I was pleasantly surprised today when both of my children were whisked away to grandma's house for a little while...at grandma's request. Since her breast cancer diagnosis she has been limited physically and emotionally by the situation and the two surgeries she has had so far. She is a really fun, get down in the floor to play, piggy back ride giving grandma so her limitations have been hard for the kids to understand and for her to endure while she is around them and can't do what she is used to doing. But today she had someone at her house to help her and she insisted on them coming over for a while to play and after a few minutes of her assuring me that she felt well today I agreed. She has been such a trooper through this! I often wonder if my outlook would be the same or if I would completely crumble under the enormity of it all.
So strange how things work out...God truly does have a plan...Jamey's mom, the primary caregiver of my children gets diagnosed with breast cancer and I lose my job shortly thereafter, thus solving the problem of who will keep the kids while she gets better. Another very strange thing is that we always seemed somewhat tight on money but when we sat down together and figured our bills (including some minor cutbacks of course) we discover that we are actaully going to be okay with some budgeting tricks and downgrading to a cheaper vehicle. I would have never believed it unless I saw it in black and white. God is GREAT! Where in the world did we blow my salary before I lost my job????!!!!
Oh yeah...getting back to the fact that I had a babysitter today....what do you ask did I do today during the first free time I have had in two straight weeks? I was treated to a trip to Walmart no less to pick up carpet cleaner and other supplies and tomorrow I get to treat myself to the actual act of cleaning the carpet upstairs!!!! I would have cleaned the carpet today as well but I didn't want to overload my fun-o-meter for the day...I thought I would save a little fun for tomorrow...have to pace myself you know! :-) Before I lost my job and our income was suddenly cut in half we were talking about getting wood flooring for the upstairs rooms to match the downstairs but now that really doesn't fit into the budget so I guess I will be scrubbing carpets tomorrow. The carpet was pretty bad when we moved in five years ago...you should see it now...two kids and one cocker spaniel later. Not going to be fun tomorrow. I have full confidence that the much advertised miracle product that I bought today will have them so clean I will be able to see myself in them!!! He he he.
The reason I started blogging was to kind of track my state of mind regarding being unemployed, total lifestyle change...yody, yoda, yoda...well....my state of mind is still great as of today! I am still loving the toxic, green, slimy stress of my former job being gone from my life!!!! I have other stress...motherhood stress, keeping my house clean stress, my father -in-law being in town living on my couch for several days listening to him and my hubby talk about sports for hours on end stress, rainy days that won't end so I can't get the kids outside to play off tons of energy stress, what's for dinner stress, dirty carpet that smells like pee stress, mom in a funk so I call her 3 or 4 times a day to lend an ear even though she is a downer to talk to stress, being frustrated because hubby's sister and her husband are freeloading off his mom and WON'T MOVE OUT OF HER HOUSE and she doesn't even know she is being taken advantage of stress, I have no clothes that fit my fat butt anymore and now we are too poor to buy me more unless they are from a yard sale stress, now that I don't work with the great women at my former office I feel like I don't have any friends even though they have been keeping in touch and we are going to lunch stress...I think you get it....I do still have stress but it is such a different grade of it and I can turn it off quite easily when I want to...probably because I am chasing a toddler and a preschooler around constantly and don't really have time to stress.
I REALLY LOVE BLOGGING!!!! I love it because you never know what direction it will go in. Very theraputic!!! Exactly the reason I started doing this!
YOU ARE BLOGGING!!!! I am going to scold Jess for not directing me to your blog! I am glad you got a break!
ReplyDeleteThat is great. It is amazing when you really crunch the numbers and see that very little of the income from a second job actually goes to making life better, and if the job causes you stress, it might be better not to have it.
ReplyDeleteI hope your MIL continues to feel better. My mom had breast cancer in the fall of 2006. It was very scary, but she is well now.
One sunny afternoon, I plan to invite all the stay-at-home moms I know over for some wine & whine while the kids run wild outside.