avail- I get temporary help, but I end up getting more done than I thought I could and I am left with the same work load because I have obviously been able to handle it. Then I make a mistake, and although my bosses assure me that it's okay, my clients, who I have bent over backwards for on more than one occasion, make me feel like an absolutely horrible person. I expect perfection from myself, and other people expect it from me too, but perfection all the time (therefore, perfection in definition) is not possible. All I can do is apologize and admit my mistake and figure out what caused it and how to fix it.

But what about when that fix involves other people doing their jobs, and me having extra time to do mine correctly? And, I'm not working more than the 40 hours a week required. I'm not spending my nights and weekends doing the things that I don't have time to do during the days. Well, that's not completely true- for the last 7 months I've been checking my email on my phone during nights and weekends and keeping it caught up at all times. I've taken two vacations, both of which I worked on, to the tune of taking a total of 4 vacation days when I was out of the office for 10. I went on an actual vacation, which was agreed upon when I was hired, and ended up having my pay docked for a week and a half.

One of our job requirements is that we think of our job as a career- but I don't. I think of it as a temporary way to make ends meet and make money for my family. I also think of it as the reason why my kids have to be in daycare 10 hours a day and someone else fixes my daughter's hair more often than I do.

I know I can't make this decision now, while I'm still upset about what happened yesterday. The thing is, I know that deep down I don't really want to quit- there are parts of my job that I really enjoy. No, I'm not sure if that's completely right- I don't want to let anyone down, that's why I'm not sure if I can quit. It's also hard to know, that, more than any other place I've quit, this bridge would burn behind me. They took me back once, they won't do it again. And I wasn't happy at home, I was bored. I guess I can use the first few weeks of Austin's young life as a test to see if I can make this work, but that would be awful hard to do considering that those weeks are not an indication of what life is actually going to be like.

So, I will write and blog and journal for the next week at least. Try to figure out where I really am at with all this.

A wasted night?

Had grand plans for tonight- going to get a lot of writing done, do some work... but, nope. Cleaned up my desktop and did random web surfing. Oh well.

Bedtime

Everyime I look at her, I'm amazed. I can't believe something that beautiful is half me. The half that is from him, I can see that, because he is that beautiful to me too. But she is half me.

Mist people actually say she looks the moat likeme, and I agree that her features resemble my baby pictures most than his. But I don't thunk she loos like me now.

First of all, I don't think I'm beautiful. Even wijiutnall of this pregnancy weight, and left over post pregnancy weight (yes, it's possible to have both at the same time) I've never thought o myself as beautiful. It isn't because people never told me I was, because they did, it's just that my two best friends were (are) supermodel beautiful and I was told how pretty they were a lot. By guys I had been hoping to date.

But she's here, half me, and absolutely georgeous. One thing she definately got from me is her laugh. Her daddy doesn't laugh outnloud much, it is one of my hobbies. Hyperventalating belly laughing. She does that too.

Her litle broter is growing inside if me right now, building up strength for the day very soon when he will be born. This pregnancy has been a lot harder in sOme ways, alot easier in others. It's hard now, hard not to worry about what is happening to my body, about what the consequenses might be if he is born too soon. Part of me wants to protect him by refusing, not matter what the dr says, to have him before I eiher begin labor naturally or hit 37 weeks. But the other part of me wants to be sure I'm here and healthy enough to watch him grow up. I'm not sure which is more selfish- I couldn't live with myself if he has some horrible health problems because he's premature, but I'm not much help sick or worse.

Amanda Moon

What to write

I'm in the middle of about 3 different pieces, and I don't want to finish any of them because they are too personal. I want to write a novel. I remember always hearing that you write about what you know, but how do you get away from writing about your life? How do you use something as a starting point, but then move it quickly into it's own thing.

Changing names and places doesn't work for me. And the circumstances are the starting point. I don't think my life story is all that unique, so I know that what I'm writing about other people can relate to, but really...I don't want to write a memoir or auto biography. Or do I?