Two Years Ago Today…

I was anxiously awaiting HH’s arrival in Charlotte! I was excited about finally being in the same city. I had moved into a small rental house 3 months prior, without knowing when he would make it down. Life is funny that way.

I didn’t know how our life was going to turn out. I certainly didn’t envision a baby in the mix. I thought we were gonna have an empty nest after June 2015. LOL!

We got engaged, married, moved twice, bought a house, and had a baby all in that time. Whew! Not to mention his job transferring him two hours away three days after we got married, and then transferring him back two days before we moved into our house. That’s a busy two years.

Can’t wait to see what the next two years will bring. 🙂

I’m Still Here

You ever have that moment where life reminds you of something that you are already supposed to know?

These last 7 weeks have been a whirlwind now that Lailah is here. This is kind of “old hat” for HH, but she’s my first kid. Me, the woman who said in her 20s that she was never having kids.

We’ve both been so focused on her, we forgot about each other. Like, hello? I’m still your spouse and I’m still here. I need some attention, too.

I wonder is this is something that happens a lot in marriages, when the kids come along. It came to a head the other day when we had a hard, but necessary, conversation about wrongs on both our parts.

Since then, it’s been some of the best days since she was born. We’ve figured out how to share the love between all three of us. We baked a pizza and had movie night last night. On NYE, HH cut off all my hair at my request. That simple haircut became a bonding experience.

CH comes back from NY tomorrow, and I hope he’s got his mind right, because I like my family vibe right now. He’s been informed that he needs to start looking for a job (within walking distance from the house), and that he needs to put in some serious work on the academic front. We shall see.

Color Me Tired

HH decided he would spend his days off painting at the new house. I told him we could probably get someone to do it for a reasonable amount, but you know Frugal MacDougal was not interested in that at all.

Hence, the mad dash to pick paint colors. What should have been fun has turned into a colossal pain. I don’t even know if I’m fully happy with the colors, but he wanted to paint, so I had to pick.

Then he kept changing plays on me like a football coach with Tourette’s. Look dude, if you tell me to pick the room decor and how we’re setting up each room, don’t come behind me like little Phil from Gloria talmbout, “I’m the man!” and changing ish.

Like how he changed from Behr to Glidden, after I had already picked colors. Or how he thought he wasn’t going to paint our bathroom to match our bedroom. Or how he told me to pick the comforter for the new king sized bed, only to complain about the color.

You see where this is going? This, on top of the crap going on at work with our transition to another new computer system.

Full on “do it ya #%^*{! self” rant, complete with hormonal break down.

Ahem. We seem to be on one accord now, though. Our bedroom and bathroom are painted, and he’s about to finish painting Baby H’s room. I’m sticking around to see if my last minute color choice (thanks to his paint switch) comes out like I planned.

Then I’m going back to the rental. This weekend I would like to pack up the majority of the dishes.

And not have any more hormonal outbursts.

I can’t make any promises on either. LOL

Headed into the Weekend

I’m glad to see this weekend. Today, I had a check up with my OB/GYN and HH was able to attend. I called him when I was en route, and I could tell by his voice that he forgot. *facepalm* LOL! By the time he got there, I was already in the exam room, and the nurse had already brought out the Doppler and found Baby H’s heartbeat. When he came in the room she turned it on again so he could hear it. It was 152 beats today.

This is the second time that they’ve had to search all over for the baby’s heartbeat. He/she likes to chill low and to the right. Perhaps that’s why my bladder always feels heavy. And then when she did find him/her, the baby moved away like, you are invading my space. Hilarious! Kid is already feisty.

HH and CH just left with a couple of his friends to go ride the go karts. HH is taking them to eat afterwards. That should be expensive fun.

Tomorrow, CH goes up to his school for four hours of EOC studying. We’re going to get up early (read: I will get up early and HH will struggle) to check out a neighborhood garage sale. I’m not sure what’s on tap for Sunday, but I’m glad HH took the weekend off.

