Type Writer Machine

I feel like I don’t have anything interesting today but I don’t think I should worry about that. I know others might not think it especially entertaining, but I like my life for what it is, and it’s fun most of the time, even when I have to do stupid chores or errands or whatevers. I try not to complain most of the time. Lately the complaints have been coming a little more than I am comfortable with. I think I just had to get it out of my system. I don’t know if it’s out yet, but I am going to be too busy in the next couple of days to have time to sit and think about that.

I got my registration renewal taken care of today, but the title stuff is going to have to wait a little longer. They want 6% of the purchase price of the vehicle as their fee. What what? I won’t say how much money that is, but it’s a lot for me to have to shell out just to get a piece of paper filed, that’s for sure. I figured I will just take care of one thing at a time, and do the most important thing first, and go on down the line. It will get done. It just might take a little saving and a little waiting. The cops aren’t going to really notice if I get pulled over for whatever reason (not that I speed) and my title doesn’t have the new lienholder on it. If the county clerk didn’t notice, then nobody but the bank probably cares. I know the bank cares, but they don’t seem to care enough to do anything like remind me they need it or threaten me or take my car away. I pay my bill every month, so that’s all that seems to matter for now.

Anyway.

I have two more full days before I leave for Florida. This is, naturally, that crunch time in which I start running around the house, cleaning and packing, preparing for my long (nearly fifteen hour) drive down to visit friends and family. Actually, I am usually done by now, but I have been busy with other things and haven’t been able to find the time. I know I have to figure it out somehow, though, despite the fact that G has a dentist’s appointment tomorrow and I have a physical the next day. I am just going to have to find the time to pack and clean somewhere in between appointments, and hope that they don’t send me anywhere for bloodwork. They may, since I have anemia, and if they try I am going to have to tell them yo this is what’s up, so you’ll just have to wait for my blood, what are you anyway, a bunch of vampires?

I am not up to date on medical crap. I’m not extremely out of date, but I am not exactly UP to date. I have been thinking about this a lot lately and, well, I’m 24 years old, and I’m not going to get any younger. I’ve always been healthy, but you really never know what could happen. I think it’s important to stay fit and see the doctor at regular intervals. I have insurance, so I might as well do what I have to do. I make sure my son stays up to date on all of his immunizations and his teeth cleanings and his check-ups, quite religiously in fact, but sometimes I just let myself go by the wayside and assume that my healthy diet, mediocre exercize, and superior skillz will keep me alive until I am aged enough to rival Methuselah. It would just be a really great thing for me to do for myself if I kept up on things a little better.

So I’m excited about my physical on Wednesday. Brand new doctor, too, and not an Army doctor for the first time in four years. If it goes well then I will never go back to an Army medical fascility for the rest of my natural life. I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful relationship. I hope.

Anyway, I guess that’s it for now. There’s more I could talk about but it’s all kind of…you know…no big deal. So I will leave this for now and write more when there is more to say. Ciao, bella.

Mich Mash

Not to distract from my previous post, but I wanted to mention that I changed up how I do blogrolling. It’s a trivial change but it makes me happier. I made it a page in the sidebar instead of its own sidebar widget. With the way this layout is set up, I like it better. Plus, it gives me room to add more links without making it look too crowded. I hope to add some of my favorite links and the various social networking profiles I have around the interweb, as well as other things.

I’m planning other little changes as well but I am not sure where I will be taking it all. However the main look of the page should remain virtually unchanged. That’s it for now. I’ll update as I add in links to the aforementioned page.

Mich Mash

Disclaimer: This ended up being long and ranty. Feel free to enjoy yourself…or not. I just had to write it. I’m sorry if it makes no sense.

