Late Start Friday :)

I slept in! It was nice not rushing around like a grumpy zombie in the morning for once! I so glad its Friday too, its been a long long week! Sooooo life is the same. I did something totally wild and crazy this week....Volunteered to be a Girl Scout Troop Leader for a group of K-1 Daisy's! I am worried about the time commitment but I think it is going to be a really fun experience for our girls and for me too.

I have learned I cant drink wine anymore, not even 2 glasses! I was SO sick, I just don't understand why this is happening now? I never had a problem before! Oh well, I guess I will just have to find a healthier way to relax. I am going to miss the taste of Sangria a lot :(

I have lost 4 lbs this week! Although I don't see it at all at least its some progress. It has been really hard staying on track this week. I am using spark people and they say I get between 1200 and 1600 calories per day. Last night I had a McDonald's ice cream for a treat which shows willpower because what I really wanted was a 600 calorie milkshake LOL. The ice cream is low calorie and only has 3.5 grams of fat! So yea, I am trying and I will succeed this time! :)

15 minutes

Thats what I am doing right now, 15 minutes in this day where I dont do anything required of me, instead I do what I want to do, damnit! I should be making copies for tomorows sessions. I should be going over first grade information. I like just sitting here basically typing about nothing in an office which is usually so full of chatter (I have a very chatty co worker! LOL). I like being able to just breathe and think about nothing.


I bought this metro mint water last night at the store, its actually good and very refreshing and has ZERO calories! Thats the perfect drink for me.... I do think I am losing weight, just slowly. All I have eaten today is a granola bar, a sandwhich (turkey) and a teeny bag of cheezits. I have drank one cup of coffee, one vitamin water, and one metro mint still going down. Its the evenings when I want to really eat the junk.

I checked out some books from the school Library to bring home and read with the kids. One book I picked up just because I liked the title is called The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland. After looking it over I see its about the Vietnamese having to flee thier country and carrying this seed everywhere they go. It is a sad but touching book, I hope the kids like it!

The evenings have been hectic so far this week, but then it is only tuesday! Hopefully tonight will go better. We have been having a hump day partys on our front lawns on wed nights! A lot of wine, a few good friends, and some shameless gossip makes for a fun mid week release.

Well its time for me to go, I choose to spend my 15 minutes here with you, and now my time has ended! Off to help a child READ! :)

Isaiah and the other Isaiah

Isaiah is an old soul, you can look in his eyes and know he has been here before, done this before. As a baby he was so small and then so big! He grew so fast. His first word was UH OH! because he was always dropping stuff so we said it all the time. He is so beautiful, I know he is a boy and we are "supposed" to say handsome, but that word just isn't appropriate to describe my oldest son. In addition to Beautiful here are some other words that come to the top of my head when I think of Isaiah: Vivacious,Opinionated, Courageous, Touching, Sweet, Sensitive, Volatile, Angry, Moody, Loving, Impulsive, Controlling, Fact Mongering (ok I made that up!), Bipolar Child.

Having a Bipolar child is more difficult than I could ever describe, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, not even George Bush! My heart is torn into pieces every day Isaiah has a hard day, every time he tells me he hates me, every time he hurts himself or others. On those days I wonder who my son is, I feel like some angry monster has taken over his body and I mourn for the child that I love so much to come back. Unfortunately that child is showing up less and less and this new not-so-nice version of Isaiah is constantly rearing his ugly head!

I'm so frustrated with him I just don't know what to do for him anymore. We have tried so many different medications on him and the one that actually worked really well, suddenly pooped out on him and starting causing health issues. Lithium, a wonder drug but also a very toxic substance to put in your body everyday. Why does it seem like every thing that has to do with Bipolar disorder is Bipolar in itself? Complete opposites, two different ends of the spectrum on everything!?

When I think about Isaiah my heart hurts, its a physical squeezing I feel in my chest, if I think about him for more than a passing thought my eyes start to fill with tears (they are now) because I am feeling so hopeless and so helpless in regards to helping him deal with this nasty disease. I have a big decision to make and I think I am very close to making that decision. I just don't want to! I want this all to just go away, but I know it will NEVER go away. He will always have this disorder, he will always struggle to lead a normal life and I will always have to feel the pain in my heart when he is not succeeding. I feel trapped, and I hate it.