CH will be 16 on Monday! He has made some strides while he has lived here, and I am happy with that. It’s a daunting task to take someone else’s child under your wings. His grades are a little better than last year. Hopefully, he will be more prepared for his junior year and understand expectations for home and school life. He and I talked for a couple of hours the other night and watched Mythbusters. He leaves for his summer in NY in a week.

I hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend!

That Didn’t Exactly Work Out

So, it’s the end of May and we’ve heard nothing from HH’s job about the alleged transfer that could’ve taken place this month.

I guess the retiree was phantom. Or maybe he said, “sike! I was just playin’. I got five good years left in me.” Or maybe the yard master was just completely mistaken with his info and he doesn’t want to admit it now.

Either way, hubs still makes the 90+ minute trek. More wear and tear on the car and more cash out of our pockets.

We have A LOT to be thankful for this year, so we will be focused on that in the coming months. It just cooks my grits and sticks ’em to the pot that they dangled this carrot, and then snatched it away. Booooooooo.

Who Dis Woman?

This morning, I jumped up early to get dinner in the crock lot. We’re having beef stew with sweet potatoes.

I laughed to myself, because 10 years ago, this woman did not exist. Do you hear me? She did not exist. She had no crock pot. She barely cooked. This woman, at 38, is very different from the woman who existed at 28.

This time ten years ago:

• I was 28. I lived in a one bedroom apartment on the south side. I had no one to be responsible for but me. Not even a pet. Wake up early? What’s that?
• I had just broken up with a dude who could only seem to be committed to his mom, his daughter, and his job. (I stupidly gave him another chance 4 years later, but that’s another blog. I’m sure he’s still committed to those same things, except now he has a son, too. LOL)
• I was the heaviest weight I had ever been. I went to visit my sis and bro in law in Germany that year. My bro in law told me (years later), that I “waddled” towards them in the airport. LOL!


(me in Fall 2002…looked pretty much the same when I went to Germany)

• I was still working in insurance, but at that point hadn’t gotten serious about it as a career. It was a job.
• I wasn’t good with budgeting or anything remotely related to same.

So, “who dis woman” now? In no particular order, she’s a wife. A triathlete. A (step)mom. An insurance professional. A daughter who misses her father and loves her mother. A sister who loves her four siblings with all her heart and soul. An auntie who loves all 6 of her nieces and nephews with all her heart and soul. (Hopefully) a good friend who is there for her friends like they are there for her. A woman who is just trying to live life and figure out her way through this world, with each new challenge.

I like her. 🙂

Failure Is NOT An Option

Do you believe you can speak things into existence? That what you put out into the universe comes back to you? I do. So, I try my hardest not to fumble forth with tons of negative statements every day.

HH and I both love hard. In the 2+ years before we got married, we talked about it often. From issues in our past and what we had done to correct them, to how we saw our future and how we want to be pushing each other around in wheelchairs at 85. LOL!

Yes, there are lots of environmental factors that can affect a marriage, but we have vowed to work through those as best we can.

I always tell him (and myself): there’s no backwards jumping over the broom to get a divorce.

I can look back over relationships prior to him, where I was dealing with my own pain/issues, and not at all equipped to be in a relationship. Yesterday, I was on FB and someone posted a link to an article that was so good, I’ve read it 3-4 times and found myself nodding and saying “yes!” out loud many times.

The article is entitled Until Death Do Us Part: 8 Reasons For Marital Failure Amongst African Americans, written by Dr. Umar Abdullah-Johnson, Psy.D., NCSP, M.Ed.

I definitely encourage you to read it in full, no matter what your relationship status but I’ll hit some of the highlights here.

