Am I getting old???? NEVER

I don't know if yall have noticed or not but I sure have. There are GREY hairs on my head now!!!!!! I have had some for a long time but now I can REALLY see them. I have tried pretending that they are just high lights but that didn't really work. It can't work at all when the almost (but will never reach it) 13 year old says "haha Mom has grey hair" or adds "let's count them.... one.... twoo..... ouch mom don't do that" as I shoot him the drop-dead-now look.
I will be 40 in just a few months. Sometimes I think it won't be any worse than turning 30 was. Other times I realize that I made my mother a grandmother when she was in her 40s. I don't usually feel 40. Most of the time I can't believe I almost have two teenagers in the house.
Then along comes son, daughter and daughter's boyfriend to make even more grey hair for my curly locks. They can be such terrors sometimes but so much fun at others.
I have tried over the years to hide the few grey hairs with dye. That doesn't work because they are always more when the dye wears off. I have tried brushing my hair other ways to hide it. That doesn't work anymore either since so many of them are near the front. Oh well.... guess I will just have to give in and grow old gracefully......... NEVER I WILL FIGHT TIL I DIE!!!!!!!!
I am not ready to be middle aged =(

Some Days are like that

This day has totally been a royal witch. I hae wanted to walk out on just about everything that I know I can't walk out on. Some days are just like that. I am angry and hurting and confused and just wanting to crawl in a hole and leave the world and everyone in it to themselves. It isn't an option really but some days are like that. I wonder sometimes if I disappeared how things would fare? Paperwork would pile up on my desk and while they might notice that was happening would they notice that I wasn't there to complete it? Would anyone care that I wasn't there? If I walked away from home and didnt return would they notice that the meals weren't being cooked or would they just find something to eat? Would they do the chores without me reminding them every hour that they need to be done? Would life change for them or would they just go on? Some days are just like that.

Prejudice!

If there is one thing I HATE in life it is prejudice. There is so much out there that people can find wrong with other people. Maybe these people need to look into themselves before they judge others to be wrong. People make choices in their lives that may not go along with what society deems to be correct or acceptable. These are choices those people need to live with. HOWEVER, it is not up to me or anyone else to judge those choices or make jokes about those choices. I believe that some of the jokes and judging come about because some of the "jokers" are actually wishing they had the guts to have made those same choices.... i.e. the guts to stand up and say they are gay.

Manipulation

There are a lot of people out there that have figured out how to manipulate others into doing as they wish them to behave. Personally I tend to stand firm on my decisions and not let people try to force my hand. I get so annoyed when I see people that really shouldn't give in, do so. I just want to shake them and tell them to stand up for themselves. It makes me even madder when a child is the one that has learned to manipulate. Guilt is an awful thing to have to contend with whether it is an adult or a child that is causing it, but some times you have to say ENOUGH!

Appliances

Well this morning I went to the refridgerator for the first time in about a week(no kids or husband around don't you know so I was eating out a lot) and discovered that it was no longer cooling anything. I checked the freezer and everything in there had thawed and was cold but thawed. SOOOOOOOOOOO I called hubby at work and we met for lunch to go to the local thrift store to purchase a new fridge. I spent a good portion of the morning cleaning out the old fridge and disposing of the rotten food. I wonder sometimes it is that these things happen the way they do. I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it but if I had checked the fridge on a more regular basis maybe we wouldn't have had to throw away a lot of food.
I am just thankful this has happened when we had money to replace it and actually we got a really nice side by side refridgerator for less then we would have paid for a brand new one that had less storage space and had a top load freezer. I like the fridge we got.... now just to get in there and get the old one moved out so I can move the new one into place. Hubby is going grocery shopping after work so I have about 3 hours to get things in order and moved around..... Hey Karen have you found Consuela yet? I really need you to airmail her to me.

