Almost

...over!

Tomorrow is my last final for this semester and then I can enjoy the summer.

I am wishing for sitting out by the pool

Playing Frisbee golf in the park

Hiking in the trees

Playing with Puppybutt and her new friends at the dog park

Barbecues and sitting on the porch with friends

I am not looking forward to; working weird hours, being left out, being stressed about school in the fall, waiting for my grades, allergies and all this wind, super-hot summer and no air conditioning in my car, sitting outside in the heat and sun watching baseball games with people who I barely tolerate, weeding the front yard, the pool being over crowded, being self conscious in a bathing suit.

Hours in a Day

Overwhelmed, that is how I am feeling right now.

I am down to my last 6 weeks for this semester (budget cuts mean no summer school) I will return to being a student in the fall. While I am excited and proud to be at this point, I am also stressed, the work is getting harder and we have begun practicing on each other in our labs.

Which on a side note, have I mentioned how wonderful my lab partner is? She is, we will call her Hummingbird, she rocks for a variety of reasons, the least of which is allowing me to stick my fingers in her mouth and quasi-gag her a few time on Monday while trying to take an impression of her teeth. She is a good sport and honestly becoming a good friend.

Work is good, I am over the initial nervousness but now I am faced with knowing a little but not enough to always feel totally confident on the selling floor. The management team at my store has been really supportive and it makes learning and working a very pleasant experience.

But it still takes time; I am lucky to be working but the added hours along with studying, homework, driving, sleeping, showering, eating, and trying to tread water as a housekeeper, wife and stepmum leave me quite exhausted.

I know this blog is suffering, its not that I am not thinking about you, writing blogs while I should be straightening out tables of undergarments. Reminding myself to remember this funny story that happened in class to share with you. Text messaging myself random dental facts that I think you would like to hear about. You guys are on my mind often but then I get home and all the activity of the day leaves me overwhelmed and I have to sit quietly and let the buzzing trickle out of my brain enough for me to get some sleep to start over the next day.

I will try to make you guys a priority one day a week, I would love to show you the flowers we planted, or how we are redoing the Rapscallions bathroom (a project I was trying to finish before the in-laws arrived) since super-sister-in-law is arriving tomorrow I am hoping that they are ok with my half finished projects because once they get here I want to spend all my time cuddling with their finished project, my little nephew.

Tell It To Me Straight

Communication is the most vital thing in a relationship but what do you when the parties involved either will not communicate with each other or refuse to listen to each other?

We are experiencing issues with Bio-Mom again, she does not fully communicate with Dear Hubby. She will call to tell him some of the most mundane things about her life but for some reason she refuses to communicate about The Rapscallion's school issues.

Even when we can get her to communicate about the issues at hand she has a habit of lying to make herself either look better or hide what is going wrong.

I am at my end in this, I cannot make her tell Dear Hubby the truth but at the same time there are no consequences for when her lies and half truths affect my life and household. Dear Hubby and I fight, I am frustrated that someone who does not live in my household can affect my life.

Odd Week

It has been an odd week for me, holidays always make the week feel different but this week was particularly odd. The Rapscallion was sick and stayed home from school for 2 days, he was cranky most of the week. On Tuesday we had our lease walk-through, basically the Resident Manager, a wonderful woman named Margaret, comes to over to make sure we haven't destroyed the house. I shouldn't have been nervous, we are good renters, when we left or last rental after 4 years the house was so clean I got my security deposit back even though we had broken the garage door (I used the security deposit to fix the door for them) we pay on time, we don't have wild parties and while we do paint while we live in a place we will paint it back to white before we leave. Irregardless I stressed about this walk through for 3 days, I cleaned EVERYTHING in the house, I washed curtains and scrubbed the floors with a toothbrush. Of course everything went fine Margaret walked in and loved how I have decorated, she loved the colors I have painted the walls and basically told me we are free to make any improvements while we live here and we will not be asked to change anything back before we leave because she feels everything we have done has made our place better for them. I also found out that Cat Butt will be able to come live with us officially without me having to pay the $500 pet deposit.

