Don't Take Him For Granted

May I never take for granted the man I have that shares my bed.

It is easy to take him for granted. To give all my love and affection to the boys that are so needy for it. To take out my frustrations on him because I feel safe with him and I know he can handle it. He doesn’t deserve it, but he can handle it. He deals with a lot; school, family, coaching, etc. On the surface it doesn’t sound like much, but we all know that behind each of the things that take up our lives are complications, drama, and stress. On top of it all he does damn good at taking care of us and those around us. Thank goodness he is a handyman around the house and with our cars and he actually knows what he is doing. I love him for so many different reasons as well and I’m so thankful for him. Nothing makes me happier than to hear how much he has missed his boys after being away from them for a few hours. How he talks to them. How he plays with them. And how they feel about him.

Waylon did his usual sneaking into our bed last night, but he actually did it before I dozed off. I told him what a good daddy he has. His response, “Yeah, I love my dad.” We had a good talk about love and getting in trouble and what all that means and how it works together. Quite a great conversation I had with my little four year old! He loves his boys and the feeling is mutual. He shows them the perfect amount of affection, in my opinion, and tells them he loves them often. I know so many kids that just don’t get that. They don’t get to cuddle up with their dads on the weekends and fall asleep watching movies or get to go out and “work” for hours with their best friend and role model. I’m just so thankful for these relationships in our lives and the man responsible for them.

Workouts and eating:
By 9:30 at work I’m starving. I’m finally prepared for that by having some healthy snacks stashed in my drawer, but I feel like I eat all day long especially on light meeting days. When I’m at home on the weekends I feel like I’m never that hungry and I hardly ever snack on anything. That’s the difference between sitting on your butt all day vs up and moving at home, I guess. I’m convinced that eating out on my lunch break puts pounds on my rear faster than anything ever. If you work out of the office and are hitting up the restaurants every lunch break, STOP! Even if you are going to healthy places and making healthy choices you have a higher chance to eat larger portions than you should be eating. Take your lunch and pack it as healthy as possible as much as you can. I swear that one alone will help you lose a good portion of weight.

I’ve taken a long break from working out. I’m not making excuses for it and I actually don’t feel bad about taking the break in the slightest. I’m actually kind of proud of myself. I went long and hard for so long. (you know you want to make a That’s What She Said joke there) Some might say overboard, but this has been good for me. I’ve realized I’m much happier with exercise in my life. These last few days I have really been craving a workout. While driving on some of the roads that my feet ran just a couple of months ago, I found myself really missing running. It was almost like missing a friend. It seemed really crazy to me, but so real at the same time.

I’m saying so long to my crazy early morning workouts and moving them to the evening. Yes, I’m scared about this. I fear that I will be so tired and want to relax on the couch instead of get my butt downstairs. I just have to keep reminding myself that I was more tired hitting that alarm clock at 4:30 every morning. I also fear the migraines coming back. I will be losing some time in my day since I am mainly doing this to work on getting more sleep. I have really been robbing that area to make time and I can’t keep doing that to my body and the appearance of my face! It’s going to take some time getting in a groove and making it work, but I’ve done hard stuff before, so I’m sure I can get this down and make it habit just like the early mornings. I’m excited to get it going and get this belly and butt back in the shape it saw a few weeks ago. Funny how long it takes to build it up and how quickly it feels like it goes. That’s motivation to keep it up right there.

The boys:I’ve had to hide the apples and oranges from the boys. They climb the shelves of the pantry and help themselves. Weston just might be a worse offender than Waylon. But, the two together are running us dry a day after grocery shopping. I’m thankful that they are choosing these over other things, but have you ever changed a diaper of a little man who ate too much fruit, especially of grapes, hmmm? If so, you feel me and you might have changed just as many poopy diapers as me in one day, which has GOT to be record breaking!

I was feeling really crappy due to all of this allergy crap, which I’m so entirely sick of, that Saturday was getting on my nerves real quick. Dale went with his mom to help her get a car, so it was just me and the boys. The house was in decent shape so I didn’t have a lot of cleaning to do, but as soon as breakfast started the boys started arguing and I did not have the patience for it. Finally I put my last dish in the dishwasher and yelled at them that we were going to play hide and seek in the house and when I found them I was going to punch their legs. They loved the idea and I was just annoyed. Go figure, boys love being punched.

I thought about just hiding forever in the bathroom while they searched and searched. We got started and right off Weston was my partner. He really can’t be any cuter. He tip toed around with his finger to his mouth whispering, “where are they, where’d they go” then yelling, “OUT, OUT errr you ARE!” That’s all I needed to change my mood. The boys actually hid pretty well the first few times. No punching when I found them (that was just a joke). Pretty soon it was my turn to hide so I picked the dark bathroom with the shower curtain. It took them forever to find me. It was so cute hearing them work together and I scared the crap out of Waylon when he finally pulled that shower curtain back. Pretty soon I had completely forgotten what a crappy mood I was in and I was laughing until I was crying. Such a good time, but it always sucks when we have to stop!

The last few weeks I just haven’t felt me. I’m generally a very happy person, but deep down, that happiness just wasn’t completely there. And, it wasn’t because things in my life were horrible. I was busy and the holidays made it even busier. I truly had a great holiday, but I remember right before Christmas at the store walking to my car when I was completely alone feeling sad and completely alone at a much deeper level. I’m glad that is fading. I think it has to do with grief (not running grief) and how it just has a way to affect you whether it is cloudy or completely clear. It always has a way to come back and put you down for a while no matter how long the years try to expand the time. I was happy to fall asleep last night with a smile on my face and a warm little four year old by my side.

What things do you do to break the cranky mood?
Do you find grief coming back to let you know it is still around no matter the years?