Post Script

I forgot to mention something that I think is a huge precipitating factor in how I have been feeling as of late. I currently work in a district where it has become common practice to non-renew everyone who is non-tenured and then place all the staff who have become tenured and then open the remaining positions and have those who were previously employed reapply for their current job. This idea is so stupid to me. I don't want to have to jump through all the hoops just to get my current job back.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I want a job. But do I want a caseload of 82 kids just so I can say I know the facilities, the staff and the kids? I don't know that that's something I want. I thought I wanted out if I ever had to apply for a job as a speech path again.

(See Stacie. Everyone has their days when they don't want to have to work for a living. But we do it, because we don't want to be told what we can and can't do with the funds we have.)

So, the stress of worrying about that, which I have never really vocalized until now, is probably a HUGE factor in how I am feeling lately. I don't want to be unemployed. That's for sure.

I'm think I'm suffering burnout.

Now, if you are a fan of the funny (or at least the attempts at being funny) entries that I try to write, you may want to skip this entry. This entry is going to be like a real journal entry where I vent to myself and try to sort some things out so I feel better. So, continue reading at your own risk.

It seems like lately my way of reacting to everything is either crying or being annoyed. Maybe even both. I can't imagine how my husband is able to put up with me anymore.

Last night I had the breakdown about how I feel like I am not a good mom because we were gone on Spring Break and then I was super busy last week and then he spent the weekend with his grandparents going to his 2nd cousins baptism, then when we came home and they got home and all that, he ended up staying at G and G's last night because I had to prepare for my presetation to Metro State tonight, and get up early and go to Kinko's to make copies.

I feel like he doesn't know I am his mom anymore. I miss him, and yet I still have to work and do stuff and I feel horrible for doing those things and not spending all my time with my little guy. I know that soon enough he will be too old to want to be around mommy and I will be really sad then.

Then, I feel like I have been a substandard wife as well. I don't cook. I don't clean. I don't do laundry. I pretty much suck in the wife department. Now, it's not to say that I don't know how to do these things. I used to live alone and did these things all the time, but ugh, not anymore. I don't know why I don't. I should. But Sonny wants to know where it says, in writing, that it is my job, as the wife, to do all those things. It' probably not written anywhere but I feel like it's my job. I hate that I can't work, be a mom and a good wife all at once. Speech Paths are very hard on themselves and anything less that perfection on their part is simply unexceptable.

Of course, what is it that I feel would help me to feel better? I don't even know. Probably perfection (as mentioned in the above paragraph). Sleep would help. I feel like I walk around in this perpetual state of exhaustion. That can't help.

I also feel horrible because I can't force myself to eat like every other woman in the world. I'm sorry that I don't want to eat a salad, an apple and a bottle of water for lunch. I hate that I should feel bad for liking food with flavor. I hate that food seems like it's my only friend outside of my husband, son, and in-laws here.

I have to stop this pity party or I will be in tears. If anyone has any suggestions on how to feel better, or to feel less like I am failing in every area, I am all ears. I just want to not feel so sad and tired. I want to feel less lonely and useless. And I want to feel calmer again, like I am doing a good job. But I don't want to have to take drugs to feel like I am doing alright.

Suggestions? Anyone? Hello?

Happy Birthday Stacie!!

As of noon Sunday, no one had seen her. I assume that she was lying in a puddle of her own puke because that was how she chose to celebrate. Nice. Oh to be 23 again. Not that I would want to be, but I'm just saying. Happy Birthday Stacie!! I heart you!! You're the best worst little sis ever! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Not having more kids...at least not until Society stops sucking.

So today, as with every day since the beginning of the school year, I left my base school at about 9:10 or so to head over to my second school of the day. I leave right when all the buses are getting to my school, drive past another school where the buses are arriving full of kids, and head to yet another school where the buses and parents are just arriving. (And I have to say that I did well not to have to vent about this until now, knowing how patient I tend to be.)

