"Mom, let me tell you why I'm crying."

Yesterday, naturally, me and my family went to visit Little Angel.  On the way to a restaurant shortly after this, Bug said, "Mom, let me tell you why I'm crying."

I hadn't heard him crying, but I turned around in the car to see his sad face.  "Why are you crying?"

"I'm crying because of all the people who died."

Sunday night we had watched a video my parents had sent me from their trip in Manila.  The video was about their trip to the WWII Memorial, naturally having many many graves.  Pro Boxer and I talked to Bug about the graves and recounted the numbers that were on the screen.  I think that, in combination with visiting Little Angel made a seven year old make such a profound statement.

The closest I got to crying was kneeling in front of the grave, holding Bug and Goof Ball close to me.  Then insisting that they hold my hands as we walked back to the car.  I didn't cry though.  I'm not sure yet if that is a good thing or not.  Save for bitter angry tears focused at God, I haven't really cried much over Little Angel.  But I suppose... I'm not much of a crier.  Either that or I'm so used to suppressing painful feelings that they just don't come.  Though that would suggest that I'm numb constantly which has been a thought I have pondered recently.

Ah well... another post that was supposed to be short doubled in length again.  I probably use more words than is needed.

I hate making up titles... just so you know.

Though I seem to be a woman of many words, I will try to keep this somewhat short tonight - mainly because it is difficult to type because the underside of my right forearm hurts (either from carpal tunnel and Shorinji Kempo combining together, or because it is bruised from blocking kicks and attacks tonight) and it is somewhat complicated to type right now.

I started taking Japanese in college mainly because I wanted to get a BA.  Truthfully, that was my driving factor.  The reason why it was Japanese instead of Spanish or French or something more "useful" was because by that time, I was fascinated with the country and I didn't have the desire to learn any other language.  An English degree is automatically a BS in my college, and I thought that was silly.  Or maybe because I was a music major before which is BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) that I just wanted an "Arts" attached to my degree.  But really - English isn't a science no matter how you look at it.

Anyway... to get the BA in English, I needed to have language credits, so I started taking Japanese.  For the longest time on my transcript, under "Current Program" it said "Bachelor of Science."  I was slightly nervous about that but I figured it was because I didn't have all the language credits for it yet.  When all my grades were posted, I got even more nervous about it - even though I had passed all four semesters of Japanese.  So yeah, long story short, the other day I checked and it now says "Bachelor of Arts" and it just made my day.  It also said the graduation date on there, so I feel like I can finally start to believe that yes, I am indeed a college graduate now. ^_^  My jazz band teacher wanted me to go back and get a masters.  I told him that I didn't even need a bachelors degree to write, a masters wouldn't help me much from here on out.  His response: "Oh, I don't care what you would go into... I just want you in my band still."  Sorry Dr. Hipster... not gonna happen.  Thanks for the compliment though. ^_^

In case you were wondering about my once fallen clock - it is still going strong. ^_^

And more pottyness.  About four days ago was the first time I could get Goof Ball to poop in the toilet.  Until then he was pooping in his underpants nearly every day.  Eventually I started remembering around the time when he pooped the day before and then I made him try and go poop, and until he did, I didn't put any pants, under or otherwise, on him.  I was so thrilled when he did it for the first time.  The next day he pooped in his pants again.  But he had done it once, so I knew it was possible and tried to keep the positive energy going.  He didn't poop at all yesterday, but I got him to do it in the toilet again today.  But I still had to do the same thing - have him go around butt naked until he did it... Hopefully we can keep this trend going enough for him to learn when to do it on his own.  And I won't have to clean out anymore nasty underpants. >_<

All in all though - this trying-to-do-things thing is pretty good for me.  I feel pretty good about life in general and feel more secure in life.  Though today was a more lazy day and I didn't really do much from the need to do list, I figured I deserved it from all my hard work from yesterday.