During the walk through Margaret asked about any issues that may be going on, I have had Maintenance come out at least 6 times to fix things since I have lived here this year but even after that I still had 2 issues. #1 my bathtub does not drain quickly and the plug leaks #2 the fabric softener cup in the washing machine was broken. On Wednesday they came to fix these issues, all normal until later in the day I noticed my bottle of Shout was missing. I buy Shout by the gallon, seriously with a 7 year old boy and Dear Hubby in the house everything gets stains and nothing I have found gets them out like Shout.

Actually random segue I have found that OxyClean in combination with Shout will get almost ANYTHING out of the Rapscallions clothes, I have even gotten paint out of Dear Hubby's clothes but I caught that stain early. Paint is my laundry nemesis, if anyone had a way to get dry paint out of clothes let me know!

So back to my random week, my Shout is missing, I can't figure out where it went. I searched the house nada, did the maintenance guy take it? I doubt it but for now I am going to blame him. You know about my pedicure experience http://amburgular.blogspot.com/2009/05/we-have-ways-of-making-you-talk.html we had some drama with Bio Mom not including any of Dear Hubby's contact information on the Rapscallions school registration sheet, we would have never found out except the school returned the paperwork for an additional form to be filled out and it came home during our custodial week. Bio Mom also did not include me as an emergency contact this year, which is odd because I am a SAHsM and could easily go get him from school if something were to happen. Dear Hubby did talk with Bio Mom about this and it will be rectified, personally I know she filled the paperwork out while she was mad at me about some past drama. Oh the joys...

Last night we went to some friends house where I discovered that I am a Rock Band Singing sensation! I kicked major butt, I aced almost ever song while singing flat and tone deaf, I am awesome!

Color Me Bad

I am down another 1/2 pound this week, I am not losing weight fast, I hope that means that I will be able to keep it off. Slow and steady...

I thought of the reasons that I have had trouble losing weight, I almost feel like when I take a pound off I uncover another issue that needs to be dealt with. This week I uncovered my propensity to reward myself with food, when things are stressed or I feel slighted, I feel I deserve to eat something unhealthy but tasty. How backwards is that? When I am feeling low I feel like I deserve to eat something that will only continue the cycle.

I need to make a list of things that I enjoy doing that I can reward myself with when I am feeling slighted, because trust me no one feels more slighted in a family than the stepmom. I enjoy reading but that isn't always a reward, for me it is almost a compulsion. I cannot imagine not reading everyday. I enjoy hot baths but my tub takes so long to fill and I get bored so quickly I feel terrible about filling the tub up for only a few minutes. I used to enjoy taking showers in the dark when I was a kid, I guess I just need to get over the obstacle that is dealing with my hair after a shower.

I want to enjoy taking a walk, but I find it hard to get the motivation to go out by myself. I have a bike I could ride but Vegas wasn't designed for bikers and in the area of town I live in... I don't have a death wish. Maybe I should look into getting a coloring book and just color, it is hard to feel bad coloring a picture.

Confused Rambings of a Night Owl

So I am up too late again, this is becoming a weird routine. I used to wish that I could be an early morning person, one of those people who went to bed early and woke up refreshed ready to seize the day in the morning. Instead I have become a person who is more comfortable awake when the sun is asleep. I know alot of this has to do with my current work situation, or more honestly my lack of work situation. I have been designing necklaces but that doesn't really require set hours.

I have suffered from sleep issues since I was a kid, I remember I had a whole year from the day I turned 10 until my 11th birthday, I was not able to sleep at night. The only exception was when I would sleep in my little sisters room, I was suffering from terrible reoccurring dreams.

Now I find myself suffering something very similar, only it is not a reoccurring nightmare, it is my inability to let go of the stress of the day. I get very panicky when I think about all the things in my life that I can't control. I stress about the direction my life has taken, I stress about poor decisions that I have made that are still affecting me and my family. I can feel my body tense up even right now as I think about these issues.

The hardest part about this time in my life right now is that I would rather hide than deal with anything. I would rather act like a child, I would rather put my head in the sand, I would rather daydream, anything other than deal with the reality of being an adult but I don't have this choice because my loving husband does not want to be married to a child. He wants a wife and a partner, I think he is being fair, I know I am not.

I get so overwhelmed by the enormity of life, the complexity of dealing with the relationships I am involved in. I know I am procrastinating and being lazy, I know I should be the early bird.

I just don't know how.