Frozen Nowhere

Starting over and learning to love MY life…

Exhaustion

September24

 

Lately i have been suffering from what I can only describe as exhaustion. I’m sure there is likely another reason for it, a more insidious reason lurking in my subconscious… but for now I would rather deal with it on the surface and not get too far into the details of what is failing in my psyche.
Things were just feeling… draggy. 

Work is seriously kicking my butt lately. Not a shock. Summer and fall are our busy times, and even though the sector I work in (construction) slowed down a bit in my area, we were relatively untouched from the larger recession and weathered the storm. What that meant for me was that although I had very little to do January through June, there was plenty of paperwork generated for me to deal with after June… and its not the kind of stuff that is just a one time thing, its paperwork that generates future paperwork… and the tracking and monitoring and filing of all of that work.

Most days I feel like I’m living under threat of avalanche from the various files dumped onto my desk. And while it is fairly NON-Time Sensitive (for the most part) there is psychological pressure to get things clean and clear.

(Its not working….shhhh)

I’m allowing myself to get stressed out about things. Some things I have control over, others I do not… and yet, I treat all of it equally — at work and at home. Which is exhausting. But the focus has just been on getting it done, moving through, not worrying about classifications.

Until recently.

When I had a small break down in my system of getting things done.

It doesn’t truly matter what the break down was, what caused it, only that it happened. And when it happened it was immediately clear:

NOT ALL THINGS ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT.

Which should have been self-evident, but had gotten lost in one of the piles that had taken over the inbox of my desk. In the rush to get things cleared out of the inbox, to get answers to all questions, and to get SOMETHING accomplished, I was finding that I wasn’t getting ANYTHING completely accomplished at all!

I was constantly being interrupted, mid-task, and reassigned… which added stress to my job and decreased my focus. I was finding that my manager was constantly re-assigning my time, not allowing me to complete tasks that were important, and asking me to complete things that were not time sensitive OR within my job scope… which meant that instead of getting things done, I was getting things HALF done or a quarter done, and having to leave at the end of the day with partially completed tasks to deal with the following day.

And having the knowledge that, not only are tasks waiting for me that are only partially completed but that it is likely that my manager will have assigned, dropped on my desk, emailed, or phoned in MORE small tasks in the meantime, took a toll on me at home as well. I was always left with the feeling of overwhelm — a mental ADD where I wasn’t completing tasks, or getting distracted by more immediate concerns (aka what is currently DIRECTLY in front of me at the time) — and things were starting to spiral completely out of control.

Last week things sorta seemed to come to a head of sorts.

I spent my days at work barely functioning, feeling panicked and fighting off tears. I spent my nights at home alone crying, trying to pull my thoughts together enough to come up with a concrete set of GOALS, a PLAN I could set in place to keep myself above water long enough to get out of the space of overwhelm. So many things seemed important and worthy goals and yet not quite the right thing to do… there were things that were more calming, which made a space out of the chaos, and yet they were not things that I knew would be worthy lifetime goals. 

I threw myself into chaos, not knowing what the answers were… and as a consequence my systems failed me. 

I failed to be able to keep up with eating regularly. I couldn’t sleep normally. I had painful, frightening panic attacks…

And yet…

I’m still standing. And that’s all I can do sometimes. 

I know that there are answers. I know that I need to rely only on myself for the answers. I need space from the chaos of Everpresent and I need to focus on what I need to nourish MY soul and the lives of myself and my children.

I need love. I need support. I need words. I need care. I need experiences. I need quiet. I need time. I need distance. I need closure. I need familiarity.

 

I need to bloom…
And that’s what I’m doing
posted under My Life, Spirit | No Comments »

Hi there!

September21

Hi there!

 

I would love to say that while I haven’t been writing here I have been out having wondrous adventures, the kind and variety you only see on tv shows about glorious 20 somethings.

Yeah, not so much… but thanks for thinking of me, but I don’t think that I’m really the kind of person who gets to have adventures.

Not really.

