New years resolutions

Tags

life goals, married life, mom life, new year resolution, refocused, relocated

In my post last week I talked about how I want to refocus myself during the start of the next chapter of our lives. Me being the planner addict that I am, I want to set up some reasonable goals to keep myself on track for these things.

1. Quality time with loved ones
2. Inner peace
3. Professional

These are some broad areas of my life that I would like to spend some time focusing on. I listed them in order of what is most important for me.

Quality time with loved ones

The thing that is most important for me is fostering quality time with my family. For the last several years my husband worked 6 days a week, 60 hours a week. I ran the house, worked part time, was a full time student, all while juggling fertility treatments. The hustle in our house was on. Then we set our goals to move our life somewhere new. We did all of that but now I would really like to be able to just sit back and enjoy life. Enjoy the time with my kids doing things that they will remember forever. Like playing on the ground with them, cooking with them, going on walks and playing games at dinner. The little things that will stick out in their heads as what family life looked like. I want to be part of that, I want to be focused on strengthening our bonds. In this goal I am going to try to put the phone down more except for taking the pics to save for my memories.

Inner Peace

I used to feel like a calm, centered, individual. Life changed a lot of that. I’m not the naïve twenty something year old I was pre marriage and pre infertility. Somewhere in the hustle of life I became a tense and anxious person. At times I’m way to defensive and either unfocused or hyper focused and I feel out of balance. Since we moved I have felt drastically more like my old self but I’m still quick to react and have to really focus myself. In those moments that I feel like the calm me I feel better, I feel happier. I want more of that. In this goal I plan to do more things that help me feel calm and focused.

Professional

I’m starting to feel more comfortable in my profession. I am starting to feel more confident in my abilities. I want to continue to learn my grade level and hopefully move towards a more organized and well laid out classroom. I want to focus on organizing my centers and my small group intervention sessions. I am hoping to find my groove with those things to help me really get my students to grow and thrive. I am even considering making a few teacher tools and selling them on a teacher resource site but I will talk more about that later.

I have already been working on several of these things but to make that full focused decision to say it’s okay to not hurry up and rush back into college and instead to focus on life and the important things. We worked so hard to grow our family and to move somewhere that we could be okay with forever in. We have changed our lives and hopefully plan to continue to move forward in a positive direction.

I am excited to see where my husbands change of career takes him. I am excited to watch my kids grow. I am excited to focus on all the relationships that are so meaningful to me. I am excited to not feel the pressure of college or the rush of the city. To feel closer to nature, closer to my children and closer to my husband.

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Reflective and hopeful

Tags

couple goals, family, family goals, life goals, love, refocusing the soul, soul

This year has been a whirlwind when I stop to think about it my head spins. I am so excited about where we are now. I am so happy that we are together in a new place to start a new beginning. IT has been a lot though. SO many things over the 8 years have been a lot but I really feel like this next year is going to be a wonderful year. I can feel it. I can’t explain it but I am really excited and hopeful about the next year.

Early this year we completely uprooted our lives. My husband sold his business and decided to take the plunge into a new career path. He needs the time and ability to focus on it all. We also need a trustworthy person to be at home raising our daughter while I’m at work. Once she reaches kindergarten that will be easier because we will be on the same schedule and she will be at my job site with me. He how ever will hopefully continue to be working from home fulltime.

We found a new house 500 miles away in a rural mountain town and planted new roots. For so many many years we have been working out assess off to reach our dreams. There have been more than a few hiccups along the way. Here we are though. We grew our family through our own struggles of infertility. I completed a 4 year college degree at the same time we faced our struggles. Rob was working hard at his business and we had 2 teenage boys to raise through it all. The last 8 years have been wonderful and difficult all at the same time. Things have been in constant movement forward. Things have been strenuous and joyous. We have grieved and we have loved so deeply all at the same time. It has been a hard road, but so many amazing beautiful memories were made.

