Since I've been lagging in my blog responsibilities...

I'm overdue for my Thankfulness blog. While it isn't a particularly original topic this time of year, I'm still holding myself to the edict I made here. I am going to change up the format a little. I wasn't able to keep up with my daily items very well this time with all the holiday traveling, so I thought I'd try more of a narrative feel.

My last Thankful post was on November 12th. Therefore, I have 17 days to account for. Technically, then, I would owe you 51 items to be thankful for. (Please, take a moment to be wowed by my mathematical genius... okay, fine... I used a calculator.) However, that sort of obsessive need for details and to follow the rules to their ridiculous end kinda takes the meaning out of it, doesn't it?? And, that same part of my personality is one I believe I could use some work on. I'm just going to ramble away and see where it goes.

Sad but true... I'm ecstatic about the fact that a friend insisted that I buy and read the Twilight book series. They were fantastic and I spent an entire weekend doing nothing but reading all four of them. Seriously. The laundry pile reached mass proportions and threatened to take over the world but I didn't care!!! What is it about vampires (and sometimes pirates, arrogant princes, and other manly men images) that seem to make us all googly-eyed? Heck, I wanted to be a vampire by the time I was done.

On with it.... I'm thankful for an entire 9 days away from work. I didn't even THINK about it for 5 of them! Those blissful days entitled me to some serious family time with not only my kids and Mike but also with both my and his families. We spent a great deal of time in a car, but the kids are seasoned travelers so other than our cramped quarters it was fairly painless. It's shocking the amount of stuff that we cram into the Explorer before we even put us in it.

I'm glad that we got to spend time with Mike's mom. She doesn't get to see the kids very often (once or twice a year) and this time they were all old enough to remember her from the last visit. The last time she came up to our house back in the spring, Abby asked her when Granny Nina was coming to visit (in case you haven't guessed, Granny Nina is Mike's mom...oops). It's unfortunate that she lives so far away, but since neither of us are willing to move it's a situation we make the best of when we can.

I'm thankful for the size of our family. My side of the family is fairly small, but Mike's is HUGE. Divorced parents will do that for you, I guess, but the kids really enjoy the fact that they get multiple iterations of the same holiday with different groups of people. They are loved by a lot of great people and that is something that I will never take for granted.

I am utterly and completely thankful for spending the morning doing completely girly and out-of-character things like dressing my kids up and curling their hair with BOWS even. They love to have their hair curled and I'm not a complete monster - even I can operate a curling iron if necessary.

I'm glad for the wonderful day we spent with my family. I'm still very, very selfish about spending the actual holiday with my family. Mike doesn't mind and I'm VERY thankful for that, because I've never spent a single holiday without them. For those of you that know me, you know that my Mommy and Daddy are quite possibly the greatest people on earth. I don't know of anyone that has been around for longer than a few seconds that hasn't had the privilege of being spoiled by them.

I have some GREAT pictures from that day that I'll post later.

I'm sure I didn't make it anywhere near 51 items. It didn't seem appropriate somehow since the items that did make it are pretty significant. I would be remiss if I didn't say I was glad about beer, though. It doesn't reach the level of Thankful or Ecstatic but it holds its own. :) Hope you all had as great a holiday as I did.

This week's list of things I was thankful for

Thursday, Nov. 6

1. A work meeting on the need and value of training people. I was actually fired up about something work-related for the first time in a loooonnnnggg time. Maybe I've found my calling.
2. Granny & Papa. This falls in the category of really, really, REEAAALLLYY thankful.
3. JEANS DAY!!! Every Thursday you can donate $1 to wear jeans to work. I'd pay $5 but don't tell them that.

Friday, Nov. 7

1. Happy, healthy babies. I take them for granted far too often.
2. Short work days! I left at lunch!
3. Really, really good friends. I don't have a lot of them, but the ones I have are truly great.
4. Super-smart kids. Hannah's parent-teacher conference was tonight.

Saturday, Nov. 8

1. Five wonderful years spent with my Ryley Taylor (okay, so I cheated a few days - she turns 5 on the 10th)
2. A great afternoon with family, which produced this opportunity


3. A well-planned and well-executed day... no rushing around or forgetting things.

Sunday, Nov. 9

1. Watching Hannah at a gym meet and getting little shivers of excitement when I saw how far she's come from last year. I'll post video if I can.
2. A no-laundry weekend. And no, I don't mean that there wasn't any to do....please. that's right, I didn't do ANY.
3. A generally nice day weather-wise and otherwise.

Monday, Nov. 10

1. Nobody said "It sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays" to me. Wait. Yes they did, but they were totally kidding. (If you haven't seen Office Space that comment will make no sense to you.)
2. A warm, toasty house. I went all crazy and turned the thermostat up to....72!!!
3. Giggling in bed with Mike. (Okay, mostly I giggled. Boys don't really giggle, do they?)

