Life according to me…

Yes, that’s correct - I am cautioning anyone who reads this and I have not spoken to you lately because I have a big subject I need to broach and it’s not for the weak hearted. Here goes.

I am pregnant again. We found out this past Monday. I was 2 weeks late for my period, feeling gross, not able to focus and just feeling blah. So I took a test Monday and it was positive before I could even set it down on the counter. Steve and I had a miscommunication regarding birth control. I had gotten off the pill because it made me bleed like crazy and was going to get on another one, and he had understood I had already gotten on another one which, in fact, I hadn’t yet. Whoops.

Now that you have picked yourself up off the floor and regained your breath…

This has been hard to accept, but today I have found renewed strength. I can’t reverse this pregnancy and I sure won’t do anything to change it so it’s time to focus on being pregnant and get in gear. These past few days I have done nothing but try to figure out how I am going to get through this and wallow in how hard its going to be because until today, I didn’t think I could do it. It has been a dark week and today I have finally seen some light.

I know it’s hard to picture us with more kids, but it is what God decided has to happen for me and my family and so it’s something I just have to do with all my effort and all my strength. Sure, I am worried, I’m scared - I don’t do pregnant well and now I have to do it with a school-age child AND two toddlers running around. Steve makes just enough to take care of each of us now and is having a hard time picturing feeding one or two more children. And his hours - it makes for me being the full time parent most of the kids waking hours and that can be tough at times. And yes, there is also a 1 in 4 possiblity of twins and I will find that out next Wednesday and let you all know for sure.

Even with all of this stacked against me right now - how many times in my life have the odds been stacked against me and we have overcome? I went to college - I never finished, got pregnant. Was a single parent. Couldn’t hold a job. Finally met someone I could share my life with…got pregnant with twins and had a horrible pregnancy. And now, here we are. My children are beautiful, I have a wonderful relationship with my husband…who could ask for anything more? Maybe this pregnancy is my chance to finally have a GOOD pregnancy and NORMAL childbirth experience and not deal with all of the hell I have gone through before. Maybe this baby (or babies) are the turning point in my life where I can finally focus on my job as a mother and homemaker and give up the idea that I just HAVE to have a career in order to really be counted as a success in society. Sure, I finally finished school this summer and now have an AA degree. But that isn’t going to help me raise these kids. Only God will.

All I ask from everyone reading this is that they reserve their negative, worried and horrified comments for themselves. You can all trust me when I say that Steve and I have thought of all of those things and they are still coming up on occasion. The only way I will make it through this is by being around those who are excited about this pregnancy and are ready to be sources of support and encouragement. Negativity and depression landed me in the hospital when I was pregnant with Elisa. Depression and sadness landed me in the hospital early with the twins. This time it’s going to be different even if I have to spend most of my time around my husband and kids in order to gather the strength I need to make it through this.

As a believer in Christ, I have faith that God ordained this pregnancy and that He alone will carry me and my family through this time and into being a bigger family. I am not saying it is going to be easy, in fact, I know it will be hard at times. But I have finally accepted this and am ready for the hard times as well as the good times. Life throws us many curveballs but its your reaction to those issues that makes you who you are. And I choose to react with faith, perserverance, resilience and strength instead of cowardness and negativity.

I hope each of you is ready to join on this journey as we welcome the new addition to our already Abundant Life. I will continue to write about my experiences as of late though I am sure most of them will come in updates that are dated by how far along I am. I appreciate everyone who is ready to be supportive and can understand if that takes some people a while to get there. It has taken me all week.

We move forward now - will let you all know when I find out if its one addition or two!!!!

In our new home we have HBO. We didn’t add it ourselves, the cable that the apartment complex provides comes with it. Since we have digital cable, we also have 14 HBO channels. Well, that sure leaves room for me to watch a movie here and there.

The latest one I saw was ‘Black Hawk Down’. Boy, did that move strike me hard. I was upset, angry, outraged, wanted to know the truth and so I did some researching. We just didn’t belong there and we weren’t properly backed up and equipped and then we mistakenly pulled out of the mission leaving many of our servicemen incomplete because they never got to finish their job. Those are just a tip of the iceberg of things I had a problem with after watching that movie.