Anyway, so there are two lanes of traffic: one coming and one going. Typically speaking, everyone gets that and waits their turn in line accordingly. Of course, there are times where people who are dropping off their children don't pull up to the very edge of the 'unloading zone' to let the kids out. This creates the daily headache of waiting in line.

Now, I think that I am a good person, because even though I don't have to go the way all the parental cars have to go (as I am trying to park to stay for a while), I wait patiently in the line. I usually sing along with the radio or something like that.

Today, I think that all people lost all rational thought. Today, people who were a good 6 or 7 cars back, thought that they had the right to go around all the other cars to drop off their kid first.

This really gets me going because I think about the example these parents who can't wait in line are setting for their children. Think about it. If you are so rude that you can't wait the additional 1-2 minutes to turn into the 'unloading area', then what kind of jerk are you anyway? This gets me angry about how these children are going to grow up feeling entitled to everything because that is the behavior that they see from their parents.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I have my moments where I feel that I am entitled to things. However, I don't think that I am entitled to them at the expense of someone else's safety. Especially when those other people are children in a school zone. I don't care if you a kazillionaire who has to be to work at 9:30. I don't care.

That leads me to my rant about being flippant. But I will save that for another day. I need to get some stuff done and get to bed. Have a good one.

The St. Louis Part of the trip (AKA: Why St. Louis Sucks)

I believe when I had left off, I had gotten through talking about the Vegas part of the trip. Well, the trip didn't end there. We came home and then we flew out on Thursday morning to head back to St. Louis. Only this time, it was cold. It wasn't nice and cozy like it had been when we had been flying through the Sunday before. It was so cold that I was wearing a cozy undershirt with my sweatshirt over it cozy with my jersey over it. And when we went to the Pre-Game Party, all the doors were open to that bar so it was so freaking cold.

The good part of the trip was when we got to check into our hotel room at 10:30 am, even though check-in time is 4 pm. The bad part about that was that our room was impossible to get into and when we finally did get into the room, it was 59 degrees, and holding an hour later when we left, even after having it cranked to 80 degrees for an hour.

We tried to go to the Arch. However, the wait was a little over 2 hours. Forget that. Some trip, long line to the top of the Stratosphere, and long line to the top of the Arch. Aren't there some caves underground people want to look at?

So we decided to go the the Pre-game party early. But the party was in full swing by the time we got there. In fact, I am pretty sure we stood in line an hour to order some food. However long it was, it was long enough for me to drink two Mike's and for Sonny to drink a mini-pitcher ("It was only six bucks!!"). But we did have a nice time visiting with some dude who was my dad's age. It was so weird though to see the sea of green in St. Louis. I almost thought that I was at Dagwoods because it didn't seem like we were 13 hours away or anything like that.

So about that game: In case you have been living in a cave, the Sioux lost their game on Thursday night, but only because Boston College had two goals on an empty net. That sucked. However, it made our Easter plans considerably easier to make. It was such a heartbreaker. I wanted them to win and it was so sad when those goals would happen. I just wanted to cry.

Speaking of crying, I did get some of that in on Friday morning when we got to the airport. Sonny told me that I could 'sleep in' until 4:30 on Friday. I repeatedly asked him if that would be enough time to get ready and give us enough time to check out, walk to the train station, hop the train, and get to the airport and checked in in time for our flight at 7:25. He said it was. It really wasn't. We didn't take into account that our train ride would take nearly 45 minutes. We did well with getting up and ready and checked out and to the station by 6:00, but weren't at the airport until 6:45. By the time we got to the front of the line, it was already too late to check our bags (even though we had been waiting in line for long enough for it to have not been too late, if that makes sense to you). So when the douchebag from American Airlines told us we couldn't check our bags, and Sonny and I walked towards security and he stopped and asked if I had any stuff to throw, I lost it. Well, not really lost it, I was just so tired and stunned, that I started to tear up. I had to throw at least $70 worth of stuff away.

