Who is that???

 I decided to view my stats for this blog, something I try not to do often because I become obsessed with my stats [as a newbie they aren't always great]  While viewing my page to see what I could/should improve on I found something very interesting. Before I state what I found I just wanted to say that for the most part I think about the content of what I will write on here and the meaning it will have to others and what I really want to share.  For those of you who may have read some of my posts you probably can tell that my life is beyond busy at times. I really try to put a positive spin on most difficult events in life.

Here it is the thing I find so interesting... the most popular thing on my blog is my profile. My first blog post received 91 page views.  That I can see I actually really like that post [not bragging I just liked the peanut butter sandwich analogy] WOW, people actually want to see who is writing this stuff. I guess that is a good thing?  I guess I should do the same on the blogs I follow. 

Look at me!

Since that profile was so popular I thought I should add some things here that aren't listed in there.  First and foremost I am a mom and I love my boys more than anything in this world.  I am very happy that God gave me two boys![sorry girls you are just so difficult].  Also, I love my profession I know I am exactly where I am meant to be.  I truly care about my job and that makes all the insanity worth it at times.  Also, I love my little dog Chase.  He was purchased under the assumption that he was a shit zu however, we know he is not a pure bred and I think that has made me love him even more.  He has beautiful blue eyes [people often say he looks mean] he is the kindest and most loving dog a person could have.  His main goal in life is to please everyone and to play[what a wonderful life! Lucky little guy]. I have a great, thoughtful, kind and loving fiance who puts up with me and that is not exactly the easiest job in the world. I love to exercise, and I especially love to run. I am not the fastest person in the world but I have some stamina and endurance.  I have a very caring family and the best friends a person could ask for. I had some major set backs in life however, I have learned from each of my experiences all which have led me to appreciate what I have and all that I have worked for.  I like to say that I beat the statistics in life, a young single mom who made it through college and grad school.  Anyway, that is me. Oh also I thought I should list some adjectives to better describe myself, here you go:

Joyful; pleasant; bossy; unruly; unconventional; loving; caring; traditional; kind;
humorous; moody; stable; friendly; shy; stylish; frugal; thoughtful; reliable; tardy; unique; ordinary; predictable; courteous; courageous; dependable; . I guess in a nutshell, I am a bit of everything.

Thanks for reading!

Good Night???

After a very long day/week/month of work I was feeling completely exhausted.  One thing I look forward too is the comfort of my bed, fleece sheets, cozy warmth.  I am typically a very sound sleeper.  TYPICALLY!  However, I ran into some stumbling blocks this week.  My fiance has also had some difficult days at work.  I suppose this is why his sleep has been so restless [that is me trying to be sympathetic].  One thing that you can count on while I am sleeping is me being downright mean when my sleep is interrupted, it is almost as if I am another person I am horrible![that is me admitting my faults] Sleep this week has been well let me just describe some of this for you: About 12:30 A.M. I finally crash. 12:45 A.M. I am awakened to the sound of blissful snoring, grunting, and to top it off smacking.  Real, hardcore lip smacking, deep mouth smacks.  I also have to say on my list of pet peeves is smacking lips and mouth noises normally this only occurs during the course of a meal and I have actually had to leave dinner tables due to horrible, disgusting, revolting noises that people make while eating.  So, here it is, I just fall asleep, I hear one of the things that makes me insane this ='s me turning into the exorcist!  And after numerous attempts to make this ungodly, unbearable noise stop I kick/nudge the blissful sleeping man next to me [in the leg].  This ='s arguing.  Here is the argument- "I can't control my sleeping, you shouldn't kick me. You woke me up and I couldn't fall back to sleep". My question here is this " WHAT THE CURSE ABOUT ME"? "I couldn't fall back to sleep! I couldn't make the noise stop! I had to resort to violence to make it stop". [by the way it wasn't a hard kick it was definitely more of nudge!] Wow - Fit to be tied was an understatement here.

