Annoyed

I'm really cranky and so this is probably bothering me when it shouldn't; I'm trying to relax, I'm watching TV, and John tells me the lightening outside is really cool. He says I should go out and see it. I say yeah, great. He goes and sits outside, then a bit later opens the door and tells me again how cool it is, and I should really come outside and look. I say; Ok, I will when I'm ready. Quit pushing me.

A short while later I go out. He's sitting in the only chair. I stand there a bit, watch. It's lightening. He doesn't say anything. I go back inside.

He comes in a short while later and says I should have stayed out longer. 

Why? I ask.

So you could see the lightening.

I did see the lightening.

Yeah, but you didn't see what I saw - 

And he proceeds to describe the fabulous lightening to me.

I'm irritated by this entire interaction and part if it is that he keeps talking about it!

You see, there was a monsoon storm the other night, it was late - 11:30 maybe - I was the only one up. I turned out the porch light and sat outside to watch it. It was beautiful. I didn't feel the need to discuss this or share it with anyone. I'm only mentioning it now because it's relevant to my feelings tonight. Because I would bet money that he's going to post on Facebook about the amazing lightening he saw, and how he sat outside and watched it. Because he's just so cool. And I'm sure he's going to go to work tomorrow and tell his coworkers about it. He'll probably mention it to my mom when he sees her. He'll probably tell my sister about it this weekend when we see her.

Why does this bother me? I don't know. I think it's because there are people who do things to do them, and there are people who do things so that they can tell other people about what they did and show off how cool (or tough, or badass, or whatever) they are. And those people really annoy me.

Don't go watch a lightening storm just so you can tell people you did it. Don't swim with sharks, skydive, have a picnic in a cemetery, etc., because you think it will impress people; do those things because you want to do them. And when you do, don't go around bragging about it. It's sad and ridiculous and annoying.

If it turns out he doesn't mention this on Facebook or to others I will so take it all back. I'll give him a freaking (bleep) and he'll be surprised and thrilled because it's been a while. He won't know why he's suddenly being treated, and I'll just let him wonder. After more than 10 years of marriage though, I'm pretty sure I know him well enough to say I'm not going to have to do the deed.

We'll see.

I wish I could just get over myself. Why let it get to me at all? I don't know. I get that our experiences are meant to be shared, that's what friendship is. It's not that I don't want to talk to my husband about things we've done and seen. It's the motivation that just gets to me.  The motive is the important thing.

It's like one of my high school boyfriends who told me he stopped listening to Nirvana because they got popular. I could not wrap my mind around that! The music didn't change. Their popularity didn't change the music they'd already made. I thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard and it was a definite factor in our breaking up. Because it's not that he didn't like them - that's all preference and opinion. It's WHY he decided not to like them.

The motive is everything.

I do not get paid enough...

I have a part-time job, in addition to my full-time one.  In my pt job I work as an "assistant" for a woman who has her own business.  It's actually the mom of a friend that I no longer hang out with, and I've been working for her for 13+ years now.  She's an expert witness and I do spreadsheets for her, and billing, and reports.  Mostly she prepares the reports, which are intended to be court documents, and I format them, spell check, grammar check, etc.  I make sure they're professional and accurate, to the best of my ability.

She's sometimes a beast to work for, and I generally put up with it, but lately I've about had it.

Some examples;

She fights with her daughter a lot (the one I was friends with, who introduced us) and one time I was trying to call my boss to get some clarification on some work she had sent me, and about 3x in a row she screamed at me over the phone and hung up on me.  She thought I was her daughter.  I don't know why - I called her cell and my name and number should have come up and made it clear who it was.  I wondered what would happen if an attorney called her at that moment, would she scream and hang up on that person too?  Wouldn't that do wonders for her reputation?