Need to figure out the car title stuff like…tomorrow. Need to renew my car’s tags, because they’re expired. (Deep sigh.) Don’t really have money for either because I have to go to Florida. Don’t feel comfortable driving to Florida without the renewal. Can’t get the renewal before I fix the title stuff because of this retardedly complicated Kentucky law about titles and leases compared with  buying and the military and the fact that when you lease it costs more to register (because you pay taxes) and if you are buying it costs less (because you are tax exempt if you’re military). I was leasing but now I am buying and my title has yet to reflect the changes, so I’d rather pay $21 instead of $99. However I don’t know what the fees are going to be to take care of the title (I know there will be some), and I don’t know what the late fee is for expired tags (I know I owe them). I really really can’t afford a ticket in Florida and ESPECIALLY not in Georgia, but I can’t afford to pay these fees either. I have to do one or the other (because I am sure I will get pulled over eventually if I don’t, and if I don’t I will spend my entire vacation completely wigged out that it will happen any moment). It sucks. The reason why I don’t have the money is because I had to buy G’s school supplies this paycheck (it probably could’ve waited but it didn’t) and my car’s battery died so I had to replace that.

It’s so amazingly frustrating and I don’t have the first clue how to remedy the matter except driving myself and all of my paperwork down to Hopkinsville tomorrow so I can wait hours and hours with a bored child just to be sent from one building to the next (something that happened to me the last time I tried to sort out paperwork crap). Calling them will not help, because any time I call I never get the right person on the phone, or they are never in the office.

Why on why couldn’t JT have dealt with it for me before he left?

Just another mountain to climb for me, I guess. It seems like the mountains keep getting higher, or maybe it’s just that I am so tired from climbing that even the small ones seem bigger than they are. I have climbed many mountains in the past few months. I am not beaten down yet, but I am definitely feeling the strain of exertion.

I do, however, seem to be getting better with analogies and metaphors.

You know, I think I’m getting a lot better with money, but the way gas prices are these days, it is really quite difficult to be able to do one of my famous cross-country road trips, and they’re going to be a lot fewer and farther between after going to Florida (end of this month) and going to Minnesota (end of next month). I’m trying hard not to worry. I’m definitely not worried about my Minnesota trip because that is being paid for by MFSO. It’s just…you know. Bills bills bills. They pile up. I am always trying to cut down on them but what I know we could really use is a little bit of a pay bump.

NOW IF ONLY WE COULD HEAR SOME [explative] NEWS ABOUT THAT FROM THE [explative] ARMY, then I would be happy!!! We have been waiting, but still no sign of any news. What a stupid, stupid, stupid, broken, messed up, FUBAR system the Army Human Resourses Command has shown itself to be in these past eight…no…NINE MONTHS. I have had my fill and have moved on into overflowing. All I want is to know when I can look forward to a little more progression. So much is relying on this stupid class date. Seriously. So much.

Promotion. Redeployment. Moving to a new city. Finding a new apartment. Finding a good school for G. Finally eradicating our credit card debt. Getting a second car for the first time in our now over six years of marriage. Saving money for retirement. Saving money to buy a house one day. A possibility for me to maybe go to school and pave a new path for myself while also contributing financially to the growth, production, and secure future of this family unit. That’s all that I can come up with at the top of my head but it seems like there should be a lot more. A whole heck of a lot is riding on a stupid little electronic document with a stupid month, day, and year in its contents that has been promising to show up for months and is, as of yet, nowhere to be found.

I can’t tell you the anxiety I feel sometimes. It’s almost unbearable. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know where to put it. I don’t know how to bury it.

I have no idea why I am talking about this, as it is something that I have resolved not to do and have, until now, kept my promise to myself with flying colors. I am not looking on this as a failure of will. Instead, I see it as a sign that I need to open up and spill my guts because I am very nearly bordering on the breaking point where I might no longer be able to maintain what little composure I have managed to hold on to. Few people that I know in “real life” (that is, not on the internet) know about what’s been going on with me, because for the most part, I am wary of discussing it. I have talked to a couple of friends and family members, but apart from that, the only stuff people know is where confidences were possibly broken or gossip got out. And well, you can’t help that from happening or anything. I know my mom has probably mentioned things to other family members and that is fine. I know I have asked her to at one point or another. I just…

I don’t know who knows what or who doesn’t but does it really matter anymore? The only reason I haven’t talked about it is I can’t bear the questions about whether or not I have any news.
I.
Can
Not.
Handle.
It.

