Back to Work

It is a Tuesday that feels like a Monday, since I was off yesterday. And what a good day it was! Sam had Bible School all day, so he was gone from 9-3, but Owen and Eli and I hung around the house all day together and it was pretty neat. Mowed the lawn, filled the pool, basically just putzed around, but it was good putzing. Then when Sam got home, we went swimming with Jacquie and her boys to a place called Bishop's Hole. It was so much fun; the boys are all different ages: mine are 14, 9, and of course the baby is 2, and hers are 16 and 12, so there is just a good mix. The big boys all ganged together and had a great time (and as a mother, I pretty much just had to ignore what they were doing. Because I worry too much about them getting hurt, and I hate to ruin their good time. Actually what I ended up doing is taking my glasses off; that way I could neither really see nor hear them.), and Jacquie and Owen and I hung out on the sand. Owen is fearless, which is both a good and bad thing; he has a life jacket that he has to wear AT ALL TIMES when he is near the water, because he thinks nothing of just jumping in. So we swam for three hours, and it felt really lovely to sit out there and watch the pelicans, hear the roar of the water and the kids laughing and yelling, and talk with a friend. I also felt like I was doing something very decadent, going swimming and playing on a work day! And getting paid for it!

And the childcare thing has kind of worked out. I say kind of, and it has been worked out, but not as well as I would have liked. I admit to being somewhat of a control freak, and I LIKE to have a plan, need to have a plan, so any type of uncertainty is hard for me to deal with. For example: "Well, we are going to be doing this, this, and this, but I am not entirely sure where we are going to be when you get off work. Want me to call you?" This is totally NOT okay with me. When Tammi told me that this morning, it was all I could do to stop myself from plugging my ears and singing Jesus Loves Me in order to not hear those words, "I am not sure but..." I did well, I think. I told her to talk to Steve when he got there with the boys, as he is the one picking them up. It's funny; I trust her, I trust any of the family to watch the kids, I just don't like not knowing exactly what is going to happen. Like, I need to know tonight what the plan is tomorrow. This is a major character defect for me, in all honesty, and it sounds crazy and a little laughable from the outside, but it really isn't. So I have had to let go of some of the control and trust that things will work out. Now if Steve would just grow up and try to make a fucking plan, we would be in good shape. We could, you know, compromise.

A little update: Crazy Stalker Guy is gone. He came back the next night, and all of us went outside with our phones in our hands and he took off; hasn't been back since. That was just too strange, though. Strange enough that even though it was at least 190 freaking degrees in my house last night, I didn't feel comfortable sleeping with the door open, which two weeks ago I would have.

Also, I talked to the boss this morning to verify that I could, in fact, have the week off at the end of July for the vacation. And I can. Which is good, since my friend called on Sunday to tell me that she already had the hotel rooms booked. Now for the extra money: I am thinking about the whole E-Bay thing; like I keep saying, I have a bunch of baby stuff, even some really nice clothes that don't fit my fat ass any more, so have any of you guys had good luck selling things on E-Bay? It would help, of course, which is my primary motivator, but damn, this stuff is way to good to donate, you know?

The woman, M., about whom I posted? Whose house we went to for a 12-Step Call? She has been sober for about two weeks now. She was at the meeting last night (and I hadn't seen her since the Monday after our call, when she showed up at the Monday meeting drunk), and looked really good. Meaning, you know, clean. And sober, because I think it takes us a awhile to start looking really good; we lived hard, we alkies. Anyway, she had in her car a little post of pansies for me, which I thought was very, very kind-for helping her in her time of need, she said. I felt vaguely uncomfortable, but also delighted at the same time.

Sam has been dancing with a group during the intermission of a melodrama they are having all week here in town. The dance is this very simple little Western dance, and Sam is the star. Last night, Steve took him down to his performance, and he told me that he overheard someone say that they had been to every single show just so they could see Sam dance (although they didn't know his name and said, "That little boy," which can only BE Sam as he is the only boy dancing). How cool is that? This kid is a born performer, and practiced on one foot while he had the stitches in. What a trooper! The first night, at the dress rehearsal, I teared up watching him, I am so sentimental about some things. He is such a funny kid, though. Odd, yes, but also funny as in he makes me laugh. At the dress rehearsal, everyone in the theater laughed when he did his solo, and afterward he said, "So, um, everyone laughed. What I was doing was supposed to be funny, right?" What a kid. I think next year I am going to find out who to talk to so he can try out for the actual play; it would be so great for him to find something he is good at, so he can embrace his individuality now so it doesn't kill him in high school. Now if I could only get Eli to stop telling him that only guys who are faggots dance, all would be well (and rest assured, that is HIS word, not mine). He is so mean sometimes, and the two of them fight so much, that I often feel like I am in a locked room with two people from enemy camps, and I am the United Nations. I struggle.

So it was a busy but good weekend, and I am looking forward to another long weekend over the 4th. I get my Hannah back from her dad's early, on the 5th, so I am excited about that, and then we have the vacation to plan for. And then before I know it, summer will be over and school will start the second week or so of August. The time sure does fly, doesn't it?