So about this decision... I could send him away, away to a residential treatment facility for up to a year. This is what his Dr and his counselor recommend, this is what I know in my brain to be the right thing for him at this point, but my heart and my mother intuition scream "NO! hes only 11 years old! He will feel abandoned, he will be in a place where no one loves him and institutionalized!" Then, my brain says, heart if you have a better solution for helping him please let me know. My heart doesn't have any solutions to suggest, except for just keep trying our hardest and continue letting him destroy his life and our family life as well.

This is the awful position I am in, and the decision I haven't been able to decide. I have heard great things about kids who have gone away to similar places and come back changed for the better. I just don't know if I can do this to my baby, my love, my Isaiah. One of the reasons I don't write or share about him often is because I am so torn apart over it, I think I always will be.

I'm starting my diet on Monday

I found the most appropriate coffee cup for me in the teachers lounge today. It states that "I'm starting my diet on Monday" which is ironic, because this is what I am always saying. So lame LOL! I know I need to diet, I want to diet, I want to be healthy and thin, but OMG its so hard with this life I lead! But, I am going to start a program soon, actually maybe next Monday would be good...

So this is my second full week of work, things are going well (I'm sure your all wondering why I am blogging at work!) and I really enjoy the work! We are very excited to be done with testing and moving on to actual interventions with kids!

I can hear them all piling into school now, so alive and exuberant! What I wouldn't give to feel like these kids do in the morning again. The first week was super hard on my knee but even though it hurts every day, it is more bearable. I don't go into see the orthopedic doctor until October.

The kids are doing really well and loving school! Elijah has a great male teacher this year who is actually keeping him in line so far. Journee and Chloe both love their full day kindergarten classes and always come home full of news of their day. Madison is her same old sassy self at home but is doing great in school. Isaiah, not so much. He is still unstable and we had a nightmare of a summer. I keep hoping things may be on the upswing for him, I feel like he has such a torturous life. :(

So life is hectic and very FULL. Ive never had to work all day with kids and them come home and deal with kids as well. Its entertaining to say the least!

I am loving our little group of friends we have now! For years I have dreamed of having a bunch of close comfortable "girlfriends". I have never been able to achieve this in previous times because we always moved around so much. Now after being in Rochester for 4 years, I feel like we finally have that core group of friends. We do really fun things together, even if its just hanging out in one of our front yards with glasses of wine, talking about our lives, our kids, sex (or lack of) or anything at all. Sometimes we go out on the weekends and I am learning that some people are fun to go out with and some people not so much! I am also learning that to go to certain bars, you need to be really buzzed before you get there! Otherwise I am so disgusted by everyone who is already drunk and acting like maniacs...

I have been writing this blog on and off for the past two hours. Maybe I will blog more often now, and maybe not? I seem to go in spurts with everything in life, because I do get bored so easily with the mundane.

TTFN!

I am (not) beautiful

anymore. I used to be, but not anymore.

Now I am fat, just just chubby or fluffy but full on Roly Poly Olie! I hate myself like this, I don't feel like me anymore. I feel like I should just except it that my youth is over and this fat is going to kill me eventually. Its winning the war, I may win a battle or two but ultimately I am LOSING. Even if I do lose all this weight (100 lbs!!) my skin is going to be all saggy and droopy even worse than it was before. I have terrible acne now, I always had beautiful skin before. I feel like its hopeless. This is me now, the gigantic Quinn next to her small girlfriend and tiny friend!



Look at me in this picture here, people say I was TOO thin here but I almost glow happiness.


So thats that. I am 27 years old and I feel like my life is over. I am not depressed, I am just facing reality here. I don't have the time in my life to concentrate on me,I'm not sure I ever will at least not for the next 15-20 years or so. I don't have the money either. What I do have is six kids, a beautiful partner, and a Budda Belly that is so round my pants wont stay up on it. My beautiful waistline that I always had even after BIRTH is long gone. Such is life. My goal for tomorrow is walking up the stairs without panting.... yet another battle lost before its even started. Damn Pneumonia!