God…does this entry even have a point? Or am I just opening a big can of worms with myself and possibly others? I don’t mean to. I’m just going crazy with the wait. Going crazy with thinking about what could be and what isn’t. If you know me, you know that I am not the kind of person who wants to just sit around and let life pass me by. Even if my progress is small, you will know that when I am making progress in life and in business and in important matters, then that is when I am my happiest. I love to work on fine-tuning my life. I love to improve myself and the way that I do things. I love to end each day with the knowledge that either tomorrow is going to be a little bit better, or some unpleasant task has been successfully conquered and will not need to be addressed again for a while, if ever.

There is so much to be done and none of it can be done until I have certain other information and since that information is eluding me, I feel like I am just sitting here collecting dust. That’s the stuff that makes me crazy. I am not getting any younger, and I feel like I am wasting precious hours of my life with this same old schtick. It’s time for the next phase.

Believe me! If it were something I could help along by taking some kind of action like making phone calls, visiting offices, writing letters or emails, filling out forms, etc., then that would’ve been done ten times over by now. I have made all the calls. I have asked all the questions. I have tried every trick in the book. It’s a matter from which I am now officially completely excluded in the progression, and the fact that there is literally, unequivocally nothing that I can do to see a matter through that will supposedly affect the rest of my life’s progression makes
every.
single.
day.
of my life.
the most unbearable day.
I have ever.
had.
to live.

Hooray for emphasis.

And before I end, because I can’t really write any more due to brain fatigue and the fact that I feel as though all of these thoughts are just random collections of words without any meaning, I would like to add that there should be a big kudos to me that I have dealt with all of this thus far while staying sober about 90% of the time, to my estimation.

I think that’s a pretty good percentage. (And sometimes I wonder…why am I staying sober?)

Mich Mash

It all weighs so heavily on me. I don’t even know where to begin. I try so hard to keep a cool head when things heat up. I put so much effort in keeping my house clean and my son bathed and myself well dressed and my mind, body, and spirit healthy. I keep my appointments as best as I can and I work hard to help others and ever since JT deployed I have been trying to stay absolutely as busy as possible without overdoing it so that the time will pass and I won’t get bored or lonely. (And it has worked - it’s already July. I don’t know where the time goes.)

I recognize that life is never going to be perfect, and I am not expecting it to be. Perfectionism is not only a weakness, but it often becomes a dangerous obsession to the point of self-paralyzation. I have known self-proclaimed “perfectionists” with filthy houses, terrible hygene, wrecked marriages, wretched children, ruined social lives, and poor mental and physical health simply because they refused to understand that life isn’t all or nothing/my way or the highway. I’m not TRYING to be perfect, I’m just trying to to the best job that I can; when I make a mistake, I try to do better next time, and when I have a problem, I try to keep a cool head and do what I have to do without wallowing in worry and doubt.

I gave this deployment a lot of thought before it started (and I am always rethinking things), and the basic tenent that I have come to live by is that life is not going to stop over here just because JT is gone, and I shouldn’t stop living life either. It doesn’t make me happy that he is gone, but I can’t control what the Army does. I guess I am giving the impression that I am Super Woman over here, but that’s certainly not true. I have my fair share of issues, and sometimes all I want to do is fall apart into a huge ball of tears and snot and emotion. Somehow, though, I don’t. Even when I really want to wail and cry, I usually only allow myself a few quiet sobs before I pick myself up and figure it out.

Like…man…today is a classic example of the stupid crap I have to deal with.

There’s this guy up in DC that we have been trying to get ahold of in regards to a date coming up and information regarding Army issues that I won’t get into. I usually have no problem getting ahold of them, even though I know they are super busy and most people never get ahold of them. I have considered myself lucky, I guess, and maybe I’ve let that go to my head. I started calling very early this morning, maybe 10am. I called and called until 4pm, and I never got anyone on the phone. I would have left a message, but unfortunately the guy is so busy and he gets so many calls that his voice mail is always full and you just can’t leave a message. I was so frustrated at them for not picking up the phone that all I wanted to do was scream, throw my phone across the room, and punch the cat in the face. That’s all I could think about.