Parts of me regret not living more in the moment enjoying my older boys even more before they grew up and left the house. Having Adin graduate and move out this year has been emotionally difficult. Really difficult. I look at everything we have achieved and I am so happy, it was a lot of stressed, planning, pushing, working, and reward. I strongly recommend hard work towards goals.

This year my goals are going to be a little less ambitious. I am not trying to get through a degree or move us in a drastic new life. No, this time my goal is me and my family. This year and maybe next I am going to focus on us. Not pushing us somewhere new but instead embracing us. Enjoying where we are, getting to really see my children for them. Listening and putting energy and love into my relationship with my husband. This year I want to strengthen my soul. I want to strength my relationships with the people that I love so much.

I still plan to go back to college and get my Masters degree. I am starting to change my plans once more and I am thinking of possibly getting a smaller field specific degree. Something to quickly move me up the pay bracket and yet won’t take years and years and a drastic amount of my life and attention away from my children. I want more memories, more of each other. I want to enjoy everything that we have worked so hard for. I want to appreciate all of our sacrifices and honor them by giving now and today my all.

Figuring out how to be less reactive…

Tags

beyond being mom, family goals, inner calm, less reactive, married life, mom life, motherhood, personal goals, personal growth, working mom

IT has been a month since I let go of the pressure I have been putting on myself to do everything all the time. IT has been so rewarding in so many ways. I have felt less stressed. Every week I feel like the me that I have been working so hard for for all the years. We still have many goals as a couple, family, personally, etc… but for the last 10 years we have been working so hard to get where we wanted to get. Hubby and I had laid down some major goals for us as priorities, those were things like getting stability, having more children, and moving out of the desert. We did it, we have more children thanks to IVF, we are no longer living in the hell that is the south western desert. I have a career that I can take just about anywhere in the USA and a few other locations outside the US.

I am excited for us. We have some more goals, hubby to have a stable income from home specifically, traveling, spending as much time as a family doing family things, moving forward with my career. Watching my husband grow in his new career. Having the freedom to dream together and grown. The country is unstable and that’s always scary but I hope that everything will normalize and stabilize. That is another fear for another day though.

I have been feeling like I’m just enjoying life more. I’m handling my stress better. I’m not as reactive as I was and I know a lot of that has to do with stopping when I’m feeling overwhelmed and asking myself why is this bothering me, what about it is really a problem. This has been helping me at home and at work. I feel less overwhelmed and more in control of myself. Which is how I used to feel. It’s weird like all the little bs when I was in survival/hustle mode was a tiny rubber band and each one that added just seemed to mold me into one tense wound up stress ball. It was hard not to snap and I have some memories where I sounded really harsh and cunty and I still feel guilty. The worst part was knowing the people that I love the most that I was hustling so hard for are the ones who will share those memories of me acting unpleasant.

Tonight I burnt the rice for dinner I got distracted by the dog stealing butter off the counter and the toddler being naked and throwing a huge fit about putting clothing on. By the time I got back to the rice I was frying it was inedible and I was mad I wanted to yell at the dog and tell the toddler to stop screaming. Instead I just threw the rice away, started over and remembered it was my fault for walking away and being mad doesn’t unburn the rice. So here we are. And I redid the rice we had a lovely dinner and I didn’t feel like a crappy human at the end of the night. I’m not saying I lost my shit daily but it felt like a struggle and losing my shit even once a week left me feeling guilty forever. I feel less guilty and happier. Although, I am actively aware of my stress levels and when I am overwhelmed, I am constantly catching myself reacting instead of just being me I am hoping that continuing to do these things and eventually it will be natural again like it once was. I am hoping I can find my inner calm and just enjoy life and everything we have been working for.

the me before infertility

Moving has been wonderful. I have of course been worried about whether or not I’ve made the right choice for my family or if it was a selfish choice just for me. I know my husband has benefitted a lot from the move as well. He really seems much happier out of the city and next to the mountains. I think I will always wonder but in the long run I really hope it is.