Tuesday, Nov. 11

1. Sick days home from work. Not so much thankful for the sick part as for the sleeping all day part and watching stupid movies part.
2. Dayquil. Wonderful stuff. Nyquil. Even better.
3. Not having to cook dinner (Thanks Papa!)

Wednesday, Nov. 12th

1. A truly productive day at work. Stop laughing. It really happened!!!
2. My boss returning to work soon. Seriously.
3. A luxury lunch at Copeland's with Mike. Yummy. Extra bonus when we saw that they deep-fry turkeys for Thanksgiving, which in turn became my culinary contribution to Thanksgiving Dinner (you can laugh at that one. I can totally cook but SO choose not to.)

All in all, a nice, quiet, slow week.

Report on extra-credit work from last week (Three things I said I'd work on):
Patience, patience, patience... It's in short supply and as a result I'm losing my cool far more often than I should. If I did better at all, it was a small improvement. Abby continues to wet her pants after going 3 months without doing so and I'm LOSING MY MIND!!!
Creating more opportunities for events to be thankful for - stop using "I'm too tired" as an excuse. I did better here. I let my kids play with makeup and tonight we're getting the fish tank ready for Hannah's new goldfish.
Calmly and rationally telling my husband why I'm irritated instead of letting it fester until I blow up. I think I only blew up once, and it was a small blow-up. A "poof" really. Not the "KA-BOOM" kind. Maybe you should ask him how I'm doing. (Then you will immediately tell me everything he said!!) Oh dear, I really haven't made it far at all. Better luck next week :)

Did I give my "everything" today?

I've just finished reading the latest post on one of the blogs I follow - Bring the Rain (link on the right of my blog). The song that plays when you first open is called "All that I can say" and one of the lines in the song is "This is all that I can give, that's my everything". I was looking for a topic for today's blog, and that's a good one.

Did I give my "everything" today?

Did I whole-heartedly go after this day?

The answer is NO.

I'm usually a go-getter kind of person. At least until lately. Actually, that's probably not true. There's been an ever-increasing level of apathy in my attitude for some time now. I can't place my finger on when it started, but I guess that really isn't the important part anyway.

There was a time when I didn't need a lot of external motivation or urging to give my best. I liked the way that doing something well made me feel, and I also liked the challenge of working on something until I got better at it. This drive and some healthy competition was all I really needed. Oh, and the fear of getting in trouble for doing something wrong. Nothing motivates me more than the possibility of getting in trouble :)

My love of sports stemmed, at least in part, from this part of my personality. Sports are always a challenge, and you can always improve... plus, there's the added bonus of competition. My competitive nature isn't the kind that always needs to defeat the other team, and it isn't particularly driven by aggression. I just felt that if I was going to do something, I shouldn't waste my time doing it at anything less than my full efforts.

Not so these days. I float through my days on a "make it through" philosophy. I'm in a hurry to just get things done so I can move on to the next thing, or worse, I simply put the things off in the hopes that I won't ultimately need to do them.

Today at work, I knew going into the day that it would be a short work day and that I would be going home after lunch. I also knew there was only one item that I had to complete in that time, and that item would take less than an hour. However, instead of completing that item and moving on to other items with later due dates, I goofed off. I found many distractions to rationalize it.

I know in my head that completing those other items (or at least starting them) would 1) make for a much easier time later on, 2) result in a better work product, and 3) drastically reduce my stress levels because I won't have to worry about them anymore. What happened to the internal drive to do things well? Has it been replaced by a lesser drive to just get things done when I HAVE to, or worse, no drive at all? I wish I could say the behavior has been perpetuated by an environment where the workload in unreasonable and therefore it is impossible to get everything done to the level of my satisfaction. If that were true, how did I manage to do exactly that for the first three years I worked there?

The same applies to how I deal with my kids in certain situations. I'll put off putting them in the bathtub or I'll decide it's "time" for them to learn to bathe themselves (they can, but are easily distracted and "forget" to wash) until it's way past bedtime, and then I rush them around getting them dry and in jammies. In the rush, of course, there's no time for bedtime stories or talking. I'm ashamed to say that more often than not I make Hannah read to them anyway. I rationalize THAT by telling myself it's good for her... which it is, but not in the way it should be. If I were giving my "everything," I'd lay down with all of them while she was reading to them, and then we'd all talk about the book together. Instead, I substitute Hannah for me because it gets the job done. In no deep corner or far reaches of my imagination do I believe this is parenting done well. I feel guilty, and I should.

