Hide The Mess

Fence Sitters

Oh my. The baby topic is back on the table. Uhhh, I've given away our newborn stuff and all my maternity clothes. Oops. It's possible I was a wee bit premature because apparently my husband has been giving this more thought. And he made a compelling argument for having another child. Our conversation last night left my head spinning. Who knows what we will end up doing, we could circle back around to "one and done". But then again, maybe not. It's such a tricky thing, when you're in your 40's and trying to decide if expanding your family is the thing you want to do. There are a multitude of reasons on both sides of the argument. It will be interesting to see where we land and what ultimately ends up happening. I will say, the thought of being knocked up and the postpartum period leave me filled with dread. But it would be a short term hit for a long term gain, so if we tilt to the one more baby side of the fence - I can do it. I think.

In our other exciting news that I can't talk about, things are moving right along. It's possible by this fall things will be finalized and we'll be off and running. It's an exciting time - although the process feels slow - but I'm learning rather late in life that most processes seem slow because I am an impatient mofo.

too much

I have too much work to do.
That is the thing I think to myself most often as I sit at my desk and look at the electronic pile of work just sitting there. I don't know what's happening at the company I work for, but I sure would appreciate a little help. Not only did the other person who worked  the same project types I do take another position, they put a hiring freeze in place before they could back fill it, so I am essentially fucked up the ass every single day and I do not enjoy that one little bit. Some days I think it's not so bad and I feel pretty on top of things. Other days, I wonder what I'm going to forget or drop the ball on THIS time because when you put that much work on one person, it's bound to happen. I just clench my ass and hope whatever I screw up doesn't have a gigantic, loud, client impact to deal with.

Also, my son climed out of his crib yesterday. I watched him get that leg over the rail via the video monitor, but couldn't get to him fast enough to prevent the fall to the ground. He laid there, not crying, but a little stunned. Then he said "I did it!". Oh yes son, you did it alright. I was really hoping I could just keep him in his crib until he was like 15. Ha. Not really. But I would like a little longer with the crib action. We are going on a vacation soon and I really don't want to deal with a transition while we're in a strange place. We'll see how that goes.

No more time to write. As I sit here the emails are stacking up.

that coconut cream pie turned out awesome

Finallly. I made a pie that did not suck! It wasn't the lemon meringue pie, which sucked all three times I made it, but still, I had pie success. Although I probably shouldn't make a meringue again anytime soon, I couldn't help but put spoonfuls of it into my food hole and I wasn't going to admit that to anyone, but seriously, I can't make that stuff without have a serious slip. I've been writing a lot about slipping lately, and I wonder how many slips it takes in what time period for it to qualify as a full blown relapse? Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but the no sweets rule I have isn't black and white all of the time. Maybe I should go back to therapy? I don't want to really. I would just like to get a handle on it so I can stop writing about it all the time. It's starting to feel like how I write about my kids sleeping and / or health issues all the time. The topics start to bore me.

Things at work are strange. The call center people are gone, and it's like a ghost town on our floor now. When I started with this company eight years ago, there were 300 employees. Now there are about 50. I've been through this before with another company and it's just as depressing this time as it was then. I hate going to my office now, it's empty and dark and the HVAC is an over achieving son of a bitch. I freeze my ass off every time I'm there.

The Hornets Are Mocking Us

There are hornets all around our house. We don't know where the nest is, but it's around here somewhere, and those bitches are HUGE. My husband put out a hornet killer thing, but so far, they just fly right past it and into the window like they have been doing for weeks, mocking our attempt to lure them to certain death. We are going to have to step things up, because being in our backyard is no longer relaxing.  I am on constant Hornet Watch. Seriously, they are HUGE. Like, out of a horror novel huge. I'm convinced they aren't stupid and just banging into the window, I think they are clever and trying to break into the house. God, they are so creepy looking. We kind of think that the unkempt backyard of one our of neighbors is home to the hornets, so my husband, being the lawn obsessed man that he is, called the city on those people. The code enforcement dudes were out earlier this week and will send a notice to our neighbors that they must clean up their yard, we'll see if that works. I'm not typically a big fan of calling the city on people, I'd like to think we could handle things in a neighborly way, but my husband was all "eff that, it's the city's job to keep track of that shit". We'll see what happens. I hope they don't figure out it was us, although, they probably will, since we are the new people in the neighborhood!