I have been enjoying the slower paced life and the calmness of it all. I’m not used to the small town gossip mill or the tiny town know everyone thing. That is still taking me some getting used to but I am loving feeling like myself. It has been years since I have felt like me. The me before infertility. That me just hustled at work like a boss then came home and engulfed myself in my kids and husband. I had a plan but I also was very calm and laid back. That’s something that changed when infertility came into the picture. I lost a lot of calm and gained some extra pounds and anxiety. I felt more tense and wound tight and the more I put on my plat the tighter I felt until it was like a tight rubber band squeezing me.

Eventually, I just started to function at that high anxiety level. My temper fuse got shorter and I can say that I have reacted in ways I’m not proud of. I have yelled more than I ever wanted to and I have cried way more times in the last 8 years than I did in the previous 24 years. It was just the stress and fear that had lived in me so long it began to project in unhealthy ways. I struggled with depression after I had Dalton but honestly it was probably the back to back miscarriages before I was pregnant with him. Little by little, heart break by heart break, I had shifted into someone…new…. I can’t say better. The constant stress, fear, and pain had made me feel overtly rigid with everything.

I was an outright bitch at times. Not going to lie. I wish my kids hadn’t seen me react so quickly or loudly at times. I know they love me but it’s a guilt I have carried and will always carry. However, since moving I am starting to feel like the me before it all. The me that didn’t sweat the small stuff, the me that laughed often and loudly. The me that loved with her whole heart and tried to be positive and optimistic. The me that felt good about herself. The slower paced life has been magnificent… I don’t feel to tired after work (most days) to play with the kids or do something for myself. Work feels like a part of my day not my whole day. I’m reacting slower when the kids do stupid or rude things. I am in more control of my class and less stressed about the day.

I feel like I can feel good about myself more and less guilty because I’m not being as reactive. Which was a great way to describe me when in survival mode. I DO NOT LIKE THAT PERSON! the saddest part is that I have not liked that person for a while but it has been a struggle to regain the calmer side of me. Infertility will always be there it will always have left it’s scars and lead me to my biggest blessings. But it does not define me. It does not have to leave it’s fear and anxiety behind as wreckage. I will find me again and I will continue to be someone I can be proud of. I will continue on working to find my calm again.

Settling in

It has now been 4 months that we have been living in our new home. I really do love that we moved. It is such a relief to not be stuck in the heat and desert anymore.

I have slowly felt the stress sliding away since being here. There is still normal stress but I am so happy to feel this burden removed from my shoulders. I am so happy that we have started this new chapter. I still get moments of anxiety where I fear that I somehow made the wrong choice or that we will regret it in the future. I hope this is not the case but there is always that small fear.

I am taking a class for my career and it has made me realize how much I am not ready at all to take on my Masters degree. Eventually I would like to get there but right now I would like to find myself again. I am happy with so many things in my life. I feel like me getting back to a peaceful confident place with in myself is important too. I want to work on my patience with my children. I want to work on tuning my techniques in the class room. I want to date my husband more. I want to work on hobbies and get outside more. I want to work on enjoying right now and living in the present. Absorbing every moment with my children that I can just focus on the now. Being a better me, a better mom, a better teacher. I don’t want to feel like I’m surviving, I want to feel like I’ thriving.

5 minute argument

How is it a 5 minute conversation can have such a negative impact on a day. I’m trying to get back to the happy positive day that I had and it’s hard. I was having such a good day, then I had a 5 minute conversation with my sister B and the rest of the day has been a struggle. I really upset her and she is no longer answering my phone. It really was a stupid conversation. I tried to apologize, I had shared a memory from about 5 years ago. I should have kept my mouth shut, really I know I messed up.