The 8 reasons are listed as the following:

1. SEARCHING FOR SECURITY: UNMET EMOTIONAL NEEDS FROM CHILDHOOD
2. SELF-HATRED: LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO LOVE YOU
3. MATERIALISM MELTDOWN: BUYING HAPPINESS
4. ESCAPING MISERY: LOOKING FOR A WAY OUT OF YOUR PAIN
5. POST-TRAUMATIC RELATIONSHIP DISORDER: THE GHOST OF RELATIONSHIPS PAST
6. TYRANNY OF YOUR INNER CHILD: THE PAIN BODY EXPERIENCE
7. WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON: THE CLASH OF VALUES
8. BLENDING THE UNBLENDABLE FAMILY: YOUR CHILDREN OR OUR CHILDREN

At face value, they may look strange, or you may not agree, but once you read his explanations under each, things fall into place.

For instance, under the ghost of relationships past, he says:

“Anyone who cannot be alone long enough to develop a relationship with themselves can never build a happy one with another person.”

and

“We always hear talk about the need for dietary fasting and spiritual fasting, but now is the time for me to introduce the concept of relationship fasting. Yes, a period of NON-DATING, that should last at least a season (3 months) before you infect some innocent person’s life with the negative energy of a past relationship. Just as with all traumas, you need time to re-stabilize your inner self and regain a sense of reality. When you don’t give yourself TIME OFF from forging new romantic attachments you risk spoiling what otherwise would have been a perfectly good relationship with your psychic baggage from your previous love(s). You are not able to trust, love, commit, reciprocate and be emotionally available for fear that he or she may be a rendition of the previous failed partnership. If you are still afraid, that means you are still suffering the aftershocks of post-traumatic relationship disorder, and should not be dating. This is one of the biggest problems with relationships in our community, as too many of us are spiritually infected with the unhealthy energies of past encounters, not to mention still in love with previous partners, thusly wasting the time of an innocent person who has healthy relationship needs that you are not able to fulfill since you are still preoccupied with someone who is no longer in your life, or shouldn’t be. You have to get over your past in order to get on with your life. There is a season for everything, including a time to heal.” (emphasis mine)

There are so many more nuggets in this article. I think they can apply to all relationships, but I also think our community has a disproportionate problem with this.

What do you think? Let me know.

Slacker

One of my friends, whom I also used to work with, used to say that when we put in a lazy day at work, we “owed the company some change.”

Well, I probably owe my family some change. I just have not been 100% present with them, especially CH. I have let the video games entertain him for the majority of the week. Halfway in my defense, he’s 15, so it’s not like I have to plan activities for him, but we haven’t interacted much the past few days. He has had a few days off school, so he’s psyched to be able to play video games during the week.

But, I’ve also been a bit frustrated with him not doing simple things around the house. I went on a cooking strike because I was feeling like, if you’ve been home all day, why are there dishes in the sink? Why are you stuffing trash into a full trash can, instead of emptying it, which is one of your chores, any-damn-way?!?

He must’ve gotten the picture because I heard him empty the trash without being told. And when I sent him a text to remind him that I had a hair appointment on Wednesday night and I’d be home late, he sent a text back and said that he would cook dinner.

I’m über frustrated with only seeing my hubby 2 days a week. It’s not even full days, because I have to work, so it’s really two evenings and half a day on Saturday. So we have to try to squeeze in all this QT for just us, and then family time, on top of being tired, and both of us having the crud (he’s just getting over the cold/flu that I had previously). When we get invited places, sometimes we don’t even go because that takes away from time for us. Hopefully, there is a light at the end of the tunnel round about May. The regional manager indicated someone in the Charlotte yard is slated to retire in May, and then he could transfer back.

Please let that come to fruition, and let that light at the end of the tunnel not be a train coming to mow me over.

I talked to my BFF for a few hours the other day, and I told her that even though we’ve been at this “working out of town” things for 2 months right now, it still feels like it just started and I’m still adjusting. She reminded me that, in the scheme of things, that is a short mount of time and it’s ok that I’m still adjusting. See why she’s my BFF?

I plan to reset myself this weekend. That includes getting back to the gym. I always feel better when I work out and make better food choices.