You used to be much more muchier

I know, my blogging has been rather, um, spotty lately.

As in...I haven't been blogging.

At all.

It's just that, well, um.....OK, I have no valid excuses.

Other than this - I've been busy and life has been crazy and quite frankly I haven't had much to say.

I think I'm in a bit of a funk.

I watched 'Alice in Wonderland' again tonight (no, not the cartoon...this time...the Tim Burton version).
My favorite line is this - "you have lost your muchness".

I can relate to that.

I used to be much more muchier.
I think I may have lost some of my muchness.
And I haven't found it.
Yet.

I've been in a bit of a slump the last few weeks.

The job is not what I thought it would be. I'm not excited about it. (The fact that it is now a part-time job rather than the full-time job it was supposed to be is just the tip of the iceberg).

Emma is not adjusting to daycare - every day she asks if she can stay home with me. And she cries. Every. Single. Morning. If she's going to daycare, she's crying. It breaks my heart.

Also, I'm dealing with a strained neck.
(You will love this story.)
I fell at Disney World last month on our vacation. I mean, I FELL. Banged up my knee, broke my camera (sort of). It was ugly. (But, on the upside, I did catch the whole thing on film. Priceless.)

Since then, I've been dealing with serious neck pain...so five weeks after I fell, I decided to go see the doctor.
Diagnosis: Strained neck.
I'm now taking muscle relaxers and doing neck exercises so I can avoid physical therapy.
But if you've never had neck pain before, let me tell you ... it is horrid. Sitting at a computer all day, 3 days a week is so painful. I am hoping I heal soon.

Let's add this up:
Job that doesn't make the grade + unhappy kids + neck pain = stressed out mommy looking for her muchness.

Yep. Majorly funky here. And not in a good way.

So...when I'm in a funk, my writing suffers.
And when my writing suffers, this blog suffers.
And that makes me unhappy.

And there it is...in a nutshell.
Life is a bit crazy and messy right now.

However....

I have great friends who are helping me keep my chin up.
(Thank you to JL for reminding me that this year is MY year!)
And, I am still hoping to find my dream job.
When I do, I think I will once again find my "muchness".

Until then....I'm going to 'just keep swimming....'

A week in review

Hey...what do you know...I'm still here.

It's been one crazy busy week.

We arrived home last Sunday from our Disney vacation, then I spent all day Monday prepping myself to start a new job and then the next chapter of my life started on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m.

All in all, I think I'm going to like this new gig.

Of course, the first couple of days were stressful and full of new things, and it left me exhausted. And then on my second day my boss and I met with a client who requested a press release for an event that is happening NEXT WEEK! So...I had to research, write and submit my very first release all by Thursday (because right now I'm only working 3 days a week). Yeah....I did it all in about 6 hours. Whew.

But...my boss said (and I quote)...'excellent article! great job!'

[I should note that for the first two days I was thinking "What the hell am I doing here? Why did they think I could do this job? I have no freaking clue...about any of this!" But as soon as I started writing I remembered "holy crap! I do know how to do this!" and all felt right with the world again.]

The other big adjustment for the family - other than mommy not being home every day - was this: the girls had to go back to daycare. This did not go well with Emma.

On Tuesday, she screamed and cried and was miserable when Kevin dropped her off at daycare. On Wednesday she screamed and cried the entire ride there. And when he left she was still crying.
On Thursday she had a 'death grip' on Kevin as he tried to leave.

This breaks my heart.
I feel horrible.
It's not as if Emma has never been at daycare.
It's just that for the last 10 months she has only been at home with me.

Olivia is doing great - she's in school all morning and then is at daycare in the 'school age' room with many of her friends from her previous 'stint' at daycare.
She's happy and adjusted.
It's going to take a while for Emma to adjust, I think.

I know daycare is not all bad - it helps with socialization and in another year it will actually be Emma's preschool. But when I hear how sad Emma is ... the 'mommy guilt' I feel is terrible.

But, all in all, it was a good week.
It's going to be a big adjustment for the next few weeks (months?) but it's all going to be OK.

I could have bought a Kia Rio with that money!

OK, so the hubby and I are preparing our tax documents to hand over to our accountant (read: my dad....also known as Super CPA).

Anyway....the last document we needed was the tax form from our daycare. It states exactly how much money we paid last year to have our children cared for while we worked. I damn near choked on my coffee when I saw the number.

$14, 200!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, kids...you read that right. Fourteen THOUSAND two hundred dollars.

Holy shit Batman. That's a lot of money.
And, the girls only go part-time. Four days a week, from 7:30 am until 3 pm.

Crap almighty.

I could have purchased a small foreign automobile for that kind of cash. That amount of cash would buy about 3,000 grande lattes at Starbucks. [I think. I'm not THAT good at math].

Anyway....I'm just FLOORED at how much it costs families when it comes to childcare. It's absolutely ridiculous that it should cost almost $15,000 a year for daycare.

I could go on and on about the cost....but I won't. I just wanted to share my shock of the day.