Another time she went out of town, she had me come to her house while she was gone to do some work (this is before I got set up to work remotely and had to go to her house each time). She gave me the garage door opener to get in, and we talked about her paying me for hours.  She left me a blank check, and told me after I worked that last day to fill it in and then let her now how much it was for.  At that time she was paying me weekly.  I worked 3 hours or something, calculated the time for the week, wrote out the check and left her a photocopy.  When she got back she was so angry with me, told me I didn't have the right to do that, that I should have checked with her first, blah blah blah. I was livid.  I felt like I was being accused of stealing from her, when all I'd done was what she asked.  I told her this, and I asked her; Why did you leave me a signed, blank check then?  She had no explanation.  It was humiliating and infuriating and I let it go.  Because the work is easy, it's not a lot of hours, the hours are flexible and the money is good.

I mentioned how she used to pay me weekly?  Since I started working remotely I've frequently gone months without being paid.  And I do her billing, so one time I must have entered payments in Quickbooks for amounts totaling over $15,000.  I'm not joking.  And yet my bill for like $700 for 2 mths of work was still not paid.  I only entered record of the payments, these were checks already deposited, and yet my measly $700 was well past due.

Recently we were scheduled to work Tuesday/Thursday of the next week.  She apparently emailed me on Sunday and asked if I could work Monday instead.  I didn't check my email over the weekend so I never saw this.  I have a toddler and a life, and we happened to have a busy weekend.  She then proceeded to email me work on Monday, even though she had not heard from me about working that day.  Sometime Monday afternoon she called me, I couldn't answer so she got my voicemail and when I listened to it, I was surprised; She was worried that it was 3 pm and she hadn't heard from me and hadn't gotten any work back yet.  She wanted to know, didn't I get her email from Sunday?  No, I hadn't.  I emailed her back, because I was busy with my FT job and couldn't call. I let her know I had not gotten her email, that I couldn't work that day, so sorry.  I also suggest that if she needs to change something that she call me to confirm if she doesn't hear from me, because I don't always check email if I'm not working.  She calls me later that night, 5:30 or so, again wondering why I haven't sent her any work.  I tell her I'm sorry, that I emailed her and let her know I couldn't work, and that I never got her email Sunday about changing the day.   She's totally upset and I again suggest that she call me next time.  She asks me if I couldn't just be sure to check email on Sundays.  What?  I'm not On Call for you lady, and I don't work on Sunday.  If you have something urgent, YOU contact ME.  That's how it works!  You don't just email and then get mad at me for not seeing it.

It'd almost be funny except this is the 2nd time she's done this to me.  She emailed me about something else that was "urgent" and apparently I failed her by not checking my email.  I got an earful and I told her - if it's urgent you should CALL ME.  Don't rely on email!  Who does that?  It's not professional and it's certainly not my fault if you don't.

Now the latest; she asked me to print an invoice for her, and she also asked me to print some records.  This was Tuesday.  I went on her computer through a remote connection and printed 1 file, then she said she was ok.  The issue was she got a new printer and her default was still set to the old one, so I just selected the new one from the drop-down and there you go.  She emailed me and said she was able to print "everything" and was all set.  I thought this meant the invoice too.

Yesterday I find out she still needs the invoice.  I meant to go on and print it for her but the day got away from me.  That is my fault, I take responsibility for that.  But today I get an email reprimand saying I totally messed her up by not printing that; that she couldn't buy a plane ticket because she didn't have the invoice and therefore wasn't able to pick up a check.

OK - here's the thing.  Yes, it's my fault I forgot to print it for you yesterday.  However; if it was URGENT - there's that word again - WHY for crying out loud did you not call me?  One phone call and I would have said, Oops, I forgot, so sorry, let me get that for you right now!  Problems all avoided!  And really, you can't buy a plane ticket without that money?  You can't afford, with the $10-15,000 or so in payments you get every month, to purchase a plane ticket and get the money the next day? 

I will take some of that blame as I did forget, but I will not take all of it.  It's her business, if she needs something and it's so damn important, she needs to follow-up and take care of it.  That's on her.

I make good money but it's starting to feel like it's not enough.  I'm thinking it's a good time to increase my hourly rate.  Somehow though, I feel like she may not agree.  I'll give it another week.  Then hit her up.  I put up with a lot of crap that most people would not put up with, including not being paid on time, or being paid but asked to "hold" the check for a few days, or a week.  I also constantly rearrange my schedule so we can work.  I try to get work done during the day but if I'm too busy, I wind up working until 9pm at night for her.  When she has urgent issues and does manage to call me, I will accommodate her.  I will do stuff last minute.  I will stop what I'm doing and go on my computer and help her with whatever it is she needs right that second.

