A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

First, let me say that I have not disappeared from the face of the earth. I’ve just had a busy week and a half. I won’t apologize, because there’s more to life than blogging. Just wanted to put to rest any rumors that I’ve given up blogging for good (if anyone cares enough to start them).

Anyhoo, one of the smallest problems I’ve been contending with is my acne making a comeback. I’ve been breaking out around my jawlines for some time now, as well as sporadically in other places, and it’s bugging me to death. I suppose I need to step up my nearly nonexistent skin care regimen. I ran out of my acne wash, and I’ve been using Dial soap. It used to actually help, seeing how it’s antibacterial and all, but it’s not doing much right now.

I’m not sure why I’m breaking out. I’m a bit stressed, but not nearly as badly as I was there for a while. I guess it’s just one of those things that happens from time to time. Hopefully it’ll resolve itself soon.

On Friday after Hubby got off work, we trekked up to Virginia to see my mom. Things didn’t quite work out as planned, but it was a nice trip.

I called when we got down the mountain, and she asked if we would pick up a pizza because she didn’t feel like making fried chicken as she had planned. So we had to wait around at Pizza Hut for a bit. It started raining right before we got there, and we were followed into the parking lot by three bikers who didn’t feel like getting soaked. But they didn’t have to break out their motorcycle covers, because it only lasted a few minutes.

We still made it to Mom’s in plenty of time for Hubby to watch wrestling. Pumpkin watched with him, and Mom and I talked and played cards.

Pumpkin slept with Mom, and Hubby and I had my old room. I had a hard time falling asleep, but once I did, I was out until about 7:00 in the morning. Hubby, on the other hand, slept a total of about an hour. So he was pretty tired all day.

We stayed there until lunchtime, and Mom fixed her famous fried chicken. My brother niece came over and ate with us. We hung around until shortly after they left, and then Hubby and I said our goodbyes to Pumpkin (who is staying until Tuesday) and left to go to a festival in town before coming back home.

Only there was no festival. The website and the local paper said that the festivities were going on from 10:00 to 5:00, but when we got there at 2:30, everything was gone except for a bounce house for the kids, and it was in the process of being taken down. Strange. I guess they must have ended it early due to the threat of rain.

So we just came back home. We went to the in-laws’ house and threw a game of horseshoes, then came back to the house, watched movies and played cards. It was a nice night with just the two of us. We missed Pumpkin like crazy, but it’s good for us to have some couple time every now and then.

So that was our trip, in a nutshell. It was no vacation to the Bahamas, but it was fun.

I’ve known that I was a night owl for many, many years. When I was a kid, I often lay awake in bed until 3:00 in the morning. I just could not sleep. When I got old enough to stay up by myself, I sat up until the wee hours watching TV on Friday and Saturday nights. And I would sleep in on the weekends until my mom or brother practically dragged me out of bed.

Not much has changed. Well, I have been spending more time asleep, because I haven’t had much energy for a long time now. There for a while, I could go fall right asleep no matter what time I went to bed. But for the past couple of weeks, I’ve had trouble falling asleep before 2:00 am.

I know, because I got in bed at 11:00 a couple of nights ago, hoping to be able to stay up after Hubby left for work the next morning. And I lay there awake until nearly 3:00. If we had satellite TV, I might have gotten up and watched infomercials for weight loss supplements or something. But we don’t, and I didn’t feel like watching the same old DVDs or getting on the computer. So I just lay there trying to make myself sleep.

Last night, I stayed up and worked until 1:00 or so. It took me a while to go to sleep, but not nearly as long as it did the previous night. I guess I’m just going to have to quit trying to fight it. I hate trying to sneak in to bed without waking Hubby, but it looks like there’s no changing the fact that I’m a night owl.

I’ve been hankering for a vacation for a long, long, looooong time. There was a time when we probably could have afforded to take a vacation, but we didn’t seize the opportunity. But you can bet your bottom dollar that when the day comes that there is room in the budget again, I will be going somewhere if I have to drag Hubby kicking and screaming.

I had always heard that going on a cruise was a great way to stretch your vacation dollars. It makes sense. For one price you get accommodations and travel, and you get to visit several destinations on your trip. And that price is cheaper than you might think.

Carnival Cruises is one of the biggest names in cruising. Even I know that. After perusing their website, taking a cruise actually seems within reach. They have cruises as low as $149 per person. Wow!