There was 3 things from Victoria's Secret (which you can usually get three for $24 or something). So I lost my shower gel, body spray and lotion. There was some Clinique step 2 stuff (which is usually about $25 or so). Then there was toothpaste, saline, mousse, gel, and hairspray (another $25 or so). Sonny told me it was okay because we could replace it all, but I was so tired that I kept tearing up about it all the way to Dallas.

So to sum up: Cold weather, long lines, Sioux loss, cold room, loss of supplies, and the fact that I now HATE American Airlines, equals I am not a St. Louis fan.

John Luck Pickerd

Though there was a lot of things that I could comment about in Vegas, most can be summed up like this: slots and walking. There. That was pretty simple. If you have ever been to Vegas, you know exactly what I am saying. I asked Sonny if he thought we walked five miles in a day and he said, "Oh, easily." Great. Although the thing that I craved the most was a glass of milk. At the end of everyday, we would stop at the little shop in our hotel and get a snack (first night a pizza and the second night we each got a muffin), and I always wanted some milk but there was none to be had. There wasn't even milk at the big buffet we had for lunch on Monday. Weird.

Of course, I have to say that my favorite part about Vegas is that it seems to be primarily sponsored by Pepsi. It seemed like everywhere we went to eat, I got to have Mt. Dew. The only place I saw Coke was at Coca-Cola World. I made the comment, "Pepsi: The Official Sponsor of Las Vegas."

I guess I have commented more than I thought I would. Oh and if you want to know, I didn't win. In fact, I moped around alot because I was not winning. Although, yesterday, I started to win. Great. It was fun to finally win but it was too late to make up for the loss or to make enough to convince my husband to let us stay until the redeye flight.

I need to comment on the title of this blog. I seem to be taking my sweet time to do so. We went to the Hilton and they have the Star Trek Experience. Last time we were in Vegas, we ate at Quark's restaurant. Sonny wanted to take me on the ride but I was not all about that. This time, we did both of the 'rides'. They were called the "Borg Experience" and "Klingon Experience".

The Borg one was interesting. You got some 3-D glasses, and you sat in these chairs and they poked you and blew in your face as you were rushing to escape the Borg. Sonny was laughing because I would scream when I got poked in the back or when the vessle was making a nose dive.

The Klingon one was more action based. You weren't supposed to go on it if you were pregnant, prone to seizures, stuff like that. You were on the deck of the Enterprise and then you had to rush to escape the Klingons so you had to go through the halls to this escape pod. It was a bumpy ride and you did some fancy maneuvering. It was interesting.

I will say, in hindsight, that I enjoyed both. I liked the Klingon one better. Although I was apprehensive for both at first. I don't like non-predictability. I have a little fear of the unknown.

Speaking of fear of the unknown, I will have less for going to St. Louis because that was one of our stops on the way to Vegas. We had such a layover that we hoped on the train and went down by the stadium and had some lunch. We found our hotel for Thursday night, and I bought some Beatles stuff at a store called Beatles for Sale.

Something to tide you over

Good morning. Well, here we are on Sunday of Spring Break. We were going to get up early and try to get on the 7:00 flight this morning but decided not to because we were both pretty tired from the flying adventures from Friday night and yesterday afternoon. (Not that they were exciting but going up and back in less than 24 hours makes a person kind of tired.)

Thursday and Friday were pretty standard days. The kids were a little bit excited but nothing too out of the ordinary considering we had a long break coming up. I am happy to say that I didn't have to spend the last block of Friday around any kids because I am sure that would have drove me nuts.

The funniest* (subject to interpretation) thing that happened was when we were driving to Cavalier and the song Dream on came on the radio. I said I liked the song. Sonny asked me who sang it and I said, "Aerosmith. And I think it was their first song." Sonny didn't agree. He said that it was "Led Zeppelin". Excuse me? I can't believe that I doubted my correctness because I know my husband doesn't know as much about music as I do. But I am happy to say that I did my research this morning and I was correct.

Well, I better go get packing. We are off to Vegas today on part 2 of Spring Break. We will be there until Wednesday, I believe. Then we come back here and we will be off again to St. Louis on Thursday and more traveling after that. It'll be a busy break, but hopefully a fun one.