A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

Pumpkin has always had fairly long hair. Up until last week it was nearly halfway down her back. It was beautiful, but she had a hard time brushing it. And she almost always cries when Hubby or I brush it. So Hubby finally decided it was time to give her a haircut.

She reluctantly agreed, and allowed him to cut it to just below her shoulders. I got a couple of pictures of it, but I haven’t gotten around to putting them on the computer yet. Her former bangs are still a couple of inches shorter than the rest of it, but I couldn’t talk either one of them into going that short. But it still looks great.

Pumpkin’s hair is her favorite feature, and she gets tons of compliments on it because it’s a beautiful shade of blond. So I’m surprised that she hasn’t been after me to go to the store and compare prices on hair growth shampoos. But so far, she seems to like it better at its current length. But she still says she’s going to let it grow back out. Maybe by the time it does she’ll be better at brushing her hair. I certainly hope so.

Buying a house has been rather rough on our finances. When we had our mobile home, all we had to pay each month was lot rent, which was much cheaper than a house payment. And this house still needs a lot of work, so there are plenty of extra expenses in our future. But as stressful as it often is to scrape up the money for the mortgage each month and deal with the problems that come with an older home, I’m still glad we moved from where we were.

If you were reading my blog back when we still lived there (from when I started it to early 2008), you know that there was no love lost between us and our landlady. She was a major busybody who thrived on making other people’s lives a living hell, particularly her renters. Her family was all pretty much just like her, and they did their best to pull other people into the middle of their problems. Hubby and I had wanted out long before she told us we had to move, but we planned on buying some land and taking our trailer with us. I still hate that it didn’t go down that way, but at least we got out without having to take a chance on renting from some other evil landlord.

There’s always some kind of crap going on with that bunch. We heard last week that a female from that family was making some pretty serious claims about a guy she had been dating. You know, the kind of claims that can ruin a person’s life whether they’re found to be true or not. I don’t want to go into details because there’s a kid in the midst of it all, but the more I hear about it, the more I believe that she’s flat out lying.

It may have been a hassle to find a house, get financing, and find reasonably cheap home insurance, but as far as I’m concerned it was totally worth it. If we were still living in our old place, they would most assuredly be trying to find some way to put us right in the middle of the whole mess. And I’m perfectly happy to stay as far away from it as I possibly can.

When we bought our house, one of the things we didn’t particularly like about it was the fact that it doesn’t have much of a yard, in the front or the back. The house is situated on the side of a hill, and it’s pretty close to the road. There’s enough level space in the front yard for a couple of people to throw a frisbee back and forth, but that’s about it.

There’s even less room to do anything out back. There’s a tiny patio and a clothesline back there, and the rest is pretty much all uphill. So at first, we planned on eventually dozing out a larger back yard.

We recently got an offer from a friend to borrow his grandpa’s dozer and get that done. But now I’m not so sure that it’s a good idea. With Hubby’s back in the shape it’s in, we don’t really need more mowing to do on a regular basis. And Pumpkin won’t be at the age to do a lot of playing in the yard much longer.

I wouldn’t mind having more space back there for entertaining in the summer. Our living room isn’t huge, so if we have a lot of people over, it gets a bit crowded. It would be cool to have room to put an outdoor fireplace and some furniture out back.

We haven’t decided for sure what we’ll do yet. If we do doze it out, we probably won’t make a great big yard or anything. But a little more room to enjoy the outdoors would be nice.

I’ve been in a major funk pretty much all week. I’m not sure why, because nothing particularly bad has happened. I’ve just been feeling really down and out for no apparent reason, and resistance has been futile.

I’m not sure what it’s going to take to get myself in better spirits. The weather has been beautiful for the past couple of days, but it hasn’t had much of an effect on my mood. Maybe if someone knocked on my front door and offered me my choice of Disney vacation packages for free, no strings attached, it would help. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t.

Finding a great new theme for my blog usually lifts my spirits. And as you can see, I did that. It’s just what I’ve been looking for – something dark but not depressing. Still, it’s doing absolutely nothing to lift my spirits.

Maybe the weekend will bring good things. I’ve heard about a lot of free activities going on locally, and I hope to be able to talk Hubby into going to some of it if he’s feeling up to it. Surely getting out and doing something will help.

When it comes to snacking lately, I’ve been a good girl for the most part. I still don’t have much of a taste for sweets, and when I have craved them I’ve been going for fresh fruits and yogurt (either regular or frozen) most of the time. I’ve been trying to buy stuff that’s not too greasy or salty for Hubby to snack on, so I’ve been covered when I start craving non-sweet stuff, too.

But yesterday I gave in to one of my biggest weaknesses. I went to the store to pick up a few things, and as I was headed for the sliced cheese, a brick of pepper jack caught my eye. I could swear I heard it calling my name, even after I forced myself to look away and keep walking. Finally, I caved and went back and got it. And then I trekked all the way back to the other side of the store to get some Ritz crackers to go with it.

I should have left that stuff at the store. Because now it keeps calling to me from the refrigerator. I know it’s not in my head, either. With my short attention span, surely I would forget about it quickly if I were just imagining it. It looks like I’m going to have to go eat some of it so it will shut up already.

Hubby just got back from a ride with a couple of friends. He must have enjoyed himself, because he came home in a great mood.

He kept thanking me for being such a good wife. I guess what he was getting at was that a lot of women don’t like their husbands going out with their friends, but that’s just not me. I’m all for him getting out and having fun. I know how guys are, and they probably weren’t having discussions about the best wrinkle cream or anything, but I trust him not to do anything that he wouldn’t want me to know about.

Pumpkin, on the other hand, is a different story. She wants him right by her side at all times. The whole time since he’s been back, she’s been clinging to him and hollering for him every time he’s gotten out of site. She’s such a Daddy’s little girl.