The question presented herein is this:  Who is right? While it may not have been in his control to stop the concert of disgusting noises it was also not in my control to attempt to make it all stop.  I too was awakened out of a sweet slumber and had a difficult time falling back to sleep.  Maybe [just maybe] the nudge/ kick should not have occurred.  However, what else is a girl to do when she needs a good night's sleep? 

I have also been forced to stop and think of how I could get some sort of lesson out of this.  And my only lesson here is sometimes two wrongs or even one wrong don't make a right. Sometimes there is no real or true wrong or right and sometimes people have to agree to disagree.  And that's ok.  Maybe we are both wrong.  Maybe only one of us [not me of course...] is wrong [ok, maybe I am].  Sometimes I guess it's ok to say sorry even when feeling not completely at fault. Seeing things from another angle in order to restore our sleep and our friendship and relationship may just be the only thing to do.  While I can stand firm on my stance to prove my point of view I can also gently approach this and accept my part in it all. 

So I will end with leaving anyone who takes the time to read my ramblings with some things to think about.  First, why does there have to be a right or wrong person?  Why is it more important to relay a message of being right than accepting the differences among us all and knowing that sometimes we just won't all agree? And lastly some great quotes:

"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future". ~Paul Boese
"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand". ~Emily Kimbrough
"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness". ~Author Unknown
"The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway". ~Henry Boye

Wet Sidewalks

The other morning I dropped my son off at school [late again].  As we were walking [ok running] into the school my foot slipped a bit on the sidewalk.  The weather was cold and slightly rainy but there wasn't any snow or even ice - well none that I could see.  After entering the building [A.K.A. for rushing into the front doors-not the entrance we usually go through the entrance only the late kids use] I walked [ran] back to my car.  I slipped again [and cursed out loud and then I acted like I did not just slip and kept going probably not the best thing to do in front of a school. And I think I laughed just a little out loud. And maybe I looked behind me sort of confused.  And I guess I can't leave out that I said out loud "wow it's icy out here" and I probably should not forget to say that there was a crossing guard looking at me like "what is her problem?". And I guess I will tell you that I gave him a "yeah so I slipped and cursed and parked in a no parking spot" look and went on my way].  It was icy out there in spite of how it looked!  Ice on the road, ice on the sidewalk.  Not exactly what I expected [even though it is January]. 

After rushing through the rest of my day I was looking forward to walking into my warm and cozy home, having another coffee [I will cut it down from the 8 cups I am up to as soon as I get some more sleep] and making a nice dinner, doing homework with the kids, playing a board game, watching Once Upon A Time with my youngest son and having a quiet night at home.  Things were going just as planned the coffee was brewing, the dinner was started, and homework was put on the table in a very organized fashion [I was right on track].  I called to my youngest son to come and start the work.  After arguing for an extended period of time we started.  We started, we argued, we struggled, he cried.  He ended up in his room on a timeout for 5 minutes, the coffee didn't taste as good afterwards, I over boiled the pasta, my older son was aggravated [what the curse happened to my plans?]

Earlier during the day someone I recently met revealed to me that they received some horrible news this same day from some tests they had done at the doctors.  This test revealed an aggressive and rare form of cancer.  Young-seemingly healthy, great person [why the curse does curse like this happen to good people]?  For the first time in a long time I had no words.  I couldn't come up with anything to say at all, and so that is what I said, "I am sorry I don't know what to say".  I couldn't stop thinking about my lack of ability to respond appropriately to this.  And it bothered me.  All of this bothered me.  What didn't bother me was what this person told me.  Simply stated the response to this life changing news was " I know the diagnosis. I can't change it. I have to focus on what to do next".  The strength, the wisdom!!  I couldn't believe my ears, and my heart hurt with both admiration and sorrow.  I felt so lucky at that moment to have been given such a wonderful gift of learning how to face something like this with that kind of attitude.

