the beginning of the end

in our house right now, we have what is known as "the beginning of the end".  charles starts clearing post today, which means that at some point in the next several weeks, he will be taking up residence in a country somewhere on the other side of the world and we will begin the adventure of raising our 6 month old son from separate continents.  i feel a vague looming cloud in the future, but for the most part i try not to dwell on the specifics.  i don't yet know how i will deal with it and how it will play out.  all i know for sure is that it will suck and be very difficult.  there are many things to do between now and then though.  bank accounts to be shuffled, powers of attorney to get, mass quantities of packing to be done, etc.  we dont even know for sure when he'll leave.  we have a "week" but even that could change because he's requested an extension of his leave to allow him a chance to make another trip back to wichita to see his family.  we also don't know if he'll be able to come back part way through the year.  we looked up flight prices last week: $1600-2300.  considering that we plan to use this time to get out of debt, it would somewhat defeat the purpose if so much money was spent.  but we'll see.  it's just another thing on the list of things that will probably suck a lot. 
but there are good points!  Lord knows i have to find good points or else why would i bother at all!  we have gotten very close lately and are doing very well to depend on each other.  yes, that may seem like a very bad point given that we are about to be ripped apart and not able to be together, but you'd be amazed what you can accomplish together when you're physically apart.  i also have been working on great plans for home renovations while he's gone.  the basement is definitely a priority, as are the garage and the landscaping.  obviously, my parents will play a huge roll in this - which leads into another good point: support.  my parents will be up even more than they have been, a couple of other friends have offered to come for a visit, my neighbor and her husband will be very helpful and supportive, and my friend christina is already jumping on the band wagon and getting me out of the house for times when i am alone.  i'm also exercising again.  i did so 4 times last week: 2 nights i went to a class and 2 days i went on long walks with 2 different friends.  i learned very vividly this summer that i cannot be as much of a loner as i want to be, it is unhealthy for me (or anyone for that matter).  phone calls are good, but human interaction is just necessary. 
so while my misery is eminent, i'm doing my best to focus on the things that will get me through the transition until i can establish a new routine: support, plans, exercise and generally keeping busy. 
prayer intentions: controlling my anger.  one of the stages of transition that always seem to creep in when he leaves is the anger/resentment.  it is obviously not good and definitely not fair to him, but with the baby in the equation and my anger always so close to the surface these days anyway, it is a major contributor to what scares me about the situation.  my mental health is slippery, at best, for the most part and i fear what will happen when the "balance" of my world is upset. 
another intention: this weekend i was told of a possible job opportunity  that would be a substantial pay raise.  it would be a very difficult job, but i can do it, and it would be worth it to not have to stress about money.  i would not leave my current job if it weren't for the opportunity of actually being able to pay all my bills.
making me happy: there is a sams club opening at legends next month, i'm very exited.

little man: he's still super smiley and teething.  cereal consumption is going better but still hit or miss.  he'll be having his 6 month checkup a cuople of weeks late, but thankfully he has not had so much as a sniffle so there are no complaints there.  he sleeps about 10 hrs a night.  he rolls and scoots around but no crawling yet, but it's coming soon i think. 

i look at this whenever i need a smile:

trudging

To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on.

anyone else feel like that?  i sure have been lately.  charles has been working so hard lately to get the house as fixed up as possible before he leaves that we're both left pretty much financially screwed.  financially, i feel like we're on one of those fair rides that's the big huge viking boat that goes back and forth until you inevitably get stuck upsidedown with your coins falling out of your pockets, every major organ lodged at the top of your skull and the overwhelming urge to throw up all while convincing yourself that you must be having a good time because after all, this is a ride - and rides are supposed to be fun. 
charles' grandfather has also unexpectedly passed away, this last saturday.  thankfully, i got the call friday evening that he had fallen and was on life support; charles was able to leave work and get there before the machines were turned off.  he has since been with his family navigating some waters that are extremely difficult and i hate that he is doing it alone.  i'll be heading that way after work today and am anxious to be with him. 
this last few days apart and with extremely minimal contact have been rough for me.  they are a fairly good indication of how i will cope when he leaves for korea and it scares the hell out of me because i do not think i'm coping as well as i should be.  much depends on my strength, and it is not an option for me to be weak when he leaves.  or now, for that matter, although it's happening.  (at least in my opinion)  but i'll figure it out.  i have a couple of great and attentive friends here who are ready to help with whatever i need and i have resigned myself to the fact that i will need to suck up my pride and ask them from time to time.  my parents will be life savers, of course, and i am eternally greatful that i can count on them for anything.  so i'm piecing things together slowly.  i have just a couple more months to put a plan in place that will put my and charles' mind at ease before he goes.  it's amazing how overwhelming life can be.
on a much happier note - a couple very very good friends of ours were in town this week to visit.  that made me very happy.

