Just stopping in to say hello! I’m sitting here tonight doing some reading online, catching up on a few things that needed to be done and I realized that one of the most important things that I needed to do was say hello to YOU!

I’m doing admittedly better! The cloud that has been looming over me for months seems to be giving way occasionally to allow a little sunshine through. I don’t feel as down as I have the past several months, and I’ve even caught myself laughing out loud lately! I don’t know for sure that my “funk” is gone, but I do know that I feel better!

I have some kind of minor health stuff going on. Nothing with my heart or anything major, those tests all came back OK, with the exception of some lung issues that aren’t surprising considering that I’ve been a smoker for more than 2/3 of my life. But I’m working on that, one step at a time! I’m having issues with my right hand, namely my wrist and fingers, and have been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. I’m in the process of going through a second set of tests and have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon the beginning of August. After the tests that are scheduled mid July, we’ll know where we go from here. It’s not looking like an easy fix, but I’m not going to focus on that right now. And even if it does end up being surgical, I’m still healthy in the important areas.

I’m still losing weight, although at a much slower pace now, which is OK because I didn’t like losing it as fast as I was for a while! I mentioned to my hubby that I had lost four pounds this month and he said that I’m looking really good. It made me blush LOL!! But it’s nice to hear him say that, and it’s nice to not feel embarrassed about how I look!

Speaking of hubby, we got some MAJOR news for him a couple weeks ago! After more than 9 months of not working he secured a job in his field of trade, and not just a job, a GOOD job! We’re going to go from not making enough to pay our bills monthly to being able to put some money away for a rainy day, or even a family get away! I think that has a lot to do with me feeling better (a.k.a. less stressed)! It’s difficult knowing that you’re working every available moment that you can and yet no matter how much you work you’re still not going to make enough to pay the bills and make sure you have enough gas in the car to get back and forth to work daily. We’re VERY fortunate and thankful!

Anywho, that’s about it for now. I’m hoping to be able to get back to regular blogging here in the next month or so, so stand by and keep stopping in! And when I do come back, I’m not entirely sure it’s going to be what it has been here. I’m not sure what I want to do, but I just want to do something different! I’ve spread myself thin between all of my blogs and it’s time to get back and get some focus again!

OK, that’s it, I’m outties for now! TTFN!

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I’ve been receiving emails and comments from some of my regular readers asking me if I’m OK, and where I’ve been at. I’m so sorry that I haven’t updated here, and I hope you can forgive me!

Life is “OK”, nothing major bad happening, but it is VERY busy and VERY stressed! I have a situation going on in my extended family that is pushing all of our stress levels to their peak again. I have stuff going on at work that makes me want to pull my hair out most days. But I’m not giving into the stress and I’m doing my best to not let it get to me! It’s not always an easy task, if anything, it’s almost impossible many days!

But I find myself taking frequent “reprieves” to my deck and the wonderful patio set that my mother bought for us as a house warming gift! It’s so peaceful and quiet on the deck, even when the trains are coming by. We’ve even made a gate of sorts so that the dogs can come out on the deck as well. I think they love it more than I do sometimes…LOL!

I’m off work from tomorrow afternoon at 2 until Friday at 4 PM. I PROMISE I will stop by during that time and write a little more, and hopefully post some pictures of the new house! It’s been a blessing in many ways! I never thought I’d be happy living this close to traffic and/or trains, but I’m happier living here than I ever was living in my little house in the woods. Granted, I don’t have the peace and quiet or the privacy, but there is so much more that this house offers us, that it’s well worth giving up what little I gave up when we moved here.

Thanks for checking in on me, thanks for caring, and thanks for being a friend, I really appreciate it!

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I’ve sat here for the past couple of days, knowing that I needed to get here and post something, but completely at a loss for words or even something to write about. The stresses of life are taking their toll on me. We still don’t have a move in date for the new house, yet we have only 10 days before we have to be out of this house. Work has gone somewhat haywire, and I’m honestly considering legal action. There is just so much going on, and so little I can do about it.

I’ve lost my passion for my job, it no longer makes me happy to be there, if anything, it’s quite the opposite. I find myself growing more and more frustrated with each moment I’m there. Sometimes it’s easy to hide the frustration, other times it’s not. I don’t like feeling this way, I don’t like being this way. I’m almost always angry and unhappy, and today I seriously considered something that I honestly thought I’d never seriously consider. I just don’t want life to be like this any more. I’m tired of being upset and stressed, I’m tired of being constantly exhausted, and I’m tired of arguing all the time!

I promise that I’ll try to start writing again. Most days I’m lucky if I can put my thoughts together enough to make sense at home and at work, so to come here and wirte something that would make any sense is a big stretch. But I’ll try!

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Current Mood: Esctatic

Well, not necessarily former in my being another person, just former as in significant weight being lost! I know, I’ve talked about it over and over, and you’re probably tired of hearing about it, but I can’t help myself, this is EXCITING stuff man! And the discovery today that I can wear my summer clothes from four years ago makes it even more exciting, at least to me!

