Sleeping with Sock Monkeys...I'm Cheap!

I love Target, probably in a way that is not entirely healthy. Ryann and I now have a matching pair of these adorable sock monkey pajamas and do you want to know the best part? They were on clearance for SIX BUCKS at Target! I may now have to return and stock up so that I can give a few of these out for Christmas. They are ridiculously cute and comfy. Of course, Ryann has vowed never to wear them at the same time that I'm wearing mine, but I'll catch her slipping one of these days! Bet on it!

The Eternal Optimist

I'm an optimist...a very pollyanna, glass half full, lemonade out of lemons, see the best in everybody and everything optimist. I've always seen myself that way, and the people I'm very close to would agree. So it's been sort of strange for me to read back through this blog and not see that at all. In fact, see the very opposite of that. I know this has been a place for me to vent and I suppose I've needed that, because this has been a dark couple of years for me. I'm not going to stop venting, but I'd also like to find more balance and make this blog more true to who I really am. So today I'm going to talk about five exciting and happy things that have been going on with me for the many many months I've been gone:

1. Ryann turned ten. My girl is double digits. Impossible to believe! She's such a sweet soul. We have epic mother/daughter battles, but she's smart, funny, thoughtful and beautiful inside and out and I'm so proud to be her mom. She has shot up in the past year. She is almost as tall as me!?!?! We're in the process of leaving behind shopping in the girls' section in favor of the juniors' section. She did great on all her testing this year. She scored perfect in the writing portion of her Stanford test and scored high school levels in most areas of the test.

2. K and I celebrated another anniversary at Hotel Icon. This was in the middle of some of a lot of drama, and we couldn't really decide whether or not we wanted to do anything at all for anniversary, but we did and I'm glad. We had a nice time.

3. I am really getting so much more organized and neat. I've started doing parts of the flylady system and it has made a huge difference in my house and my life. This has been something I've really struggled with my whole life. I'm messy, but it's like a light bulb went off and it's a work in progress and I have a long way to go to get it to where I want it to be, but I am decluttering and keeping the areas that I've already decluttered very clean. The biggest thing for me has been organizing. Once I figure out a place for everything, it's so much easier to keep it neat. Also, my car used to be a HUGE MESS. No more!! It stays clean and organized! I'm very proud of myself.

4. My ear surgery was a success, so I can hear out of my left ear. Hell to the yeah!! I'm very excited about this. I'm still trying to get used to it. I still always talk on the phone on the right side, but it's just out of habit. I still don't hear as well as most people do in either ear, but it is so much better than it was and I feel very blessed to have had the surgery in both ears. Without them, I would barely be able to hear at all.

5. I got a new car. Well, it's actually an suv, but I call it a car. It's a Honda CRV and I LOVE IT!! It looks like this:

Violated

Wow...so yeah, it's uh...been awhile. Which is strange, because if ever there was a time in my life where there was a plethora of blogging material, it has been these last months. So let's catch you up, where were we last? Ah yes...knee surgery. So after the knee surgery, I was on crutches for too freaking long and going to physical therapy and just pretty pathetic, actually. Then, in December, I had ear surgery. After surgery, my ear got infected and I got really sick. That sucked. So then at the end of March, my marriage hits a speed bump. Well, not a speed bump as much as an iceberg or a mountain or something way bigger than a speedbump. There was a really rough stretch of time there where I felt a rage I didn't know I had. I hit the wall and hurt my thumb. I kicked a hole in the wall and almost broke my foot. My doctor put me on anti-depressants. I stopped taking them. I think I still need them. The marriage is still in limbo, but I do think we're making progress and being more real with each other than we've ever been, so that is good, I suppose. I'm finally getting my shit together as far as not being so messy. I'm getting organized and setting up systems and ridding my life of clutter. I would post pictures, but MY FUCKING HOUSE WAS BROKEN INTO last week and they took my laptop (with all my pictures...sob!). Ryann had three jars of money on the counter, one for giving, one for saving and one for spending and OF COURSE they took all of that. They also took our big screen tv and lots of other things. It took the police 40 minutes to get to my house, and he was less than helpful when he was here. I had come home early from work because our air conditioner was broke and I was going to meet the repair guy (of course the a/c was broke b/c obviously, God hates me) and our door was wide open and the frame was broken off of it. It was not a good day. Then, two days after the break-in, K had to leave to go to Las Vegas for work for a week and a half. So I'm jumpy. Ryann is sleeping in the bed with me and I don't know that we'll EVER get her back in her room after this. I feel so violated. I can't believe someone went through my things. I can't believe somebody has all of my pictures. I can't sleep, I need to deal with all of the insurance stuff, but I don't know all the technical details needed for it, I'm angry, I can't concentrate and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. Or maybe go swimming...or sit in a hottub. That would work too! This past year has been really difficult. I wish I could just learn whatever lessons I am supposed to be learning. OMG...the post is boring and self pitying, but it did feel good to get it out there. Maybe I will actually try to post a little more frequently. The months I've been gone haven't been near as bad as they sound, but there were some really low points and I'm just feeling really lonely and sorry for myself at the moment, so humor me. Please.