being one with dave

in the weeks before the baby was born, my employer offered to pay for anyone who was interested to take the dave ramsey financial peace university course for free.  this is ordinarily costs a couple hundred dollars but the district would pay for it provided that you complete the course.  on the brink of a major financial life change, i figured it would be a great idea to participate.  (side note, i just used the hashing out text thing for the first time, how exciting!) 
so yea, 7 weeks of unpaid maternity leave and a few hundred dollars loaned out later, i'm pretty much up the financial creek and it's not cool.  so things are evening out now and i just found out last week that i'm getting a whole 3% raise so i figured it was high time to get back on the band wagon and get my shiznit together.
for the sake of pretending like i'm having a conversation with you, whoever you happen to be, i'm going to list out my efforts:
1. made my pathetic excuse for a "gazelle budget" http://www.daveramsey.com/tools/budget-lite/ based on my monthly income of about $2000.  discovered that the outflow surpasses the income by about $150. 
2. called the bank with my car loan to find the payoff amount - about $17,500 in case you're curious (just keepin it real).  looked up blue book value - about $28,000.
3. researched used car trade ins that might give me a snowballs chance in hell of being able to buy as much food as i think i should buy every week.  called husband to consult.  was advised to keep plugging away with current vehicle.  requested budget pow wow asap.
4. re-worked budget to ensure that all bills were paid and made realistic goals and devised a plan to accomplish them.  for some reason making a budget is actually very easy but making it REALISTIC is not.  this is why i thought i could make ends meet by taking a $4 an hour paycut last september.  good times.  so i now have a REALISTIC budget.
5. prepare for life in realistic budget mode.  i can do this!  i CAN do this!  i can DO this!  i can do THIS!
.............
yea.  should be interesting.

just checking in

so my summer of "working 10 hour days" is about half way done and although it's nice to get 3 uninterrupted days with my son, i will be glad when it's over.  although i get paid for 40 hours of work each week, i doubt that i have even been able to scrape together one solitary hour of actual work.  so these days of sitting here like a grown up in front of a computer at a nice wooden desk with my own phone line are mostly just a sham that prevents me from actually accomplishing such earth-shattering tasks as "laundry", "vacuming", "cooking", or dare i say - "sleep!".  but whatever, it's a paycheck.  and for the most part, it pays the bills.
my health and fitness regime is going fairly well.  i may or may not have eaten a few cookies for dinner sunday, but otherwise it really is going ok and i am pleased to say that my black work capris which were unbuttonable 2 weeks ago are borderline loose this week.  it seems there is more than a grain of truth to the 70% diet/30% exercise line because i dont think i was able to do my workout video once last week because i pulled a muscle in my back the week before.  but all is well now and i am happily eating well on a 3 hour schedule and doing my best to balance it out as the pantry/fridge will allow.  i cant buy groceries till friday so things are about to get pretty creative, but i'll make it work.  i will weigh and measure myself again on sunday - the 1st.  so although i dont think there will be as big of a change as i had planned, i am content in the knowledge that i basically did my best and my plan of not beating myself up about it seems to be going well.  Lord knows i need to cling to whatever makes life easier right now.  i'm having a hell of a time!  i see my husband for about 10 hours a week and not at all on some days.  i usually get to talk to him on the phone a couple times a week outside of that time too, today being oneof the days i should get to do both.  (yay!)  i can honestly say that i am not at all struggling with taking care of the baby by myself, i just get lonely for him and also hate it that he misses out on so much with the baby, who he sees less of than he sees me.  all around, our schedules just blow.  but he'll start his leave at the end of september so we'll just hold on till then.  and i am of the opinion that i'll actually talk to him more when he's in korea than i do now, so i'm not really worried about that.  i know it's a silly thing to complain about when there are so many people worse off, it's just wearing on me.  so if i happen to go off the deep end - at least you had some warning.
cameron is doing very well.  he has been having a MAJOR growth spurt this last week and has almost doubled his intake.  i'm keeping up with him but i'd be lying if i said it didnt feel like i spent my weekend feeding and pumping.  but that's not entirely true, i also spent it packing up his 0-3mo clothes and brining out the 3-6's.  he certainly doesn't look like a newborn anymore and i have no idea how this has happened.  but he continues to be a very happy little guy and although he's more and more squirmy every day, he does very well to keep himself entertained and is  easy to calm.  i hope to be able to buy him one of those great bouncy exercise saucer chair things soon.  he's not to much for the swing that we have but loves his laying back bouncy chair.  he's getting better in the bumbo seat (although last night i was afraid he had gotten stuck in it because his fat little legs wouldnt come out until i held down the seat with my elbow while pulling his body out of it) but when you pick him up his little legs push and flap so i think he'll really enjoy something that allows him to work on those thunder thighs.  overall - being his mother is supremely magical.  there have been a number of times when, due to stress or sleep-deprivation or whatever, i have been extremely down or grumpy and just when i think i'm about ot break he will look into my eyes and let out this huge grin and make his nerdy laugh sound and it almost moves me to tears.  God sure knows how to orchestrate that emotional ebb and flow in me.  i can be sitting in his room rocking his squirmy squirmy squirmy little self against my body (because he occasionally decides that he in no way is interested in laying down in my arms) and patting his back quietly thinking about all the things i have to do for the next day before i can go to sleep an hour or so later.  when everything around me is threatening to overwhelm me i will feel his little breath sigh on my neck and his body will go limp with sleep and i just can't stand to put him down in his crib.  even though i know he's out, i will just continue to rock him because this peaceful time is the cherry on top of the sundae that he already is.  it is filling me up with the strength i need to plow through one more day with relative grace.  there are many more important things to be thankful for than there are to be stressed about and that little boy manages to remind me every day of just that.