Mountain of paperwork

Somewhere amidst all the paperwork there really is a person working as hard as she can to get out from below the mountain. That is what I am feeling lately. There is a lot of stress in what I do at work even though you wouldn't think it for having a desk job. Each day I go through a series of items that need to be done.... I work on the health insurance papers (reading quotes, working up financials based on the quotes, handling new enrollees, terminating old employees, handling the bills so they get coded properly), I then work on wrecked vehicle accounts (taking claims information, calling adjustors to get claims paid, letting our salesmen know when a customer will be back in for a new car, talking to customers to tell them calmly how to handle a claim and what we need from them), then I start the insurance verification processes (a 12 page report with about 500 people without valid insurance at any given point in the week) where I call and confirm that yes "June" did actually have her policy cancelled last week and then I have to call her about it wherein she acts like I don't know what I am talking about. Add to all that I have at least one filing cabinet drawer full of alphabetized documentation that needs to be filed into the customer insurance files that I just never seem to get around to.

Up until January I also handled all the insurance mail data entry, telephones for 15 hours a week, all new customer insurance verification and all business insurance issues. Finally after about 6 months into my 7th year with the company they allowed me an assistant. I bless her soul and heart because now she does the all day data entry, handles the phones, and the new customer verifications. She also deals with a lot of the phone calls from customers saying that yes they do too have insurance and we are just all idiots who don't know what we are talking about.

You would think with all this stress I wouldn't have time to gain weight and would actually lose it.... not the case at all. So now I stress further trying to determine whether I really want to take my happy big self off to the gym to work off some of this extra padding I am carrying around. Whoopie.... the gym is on the way home BUTTTTT (oops I am showing what a big bottom I have), I can never seem to get there and be able to work on the machines because, bless their hearts, everyone else has the same pea pickin idea! SOooooo no gym workouts on the way home and once I am home I don't have the energy to head back out again......

Oh well... maybe one day the mountain will just collapse on me and flatten me enough no one will ever know how "padded" I became.

update on life

Life in my house has been quiet the last three weeks. The kids have been up in Pa visiting their grandparents and other family members up there. They go every year for a few weeks at a time. This year has been harder for me than any other since the very first time they went. I think partly it is because Mike has worked third shift for about 2 months now. I would come home from owrk and start the process of waking him up to be sure he went to work on time. This is usually about an hour process because he is just fully exhausted and each time I would wake him he would drift back to sleep. Usually I would have to finally say "If you don't get up right now you will be late" and then he would get moving.
The next three weeks will be a little better because Mike is starting days again in the morning. For the next week he will have crazy hours still because of the remodel he is working on. Then he is one week in his regular store at his regular hours and then a week of vacation and we go get the kids. I look forward to them coming home.
We have a new dog that we got last week and the kids are looking forward to meeting him. He is a cocker spaniel mixed with something. He is getting on better with our female mutt ( lab, pekenese, australian spaniel?). She didn't like him at all when we first brought him in. She is calming down and liking him better. I am glad because I really like him and want them to get along.
Work has been really stressful to me lately. We have had some issues with the boss being sick and since it has been so much time that he is out of work they have chosen to bring a COO in. He has made some changes and I don't handle change really well. Most of the time I just figure I need to do my job regardless of how or what changes come about. Sometimes it is distracting though when there is a change that comes in... i.e. we now need to write a step by step explaination of how to do our jobs. First of all, I do my job automatically and don't necessarily think about how I do it. I mean since I am really the only one that does the health insurance and the business insurance WHY do they need a manual about HOW to do it? I know I need to still write that manuel but WHY should I if I am not planning to go anywhere. One of the biggest issues too with having to write that manuel is that there are laws as to what information is available and to whom it is available. I don't want anyone to have access to that information so I don't feel that I should tell anyone how to obtain the information. I am just really frustrated with all of this.
Anyway.... that is the way things have been going for the last several weeks around my house and work and life.