Drug Induced Insanity

Quote:

A week into my Chantix usage, I started to feel as if the city landscape had imperceptibly shifted around me. Mundane details began to strike me as having deep, hidden significance. The neon arch above McDonald’s: The lights blinked on and off in some sort of pattern, and I needed to crack the code. One of my co-workers was messing with some papers: What is he trying to imply with all that damned crinkling? Sitting in the subway: A man hurries to get inside. His hand, holding a cup of coffee, gets stuck in the closing door. I watch the hand wriggle. The lid bursts open and steaming brown liquid hits the floor. Fingers twitch and splay. Coffee splashes in crisscrossing slats through the subway car. It was a sign—something bad was going to happen. It felt as if the essential barrier between reality and my imagination had eroded. Was it because I wasn’t getting enough R.E.M. sleep, so my dream life was rebelling, pouring into daylight, insisting to be attended to, one way or another? Meanwhile, smoking cigarettes had become an exercise in futility. At work, I’d put on my coat, head out, and light up—but there was no pleasure to be found, just a truly nasty taste. One afternoon, I was typing away at advertising copy, and as I did so, I began to wonder how I had succeeded in fooling myself that my life had any sort of value at all. Writing? Sure, it was what I’d wanted to do since I was 6—but at the end of the day, who cared? Maybe I should just go downstairs and leap in front of a tour bus. Or launch my head through the computer screen. All this seemed logical, but also weirdly funny, even at the time: I could see how crazy these impulses were, I could recognize them as suicidal clichés. But I couldn’t make them go away

.


This is exactly what was happening to me.



I woke up from a nap Friday afternoon looked in my closet, and my robes one pink one white were trying to strangle each other. I went straight to the ER. Dr verified the chantix suicidal psychotic reaction. My heart rate was 125 I was sweating all over nothing looked right, people too big and rooms too small. I wanted to scream and bash my head in, instead I just cried and cried. They took me back right away, I explained all the symptoms I have been having lately and all the stress I have been going through, after talking to me for at least an hour (so comforting) he gave me sleeping pills and told me never to take chantix or any drug like it again. The sleeping pills were to help me actually sleep without the suicidal nightmares while the drug got totally out of my system. He told me to rest and relax for the weekend, take the klonopin, and do fun things.

Enter Saturday. Jolene and her sister decide its girls day out and drag me to the mall. I am in a daze, tired groggy still having suicidal thoughts, don't care about buying anything even though her sister is paying for everything. So its decided that i NEED coffee to "perk" me up. They go to order and I sit down at a table alone, feeling like a zombie in a circus. I can't stop the morbid suicidal thoughts, so I write them down in the form of a text message I sent to my friend in Florida, I guess this was my way or reaching out.
This is what it said: "Life is all around me, swirling with its ebbs and flows. Life flows through me, but finds no home. It has nothing to cling to. Although my heart still beats and my eyes still see, inside I'm already dead rotting flesh. I can feel like maggots eating me dead."

Finally while sipping my coffee and watching the people bustle around talking, laughing, arguing kids crying bags fluttering, I just kinda snapped. Everything was in slow motion and I felt like this was all some fake show for me like that movie the Truman show. "Look at us Quinn, don't you see? Everyone is playing their part in pretending there is a point to living!" I started laughing/crying hysterically, Jolene and her sister looked at me with freaked out looks in their eyes, because I had not said a word to them this whole time except that I was drinking my coffee. We should go they say.. Then I spotted this man pushing a 5-6 month old baby in a stroller which the man parks near us and sits down. Takes the baby out and plays with him, the baby is bald except for one long lock of hair in front. The baby and dad are smiling at each other the baby grabbing the dads face and giggling.

Then CRACK suddenly I am back in reality, sitting at Caribou coffee at the mall, tears streaming down my face. I was shaken and scared and after smiling at the dad and the baby told Jolene I was ready to go and walked away. After that we went out to eat, to a salon where I had my hair straightened, and except for feeling a little dazed I was in contact with reality the whole time and have been since. I love my hair, I think i am going to keep straightening it. Later we went out for a few drinks, had fun, danced came home and passed out. Today, i had no out of reality episodes, which is good because the kids are home, I am so glad this particular part nightmare seems to be over. Drugs are scary things, never will I again confidently pop a pill in my mouth I haven't researched.

