For the first time ever in my blogging career, I’m reporting back on a “Improve Myself!” type meme I said I’d be participating in. That may be a slight exaggeration but I feel like in the million years since I’ve started this blog, I’ve done no less than 100 This Is The Big Thing I’m Doing To Change Something About Myself type of blog entries. And have I ever reported back? No. I don’t think so. I know I’ve not actually completed or been successful in any of them so if I reported back it was only once or it was to say: SCREW THAT.

But my 4 Simple Goals were…simple! So I can report back!

• WEARING A SKIRT – I wore skirts FOUR TIMES the first week. I wore one for Sunday dinner first. Of course, I ended up also wearing PJs under it, but still. I enjoyed it so much I used the excuse of three big days of meetings or Volunteer Activities to wear skirts that week. FOUR TIMES. I loved it. Why I never thought to pursue the Skirt As Casual thing is BEYOND ME. Flip-flops or Converse. WITH A SKIRT. It’s totally my new thing. I was disappointed yesterday was a grass-mowing day as I couldn’t wear a skirt! I wore one Sunday and Tuesday and I plan on wearing another today. One of these days I’ll have a full length mirror so I can show you pictures. But I refuse to buy one until I lose weight STOP GAINING WEIGHT.
• TAKING CAMERA EVERYWHERE – My first day doing this produced a lot of THE VERY SAME PHOTOS that I take all the time. Turns out I just am home a lot. Go figure. I’m going to try to take the camera again tomorrow but maybe plan something a bit more fun to do. Like leave the house.
• EATING SOMETHING DIFFERENT – The first week I tried 3 or 4 different recipes. Went great. This week…so far? Unless you think trying the bag of frozen PF Changs food I found at Target as “eating something different” – I’ve not really put a lot of thought into the meals this week. I bought fresh brussel sprouts to cook as something different and Twitter gave me tons of yummy ways to try, but I haven’t done it yet. Dinner is tricky with E now back in school and D training for his Triathlon this weekend. I have to have it ready around 5pm to fit into D’s schedule but I can’t start until after 4pm because of E’s schedule. We’ll see how next week: Post Triathlon, goes.
• GOING SOMEPLACE NEW – I took the kids to the MAIN BRANCH of the library the first week. We’ve been to our branch on our side of town many times, but the downtown BIG library? I only went there once in college and E and I think we went there once a million years ago to get him a book, but I don’t really remember it so it doesn’t count. The visit was great and Nikki was blown away by how much bigger it was. This week we tried out Gigi’s Cupcakes after dinner, just as a treat for E after getting his ingrown toenail chopped out. It was fun although I am just not a cupcake person. E’s was better than mine was, but none of us finished any of what we ordered. SO MUCH ICING. The kids didn’t even really like any of it. The icing or the cake. They’re spoiled by my cake poppers. They expect anything with the word “cake” in it to taste just like that.

So….I’m quite proud. The thing about these goals is there’s no failure. I’ve set them up so I can try every week, but if I don’t do it? Whatever. Who cares. Try again next week. But I actually look forward to the excuse each of them give me to Try something new/Look nice/Take pictures. Turns out I like to do those things in SOME WAYS…I’m not as much of a creature of habit as I thought I was. I’ve enjoyed some of the branching out. I’ve already started worrying that when the end of the year rolls around, I won’t have an excuse for these things anymore. But maybe by then? These things will simply be the new normal. How cool would that be?

Kim? Yeah. I know her. She’s the one that wears skirts and carries her camera everywhere! You should ask her for her _________ recipe, it’s great! She cooks a lot of different stuff, it’s cool. She also knows all the fun stuff in Huntsville to do/see. If I’m ever looking for something new to do I ask her.

Hey. I think that girl sounds pretty cool…don’t you?

(Although – I hear she never uses shampoo on her hair. That’s still pretty weird.)

I’ve had a lot of insignificant personal conflict in my mind lately. Just stuff that keeps me awake at night as I sit in bed and wonder how I’ll handle these little dramas that have popped up. Nothing major, just personal dilemmas keeping me awake as I struggle for solutions. They don’t bother me during the day, I’m too busy to worry about the inconsequential. But at night, in bed, when it’s quiet and I’m trying to fall asleep – these challenges really bother me. How do I fix it? How do I make it work? How do it resolve this so it doesn’t make me so sad when the lights go out?

Last night I found myself missing Prayer. I am not religious, I don’t believe in any version of a god that any Christian church defines. But I used to. I used to be very religious. I used to say the rosary and go to church and Pray. I prayed constantly. The peace that someone would be there for me, help me through the gray days, that was so comforting. I remember I would ask god for strength at least once a day. That was my token prayer. “Please, God. Give me strength to make it through this drama in my life.” And while I know that on paper none of my teenage dramas were really that tragic, I remember the depression and the sadness and the anxiety associated with those dramas. THAT was real. I remember that comfort Prayer gave me. Sometimes I think that refuge, the Prayer with my God at that time, saved my life.