Sons

Yesterday I talked a good deal about mothers and daughters. I have decided today to talk about my son. My son is an active twelve year old. He is in some excellerated learning classes at school but this year we have had issues with him and his school work. I believe truthfully that it is because he is in a new school. I also believe that most of his teachers just couldn't begin to care how well he does or not. Every year I inform his teachers that if you don't keep him busy and engage his attention from the get go then you will have problems with him being bored. My son gets his classwork done quickly and then finds things to do that often times result in him being in trouble.

He was involved in boyscouts for the last year or so and rapidly moved from a scout through two different rankings and became a patrol leader. Then some things happened that made him unhappy with his scouting experience and he chose to leave the troop. At this point in time we are considering it a break for a few months and giving him the opportunity to return. I want him to understand that not everything in life is fun and there is hard work involved to achieve your goals. I think the scouting experience was good for this lesson, but it is also supposed to be fun and he was just coming away from it angry.

He loves computers and technology. Give him access to the internet and he is happy. He likes to go and research things that interest him. He will look up things that catch his eye that he wants to know more about. He likes math and understands a lot more of it at a glance then I do as an adult reading the text over and over again. He has always grasped mathmatical concepts easily, doing multiplication while he was in kindergarten. His question to me about halfway through kindergarten was "mom what does 3 times 3 mean?" and I said, it is like you have 3 groups of 3. From that point forward I never had to explain multiplication. He knew that it was just a quicker form of addition. He actually taught his older sister her times tables.

He is an artist and cartoonist. I have some cartoons he has created that are imaginative and funny. While he hates to write a composition, he can write a cartoon board easily that gets the whole story across in just 9 panels.

I am proud of the son that I have raised so far. I anticipate that I will have more problems as he enters his teens and fights for his independence. I believe that the values I have instilled in him already will help us get through the tough years ahead.

the play

Tonight my daughter was in a production at school. There were two performances today and I attended the second one. She did her part well and I was pleased to see that her hard work had paid off for her. There were a lot of performers in this show and many of them did a good job and many of them did an ok job. You could tell who worked hard and who slacked off but this was a school production that was done with limitted space and limitted rehearsal time. I don't critisize except to say that there were some that could have worked a little harder on their lines and cues.

My daughter informed me after the performance was over that during the first show of the day she fell off the riser and knocked over the set. While I am sure it would have been humorous to have seen, she was totally embarrassed and cried at the end of the performance. She told me she was so thankful that the first show was not well attended. The second show went much better. I told her to think of the first show as their dress rehearsal since their original dress rehearsal and first schedualled show had been cancelled due to a death in the director's family. I think that helped a little with the disappointment she felt.

She is enjoying being in the theater and while this was not really the way I would have chosen for her to perform, I keep in mind that at least she is willing to get out on stage in front of people. I hope she continues with her acting and continues to enjoy what she is doing.

She has performed in two community theater productions and has learned a great deal from them. While this is a good thing, it is at the same time a bit frustrating for her to work with others that haven't learned the same methods or acting rules that she has learned. She benefits as well from a mother that was involved in theater while in high school.

This play was a funny one and the kids did a fairly good job on it. I look forward to seeing further productions at a later date and really look forward to her high school productions.

feeding the kids

Over the years I have fed several children including my own. I have seen children eat..... a variety of manners and favorites. I have seen the dainty and or picky eaters. I have seen the children that will eat whatever is put in front of them. I have always had just one rule in my house when it comes to eating.... You don't have to like it but you do have to at least taste it. I won't be upset if you don't like it but please at least try a bit before you tell me you don't like something I have taken the time to cook.

Tonight I watched in amazement as my daughter's boyfriend ate his dinner. He was well mannered and at well of the meal he had ordered at the restaurant. My preteen son, only a few months younger than this other young man, at a good portion of his own dinner but was not able to finish it. Lisa's boyfriend proceded to finish my son's dinner. Mind you I was glad to see that the food was not wasted and I am in no means upset that he ate it, I was just sitting there in amazement at the amount of food this young man consumed. I am sure that he could have eaten even more had there been more to eat. Dinner would have cost me the same either way and the food was actually all eaten which is not always the case when we go to a restaurant.