The next day or so, Steve caught a show on the history channel called the ‘True Story of Black Hawk Down’. It was a 2-hour long show detailing why we were there, what happened the day the planes crashed, the aftermath, and how America currently deals with foreign policy like the issues had in Somalia. It totally opened my eyes even more and also made me even more angrier. I told Steve I was going to become a hippie and start protesting so that we would stop putting our big nose in everyone’s business around the world.

I believe it is a special person who is called to serve in the armed forces. It’s not easy to be in the military. I have never done it, but I know people who do it and who are still serving. I wanted to when I was in high school but I decided against it when I graduated. I believe that God molds certain people to be in the military or to be a military family member. Watching those stories about the men who served and watched their comrades die or were prisioners or had to shoot an armed 10-year old boy who was gunning for them because that is what they were trained to do.

I don’t think we should be in other countries trying to make things the way we think they should run. After losing those 18 people in Somalia we still didn’t fix anything. The country is just as government-less and poverty-stricken as it was before we went over there. Sometimes we just have to let things be. I hope someone in power figures out that none of the lives of our soldiers are worth losing if we aren’t accomplishing anything. Start thinking rationally up there in Washington, would ya?

I read this funny site my Aunt sent me. It really drives home my point. Here is what it said:

An unknown author posting to a USENET newsgroup comes up with a perfect plan for peace .. what we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message:

“The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and she’s yelling, ‘You want a piece of me?’”

Ah, there is so much.

First, our computer crashed after a freak accident while trying to fix a fan that had broken in it. We thought we had lost everything but I am sitting here typing on it with most of our pictures and music recovered. We did lose some recent pics and our e-mail/address contacts, but other than that we are very good to go. Thank you Matt for changing out our fan and Danae for cleaning up our messy hard drives.

I have been working some at Domino’s lately so that Steve and I can make up some of the money we are behind from the move. It has been fun to get out of the house and away from my normal routine, but today I found myself missing it. I missed doing laundry and cooking and all that. And working today really tired me out because I tried to be as productive as possible. I didn’t make much money in tips but I did get some hours in which will be good. I love to be at home since we moved to this new place so I guess that is why I missed being here. I am glad that I am able to work and also able to be a stay-at-home-mommy. I like where I am right now, mostly. Anyhoo, while I have been working, Stephen has been Mr. Mom and HE IS SO GOOD AT IT. He did 6, count ‘em, 6 loads of laundry yesterday. Today he had them all sorted out, dishes done, house picked up and everything when I got home even though we were both tired because we went to bed late last night. He is really good at being me when I am away. I have to get better at my job so I can look good too!!!

Our 4th of July was nice. I worked most of the day, then Steve and I went to the grocery store with the twins and got some food to grill. I grilled in on the George Foreman. We had Matt, Katie, Jessie, Phil and Jon over and blew some stuff up and then played a good game of Phase 10. Katie won which she said she hasn’t done in a long time. We all goofed off and had a fun time together. It was really refreshing to socialize for a bit with my friends and my hubby. We don’t do that enough, I tell ya.

I have been on the Lexapro train to normalcy and it has been very VERY refresing and relaxing. I am not such a ticking timebomb anymore, and I don’t lose control of my emotions as much. The stress this past month has been very high, almost extreme, and I have yet to have any major breakdowns that I can remember. I have hit hard times since this moving stress started (and it still isn’t over), and being dollar to dollar here lately with diapers and food and stuff hasn’t been easy to deal with, but with this new medicine I have been able to control more of what I do to react to what is happening to me. Thank goodness for Lexapro. I wanted to write more about this, but having this leveling-out of my meds and my mental health has also given me some energy so I have been trying to get our new home all set up, get things together for a garage sale and also try to start on some home projects, find a work-at-home job, take on the Newsletter responsbility at the Mom-of-Twins club, teach Elisa her letters in prep for school, and start working out. I am staying busy and I like it, for the most part.

