Random Ramblings from my Overwhelmed Mind (THIS IS A LONG POST)

I have SO much going on in my head right now and I can't quite make sense of it all. I thought tryping it out might make me feel a little better and then maybe all my blog friends--and the few people that I know read my blog on a regular basis can understand why I find it hard to blog on consistently.

1.) Taxes. We need to file taxes. Nathan's bookkeeping up until this point for our small time air conditioning and heating business hasn't been very thourough. The business might be small but the books should be kept properly and they weren't until I took over. This has been really stressful for me as I'm trying to prepare everything to take to the accountant. We have met with 2 accountants so far trying to find one that will be helpful to us and have our best interest in mind. We liked the guy we met today; he seemed to have it together and shared a lot of knowledge with us.

2.) Business. I haven't shared with many people that I am now running the office portion of our business full time. To allow me to focus most of my time and energy into it we put the younger kids in a private school/day care full time. That decision was both easy and hard for me. Easy because Chandler and Kennedy attended this same school a few years back when I was working full time so it was familiar to me. Easy because I was already comfortable with the facility, staff and program they have set in place. Easy because it has allowed me to focus on the business and organize the office side of it which has made both Nathan and I way less stressed. HARD because I knew it would be difficult for me to leave my kiddos somewhere all day. Hard because I felt guilty about doing that; like I should somehow bust out my Superwoman suit and be able to handle running the business, household and taking care of my 2 still-at-home kiddos all day long. Why do I place so much guilt on myself when I know that overall I am a good mother? So far there haven't been too many negatives to the situation. Kennedy likes school and the friends she has made there and I think it has been extremely helpful for Will. So far so good.

3.) Kennedy's behavior. The only real negative that I have seen with Kennedy being in school full time is her behavior once she leaves school. Her tantrums have become a thousand times more dramatic and last for...ev...er and she is much more quick to anger than ever before. The only thing I can attribute this new behavior to is school. I am hoping that she will move through this phase quickly because it is really exhausting to me.

4.) Photography. I'm just good enough to make a business out of it but I'm not nearly as good as I want to be. Now that this has become a sort of profession I obsess ALL THE TIME about my ability and doubt myself more than ever. I feel like I need to know all there is to know about photography and I need to know it NOW. I keep thinking I need better equipment, I need to advertise, I need to find more clients, blah blah blah. It's almost not as fun as it was before when it was just a hobby. I take that back...it's the same amount of fun, it's just an entree' of fun with a side of stress, where before it was a whole buffet of fun! Does that make sense? Pardon my lame attempt at creative writing up there with my culinary analogies.

5.) My living room. This has become a hot topic in my brain since I currently loathe our main living space. The room is so awkward in design. On one half wall we have our tv but there are two big open spaces of nothingness on either side of it. What should I put there? A plant? A tree? Some piece of furniture? Baskets, boxes, pillows, bookshelves? AAAHHHHHHHH! I would honestly like to form some type of design contest where I put up pictures and take people's ideas on what I should do with it. I could even give a $100 budget for new accessories, furniture to go in the space. Have you ever seen that show on HGTV called For Rent with Jodi Gilmour? I absolutely LOVE that show! I think that Jodi is the cutest thing ever. She just seems so friendly and kind. Anyway, she helps folks find rental properties based on all the specific criteria they give her. The renters always give some seemingly unattainable goal of like a 3 bedroom house with a laundry list of ammenities for $1000 a month ALL BILLS PAID. Not quite that ridiculous but almost. Jodi puts on her game face and sets out to magically find the perfect place for the renter and she also helps design their space to accommodate their domestic wish list items. I want Jodi Gilmour to come and deisgn my living room so that I can love it and love being in it because right now I don't. *sigh*

6.) Weight. This is probably the biggest thing on my mind. It consumes me, my weight. I started out strong at the beginning of the year just like every other American does. I was going to lose 50 pounds by the time I turned 30 in October. I had 10 months to do it. I needed to lose 5.5 lbs per month which doesn't seem very hard right? Especially if I lost 2 a week. Then I'd get to my goal before my birthday which would be great because technically I am around 64 pounds overweight. I did really well and then I just regressed. I never fully gave up but I stopped going full force. I don't know what is wrong with me! I want nothing more than to be rid of this extra weight that is the bane of my existence yet I don't have the willpower to stick to better eating habits and exercise. It is the absolute most frustrating thing in my life. It consumes my whole world, my every thought, my every move. I look in the mirror at least 100 times a day. For what? To magically see if I've shrunk in size I guess! If I look once and I don't like what I see then I look again to see if my opinion has changed. I'm so weird! I feel like I am destined to be 199 pounds for the rest of my life. I feel like I should just get used to it because an overweight and therefore ugly person is all I will ever be. Even though I know that there is more to a person than their outward appearance, I cannot shake how my weight makes me feel on the inside. I make comments all the time about it especially to my thin friends and I'm sure they get really tired of hearing me talk about how big I am. But I don't know how to stop. It is really hard to go to my kids' schools and be the "big" mom with all the other skinny and healthy moms. I would say that I almost hate myself. And I don't want to be that way; I know that is not what Heavenly Father wants for me but sometimes I just don't know how to feel any differently. I eat because I'm sad and then I'm sad because I eat. But I also eat because I'm happy, angry, depressed, frustrated, excited, bored...ANY EMOTION is a reason for me to EAT! Well I just need to stop talking about this because I'm getting really upset...movin' on.

7.) Clutter. As of late I've become obesses with cleaning out clutter. I've gone beyond clutter and am cleaning out things that aren't clutter! It's such a strange obsession, like I'm trying to see how little we can live with. I literally walk into rooms of the house looking all around to find things we don't use a lot. I clean out my bathroom cabinets probably every 4-6 months. Some people don't clean out their bathroom but once a decade! The 6 month rule is the 2 week rule in my house! You know the 6 month rule right? "If ya haven't used it in 6 months, odds are you aren't going to use it!" Yeah...seriously, I have a problem!

8.) Cooking dinner. Today I said to Nathan, "I want to apologize for not cooking dinner on a regular basis. Out of 8 years of marriage I've cooked dinner how many times? Maybe a year's worth!" His reply? "4. 4 times is all you've cooked dinner." Sometimes I just want to strangle that man. :[ [Me]: "Do you always have to make jokes?!? I'm sitting here trying to give a sincere apology and you have to make fun!" [Nate:] "Ohhh honey...stop being so sensitive." As so it goes. It's no secret that I am not a domestic diva. I try really hard and I WANT to be a domestic kitchen goddess but it doesn't come naturally to me. I get really angry with myself because I want to feed my children healthy meals but I will confess that we eat out a lot more than we eat at home. A LOT MORE. I know you're probably thinking, "and she wonders why she has a weight problem!" Which it's true. I should probably count my blessings that all 5 of us aren't morbidly obese with all the garbage we eat. My kids think chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese are one of the 5 basic food groups! I'm really going to try hard going forward to cook more at home. I don't see that I have any other option.

So there are just a few of the things rolling around in that brain of mine. Thanks for listenting...if you even made it to the bottom of this post. :)