Love Hate Relationship

Alex: "Mommy! Bella and I are going to wear the same pants today! We're going to match!"

Me: "Cool Babe."

Alex: [running into Bella's room holding a shirt] "Bella, you should wear your shirt like this so that we will REALLY match."

Bella: "No. I wanna wear this shirt, because my friend at school has it, and she might wear it today too, then I will match her."

Alex: "I'll be your best friend if you will wear the shirt that matches mine."

Bella: "Nah, I already have a best friend at school, Macy, so that's okay."

Me [interjecting from the other room]: "This is just a reminder that you're allowed to have more than one best friend."

Alex [breaking down]: "But I WANT to be your best friend, Bella."

Bella: "Well, Macy's my best friend, and I only want her to be my best friend."

Alex: "FINE! I HATE YOU THEN!" [running to me...] "Mom I want Bella to be my best friend SO BAD, but she won't so I just HATE HER!" [sobbing]

Me: *sigh* "I know honey, I know. Life is just sort of like that sometimes. Wanna help me fold this laundry?"

Alex [instantly stopping the sobbing]: "SURE!"

A little help from my friends...

Sometime during the past few months, I finally came to a realization:

I am not a supermom.

Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe, because it was hard for me to accept, as well.

I, Stephanie Empey, during the course of my life, need help.

That is such an incredibly hard thing for me to admit sometimes, you know? I am doing the best that I can, and there are just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything.

In honor of this new realization, I took a little chunk of my income tax return and hired Molly Maid to come clean my house every other week. They don’t do the whole thing mind you, but all the important parts (all the bathrooms, kitchen, living room, dining room, stairs, hallway, empty trash, clean the microwave, etc.). They even *gasp* clean the BASEBOARDS and CEILING FANS.

I had a coupon to start off with, so I have been using them a couple months now, and I have to tell you that this is one of the greatest things I have ever done. It is a little pricy, yes, but not NEARLY as much as I thought it would be. Only $65 for all that they do, and they clean a pretty good size chunk of the house; basically everything but the bedrooms and basement. I know I may not be able to afford it forever, but to know that every other week my house will smell good and everything will sparkle, and I don’t have to worry about shitty toilets; well, that just makes my heart sing.

Plus, PLUS, I can now KEEP UP WITH EVERYTHING ELSE! YAY! Since all I have to worry about is the laundry and keeping the place “picked up” so that the Molly Maid service can clean everything (they do NOT put things away, they just clean around things that are left out), then I have got a pretty good system going, which, I will admit, involves running around like a mad banshee the morning that they are scheduled to clean, and yelling at the kids all night the night before about picking up after themselves. But, hey, it totally works for me!

The best thing, though, is that now I feel like I have more time to do things that make me happy, and I have lifted off yet ANOTHER of the huge weights of guilt that were always riding on my shoulders.

So, after this successful endeavor, don’t be surprised if I end up paying the neighbor kid to mow my lawn all summer.

...and the rest of March

*whew*

Where has this month gone?

Well, we played around at home.


The girls had dance observation night...
See FlickR set here

Dianna went to Washington D.C. over part of her Spring Break
See FlickR set here

(more pictures to come as soon as I get them off her camera)

And my mom got married...


I wonder what April is to bring?

Abraham Lincoln

Alex drew this picture of Abraham Lincoln



I couldn't understand what it said for the life of me.

Can you tell what it says?

Click through to the FlickR description of the image to find out.

Dream

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. this morning recovering from the most bizarre dream. In my dream I was working from home. I decided to drive to the school and pick up Alex and Bella for lunch.

Then, somehow, I was in the middle of helping them get dressed in their dance outfits when I saw the school bus pass our house.

I ran out the door clasping only Bella’s hand and telling Alex to catch up with us. I hopped in the car to try and catch the bus, but I missed it. Impossibly, I see it through some houses and yards on an adjoining street several blocks away.

I figure it would be faster to hop out of the car and run through the yards, rather than drive. I park my car at a stop sign (yes, AT the stop sign, not the side of the road or anything else), get out and start dragging Bella through street after street and yard after yard and all the while I can hear Alex standing on the front porch sweetly and cheerfully calling for me, asking me to come back. I am only a couple blocks from home, but suddenly the yards are like thick, dark, woods, and it’s as if I’m nowhere near our home. Then it dawns on me why Alex didn’t want to come with us; if the bus is driving around at this time of day, then school is actually OVER and there’s no need to get the girls on the bus.

So as I come to this realization and I relax a little, I look down at Bella and notice that she’s only got a shirt and underwear on. She’s not wearing any pants! And I say “Oh my god! You don’t have any pants on! Let’s get you back home.” Only she points at me and says “But Mommy, you don’t have any pants on either!” And sure enough there I am, standing in my skivvies, and I suddenly feel very self-conscious and awkward. And so I try to make it back to the car without anyone seeing us, but of course we run into hundreds of people, and I finally grab a trash bag from the mounds of trash that appear on the ground and wrap it around my big butt, and hurriedly rush to the car when, thankfully, I wake up, thinking, what the hell is THAT supposed to mean?