 

… and I’m in my mid-30s… so probably not so much of the “big adventures”…

Mostly I have been doing the solitary single mother thing. I go to work around 7:30am… I get there around 8am… I work work work for about 9 hours (though “coffee” and “lunch”) then I go home and clean and organize and then collapse onto the internet where I am (hopefully) going to find some other solitary souls to chat at between various tasks that I have to do. Sometimes I have appointments — bank, lawyer, dentist, hair — sometimes I have a class — Irish dance — and sometimes I am just being a pathetic person and hanging out alone at home. Sometimes I am lucky enough to have my kids, sometimes I am lucky enough to have Reg and his kids, but more often than not I am completely alone.

The sad thing is that sometimes after a day of work I just WANT to spend time alone…

I’m at a crossroads. It’s not that I don’t recognize this fact, its just that I don’t quite know what I want in what order…


It matters, you know… what order I want things in. What is the most important to me? Do I want a relationship that will progress to a REAL partnership and not just a weak mirror of the sick situation that was my marriage (having a husband who was not in my life, who was not truly a partner), then I need to focus on what I am doing with Reg. If I want to get my finances in order, then its more important to put my energies into fixing that. If I want to achieve a better career or advance in my job I have to determine what it is that I have to do to get moving in that direction. If I want to try and have another child (without a relationship, because that’s quite obviously NOT going to be in the cards) I have to start looking into tubal reversals and costs and finances and plans in that direction. What is the #1 thing?

Right now I’m just scattered, and the result is that I’ve been feeling so alone and unsupported and FRUSTRATED. I have no true GOAL, I have no plan, I’m drifting and hoping that something will click and I will suddenly KNOW what it is that I need to do and how I need to start doing what it is that I need to do to get to the goal line.

One thing I know for sure is that I have to complete the journey that I began 3 years ago when I finally stood up to theEx and told him that I was going to leave him… I have to finish walking my path of tears now. That means keeping on my lawyer  to get the divorce paperwork done and filed.

 

It also means that I have to pay my lawyer.

Which is scary, because, Hello, it means I will owe the bank a HUGE chunk of money for a very long time… or as long as it takes for me to get it under control and me to squiggle my way out from under it.


The debt brick means staying put, it means not being able to really put plans into effect because, well… I have to get rid of this DEBT first. I’m allowing myself to be stopped by this manageable debt… and I know this. In my mind. In my heart I worry too much about it.

I want a life with a partner, a true partner. This isn’t a secret. It isn’t a secret that finding someone is HARD… and that obviously I have bungled this previously. It’s starting over again, seeking again, re-finding myself, and trying to find a love that can become something. Do I have that? I’m not sure. I have Reg, and I see him once in a while, I talk to him once in a while, he leaves me wanting more…

 

But there isn’t ROOM for more. I would like someone I can live with. And I can’t live with him. He lives too far away from me, and I can’t move to where he is… and he can’t move to where I live. It might not be that way forever… but for now it is. But more than that, there is no indication at all that he wants me as part of his life either… not yet, maybe not ever.

 

And yet… I’m not ready for that either. I WANT a future where I am not alone, but I’m not ready yet either. I would like to know that it is a possibility someday, after a committed relationship, that I don’t have to be coming home to an empty house every night. I have done that so much of my adult life (including a full 65% of my marriage, if not MORE) and it would be nice to have what so many people have — someone who is TRULY there for you, at the end of the day, to hold you, to help when things get hard…

 

But I refuse to RUSH into things anymore either…


Hello everyone, I’m the person who doesn’t know what she wants! I want a life partner, a live in boyfriend or husband… but I gave up that situation… and I admit I’m not READY for such a situation… just saying — desire and practicality are warring within me, and I hope that I don’t make the wrong choices, I deserve love and comfort and someone to hold me at the end of the day too… its just not as easy as I once thought it was going to.

Do you ever wake up sometimes and just have to brace yourself for the day? As if you are still a child inside, and you’re just trying to fool everyone into believing that you really do know what you are doing? And you’re not sure you’re even fooling yourself?

That’s been how it has been for me lately…

I know that someday I want to have another serious LIVE-IN relationship.
I know that I don’t want to spend my entire life living alone.
I don’t care so much about marrying again, although I won’t say that I will never consider it.
I don’t feel like I am ready RIGHT NOW to have another live in relationship
I am still really lonely a LOT

I am afraid to rush into something (again) just to avoid being alone… that didn’t work at ALL when I married theEX (we were married, but for most of that time he wasn’t around at least half the time, and when he was physically there he was rarely emotionally there for me or the kids)…

 

Sigh.

