Midweek Confessions

It's been a little while since I've linked up with e for a Midweek Confession. So, here we go.


*I'm not really looking forward to the holidays this year. Riley won't be with me for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I have some major changes taking place right after Christmas (details coming soon, I promise!). My family is spread (literally) all across the county and we aren't getting together for Christmas (insert super-sad, puppy-dog face here) and I just feel a little Scrooge-y. However, on Christmas Day the new Les Miserables movie comes out and I will be there to see it (even if I have to sit in a dark movie theater by myself on Christmas Day...wow that sounds pathetic sad!). So, the girl that is usually filled with Christmas spirit by the time Halloween rolls around is all "Bah-humbug" and is only looking forward to Christmas because of a movie.


*When the Packers are on a bye week I feel a little lost. Yep, I'm so in love with Green Bay football that I don't know what to do with myself when they don't play. Last Sunday was their bye week and I was sad. I am glad that they had a week to get healthy, but no Clay Matthews on the tv does not make me smile.


*I felt very melancholy and angsty earlier this week so I baked 7 dozen cookies and made s'more krispie treats. I felt better. I split the cookies between work and my sister and took the s'more krispie treats to Bible Study. I don't generally eat the things that I bake, but I will admit that the cookies were really good! Now I just have to decide what I'm baking for Thanksgiving.


*Riley's new favorite song is "King of New York" from Newsies and I couldn't be happier about it. In case you have never heard of Newsies it is a 1992 Disney musical about the newsies (paperboys) strike of 1899 in New York City. It stars Batman Christian Bale. It is my favorite movie ever and I strongly suggest you watch it immediately.


I suppose that's about it for this week. You should write your own confessions, it's good for the soul and all that.

Apathy kinda sucks

Earlier today I tweeted this

And I mean it! But, I figured my blog wasn't going to write itself, so even though I'm unmotivated I need to sit down and do it anyway.
This seems to be a pattern in my life reaching back as far as I can remember. Whether it is school, relationships, work, housework, whatever if I am under pressure I dig in and work hard and get done what needs to be done, but if there is no pressure...forget it.

For example:
When I was in high school I managed to go to cheerleading practice or a basketball game 4-5 nights a week, attend church/choir practice/drama practice/bible study 4-5 nights a week, play on the soccer team, have a boyfriend, spend time with friends, have a job, juggle a slew of other extracurriculars, and keep up a 4.0 GPA. Crazy! Granted, I had my moments where I thought I was going to have a mental breakdown, but mostly I fit everything in and got everything done. Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. However, when I was in the "off season" generally the 6 weeks of no cheerleading that coincided with that stretch of school where both students and teachers are burnt out, my grades started to slip a little, I couldn't find time to do homework, I didn't want to hang out with friends, and I felt like I could never get anything done even though I had way more time to do everything.

Another example:
I let my marriage slide. I just let things happen. I didn't work on my relationship. I didn't pray for or with my husband. It just didn't seem like a priority. When things started to get bad that's when I dug in and prayed and worked and did everything that I knew how to do to save my marriage. It didn't work. It was too little too late.

So, why am I so apathetic when there is no pressure? Why do I do so well when there is? And how do I stay motivated when I'm not crazy-busy?

No answers this time, just questions. If you have the answers let me know :)

Also, this

Just because it made me smile

Moving, Illness, Voting, Fantasy Football, and Looking forward to what's ahead

Whew, It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks!

A couple of weeks ago I moved! I left my first house that I lived in for 5 1/2 years and moved in, temporarily, with some amazing friends that have opened their home to Riley, Minion, and I for the next 2 months. Where are we going after that? We'll talk about that soon. It's going well so far. We get along well and it's lovely to spend time with Joe and Sara, which was always hard to come by before we lived there.

This was me, but I was much less smiley after the 3rd or 4th load!

I was super sick last week. It was pretty awful. I had a 102.4 fever (it never got any higher than that, but would always come back to that point. Weird.) for 5 days that seemed to get worse with any kind of measure to control it (tylenol, ibuprofen, etc.). My whole body hurt and I walked hobbled around in a fog for a week. Oh, and I was cranky...like really, really cranky! But, I woke up Saturday morning feeling much better.


Yesterday I voted. I wasn't going to. I feel like the Presidential race is so much bigger than me. I know that I live in a state that will be Red no matter who I vote for so what does it matter, right? Wrong. There's so much more on that ballot than the Presidential candidate. I live in a small town in a small county. I was voting for representatives, judges, and school board members. My vote may not count toward who becomes President, but it might make a difference on a local level and that's what matters to me on a daily basis. That, and I wanted the cool sticker.


The Green Bay Packers are on a nice litte winning streak. They're dealing with a ton of injuries, including my boys Jordy Nelson and Clay Matthews. They have a bye week this week though so hopefully that will give them a chance to get healthy. My fantasy football teams are looking good as well. In my current church's league I am in 1st place and am on a 7-game winning streak...not too shabby. In my old church league I am in 2nd place and am on a 5-game winning streak. I love football.


How yummy is he?! And wouldn't we be cute together?