I am not used to watching teenage boys eat. I had one brother while growing up and he ate what was put in front of him but was a picky kid so he didn't eat at home much. My son is small. He is not really a picky eater but tends to eat a lot of small meals throughout the day. I guess that is why I don't notice what he eats. I think the next time we take teenagers to dinner though I will pick an all you can eat buffet and let them eat and graze to their hearts content. =)

Daughters and Mothers

The picture above is of my mother and my grandmother on my mother's front porch.

I am a daughter. As a young woman, I many times resented my mother's presence in my life. I didn't understand what she was trying to teach me. I didn't appreciate what I viewed as her interference in the way I lived. I wanted her to leave me alone. I couldn't understand why she chose to do things the way that she did.
I am a mother. As a woman approaching middle age, with a teenage daughter of my own, I understand more of the things my mother attempted to teach me when I was a teenager. I understand the rules she had for our lifes and the reasons behind those rules. I can appreciate the love that she put into trying to keep me safe and more of the reasons for many of the things she did.
My teenage daughter is rapidly approaching young womanhood. She is thirteen years old and looks and acts much older. She is modest, pure, emotional, honest, and sweet. She is a trustworthy young lady. I have set rules for her. She has a young man in her life who is a good boy. To help them continue to be good young people, they are allowed to see each other at school and church functions and also to have "dates" that include parental supervision. She knows she will not be allowed to have a date without adult supervision until she is fifteen. She is agreeable to that as is her young man. I am proud of her for the choices she has made in her life so far and hope and pray that she continues in the ways she has already chosen.
I am frightened for her at times with this worldly place we live in. With the dangers that abound and seem to be there to trip our children up. I am encouraged by her many times as I see her set her goals in life and work towards them. At thirteen years old she has already chosen a career she wants and studies hard to be able to make that career path a possibility. She has chosen two colleges that she is debating about attending. One is here in GA and one is in PA where her grandparents live. She knows what is involved in her being able to go to college but since her career choice requires college she will continue to work hard towards that goal.
As a daughter I am proud of my mother. I love her and hope that as an adult I can give her the respect that I now understand she really deserved all along.
As a mother, I hope that I am teaching my daughter in the ways she should follow. I hope that I am honoring my mother and my grandmother as I attempt to pass on knowledge to my daughter. As a mother I hope my daughter is proud of me now and if she is not that she will be proud and understanding later, when she is a mother herself.

Introducing myself

I just wanted to introduce you to Irishlady..... that is myself. I am a 39 year old mother of two. I have a husband of 16 years. I am originally from East Hampton, NY but have been gone from there for the 16 years I have been married.

I think that I am an interesting person but I tend to be very serious. I will endeavor to make this blog enjoyable to read but since I have a bit of a quirky sense of humor it may not make a lot of sense sometimes.

I am a crafter. I like to quilt, cross stitch, crochet, embroider, and quill. I have a big tendancy to give away what I make. I have been doing various crafts since I was 6 years old and I have very few items in my home that I have kept. My mother on the other hand has many of the items I have stitched for her over the years as does my mother in law. They proudly display them for all to see. As a crafter I like to pass that knowledge on to my children. I have attempted to teach them these "forgotten" arts that seem to pass by the wayside as manufactures make them with machines. My daughter has learned to crochet and she makes blankets of her own.

I am a product of a large family and have many siblings. We fought and laughed and loved and cried together. As a child I resented being the oldest of 5. As an adult many times I feel a little left out when we all try to get together. I know that it is me but the rest of them seem closer to each other than I feel with them. It isn't easy to feel that way but I recognise that I am the one that chose to seperate from them for many years and now it is a time of rebuilding.

I currently live in Georgia in the HEAT of the country. I love this state and have no plans to move back north where it snows and I was miserably cold all the time.

Anyway, that is the run down on me. I will introduce you to new things about me as life allows and I write about it.