ouch

i see no reason to make the general population of facebook made aware of this situation but i wanted to "say it out loud" somewhere for accountability purposes: i started p90x this weekend.  i also took a "before" photo, but i won't subject you to that until i have an "after" photo to turn your attentions toward.
charles started swing shift on friday, so he is gone from noon to about 10:30pm.  other than the fact that he isn't there to calm the baby when he cries, this is actually very helpful (at least as exercising is concerned) because i do not feel comfortable exercising around him - partly for my own insecurities and partly because he has a way of being "supportive" that is less than ideal.  plus i am able to work on my nutrition without planning for both of us.  the whole p90x thing is 90 days of some hellatious videos that are about an hour long. then they break the whole program up into 3-30 day sections.  the first section you're supposed to focus on increasing protein and eliminating carbs; second section you can add some carbs; third section you can add more carbs because you're supposed to be on an "athlete's diet"... psh!  so yea, eliminating carbs is HARD!  i thought i ate fairly well but my goodness is my diet heavy on the pasta!  (imagine that...)  and pretty much all of my dinner staples involve pasta.  i guess because it's cheap and easy and i'm good at pasta dishes.  so yea, i made a big ass lasagna thursday night thinking that it would feed us through the weekend and i wouldnt have to cook much.  great plan, except that charles started swings friday and hasnt eaten a full meal at home all weekend.  it's pretty bad when you have to text your husband to request that he save you from the pan of lasagna.  but whatever, hopefully he helps me out.
so yea, p90x.... 
the end of the 90 days is approximately the beginning of september.  so if i can stick with it until then, i will turn my focus towards running - because that (running) and being able to do actual sit ups *gasp!* are two HUGE goals of mine. 
here goes nothin!

did mary have stretch marks?

so yesterday i posted partly about the great struggle of fitting in exercise in the sleep-deprived life of a woman with a new baby.  bolstered by the blog comments (see how important this is to me???) and the absolutely beautiful weather last night - 73* at the end of May is fantastic - i loaded up the baby in the stroller and set off down the road for the 2.5 mile treck there and back.  the last time  exercised was at the end of april, right before i went back to work (and discovered how tired i could really be).  it took me 52 minutes that day in the heat.  last night it took me 51 minutes.  not a grand improvement, but it's something.  and i DID it, even though i had worked for 10 hrs and the baby has been up every 3 hrs the last couple of nights.  i left my husband on the couch and took off down the road to push a stroller and stare at my baby while he slept.  not bad.  go me.
so by the time i got home i was naturally pretty sweaty, the baby was hungry, he needed a bath, i had to make lunches, feed myself, PUMP for the love of all that is holy, and generally prepare for today - while also trying to interact somehow for at least a few minutes with the husband before he went to sleep.  so at some point in the litany of chores above, i found myself in the nursery feeding the baby, still sweaty and smelly but holding my freshly-washed child close all the same.  (eh, i'll just wipe him down with baby wipes later.  he's bound to puke on  himself anyway...)  this is the time that i have found to really enjoy praying.  there's something about holding this gift in your arms, knowing that he is the closest thing to you who has most recently been with God.  i can't look into his sweet little face and NOT think about being thankful and blessed.  but last night i was thinking about those things and also how gross i was from exercising, and i found myself wondering if mary ever had a similar experience.
did the sinless woman put on too much baby weight?  i like to think not.  she would not have been a gluttonous person, even if the nazorean equivilant of sonic cheeseburgers and chili cheese fries had been available to her, she would have treated her body well - like a sinless woman would.  or would God have spared her from stretch marks because he would figure that she had enough to deal with already?  it's not like her clothing would have been form fitting so that people would know that she had a few extra pounds after jesus was born, but ol' joseph would have probably gotten a peek.  and HE wasn't sinless, did he give her a hard time about it?  but then, she was young, so her body probably bounced back pretty quickly. 
then i found myself thinking - how can i be more like mary in this situation?  clearly i can't rewind my body 15 years, or even15 months.  i have to make due with what i have now.  but maybe i can not beat myself up about it so much.  yes, i am unhappy with my body, mostly my chin(s).  but that doesnt mean that my body isn't awesome.  it did make a baby, afterall.  so i can be a bit more nice to myself.  along the same lines, i can give my nice body better fuel.  i don't imagine mary was an unreasonable emotional eater who reached for a snack cake everytime she got into a "discussion" with her husband.  not only would it not have been available to her, but she would have been more serene and obedient to her spouse - you know, like a sinless woman.  (granted, her spouse maybe wasnt such an asshole sometimes, but still...)  emotional eating is just the action of a weak person.  i know i'm weak.  and i know that overcoming those times is difficult.  i'm going to try to think of more ways that i can be like mary though, because i choose to believe that she had herself together a bit better than i do.  she had a pretty direct connection to God, but i see no reason why i can't have that too.  just something to think about...