Oh but that’s not all. Then, after all day on the phone with no success, evening comes around and it’s time to get G dressed and ready for vacation bible school. So we were dressed, ready, and out the door by 5:30pm. VBS starts at 6, and it’s only a 10 to 15 minute drive to church, so I wasn’t exactly rushing or anything. I saw that G got into the car, sat in the driver’s seat, and turned the key.

Nothing.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. No. No. Not today. Not this. I looked down and saw that my stupid iPod was plugged into the car. I had left it there overnight, apparently. So it was my own stupid fault. No problem. Battery issues are easy. I got my neighbor to jump the car, and I drove to church, dropped G off, and went to my weekly Tuesday night bible study. We met at Starbucks tonight, which is not my favorite place but it was a convenient location, and things were fine. My car started up normally when we were done and I went to pick G up from VBS. After I got him, the stupid thing wouldn’t start again, so I had to get a friend to jump it for me, and I went home. At the time of this writing, I have no idea if the car is going to start tomorrow morning so I can go get my battery and alternator tested. So twice my battery didn’t start, and now I have to be concerned about tomorrow morning, but it could be worse. I am home for now, and I won’t think about it until tomorrow.

So on the drive home I am on the phone the entire time with my friend and co-worker with MFSO, Stacy, and we are talking about projects we’re planning and logistics for the upcoming VFP convention and our kids and life and yadda yadda, and by the time we were done talking I was feeling totally better, I was totally pumped about having some direction for the next few days as far as our current projects are going, totally excited about the convention. I mean, I. Am. Excited.
Then, I go to turn my computer on, because I have to order my business cards, and it starts up fine, but my monitor isn’t working. It’s on, but there’s no video. No problem. I had taken it apart earlier so that I could dust it completely with canned air, because I do stupid things like that when I clean, and I figured I didn’t connect the cable tightly enough. I can’t tell you how many times I took that cable off and put it back on and tightened things with screwdrivers and pliers. I considered going to Wal-Mart to get a new cable, because that’s what I assumed the problem was, despite the fact that it was almost 10pm and G still had yet to go to bed. Doesn’t matter because I HAVE to get those business cards by the convention. Anyway, I tried everything and nothing was working. I didn’t really WANT to go to Wal-Mart because I was worried about whether or not my car would even start.

Long story short (too late for that), my weird homemade computer has two monitor jacks, and I had mine plugged into the wrong one. I fixed it, the monitor turned on, and the problem was solved.

This is the part where I hang my head and cry.
Cry because it’s my fault for being upset abotu someone not answering the phone when I could have just relaxed and left it up to God. Cry because it was as simple as a forgotten iPod charging in my car to suck the life out of my battery. Cry because rather than open my eyes to see what was right under my nose, I thought my monitor cable or maybe even my monitor itself was completely dead.
Fortunately that little bout lasted only a few seconds, and here I am. I feel okay. Just sometimes you have to let a little bit of it out, because it’s better than waiting for it all to burst wide open.

I don’t do it for praise, and I don’t deal with what I deal with for pity. I don’t need either. It’s nice when my efforts are recognized, of course, but it is not something that I can’t live without or anything. To be honest with you, it makes me really uncomfortable when anyone tells me I’m doing a great job or that they’re proud of me or that I’m really strong or anything along those lines. And people do say it; mostly my family. While I appreciate it very very much, and I am not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth at all, on the other hand I don’t feel like I know what to say to something like that. Doing a great job? At what? Life? Proud of me for what? What did I do to deserve the pride of someone else? All I do is what I have to do to survive and be happy and raise my son and to claim and protect what is mine. I’m not doing anything more or less than that, and I don’t see how doing your job deserves special recognition.

Maybe that’s just me, though. I don’t feel as though I am doing an exceptional job at life, but I know I am not doing a terrible job either.

I am so focused on personal strength. Like…man…I talk about how it all weighs on me and stuff, and strength doesn’t mean you don’t feel the pressure or the burden of the problems of your life, it just means that you can carry it all, and that you have the sense to know when to ask for help, and when to let things go, and when to castle your king so to speak. So I don’t know. Yeah I guess I’m a strong woman, but I know I don’t have it all figured out. Anyone who looks at me and thinks that I do doesn’t know what I keep hidden under the surface of myself. (However, I think a lot of that has come to light in this blog entry - for some reason, I have written a lot more intimately tonight than I would normally write in any kind of a public space for all eyes to see. That’s okay though. Sometimes it just flows.)