screw you lemon meringue pie

For Father's Day I made my first ever lemon meringue pie. It was a FAIL. I blamed the recipe, obviously. So I tried again, using a recipe that my sister has used with success. Except, for the second time in a few days - FAIL. The filling will not set up so I end up with a runny pie filling, which is the opposite of what I'm going for. I purchased more ingredients today, because God Damn It, I am going to make a lemon meringue pie if it's the last damn thing I do.

Disorder

I've made no secret that I have an eating disorder. It's something that ebbs and flows in my life, sometimes I go months, even years without really having any sort of noticeable slip. And other times, I find myself on the slippery slope what seems like every other week. The last few months I have had trouble. Recently I made blueberry muffins (and the fact that blueberry muffins are mentioned in that linked post should tell me something) and proceeded to eat most of them over the course of a few days. I think my husband had one. Then I bought those little mini-blueberry muffins for my son, but he didn't want them, so you know. I ate them. And then, something happened and I couldn't stop thinking about getting more of those muffins. I would look for them any time I went to get a snack out of the machine at work, or when I'd run into Walgreens for something, but couldn't find them. Until this week, at the grocery store, there they were. And I bought a box. And then ate them all. In one sitting. I had a moment of shame, where I rummaged in the trash to push the evidence down as far as it would go, and then just took the damn trash out so my husband wouldn't see it. There was a fleeting thought that I could purge them out, and make it like it never happened. But I didn't. I wasn't actually going to tell anyone, I mean, seriously, I was home alone, no one would know, and I could pretend it didn't happen. But I am as sick as my secrets and fleetingly thought about confessing to my husband because I think his reaction wouldn't require me to talk about it too much, I could confess, tell him I'm fine, and he wouldn't ask probing questions because he's not like that. I  ended up talking to the BFF about it, and to be honest, I don't think what happened was about an eating disorder. I think it had more to do with an addiction. Does that make sense? Does that hair splitting between what is disordered and what is addiction make sense to anyone but me? I guess it doesn't matter. I did not spend time curled up telling myself what a terrible piece of fat shit I was for eating those muffins. I was just reminded, yet again, that there are foods I can't eat, because to eat them sets off an addictive cycle, and that addictive cycle can trigger my eating disorder and then I am in hell and miserable and I do not want to be in hell or be miserable.

invasive

Yesterday I got an email from my therapist. He'd received a request for my medical records from our life insurance company. This made me instantly say NO FUCKING WAY. I had a fairly strong and irrational reaction although I don't really think it's irrational not to want your full mental health file sent to some life insurance company where they can dissect my crazy ass thoughts. When I called my husband he was less than sympathetic and was like "it's just a medical record, have him send it. if you don't then we'll have to cancel your life insurance application." Not what I wanted to hear in the moment, in fact, I found his lack of understanding for how I felt downright stupid and wanted to get off the phone with him immediately. Which I did. And then I called my best friend, and said through tears that I'm going to tell her something and I need her to be on my side. She was WAY more understanding about my reaction and my reluctance to have my entire file sent over to some life insurance company. While my initial reaction is a big fuck no I do want life insurance, I have a kid now, if anything happens to me, I want money dumped in my husbands lap to get him through whatever needs to happen. So I replied to my therapist that I'm only comfortable with him sharing my treatment dates and the diagnosis, that's really it. I'm not sure if that will satisfy the insurance people but we'll see. I also had a follow up conversation with my husband about how his reaction made me feel and it turns out he didn't realize how upset I was during our first phone call, and he backed way the hell up and became the supportive spouse I needed in that moment. Being honest and telling someone how their actions make you feel isn't always the easy way. I could have blown off having the conversation, but I think I would have carried some resentment about being misunderstood. I'm still not sure why having that file sent to someone feels so invasive. I mean, I share most of my crazy with the internet, but it's through my filter, not my therapists filter and I'm in control of the message. We'll see what happens.

damn cat

I just caught a neighborhood cat sitting on our patio right in front of the watering can that is now a bird house with baby bird eggs, or even baby birds inside (my husband thought he heard some peeping from inside the can last night). I swear to God if that cat gets to those baby birds or the eggs or the momma bird I will be PISSED. I feel oddly protective of that nest. I normally don't mind stray cats, they are usuallyof the mind their own business variety, but this particular cat has prowled around our patio before - and now there are baby birds or maybe just the eggs at this point, and I kind of want to taser that cat.