I brought up this memory about her once making me change my outfit over my nipples poking through my shirt. She had brought up at the time how inappropriate it was to go without a bra near my 10 year old nephew and her hubby. I was wearing a thin nursing bra at the time, was very top heavy I’m talking a DDD kinda heavy because I was still nursing my son who was just starting to crawl. So afterwards I stopped wearing those types of bras around her family.

Fast forward to why I brought it up at all… I bought a thin bra today, she told me how much she loves thin bras and I was surprised because of that conversation years ago so I told her that I was surprised since she had made me change attire over a bra like that. She went off over how she hasn’t been insecure since she was a teen and how dare I make her sound like such a nasty bitch. I told her she was never nasty when she asked me to change, but she had made it clear to me at the time that I needed to change, I ended up getting bodied bras from my sister in law since she witnessed the whole argument at the time.

B was supposed to drive up to see me this weekend and stay 2 weeks. She got off the phone with me and then texted that she will no longer be coming to visit. I feel terrible. I tried calling her. I apologized when we were still on the phone and said maybe I had mistaken the conversation since I had just had a child and was hormonal that it stuck out in my memory more than it should have. She said no it was never her she never did that and then got off the phone.

I apologized again through a text and told her I was sorry and didn’t mean to cause her any upset that if I could redo the conversation I would. no response, an hour later I text her again and told her I understand if she doesn’t want to see me because I upset her and that I totally understand if she no longer stays with me, I still hope she can come visit the rest of the family and enjoy her vacation. Still no response.

My kids are looking forward to her visit, several other nephews n nieces. My other 2 sisters n brother were all loooking forward to it. Now she is canceling all because of the 5 minute conversation I wish I could undo.

Maybe I need to learn to not share what I’m surprised about. I really need to learn to not bring up unhappy stories of the past and let them lie in the past. She said if I held onto it all this time then clearly it’s still bothering me. She’s kinda right, it’s not that it’s still bothering me but I have made sure to buy specific bras, and swimsuits because of our conversation years ago. I should probably look into getting a therapist.

So I know I talk to much. I share to much (obviously you know this if you’ve read my blog). I’m really going to work on only sharing positive memories, there is no reason to make anyone remember things that are unpleasant. My new goal is to not share that past bad crap. I have a blog, a bestie, a hubby, and I can get a therapist if I absolutely need to share out that crap from my past.

2am

It’s 2 am. I had a rough week. I’m stressed about too many things at once. I’m having anxiety issues and it sucks. I’m trying to use the tools I know to get out of this funk but my chest is heavy and my mind is racing. Ugh i hate it!

Writing is often my stress relief so I figured why not try tonight.

On mother’s day my 17 yr old step son was actually here! I was super excited because it’s so rare for him to be with me on mother’s day and he’s chosen to not move with us so it could be the last one where we are close to eachother. I was excited. I was sick, but still excited. The day before I spent nonstop running to make his prom super special. He ended up ditching me the entire day. I begged him to spend time and he blew me off. Hubby was so sick he slept all day. so I just packed N hoped my SS would be home soon to spend the day with me. He never did. About 9pm Dalton the 5 yr old mentions something about mother’s day and SS asks if he told me happy mothers day, I tell him he did not Nd his response was that he told so many ppl he couldn’t remember which he’d said it too. Which honestly just hurt more.

The next day at work was hard and u had 3 days with no prep and a list a mile long to complete by next week.

Closing date on the new place is now a week later and my truck is still not ready for me to pick it up. I was so furious that I called and then cried on the phone to the case manager. Figured instead of my hubby feeling guilty, the car place could. I never yelled and rarely let ppl hear me cry but I cried.

We have 2 weeks til we move. My stomach is in knots over everything.

Then we get a knock on the door of my son’s gf gaurdian talking to us about how Adin is sneaking her into our house every night for 2 weeks.

Being a mom is hard.

Being a teacher is hard.

Not having my truck is complicated.

Moving is stressful.

I’m ready for the next week to be over so that I can be ready to handle a few less things.

