Starting Over?

When you start blogging/tweeting/etc., it takes awhile to get into a good rhythm, to figure it all out and set up your internet life....it took me forfuckingever.

And just as I felt like I was really hitting my stride, life intervened.

If you read this blog regularly (as I know all of you DO, of course, ahem.), then you know that this spring/summer for us was kinda shitastic...

I shut down for a while and hid from life.
I went through the motions of day-to-day routines, but I wasn't all there.

I stopped blogging, I stopped tweeting, I stopped reading, I stopped connecting.

The longer I did it, the more guilty I felt.

So like a child, I just hid even deeper under the bed.

I felt like I had let people down.

There are people that will read this and think:

For fuck's sake, lady. It's JUST the internet.

Not for me.

These "silly" social media outlets have become a community of friends, a place of accountability, a form of therapy, and a challenge of authenticity.

I do indeed have a real life and real friends, outside of my web-self, but real life and real friendships happen on the these digital fields as well, sometimes even more so, if that makes any sense.

So by not keeping up with this part of my life, by not contributing to it, and to the people who are in it, I feel like I have been a poor friend, and an irresponsible blogger.

I'm sorry. I really am.


Trying to come back is proving harder than I thought...
but I'm working on it.


Depression has been a big factor, but I gave in and upped my dose, and am feeling much better.

Although I recieved a letter today that my Medi-Cal will terminate on the 20th.
Sigh.
Always something....

Our miscarriage is still haunting me a bit, and every time I get my period I tear up, but the pain is beginning to ease in it's own way...

All you can do is look forward, right?
 
Life is settling in that with Huz's new job we can finally pay our bills, but crazy in that his hours and travel have put us on on a whole new schedule.

O is two now (can you believe it?!), and is a wild thing.
He keeps me running from sun up to sundown...literally. And then some.

Highlights?

He's decided that everything in the household should be spread out on every inch of the floor, that the refrigerator is good place to just sit and chill (pun intended), has finally escaped from the confines of his crib, and sees a diaper change as guerrilla warfare.

It's a party.

He's so cute though, it's unreal. And smart.
Daddy and I don't stand a CHANCE.

Huzzy's job is going well, and we are slowly cleaning up some of our financial debris.
I say slowly because money keeps finding a way to fly out of our asses...

This week?
A computer monitor meltdown and a tire blow out.
Oh, mmmhmm. Joy.

STILL, we're getting a regular paycheck, which is nothing to shake a stick at....

We're hoping to move out of the in-laws house in the next 6 months or so.
It's time.
It's BEEN time.

We'll see if we can pull it off.
We pretty much feel like this is a "Hell-or-High-Water" kind of situation.

Have I ever mentioned that Southern CA is disgustingly expensive?
Yeah, about that...
Ugggh.

I've really missed you all.
I've missed sharing in your lives.
I've missed all this community brings to mine.

Thank you.

I hope I find my place again.

Jaaaaay! Ohhhhh! Beeeeeeeee!

Huz got the job!
I'm so excited, you'd think I got the job or something...psssht!

He starts on the 19th.

To celebrate, we had lunch at Jack in the Box.
(I know, living the dreeeeaaaam.....)

We're both nervous though, as this is a very different position for him, as it is ALL sales.
He's had sales jobs before, but this takes it to a different level.

We were kinda skeptical about sales jobs in the beginning, because we've both experienced the seedier side of sales, and the hell that is working for commission-only....shudder...


BUT, this company is reputable, established and is NOT comm-only.

Pay is salaried plus commission, so we can live with that.
Also? The base pay is more than he was making before and they offer benefits.
Yippee!

He gets a gas stipend, work laptop/phone (a smart one, even!) too!. 
Faaaaancy.

He'll be working much longer hours than he was before, like 60 hrs a week (but as we all know, it's hard to get anywhere career-wise working only 40)  and for the first 30 to 90 days he'll have to commute from Rancho to Burbank every day....kinda gross, right?

But, hey! It's a paycheck! A glorious, steady paycheck!

Still, it'll be a tough transition. For all of us.
Especially with Huz having been home for the last 4 months.

We will adjust though (like you do), and be fine, I'm sure.
 Please keep us in your thoughts as we do all this easy-breezy adjusting though, kay? Thanks!

We are over-the-freaking-moon...
Hopeful that maybe this will be the start of some good things for our family.
We could really use some good things...

HUGE THANKS to all of you who've cheered us on, sent us job links, and were generally awesome in our lives! It means a lot, and your support is invaluable!