So I guess that’s about it. It’s after 11 at night, and I have had…not a bad day, but a challenging day. I am ready to see what tomorrow will bring. If it brings happiness, I will rejoice in it. If it brings trials, I will face them head on and beat them down until I’m standing on top. I don’t care if it takes blood, sweat, and tears either, neither the stupid deployment nor any petty issue in my life is going to keep me down, baby, because I’ve got God helping me out. You can’t get a better teammate than that.

Yay for venting. Too bad I stayed up too late to write this.

Mich Mash

So I have so much to do this month and next that I am considering going “off the grid” for a little while. Well, I can’t possibly do that completely since literally all of my meetings take place over the phone, but as off the grid as I possibly can considering circumstances. There are conference calls, travel (Florida this month, Minneapolis for the VFP convention next), tattoo appointments (tomorrow! woohoo! not complaining there), dentist appointments, doctor’s appointments, children’s summer activities at church and in the community, kindergarten starting soon (which will include shopping and completing registration etc), getting stuff together with the base spouse outreach planning team. That is all not to mention the deployment, the usual mom/wife stuff, my usual church schedule, the usual waiting game, etc. That’s just off the top of my head. I’ve got it all figured out…sort of. Well the basics, anyway. I’ve got to get with people about the details.

I am so glad to have things to do, but it does put a real strain on my time, and I am used to not having much to do. So it requires a bit of a shift in gears, and I think that has been the issue lately. Transitions like this take time.

So anyway, I am stretching myself out a bit, but I am happy. I just think that I need to kind of hole up when I can for a while and spend some time getting a bit more organized so that the next month and a half will run more smoothly at home and outside of the home and inside myself as well. That way I am not bringing anyone my leftovers so to speak.

Imagine what my life would be like if I had an actual paying job or if I went to school. School. That’s an option for the future, and one that I am thinking about but not ready to decide on just yet. Let’s get through August first, then I will start looking at it.

So forgive me if I seem preoccupied. Because…well…I am preoccupied.

ETA: Oh yeah, please let’s not forget that I am really dealing with a lot of growing pains as far as G goes, and I am really really really stressed out, but trying at the same time to be patient and understanding, giving more than I take, and expecting great things out of him. I am realizing that I am going to either have to take less time in the morning for myself, or wake up an hour earlier than I usually do. Either way, it’s a major shift in routine, but it has to happen. It is very very difficult to not rip all of my now-greying hair out of my head.

Mich Mash

G is reading this little alphabet book aloud to himself. He is on the “S” page, and this is the dialogue that just passed between us:

G: “Somersault. Stairs. Salt. Sled. Chinchillas”

Me: “Chinchillas?”

G: “Yeah!”

I look at the book

Me: “Oh, no that says ‘Squirrel.’”

G: “Uuuh no. There’s TWO of them.”

Me: “Squirrels, then.”

G: “That’s better.”

Mich Mash

Better than biting your tongue when you want to spill beans that don’t yet need to be spilled: crack open a tasty beer.

Finally got my voter’s registration thing printed out, so I just have to find my 1¢ stamps (because all I have around here is the now-worthless 41¢-ers, since the United States Postal Service can’t seem to get it together where the price of a letter goes). (Remember when it cost 32¢ to mail something?) I registered as Independent, because I refuse to be affiliated with any party. I don’t consider myself a Democrat or a Republican, I am not a Libertarian (capital L) nor am I a libertarian (lowercase L). To put Communist (which is inaccurate) or Socialist (which is most accurate) would just get my husband in trouble with his job, even if I was doing it in jest. So it was a toss-up between Whig and Independent. Should’ve gone with Whig, come to think of it. I do intend to vote Obama, though, but not because he’s a Democrat. I’m voting for him because he’s one of the most charismatic politicians that I have seen in modern times, and boy have I seen ‘em all. I also agree with a lot of what he is saying, and I think that, while he might not be the change we have been waiting for, he is, at the very least, change for a dollar.