Of dishes and french bread and front teeth

Yesterday was a busy day despite what this:

looks like. The yellow is to do - and notice only three of them have -'s next to them. That said... there were a LOT of dishes to be done and I did 90% of them in about half hour increments breaking it up with the cross-stitch and reading.  There was also lots of tidying up to do, and that also got done for the most part, though that was with the help of Pro Boxer.  And I got up and walked with a friend yesterday, so it was also good that way.  All of that after a day of kenpo yesterday and I'm actually genuinely surprised how much I was able to do.  Though - all that dishes washing really started to put a strain on my arms/hands.  Carpel Tunnel and dishes do NOT go well together.

And recently I have been doing a lot of typing getting the recipes written in a file on the computer so we can have them more organized instead of in multiple different recipe books.  And apparently I have a lot of bread recipes - and typing them all up.... I found that it made me really want to bake something.  So I invited a friend over yesterday and we made

these delicious looking things.  One of them I turned into garlic bread and we still have the other - which also may turn into garlic bread for dinner tonight.  They turned out better than I expected.  Actually I didn't really mean to bake them to that amount of brownness... and I also took them out 9 mins early.  I was just passing by the stove after helping with tidying up downstairs and thought to myself - I should check on the bread to see how it is doing.  And they were dark on top - just like you see them and I was like - That's not golden brown! ... just a little more golden than I was imagining.  So I took them out, worried that they cooked too fast on the top and the inside would still be doughy.  But it wasn't the case - turns out it was actually very well done. (in a good way - not like they were burnt. ^_^)

We sent Bug out to school with a pretty loose tooth because I wasn't willing or we didn't have time to pull it out.  When he came home from school, he had a tissue with him and told how much his tooth was wiggling now... and well - yeah, we ended up pulling it out.  And as usual - he forgot to put the tooth under his pillow the first night, so he'll have to remember tonight, I guess for the tooth fairy to come and give him his dollar.

Personally, I was affronted when I realized Bug was getting a dollar from the tooth fairy.  I only got a quarter for my teeth.  But I decided that it was probably inflation that caused such a thing until Pro Boxer told me that he got a dollar for his teeth - and he is even OLDER than me.  What's with that?  I didn't realize the tooth fairy played favorites.  Ah well... here is a cute Bug who now wishes for his two front teeth for the 4th of July.

Today's report:

If you will notice, these are the same lists as the ones in my previous post - just slimmed down, cause we all know that I talk a lot on here, and add unnecessary things and I decided to take those off for the sake of my sanity. *ahem... the things on the list that have a - next to it are ones that I did today. Note - there are more -'s next to words from the need to do list (I have them color coded... yellow was the least favorite of the colors I could pick from... the next worst color would have been orange, but that wasn't an option... and obviously, I love blue.)  I am thinking I may make the item "housework" into multiple things as I don't mind tidying up nearly as much as I hate dishes... and "housework" is somewhat vague.  I won't get too specific (clear off the coffee table in the front room and wipe it down, and etc....) but just main categories - tidy up, dishes, laundry... from there I'll decide what room I'll tidy up or whatever.

And now... feast your eyes on my newest lovely thing!

Ahhhh..... it looks almost prettier in the picture than real life.  But it dongs.  And it ticks (and on battery power no less - I don't have to remember to always make sure it is wound), and the pendulum swings (note in the pic, it is even a little blurry).  And even after it fell off my wall around 1:00 am and the top wood work fell off.  There are some other parts of wood that may have gotten damaged... but I was astonished that the mechanics of it still worked.  It made me start feeling bad for antique stores 10 or 20 years from now.  What from our generation would actually survive that long?  Whatever happened to making quality things instead of worrying about quantity and how much profit there could be by using less quality products to make the item?

Well anyway - now it is posted on a nail instead of a command strip (*ahem... I learned my lesson... heavy beautiful clocks should not be put on command strips - they just don't have the capacity to hold lots of weight....) and hopefully it will be able to survive much longer in my house, because I have always wanted a clock like this.