life goes on

i am bored at work.  starting yesterday and through the summer i am working monday-thursday for 10 hrs with a 3 day weekend.  it would actually be pretty awesome if it werent for the fact that i don't have much work to do, i dont get much sleep, and the schedule leaves me only about 2 hrs of decent time with my family each day.  but hey, at least i have this job and at least i do get that 2 hrs.  also, i think the 3 day weekend thing will be pretty awesome.  so if nothing else, at least i know that the summer will pass quickly.  although with a little one in our world, i dont think i'm such a fan of time passing quickly anymore.
speaking of said little one, he is doing well.  over the weekend he really improved his tracking and can now pick people out (me - yay!) in the room with his eyes.  he is also smiling more, which is heavenly.  this weekend i aim to take and post more pictures of him because he's just changing so quickly i don't want to miss out on documenting it! 
i am also very pleased about how the day care situation has panned out.  as much as i'd love to be a stay at home mom, it's just not a possibility for us.  i have had the baby on the waiting list for daycare on post since august and so when i went back to work at the beginning of May, we had to find care for him until there was a space available.  enter the wife of one of charles' former co-workers.  aka - a friend who lives on post.  she and her husband have 2 amazing little boys already, she keeps an incredibly clean house, and if it werent for the fact that i want to do it myself, i would TOTALLY let her raise my children.  i know a lot of great parents, but wow.  her 3 year old can read and spells about 30 words, both boys sign, instead of doing that annoying kid thing where they incessantly repeat everything people around them say, they will ask permission of their parents to say something if it is exciting enough to repeat.  they also tell me, in the cutest little boy voice ever, to "have a good day!!" every morning when i drop off the baby.  they LOVE my son, all of them do, and i am rediculously pleased to say that even though i got a call last week that the daycare can place my son on post, my friend is perfectly willing to keep him in her house until they  move.  this had not been my original plan because i didn't want to have to put cameron through the transition when his current provider leaves, but the closer it came to the time of getting a call and placing him in a larger facility with a 4:1 kid to provider ratio, the more i just wanted nothing more than for him to be with ms. shellie for as long as humanly possible.  and so it shall be!  they are staying in the area at least until March so he will have the best care possible for at least his first year of life.  it will suck when they leave, but i decided to sacrifice the ease of transition in order to gain the best care.  i'm going to teach him some signs and she will work with him also.  overall and in many aspects, it is a complete relief to know that if i can't stay home and raise my son, he is with someone who will do as good if not a better job.  plus, she has asked to be paid less than half of what the center on post charges (which is already a substantial discount from off post care); but we're paying her more anyway because she's definitely worth it. 
here's a beastly topic: exercise.  how does one find time to exercise on such little sleep when working long hours with a baby?  yea, i dont know either.  but i'm going to give it my best shot.  charles has agreed to help by taking point on the baby watching in the evenings as he is able.  my struggle, in addition to the sleep and time thing, is taking myself away from them.  i do not want to load up the baby and go out to exercise because of mosquitos, so i will either work out at home or go to the gym after work.  both take time away from my boys.  time with both is too precious for words and i need it to keep me sane and whole.  but i also need to feel good about myself and be healthy - oddly for the same reasons.  i think i'm pretty much where i was before i got pregnant, so i'm not saying that i'm totally nasty or anything, i just need to do better.  need to BE better.  it's a constant struggle and no one can do it but me.
so yea, that's a good rambly post for ya - enjoy!