Isaiah is still a bit unstable, spring break is here, but so is Mommy, and that is a very good thing. I think i might be needed around here or something LOL

I wanna ride on a while horse.

far far away from this life. Elijah is having issues again in school, everyone is sick with something or other, and I have the sinus infection from hell! (yes again!) ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Its been awhile

I dont really know what to talk about, things are pretty much the same around here. I am longing for spring, I just can't wait for the snow to lift and along with it my SAD. (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

Elijah continues to do well in school. His birthday came and went with sucess. He had a really fun birthday party and even though we were tight on cash, got some really cool presents thanks to Toys R Us clearance! Heres a pic of the birthday boy.

He is now SEVEN. How did that happen? So now we are done with Birthdays until June, and I am glad for that LOL. Winter Bdays are so tough compared to summer ones, when everyone can be outside running around!

I continue to alternate with sleeping all day and not sleeping at all. Its almost time for my period and I am feeling it definently. I jus wish it would come and GO. I am still taking Vyvanse( the days I don't sleep much) and Xanax (the days I don't take Vyvanse and sleep too much) I am still working on my card, system. The kids are becoming very efficient cleaners! Especially my sweet boy Elijah who goes above and beyond what is asked. He even cleaned MY room today.

I told Elijah if he was good in school for 3 weeks straight that I would get a Ginea pig! So this weekend while he was at his dad's house, I did! I absolutley ADORE her. We named her Winnepeg LOL Winni for short. She is so friendly and tolerates the kids holder and playing with her very well! She cost $35 which I thought was an INSANE price for a rodent LOL. When I had my sweet Cocoa (a brown ginea pig I had as a child) I think she only cost $5. I guess thats the difference of 20 years, LOL. So we got her, we got a cage, we got all the little accesories she needs. It cost a lot of money, but I know it was well spent! Everyone here loves her. I think it was destiny that we got her that day, because Jolene met her old babysitter (of twelve years) in the pet store that day and she gave Jolene $50 as a late birthday gift! So that paid for about 3/4 of what we spent on Winni and her supplies. AWESOME!!

Here is a pic our our new baby.

I have been doing a lot of medical transcription work lately, and it is really taking a toll on me. I worked on it until 3 am today, Since it was due by tomorrow and we had a crazy weekend. At least it is done now and pays really well!

Well I guess I am going to try to get some sleep now, hopefully I can drag myself out of bed 3 hours from now and get Journee and Chloe on thier bus to preschool. I cant belive they are going to be in KINDERGARTEN next year. My babies are not babies anymore. I am hoping Journee will realize that soon and WEAN lol!

Awesome Elijah Update and MISC stuff!

Elijah has had 6 straight days in school where his behavior, work and attitude has been perfect! So last week his teacher told him if he was good for a week that she would take him to a movie today! So this morning she picked him up and off he went. She just dropped him off a bit ago and they had a great time. I am so happy for him! We also had conferences yesterday and he is one of the top students in his class! He is reading at 3-4 grade level! His school is really awesome, everyone there is so great and it is the most Diverse school in Rochester, which I really love! I think the Concerta has a lot to do with Elijah's sudden improvement, I am so glad it is working for him, and I pray to the universe it continues this way, he's had enough negativity!

On a totally different subject, I am starting a new home organization cleaning system, that is what Flylady is based on. I used to do Flylady's system and it worked really well for me in the past, but now I am too addicted to the computer to and to keep coming back on here to get her reminders from my email is just another hide side-tracker!

So another mom posted about the SHE system (which stands for Sidetracked Home Executives) and it looks like it could really do us some good around here! Its a system based on index cards with particular jobs on them. I am almost done making my cards and plan to start the system on Monday! If you are interesting in doing it too here is some information on it, The book is called Side Tracked Home Executives, From Pig Pen to Paradise by Pam Young and Peggy Jones. I don't have the book and I am not planning on buying it because they have a great set of Articles online telling you how to get started with the system! You can find that Here.