Future

So as of late, I have been thinking of the future.  Naturally, I can fully be a mom now that my schooling life is over, and I eased into that easier than I thought I would.  I feared that I would be a grump and get too "You're in my space!!" like, or get overly upset that they are constantly whining or whatever.  But ... I guess I have just been blessed with really good kids (or their school year isn't over so I'm not spending ALL my time with them yet).

More than that though - I have WAY too many hobbies.  Shall I list them?

• Knitting
• Trumpet
• Drawing/sketching/coloring (yes coloring)
• Writing
• Reading
• Cross stitch
• Plants
• Embroidery
• Japanese (including anime watching and manga reading)
• Piano
• Blogging
• Yoga
• (add random various extras that I'm sure I forgot)

Then the list of need to do things (since we are making lists already).

• Housework
• Work work (Mary Kay)
• Writing groups (which also may contribute to work work if things actually start getting published)
• Make meals
• Buy things for said meals
• Organize recipe books into one complete recipe book filled with recipes that we actually use
• Organize other random piles and finally decide where the things in miscellaneous piles should go in the house.
• Exercise - which entails crunching to a song and walking around the block til my legs want to give way every morning, and kempo (a Japanese martial art that I recently started trying out - still not sure if I want to fully pursue it) on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

That is of course not including kid interruptions - which can be on either or both lists.  It is also not including any "me" time, though any of the hobbies can help contribute to that, especially reading and knitting.  And then the fears come in.

• What if my writing isn't good enough to make it?  Am I just wasting time?
• What if my writing IS good enough and I actually publish something and get somewhat well known by people I don't know?  Where would my anonymity go?  Would I be able to handle people knowing my name, or gasp of all gasps, I got so well known and idolized so much I became a guest at a writing convention...?  Will my face be on a website not my own, and when my name is googled, will my face or things I published come up in google images??
• Should I try to get a job at a yarn store instead, and teach people how to knit?
• Will I be able to conquer my fears surrounding what needs to be done to get my Mary Kay business really running?

I know, I'm thinking into this really deep.  But when I go into things, I don't go into them half-heartedly.  I strive to do them as perfectly as I possibly can.  And if I do it as perfectly as I possibly can, the end results are the most extravagant that I can imagine.  And it makes me think... maybe I have too much on my plate.

But yet, at the same time... I still feel like I have all the free time in the world.  I'm considering other things that would take up even more of my time despite that with those lists - I can't really take on more.  I am finding the severe need to prioritize.

The lazy me doesn't want to do any of that - just wants to sit back with a good book, or good anime and knit, or just... not do anything truly worthwhile.  The knowledgeable me knows that I wouldn't like myself very much if I were to do that.  I did it for nearly four years of my life, and truthfully - I can't remember much from those years.  So as I was driving home from martial arts today I decided.  That I needed to make two lists (hey, look at that... how convenient I just made two lists!!) and switch from one to the other every half hour or so, doing different things from each list depending on what I want to do most on the hobby one, and probably the one I want to do least (or the one that needs it the most) on the need to do one.  Hopefully I will switch what things I do on each list to give me time to do all of my hobbies and not slack on the talents I have been given.  This will hopefully boost my productivity   If anything, I know how to waste time.  Last summer there were many times when me and Pro Boxer would sit at our computers after breakfast doing our individual slacker things, and suddenly the kids would come upstairs and would complain about needing food and when I looked at the clock I would realize that oh! it is already 8:30 pm!

Tomorrow maybe I am going to go searching for a clock that will dong every hour.  It may be annoying or distracting at first - but I am sure it will help me.  That will be my timer for this new and improved, Shay-get-off-your-butt-and-worrying-about-the-future plan.  And no matter how actively or procrastinatingly I do things, it will force me to switch gears, and that I had found during this last semester of homework, very useful for me when forced to do unpleasant things.  If I had a break every half hour, my mind didn't turn to mush nearly as easily.