Speaking of cats, my old lady cat, who is named Sabrina but my husband has been calling her Mrs. Peepers for five years and so that name has kind of stuck and I use both names interchangeable, ANYWAY, Mrs. Peepers is old. Like, she's like 19 years old or some shit (I found her when she was approximately 5 years old and that was back in 1998) and she's on a weekly arthritis medication because she has old lady bones and was moving really slowly. That medication has helped but now, when she walks, you can hear a clicking noise, like how my old lady ankle now clicks when I walk because I AM OLD. I dread the day that she is no longer with us. She has been through SO MUCH with me, but I know that her time is limited now. I don't know why I'm thinking about this, it makes me sad.

really doing it

We are really going to do this big thing. I can't say what that big thing is, but I can freak the hell out about it as much as I want to right now because OMFG - squared - to the 10th power. Holy Mary Mother of Jesus we are about to take a gigantic leap and take on a gigantic financial burden and it is equal parts terrifying and joyous (as are most life changing things). There was a meeting with some people today, and these people said they could make this thing that we were thinking would take until the end of the year, these magic people said they could probably turn this around in 8 weeks. ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT. What. The. Fuck. Granted, that is speculation and things can and often do take longer than you think they are going to take, but just the thought of it actually happening that quickly has made me kind of nervous, sick to my stomach and excited and a bunch of other emotions I can't feel fast enough to identify.
Buckle up campers. This shit is about to get intense.

more crap about my kid

So the next level up antibiotics seem to be working a little. The coughing has diminished substantially and the sleeping has improved to the point where I'm getting 4-5 hours in a row for myself and I know that doesn't sound like a lot but when you've been getting 60-90 min. at a time, it's heavenly! My husband and I decided we are giving these new antibiotics 5 days and if that cough isn't gone - we are going to take things to the next level - even if the doctor thinks we are absurd. I'm just tired of hearing that it's because he is a daycare kid. I call bullshit on that since he is in daycare only three days a week and also, we've already been told he is the sick kid in his class, so if his doctor actually says that to me again I will begin weeping and tell him we have to find a new doctor who doesn't dismiss our concerns. I will be weeping because I hate that kind of confrontation. I am a people pleasing patient and I want my doctors to LIKE ME which is insane and I know it, because they don't have to like me, they just have to listen to me and my concerns and not treat me like I am an over-protective nut job who brings her kid in any time he gets the sniffles because nothing could be farther from the truth. If I took him in every time he was sick we would eventually need to just rent a room and live there. I've kept track of this stuff, and when it's written down all in one place, it looks wrong to me. The constant snot / cough / random fever nonsense. I think the cough is what bothers me the most. On Thursday he coughed so hard he barfed all up in my hair and all over himself and then on the floor as he's standing there while I try to take his vomit soaked clothes off. And I don't think it was a sick vomit, I think all that coughing made him gag and then hurl and THAT IS NOT OK.

In work news, I got some pretty shitty news on Friday. It made me cry on the phone to my boss. The dude that used to work the same projects I do took another position on our team and so they asked me to take all the work until his back fill was in place. It was a short term solution and I agreed with the understanding that it was not going to be indefinite. In fact, as I talked to my boss as recent as last week, they'd interviewed and offered the position to someone, so it was only a matter of time. Then Friday, she called to drop the bomb that there is a hiring freeze and that the back fill position was on hold. HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE.  That means I am the only resource for these projects for the near future and I cried on the phone and told my boss I'd been in this position before and can't do it. Of course, I'll try, what choice do I have, but honestly, I don't know how they can expect me to do the work of 3 people. It's absurd.