 

Maybe I just need a dog…

Autumn Rush…

September11

 Autumn Rush…

 

The last week has gone by in a rush, what I call the “Autumn Rush”… The kids go back to school and everyone is starting to pack up their yards and harvest their gardens (and crops, because around here, the famers RULE), and the world of outside starts to be chilled in the mornings and evenings, and people start to pull into their homes more.

 

Last week it was actually SUMMERY here, for the first time in the entire year that temperatures were consistently over 15C, and it was nice. The kids got to wear their shorts and t’s to school and we had cool meals.

This week the mornings are decidedly nipping and the feel of the air is more autumn than summer. The days are still getting to 20C, but the winds are up, the nip is there, the scent of autumn is in the air, and we all know we will not be able to avoid the descent back into the huddling chill of winter.

 

We live in Saskatchewan. We don’t have the illusion that deep winter will never come. It is inevitable to come, blustering snow and blowing blizzard and all. It’s a matter of time.

 

And I feel the magnet of pulling inward too… the thought of going through my stores to see what I have, what I need and what I can stockpile for later. This has been going on for a bit now… I feel the pull start around Lammas (Aug 2) and the itch just gets stronger and stronger as I progress closer to Mabon (Sept 22)… culminating in the final harvest and end of the likely summery season at Samhain…

 

This week, though, the rush took on another meaning.  EVERY day I was rushing towards SOMETHING that I had to get done (well, except Monday, when I woke snuggling with my Honey and had a super relaxing afternoon and evening chatting with my best friend and making couscous salad)…

 

Tuesday was a rush as I got up late (doh!) for a company breakfast meeting. I mean, I LITERALLY had 2 minutes to get up, get dressed, brush teeth, feed cats, get my stuff and get to the meeting. As the site administrator it was my job to get this booked and make sure things went off without a hitch, and I was the one that was late. Thankfully the site that the meeting was at was not far from my house, so I got there only 15 mins late.

 

Tuesday night I had my very first Irish Dance class. Now, there is some issue with the Irish dance classes, because unbeknownst to me when I registered GirlChild in that school last year, theEx’s “friend” (they are dating but she won’t admit it because he has kids, which is perfectly fine by me… because it indicates that if they marry she will likely want the kids to be with me more than him) was an adult member of this school.

 

And now, here I am, having to walk on egg shells because his “friend” was there first. We’re not in the same class, but there is always a chance that there will be times when we will have to be in the same room. While I can ignore the fact that he’s dating her (I seriously don’t care, I just want him to leave me in peace) she seems to think that I’m just doing this to get him back… The fact that for 10 years before he even MET her I wanted to take Irish dance is completely ignored… and the fact that she’s obviously what he wants, since we never talk anymore, makes it all that much more laughable. What has he told her of me (other than he thought I fucked everything with a dick?)… she obviously is insecure about me, but he doesn’t even LIKE me, much less want to restart a relationship with me, and I have a man that makes ME happy and is much better suited to ME… so for the most part I pretend I don’t know that they are more than “friends”…

 

Okay… that’s a tangent. Just a vague sense that I’m stepping into territory that I shouldn’t be in… and if that continues next year I will register GirlChild and I in one of the other Irish dance schools (much more expensive, much more focused on Feis) so that she can keep her thing. Not so much a problem, really.

 

K, so Irish dance rocked…

 

Wednesday I had a dental appointment right after work. Which is never fun. She over froze me, then decided that the one filling she was going to do needed a root canal and did I want to go ahead with that or think about it.

 

Hmm… I am a single mother on a fixed income and you don’t allow installment payment AND I don’t have a pre-authorization from my health insurance for a root canal… so i’m thinking that I have to THINK about this first (especially since the LAST root canal that I had done involved 3 appointments, 1 specialist, $1200 paid up front, and the fact that I had to REPAY my then husband BACK for use of his insurance since mine didn’t cover the specialist???). I am seriously regretting having seen the dentist again, all the work she wants  me to have done will total over $2000 when everything is said and done (thanks to a trip to the dental surgeon which is NOT covered under my insurance AND has to be paid up front)…

 

Yeah. Ducky.