The greater question is, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? It's the easiest question in the world to ask... and the hardest one to answer. How do I make myself take the time to do the job well in a day that is a total whirlwind from the second the alarm goes off until I pass out in bed with the kids? I can't answer that yet. I need to work on making sure I realize all the times I don't give everything I have, because I fear it's more often than I think. And maybe I should hire someone scary to supervise so there's the threat of being in trouble. Apply in your comment and be sure to use your best authoritative tone :)

I'd love to hear if any of you have had similar issues, and whether or not you've found something that works to get you back on track. I'm at a loss on this one.

Daily Account of Thankfulness

As a result of my realization that I am just going through the motions, I've decided to post a daily account of 3 things I'm thankful/appreciative of. In the interest of time, I'll post weekly with the items by day for that week.

I set ground rules: I cannot use an item more than once a week... so I can't cheat by using my husband and kids every post. The items do not have to be monumental or life-changing necessarily - there is joy to be found in small stuff too.
Hopefully this exercise will provoke me to stop and smell the proverbial roses...

I'll start easy... I'll start my account from last Friday (mostly because I cannot honestly remember what happened before then - thus the need for the exercise). By the way, these are in no particular order of importance...

Friday, October 31
I was thankful for...

1. The nice weather for Halloween. The last few Halloweens have had cold, rainy, windy weather.
2. The kind interaction of complete strangers in my office with my children.
3. A stress-free (and coincidentally work-free) day at the office.

Saturday, November 1

1. Sleeping in to the late hour of.... 8:00 a.m. Seriously, it was wonderful.
2. My dad keeping the kids for me so I could go run tryouts for our local junior volleyball club
3. A quiet, uneventful day that ended with a calm dinner with just the girls and I (Mike went to the Razorback game)

Sunday, November 2

1. Spending time with my girls decorating sweatshirts. It was horribly messy and they absolutely loved it.
2. Lounging in the bed with Mike for almost a full hour after we woke up. Normally he wakes up before me and doesn't like to stay in bed, so it was a nice treat.
3. Daylight savings time. An extra hour of sleep that magically appears... wonderful.

Monday, November 3

1. The sun being up on my drive to work.
2. Mike and I having lunch together.
3. The giant hugs and the awesome sound of "Mommy!" being yelled when I picked the little girls up from daycare.

Tuesday, November 4

1. A full, productive day at work with minimal interruptions. They're very rare these days.
2. The tree tunnel. It's the leg of my drive to work where the road is not only lined with trees but the branches stretch over the road, giving the illusion of being in a tunnel. It's absolutely stunning in the fall.
3. An extremely tiring but enjoyable evening of semi-competitive volleyball with good friends...

Wednesday, November 5

1. Wednesdays being my short work days and the day that Hannah and I get some alone time.
2. The Question game that we play at dinnertime. It started with the normal "How was your day" stuff and evolved into a way to entertain everyone at the table, including me. (I suggest the KidChat books... lots of fun questions for kids like "If you could make something else besides snow or rain fall out of the sky, what would it be?" Hannah wanted kittens, Ryley opted for mice, and Abigail wanted hot dogs. It's a fun game, even for the smaller girls.)
3. The freckles on Ryley's nose. She only has four or five, they're in a semi-straight line, and they're so cute.

Extra credit.... Three things to work on for next week:

1. Patience, patience, patience... It's in short supply and as a result I'm losing my cool far more often than I should.
2. Creating more opportunities for events to be thankful for - stop using "I'm too tired" as an excuse.
3. Calmly and rationally telling my husband why I'm irritated instead of letting it fester until I blow up.

Photo blog - A good week

One of my all-time favorite pictures... even if it is blurry.

Remember the day I didn't turn on the TV? We played "airplane" instead...

A little Halloween preview of Batgirl, Nancy Drew, and Hannah Montana.

And finally... I went outside one morning and found this illusion in the dew on the grass. Not a religious person generally, but this was just too cool. There didn't seem to be anything causing the reflection that I could see.

Volleyball

I play in a women's volleyball league every fall. We started back up tonight and it was U-G-L-Y - UGLY.

Some history - I started playing volleyball in 8th grade at the encouragement of my basketball coach (she was also the volleyball coach). I was moderately athletic, so why not (translation - I could sometimes walk without tripping). I had been a cheerleader during volleyball season in my seventh grade year (yikes!) and didn't care for it, so I was excited. Had zero clue how to play, about the rules - and there are many, nothing. But, I was tall.

I loved it. Never looked back - played year-round from then on in high school and in club/Junior Olympic (sounds really official, doesn't it?). Got a scholarship to Lyon, a little liberal arts college in Batesville, AR... very small, perfect for someone from a small town who is terrified of change... where I could still play competitively but not have it encompass my entire life.

I'll admit I have never worked at it or any other sport to my full potential. I didn't really "train" like most athletes, didn't diet, didn't work out on my own... but, just playing as often as I did I was in good shape. There was muscle definition. And no jigglies. I had abs, people - and the rear end was a little north of where it is now and definitely a much smaller acreage.

