Yeah, I removed my weight loss ticker because I'm only 10 pounds from having gained all 40 of them back. It's a bit depressing, but a real testament to the shape of my life and mental state. I am so happy I can write and not be really revealing anything to anyone because nobody is reading this. I guess that is a good thing, even though as I browse through all the blogs I read, I notice everyone but me has friends who care about what they have to say. *sigh* But again, testament to my life...

So three weeks ago, I made a plan, while everyone was in the room with me, to go camping this weekend. I scribbled out softball practice, moved a 4-H meeting, cancelled another meeting, all so our little family of 5 could go camping. Get the hell out of this house, this town, and this mindframe. I wanted peace and relaxation more than anything in the world, so I wrote it on "THE CALENDAR". With everyone watching and laughing as I wrote it...
Two days later, Garry calls me and asks me what I think about going to Flagstaff or Mesa Verde and living on room service for a couple days. After I had discussed and explained all the reasons I wanted to GO CAMPING. In our regular spot, just the 5 of us. But he argued it would be more relaxing to go to a motel...
Then the Jeep broke down, and so we can pull the camper with the van, but we can't really go as many places as we could have with the Jeep, but then the excuse for not wanting to go camping is that the van won't get us where we normally go. I was trying to be flexible, said about 4 different options we could all live with...
Then all of a sudden a week ago, his sister decides to tell her mom she wants my husband, his brother, and their father to go down and move her from one house to another one. A week ago. After the plans were made, options were still hanging about WHERE to camp, but it was set in stone. No more. "I'm going with Papa to help move Nikki this weekend." Kinda like saying, "screw you, bitch. You should know by now you mean nothing to me. Duh!" So I said, okay, we'll just go out Saturday since he is going down Friday and will be home that night. HE shrugs his shoulders as if to say, "think what you want."
So we had a plan, the father in law decides he does not need my husband, and do Garry calls me up this morning, THURSDAY, and tells me this, and suggests we go to Show Low instead of camping, go bowling for $50 instead of camping for free, and maybe ride go-karts or play miniature golf, maybe go fishing one day or something like that. Well, the kids didn't act too distraught over the change of plans, so I shrugged, meaning in no unclear terms, "Whatever, at this point I'd just as soon have YOU leave and just leave me here to relax alone."
So two hours ago, I was in the kitchen, making homemade ice cream and dinner, and he comes in and tells me that we're taking his niece and nephew and I say, "cool, I'll just wander around Wal-Mart for a while instead," since I'm not terribly fond of bowling to begin with, can't see paying $8 to ride a go-Kart, and a game of mini-golf with 3 kids already makes me want to kill myself, so I can only imagine what it would be like with 5. And he has the nerve to say, "Why don't you just stop with the bitchy attitude and get involved." WTF??!? My involvement was planning a camping trip A MONTH AGO, including menus and buying the freaking food, and once again my weekend is going to be taken up babysitting someone else's freaking kids and using my first summer weekend as a family reunion. I'm so happy.
What is the problem, you might ask if you were reading this? Well, it's like this. Our marriage is on the shakiest of ground on the best of days. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that once the kids are out of the house, we will not be married anymore. He's told me at least a hundred times he does not love me, and stays with me because we're not miserable and the kids benefit from having two parents who get along. I can't say I disagree with that statement in the least, but it does make for some very awkward feelings inside me. When we have a chance to work on our family relations, I would really like to take that chance. And secretly, my hope is that someday I can do, say, or keep from saying, something that will make him love me. It won't happen when we're around any member of his family. Because, and this is another part of the problem, he still considers his mother and father and siblings and aunts and great aunts twice removed more of "his" family than me. Never mind that we've been sealed together for time and eternity. Nevermind that the GA have ALWAYS said a family consists of a husband and a wife. Nevermind that the new and everlasting covenant is that of eternal marriage and that husbands are supposed to "cleave unto his wife and none else."
But I guess, as I've decided about so many other things, I need to just suck it up, resolve myself to being alone, and start working on the relationship I have with myself, because it's apparent I'm the only one who wants to have a decent relationship with me. I"ll be alone in the end, and I guess I might as well give up on the idea of having a life mate and just start acting like I know what I know. Stop caring, stop trying, stop working on something that is dead. Beating a dead horse may tenderize the meat, but it still won't make it rideable. I guess I just need to accept that and stop fantasizing about a change.

Spring Fever and stuff

I THOUGHT it was spring. Silly me. But it doesn't hurt my feelings to get a little extra moisture to kick-start the growth of my plants that are still alive after the record-breaking wind five days ago. Well, as long as we get our July rains like we did NOT get last year...

We started building the addition on our house yesterday, and got halfway done with the floor before a) we found that "we" didn't buy enough OSB. Yeah, I didn't do the drawing or the figuring and b) it started raining and we had to put everything away for the night.

So we ran to Show Low today (sabbath) to get more wood that "we" didn't buy last time, as well as a new drill and a new miter saw that we needed. (No quotation marks that time because a miter saw is one I am NOT afraid of, and can use)

I expressed my opinion of the attention everyone gives my incarcerated sister and yep, you guessed it, I got my butt chewed for being selfish. Yeah, I'm selfish because it bothers me that everyone is "reminded" to send my sister Christmas cards, Birthday wishes, goodie boxes for Thanksgiving, and all because she is "locked up and can't be around family during the holidays." My heck, maybe I should commit a few crimes so I can get AWAY from said family! Nevertheless, she's in prison for sticky fingers and an undying desire to have attention, and so we're sending her cards, homemade gifts, food, and money and nobody but me seems to see that all the "ATTENTION" is a reward for all her law-breaking. I'd never want to get out if I kept getting things in there that I never got when I was out. Maybe that's why she's come up for parole board 4 times and has gotten into trouble days before each time! Go figure. Selfish me.

Speaking of selfish, I got a new serger for my birthday last week. Oh, it is cool! I haven't been able to play a whole lot with it yet, but I am making a dress right now that is going to be really cute! I think it is going to be too small, though, as I tried on the bodice and it squishes me to the point of "uni-boob" and I need help to get it off, but...Maybe it will be the incentive I need to get this weight back off...

I can see the end of my elementary education teaching education. Sound silly? It is! I've been in school for the last 27 years of my life, literally, with no break except when I had Louis and Dakota as babies, and even then I did correspondence courses. But like I said, the end is in sight. I have one more week of the two classes I am enrolled in now, then one more summer class, and student teaching from August to December, then I am completely done! Until the next degree plan gets started. I've decided I want to be a professional student. The desire to learn is the only real honorable reason for seeking a formal education, in my opinion. You can go to trade schools to learn job skills, but college is for knowledge. Call me silly, call me arrogant, but that is my belief and it is just as valid and valuable as yours or anyone else's. I will not argue, I will not defend, because I don't need to. It is an opinion, and it is mine, and nobody will change my mind. So there.

Life goes on, sometimes slow, sometimes at breakneck pace, but no matter what, it does go on. So for now, knowing nobody is reading this, I will seek to go on with my own selfish little life by signing off and reading a book while readying myself for bed. Good night, loyal spirits in the sky.