Jacquelyn's Space

Today is a shopping day. I spent the morning shopping. I was looking for 2 large baskets to help get my house organized. I was also looking for some tall, narrow storage cabinets and I need a new bedside lamp. No luck finding anything. I went to Lowes, Wal-Mart, and Sears. I had a $20 gift card for Sears from my mother that I got for my birthday (she couldn’t afford much but hey, I didn’t expect anything so…). I ended up buying some nightgowns– one was on sale for $7! They had some pretty dresses in Sears but I decided I didn’t need any…ha. The darn Sears cashier talked me into opening a Sears charge card. Surprisingly enough, I was approved. They must be loosing up the credit requirements again. My whole debt to income ratio is out of whack because of student loans so I truly am shocked I was approved and the amount of the card. Good thing is I got a $20 credit for opening the card so I went back and bought some slippers I was looking at. I like Sears. I know it is not a trendy place to shop but I always find some good stuff there, and they usually have great deals.

I was going to go on over to Barnes and Noble and spend the gift card my husband got me for my birthday but I pooped out; I did some book shopping online instead. I bought a bunch of fiction, a little over the gift card amount. Barnes and Noble had a clearance sale going on so I got quite a few books for the money.

I previously ordered some medium size baskets from Amazon.com so I could organize my kitchen a little bit. Now that I bought a whole bunch of new dishes I needed to rearrange things a bit. I bought 4 square baskets from Amazon to help out– 2-3 for food storage on top my fridge and dining room pantry (had to add a cabinet in the dining room for more food storage when the kids came)…and one is going in my cabinets for plastic storage. I already had another square basket so that one is going in the cabinet for plastic storage as well. I spent the afternoon rearranging all that. Now I just need to rearrange and organize a few more cabinets and shelves and I may just have everything in a proper place.

Now if only I could find some decent tall, narrow storage cabinets and some large baskets…

My husband sent me that video today, ha ha. He said just keep the fat guy away. Now he knows I like him fine just plain–straight up. No Doritos necessary. LOL.

–Another naughty anecdote.

The other night we wanted to have some quality time but the cat was in the bed (he is deathly afraid that the cat is going to bat at his delicate places). I went out to the kitchen and banged the spoons and her dish around and then I gave her some food. Of course she came running and my husband called out something like “she heard that, she’s coming.” I went back in the bedroom and told him, “Yeah, I know what brings the pussy running.” LOL.

Yesterday I was feeling so anxious. I felt like something bad was going to happen–total unease. I couldn’t wait for my husband to get home from work…felt out of sorts because he was running late. This is so unlike me. I think my anxiety is totally due to the fact my brother hasn’t paid me for the care of his kids since December, but that is a different story.

My husband got home from work. Everything was fine but I still felt anxious. I decided to get on the treadmill for the first time in years. My husband uses it quite a bit but I don’t ever get on that thing. Last night I did and of course I couldn’t get it started…UGH! Stopped before I could get started. Not a huge help for my anxiety. The damn control panel is messed up. My husband has a way of starting it so finally I got going…

I wasn’t sure at first. I was ready to quit within the first four minutes. Everything was tight, especially my belly. This was after dinner so it was rough going. I stopped a minute to tie my shoe…

C’mon Jackie!

Yes. I got back on. I started really going on the thing. It was good too– I was smiling. Huffing and puffing but smiling. I did over 30 minutes on the treadmill and only slowed down one time in the beginning after my first little stop. It felt good. It got my endorphins hopping. I was happier when I got off. Sweaty but happy. I have never felt so good after exercising. My nephews were happy to see me exercising too, ha. What does that tell you?

Now I know I need that exercise. It was the first real exercise I have had since I don’t know when. I’ve been sitting around too much and that is not good for me. It is making my anxiety worse. I am not going to let the dam anxiety and depression run my life.

Read more, write more, exercise more!

I had a bad day today where I did next to nothing and laid in bed most of the time. I am not sick but depressed; I am sleep deprived because I have really frustrating insomnia lately…all the stress is getting to me. Then to top it all off my husband is stressed out and in crisis mode because he has a huge inspection coming up at his job (he works in EMS). I had to try to talk him out of feeling so stressful–and I worry horribly because of his heart (he had a heart attack in August 2013) and family history of strokes; I was somewhat successful with this a couple of times but then he’d get worked up again and his blood pressure is up and he can’t sleep either. I was sleeping last night but then his insomnia woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. UGH! We have been through too much since 2011. We need a break.

Also, I get depressed because I can’t help my husband that much right now. I can’t work a lot or make a lot of money right now. I wish I did so I could just tell him to quit his job. Then there is the constant drama with my nephews living with us.