Of course, if I was going to go on my dream cruise, I would want to do it up right, so I would probably end up paying more than that. I’ve always been captivated by the stories I’ve heard and pictures I’ve seen from the Caribbean, so that would probably be the destination for my dream cruise. After browsing the Caribbean cruises on the Carnival website, I’m thinking this Eastern Caribbean cruise would be just what I’m looking for. I could soak up some sun in Nassau, go parasailing in St. Thomas, and enjoy the exotic beauty of St. Maarten.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go on my ideal cruise vacation, but after seeing all of the options Carnival has to offer, going on a cruise one day doesn’t seem like an impossible dream. The hardest part will be getting Hubby to go. But at those prices, I suppose I can afford to have someone rustle up some wild horses to drag him out of these mountains.

Eight years ago today, I said two little words that changed my life forever: “I Do.”

That’s right, Hubby and I have been married eight whole years. It has been a roller coaster ride, for sure, but if I had it to do all over again, I would say those two words again.

The first couple of years were the hardest. I was working part-time when we got married, and up to my eyeballs in debt. Hubby didn’t have a steady job, no money and no driver’s license. But we were in love, so we just kind of played it by ear.

We scraped by and fought like cats and dogs for a long time. There were many occasions when I questioned why I ever went through with it. And there were a couple of times when we came very close to calling it quits. But we didn’t. And things got better.

I’m not really sure how we made it through those tough times. But we did. In a lot of ways we’re polar opposites, and sometimes we drive each other nuts, but somehow it works. And I’m glad it works. Because I’m married to a wonderful, caring and hard-working (not to mention darn good-looking) man. Life is good.

While I’m on the subject of Hubby, I’ve got to complain about his recent apparent weight loss. We don’t own a set of scales, and he hasn’t weighed himself anywhere else, but his pants are falling off of him! How did he do it, you ask? By playing a game of softball!

That’s right, he got into a game of softball at the park on the 4th, and got up the next morning visibly thinner. For me to lose weight like that, I would have to go on Fastin for several months. But he just goes out and has fun one day, and poof!

I’m not a big fan of softball, but I would have played that day if my knee hadn’t been bothering me. It would have been good for me. But maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t. Because I know it wouldn’t have had the same effect on me, and I would have been in a foul mood when I saw what it did for Hubby and not me. And then I might have sworn off exercise forever.

Hubby had last Friday off for the 4th of July. The weather was great, so he decided to take the opportunity to clean up his truck.

Let me tell you, it definitely needed it. The back floorboard was full of trash, toys and other stuff that didn’t belong there. He tries to blame the mess on me, but there were maybe two or three things in there that were mine. You can bet I pointed that out to him.

But he cleaned it all out, vacuumed, Armor All-ed and washed the outside. It looks great now. And of course he’s really picky about keeping it that way. Every time someone gets in, he gets all anal retentive about them keeping their feet on the little plastic car mats and throwing out any trash. At least he’s not pitching a fit about eating in the truck. He won’t go in to eat at fast food restaurants very often, and when we order from them we’re usually on the go, so I guess he’s given up on that.

I had to drop him off at his coworker’s house this morning so I could have the truck, and he’s even fussing about me putting miles on it. He can just get over that, because I would be more than happy to drive my truck if we had the money to get it fixed, or my car if we had the money to buy a battery, tag and insure it. So there.

Hope everyone out there had a fun and safe Independence Day. I did.

We started celebrating on the 3rd, with a cookout and fireworks at my in-laws’ house. On the holiday itself, we went to a festival in a nearby town. They had lots of craft vendors, a Civil War reenactment (which we didn’t get around to watching), music and lots of food. We resisted temptation for the most part, though. Pumpkin bought a string puppet with the money she earned doing chores, and we bought her some popcorn. Hubby and I bought nothing but a bottle of water to share (which was actually free but we gave a donation). The food smelled awesome, but the prices were a bit outrageous. If I had to pay that much for food all the time, I wouldn’t need Phenphedrine to lose weight!

After we left the festival, we went to the park to play softball. That part dragged on way too long for my tastes. I couldn’t participate much because I was having trouble with my knee, and I ended up having to witness the horror that is my brother-in-law’s kids. They have a way of driving anyone in the general vicinity nuts. And their parents don’t take care of them or make them behave at all. But I’m just going to shut up about it all for now.

They set off fireworks at the park, and the show was very nice. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been all cramped up from sitting on a very uncomfortable metal bench during the whole softball thing, but it was still nice. Some friends came home with us and spent the night, and we stayed up until the wee hours playing Monopoly and talking.

All in all, it was a good holiday weekend. But we’ve already decided that next year we’re staying as far away from my brother-in-law and his family as possible.