I'd just like to be treated professionally.  I don't think it's too much to ask.

Little Credibility

For whatever reason that I can't figure out, because 99.9% of the time I'm right about stuff, I have very little credibility with my husband. It's one of the most frustrating things in my existence.

I've been telling him for weeks, for example, that yelling angrily at our Little when she hits will not be effective. He still does it. I confirmed with my friend who has a master's degree in education that this tactic is sure to fail. I try to explain this to him the next time she has hit him in the face while getting her diaper changed and he's yelled at her, "No! Stop it!", and I get the eyes glazing over because He's not really listening to me, I'm just nagging him response.

Today, I go to make a latte and have to confess to him that I broke one of the espresso glasses. There's some silly banter that results, with accusations and threats and old, broken things resurrected from the past, and there's an awkward undercurrent of anger there too. I don't think it's related to the broken glass, I think it's his repressed feelings but I can't get him to talk about them so that's another issue.

I use a small, oven-safe type glass dish for my espresso, and when he goes to make his latte, he pulls out a thin shot glass.

"I don't think that's safe", I say, " it should be tempered glass. You need a thicker one at least."

"It's not *that* hot."

"If you spilled it on yourself would it burn you?" 

Silence, except for the sound of him digging through more shot glasses. He picks another, one I got at a Sake tasting, made for cold sakes and even thinner than the first.

"No, that's worse, it's even thinner. You need a thick one," I say.

"I'm sure it's fine," but he puts it back and keeps digging.

"If it shatters and glass shards go all over it's going to be a problem."

He scowls at me. "I hardly think that would happen."

"When you put hot liquid in glass it can shatter, that's why you have to heat up the jars before you pour hot jam into them. Just use this," and I hand him the baking dish I had just used and already washed.

He scowls some more.

"Do I need to look it up on the Internet to prove this to you or will you just believe me?" And I add, 'for once', in my head.

"I'm sure it'd be fine," he says again, but puts the shot glasses away and uses the dish I gave him.

Why does this bother me so much? Part of me thinks I shouldn't care. I know I'm right, I'm confident in myself and don't need his validation. Then the other part of me says, the one person I should be able to rely on to not dismiss me, to believe in me, is my husband. Right? That's just not the relationship we have though. And admittedly, I'm the same way. Though when I dismiss or disbelieve him, it's based on facts, not just my own "feelings" or opinions.  It's because he's just outright wrong. There is a difference. Isn't there? 

As for the person I can rely on to always believe me? To bolster me, to raise me up and not dismiss me? That would be my mom. That's what moms are for. I suppose I should stop looking for that in my husband and just be grateful for the gift that he is, flaws and all.

Head. Hurts.

I have had a headache off and on for 3 days now. I'm not sure if it's stress or what the cause is. I wondered if perhaps my mate had bought decaf coffee beans as some sort of cruel joke, but since he always refers to decaf coffee as "useless brown water", I doubt that's the case.

I wake up with it, it's a pounding sort of headache that gets worse when I move, but sort of subsides in the background after a bit, only to pop up again when I stand, sit, turn my head, etc.  I'm not happy.

I've missed 2 workouts this week and I'm feeling a big guilty. I'm off the fitness wagon, so to speak. And I've been fighting sugar cravings like a toddler ninja; in other words, not very successfully.   It didn't help that I ate 2 pints of Haagen Das a few weeks ago.  That was a bad idea. (But they were my favorite flavors! On sale!)  That sort of opened the door and wow is that sucker hard to shut!

Bad habits.

I'm supposed to workout tonight but if this headache doesn't go away, that's not going to happen. I suppose I should take something for it and quit bitching.

I'm on the tail end of my menstrual cycle. Related? Heck if I know. I watched Frozen for the first time the other day and cried my eyes out. Twice. That would cause a headache but that was not today.

Crap. I think I may be starting a migraine aura.

I need chocolate.

Bad habits.

