Freedumb

I'm feeling ashamed this morning.

Lately it's been such a whirlwind of activity in which I barely have time to stuff food in my mouth, let alone to breathe without multitasking something or someone around here. And I've been rebelling against it, often angry and moody, brooding about the house like a heartbroken teenager.

Moments ago I heard a clickety-clack behind me to see my Baby Dude slopping onto a baby spoon some leftover cereal from the table he'd maneuvered down onto a stool, and he was feeding himself like a little-big-boy, and because I was too angry, back-facing him, slurping away angrily my coffee against the counter like a broken woman in parental-misery for seemingly doing everything myself, I almost missed him doing it.

And when I scurried over to his side to observe, he had this look upon his face that made me feel even lower, a look that asked me if I was going to be "nice" now instead of the Ranty McRanterson I'd become lately. The eye daggers proved it.

I was enjoying the steam permeating my skin as I scrubbed away the remnants of a horrible day yesterday off my aching body, listening to the shower's hiss as suds tickled my toes, and I thought a lot about how lucky I am to wash everyday when I can, to have a shower, soap and clean towels to wrap around me.

It got me thinking about having to hold my son while they withdrew five seemingly-ginormous vials of blood from his teeny, tiny body. How he may have shook, and cried big, fat elephant tears onto my nervous hands, but how in hindsight we are so lucky to have health care to rely upon in these times of need.

I spent most of my days in a frenetic pace, too fast to appreciate, too hectic to see my day whizzing by my head like a jet. I almost missed my kindergartner telling me of his girl-interest in class or about his getting in trouble with his brother for launching pencils he called "love arrows." Or my school-aged children discussing soccer moves, my infant's "mama dada," or toddler's sweet girly voice telling me stories of princesses and dress-up fairy tales.

It truly made me realize how much I take our liberties for granted sometimes, and how dumb I am for doing it. Instead of celebrating our family and our freedoms, I was being freedumb instead.

Today was a wake up call.

So yes, I'm going to have to ensure the garbage is out properly today, myself, because the husband-type-person rest of the family forgot to. I will have to take my daughter's sandwich to her at school today because she forgot it, AGAIN (and forgot to put meat on it, too). I will have to vacuum for the bazillionth time, do the eleventy-billionth load of laundry, complete with soccer clothes I should've had just after the game, AND make 23923874928374 phone calls to housing and car dealerships today, too. Amongst other things.

But it's my life, my family. Mine. And life isn't ever going to be perfect, Beaver Cleaver, white picket fence, handed to you on a silver platter. The good, the bad, the ugly and downright bottom-of-the-barrel is going to happen. So long as we're together, we'll be just fine.

And so, today, mommy's going to stop brooding, and stop being freedumb and just LIVE. Be present. Witness. Stop moping over life's curve balls. Tomorrow, I will get up and do it all over again. And the day after that, and the day after that. And in a week, if my pouty lip comes a-knockin', someone smack me towards the direction of this post, mm kay?

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A College Couch Story

My college futon wasn't just a "couch" in my minuscule studio apartment - it served as my bed and bed to my one-too-many-drinks-to-drive friends who visited my college town and crashed at my place. It was quaint (my small studio was), with a brick column in the middle of the room, with a closet for a toilet (literally) and a shower stall that washed the smoky muck away from the restaurants I worked for rent money.

My futon is where I moped with salty tears from an ugly break up, or hunkered down when I felt under the weather. It was where I sat and dreamed of my life with my future husband and children; where I mothered ailing friends, swooned over crushes; where I played video games, drew pictures, crammed for tests, and hosted company, with feast-like celebrations of Hamburger Helper and Pasta Roni.

I've always been craftfully artful in my way of decorating on a dime. My inexpensive way to decorate was posters and magazine cut outs artfully plastered to the walls around the room, but it was mine, even if just for a little while.

My first tastes of freedom, of womanhood, and of life.

(I performed this writing exercise about one of the many couches in our past with Casey & Steph with a pencil, paper and three minutes. Want to join along?)

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To Do Tuesday Week 55

If this is your first time reading and you're wondering what To-Do Tuesday is all about, click to check out the first post to find out more.

Once upon a time there was a mom-of-many who had time to sit on her couch every once-in-a-while, peruse the internet leisurely in between nap times and play times, and take a deep breath every now and again. She used to like to blog and write about her crazy life instead of being just crazy. Do remember her? She used to look something like this:


She was a happy woman, all kinds-of things going on at any time, but never too busy to slow down once-in-a-while and enjoy life all around her.

Now? Now, because of practically no down-time, the aforementioned woman resembles something along the lines of this:

True story.

Hopefully, it'll calm down soon(ish). Soccer games 4 times a week is a wee bit much. I am so looking forward to Spring Beak, err BREAK! (Sorry, in my current condition as shown above, it can't be helped)

How is your March going so far? My list is gonna be a short one, because there's not much to fit in to the little time we have.

*UBER SUPER IMPORTANT- Find a new-to-us car for husband-type person. STAT! (Yes, to add insult to injury, we're down to one-car now. This chauffeur life is for the birds, man. Haha, birds.. get it? Uh...)
*Pay bills for the month, Li. Don't forget about a new budget, too. Slacker.
*Hound the people at housing to give us a new house and finish awful repairs to this one (ohhh, this is SO getting blogged. That is, if I can staple myself to the chair long enough to write one up! Wish I could phone-in a post, or something! Ooh, ooh, maybe a vlog! Oooh...)
*Grocery shopping/print coupons/list for this week

Staying on my diet every day* (I'm totally rocking out loud! Wahoo!)
Work out on 30 Day Shred ALL WEEK* (A whole week last week! 5.25 inches down after 9 days on the Shred! Holy crap!)

*Will weigh tomorrow for the Wednesday Weigh-in with the Shrinking Jeans ladies. Was down .7 last week and was down again before the weekend, too. Wish me luck!

Today's motivation - dance. Particularly if you have a Wii, get Just Dance. If you don't, that's okay, too. Just rock out to some good, booty-shakin' music. Trust me when I tell you how fantabulous you'll feel shakin' your groove thang. I love dancing with my kids, and that Wii game involves music I grew up with, dance moves I did and recall like it was yesterday, AND my family I love. I don't think I can begin to explain to you the kind-of awesome that game is. Seriously.

Last weeks goals:
My weekly goal- donations donated and closet cleaned out - mega-fail, I'm only adding to the donate/sell piles. Really need to get that going!
My daily goal- work out, in some form, every day - YES! All week religiously!

One more time as my goals, let's see how I do this week!

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Would you like to join us this week for To-Do Tuesday? Start with just a few things. Don't over-do it your first couple of times. You'll grow to become a list-a-holic later, start small now, though, k?
Just so you know, you can join us at anytime, it doesn't have to be on Tuesdays - the list will go up every Tuesday for you to link to, but you can make your list and link to us at any point in the week!

Remember, with "To-Do Tuesday", we're attacking our to-do lists each week, blogging about our lists and what we've got going on, and sharing it with each other to help keep each other accountable. Everyone should come back here to link up in the MckLinky as the central "To-Do Tuesday Hub" so we can visit who's participating and offer encouragement to each other throughout the week. Don't forget to add the "To-Do Tuesday" button to your post, linking back to this post!

Let's continue to cross items off our list as we go and help support each other in completing our lists! Don't forget my useful HTML tutorial on how to effectively "cross-out" or √ "check off" your items on your to-do list!

Joining us? Please add your link below (to your To Do Tuesday post, and not the main page of your blog)

Participants for Week 55

Creative Commons photo by Dave-F

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