So here's to trying to battle my future fears, and just get up and do things.  I will keep you updated on how it goes.

In which Shay discusses potty and gpa and other such things

Potty first on the list, know that we have been trying to work Goof Ball into underpants for quite a while now, but he is so stubborn (very like his mother) that he always refused it - viciously.  And he seemed even more able to get what he wanted (diapers or pull-ups) when Pro Boxer tried to get him to go potty, so as I was always very busy with school and homework, we weren't very successful.

Yet now - only about a week since my graduation, Goof Ball is already going potty.  I don't know what it is, maybe me and him have butted heads often enough that he knows that he can't win over me... but when it was me forcing him to do the potty thing, he did it.  We butted heads, surely - especially at first - but even just yesterday HE was the one to come upstairs and tell us he needed to go potty.  He has been in underpants the past two nights as well and hasn't wet his bed.  The only accident he has had (in his underpants at least) has been the other end of the spectrum, and that was because we didn't realize that it might be a bit too early to take him to the store in underpants...

So if we have learned anything from this experience with Goof Ball is that what was said on "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" was right - "Daddy means fun.  Mommy means business."

And then graduation - yes!  I am a free woman!  I have taken more naps in the past few days than in my whole past semester.  I don't know why but I have been really sleepy lately.  My only thoughts as to why have been this: I had been so stressed out and sleep deprived that now that I am free, my body is like "Ooookay.... now you can be as tired as you want and catch up on some zzzzz's!"  Which I am kind of okay with.  Though I'm going to try and actually do something today instead of read, sleep, or work on my story.  Laundry is on the list of things to do.

And finally - gpa.  For the past few semesters, I have ended the semester with a 2.98.  I have never much cared for numbers, not really caring what I graduated with.  But then again, I have always assumed that I was a 3.0 kind of girl.  I never thought that I got bad enough grades to be in the 2 range.  And as the past few semesters always ended on a 2.98, I was really wanting to catch up those last two .01's and just end with a 3.0.  This semester, I had four music classes and four major classes (three English ones - one Japanese (so I could get a BA instead of a BS)).  Three of my major classes posted grades and things on canvas - a cite that I can sign into and check grades, download homeworks... etc... so I kind of knew what I would end up with on those classes, and I knew for a surety that I would get perfect A's in my music classes.  So.  Four A's from music classes.  When the grades slowly started posting, I saw that two A's from music classes raised the gpa only one .01 making it 2.99 and I was really sad.  At that rate, four A's wouldn't add up to what I thought would be four B's and still end up with at least a 3.0.  Then a few more classes posted the grades, and what do you know, in my one English class that didn't post the grade on canvas, I got an A for that as well.

All things added up, it looks like I'll be graduating with a 3.01.  I got 5 A's, one B, and two B-'s.  That is my gpa from my entire college experience, Music Major time and all.  My gpa for my degree only, is a 3.10.  So..... three shout outs for me!

I was thinking about this as I was falling asleep last night and I remembered at how this second college time started.  It was kind of a sudden and late decision, and because of that, I was surprised that I was able to get in all the classes I needed, and that I was even able to get a grant.  I was worried about the grant part - it was the end of July when I decided this, and I assumed that all the money would have been divided out already.  Not only was I always able to get into the classes I needed to, but I never failed a class.  I had only about 3 C's in the whole three years, and looking back in my transcript when I was a music major - it is kind of amazing that I only got 3 C's (as there are many D's and even F's in those music major years).  Many semesters my lowest grade is a B- or a B.  I have never been a 4.0 kind of person, and grades have often been the last thing on my mind, so for me... it is kind of a miracle these last few years.  Some people may think that I'm exaggerating, because those grades aren't anything to be like (O.O) over... but seeing as everything that I had on my plate - with kids, and house, and my wonderful husband getting even less sleep than me... it really is kind of amazing - especially with me being the carefree kind of person that I am.