While I sat alone for the 5 minutes while my son was in timeout, I couldn't help but to think about the fact that I was mad about over boiled pasta, late dinner, and an 8 year old that didn't want to do homework after 6 hours of school [wow, what the curse is my problem?] I stopped and looked at each of the problems, and I focused on my next move, we ate, we did homework, we played our game, we watched our television show.  It worked. Step by step, it worked.

I guess sometimes in life unexpected and sometimes tragic things may occur in our lives.  Sometimes these things may creep up on us out of the blue, and sometimes they may be very apparent yet just enough that we miss it sort of like those wet sidewalks which turned out to be icy.   I guess sometimes the best way to face the unexpected is to look at what our next move is after the unexpected comes our way.  Once again I was reminded to look at things from another perspective.  Once again I learned a great lesson in life.  I am still very sad over this news and I still can't help but to feel sorrow in my heart. Yet, the next time I have to face some sad news I know I will remember the wise advise of a very brave person.

The Finish Line

Well, I am back and blogging.  I have taken some time away from my computer to enjoy my family over the holidays and also to get caught up on work (the kind of work that actually pays me something).  I have started my training for a half marathon. Let me tell you it is not easy getting back into a regular workout schedule.  Also, I am proud to announce that I have started my book.  It is so exciting!  I can't wait to finish it and see what happens.

Now that I am back in the blog world I have a million ideas running through my mind of what to post first. I have decided to talk about what I will work on for this year. Every year I decide to re-evaluate my spending, quite bad habits, run harder, train harder, be a better mom, give my job 110%, organize my life, be a better partner in my relationship, be a better friend, pay off some bills, etc..I try to give it my all in every aspect. Sometimes, I get to all of it, and sometimes I don't.  This year for the most part, I have set the same goals and I look forward to working on all of them.

I recently read an article about living in the now.  A mind set that reminds me a lot of AA.  Concentrate on the moment, getting through minute by minute, day by day.  In the article there was reference to a book about a long distance runner who reported that during long runs it was not helpful to look at how far he had gone or how far he has to go but simply at where he was at the moment.  This is so true.  When I am on a longer run if I think about the future I loose it, if I loose myself in that moment I am fine.  Yet, I can't help but to think about how this whole thought process could lead to dormancy in other situations.  Why wouldn't we look forward to set goals and work hard to achieve them?  Isn't it good to look at what we want in order to get accomplish things?  I mean even on a long run we have a set a goal for distance and time.  When I was in school for my MSW, I did concentrate on that semester, however, if I didn't plan ahead for the future I would have no reason to keep going, or to even start for that matter.

For me one of the best feelings after a long run is the sense of accomplishment.  The finish line.  Looking back and evaluating how I came to the finish line, how I could do it differently next time, and how well I did this time.  The thrill of crossing the line is what helps me to complete the run when I feel like giving in.  I look forward to looking forward.  I believe in the now. I believe it helps overcome many obstacles, however to me the outcome can be so good how could you not look at it?

And so, I look forward to looking forward.  I also look forward to loosing myself in the moment when I need to do so.  I guess my overall thoughts here are do what works and don't give in or give up. Set goals and work hard to cross the finish line! This time of year is the time when most of us think of how we will live life differently, and so think about it, and do it.  Think about the fun of the outcome, think about the difficulty along the way, think about how you will handle the difficult times, but most of all think about just changing that one thing that bugs you the most about yourself.  Do it for you. And those who mean the most and will be there to watch you achieve the best.  Don't give up even when you feel like it, and maybe that 's where the moment by moment, minute by minute, day by day will be best served, then look back and look ahead.

Looking back at my year and thinking about my accomplishments as well as my failures, I can't help but to think WOW did I do that? [in a good way] And ok a little of [What the curse was I thinking?] After all is said and done, I am proud to walk away from last year with a peanut butter sandwich some dirty magazines and a scary elf in my attic. After all it is up to me to decide how I view my past year. And that 's exactly how I will end it.