I think I knee'd to update!

This is probably going to be really boring, because I'm probably going to be writing some of the details that I'd like to remember later. So, if you want the cliff notes version...things are going relatively good!

Tomorrow will be two weeks since I had surgery, and I'm feeling a little better every day. The surgery apparently went well. They did a PCL reconstruction and saw that my medial meniscus was partially torn as well, so they trimmed that up. They did not have to do anything with the PLC (Posteror Lateral Corner), which saved me from having another huge scar and an even longer, harder recovery, so I was really happy about that. We got to the surgery center around 9:30am. The surgery center was amazing. The room where they prepped me for surgery was on the 15th floor and had an awesome view of Rice and Hermann Park. What a great way to distract you from all the pre-surgery worrying! The surgery itself lasted about three hours, which apparently is fairly long from what my surgeon said. It took me quite awhile to wake up, because they had given me phenergan (YAY!) so that I wouldn't wake up nauseous. I sort of remember getting in and out of my dad's suburban on the way home. I think we finally got home around 7:30pm. The only other thing I remember about that night was that I scarfed down two slices of pizza, because I was starving! The next few days are sort of a blur.

Aside from the pain, last week was actually pretty enjoyable. I LOVED hanging out with my mom all day. She spoiled me rotten. Actually, she spoiled all of us rotten. I thought K was going to throw himself on top of her car and beg her not to leave on Saturday morning when she left. She cooked wonderful meals, and even cooked several extra meals before she left and froze them to make things easier for us for the next few weeks. She organized Ryann's room, and made the cutest curtain for Ryann's closet. She took a white sheet and then sponge painted purple flowers with lime green stems on them, because those are the colors that Ryann's room is painted. We had taken the doors off of her closet months ago, so that we could put her dresser in her closet. She also made a curtain for our kitchen/breakfast nook window (out of dish towels...which sounds strange...but was SO adorable!). They turned out great. I'll have to take pictures and post them, because they both turned out really cute. She taxied me around and did all of my laundry and organized my pantry and was her usual Superwoman self. I can't tell you how much I love, respect and appreciate her. I would've been lost without her last week. I just can't imagine a better mom or better person in the world, and if I turn out to be half the woman/wife/mother she is, then I will consider my life a huge success.