I swear I was perfectly sober.

I know that the woods are from the book that I'm currently reading, but the rest? I have no friggin' clue.

Lentils

I have to say, right here and right now, that I had no idea that lentils tasted so good, and could fill you up and make you think that you are eating meat.

I tried this lentil soup recipe from the cookbook that I've raved about in the past.

Unfortunately it's not on her "freebie" page, where you can try a sample of recipes from the book, but man, it is so damn good.

I only tried this recipe because I had picked up a bag of lentils about 6 months ago, and I was tired of looking at them in my cupboard. The recipe has spinach and diced tomatoes and I can't remember what all, but it was so easy and I even doubled it so that I could put the entire bag of lentils into it.

The worst thing was that the lentils had to boil for like 45 minutes, so the time for preparing dinner went over the one hour mark, and that is usually my cut off time for a workday dinner. Should be cupboard to table within an hour. But it did give me some time to make some cornbread muffins and a nice big salad to go along with this. Until, I realized that I was out of yellow corn meal, and so we had bread instead.

Anyway the kids wouldn't touch it, because they say it looks disgusting. And frankly, they are right, it looks terrible when it's all done. But, I really didn't mind them not eating it, because I've been taking it at least twice a week for lunch, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

It also freezes very well, and reheats in a snap.

Anyway, if you are interested in a very yummy recipe for cooking lentils, let me know, and I'll let you borrow my cookbook for a night.

Strength

This word has been on my mind obsessively as of late.

Strength

Throughout my life I have had the privilege of being in the presence of some very strong people. I have to say that I relate to the women the most; my grandmothers and step-grandmothers, my aunts and step-aunts, my sisters and step-sisters, my mom and step-mom, and my close friends that I've met during the many different periods of my life. There have also been strong men in my life, like my dad, but right now, my mind settles on the lives of the women in my life. People that have lives that seem similar to mine; ladies that have suffered through, celebrated, and just plain tolerated events in their lives that I can relate to, seem to waft through my dreams, and linger in my thoughts longer and more frequently than usual.

My whole life, I've been surrounded by amazingly strong women, and it has made a huge difference in the way that I live. It took me a long time to realize that. But, I also realize that my definition of strength in women entails mostly the memory of the relationships that they've all been through, that they've all SURVIVED. I don't just mean romantic relationships, either. There are all sorts of relationships that these women have been through; friendships, siblings, lovers, co-workers, bosses, officials, parents, both with their own parents and with their children.

The stories that live in every one of their pasts and present; the abuse, the secrets, the love, the heartache, the lies, the joyous moments, the deception, the pain and panic, the battles, the travels, the experiences, the wisdom, it's all there, in each of their memories. Some things they may try to forget. Some things they can never forget. Imagining the stories floods my mind with curiosity and wonder and amazement.

Still, one thought floats above the rest of them when I think of the lives they've led. Does the presence of strength, in a woman especially, invite weakness in relationships into their lives? And if so, have I invited weakness into my own relationships by being strong?

I realize that's a bizarre and pathetic question, and even if it's true it shouldn't be tolerated. And,of course, this all assumes that I really am a strong individual, a strong woman, even, when most of the time I feel so inadequate and overwhelmed. But bear with me, as I'm lumbering though this soul-searching and self-improvement with a heavy heart, and a skeptical mind myself, and it would just help if you humored me for a few minutes.

So, in my soul-searching I've decided that it certainly FEELS like the women that, to me, are the strongest, have suffered the most. The ones who are able to pick themselves back up and dust off their bleeding, scraped, gravel encrusted, hands, when they have stumbled (or someone has pushed them down), seem to be the ones that fall (or get pushed) the most. Or maybe the more you have fallen or are pushed, the easier it is to get up? These are the sorts of arguments that are going through my mind.

It's just that I feel like I have watched people suffer through situations with weak, fragile people; taking so much time to humor their idiocy or pettiness, giving up so much energy to assist them through life situations that they should be able to handle alone, while the strong ones get cast aside as if without a second thought. I don't understand why? Are weak people manipulative? Is it the fault of the weaker among us? But, that can't be, because the strong are just as much to blame. How many strong women have you seen coddling an abusive partner, friend, sibling, child, or even parent? We allow people to suck our strength from us and drain us of our ability to even take care of ourselves, at times.

And please, I'm not talking about people that are truly weak, like the very old or very young. I'm not talking about people abused to the point where they don't have a will to live. I'm not talking about serious life-threatening scenarios. I'm not even talking about working moms or stay at home moms or any “genre” of motherhood. What I'm talking about is nothing that specific.