I was thinking about this as I was falling asleep last night.  And I could think of nothing I could say to the only person capable of blessing my life so much.  The same person I have been pushing away so he didn't bless me - I know I am far from worthy of any such blessings.  But I guess - worthy or not - if I ask or not - even if I purposefully turn away from him - he will still bless me, and all I could think was "Thank you."

That moment when you realize too late that you should have read the previous posts before you make another one

So... apparently I'm just in a roller-coaster and should just enjoy the ride.  Haha.  All of my recent posts sound the same, and apparently I have already mentioned the fact that I have had a spiritual downfall.  Ah well.  Enjoy reading anyway if you can.  Apparently I need to try and revamp what this blog is about.

Hang in there - and I will too.

Grateful

I feel like I have been neglecting this blog... which in a way I kind of have.  I'm sure lots of people haven't liked how this blog has turned out, I know I sure haven't... it seems almost every post these days is something depressing again.  Which isn't surprising I suppose seeing as how things have gone in my life as of late.  But I won't get into that.

I was looking back in some really early posts recently and realizing just how much I do have.  How much more I should be grateful.  Yes.... a lot has happened in my life.  A lot that has given me every right to be angry, bitter, and filled with hatred at times.  And that is what I have been for the past few months, no hyperbole.  But at the same time... I do have a lot that I should be more grateful for.  Things that I often take for granted.

My wonderful friends who have accepted me, bitterness, anger, hatred, and all.  Friends who haven't judged me or run away when they found out about the darkness and hatred within me.

My amazing husband who despite what I have chosen in the past month or so (not going to church, eating out with a friend on Sunday, etc...) that have gone against what he would have liked me to do, he still accepts me and doesn't think any less of me as a person.

My family.  Family is easy to take for granted.  Likely because you grow up with them and know them so well you almost know what they will say to you when you say something.  I have certainly been pulling away from my family as of late.  I have even been pulling away from Pro Boxer's family as well.  They both are just so full of the gospel and that fuels their lives so much that I couldn't stand being in the same room with them when they discussed gospel related things - or when gospel things came into the conversation, no matter if it was simply just a passing thought that spent only a sentence in the conversation.  Yes family who keeps up with this - I have been purposely avoiding you.  Which may also be a reason why I haven't posted on here in a long time... and none of the posts have fully been about what has been bugging me most.  Truthfully... I haven't wanted to tell you about how much I have fallen because I haven't wanted you to be disappointed in me.  But that's just it.  I know you wouldn't think any less of me, but I was dealing with the fear that you would.  A lot has gone on in my life recently that has caused me to pull away, and I have done so purposefully, but I'm not going into that now.  The fact of the matter is, that my kids, my husband, my siblings... I am learning how I should appreciate you more, and lean on you more.

My talents.  Surely my trumpet playing ability is amazing.  Not just because I'm a trumpet player and have an ego, I know that it is great (because of the complements and raving reviews I get from Dr. Lion and Dr. MOM - the new trumpet teacher), and naturally better than some.  At least in some ways.  I say naturally because I don't practice nearly as much as I should, and yet I can pull off amazing performances.  They would probably be more amazing if I practiced more... but again... I'm just taking it for granted.  But I'm trying to change that mode of thought.

My abilities in general.  I mean... I'm about to graduate with a Bachelor's of Arts and I'm a freaking mom at the same time.  That aside with everything that has been happening, I have been able to survive.  Even if I don't graduate with a 3.0 (right now I'm at a 2.98..... 3.0 has been my goal ever since I found out I was that close) I have survived much more than I thought I would, and that has been with full schedules, sometimes poor health with sciatic nerve issues and lung problems... and even a part time job last spring.

I just.... I should be more grateful.  Bad times aside... I really do have lots to be grateful for.