July 2014

Hard to believe so much time has passed.  I wish I could just "think" my blog posts. So often I have fabulous ideas for what to write about while lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come, but I'm too lazy to get up and write so I just think about them. I will write entire blog posts in my head, but of course they don't show up here and by the next day, I've forgotten the whole thing. If I could think them onto the computer, I'd have a lot more posts here.

My little girl is 19 mths old. Hard to believe! She's a little girl now, she's no longer a baby. She's got attitude and sass and is a delight every day of her existence. I am so enamored with her. She's got white blonde hair and blue eyes, and she looks just like me. She's my Mini Me. Even some of her expressions are mine.

J tries to say she has his eyes but it's simply not true. His eyes are green-blue, and sort of deep set, a bit like Nicholas Cage or Judd Nelson, in case you need a reference to picture this. Hers are not deep set, and they are a dark blue, almost the color of denim. They're quite beautiful. I was hoping they wouldn't change color and they haven't.

I was reading through old posts today and saw the one where I wanted to open a Stasis store, and how I wanted to go into stasis and wake up skinny. That didn't happen of course, but I have been working hard over the past 6.5 mths and since January I am down 40+ lbs and many inches. I'm about a sz 12, a very fit sz 12. And this is on top of the 50 lbs I lost during and just after pregnancy so really I'm down about 90 lbs. total. Crazy, right? I was so extremely overweight when I got pregnant that when I dropped weight during my pregnancy it wasn't a concern. I had a lot of issues with first morning sickness and later heartburn that I just didn't eat well. Then breastfeeding, that's a miracle. The weight practically melts off, though only to a point.

I saw a friend over the weekend that I hadn't seen since December and not only was I happy to display myself in a swimsuit in front of other people at her house, many of whom I did not know, I think I might have even been one of the thinnest people there! And that is a very new feeling for me! It. Was. Awesome. Though all night all anyone wanted to talk to me about was diet, exercise and weight loss. It did get old after a while. No, really! It did! Had they just wanted to tell me how skinny I look all night, well that never gets old, but they wanted to talk about HOW I got so skinny.  ;)

In August I have a company meeting with our home office staff that I have to travel to and I'm so incredibly excited to go because they saw me last at my heaviest. So now, 90 lbs down, they're not going to recognize me. That is going to be flipping amazing. I'll have to gear up for another barrage of "How did you do it?" questions, because I know it's coming. Diet and exercise. I did it the right way. Well, and pregnancy, but that wasn't on purpose!

The breastfeeding; that never did work out. I still have guilt feelings and feelings of loss about that, but I did the best I could, which was to pump instead. I pumped breast milk for my baby for 9 months. My good friend, who is still breastfeeding her 1 yr old, said that was even more valiant because in pumping is actually harder. It takes twice as long because in breastfeeding, you just do a feeding and you're done. With pumping, you have to pump, then do the feeding. Plus you have bottles to clean and refrigerate and heat, it's a lot more work. It was worth it. I wanted my baby to have the benefits of the breast milk, even if I couldn't feed her directly from my breasts. I do wish sometimes that I'd gone to some Leche League meetings, and gotten more help. Even after she was months old, I could possibly have tried again and gotten her back on the breast successfully. At the time though, I was afraid and it seemed so stressful. I felt rejected by her the first time around, I didn't think I could handle feeling like that again. I do know now that a huge part of that was simply PPD (post-partum depression), the anxiety and worry and feeling like she didn't want me or that I wasn't a good mother, that was all made much better by anti-depressants. These days I watch my friends breast feed their babies and I get kind of sad and just wish... I just wish I'd done things differently.

Doesn't matter though - I have a gorgeous child, who is healthy and happy and likes to hit our dog with things - in other words, who is totally normal, and I'm happy. I am happy every day, even if not all day.

I'm blessed.  Here, you can see why.

Baby blues

Last month I had a baby. About 3 weeks ago, actually. She's amazing but... There's that but. I'm finding everything to be SO hard. I'm ready for her to be bigger already so that there's more to life than feed the baby, change the baby and sleep. And sleep is elusive. Everyone says kiss your sleep goodbye and it's true. She's going through a growth spurt too so sometimes she's hungry like every hour for a few hours in a row and I'm trying to breast feed but it's not going great, I've had to supplement with formula and have had her on a bottle a lot because she doesn't latch right and my girls hurt! I had a lactation consultant come and she was helpful but once she left it was me on my own again and it's just still not working right.