There are 21 essays, in one week I have read and done up to number 7, which I hope is enough to get me going on Monday! I have a separate card file for the kids as well each one has a divider with their name on it and I will just stick their daily chore cards in behind there names. I'm really excited about this can you tell? Here is a pic of the kids card file dividers. I had to make the dividers by hand as well since I couldn't find any 1-31 dividers to buy but that's ok because mine are colorful, and I like colors! LOL. Here is a pic of my card box with the daily and monthly dividers in place. I know this probably seems really

boring but it makes me feel like I got something accomplished LOL. Now I just have to work on my weekly plan and then put my cards in place for Mondays, start day! I plan on having a family meeting on Sunday to explain the card system to the kids. Jolene is hopeful but I don't think she is convinced and she didn't want to help with making the cards LOL

Other than that I am still taking the Vyvanse and still doing well on it. I started feeling sick again two days ago and went back to the Dr to find out that I not only had my sinus infection back but Strep throat as well. YUCK! So more antibiotics for me. So far I am yeast free but we will see how that goes over the next week of taking them! I just want to get well and stay well, and I want it to be SPRING!

I am so tired

But I cant go to bed until these windows updates download that just started because I need to password protect this account and log off, otherwise it is in grave danger from the kiddos! Today was a really really long day. I am starting a new organization system I will post more about tomorrow. Until then....

Does this work?

I just added Windows Live Writer and am posting this to see if this works!

TGIF!!!

I am so glad that it is Friday night! This has really been a rough week for me, I am not exactly sure why. I think I am just getting really burnt out with the daily grind, with winter, with snow and ice, with frigid cold and frozen toes!

The kids all have horrible cabin fever, which is to be expected when you choose to live in the Artic! LOL They are supposed to be watching Ratatouille upstairs and relaxing before bed, but I just heard Nolan go up there and say" Why are all the cusions off the couch!" That is my signal to go see....Ok, the boys blamed it on the girls and the girls blamed it on the boys just like usual...the battle of the sexes lives on!



I didn't make it to Elijah's school meeting today because Jolene went to pick up my mom and had car trouble and they came back too late. I rescheduled it for Monday, and I am still not looking forward to going. I was so freaked this morning when Jolene was gone so long that I went over and asked my neighbor friend if I could use her van to go look for her. So I bundled up the girls and took the highway to my moms house, going slowly to look for the car just in case she had broken down. Since the Van got stolen last year we are still driving the 89 ford Crown Victoria we call Vicki. Vicki has been a good car, but she is really on her last legs :(. Anyway, back to the story! When I got to my mom's house my brother told me that my mom and Jolene had just left. Isn't it Ironic? Dontcha Think? lol. 90's flashback!




So I came back home and they were here. At least the girls got to get out of the house today, so thats one good thing lol!

Amazingly even though I missed his meeting Elijah had a wonderful day at school! It makes me SO happy when he comes home with good news. His teacher even called me to tell me what a great day he had. He is like having two different children! There is no middle ground, when is is on he is ON and when he is off he is totally OFF. At his next pdoc appointment I am going to ask to try him on Vyvanse, instead of the Concerta, because what works better for me might work better for my child! It's worth a try anyway!

Tomorrow is our "free" day. All of the kids will be gone to their dad's house by noon, except for for Journee who would rather spend the night with my mom so she will go there. I am so glad because we need a break! I want to go out and have some fun!


I guess this is all pretty domestic and boring stuff huh? So is the life of me :)

Enter Vyvanse *updated*

Its almost 8 am. I just took the first pill of my new ADD med. I had a really rough time coming off Dexedrine yesterday so I am really wary. especially since this is a long acting pill. I am so hoping this will work for my symptoms, and not be heavy on the side effects. I hate side effects!!!!


So it is now 8 pm, and it has totally worn off, actually it wore off around 3 pm. The comedown wasnt that bad, I just got a slight headache and was really tired all the sudden. I took a 30 minute nap and was good to go. I wasn't hungry all day. We even went to Panerra Bread and I ended up taking 2 bites of my soup and bringing the sandwich home! Its the turkey artichoke panini and they are so yummy, I cant wait till the kids go to bed so I can warm it up and chow down now that my appetite is back LOL. So I am thinking this med could work for me, I am going to give it a week before I decide, since I survived today and did good. :)

How old do I act?

You Act Like You Are 23 Years Old

You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel like an adult, and you're optimistic about life. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. You're still figuring out your place in the world and how you want your life to shape up. The world is full of possibilities, and you can't wait to explore many of them.

What Age Do You Act?

Horrible, no good, very bad day!