 

Right after that appointment I rushed over to register BoyChild in Wolf Cubs. Which was piles of fun since I was so frozen that I could barely talk. I thought maybe I would also volunteer to be a leader for him too, since he was REALLY REALLY disappointed that I just couldn’t find it in the budget to spend $75/month to take Tae Kwon Do with him this year. I have a feeling that theEx will have some whining to say about me being a leader… because he is like that “you don’t have to try so hard, you don’t need to do that…” mostly because he doesn’t want to do it, or he has something ELSE in mind… )

 

The sucky part was the dental freezing didn’t come all the way out until after I went to sleep… so I couldn’t eat anything for supper…

 

Thursday I rushed from work to a hair dresser appointment. It’s been 8 months since I had my hair done, and it was damaged and frizzy and just out of control. I know I should splurge and take care of myself more, but its so easy to think that I could spend that money on something else.

 

Of COURSE I could spend the money on something else. But there is something great about feeling a renewed sense of beauty for oneself. There was some akwardness, as the woman that I go to used to be a good friend of Reg’s… but because of the stress of his life lately, and the fact that he feels very awkward around her husband (and that she didn’t invite him to their wedding) I get the distinct feeling that she doesn’t consider herself his friend anymore. The fact that she was SURPRISED that I was still dating him, given that she sees him more as someone who just WANTS to be alone… maybe he’s gotta try to reach out more?

 

So I got a lovely haircut (and colour) and came home. Phoned my kids at my xMIL’s and talked to GirlChild and BoyChild for half an hour before they were to go to bed (theEx had to go to Vancouver — next time he goes out of town I will be requesting the kids are returned to MY house, because there is no reason that they have to be with someone OTHER than a PARENT (even a GRANDPARENT) if the other parent is available!) Then I called Reg and talked to him for an hour…

 

Then it was chill out time.

 

So I set my phone down on my couch, and my cat came up and lay down beside me… ON the phone…

 

UNTIL theEx accidentally sent me a text that was (I presume) meant for his girlfriend-who-is-only-a-friend…

 

And the cat LAUNCHED herself a foot in the air and ran off…

 

(hysterical laughter break)


Which brings us to TONIGHT (Friday) in which I have yet MORE rushing around to do… and some of it I am not looking forward to at all.

 

Right after work I have to make it into my bank to have my name changed on my bank documents. While this sounds simple, I have 9 outstanding cheques to the Irish Dance School for dance classes for my daughter and I, which I wrote out in June (BEFORE I realized I could easily change my name) and which have my formerly-married name on them. AND my soon-to-FORMALLY-be Ex husband usually writes out his child support cheques to me in my married name… so i have to make sure that these aren’t going to be problems. 

 

And I have to deal with having my name changed on my Visa account (so I can buy airline tickets in my maiden name thus NOT causing issues with customs when I cross the border!) AND I have to get assistance with getting cheques for my line of credit so I can pay my lawyer. 

 

THEN I have to go scrapbooking with G and her mother at their friends’ house. BUT because I was in a hurry this morning, I didn’t pack my stuff up to go! Argh! I’m so wiped after this week that I’m just not up to it (never mind the nagging headache I’ve had since the dentist)… I might have to beg off on G and just have a bath and do the housework I have been neglecting with the week being so busy.

 

This weekend isn’t any quieter, though… what with having a training session on Monday in Alberta and having to be back for work and dance on Tuesday… 

 

(yawn) I am EXHAUSTED! 

More List-tastic Goodness (Moon’sLark…

September3

As I have mentioned previously, I have been feeling the pull of craftiness a little more with the supposed changing of the seasons (although, it seems to be changing from the Spring-from-Hell-that-Took-Over-Summer to Summer-that-forgot-Us) so i thought I would detail the different little ideas that have been percolating in the back of my head lately:

(in no particular order, of course)