The worst part I think is as a new mom, I question everything. Is she eating enough? Am I feeding her too much? Is she sleeping too long? Should I wake her to change her diaper or just get some sleep myself? Is it too cold? Is she wearing enough? What if she's too warm? It's horrible! And no one to really ask to get good answers. My mom is helpful as is my sister but they both had babies a long while ago. The pediatrician's office is there to help but even with their answers I still have to go on what I think is best in the current circumstances and I still question my judgement every time.

I'm so tired.

Yes I'm still bitching

It's true, I haven't posted in forever and my last post was bitching about my husband and so's this one. Maybe it's hormones. I'm 9 mths pregnant, just 2 weeks and 2 days out from my due date. Perhaps it's just the mass of chemicals taking over my brain, making me less tolerant and more crazy, but sometimes I just want to punch him in the face! And I'm not a violent person. I've never punched anyone in the face ever. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe the lack of punching is why I want to punch someone so badly now. I should join a boxing gym. I've often said my temper would be well served by a punching bag here at home. I stand by that.

So what did he do tonight, Miss Pregnancy Pants? I'll tell you. First he was just being really negative in general, and at one point he literally sounded exactly like his father - whom I don't always get along with. (I love his dad, he's a good man, but he and I butt heads a lot.) The older we get, the more J acts and sounds like him. Usually if I tell him he sounds just like his dad he says; I know! Argh! Or something like that. He laughs it off. He sees it, acknowledges it, and moves on. But other times he gets all butt hurt and offended. Guess which reaction I got tonight? Guess!

We made up after that, I told him I was sorry if I hurt his feelings, that I didn't intend to, just that it's so hard to have to listen to him being so negative all the time! He said he didn't think he was and I said ok, I'll start keeping a list.

I thought things were good but then... he had to get water. We don't drink the city water, pretty much no one I know in AZ does, or at least not in the Phoenix Metro area, and he likes to procrastinate when we get low on water, and he winds up having to go when he doesn't want to because he doesn't have a choice, we'll run out. I reminded him he needed to get water tonight, because it was getting late, and he said "I'll take a look." I was like - trust me, we need water. So he checks and reluctantly agrees he'll need to go.

He then picks up my canister of loose change I've been saving, starts to open it, and says, "I'm going to take $2.50 out of here." (note he doesn't ask me, he tells me he's going to take it) I said "No, don't open that!"

I tell him, it's got an electronic lid that counts the money I put in it, and if he takes money out the count will be wrong.

And he then tells me, "Well, I borrowed $2.50 for water the last time." WHAT?!!? Excuse me?

He'd asked me one other time if he could "borrow" money from it for water and I told him NO, definitely not, and I remind him of this - that I'd already told him not to take money from there. He puts the jar down and said, "Oh, well I didn't know that's why you didn't want me to use it, I thought you were just being difficult."

Seriously? I said; "Oh yes, because I really enjoy just being difficult for no reason." WTF?

I was so mad. I AM so mad. So he asks me once, I say no. The next time he just takes it and doesn't ask or tell me. Then tonight, for a 3rd time, he goes to use it again.

First of all, it's my money, and when he asked me the first time and I told him NO, he should leave it alone. Why would he think it's ok to take money out of there the next time? Without asking? And second, whether it was because I had a "good reason" or because I was "just being difficult", it doesn't matter - it's my money and I have a right to say no. And I should be able to expect that he wouldn't just take it without asking, especially after I already told him NO.

What. The. Hell. I went off.
I said; So you stole it?
"I didn't steal it. I borrowed it."
"You took it without asking me, and you haven't put it back. That's stealing." Fucker.

I know, I know - it's $2.50. But it's MY $2.50. He took it without asking. He took it when he KNEW I'd say no because he'd asked once before. He's had over a week to put it back but did not. I doubt he even remembered he took it until he went to take some more tonight. Yes, I'm mad!

UGH!
Jerk.

So mad. Want to punch something. Really need to look into that punching bag thing.