I got burned out. I had a temperamental coach (I swear she was bipolar) my last season, and I let her suck all the fun out of it for me. The operative phrase is "I let her" because it's true. I chose to let her get in my head. Anyway, the point is that I didn't play at all for a few years after I graduated.

I tell you, volleyballers are like a little club - we find other players wherever we go. A lady at work played and introduced me to a group of guys that played in our work fitness center during lunch. I was excited to get back in....until the next day when I couldn't lift my arm or cough without crying, anyway! Of course, that group introduced me to the women's league players, who introduced me to a co-ed league and also to the local club team that I helped coach last year. I was back! I played myself back into shape, played at least twice a week, sometimes twice a day!

Then... life happened. I had babies. That's a good 9-12 month sabbatical. I worked crazy hours and playing meant staying at work even later. I got back to playing at lunch - fought off the soreness, even started jogging on the off days to get in better shape - regained a small portion of my vertical jump. Work again - didn't make it to play for another 6 months off and on.

So... tonight I played for the first time since two months ago, which was the first time I'd played in more like 6 months... No abs - no vertical - no muscle tone - LOTS of jigglies - no comment on the rear end. I'm already stiff (just finished playing an hour ago!), and I'm positive I'll be sore tomorrow. The sad part is that the other team wasn't very good and I'm not sure I broke a sweat...


Oh, and update on yesterday's blog. I did not turn on the TV. The girls and I played with the new kittens, I cooked dinner, and the only time I said 'No' was when Abby asked if she could have dessert in her bed. I also purchased some books with conversation-starting questions geared towards kids for dinnertime. So far, we're doing okay.

Just going through the motions

Yep, it's a two-fer blog day.

I've been slowly coming to realization that I have just been going through the motions of my life. I get up, get the kids up, ship them off to school or Mom's, head to work, work, go to lunch, work, get kids, go home, and go to bed. I get no real joy out of any of it. It's as if my life has been calendared by someone else, and I'm just going from appointment to appointment.

Do not mis-interpret that to mean that I don't love my kids or my husband. I absolutely do. But I struggle with how I love them - how I show them that I love them. It occurred to me that I don't really show them at all like I wish I did. How many times have my kids asked to do something simple - like make cookies from pre-made dough - that I respond to with "Later"? Does "Later" ever come? Not usually. And, how many times have I yelled at them for interrupting a TV program? A stupid TV program that I DVR'd anyway, and can watch anytime?

And my poor husband... when was the last time we made time just for us? Oh, I don't know... around 8-9 years ago? (Well, maybe 4 years ago - we did have Abby!! ;) ) Even sadder - when was the last day that passed that I didn't yell at him for something I thought he should have done? The saddest - the last time we kissed (I mean really kissed... TMI, I know...)? Talked about our future - in singular form - rather than our futures - plural form?

The real clincher isn't even these things, even though I know they are terrible things. It's that every day I think about how terrible these things are and ways I can change them... and every day I go right back to doing them.

Apparently I have the temper, patience, and resolve of a two-year-old.

I rant and rave about the "fairness" of things to Mike - who does laundry more, who cleans more, who bathes the kids more, dinner, and so on... where in our vows did it say "Thou shalt take turns doing the chores"? Is this Kindergarten? And... would I like how he did those things anyway? I not only want him to do these things, I want him to do them how and when I say to do them. (For the record, we had the "obey" part removed from our vows...) I'm sure his view is that I'll re-do whatever he does (or point out the flaws in his end product) anyway, so what's the point.

Ew. Putting down all of this on paper is harsh. I've not only been going through the motions, I've been forcing everyone around me to go through my motions - my way- with me! Laundry must be folded this way. The kids must be in the bathtub at 8:30 (never happens). You must put this outfit on the girls - absolutely NOT that one. No dogs in the house. Why aren't the dogs in the house? Put the dogs out! Let them in!

If you read the previous blog, you may wonder how this can exhaust me if I'm just doing the same things everyday anyway. It's a valid question, and I asked myself the same thing. I firmly believe that it's because I have a little internal war going on every day that this behavior continues, and I either feel helpless to change it or am angry with myself for being too weak to overcome it. It's a fruitless struggle, and I know it, yet I am reluctant to give it up.

So... I need some homework. Tonight forward I'm going to shake things up - I'm going to say "YES" to the cookies. I'm going to IGNORE the haphazardly-folded towels and say "Thank you" for folding them in the first place. I'm not turning on the TV until the girls are in bed. I'm getting off this computer RIGHT NOW and going to play with the girls. I hope to report back with good things, and I will post updates. Any ideas to help would be greatly appreciated, as well as just candid feedback about your own experiences, if you have any.

Please address any nominations for "Mother of the Year" and "Spouse of the Year" to the North Pole - I'm sure Santa needs a good laugh.