  1. Mason jar cookie kits. I love making cookies. My kids love making cookies. But because I don’t always know if I have the necessary ingredients on hand (and I hate making a trip to the store to get one thing here and there) I don’t often do it. Of course, there are some cookies (like gingerbread) that have proven too much for me (and my unreliable oven)… but “regular” types like chocolate chip or cowboy cookies should be relatively easy to have on hand. My thought was that I get a bunch of canning jars and make “mixes” to store in my cupboard so that I had cookies on hand to make on cold fall and winter evenings. I am hoping to get together different recipes (there are tons of recipes for decorated gift jars of this nature) and make up a bunch. Save on the cost of prepackaged cookies, the jars are reusable, and it provides a good bonding activity for the kids and I.
  2. Knitting kids’ socks. I am lucky enough to have 4 small sets of feet to knit socks for — BoyChild, GirlChild and Reg’s daughters (Kid1 and Kid2)… so that project is likely to keep me going for at least a month. Right now I am about 1/3 of the way through sock #2 for Kid1… then I have a request from Kid2 for pink… then GirlChild wants another set of pink and purple (having “lost” the first pair I made for her when she took them, fresh from the needles, to her father’s house)… and last but not least, BoyChild needs a second pair. 
  3. Knitting! Legwarmers, mittens, fingerless gloves… 
  4. Sewing. Since I have a sewing machine, and I have always wanted to learn how to sew… and the kids regularly outgrow their clothes on me, I figured that I would LOVE to put the sewing machine to some use (good, bad or otherwise)… I know the basics… and I figure with a bit of work I can develop a few more sewing skills. I used to sew BoyChild’s Halloween costumes until GirlChild came along — for his first birthday/Halloween BoyChild was a Pumpkin (seriously, his birthday is freaking HALLOWEEN, he NEEDS to be a pumpkin!) and for his second birthday he was a dinosaur…
  5. Quilting. An extension of “sewing”… I thought I could piece together a small lap quilt and figure it all out on my own. The only thing… I think I donated all my quilting books to charity in my last purge. Good thing most information is widely available on the internet (and local quilting shops). I think that my first project will be an orange and black quilt for BoyChild (his favourite colours) with a more halloween-ish theme. I am thinking of getting really creative and doing a “crazy quilt” style for the topper :) Heck, I already know how to do embroidery!
  6. Baking. I love baking, and cooking in general. The only problem I have is that, after my 10 hour day at work is done, I often don’t have a lot of time or energy to put into thinking up weekday meals. I would like to make up batches of:
    • handheld pies
    • cornish pasties
    • breads/buns
    • breakfast muffins
    • cornbread muffins
    • flatbreads
    • pizzas

 

I think that’s likely sufficient to keep me occupied, between working 10 hour days, 5 days a week, 2 upcoming work-related training sessions, having the kids with me the last 2 weeks every month (right now), upkeep of the house, taking Irish dance, travelling to Austin (squee), preparing for BoyChild’s 9th birthday, Christmas, seeing Reg,  talking to people on the internet, and trying to make sense of my life.

 

Speaking of travelling

 

It seems that in the next three months I will be making 3 trips!

 

In 2 weeks I will be heading to Alberta to do a 9 hour training session to relearn direct time entry. This will require me not only to fly to and from Alberta for only a day, but also stay overnight in a nice hotel and drive myself out to the corporate head office. Its seriously the ONLY perk I seem to have as an employee here (well, that and Dell discounts (I wish they had an EPP with Apple!)) because the company pays for small trips like this for training.

 

Sometime in October there is supposed to be another training session for all the site admins from all the different divisions of the company at head office. I really HOPE that (if this gets planned) it isn’t planned the last half of the month because, unlike theEx, I don’t have someone to take the kids those weeks for me to attend anything. It isn’t OFFICIAL yet, but its proposed for October sometime.

 

And last (but certainly not LEAST) I am planning to take my first trip out of Canada and travel down south to the great (and firey hot) state of Texas. It will not only be the first time I officially leave the country, but the first time I travel that far ALONE, the first time I will be required to have a passport, and the first experience with customs.

 

There is SO much to do and sometimes I forget that I have to do these things! So… for my own sanity, here is my LIST:

 

  • get ID in maiden name (half done!)
  • send RSVP card -DONE! YAY!
  • fill out passport form, WITH guarentor and picture (get picture!)
  • try to get part day off to go to the passport office to minimize wait time
  • book flights
  • get Passport into my hands (10 days to 6 weeks from application date)
  • pay off Visa (and change name with bank and Visa while I’m at it) from alternate account
  • book vacation days at work (not an issue, I have plenty left and it won’t be at a bad time)
  • get Canadian money magically transformed into American money
  • make lists of things to take
  • pack
  • worry about things like what I will eat in a foreign country :)

 

 

I’m sure I’m forgetting a million things right now… but that’s a start at least.

posted under My Life | 3 Comments »

Umm… Autumn?

