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I haven’t done much grumpy in here, but this week is stressy and I need to vent.

Novell. It pays our bills in spades. It pays our medical expenses in spades. It also sends Howard on trips once a month or more which creates buffer stress and detaches him from me an his children. I hate that the kids consider it normal to have Daddy gone. I can live with it except when corporate decisions leave Howard pissed off and unable to enjoy family or schlock. Then his at-home time is ruined as well.

Howard leaves for yet another trip tomorrow. He’ll be gone until late Thursday night. Thursday morning Link has minor surgury. (Adenoid removal) We’ve looked it over and over and all things considered Thursday is the best day to do it. Logically it all makes sense, but I’m going to have to deal with it by myself and I don’t want to. And Howard feels horrible about not being there and this entry is NOT going to make him feel any better about it. Which makes me want to delete this entry. Howard’s pain is my pain, I want to avoid pain.

Howard and I both dream of a time when Schlock makes enough money to support our family. Then he could be at home. He could be involved in the daily running of the house and caring for the children. We could build habit patterns which are dependant on having him here instead of off on trips. Unfortunately there is only a limited amount of things I can do to forward that goal without sacrificing our goal maintaining a stable home for our children. I know I could be doing so much more to foster the growth of Schlock-as-business. I’m capable of being a real asset there, but only at the cost of ignoring the children. I can’t do enough. I can’t pay off the debt fast enough, I can’t keep the house clean enough, I can’t even get bedtime working smoothly.

And today all I want to do is curl up in my bed and cry. Or sleep until it gets better. Both would be incredibly counter productive.

I was going to make this entry family only, but I keep thinking about friendship. Friends grow closer because they tell each other the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. I have the beginings of some good friendships here, I need good friends.

Today Patches was happily rummaging in the pantry when he discovered a treasure, a great big jumbo-sized bag of cheerios. In Patches world, cheerios are the food-of-the-gods, so naturally he picked up the bag to get the happy out of it and into his mouth. Unfortunately he picked it up on the wrong end. The sound of cheerios hitting the floor startled poor Patches, especially since it was followed by a gasp from Mom. In an effort to stave off disaster, or at least get further from it, Patches raised his hand (still holding the cheerio bag) high in the air and ran across the kitchen. To his dismay, the mess chased him across the room with cheerios bouncing gleefully everywhere. Mom stopped the expanding chaos by grabbing away the bag, which left Patches staring wide-eyed at the huge pile of cheerios and knowing he’d done a Bad Thing. I’ve never seen a little guy so concerned. He didn’t know whether to run and hide or start to cry. Betrayed by cheerios!

Fortunately hugs from Mom and the mess quickly swept away restored Patches to his usual cheerful self.

In an effort to actually serve meals at regular intervals, today I sat down and wrote out a Meal Plan. I planned breakfast, lunch, and dinner for an entire month. In theory this eliminates the two hours of “what shall we have for dinner” which seems a nightly negotiation around here. Now when I look at the clock and realize it is supper time, I can look at my calendar and know what to fix.

Before you get too impressed with my meal management prowess, you should know that pretty much every single breakfast slot is filled with the word “cereal” Lunches rotate between “Sandwich” “Hot dog” and “Mac & Cheese”. Dinners are a little more varied, but I still have Spaghetti down every Tuesday. Mondays are soups. Fridays are grill nights. You get the idea.

When I first came up with this meal plan idea I was a little worried about how repetitive it was. Howard wisely told me “It can’t possibly be any more repetitive than chicken nuggets every night.”

Life is going to happen and I know that there will be nights where I completely disregard the schedule. But having it is a good thing.

Howard’s cousin Steve and Steve’s son Tayler came to BBQ and stay the night last night.  I’d never met either one of them before and now I understand even more that some of the coolness that is Howard must be genetic because it was enormous amounts of fun. …

Relatives!Read More »

Today both Link and Gleek made me laugh out loud. I just have to share.

We were in the car and Link spied a Volkswagen Beetle the same green color as Howard’s. He said: “A green buggy! It’s not Schlock though so it’s not Dad. It must be Dad’s friend.”

Gleek was watching a movie and then cried out with indignation and a scowl: “Dads are not with hair!”

The other night Howard pointed out that since I’ve started this live journal I’ve been online a lot more. That combined with Gleeks plea for mommy to “Stop looking at your computer!” has given me food for thought.

Live Journal has definitely altered my online habits some. But I actually think the fact that the kids are out of school for the summer has more to do with my increased online time. The unstructured nature of summertime means that while I have more “free” time, less actually gets done. If I have all day to do one thing, it probably won’t get done. If I have 10 things to do and only 2 hours, I’ll probably do them all and maybe one or two more besides. It is all a matter of focus.

In the winter I KNOW I don’t have time to run downstairs and do online stuff more than twice a day. In the summer I’m online more often than that.

I just need to make being online my reward for getting stuff done.

The disapearance of Lori Hacking which is a local event here and has made national news has been much on my mind lately.  Hard to not have it on my mind since everywhere I go people are discussing it.  The thing that bothers me most is the way that people are discussing it.  They are almost always the fearful discussions of people who find this kind of event beyond comprehension.  I read a fantastic book about a year ago which makes this kind of thing not only comprehensible, but predictable.  The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.  After reading it I have been much less fearful of violence.  I feel like I know better how to predict it and what to do if it threatens.  Gavin de Becker knows his subject and explains it thoroughly.  I wish Lori Hacking had read it.  Maybe then she could have protected herself from abduction or from her own husband whichever happened to her.