Words cannot even describe the horror that was today. First we woke up late, The girls missed their bus to head start, then Jolene is like SUPER grouchy and I don't know why, I don't get a chance to really ask her whats wrong until all the kids are gone. She tells me she has a horrible pain in her neck and that she can't turn her head much either way. She takes some ibuprofen and we both lay back down for an hour. When she wakes up her hands are all swollen! So the girls get home from school and Jolene heads to the ER. I want to go with her but we can't find anyone to watch the girls on such short notice.

In the meantime daycare kid mom drops off her kids with no notice! Tells me both she and her dh have to work until close (they are both bartenders) So now I have a crabby one year old to deal with who needed a nap. I go to lay down with her to get her to sleep upstairs in my room, put on Dora for the girls and think for some reason they will sit and watch it. WRONG oh so WRONG.

When I came back downstairs after about 15 minutes, I discovered the girls in the BOYS bedroom. They had poured two big bags of cereal on the floor and two two liter bottles of pop, and then just for added flavor they poured some instant mashed potatoes into the mix. I totally lost it! It was 2:45 pm and I had the neihbor bringing her kids over for me to watch while she picked up all our older kids from school. I swept everything into a large pile in the hallway and covered it with one of the blankets they had soiled.

Jolene calls from the hospital and tells me there is something wrong with the nerves in her neck and that they gave her a shot for pain, plus pain pills and muscle relaxers to take home, but they are waiting to release her to see how the pain med works.

She gets home right before all the other kids do, in really bad shape! The meds they gave her didnt really help and she goes to lay down ofcourse. So now I am left with 8 kids and no help, the baby is crying and following me around having been woke up from her nap by my yelling at the girls mess making :(. Everyone is jumping around acting like fucking animals! They tear the plastic covers off the mattereses in the boys room, they dump a million toys all over, everyone is hungry and wants a snack, Elijah wants to read me a book, Isaiah wants help with his homework, Nolan needs 15 dimes for his math, and on and on and on. I deal the best I can with all this through dinner time, bath time, bed time and now here I sit with a glass of wine trying to wind down.

I so hope Jolene is better tomorrow!

How Quinn Got her Groove Back....

If anyone knows the plot to this story could you please let me know? I am having trouble writing even the outline to it! My last post I was all amped up about the things I was going to get done, ect ect. and here I sit almost two weeks later in the same damn position. It just seems like everytime I want to exercising I am needed somewhere else or someone is taking up the TV or DVD player, there is no healthy food in the house or there is no money to buy more healthy food is, or I just want to eat what I want to eat.

We have made progress on getting the house and kids more organized. We had made this thing on the wall this summer where we put up velcro strips on the wall in the living room and made stickers with everyones name on them and schedules and activities we all do and stuff trying to get them to more activly participate in a good schedule. Well the kids were into for about ummm 2 minutes? So these things and velcro strips on our wall pretty much just sat there for months making our living room look more like a daycare. Well the other day, I was juggling through all the kids winter wear after they got home from school trying to get the matches together so it wouldnt be a nightmare looking for them the next time they went outside. Somehow a glove got stuck on one of the empty velcro spots! Instantly I saw the value in this and ripped off all the little stickers and proceded hang up all the hats and gloves in on the velcro slips! It is working so awesome, each day the kids come home and stick their stuff on the strips to hang and dry. Everything so far has stuck and not fallen down and the kids think mommy is pretty smart! :P


So speaking of the kids. We have had some adventures here over the last couple weeks! Nolan turned 8 on the 20th! I can't believe how fast our kids are growing up. We had a birthday party at home and invited the neighbor kids over. Fun was had by all and he got some pretty neat gifts for our budget being so crunched as it is right now, thank you Toys R Us clearance! We even got him the HIDEOUSLY ugly transformer cake he was longing for, I wanted to puke just looking at its brightly colored sickeningly sugary concoction that is a hellmart (walmart) birthday cake.


Elijah is not doing well in school again. Everyday is a bad day and its really really been stressing me out. I don't know what to do to help him anymore! On a good note he has been reading chapter books to me or Jolene every night before bed, he is SUCH a good reader and its one of the pleasant moments in my day to listen to him, even though its very hard with Journee looming close asking for boobies constantly and saying she wants to read HER books. So we usually start out like this....