I stopped believing a long time ago. I know I’ll never have church back in my life for reasons I don’t have the time or the words to explain. I don’t miss church. I don’t miss religion. I don’t miss the guilt or the dogmas or anything associated with that point in my life.

But I miss prayer. I miss just being able to talk to someone about what was bothering me. Someone who I didn’t worry about judging me (Hee. That’s funny.) or thinking me a bad person. Someone who would just listen and give me comfort in knowing I was not alone. I tried to pray last night, just to see if I could without the belief in the person on the other end of the line. No dice. So, I just struggled again with unheard conversations in my mind.

I know religious people and I have church-going friends and family who have said they don’t pray and I always find this jolting. Really? Isn’t that the best part of church is being able to pray? Maybe I used prayer differently than the average religious person, but to me? Prayer was what held me to the church even as long as I stayed. I probably actually stopped believing 15 years ago, or more, but I tried different faiths and different churches for 5 years or so after that. Because I couldn’t give up praying. But somewhere along the way, the prayers went the way of every other part of my religious past. Faded into nonexistence.

But I tried again last night, just to see how it felt. It felt wrong and weird and really made me giggle a little out loud. Really, Kim? You’re praying? YOU? I don’t think so.

So, I just keep trucking along the usual way. Working things out in my head until I finally get some peace. It’s not as romantic as prayer, but it works. Sometimes.

I know a lot of us have bonded over past religious lives and find ourselves in similar agnostic positions as adults. What parts of it do you miss?

After Wes was born we decided we probably wouldn’t have any more kids, definitely didn’t want anymore for awhile, but that we would wait to make a permanent decision until January 2011 which would be 9 months from when NikkiZ would start Kindergarten. We didn’t want more than two preschool kids at a time because at that time I was working full time and the idea of three kids in daycare made our wallets explode.

Well…we’re coming up on decision time. We have already made a decision of sorts in the last few months. We do want more kids. Living in that cramped house when I was working fulltime – the idea of another kid made me want to punch myself in the face. But now that life is a bit more manageable and our house has a bit more room, I really feel like I want more. But…do we start trying in January? I mean, let’s face it, if you’ve struggled at all with conceptions or pregnancy (like we have) then the only reason NOT to try is if at that moment you just couldn’t handle the idea of another kid. And right NOW? That’s the case. Sorta. We just really want NikkiZ to be in Kindergarten before we have anymore kids so we have to wait until January to reach that goal. But then…why wait? If our past history is any indication, and then the trend for my preproductive tracts to get in worse shape in the last few years, we should start trying as soon as we get out of that Three Kids At Home danger zone.

But…BUT…am I ready to get on the TTC train again? Before I dealt fibroids, endometriosis, and the annoying habit of miscarrying for no good reason. This time I get to add several ovarian cysts to the stockpile of Fun Stuff going on in my lady bits. (Totally the name of my next single, by the way.) So…the Trying To Conceive train may be even MORE fun than it was before. MORE FUN? Really? Can I handle more fun? I mean, sometimes it’s easy to “forget” the challenges when you see your successes every day. Two angel faces coloring on your walls and eating your moisturizers. But when I pause for a moment and look back? It comes flooding in and I think…Why would I want to do that again?

With Wes, we just stayed on the TTC path even after NikkiZ was born because we knew we wanted two and didn’t know how long it would take. We never stopped TTC. This time, willfully stepping back into the emotional heartbreak and anxiety after such a long and peaceful break? Seems so torturous. And masochistic. But, we’ll be doing it. We’ve decided. ONE MORE we keep telling our selves. We would love ONE MORE. Will we get it? Maybe. Will we kill ourselves emotionally and physically trying? No. We’ll probably be much more willing to accept defeat this time around. Too many failures, or too long without any successes, and we can easily throw in the towel. Because we are lucky and we know that. We left the battle long ago with our trophies in hand. We’ll go back in for awhile, but the stakes won’t be as high. The wounds won’t go as deep. It will be tough, but not AS tough. Because our gifts from the previous battles are here to distract us and both remind us why we’ll be trying again, but also why it will be okay to surrender if the pain gets to be too much.

What about you? Have you struggled with building your family? How did you resolve the desire of more children with the pain of the struggle to have them?

ONE MORE.