Then my brother disappointed me once again. The deal is that I would take care of his children during the week and he would have them on the week-ends. Not only has money not been coming if for the boys, but the past 2 week-ends my brother has not shown up to get his kids. We got into it this week over him not being here– he does bank rehab work out-of-state and it is tough for him to be in Michigan at times, though his own lack of planning mucks him up too. Well all that and pure selfishness. Most times he only wants his kids when it is convenient for him. I could not get the foster care workers to see this even though they had first hand experience with my brother and all his drama and excuses. Well we got into it, he said he’d be here this week-end to take his boys but somehow he thought he leave for New York on a Thursday and be back on a Friday evening or Saturday morning…um NO! This time his van broke down. I really don’t know what to believe any more because he has (had) 2 vans and a car but he ALWAYS has some kind of vehicle problem and has no problems about lying to cover his ass and to be able to do what he wants to do. He always cries, “My bad luck!” But I see a lot of forethought and planning on his part, plus just plain old lying… I am just sick of all of the drama all the time. His bad luck should not rain down on me. Me and my husband need a break and I really think my brother should make other arrangements. Of course my parents aren’t much help– they are up north– and Nicole’s mother rarely helps (it is always something with her too). Though I had my dad lined up to come down this Saturday but my brother promised he’s be here so I didn’t have daddy come down. UGH! I feel like I am constantly being taken advantage of…and then my brother tries to appease me with promises of big money (in the future), a job at his company (really, do I need more drama?), and stand-by airline tickets he can get. All I want is to be able to rely on him to take his boys on the week-ends and for him to make sure the money I need to care for the boys and pay my bills is available to me.

All this got the better of me today. I stayed in bed…got up periodically to yell at the kids when they were getting out of hand…ordered pizza for linner (lunch/dinner)…and then finally got a few hours of sleep. Not I feel like I need to get something done so I got a load of laundry going and made the kids pick up their messes.

Insomnia sucks, being depressed sucks, being constantly let down sucks. I hope things get better soon. There is only so much that is within my control. I know that if my brother doesn’t get his act together I am going to tell him he needs to find somebody else to take care of the boys. Let him have to pay a nanny and then he’ll see how it is. I know no one else would put up with his shit and the pittance he wants to pay for the care of his kids.

I should be sleeping…I am tired but I want to be up for whatever reason.

Perhaps I am domestic after all. Today I received my set of Pyrex bakeware (3 mix bowls with lids, 4 smaller bowls, pie dish, and 4 baking dishes with lids) that I made my husband order me along with our new electric blanket (they were on sale if you spent a certain amount of money). I figured I can always use more baking dishes…

I cannot express how happy I was to take each piece out the box–all 19 pieces. Who knew I could get so excited over dishes? I couldn’t believe it but it did fill me with contentment looking at the pieces and thinking about all the dinners I could make in them and all the good I could store in them. I am even thinking about making some casseroles or pasta up ahead of time and sticking them in the freezer.

Of course, since that made me feel so wonderful, I want to keep that feeling going. I started shopping for new dishes. My husband and I had talked about buying some new dishes because he is getting tired of the old octagon plates (or are they hexagon?) that he bought after his divorce. I have (had?) a Corelle set of plates and cups that belonged to my parents and I liked them; they were packed away but I haven’t come across them yet. I almost think they were lost or stolen. So I decided to do some shopping for tableware. I looked a couple of months ago but didn’t see anything I was too impressed with. I did a search for Corelle and was soon on a website looking at their choices. At first I wasn’t too impressed but I soon found something I liked. It is called Tree Bird and has a brown and green tree pattern interspaced with little blue birds. Also, the stuff was on sale. If you ordered 12+ pieces you got 40% off plus free shipping after $75. I was ready to buy! And I did after the internet quit acting up. I ordered service for 6 people plus a platter (I couldn’t get that in Tree Bird but I ordered something that would work well with it) and 2 serving bowls (one to match the set and one to match the platter). Now I feel I am all set up to put on a nice dinner 🙂 I did not order any coffee cups though–we have many already and I don’t serve tea with dinner like my mom did.

All that made me feel super domestic. I suppose I like decorating and setting up house. I get bored with the cleaning and organizing, or should I say tedious re-organizing? Ha.

–I looked on Ebay and found some Corelle-ware like my parent’s old stuff. It was called Indian Summer. I miss that stuff– I don’t think I was impressed with it when I was a kid but I really like it now. I wish I could find mine…

Now that I have seen Melissa Gilbert’s blog I want to be a copycat and change my blog title to Jacquelyn’s Mid-life Musings, ha ha… not that anyone cares about what I have to say but…

It is just that this writing gets my creative juices flowing…my little musings and meanderings. The more I write the more I want to. I get restless with the desire to write but I don’t know what I want to write. I know I want to write about me…me, me, ME. I have several memoir ideas; the trouble is nobody cares about what I have to say…

But I also want to write fiction. Short stories and novels–well more so novels but I figure I should start writing some shorter stuff just so I can get in the habit of writing and rewriting….and rewriting again. That is easier to do with shorter works. I have written a few short stories…but somehow I don’t think I really have a handle on the form (not that I know how to write a novel either– I just like the novel format). I need to read more short stories I suppose. I have never been fond of them, preferring novels.

Perhaps that should be a resolution– to read more short stories. Read a short story a day…sounds like a plan. I would also like to write a short story a day but I am not sure I am up for it yet. Not energy wise any way. I don’t know. I should probably give it a try. Lord knows I have tons of ideas (which all hide or turn to shit when I get serious about them); if only I wouldn’t get bogged down with trying to think of original plotlines and characters forgetting that there is nothing new under the sun.

Read more/write more.