I had my daughter take a picture with my cell phone earlier today that I could send to my husband. I put on a pair of pants I purchased maybe two years ago, when I weighed about 50 pounds more than I do now, pants that fit me fine just a few months ago! I put them on so that she could take this picture, but it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped it would. But you can still see what I’m talking about!

I guess I probably should have pulled the shirt in to show better just exactly how big on me they are. But the fact is that when I pull them out like that, they are about 5 inches away from my stomach! WHOOOHOOOO! That’s the kind of thing that can just totally make your day!

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While there are many things that are nice about the new house, one of the things that I’m most looking forward to is having a deck to be able to sit outside on! This house is the first place we’ve lived in a long time that hasn’t really had a deck or a porch, and I’ve really missed that! Yes, we do sit outside here, but the “deck” is basically an over sized wood pallet that’s barely big enough to hold two chairs. The deck at the new house is big enough that it could hold an entire set of patio furniture and then some! It will be nice to be able to sit outside comfortably again!

The kids are getting excited about the new house, and have already planned a party with their friends after school lets out! They’ve got their lists of who they are inviting already figured out, as well as the menu and what they’d like to do. It’s funny you know! The two of them have spent so many years at each others throats and now, out of the middle of nowhere, they’re actually getting along more than they’re fighting. Shoot, I probably shouldn’t have said that because I probably jinxed myself now…LOL! But it is nice to see them getting along again, and it’s MUCH less stressful too!

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The next several days are going to be INSANELY busy for me! Besides getting everything packed for the move to the new house, I’ll also be working every day, with some closes followed by opening the next morning, as well as truck on Monday morning. Tonight I agreed to help my friend Jeni work at the Toledo Mud Hens game, so I’ll be heading over to her house to meet her around 4:30 and will be gone all night tonight. I’m SOOOOOO excited because I haven’t been to Fifth Third Field since the Mud Hens moved there in 2002. I know, BAD, BAD Holly…LOL! Life has just been busy, and when it’s not busy, we’re just too broke!

Tonight and tomorrow morning are the last “break” I get before I start the most insane four work days I’ve ever had since starting this job! I close Saturday night, getting out at 10 PM, then have to be back to open Sunday morning at 6 AM. Oh, I do have Sunday afternoon and evening off work, I forgot about that, sorry! Then Monday morning I have truck at work, then I close Monday night, getting out at 10 PM again, then I have to be back Tuesday morning at 5:30 AM and am working until 2 PM. Granted, that’s not a ton of hours, but the closing one night to open the next are going to be the killers, but at this rate, there won’t be any need for me to have to take Betastax or any other type of fat burner or wight loss supplement because I’ll be too busy to even have to worry about the calories not burning off almost as soon as I take them in…LOL! And no, I’m not complaining one bit!

I don’t know what my schedule is after Tuesday yet! I’m hoping it’s not “too bad” because next week will be spent getting everything packed up before we move, which will “hopefully” happen next weekend. Still don’t have the word for sure, but that’s what we were told originally. With this last load of boxes I brought home from work, I’m pretty sure I have enough boxes to get everything packed. At least I hope I do! LOL So if you don’t hear from me much the next week, you now know why!

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Those two words mean more than one thing to me right now. First is the thing that you all have heard me talk about a few times lately, the fact that we’re going to be moving from our little house in the woods to the house next to the train tracks. Living here has many good points, but it’s taken a not so good “road” lately, so moving just isn’t an option any more. And the new house has it’s own good points as well, but I’m not going to go into those right now…LOL! You’ll just have to wait for a future post about that!

The second thing those two words mean is something that’s very special to me. In nine days, it will be seventeen years since the day my husband and I said “I do”. SEVENTEEN YEARS! No one ever thought we’d make it past a year or two, ourselves included. Yet here we are, all these years later, still together. Our life together is so different now than it was back then. Back then, we’d have not given a second thought about doing something like hopping on the motorcycle and taking a long road trip. Maybe even head out west and spend a few nights in one of the Vegas hotels we’d heard other people talk about. Road trips were a regular part of our life, the first months we were together. But those stopped a long time ago, and the motorcycle was sold to pay bills many years ago.

Sometimes I wish we could turn time back to the days when we were young and carefree like that. But other days I look at our children and realize that if we turned time back, they wouldn’t be a part of our lives yet. That could have it’s good points, but I can’t imagine life without my husband OR my children! So now I just have to get creative on a budget and do something special for my hubby so that he’ll know that if I had to do that last 17 years all over again, I’d do it without hesitation!

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Honestly, I think I lost my head somewhere over the course of the past few weeks. I’m so forgetful any more, which just is not like me at all! I’ve had things I’ve had to do online, and haven’t gotten them done when I was supposed to. I’ve needed to call my daughters doctor for over a week now and never got around to it. Thankfully my husband remembered and called this morning.