Okay, back to the knee...I went to physical therapy twice last week and it was torture. I felt like such a wimp. I cried both times from all the pain. They've cut it down to once a week, but I still have to do the exercises at home every day. I went back to physical therapy yesterday and it went SO MUCH BETTER! I didn't cry once, so that's progress. They had been trying to get my quad to fire, and it just wasn't happening last week, but yesterday it was doing so much better. They hook me up to this muscle stimulation machine that shocks the hell out of me and they leave it on for 15 minutes. It shocks you for 10 seconds and then goes off for 10 seconds. While it is shocking me, I'm supposed to be doing a quad set, which is basically like trying to flex your quad. Last week, when they couldn't get my quad to fire, they kept turning it up higher until I was in tears. The only other real exercise I can do right now are straight leg raises. My first day of PT, I couldn't do them at all. My leg felt like it weighed 100 pounds and I couldn't lift it at all. Later that evening, I practiced until I could do it and was so excited when I actually did one that I ended up doing about 50. Because. I. Could. So two days later, when I went back to PT and was going to show off my accomplishment, she took my brace off to do one and the pain was unbearable. I just couldn't do them at all without my brace to keep my knee stable. (But I can now...hooray!) I've been working hard at home, trying to flex my quad and do the straight leg raises and trying to get my leg to extend fully, because I haven't been able to do that since my injury and that's one thing they really want me to work on.

I came back to work on Monday, and it's been going good. The hardest thing is that I still can't drive, so K has to drop me off. He was to be at work at 7am, so we drop Ryann off at my MIL's house and then he drops me off and I'm at work by 6:30am. So, we're waking up around 5am, which SUCKS! But hopefully, I'll be able to drive soon, and we can all sleep in a little more. Also, the bathrooms are somewhat far from my office, so it's a pain to get to them. My arms are so tired from the crutches, but I think they're getting stronger. The only other thing that is difficult is lunch. I'm spoiled to running out and getting whatever I want for lunch. Now, I'm very limited on what I can eat for lunch, because it has to be something that I can bring in my backpack, but doesn't have to be heated up (because I can't carry it from the kitchen to my office). My coworkers have been amazing, and would definitely heat things up for me, but I really don't want to impose. Plus, maybe this is a good way for me to lose weight or at least keep from gaining weight while I'm so pitifully inactive. I've been eating less for lunch. For example, one of those individual size servings of cereal (sans milk b/c I didn't have any at work) and an apple with peanut butter.

Okay, speaking of work, I better get to it. I wish I had a clever or even interesting way to wrap this up, but the truth is, that my brain is muddled from a combination of hydrocodone and waking up at 5am all week...so I've got nothing. Sorry!

Post op

Am still alive...so that's good! Surgery went well. Long, but well. I am taking lots of pain meds, but still hurting like hell, but hopefully that will ease soon. I go for my first check up tomorrow, so I should know a little more then. Am still terribly groggy, but will update when I'm able! I'm pissed that I'm not coherent enough to check out all of the blogs I love, but hope to catch up soon!

My mom is a Godsend! K has been really helpful, and so has Ryann. I have never felt so helpless. Not fun!

Issues and new shoes!

I've been trying to write this post for a week. I keep starting or meaning to start, but I keep getting overwhelmed. Overwhelmed overwhelmed overwhelmed. It's the story of my life, really. I get overwhelmed...and freeze! I do nothing. I feel ridiculously guilty for not doing what I know I should be doing, but I can't seem to make myself just.do.it! I stick my head in the sand and hope it goes away. My life is going to live itself without any effort from me. This post is going to miraculously write itself. Because I have a lot to say.

My grandmother is an immigrant from England, and she's a very interesting lady. She lives in San Antonio and has the coolest accent evah! She line dances and walks her dog over a mile every.single.day. She has a busier social life than I've had since...since...I don't even know when. She hasn't had an easy life. She and my grandfather divorced long before I was born, and I never met him. My father was the oldest of two boys and my uncle died in a plane crash when I was very young. She's strong and smart and I'm honored to know her, much less be related to her. She's the only grandparent of mine that is still alive and I don't see her near enough. Anyway, I think I mentioned in passing in another post that we're broke. We've been having some major financial issues. Last weekend, I received a check (or cheque, as she would write) from her for $5000. I was speechless, and that doesn't happen often. Her thinking is that she'd rather give me money now while she's still alive and I need it. I'm putting a big chunk of it into a savings account and saving it for future rainy days, but some of it is going to help with the rainy days I'm going through now. It's such a relief to not have to worry about how I'm going to pay the coinsurance for my surgery, etc... I feel so blessed to have such an amazing family who is always ready and willing to lend a hand and I feel so undeserving of all they do for me. Also? I'm in awe of how things seem to work out. I guess that's why (though you might not be able to tell it from this blog and all the venting I do) I'm such an optimist. Anyway...I'm blessed!