I was at Target getting groceries this weekend with the two little ones. Wes in the buggy (shopping cart for those of you not from the South) and Nikki walking along beside me. It was the same drill it always is for us, a constant parade of conversation from aisle to aisle. Sometimes Wes freaking out about the dog in the photos above the refrigerated sections. Sometimes Nikki trying to figure out some way to convince me to buy [insert random pink item here] for her because she TOTALLY NEEDS IT. Other times we’re talking about non-grocery related tasks like the upcoming days and what we have planned or the next meal and what we’re going to eat. I sometimes stop and wonder if other families are as talkative as we are. Especially when it’s been just me and a baby doing the same amount of talking. YES. I’m that Mom. The one that even when her kid is not old enough to hold up his head, I’m saying things to him going through the store like, “Don’t let Momma forget the oatmeal.” Or, “I can’t remember if we’re out of orange juice or not.” I never really expect a response, of course, it’s just the way I’ve always been. It’s an instinct in me, I guess, to chat with my kids. Even if they’re not old enough to chat back.

So…this weekend. We were rounding an aisle and a lady stopped me and said, “I just want to tell you I think it’s wonderful how much you talk to your children. I’ve been listening to you all and you talk to them, and they talk to you, and you respond and it’s such a joy to hear. Sometimes I see parents and children out and about and no one is even looking at each other, much less talking.” I was overwhelmed with appreciation at this stranger’s praise but I said while laughing, “Well…we are quite a talkative family!” She smiled sincerely and said, “And I wanted to compliment you on just that.” I thanked her and we went our separate ways. Nikki immediately said, “What was she saying?” while Andy starts waving, “Bye! Bye!” I guess to prove her point – we never shut up.

Whatever it means that I talk to my kids a lot, I’m glad I do it. Do I often also tell them to, “Be Quiet!” Yes. OH MY GOD…YES. Nikki’s favorite game is the quiet game and I use that to every advantage I can, because sometimes? I need it to be quiet. But a lot of the times? I don’t. And I’m glad we’re quite chatty. And I’m glad there are people possessed by so much kindness in the world that they feel the need to pass on compliments to strangers. I’m going to try to repay the woman by complimenting as many strangers as I can this week.

By the way…have I told you your hair looks great today?

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And now…random photos that relate to nothing above! Enjoy!

This is just one of the many moments I catch of my kids just loving each other. I’m so glad they get along so well.

Paint party on the front stoop.

This top was made from parts of the 100+ year old dogwood that has recently succumbed to time/sickness/aging. (Here is a photo of it in it’s prime here) The tree means a lot to me for many reasons, so I made sure to buy a handful of items a local artist made from the wood. I bought each of the kids a top and Wes has decided it’s his favorite toy EVER.

As per my 4 Simple Goals, I carried my camera with me all day yesterday. Turns out? I don’t do a lot of exciting things and I don’t go to a lot of photographic settings. However, the challenge of just photographing the mundane turned out to be quite an exercise in and of itself. It was quite fun to see my daily activities become subjects of my own photography. These photos are all Straight Out Of the Camera (SOOC) and I think quite a fun look at my day.

Nikki deciding to carry this picture with her to school because…I have no clue. She just found it and decided she wanted to carry it around. It would be sweet except she kept saying, “I want it to remember you by.” And that totally creeped me out.

Breakfast table reading. He says, “Chicka Chicka 1 2 3!” whenever he “reads” this book.

Our morning ritual: Call the neighbor’s cat over and give him some love before taking everyone to school.

Waiting for E to get to the van.

After getting E to school and Nikki to Pre-K (halfday), Wes and I spent the morning running errands. When we got home it was time for my a.m. project (the project I try to complete before picking up Nikki from Pre-K) – putting together a collage frame for the kitchen. I got out the photos and the frame I had bought a while back and went to work. Here is the final product:

And here are a few pictures of the chaos Wes caused while I worked on this project. Keep in mind, the kitchen floor had nothing on it when I started this project. This is the plight of the SAHM…any single project to give you a sense of accomplishment for the day, creates more projects that you had no interest in dealing with. Like putting up the mess your kid made while you worked on your project. It took me 20 minutes to put together the frame, and 20 minutes to put up all of the stuff Wes got out while I put together the frame.

Then I had to meet LilZ before he went out of town for a concert and then pick up Nikki from school. Came home and put the kids down from their naps and did my best to find interesting things to photograph around my own home. Well…you can see how THAT went.

After naptime we had to go pick up a friend from the local middle school. We brought her back for some playroom time where I took a few more photos before calling it a day.

All in all it was a fun day. I think I’ll try to pick a day next week that has me in different places than my own home, which is where I already take 90% of my photos anyway. But, that was a challenge to do more than say, “Smile!” to my kids in my home to make a cute picture. It also turned out to be a neat way to document my day. What seems mundane when I talk about it looks kinda cool in photo form.