Holy moly. ahchoo

You guessed it by the title I am sick! My rapid response said that I am negative for Covid. Hopefully it’s correct. It is the end of the year and we have so much to do at work I can’t fathom taking time off right now. If it had been positive I would have had to take it off. Instead I plan to mask up, distance as much as possible and hopefully I can get over it quickly.

In the meantime, my senior in high school had his prom last night and I am so happy for him. IT is sad, although I did not carry him in my womb, he has been my first child I took to Kindergarten so to see him ending his last year it is difficult. He is struggling and has a lot on his plate because the crunch line is here. He doesn’t handle his time well and I worry about him since he is admit that he wants to go live with his biomom. He has never actually lived with her, just weekends twice a month. Court ordered. He swears she has been sober over a year and on a better path but I still worry. She’s never been there when he truly needed her and although I can’t trust her I can try my best to trust that my son will be able to swallow his pride long enough to ask for help if he needs it. I know he doesn’t want to live with his parents but we offered anyways.

We have 15 days left until we have to pick up the big Uhaul and I am sick which means I got only 4 boxes packed this entire weekend. I am beat. I am trying to balance resting, packing, end of the school year chaos for the teachers, and the purchasing of a house. It is extremely exhausting and I can’t wait to be sitting in our new house with our gorgeous view just enjoying life. I need my health to just get on board so that I can get sh** done! Hopefully everyone else is enjoying their mothers day.

Writing reprieve

Writing is such a strong processing tool for me. I used to get insecure that I would be viewed as negative but the truth is I write when I’m stressed. Sometimes I just need to get it out, get all the chaotic thoughts organized so that I can process and deal with them one at a time.

Here are my current stressors. I have general life and work stuff to balance which is hard enough. We have had nonstop house work getting everything ready for the sale. Then we are house hunting in Elko my sister is my Realtor and was also working with a partner some drama came up and now I am only willing to work with one realtor. I am not going to deal with a bunch of in between crap. I do not want to feel caught in the middle of anything and it was very uncomfortable. So I told my sister either she needs to be able to do it without a partner or I’m going to need to go to a different Realtor because I just feel very uncomfortable with everything. That is unneeded stress. I literally had a migraine due to it all it was ridiculous.

I am exhausted and ready to just look for a house with zero drama. I feel like what we have been seeing has been getting better and more frequent. We are on our way to finding the home, the fact that interest rates and house prices are both still increasing which sucks. So here we are. I am tired but I am hopeful that we will be able to proceed looking for our house and that we will find something that we love soon. I hope at least.

Tomorrow is my last day of spring break. I have a few very important things I know that we needed to do. But that requires phone calls I couldn’t make on a Sunday. I also have a few little things I need to get done for school. I only have 5 weeks left of the school year and still no closer to finding and closing on a home. I so badly want to just be done. Instead I will need to call and set up a storage unit for June, the exciting thing will to start moving things up north and be getting ready to have a major change of scenery. I’m not going to lie this big move has it’s scary moments and I’m glad that I am moving somewhere familiar.

I really need to find a way to process this stress better because I am exhausted and at times sick to my stomach over it. I will be happier when I can just breathe!

You’ve gotta be kidding…

I’ve been watching the real estate market since before I graduated college. We really should have moved last year. I have been watching and I swear the same week that we signed papers to be in contract to sell the real estate market in my hometown died. There is absolutely nothing on the market and I’m starting to get worried. Mind you it has only been a week since I got the job. But holy frick! now that papers are signed and choices are made there is literally not a single house for sale in my hometown. There are some scary trailers and blank property but no houses at all!

I’m not going to lie. I’m panicking a little bit! I really didn’t think there would be nothing even if we were limited I didn’t think it would be nothing. All I pray is that in 3 weeks when we go to spring break there is something for us to look at, I really hope that we will find our house and be moved in before school starts! Please universe give us a nice house to move into that we will be comfortable and happy in.