Keep muddling

 

Keep pushing.  Keep muddling through if you have to. Life is easier in small bites. Don’t procrastinate and end up creating more work and anxiety for yourself.  Truly this works. Now I’d only my kids would take note!  

Can I? Should I?

Choices in parenting are hard!  They don’t always have to be. There are definitely things you can do to make life easier as a parent. Organize your week and take offers to help are just a couple. 

But sometimes parenting is just hard and you can’t press the easy button. You can’t just let kids have whatever they want because it keeps the peace at the moment and because you have the money to do so. They need to see you stand your ground and be firm. And then to in a lot of situations know why you made that choice for them. And yes I mean for them. When they’re younger they do not have the capacity to make all of their own decisions. You are there until their brain matures to make those for themselves. You are there to teach them along the way. It’s a long 20+ year process.  Think about it in the context of the things you do for them, regardless of financial abilities, are small when they’re younger but they grow with the child’s age  and bailing them out of trouble or continually buying them what they want just because you can will cause them to potentially get into trouble regardless of consequences or have no real regard and respect for  money or people.

Teach by example. Talk out loud, at the diner table, about the choices the family is making. Let them see you and hear you talk about somewhat hard stuff. Let them hear you say I can’t because of xyz even though I want to. And then teach them to ask themselves can I.  And not just can I, should I. Just because you physically can doesn’t mean you should. 

Ask the hard questions. Teach them to ask the hard questions of themselves and be honest with themselves. Teach them to fish!

A little laugh for the week

 To say this week has been stressful at work is an understatement. I was in tears last night feeling the pressure (put on myself) to know more than I should know after 7 days on the job.  I literally prayed that God would show me a sign that this was really the right place for me. I so badly want to prove to myself I CAN handle this role but if it’s wrong it’s wrong. I walked in, put my stuff in my office and went to get my water for the day and ran into the director in the hall. She asked how things were going. Me being my truthful self told her it was quite the learning curve after being somewhere for over 20 years, growing up with an organization and therefore being an expert of the material. She looked at me and said “you always had to have an A didn’t you?”  I answered truthfully.  Yes.  She told me to get past that. It’s fine. She said they hired me because of my experience.  And then later my manager told me he was having a conversation with someone else in the office that told him they won getting me to make the move. That was my sign. I can go on now and push forward as hard as I have been since I started. 

Over the weekend I got the pants I had ordered to go with a top that I can now fit in again. I ordered a 28. The tag in the pants and on the pants said 28. My husband just burst out laughing. Not making fun of anyone larger. Just funny that even the tags were so wrong. 

Onward to more learning and catching up with a lot of information in the coming weeks, months and years!

Piecing it all together

 

I hadn’t felt tired, out of place or uncomfortable in a very long time. Yes the occasional I’m new to a parent group for a school function or something like that but not that new kid to school anxious feeling.  Not in quite awhile. 

I’ve definitely been feeling that these past several days, every day. Despite everyone being very warm and kind, newness at this age especially makes you feel something you likely haven’t felt in a long time. But getting the collage I had made up makes my office feel warm and me and that makes me feel safe in my place.  Until I feel safe and comfortable everywhere I will be running 100 mph to get up to speed on as much as I can.  I’m used to knowing so much and I need to give myself sometime to feel an ounce of that security here. And I’ll have to keep reminding myself.  Sometimes several times a day when I have a second to breath.  I can do this!

Pure exhaustion

 Change is exhausting. Life is exhausting. 

We had finally gotten the car that hit the deer back and sent back to college with the kid. Then a bird hit the top of one of the cars and knocked the antenna attachment off that included wiring so we’re back with an auto body shop waiting to see if we have to file another claim from Mother Nature.  And now my daughter is sending me pictures from college because she thinks her gutate psoriasis was triggered by something after being symptom free since she went off the skyrizi in June.  She’s wondering if it was her flu shot and I really hate that she’ll have to go back on those meds because of what they do to your immune system but at the same time those sores that covered her body were miserable. And then there’s the cost of the medication. It was upwards of $25k per shot with my insurance discount. So hopefully Skyrizi will put her back in their copay program. 

And add to that starting a new job after 27 years with the same lace. I’m still excited about it but a little overwhelmed and a lot exhausted. A lot of meeting new people and information thrown at me in a small amount of time. The upside is everyone has been super nice and very welcoming. And I have a great office building location with a very nice office with sunshine pouring in the windows. And once I had a collage of the kids on the wall above my desk I felt better. 

New beginnings

 

New beginnings and changes are always a little scary. 

I’ve been preparing for two weeks. Tons of notes and videos to help my boss ingest my knowledge (per his request). Going through my closet and cleaning out all of my dress clothes that was in poor condition and donating those items that no longer fit and taking in the pants that could be salvaged until I find something smaller and at an affordable price. Cleaning up my offices and permanently cleaning out my actual office location.  New people and a few familiar faces.  New duties and a few familiar.  I’m doing what I told my 18 year old daughter to do a few days ago. Closing my eyes and jumping in.  God led me here. It’s time to follow and see where it leads. 

Another ending

 It’s another last.  Another ending   Another senior sad moment. 

She unexpectedly began running xc her freshman year (half way through after the coach and runners pursued her) and she grew to enjoy the running and the friendships. We grew to enjoy the 30-60 minute drives for a 22 minute event. 

She would get done with track at the end of May, take a week off and start 6 day training weeks for cross country.  She never made it to state as she’d hoped.  But she kept it up and was a great cheerleaders to her entire team the whole way. 

It was an unexpected sad day for her. I’m not sure she really expected it to hurt so much to end finally. But she’ll have more of these this year and she’ll get used to it before she starts a lifetime of firsts next year. I was happy that when she saw me I was the person she wanted to fall into in tears.  After our long hug she got a other from a teammate and was able to go on with the day.