My first session of Bible school and my Ladies Bible Study are both coming to a close and I am forlorn. It's been a fantastic 8 weeks. I have studied Women of the Bible with an amzaing group of 8 other women. I feel like leading that group has grown and stretched me in ways that I wasn't expecting. This will be my last Ladies Bible study at RCWC and that is very bittersweet. I'm so proud of my girls and everything that they have done through this study and I know that they will be just fine without me, but I will miss them! Bible school has been fantastic. This last session I took Bible Doctrines, How to Study the Bible, and Righteousness. The first two classes were fairly basic and review for me, but the class on righteousness was amazing. It's a tough concept to grasp, but if you can get it it can truly set you free. I'm not sure what classes are coming up next for me, but I'm excited to continue on this journey, and I'm really excited to share about the things coming up in my life. That post is coming soon...in like 2 weeks :)

These aren't my girls, but don't they look happy!

Ode to Excedrin Migraine

You left
Gone
Recalled
I did not miss you
I did not need you
I could get by without you
I didn't even realize you were gone
Until today
Today I hurt
Pain
Ache
Migraine
Where were you
On the shelf
Right where you belonged
I bought you
I swallowed you
I waited
I watched the second hand
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
1,800 tick-tocks later
No more ache
No more pain
You did your job
I'm glad you're back

Negativity

Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I am sickeningly optimistic, positive, and perky. I love all things pink and sparkly. I have happiness oozing out my pores. Negativity is not something that I do well with. Generally when negative comments are spoken I counter with something positive no matter how ridiculous my comment may be. I build people up...it's what I do.

Lately I feel negativity creeping in my life. I don't know if I am hormonal, tired, or just over it, but it makes me want to give up the optimism and positivity and just be one of those jaded, cynical women that complain all the time...okay, not really. But I do want to complain. I want to complain about my job, I want to complain about people in my life who frustrate me, I want to complain about my schedule, I want to complain about all the injustices I suffer, I want to complain about all those little things that irritate me to no end! But I won't. I know it sounds like an afterschool special, but something I've learned through my life is that complaining doesn't fix anything. It makes you feel good for a little while. It makes you feel justified. It makes you feel entitled. It's a vicious cycle though. Ultimately the more you complain the worse you feel. I know that if I can stop the cycle of negativity early on then I'll feel better. Bad things happen, you deal with them and move on to happier things. So that's what I am going to do today. Wish me luck!

What might have been

For the last few weeks I have been anticipating that today...well, really this whole month...would be very difficult for me. See, today is what would have been my 7th wedding anniversary. A year ago this month is when my then-husband and I started having discussions about the state of our marriage, when he started focusing more time and attention on another woman, when he left my home for the first time, and when he had an affair with the woman that he lives with today. All of which led to the eventual demise of my marriage. There are many sad and painful memories that surface with the reminder that today is a day that I expected to celebrate for the rest of my life. Now it is the day that I mourn the loss of my marriage, the loss of my best friend, the loss of my family, the loss of what might have been.

Yesterday while discussing the looming of this day with some friends of mine someone told me that maybe everything I went through last year will be the best thing that ever happened to me. She told me that I was back to being Ali and, to her, that made it all worth it. I'm inclined to agree. Today I'm not sad, in fact, I am happy. Today I am happier, stronger, more at peace, and more fulfilled than I have been in a very long time.

The surfacing of difficult memories doesn't have to be painful. I've learned so much from what I've gone through in the last year and I am far better for it. Today I will not mourn what might have been, instead I choose to look to the future and celebrate what will be. Celebrate with me!

Busy

So, I have a lot on my plate right now. Too much in fact. "So why are you wasting time blogging?" you may ask. Well, blogging helps me get my thoughts in order. Helps me clear my brain out a little. So, what is making me so busy?

1) Work. Work is super busy right now, and although my job isn't "hard" per se it is busy. We always have something going on that I have my hands in and it seems that lately project after project keeps appearing on my desk or in my inbox. It's a little overwhelming sometimes, but I think I'm keeping a handle on it.

2) School. Yep, school. I started Bible school this week. The International Bible Training Center. IBTC is a fully accredited Bible school that happens to have been started by my sister and brother-in-law. My sister suggested that I enroll and I agreed that it was a great idea. Because it is my sister's school it would be really easy to shrug school off and not take it seriously, but that's not me. I love school and I am actually really excited to get my books and a couple of notebooks and folders and start listening to lectures and doing homework...Yay for school!

3) Church. All of a sudden I've become very involved in church. The last 8 months I've gone to church every Sunday and I've been involved in small groups. I am now on the "Serve Team" and am a greeter. I've been asked to lead one of our Ladies Bible Study groups (I am so honored and humbled to have been asked to do this!) and I am involved in 2 other small groups at church...although I think I am going to drop one of them.

4) Life. I have a move coming up in about 90 days! I am a single mother. I have a house to get in order, stuff to sell, dinners to make, laundry to do, homework to help with, footballs to throw, games to play, football to watch, and I have sleep and maybe workout somewhere in there, lol.

So, life is busy, but it's good. We'll see how all this goes and if my plate is too full. If it is then I'll clean it off some and rearrange until everything fits just right!