Speaking of working out - I have found my new niche in that department. DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION! I am addicted! I tried it at Danae’s house and I absolutely love it. What you do it plug this big mat into an X-box and then there is a game you play where you step on the arrows as they appear on the screen. They are set to music and can get very fast and intense. It has been an amazing workout for my legs and stuff and each time I do it I end up wanting to continue on and on. I would like to get one for myself to use at home but I am sure that isn’t in the budget right now. So, I am trying to do other things where I can and go to Danae’s and do DDR whenever she lets my clan over there. It’s the first workout that I have actually wanted to do more of after I finished. I thought about doing it again for DAYS after I did my first try of it!!! I love it!!!

So that is catch up in the events department. I have been deep in thought about a lot of things in my life lately - my place in God’s church, my brother and his move, my family and my child starting kindergarten while the other two learn to walk and talk…things are happening, God is moving and I am trying to get back into focus. Each time I try satan puts some obstacles in my way - mostly just me - but this time I want to overcome. Now that I have more control of myself I really want to get back to the focus of life in abundance. We all deserve it. I need to find my place in making it happen for me and those closest to me. Now let’s see if I can.

Website will be updated soon as we finish setting up our computer. Until next time, America…

June 13-15 Steve and I got a little bit of a break and got to go stay at the Disney Yacht Club for three days for free. Domino’s was having their World Wide Rally and we were given a room so Steve could go and attend the events.

The Rally is like a big Domino’s convention where all of the managers, franchisees, corporate people and even plain old team members (like me) can come and get pumped up about Domino’s, see vendors, go to classes, and hear the state of the company. I was able to go thanks (again) to Britney who kept the children while I was gone.

I didn’t go to many of the meetings - just the general sessions, pizza making contests, awards ceremonies and vendor show. Steve had some motivating classes while he was there. It was really cool. Lots of emphasis was put on the Apprentice appearance that Domino’s made - Stephanie from the Apprentice was even there! She judged a fastest pizza maker contest. It was very neat to see her.

I think the Rally was very motivational for Steve. He got to meet the CEO of Domino’s and we took his picture with him. He got an autograph too. We talked about Steve having his own store one day - and with the company he is in there are opportunities where the owner will help managers who have been with him for a long time to aquire their own store. Hopefully Steve will have that opportunity in the future. Seeing all those managers get awards made him also want to get an award so he is trying to get his numbers in line at his own store now so he can again be recognized. The Florida Domino’s team was also recognized for their hard work and stuff during the storms last year. Apparently Steve’s owner as well as a few others got together and got generators so that they could make pizza for emergency personnel last year during Charley. I don’t know if that is the actual truth, I tend to think they got generators because they knew nobody had power and they could sell pizza and make serious money…but hey, let’s try to have the humanitarian approach, right?

It was nice to get away even though I didn’t get to spend much time with Steve. The trip also broke our bank of course because we were unprepared at how much it would cost to eat out there. Then, when we would go and pay for a Disney meal with our lfe savings, the next event we would attend would be packed with food. They never told us of food being served ahead of time so we never were able to prepare for that. We were suckered into giving the mouse quite a bit of our money and that is part of the reason this move has been so hard. Looking back, I would have packed lunches and snacks and took them to our room with me so that we could have just had a few nice dinners or something and that is all. But, that is how the mouse gets you even if you don’t pay to stay there or enter a park. Gotta love Disney.

At the end of the “Worlds Fastest Pizza Maker” competition Steve was VERY motivated because he knew he could make a pizza faster and better than the people who won $3000!!!!I was excited to see him so excited. I think next Rally he is definintely entering that competition. He was kicking himself for not entering this year.

I got to go to the pool one day even though I missed the finals of the World’s fastest pizza maker competition. The pool at the Yacht club is massive. It has a sand bottom and whirlpools, a big slide, 2 hot tubs and a lazy river type thing that is very deep but pushes you along the current. The water was very warm but still refreshing because it was so very hot outside. Katie and Matt joined me for some pool time and then we all had dinner at Boardwalk once we could finally find a place where an entree was under $20.00. That was an ordeal in itself - everything was SO expensive!!!!! I know, I am repeating myself. Steve and I also got to go to the hot tub one of the nights we were there and swim in the pool as well - a smaller pool that was much quieter and cozier.

The whole experience, even though it was draining on our wallets, was very relaxing and fun. It was nice to get away and see Steve get so motivated.