Much love!

T.O.P Week 2: VU Sistas

 

My second note for Thankful on Paper is actually a group of notes (emails) to my:

 

VU Sistas.

Things have been a *smidge* stressful around here as of late, and shockingly, I haven't been all that cheerful. [See: "Ashes" and "The Tearing of Robes"]

But I do feel loved. I have gotten so many emails, FB posts/messages, texts/calls, blog comments, etc. wishing us well and sending us their prayers/love...

The hub of these messages come from a group of women I met in college.

I went to a small, conservative,  Christian University. For those of you who know me well, you might be asking yourself, what the HELL was she doing there?!

(It's a long story, for another time...)

Needless to say, I felt very uncomfortable and out of my element. I didn't belong to a church, hadn't grown up in one, came from basically a "Cops" episode in terms of my childhood, and had a sailor mouth. (still kinda do.) I had the audacity to show...CLEAVAGE. (Get behind thee behind me, Satan!) I was judged and judged HARSHLY.

I kinda hated life. Until I started to meet women who accepted me as I was, and loved me not just in spite of it, but because of it.

I have unique relationships with each one, and while some of the friendships may have been superficial or sporadic to start, over the years, every relationship has deepened and become special to me, and even as life takes us in different directions, I know that they will be there for me, as I will for them.

Every one of these women have entered a place in my heart not as my friends, but as my sisters.

[They know who they are :)]

At different points in the last 9 (almost 10, now, WOAH.) years (It's been a rough decade, to say the least), each woman has touched a part of my life, and has been there to lift me up when I couldn't lift myself.

Now as I've moved into wife and motherhood, they have celebrated and shared with me. Cheered me on and still, step in to not just lift me up in times of turmoil, but also my family.

Whether we talk mostly via FB or email, phone chats, or we see one another regularly, whether we remain friends till we're old and gray or get swept away from each other in the changes of time: 

I am so Thankful for these smart, gorgeous, funny, compassionate, kind, creative, loving, crazy women. I always will be. I love you all, and I hope I have been (and will be) the type of "sister" each of you have been to me.


We don't have Traveling Pants, or anything, but you all are magic in my life.






I may not have Luck, but I have amazing friends....which is kinda lucky.

Because I said I would!

While I sit on pins and needles waiting for Will to call me, who is waiting for the Doc to call HIM, let's turn our attention to something happier:

O's Halloweeny First Birthday Extravaganza!!!

I was panicked and stressed up until everyone arrived: The weather was awful, nixing our outside plans, Owen fell asleep right as people were supposed to arrive and tons of people canceled last minute-I thought we were DOOMED...

But you know what?

It turned out to be just what it should have been:

Small

Warm

Comfortable

Sincere

Lovely

Here's a Looky:

 

Big hugs to everyone who helped make his day (and Daddy and Mommy's too) SPECIAL.

We love you all! Thanks for giving us yours!

The Cat is (all the way) Outta the Bag....

So we finally told my husband's grandparents, aunt and uncle last about the baby last night.

They were sort of the last hold-outs as far as telling because we wanted to wait til were were further along, and with all of Nana's health issues, we wanted to wait for a time when she was feeling at least slightly better.

They all took it in stride. I think my husband was disappointed that they weren't more excited, or ebullient rather, but I think that to them, it was kinda a given.

Maybe?

His Nana was like: I knew you guys would have a baby soon!

Don't get me wrong, they were happy for us. It was a demand, not a request that we come home for Christmas...hopefully the baby will be old enough to travel.

It's so funny, because initially we wanted to not have ANYONE know until about now, but it just didn't work that way...

We told his parents, who tried to keep it a secret, then we told my mom who couldn't keep it a secret if her life depended on it, and immediately told everyone who would listen, and then my husband and I were so excited that we told some of our close friends, and it just spread like wildfire from there.

So yeah, we kinda blew it, but oh well!

It's harder to keep in happy news, I've noticed....

We hoping that once we know what the sex of the baby is, we can send out formal announcements to everyone, maybe with a maternity photo...

So yay! The family knows!

On to another topic:

WHY IS IT SO DISGUSTINGLY HOT?

I'm sitting here in my underwear, and I still feel like I'm melting.

...and on that note of TMI, perhaps I should end this entry.





PS. Thank you to all of you who left such loving and supportive comments on my last blog. Sorry that it was such a "debbie-downer," and I really appreciate the awesomeness from you guys!