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.

Marathon Sleeping

I've found a new pasttime - marathon sleeping. Okay, okay, it's not new - I perfected it a long time ago - but I had gotten to where I resisted the urge. Lately it has been impossible.

For example, yesterday I was in our chaise and literally passed out. Cold. No alcoholic beverages were involved. At 12:30 p.m. It would be prudent to mention that I didn't get out of the bed until 9:30a.m. I stayed in my semi-lounging, head-conked-over, probably drooly position for almost two hours. Then, I woke up long enough to move into our guest bedroom, where I slept until 5:30p.m. Honestly, I could have slept for the remainder of the evening with zero trouble - I only got up because I had promised the girls we would go to our little lake and feed the ducks.

Now, my mother will tell you I've always been a sleeper. I was that kid that literally fell asleep in her dinner. In the playroom floor. In the car. At church. In the bathroom cabinets. Wherever.

However, lately I am just exhaused beyond all reason. It's very curious, this exhaustion. I have experienced many levels of exhaustion - the kind that comes after an all-day volleyball tournament where you have played 15-20 games (4-5 matches), the kind that comes with babies and frequent but broken sleep, and the mental kind that results from a non-stop day of complicated work issues. The kind I'm experiencing now is different than all of these.

In each of the other types, I could "sleep it off." This kind doesn't seem to respond to sleep. I refuse to take any kind of sleep aid because it makes me groggy and it doesn't seem to make a difference, and anyway clearly the problem is not that I can't sleep - it's that the sleep isn't restful.

I'm guessing it is a side effect of all the things that I've been struggling with lately - work, home, kids, Mike. I'll get to each of these in a separate blog eventually - I don't think I'm ready yet. I'd swear that I'm having a one-third-life crisis at 29. I'm going to post another blog later this evening on one of the major contributors to my exhaustion - I think I'm just "going through the motions" of life.

No deep thoughts today

Sorry... we had a full day and I'm pooped. We promised our youngest daughter Abigail a while ago that if she would stop wetting her pants AND start sleeping in her own bed, that we would get her a kitten. She's succeeded at both of those for the most part - still gets in our bed around 4 or 5 a.m. but that's a marked improvement. And, because we didn't want our middle daughter Ryley to feel left out, we got her a kitten too. (Our oldest would rather have a goldfish. Fine by me.) So... in the excitement of three happy little campers and two tiny kittens, I had a blissfully deep-thought free day.
I leave you with this... Abby had not put her kitten down for longer than five seconds for several hours... she was sitting on our chaise, all was well, until I hear this... "My kitten smells bad!!!" and then "EEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!!!" Yep, you guessed it... kitten poop. I think it was funnier still as Abby made little gagging noises as she went to change out of the now-poopy pants she had on.
She made the same noises last weekend while we were carving pumpkins. Apparently she's not a fan of pumpkin guts or kitten poop.

What do I want to be when I grow up??

Don't let the title fool you. I have no intention of ever "growing up." Grown-ups suck!

Moving on... I'm looking for a new career. Seriously. Well, I'm serious about looking anyway...not so much seriously doing anything about it :)

How did I get here? I did the typical student thing... started out as a pre-med major and made it all the way until my second semester of college before I gave it up. Funny story behind that... the very first core class for a pre-med major is freshman Chemistry. Oooohhhhh... that sounded exciting. Of course, my only experience with chemistry thus far was being in a high school classroom with a lab that nobody was allowed to use (apparently there were some attempts to cook meth, as well as a few beaker-bongs that turned up in lockers - not mine, really!). My school wasn't that bad, really, I never felt unsafe or anything, but as you see there were some, um, limitations to our education??? Anyway... I show up to class, suffer through memorization of the periodic chart, and manage to keep a crappy but strangely acceptable "C" level. Then came the lab of doom. The college lab was in the basement (seriously) of a very old stinky science building. There were sliding glass doors (walk-out basement, I guess) that allowed a minimal amount of light in, but were either painted or glued shut and coated with what I hope was condensation deposits. It was a sad place. I did okay there for a few weeks... until the Great Copper Experiment of '98. Said experiment was a four-part experiment that took approximately four hours to complete. The product of each part was used for the next part, so if you screwed up you had to start all over (foreshadowing!!!). Anyway, I start the experiment and make it all the way to step four, where you had to cook the final product in a small porcelain bowl with the lid precariously perched to allow venting. The wobbly little sucker fell right off in the floor and of course, broke. Sigh. I start over. Again I make it to step four. Crash. Sigh. Apparently I had more patience in those days, because it took me around six times to finally make it. Yep - six times at four hours each = 24 hours.... No, I didn't do it all at one time, it took a few days. Needless to say, the fumes and the classy lab glasses finally got to me. I dropped the lab, squeaked out of the class with a C, and changed my major to Economics.