Hubby and I have spent a lot of time together since he has been unemployed, and while we’ve gotten along well, I think it’s good for him to get away and spend some time with other people. I should probably do more of that myself.

With all the stuff there is to do online these days, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with it all. Some people seem to live their lives on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social sites. Sound familiar?

When you make a living online, that’s not the only kind of clutter you end up with. Sometimes you end up involved in too many different projects, and find that you’re spreading yourself too thin. Or you have too many websites and/or domain names that aren’t really serving a useful purpose. I’ve been there. I’m still there, to some extent. But I’m looking to change that.

I’ve already let one domain name go. It’s for a site that I’m not ready to completely scrap, but I think taking it offline for a while might be a good idea. As far as the domain, I’m just not crazy about it. When I get ready to put the site back up, I’ve already got a new domain name in mind. Hopefully it will still be available when I’m ready for it. If I get my hands on a little extra cash, I’ll probably go ahead and register it before I’m ready to use it.

And then I’ve got an entire site that’s just kind of sitting there. I sell a few things on it, but I haven’t made enough money from it to even bother springing for online credit card processing. And since I haven’t had the time to promote it, I’ll probably just let that domain go when it comes time to renew. I’ve tried to sell the site with no luck, and I think it’s time to cut my losses and move on.

I’m debating on whether to let go of another one of my blogs, too. I have a while to think about it, because the domain doesn’t renew until late this year. I’ve thought about doing something different with the domain, but I haven’t decided whether it would be worth my while yet or not.

Now if I could just get as much accomplished with my real-life clutter, I would be doing well.

Pumpkin and I saw our new family doctor for the first time yesterday. We had actually seen him before when he subbed for our old doctor, and between my impression from those visits and good reports from other patients, I decided to get all of us started going there when we got Medicaid. Unfortunately, he’s a very busy guy because he’s so well liked, and this visit may very well be our last for a while if we don’t get to keep our Medicaid.

Anyway, he did a brief checkup on Pumpkin, and said I needed to get an appointment for a well child visit with the office pediatrician this summer for her. I also talked to him about the trouble I was having getting Medicaid to cover her allergy medicine, and he said he would do his best to get them to cover it, but if they wouldn’t he might have to try something new. Bummer, because the stuff she’s on now (Allegra), is the only thing they’ve tried her on so far that has actually worked. And I do hate to mess with a good thing.

Then it was my turn. I was kind of dreading it, because I figured he would start fussing about my weight and tell me I needed to try some new diet pill, and although I know it’s true, it wasn’t exactly something I was in the mood to hear. I was there to establish myself as a patient, but I also needed to talk to him about my anxiety and try to get something that would actually help with it.

To my surprise, he said not a word about my weight. Maybe it’s because my vitals were good. He listened to what I had to say about what was going on with me and what my old doctor had tried, and after my brief overview he proceeded to describe my entire situation to a T. Thoughts bouncing around in my head when I try to go to sleep, difficulty remembering things because I’m so preoccupied with the things that are stressing me out, the whole nine yards. All I could do was sit there nodding my head, because he seemed to know exactly what I was dealing with.

He put me on two new medications: Pristiq to be taken daily, and Ativan for breakthrough anxiety and trouble sleeping as needed. And then I’m supposed to go back in a month to see how those are working out.

I really hope we still have our Medicaid by then. That’s the only type of insurance we have any hope of getting right now. Hubby definitely needs it at least until he gets his back straightened out or gets his disability, and I’d like to be able to get on the right medication while we’ve still got it. And even though Pumpkin is pretty healthy overall, she could certainly use a thorough checkup.

It’s nearly midnight, so Mother’s Day is almost over. But I hope all you moms out there had a nice one. Mine was good, couldn’t afford to really do anything, but I had a nice relaxing day with the family. Hubby did all the cooking, and Pumpkin made me a beautiful card. I might not have gotten expensive jewelry or designer shoes, but I had the best Mother’s Day I could have hoped for.

I’m not really one to toot my own horn, but we moms deserve at least one day each year to celebrate all we do. We cook, clean, help with homework, transport the kids to their various activities, and often hold down full-time jobs on top of all that. It’s not like a family can easily make it on one income any more, what with the price of everything these days. Just putting a kid through school is insanely expensive. I understand that government funding doesn’t cover everything, but it seems like they want money for everything from tissues to school furniture now.

But I digress. What I’m trying to say is that being a good mom is harder than it looks, so when Mother’s Day rolls around, there’s nothing wrong with basking in the glory. And I’m not taking anything away from all you awesome dads out there. You totally deserve your special day that’s coming up next month, too!

I consider myself fortunate to live in the mountains. The scenery is gorgeous, and it’s nice and peaceful. But as with anything, it does have certain disadvantages.

One of those disadvantages is how crazy the weather can be. Especially this time of year. Like yesterday, it was warm and sunny. Today it’s a little cooler, but still pretty. But tomorrow it’s supposed to turn much cooler, and for the next couple of nights it will be cold enough to frost. I like having all four seasons and all, but these wild swings in temperature are hard to get used to, not to mention rather rough on my sinuses.

But right now what’s really driving me nuts is the wind. We get some high winds around here off and on all year long. I’m talking gusts that are the equivalent of a minor hurricane. It’s not at all unusual to see stuff blowing around everywhere, even heavy stuff like metal buildings. I remember one time when we were driving down the road and saw that the wind had picked one of those up and put it in a field a good 50 to 75 yards away. And it had apparently rolled around quite a bit in the process, because it was all twisted up.

I know, I really shouldn’t complain. At least we don’t get actual hurricanes around here. The rain sometimes makes it this far inland from the coast, but we rarely get any serious winds from them. Still, the residents of the area are no strangers to the damage that the wind can do.