Right Where I Am - October Edition

Since this is my blog and since these are my real life feelings, I am going to continue this "right where I am" series because 1). I want to be able to look back someday and realize how far I've come and 2). it is very therapeutic in a sense to write my feelings out.

I think it's been about 3 weeks since I began counseling with my school pastor and was advised to confront my true feelings about God and the situation I find myself in right now.  

This is moving along very slowly.  This is the opposite of everything I have ever done and old habits are hard to stop.  I continue to wrap up my prayers with a pretty bow of gratitude for my blessings.  

My pastor is helping me to realize that all this denial is creating a veil that is separating me from having a deep and meaningful relationship with God.  Right now my relationship with him is fake and it is going to get messy and ugly before it get's better.  He related it to cleaning out a really messy closet...You have to pull everything out before you can organize it and put it all back in.  

I am mad as hell!!!  And I only say that because that is the exact term my pastor used today.  10 years ago I was living in Florida by my family, I had a well paying job and was beginning a retirement account. I had a nice 3 bedroom house that I paid $119,000.00 for.  I sold it for $180,000.000 after only three years so, by now, I would have much more equity built up.  My plan was to keep it until the boys were out of the house and on their own...sell it...buy a retirement home (either a condo or a manufactured home in a retirement community) and put the remaining money in an account for retirement.  I had a plan, a goal, a good future.  

Now, 10 years later...I have nothing.  I have some money from our house and some money from our joint retirement account...but I have to start all over again.  I have moving expenses and I have to find another job, and I have to make enough money to support a household...and NONE of this was in my future plans when I decided to get married again.

So...I have wasted 10 years of my life with someone who for the better part of our marriage had no interest or commitment in our relationship.  Someone who could take us or leave us...someone who was okay with us living there with him - but also is just as okay if we don't.  Someone who at best tolerated my children but who more often hated them and treated them poorly.  

And I want to scream, "WHY???WHY???WHY???"  Why couldn't I just live the life I had planned in Florida?  Why did you bring me to Wisconsin for this failure?  Why do I now have to start all over again???  Why did my children have to experience living like that? 

So that is where I am...I think I'll be cleaning out my closet for a while.  This is gonna take time.  

Going to the Dog Park

When Ollie was a puppy, our vet instructed us to introduce him to 100 people and 100 dogs in the first few months of his life.  This way, he explained, Ollie would not be afraid of either.  We decided the best place to check both of those boxes was the local dog park.

It worked! Ollie knows no stranger - every new person he meets is his new long lost best friend.  And while he gets along well with other dogs, people are his #1 focus.  He usually shows only a mild interest in other dogs.

Eventually we stopped going to the dog park because, 1). it was about a 20 minute drive from our home, 2). we lived on 5 acres where he could run and hunt to his hearts desire, 3). he barked a lot at the other dogs (very annoying), and 4). he did not listen very well when we were there.  

Now that we are in our apartment Ollie doesn't have the freedom to run like he used to so I try to take him for 1-2 walks a day to keep him active.  

But the other day while Zack was in tutoring, I had some time to waste and since it was a beautiful day and the dog park was just down the street, I decided to give it another try...and he loved it!!!

Today was another gorgeous day so I decided to take him again. We were there for about 45 minutes and he ran just about the whole time!

A lot of butt sniffing going on

Ollie was in hunting mode here.  Shortly after I took this a lady yelled, "Oh my goodness, he's got a mouse in his mouth."  Thankfully, it was her dog and not mine!

Fall Colors

We moved to Wisconsin when Zack was 6.5 years old.  Before that he had never really seen snow or experienced a northern winter. 

One day, our first winter here, on our way to school he asked me, "mom, why is everything here black and white?" 

Excellent question and one that I had not thought of before.  The trees are black and the snow is white...and in my opinion, it is just plain ugly!

However, if there is one reward for having to endure a cold, ugly winter, it is the fall leaf colors we get to enjoy before they fall off the trees and leave them bare and...well...just plain ugly.  

The colors are pretty much at peak right now despite an incredibly windy day this past week that blew a lot of the leaves off the trees.

I'm trying to appreciate the beauty since this will be the last year I will experience fall color.  

Squirrel Watching from the Other Side

Can you see him?

Facing the Ugly

I have begun some intense counseling sessions with our school pastor.

Ironically, he was the same pastor that married us 9 years ago - when my husband was still a normal, functioning, human being with feelings.  And all.

 He has advised me to face the ugly.  I have been challenged to "rip off my band-aids and gush blood all over the place."  

In other words, it's okay to admit that I am mad...I am hurt...I feel abused...and I feel betrayed...and I need to bring all these things to the surface and meet them head-on.  Deal with them.  Even if that means that the one I am angry at is God.


This is so difficult for me!  Because I've always believed I should be grateful for all that I do have (and I do have a lot) and there is always someone out there who has it much worse than you do.  

But, you know what? Today's session was very eye opening to me.  As I'm digging up and confronting the ugly, I am realizing that I need to grieve. That it's okay to grieve.  I am grieving a loss that is very real.  And although I feel certain that this is the right thing to do and the best thing for my boys and me, I still have never taken the time to face the fact that I lost something that was very important to me....not my marriage like it was...but my marriage like it was supposed to be...like I was promised it would be.  

I am so thankful that I have an almighty father who loves me no matter what I do or how I act - even if I scream at him and throw a fit like a toddler (which I might feel led to do).  Even when I whine about the fact that I did not get what I think I should have gotten - he still loves me. 

And right now...that is great to know because it's about to get ugly.

Oh My

I have no words ---

Except maybe, "what's next"

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/09/gender-inclusive-school-district-says-drop-boys-and-girls-call-kids-purple/

October 3rd - Finally

The obsession began this past summer.  One day, while up at my parent's house, Zack decided he wanted to rent a Wii and a game called Super Smash Bros.  

After going back and forth on whether the $20.00 price tag was worth it, I decided to take Zack to Game Stop and let him buy a used Wii and the Smash Bros game.  He had $1700.00 in his savings account and I thought he deserved to finally be able to spend some of it.

This satisfied his obsession for a while but also fueled his desire to buy the 3DS version of the game when it was released on October 3rd.  He had pre-ordered a copy from Best Buy using some of his graduation money.  

And then...the countdown began.  Day after day after day I heard exactly how many weeks, days, hours, and even minutes were left until he could have his hands on this game.  I finally had to make a rule that if he talked about it more than 10x a day, I was going to postpone the pick-up time by an hour.  Not kidding - it was that bad.


I get done with school at 11:00 on Fridays so needless to say we were at Best Buy by 11:30.  Zack had worked ahead in school so he could take the day off.  

Amen...I can finally stop hearing about it.