Then it turns into this...


And eventually after much frustration on my part...


They look so sweet sleeping together, I am almost tricked into believing they might be angelic, especially when Journee wakes up in the middle of the night and crawls into my arms looking like this...


She is still my baby, and I am still her everything, and I like that feeling of being needed SO much. And yet, still is still very much her own little diva person and oh so beautiful...



There is also another little bitty light in my life. Her name is Isarae and she is almost 5 months old. She is my neice and a little bundle of superdiva little girl. She is exclusivly breastfed and goes to school with her mommy(my sixteen year old sister!) everyday. Shes just starting to really reach for everything as you can see here...




I will sign off on that happy note. I hope you realize that the titles of my posts really have nothing to do with what I may or may not write about! I also hope you read anyway and don't mind :)

Getting back in the Groove

I am working really hard to get back on a regular schedule and continue with my new healthy lifestyle. I meant to start exercising on Monday and then all week long as well, but I've been painting for the landlord the last two days and I am so sore!

We are painting this beautiful 4 bedroom 2 bath house that he has for sale but not for rent :( We have a nice house now but it is really small for all of us and doesn't have a dining room which drives me crazy because I miss having family dinners at the table! I keep wishing something with the sale will fall through and we will be able to rent that house. Its only 100 dollars more than we are paying now and it has so much MORE! Fenced back yard, Dining room, 4 large bedrooms, Living room, Den with a fireplace! 2 bathrooms raised back porch, two car garage and so much more. Its like my dream house lol. I can dream right?

I like working, but not physical toiling LOL. I am more of an intellectual person, a people person, I need to feel like I am making a difference in the world when I am working otherwise it is just not fun for me! Like painting that house, I don't feel like I am doing anything special except making money, the people who buy it might not even like the color and repaint it right away. So anyway, I want to work, full time even, I feel like I am such a better mom when I am away from these kids for awhile.

Tonight I read a ton of books with Elijah and Journee and actually wasn't irritated when they kept begging for more! I just don't think I am made up to be constantly around and taking care of kids. I love them so much, but they really stress me OUT and the longer I am with them the worse it gets! So I just want to get my tooth fixed and find a good job that I will like, maybe even love?? That has more hours than the Diversity Council offers (ofcourse I will still continue there as well, I love it!) and dependable pay.

I am also hoping that I can go back to college this fall! I am pretty sure I am going to have enough in my tax return this year to totally pay off my student loan and once that happens I can get another Pell grant and go back. I want to go for social work. This time I am going to be smart about it and go for something I will actually like doing and be good at. I don't know what I was ever thinking trying to be a nurse! LOL Journee and Chloe will be in full day kindergarten next year so I will have lots of free time in the day, unless I find that great full time job, and then I will look into night or weekend classes or maybe even online classes. We all know I am great at doing things on the computer! heheh

Elijah is doing great in school so far this week. I am THRILLED. I think the concerta really helps him! He has had good days ever since he started it on friday. I don't want to jinx myself but I really think this could be exactly what he needed to help him get through the day at school. He has also been good at home and my sweet Elijah again!

Isaiah went back to the eye doctor today, he is soooo farsighted! I wonder if the lithium is contributing to this as well. So his new glasses will be in a week or two. Jolene took him to the appointment this morning so I haven't seen the frames yet, I hope they are cute!

Something keeps pulling me under,
down down in the deep dark waters
I hold my breath, I struggle and kick
my feet, desperately trying to get back
to the light, to the air, to my rescuer
I am so sure is there.

I make it to the surface, fighting
that terrible force. I look toward
the sun but the sky is overcast with
rolling black clouds glowering at me.
Go back in the deep dark water
they say its safer there, you'll never
make it up here anyway, eventually
I will kill you, theres nothing left for you
to do.

2 moms, 6 kids, 1 Cat.....

And one miniature wiener dog!


Meet Stanley.


Hes one year old. We adopted him. I used to think these dogs were so ugly and really the way they are made up IS weird. But he is actually really cute if you squint LOL! I have to say I never thought I would own a dog who has to wear a coat outside to go potty...



He also enjoys wearing a camo muscle shirt in the house! We won't be sending him to war, don't worry!




The kids love him, he loves them too.

Most of the time...