So last week when I started to write a post, my marriage seemed to be in fairly good shape. Today, I don't know how the hell it seems. K had been sleeping back in our bedroom for awhile and we seemed to be getting along. He went out of town on business this weekend, and we got into an argument while he was gone and he slept in the guest room last night. I don't know what he's going to do when my mom is here and he can't sleep in the guest bedroom . We're cordial and talking today, but I don't know how things stand. I can't put too much mental energy into it at the moment, because I'm too busy obsessing over my upcoming knee surgery. Obsessing and planning, but mostly obsessing because planning? Not my strong suit people! Well, that's not exactly true...I'm pretty good at planning, it's following through that is a bitch for me.

Aaaannnnyyyyywwwwaaaaaaaaayyyyy, surgery is this Friday. My parents will be here Thursday night. My mom is staying about a week, but my dad is only staying a day or two and then going to see his very awesome mom. I'm not really nervous about the actual surgery. I feel very confident in my surgeon (only partially b/c I've seen him so much on tv while watching Texans games the past few weeks and I figure if he's good enough for their knees...by golly...he's good enough for mine). I'm more worried about the pain afterwards. Right now, I'm not hurting all the time and when I am hurting, it's more achy than sharp, unbearable type pain. But I expect it to hurt like hell afterwards. And hello? Do you watch Brothers and Sisters b/c Justin's knee is hurt, too and he's really in a whole lotta pain? But he's not taking pain pills (and I will be)...so that's encouraging. I'm also REALLY worried about the logistics afterwards. I'm not really worried about the first week, because my mom is going to be here. But after that? Especially if K and I are not on good terms? I'm not looking forward to that. I think I am going to get Ryann's hair put in cornrows, so it's one less thing to worry about and maybe I'll get a maid to come every other week or every week, so that K doesn't go completely insane and the house doesn't get even MORE junkie! I'm worried about when I'm going to be able to drive and how I'm going to be on crutches for so long when it hurt my hands so badly to be on them for a week or two.

I'm worried and if there are two things I know well and am good at...it's worry and guilt. I'm overflowing with both at the moment. Oh and I'm overwhelmed...because there's a lot to do before my surgery and my surgery is Friday and that's what? 3 1/2 days away? Ohmygosh...am panicking! I'll probably go make a list (or go watch the end of the Cowboys game? Oh or maybe watch the Bachelor b/c I'm dvring it right now and he's going to switch w/his twin and that sounds entertaining), even though what I REALLY need to do is finish cleaning the guest bedroom. Because I did start it (OVER.A.WEEK.AGO!) and there's really not TOO much left to do, but I just can't seem to finish. I also need to clean the fridge out and organize the pantry, because I don't want my mom to work too much and she will...because she rocks...but I want to make it as easy as possible on her and on K. It's a good thing I work well under pressure, but boy, do I feel like I'm cutting it close and am not going to have time to do everything I want/need to do. Because I also want to get my eyebrows waxed and buy new Crocs before surgery and it would be a huge bonus if I had time to go to the mall and get some MAC makeup b/c my asshole...I mean, really sweet dog, Trixie, ate my lipstick and lip pencil and I'm out of powder. Ohmygosh and a haircut would be divine, but I don't see it happening!

Clearly...I have issues! (But I also have three new pairs of really awesome, really comfortable shoes from Target and that makes me happy!) So take that, issues!!

Stop the Abuse!