September2
Umm… Autumn?
 
The disclaimer: Sorry I haven’t been around much lately. It’s not that I don’t have things to share with the unknown readers out there (or the Russian spambots or the creepy internet stalkers or the google webspiders)… its just that I have been busy at work. And since work is when I write, I haven’t been writing. I haven’t forgotten everyone (imaginary or otherwise) that might be out there in the shadows… :)
 
It’s now September. 
 
So, what does that mean? Well, the kids have returned to school (no, I’m not a home/unschooler) and their extracurricular activities — Tae Kwon Do for BoyChild and Irish Dance for Girl Child (and myself). It should be time for harvest celebrations and the start of the turning inward part of the wheel of the year… 
 
But in a rather ironic twist of fate, “summer” weather seems to FINALLY have arrived in Saskatchewan with the rush towards the schools. All through June, July and August we prayed for nice weather, for a stretch of warm, DRY sunny weather to go out and DO things… and the weather was MISERABLE. There was a day here, a day there, and maybe two days over that way where it wasn’t raining, windy, cloudy, or just MISERABLE this summer. Nope. No summer for you. The few nice days we had were, of course, days when I had to work or the kids were with their father… 
 
And so we were actually looking FORWARD to going back to school this year. In fact, it has been pretty much all that BoyChild and GirlChild have talked about for the last month. Given that it was cold and wet for all but 3 non-consecutive days this “summer” its a reasonable assumption. We didn’t get to the spray park more than once (in June). We didn’t get to the outdoor pools at all. They took swimming lessons with their father, but we didn’t get to go to the pools this summer either. We went on 2 picnics, and we didn’t get to spend very much time playing in parks… the summer just whomped totally.
 
Of course, the MINUTE they went back to school *BLAM* summer weather. 
 
Wouldn’t you know it? JUST after I bought them both cool weather clothes for school, the temperature climbs into the high 20Cs for THREE STRAIGHT CONSECUTIVE DAYS… and what’s more, its promised that it will be in the 30Cs for the next 2 or 3 days too! 
 
I mean, WTF?
 
It is time when I have started thinking about knitting the kids each a pair of handmade wool socks! I have been starting to want to bake pies and cookies and make batches of chili’s and stews and other hearty cool weather foods! After the lull in summer when I *SHOULD* have been too warm to want to knit or sew or bake, it is the season of the harvest, of starting to store for the cold winter ahead (and don’t fool yourself… the winter will be COOOLD (we’re talking -40C here people, this is FrozenNowhere!) and likely LONG)… but instead the heat has come and replaced the other autumnal cooling period for another blast at the furnace before we wimper into the subzeros again…
 
And, because I know that this is an unusual shift… I have to make due. I have to prepare for the harvests, the second harvest (Mabon, Sept 22) will be upon us in no time… So it is time to start seriously cleaning out for the season, going through the cupboards, storing up the thick, hearty meals that I will want and need (and will want to have easily on hand) in the coming months…
 
And still… it doesn’t exactly inspire me to sit and knit away my hours, or plan out huge batches of chili or pestos or meatballs to be parcelled out in the future… it makes me want to have the time, energy and freedom to go out and play with the kids, not needing to get up for school or weekend activities the next day…
 
(sigh)
 
At least the colours are likely to change soon :)

This is the blog of a 30-something woman. I am a single mother of 2 children (9 year old son, 7 year old daughter). I am walking a Pagan Path. I am divorced. I am a geek girl. I am a nature’s child. I am a seeker. I am a talker. I am sometimes jubilant, sometimes creative, sometimes anxious, sometimes bitter… I run the gamut of emotions as I go through walking not only my Pagan Path but my everyday daily LIFE Path.

My interests include creativity, art, crafts, magick, nature, spirituality, writing, collecting blank books, pens and office supplies, technology, myths, kids, colours… hell… I might write on ANYTHING that strikes my fancy.


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