I know, right? What the @#$! was I thinking? I didn't even LIKE economics really, but the college didn't offer an accounting degree then, you had to major in economics and "concentrate" in accounting. I always thought "concentrate" was a funny term... like you really needed to "concentrate" to make it in that field. Again, moving on... I loved my accounting teachers and was mildly amused by the econ professors (one caveman and one heavily-accented Baghdadian). We were all dorks but numbers are like a puzzle to me. The college finally added an accounting major, but by then I had so many Econ credits that I ended up with a double major in Boring and Boring-er. Now what?

A friend of mine told me about the Master's program for accounting that she was looking into - sounded good to me. More school and putting off real work was okay with me! It was only a year anyway and it satisfied the CPA requirements, so why not? Breezed right on through... Oh crap, really, now what???

Long story short - I interviewed with several public accounting firms - I didn't want to travel around auditing so they politely said "no thank you" to my offer to work for them. A classmate suggested I try my current company. I sent a resume, they called, I interviewed, they called back, I peed in a cup, and here I am.

And here I've been for seven years now. Yikes. It's been a long, strange trip. I've met some of the best people on earth, and very possibly some of the worst; I learned that my work ethic is actually better than most and I really can work for 16 hours a day for several months straight-while 8 months pregnant; I learned more than any human should want or need to know about the IRS, tax rules, and corporations... I was good at my job. Really good. I'm still good at it. I have a quasi-photographic memory and apparently that's very handy in a field riddled with rules. Apparently I love rules, especially when they aren't directed at me personally. I changed positions within my department twice - same line of work, different areas - and liked them all. I learned that I can put up with a lot of crap from a lot of different directions as long as I like my work.
Then I moved to my current job. I handle state income tax audits (you may be excused to vomit, I'll wait) of the company. The job requires negotiation skills, conflict management, and coordination with many areas of the company. It's also an area with a lot of uncertainty and lots of guesswork and judgment.

Some more information about me: 1) I hate conflict. I "adjust," remember?? 2) My idea of negotiation is to cheerfully agree with whatever the other party wants. 3) I hate to ask people I don't know for information and/or help. 4) I have a strong aversion to change, uncertainty makes my head hurt, I prefer not to guess, and I have zero knowledge for making any reasonable judgment call in this field. Perfect. Should be a picnic.

I've actually made it for three years in this job. I've learned to remove personal issues from my work, and therefore I can do most of these things without my stomach turning over now. My boss is awesome. The hours are "normal" and very flexible, so I can come and go as long as I get my work done.

I HATE the work. Even though I'll grudgingly admit I've done quite a bit of growing up in this position (hmm, maybe that's the problem since grown-ups suck!), I get no personal satisfaction out of my accomplishments. I need to move on, but being the change-averse, headachy, predictable idiot that I am, I'm too scared to really start walking down that path just yet.

Besides, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. My girls alternate between "dolphin trainer" and artist. Sounds good to me.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, "Deep Thoughts by Courtney." Now, if you know me at all (and believe me you will shortly!!) you know that while that is intended to be humorous and is a shamelessly stolen concept from SNL. All jokes aside, it has been extremely therapeutic for me to read others' blogs... like a little window into another person's soul. My hope is that taking the HUGE step to start my own will prove to be even more therapeutic.

For starters... I'm not a big talker. Whoa, before you start yelling "LIAR!!" at me, understand that I love to "chat," but very rarely do I hold in-depth conversations with anyone. It isn't because I don't care or that I have no "deep thoughts." I'm just terrified to share them!

I don't have the best memories from school (or other places of interaction). I was a "weird" kid... talked using big words, wore the clothes my mom bought me (love you mom, but some of those outfits!!!), always had my nose in books, etc.... The few times early on that I tried to "fit in" were, well, disastrous...at least in my mind. There is a point to this story, I swear.

My coping mechanism was to keep all the "weirdness" in. Think it, but don't say it. I'd let people say anything to me or about me without any reaction... but if possible, I immediately tried to change whatever it is they were talking about. As I got older, I learned to selectively and intermittently share my weirdness - you've probably had a glimpse. I found my first love - volleyball - and I was pretty good at it. Through it, I learned to function as part of a team - in both good ways and bad ways. I had no trouble "adjusting" myself to get along with (almost) anybody... but I lost a great deal of my true self in the process.

To wrap it up, I've been in a low place lately. I'm seeing the effects of all the "adjustments" I made to me catch up with me... and I don't like it. I don't like the ME that I am right now. So..... I begin my journey to find me.

You can run away screaming now... I won't be offended :)