When I was 20 years old, I lived with a girlfriend of mine and her family. She was dating a guy who was physically abusive. The first time I actually witnessed the violence, we were at a party with about 30 people and he got really upset with her. They were standing in the street and he picked her up by her throat and was choking her. I immediately ran over and tried to pry his hands from her neck. He let go and literally tossed me aside with one hand (I was a tiny thing back then). I picked myself up from the pavement and tried again to break things up. In hindsight, it's unbelievable to me that there were so many other people at that party that just sat by and watched it happen. Why was I the only one to try to stop it? Anyway, he let go and we got in her car to go home. He jumped in the backseat and wouldn't get out, so my friend proceeded to keep driving to her house. I don't remember much about the drive, other than being completely terrified. I do remember that when we got a block or two from her house...he grabbed the control and threw the car into neutral. My friend got out of the car and ran the rest of the way home. I stayed in the car and was yelling and cursing at him telling him what an idiot and coward he was. I don't know what possessed me...what a stupid thing to do. I can't remember much after that from that night, but I think he must've eventually gotten out of the car and I must've driven it to her house. After that incident, I definitely encouraged her to get out of the relationship and also told her that if she decided to stay with him, I would still be her friend, but I didn't want to be around him.

A couple of months later, she broke up with him. One night shortly after that, we were driving around in her car. She and I were in the front seat and two of our guy friends were in the back seat. Her ex-boyfriend saw us and started following us. My girlfriend sped back to her house...it's a wonder we didn't wreck. When we got there, she jumped out of the car and ran inside. I didn't really think he would do anything to me, but I reached over to lock her door just to be safe. As I leaned back into my seat, he put his fist through the window where I was sitting and broke it and opened the door. I tried to climb through to the other side and I opened the door and was almost out of the door when he pulled me by my hair back into the car and started punching me in the head. The two guys in the backseat told him to stop, but that was about all they did. He finally stopped hitting me and I was able to stumble into the house. He left and we called the police. While the police were taking their statement, he called her house. He told her mom that he was going to kill me and their daughter and that we better leave town within two days.

The next morning, we went to the police station to file a restraining order, but were told that it wasn't worth the paper it was written on. We packed up our things and moved that day from Wichita*Falls to Arlington, Texas. We moved in with a friend of ours, who also happened to be an ex-boyfriend of hers (although could not be more different from the abusive ex). I had very long hair at the time, but it had been falling out in clumps where he had pulled it while he was hitting me. I had a piece of glass from the window stuck in my toe for months afterwards, and it was a constant reminder of what had happened. I was so happy when I finally got it out. I felt like I could move on. My girlfriend apparently wasn't completely over the abusive ex, because we found multiple calls to his job on our phone bill.

Life is strange, and I never would've guessed that I would end up back in Wichita*Falls, but I did about a year later. I moved into a maternity home there, and after giving birth to Ryann, we moved into our own apartment. I was out one night with a group of my girlfriends, when we ran into the guy who beat me up. One of my girlfriends, who knew the whole backstory, but lost any sort of intelligence when she was drinking, spent the night flirting with him. She lived out of town and was spending the night with me that night. At the end of the night, she told him that we would take him home. I was furious and told her that we would not, but another of our friends was driving and he did end up in the car with us. I let them know how uncomfortable I was with this and asked them to drop him off first, because I didn't want him to know where I lived. The next morning, when I got back from church, another of my friends informed me that the guy had been in my apartment while I was at church. Apparently, my "friend" invited him over. My "friend" ended up moving to town, working with me and dating the guy. Once she started dating him, we stopped talking. She got pregnant and called me to cry on my shoulder and I tried to be there for her. She ended up having a miscarriage, and broke up with the guy. We ended our "friendship" a couple of years later when she went to NYC on business and kissed K, who was my fiancé at the time. That's a whole other show!

I'm not quite sure how to wrap this up. It's a little surreal to think back to those times and I can't begin to tell you how much I've learned from those times or since those times. I think I could've handled it all a little better, but I'm proud of myself for standing up to him. It's mindblowing to me how common abuse is. It seems as though almost everyone has endured it in some form or another. It hurts my heart to see people or animals get bullied and abused! Let's put an end to the blame the victim mentality!

See Vodkarella for details on Blog Against Abuse day!