I'm talking about laziness. I'm talking about selfishness. I'm talking about those people that can never accept responsibility for anything that has happened to them. They go through life, shoveling one shit pile after another, never making progress, and cursing the blisters from the shovel all the way; never realizing that it's their OWN shit that's causing them so much work and distress. I'm talking about perfectly capable adults, women specifically at this moment, which have decided, for one reason or another, that it's just too HARD to be strong. It's too HARD to make well-thought out, wise, mature decisions. Women who let the weight of life sink them, sometimes even the weight of a perfectly good life, because they can't just admit that they are imperfect human beings, surrounded by other imperfect human beings. They've decided to never claw or scratch their way out of bad situations, because, by god, that might mean that they will break a nail, or worse, someone will think that (gasp!) they are able to do even more and will start EXPECTING things from them. Women that decide to just go along, knowing that everyday there will be someone who will just take care of them, and they won't have to fight for or aspire to anything along the way.

Yet, there is always someone to take care of them, isn't there? I mean, maybe they are actually geniuses? Maybe they are on to something. Maybe being obviously, stupidly weak has some sort of advantage.

But, why does it always seem that the strong ones are the ones that get truly hurt the most? And why does it appear, to me at least, that is it so easy to hurt someone that appears to be strong?

What makes the strong ones more susceptible to abuse? To being deserted? To being taken advantage of over and over again?

The weak ones seem to skirt through it all, don't they? Sure, they lose and miss out on quite a bit, as well, but it seems that they never have to deal with the humility or guilt or just the plain 'ole CONSEQUENCES of making a huge mistake. Because, they don't see errors that they make as their own, they view them as acts of unrighteousness thrust upon them by real (or even unreal) entities. They never appear to feel sorry for anything, or regret anything, and they never try to right a wrong, because they never appear to FEEL wrong. How wonderfully crazy would THAT life be? I mean, to always, always, feel so confident and so outrageously CORRECT in everything that you do must be a power trip from hell.

So, this leads me to wonder, is strength, then, really, a disadvantage? Does being strong doom you to a life of ever present guilt and a longing for improvement and the righting of misdeeds? Does it weigh your life down with things like aspiration, responsibility, humanity and humility to a point where it almost seems that every day you are making choices that are akin to turns and bends and stops along your personal road of life, and will eventually determine where that road ends and what sort of quality and quantity and meaning it has when it's over? Even things that maybe do not appear to have this much weight, must still be considered in that light?

I wish I knew the answers to these questions I have. I know that there really aren't any answers though. I will fight through the dark moments in my life, just as I have always done. I will work to improve myself, and learn from my mistakes, as I have done in the past. I will relish the good times, the bright spots, and actually seek them out every single day. I will be okay; changed, but okay.

But I have to say, that change in me, nowadays, has created a new entity inside my mind. A small, nagging, voice has moved into the dark corners of logical thought. This voice keeps reminding me of the fact that with each new relationship I will again have to live with the fear; the fear of feeling and being abandoned, yet again. The fear of being involved with someone that knows that I don't NEED them to survive, yet I give them all I've got to give because I WANT to, and then, when I have finally let my guard down, and am least expecting it, they not only rip everything I've given them to shreds but piss on it and then bury it in dirt after they've stomped on it four or five times with both feet.

It's almost as if it's my destiny now. To be repeatedly placed in these incredibly fucked up situations. But, almost pathetically at this point, to also to learn from my experiences and improve and always do much better the next time, maybe even share my experiences with others, all the while continually get closer and closer to...

To what? I don't really know.

I know, I know, it's obvious, isn't it? I'm wallowing in self-pity at the moment, and of course it's not pretty. Believe me, I know that I am to blame for many outcomes that I've experienced. I know that I can't control the inner workings of another person's mind, and I'm convinced that most every single person has hidden conversations going on in their mind that they aren't comfortable with letting anyone else know about, and that if they aren't comfortable telling you that there are problems that you can't FIX them. Maybe I've just had a “run of bad luck” even, and will, as everyone likes to say, eventually meet someone “when the time is right.” Maybe, even, the Chinese animal years are right, and as it said on the placemat under my personal animal sign of “The Dragon” at the local restaurant, I will “marry a Rat or Monkey later in life”. I surely don't know.

And, at the moment, I have to admit that I can't even muster any energy to really care anymore or think beyond this amazement of the strength that has surrounded me my entire life. My own strength is depleted at the moment. I'd rather sit, and stew, and think, and for once, pretend that it's not my fault and that everyone else is to blame but me. And while my own inner voice is clucking it's tongue and listing all the reasons I need to just move on and get over everything. While my life swirls with commitments and expectations and joyous and comical events. While I look around and see all the strength and love that surround me each and every day of my life. Right now, at this exact moment, I'd rather just go ahead and lay down and feel utterly and completely, weak.