Voting has been a major discussion among the clan lately, and I am kind of tired of discussing it. However, I think that voting and similar political arguments shall not stop any time soon, and shall certainly not stop in November. All I know is Reichsmarschall Bush’s days are numbered, his regime is crumbling, and though he may never forgive me for using his words out of context, to quote my husband:
Vote Obama: He can’t screw up this country too much more, although he may try.

So let’s not discuss voting anymore, because you people take voting way too seriously. Instead, let’s discuss custard. No? Too hot for custard, you say? Well, maybe we will leave custard for another day.

Mich Mash

Current bands of note:
The Thermals, Snow Patrol, Coldplay’s newest album freaking rocks - “42″ is the best song on the entire album, The Raveonettes

New discoveries and old favorites.
Music has always been one of my biggest obsessions. No matter how many different mediums and outlets and things I try, I always come back to music. Always have. I have a very musical family and I think it’s just in my blood. It makes me proud to see that my son has inherited that musical aptitude. I hope to get him into some lessons of some kind by next year.

Thinking about purchasing a year of LaunchCast, which is Yahoo’s radio service thing. The free service is okay, but there is an annoying ad every three songs. I think that’s the point of it. Make you love it but make you hate it enough to get the pay service.

I opened a fortune cookie today after eating my Chinese lunch and the fortune was thus:
“In god we trust; all others must pay cash.”
I’m really not sure what kind of a fortune that is, but maybe it’s reminding me that people can not be trusted. (A policy on which I stand firm.)

I seem to be random this evening. I might as well go with it. I find that if I try to write against my moods, it never works out. Then again, writing random things, though entertaining, is never substantial. We can’t be intellectual 100% of the time I suppose.

Still need to finish Walden, but I am ever distracted. I love Thoreau, but he’s kind of casual reading. Pick it up every few days and read a few pages. Spend a year reading his book. Soak it in. So I will read a few pages tonight, but mostly I am working on Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate. I enjoy how he used the phrase “armchair anthropologist.”

I guess there’s not much to say. I will quit while I’m ahead. Got some pictures coming soon of my Georgia trip. Just have to go through them all.

Mich Mash

Here I am. Taking a moment to write from my mother-in-laws in Atlanta. Been spending a few minutes, also, trying to get my calendar straightened out. There are a few things coming up, and I am trying to make plans for other things and squeeeeeze it all in. It’s going to be tough, but as long as everything falls into place and it is right, then it will happen. Right now everything is being dictated by when G goes to school (early August).

I’m full from delicious breakfast, and today is my nephew’s birthday party. He turned a year old yesterday. We, my sister-in-law and I,  took the kids (G, my neice, and my nephew) to Chuck-E-Cheese yesterday (hate that place but I made sure there was no sugar to be had so it wasn’t unbearable this time) and then to Applebees for a drink and a little ice cream. Then we came back to the house and had pizza and did a few fireworks. It was nice. All the older kids ran around with sparklers and the adults spent their time chasing down the two-and-under age group to keep them far away from the fire. It was frantic and joyful. Children running, screaming, and laughing. It took me back to my own childhood for a little while. Later after everyone went to bed, I sat on the front porch and listened to unseen fireworks all around me. It wasn’t quiet but there was a peaceful atmosphere. People celebrating all around me and I on the steps of the porch in quiet meditation over the events in my life that have passed and those that have yet to come.

It has been tumultuous, to say the least, but that does not mean that I am unhappy. I am trying to go with the flow instead of against it, and just doing my best to hold everything together. Life is a process.

Anyway, it’s been a good mini-vacation, not too much stress, and I am leaving for home tomorrow morning. Then I hope to go to Florida, but I still have to talk to JT about it, to see if he will be okay with me spending the gas money. Crossing my fingers, because I really need a vacation before the insanity of life picks back up again, and the routines change and everything turns upside-down. If I don’t take a vacation now, I will not have the opportunity for one for at least a year, if not more. Man, do I need a vacation!

Mich Mash

My newest piece. Abstract digital imaging.
“The Fountain”

Mich Mash