For some reason or another, I REALLY messed up today and totally forgot that I was supposed to be to work this afternoon at 3. So when the call came in from my boss at 3:30 asking me if I knew I was supposed to be there, I freaked! I’ve been so proud of myself about the fact that I hadn’t been late one single day since the day I hired in. If anything, I’m usually at least 10 minutes early. So basically being a no call/no show today bothered me! At first my boss was going to find someone to cover my shift, but about 45 minutes she called back and asked me if I could go ahead and come in. Thankfully I was able to get ready and get into work very quickly after she called!

I’m so not used to closing, I do it so rarely, and it seems like each time I close, I’m closing a different area, so I don’t have one specific close area “down pat”, so I’m probably the slowest closer they have. Tonight I was supposed to be done with work by 10 PM, I didn’t get done until 10:45. And I have 2 more close shifts over the next week. Hopefully I can get a little faster at closing!

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In my previous post I talked about basically having a week off work. See, I worked a full shift today, tomorrow I have only truck to do, then I’m off work until Friday, which is also just a truck shift. After Friday, I don’t go back to work until next Sunday. Can you say WOW!! Yes, the timing is perfect! But I’m honestly not sure if I’ll “want” to go back to work after having that much time if….LOL! Yes, I’m just kidding!

So, here are my plans for the week. After I get truck done tomorrow I plan on coming home and finishing up the last couple of loads of laundry that need to be done. They mostly consist of sheets and blankets, but today’s clothes from everyone will be in there as well. Once I have the laundry done, I’m then going to start to go through my clothes. I’ve got a lot of sorting to do first. With dropping the weight I have, many of the clothes I have no longer fit me. So I’m going to sort my clothes into those that fit, those that don’t fit, and those that need to be thrown out! Then I’ll pack up what I think I won’t need over the next couple of weeks!

Then I think I’m going to go through the front and back closets. They’ve gotten so crammed with crap in the past 18 months that I’m honestly not sure what I’m going to find. I know that in the front closet are two huge boxes filled with miscellaneous computer parts. All of our extra keyboards and speakers are in there somewhere, as well as our old router, some mice that none of us use unless ours die on us and probably tons of cables and stuff. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if I found some old ethernet cards and KVM switches, but I doubt I’ll get that lucky! Then I’m going to pack up or give away all of the winter coats that sat in the closet this past winter not being worn! Honestly, we have way too many coats and my kids are way too picky for their own good!

The back closet isn’t as bad as the front one, thankfully! It’s where I keep all of my larger counter top appliances (mixer, griddle, deep fryer, etc.), but the bottom of it has become cluttered with shoes, backpacks and purses. I must have 20 black leather purses, none of which I like, but none that I will part with either…LOL! Some women are addicted to chocolate, I’m addicted to purses! I’ll wear a pair of shoes until there’s nothing left to wear, but if a cute purse catches my eye, it’s MINE! (as long as I have the money….LOL).

So, that’s a brief glimpse of my week, do you want to come help me? PLEASE!!!! LOL

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It’s so strange for me to think about not living in this house. I know that we’ve only been here 18 months, but it’s the first place I’ve felt like I was at home in years! There have been times that we’ve lived in nicer places, and there have been times that we’ve lived in much worse places, but this place just “fit” us and our life style. It allowed me to be able to have a reason to keep the kids from roaming the streets without having to argue with them about why. It allowed me to get back in touch with my love for nature, and it allowed me to feel safe, something that I haven’t felt in a very long time. That’s the biggest reason why it’s going to be strange for me to wake up, in just a few weeks time, in a completely different place, in a completely different home.

My work schedule is VERY light this week! After spending weeks on end working 6 days a week, I have probably the lightest scheduled hours I’ve had since I started this job! At first, I was kind of angry, but as it set it, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect! I have several tests that I have to get done at the hospital this week, I also have a TON of packing and cleaning to do! So the reality is that not going back to work for a full shift for a full week, isn’t entirely “that bad”. Yes, it will play heck with the bills, but we’ll juggle things around and make it work!

I start this week with some nervousness and apprehension! I’m scared to move, I honestly am! Yes, the new house will be quite a bit nicer, but nicer isn’t always better. We’ll be VERY close to one of the busiest sets of railroad tracks in the county! We’ll be right in front of and right between three very busy businesses. We won’t have the privacy and quietness we’ve been allowed at both this house and the house we moved here from. It will allow for the convenience of a gas station/convenience store less than half a mile away. It will allow the kids to go to school next year at a MUCH better school district than they are currently in, and it will allow us to have some of the things we had become accustomed to before we moved out here to the country. So I guess it’s a little bit of give, and a little bit of take. You give up some of the things that are important to you, and you take some of the things that make life just a little easier. But that’s what life is all about, isn’t it?

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